Is 5/ONE

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ONE

ONE
I

FIVE AMERICANS

I. LIZ

with breathing as (faithfully) her lownecked
dress a little topples and slightly expands

one square foot mired in silk wrinkling loth
stocking begins queerly to do a few
gestures to death,
gestures to death, the silent shoulders are both
slowly with pinkish ponderous arms bedecked
whose white thick wrists deliver promptly to
a deep lap enormous mindless hands.
and no one knows what (i am sure of this)
her blunt unslender, what her big unkeen

“Business is rotten” the face yawning said

what her mouth thinks of
what her mouth thinks of (if it were a kiss
distinct entirely melting sinuous lean. . .
whereof this lady in some book had read

II. MAME

she puts down the handmirror. “Look at” arranging
before me a mellifluous idiot grin
(with what was nose upwrinkled into nothing
earthly, while the slippery eyes drown
in surging flesh). A thumblike index down-
dragging yanks back skin “see” (i, seeing, ceased
to breathe). The plump left fist opening
“wisdom.” Flicker of gold. “Yep. No gas. Flynn”

the words drizzle untidily from released
cheeks “I’l] tell duh woild; some noive all right.
Aint much on looks but how dat baby ached.”

and when i timidly hinted “novocaine?”
the eyes outstart, curl, bloat, are newly baked

and swaggering cookies of indignant light

III. GERT

joggle i think will do it although the glad
monosyllable jounce possibly can tell
better how the balloons move (as
her ghost lurks, a Beau Brummel sticking in its three-

cornered always moist mouth)—jazz,
for whose twitching lips, between you and me
almost succeeds while toddle rings the bell.
But if her tall corpsecoloured body seat
itself (with the uncouth habitual dull
jerk at garters) there’s no sharpest neat
word for the thing.
word for the thing.  Her voice?
word for the thing. Her voice? gruesome: a trull
leaps from the lungs “gimme uh swell fite

like up ter yknow, Rektuz, Toysday nite;
where uh guy gets gayn troze uh lobstersalad

IV. MARJ

“life?
“life? Listen” the feline she with radishred
legs said (crossing them slowly) “I’m
asleep. Yep. Youse is asleep kid
and everybody is.” And i hazarded
“god” (blushing slightly )—“O damn
ginks like dis Gawd” opening slowlyslowly
them—then carefully the rolypoly
voice squatting on a mountain of gum did
something like a whisper, “even her.”
“The Madam?” I emitted; vaguely watching
that mountainous worthy in the fragile act
of doing her eyebrows.—Marj’s laughter smacked
me: pummeling the curtains, drooped to a purr. . .

i left her permanently smiling

V. FRAN

should i entirely ask of god why
on the alert neck of this brittle whore
delicately wobbles an improbably distinct face,
and how these wooden big two feet conclude
happeningly the unfirm drooping bloated
calves
calves i would receive the answer more
or less deserved, Young fellow go in peace.
which i do, being as Dick Mid once noted
lifting a Green River (here’s to youse)
“a bloke wot’s well behaved”. . . and always try
to not wonder how let’s say elation
causes the bent eyes thickly to protrude—

or why her tiniest whispered invitation
is like a clock striking in a dark house

ONE
II

POEM, OR BEAUTY HURTS MR. VINAL

take it from me kiddo
believe me
my country, ’tis of

you, land of the Cluett
Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint
Girl With The Wrigley Eyes (of you
land of the Arrow Ide
and Earl &
Wilson
Collars) of you i
sing: land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,
land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve—
from every B. V. D.

let freedom ring

amen. ido however protest, anent the un
-spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which
greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per
that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

suggest that certain ideas gestures
rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades
having been used and reused
to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are
Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

if we are to believe these gently O sweetly
melancholy trillers amid the thrillers
these crepuscular violinists among my and your
skyscrapers—Helen & Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely

The Snail’s On The Thorn enter Morn and God’s
In His andsoforth

do you get me? )according
to such supposedly indigenous
throstles Art is O World O Life
a formula:example, Turn Your Shirttails Into
Drawers and If It Isn’t An Eastman It Isn’t A
Kodak therefore my friends let
us now sing each and all fortissimo A-
mer
i

ca, I
love,
You. And there’re a
hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like
all of you successfully if
delicately gelded (or spaded)
gentlemen(and ladies)—pretty

littleliverpill-
hearted-Nujolneeding-There’s-A-Reason
americans(who tensetendoned and with
upward vacant eyes, painfully
perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
—how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?

ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush

ONE
III

curtains part)
the peacockappareled
prodigy of Flo’’s midnight
Frolic dolores

small in the head keen chassised like a Rolls
Royce
swoopssmoothly
swoopssmoothly outward(amid
tinkling-cheering-hammering

tables)

while softly along Kirkland Street
the infantile ghost of Professor
Royce rolls

remembering that it

has for
-gotten some-
thing ah

(my

necktie

ONE
IV

workingman with hand so hairy-sturdy
you may turn O turn thatairy hurdysturdygurdy
but when willturn backward O backward Time in yournothy flight
and make me a child, a pretty dribbling child, a little child.

In thy your ear:
en amerique on ne boit que de Jingyale.
things are going rather kaka
over there, over there.
yet we scarcely fare much better—

what’s become of (if you please)
all the glory that or which was Greece
all the grandja
that was dada?

make me a child, stout hurdysturdygurdyman
waiter, make me a child. So this is Paris.
i will sit in the corner and drink thinks and think drinks,
in memory of the Grand and Old days:
of Amy Sandburg
of Algernon Carl Swinburned,

Waiter a drink waiter two or three drinks
what’s become of Mæterlink
now that April’s here?
(ask the man who owns one
ask Dad, He knows).

ONE
V

yonder deadfromtheneckup graduate of a
somewhat obscure to be sure university spends
her time looking picturesque under

the as it happens quite
erroneous impression that he

nascitur

ONE
VI

Jimmie’s got a goil
Jimmie’s got a goil  goil
Jimmie’s got a goil goil  goil,
Jimmie’s got a goil goil goil, Jimmie
’s got a goil and
she coitnly can shimmie

when you see her shake
when you see her shake  shake
when you see her shake shake  shake,
when you see her shake shake shake,  when
you see her shake a
shimmie how you wish that you was Jimmie.

Oh for such a gurl
Oh for such a gurl  gurl
Oh for such a gurl gurl  gurl,
Oh for such a gurl gurl gurl,  oh
for such a gurl to
be a fellow’s twistandtwirl

talk about your Sal-
talk about your Sal-  Sal-
talk about your Sal- Sal-  Sal-,
talk about your Sal- Sal- Sal-,  talk
about your Salo
-mes but gimmie Jimmie’s gal.

ONE
VII

the waddling
madam star
taps

taps.
“ready girls”.
the


unspontaneous streets
make bright their eyes
a
blind irisher fiddles a

scotch jig in a stinking
joyman bar
a cockney is
buying whiskies for a turk

a waiter intones:bloo-moo-n
sirkusricky
platzburg

hoppytoad
yesmam.
the


furious taximan
p(ee)ps
on his whistle somebody
says here’s luck

somebody else says down the hatch
the nigger smiles
the jew stands
besides his teddy-bears

the sailor shuffles the
night with ϕυκινγ eyes
the great black preacher gargles jesus
the aesthete indulges

his soul for certain things which died
it is eighteen hundred
years. . . .
exactly

under the window
under the window
under the window walk

the unburied feet of
the little ladies more than dead

ONE
VIII

listen my children and you
shall hear the true

story of Mr Do
-nothing the wellknown parvenu
who

(having dreamed of a corkscrew)
studied with Freud a year or two
and when Freud got through
with Do-

nothing Do
-nothing could do
nothing which you
and i are accustomed to
accomplish two

or three times, and even a few
more depending on the remu-
nerativeness of the stimulus(eheu
fu
-gaces Postu-
me boo

who)

ONE
IX

even if all desires things moments be
murdered known photographed, ourselves yawning willaskourselves
ou sont les neiges. . . . some

guys talks big

about Lundun Burlin an gay Paree an
some guys claims der never was
nutn like Nooer Leans Shikahgo Sain
Looey Noo York an San Fran dictaphones
wireless subways vacuum
cleaners pianolas funnygraphs skyscrapers an safetyrazors

sall right in its way kiddo
but as fer i gimme de good ole daze. . . .

in dem daze kid Christmas
meant sumpn youse knows wot
i refers ter Satter Nailyuh(comes but once er
year)i’ll tell de woild one swell bangup
time wen nobody wore no cloze
an went runnin aroun wid eachudder Hell
Bent fer election makin believe dey was chust born

ONE
X

death is more than
certain a hundred these
sounds crowds odours it
is in a hurry
beyond that any this
taxi smile or angle we do

not sell and buy
things so necessary as
is death and unlike shirts
neckties trousers
we cannot wear it out

no sir which is why
granted who discovered
America ether the movies
may claim general importance

to me to you nothing is
what particularly
matters hence in a

little sunlight and less
moonlight ourselves against the worms

hate laugh shimmy

ONE
XI

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a

scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and

i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol

and started a worm farm)

ONE
XII

now his “daughter” uv eve(who aint precisely slim)sim

ply don’t know duh meanin uv duh woid sin in
not disagreeable contras tuh dat not exacly fat

“father” (adjustin his robe) who now puts on his flat hat

ONE
XIII

(and i imagine
never mind Joe agreeably cheerfully remarked when
surrounded by fat stupid animals
the jewess shrieked
the messiah tumbled successfully into the world
the animals continued eating. And i imagine she, and
heard them slobber and
in the darkness)

stood sharp angels with faces like Jim Europe

ONE
XIV

it really must
be Nice, never to

have no imagination)or never
never to wonder about guys you used to(and them
slim hot queens with dam next to nothing

on)tangoing
(while a feller tries
to hold down the fifty bucks per
job with one foot and rock a

cradle with the other)it Must be
nice never to have no doubts about why you
put the ring
on(and watching her
face grow old and tired to which

you‘re married and hands get red washing
things and dishes) and to never, never really wonder i
mean about the smell
of babies and how you

know the dam rent’s going to and everything and never, never
Never to stand at no window
because i can’t sleep(smoking sawdust

cigarettes in the
middle of the night

ONE
XV

ITEM

this man is o so
Waiter
this; woman is

please shut that
the pout And affectionate leer
interminable pyramidal, napkins
(this man is oh so tired of this
a door opens by itself
woman.) they so to speak were in

Love once?
now
now her mouth opens too far
and:she attacks her Lobster without
feet mingle under the
mercy.
mercy. (exit the hors d’œuvres)

ONE
XVI

it started when Bill’s chip let on to
bulls he’d bumped a bloke back in fifteen.
Then shecametoward him onherkneesacross the locked
room. he knocked her cold and beat it for Chicago.

Eddie was waiting for him, and they cleaned up a few
times—before she got the info
from a broad that knew Eddie in Topeka, went clean
daffy, and which was very silly hocked

the diamond he gave her. Bill was put wise
that she was coming with his kid inside her.
He laughed. She came. he gave her a shove
and asked Eddie did he care to ride her?
. . . .she exactly lay, looking hunks of love

in The Chair he kept talking about eyes

ONE
XVII

IKEY(GOLDBERG)’S WORTH I’M
TOLD $ SEVERAL MILLION
FINKLESTEIN(FRITZ) LIVES
AT THE RITZ WEAR
earl & wilson COLLARS

ONE
XVIII

?

why are these pipples taking their hets off?
the king & queen
alighting from their limousine
inhabit the Hotel Meurice (whereas
i live in a garret and eat aspirine)

but who is this pale softish almost round
young man to whom headwaiters bow so?
hush—the author of Women By Night whose latest Seeds
Of Evil sold 69 carloads before
publication the girl who goes wrong you

know (whereas when i lie down i cough too
much). How did the traffic get so jammed?
bedad it is the famous doctor who inserts
monkeyglands in millionaires a cute idea n’est-ce pas?
(whereas, upon the other hand, myself)but let us next demand

wherefore yon mob
an accident? somebody got concus-
sion of the brain?—Not
a bit of it, my dears merely the prime
minister of Siam in native

costume, who
emerging from a pissoir
enters abruptly Notre Dame (whereas
de gustibus non disputandum est
my lady is tired of That sort of thing

ONE
XIX

this young question mark man

question mark
who suffers from
indigestion question
mark is a remarkably
charming person

personally they tell

me as for me
i only knows that
as far as
his pictures goes

he’s a wet dream

by Cézanne

ONE
XX

mr youse needn’t be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man’s solid bliss
for youse ideas i’ll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

ONE
XXI

i was sitting in mcsorley’s. outside it was New York and beatifully snowing.

Inside snug and evil. the slobbering walls filthily push witless creases of screaming warmth chuck pillows are noise funnily swallows swallowing revolvingly pompous a the swallowed mottle with smooth or a but of rapidly goes gobs the and of flecks of and a chatter sobbings intersect with which distinct disks of graceful oath, upsoarings the break on ceiling-flatness

the Bar.tinking luscious jigs dint of ripe silver with warmlyish wetflat splurging smells waltz the glush of squirting taps plus slush of foam knocked off and a faint piddle-of-drops she says I ploc spittle what the lands thaz me kid in no sir hopping sawdust you kiddo he’s a palping wreaths of badly Yep cigars who jim him why gluey grins topple together eyes pout gestures stickily point made glints squinting who’s a wink bum-nothing and money fuzzily mouths take big wobbly foot-steps every goggle cent of it get out ears dribbles soft right old feller belch the chap hic sum-more eh chuckles skulch. . . .

and i was sitting in the din thinking drinking the ale, which never lets you grow old blinking at the low ceiling my being pleasantly was punctuated by the always retchings of a worthless lamp.

when With a minute terrificeffort one dirty squeal of soiling light yanKing from bushy obscurity a bald greenish foetal head established It suddenly upon the huge neck around whose unwashed sonorous muscle the filth of a collar hung gently.

(spattered )by this instant of semiluminous nausea A vast wordless nondescript genie of trunk trickled firmly in to one exactly-mutilated ghost of a chair,

a;domeshaped interval of complete plasticity,shoulders,sprouted the extraordinary arms through an angle of ridiculous velocity commenting upon an unclean table.and,whose distended immense Both paws slowly loved a dinted mug

gone Darkness it was so near to me,i ask of shadow won’t you have a drink?

(the eternal perpetual question)

Inside snugandevil. i was sitting in mcsorley’s It,did not answer.

outside. (it was New York and beautifully,snowing. . . .

ONE
XXII

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right toit flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell) next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg.ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning justasweturned thecorner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

her the juice,good (it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the

internalexpanding
&
eternalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead

stand-
‍;Still)

ONE
XXIII

slightly before the middle of Congressman Pudd
’s 4th of July oration, with a curse and a frown
Amy Lowell got up
and all the little schoolchildren sat down

ONE
XXIV

Dick Mid’s large bluish face without eyebrows
sits in the kitchen nights and chews a two-bit
cigar
cigar waiting for the bulls to pull his joint.
Jimmie was a dude. Dark hair and nice hands.

with a little eye that rolled and made its point

Jimmie’s sister worked for Dick. And had some rows
over percent. The gang got shot up twice, it
operated in the hundred ands

All the chips would kid Jimmie to give them a kiss
but Jimmie lived regula. stewed three times a week.
and slept twice a week with a big toothless girl
in Yonkers.
in Yonkers. Dick Mid’s green large three teeth leak

smoke: remembering, two pink big lips curl. . . .

how Jimmie was framed and got his

ONE
XXV

oDE

o

the sweet & aged people
who rule this world(and me and
you if we’re not very
careful)

O,

the darling benevolent mindless
He—and She—
shaped waxworks filled
with dead ideas(the oh

quintillions of incredible
dodderingly godly toothless
always-so-much-interested-
in-everybody-else’s-business

bipeds)OH
the bothering
dear unnecessary hairless
o

ld

ONE
XXVI

on the Madam’s best april the
twenty nellie

anyway and
it’s flutters everything
queer;does smells he smiles is
like Out of doors he’s a with
eyes and making twice the a week
you kind of,know(kind well of
A sort of the way he smile but
and her a I mean me a
Irish,cook but well oh don’t
you makes burst want to dear somehow
quickyes when(now, dark dear oh)
the iceman
how, luminously
oh how listens and,expands
my somewherealloverme heart my
the halfgloom coolish
of The what are
parks for wiggle yes has
are leap,which,anyway

give rapid lapfulls of
idiotic big hands

ONE
XXVII

(as that named Fred
-someBody: hippopotamus, scratch-
ing,one,knee with,its,
friend observes I

pass Mr Tom Larsen twirls among

pale lips the extinct
cigar)at

which

this(once flinger
of lariats lean exroper of
horned suddenly crashing things)man spits

quickly into the very bright spittoon

ONE
XXVIII

my uncle
Daniel fought in the civil
war band and can play the triangle
like the devil)my

uncle Frank has done nothing for many
years but fly kites and
when the
string breaks (or something) my uncle Frank breaks into
tears.my uncle Tom

knits and is a kewpie above the ears(but

my uncle Ed
that’s
dead from the neck

up is lead all over
Brattle Street by a castrated pup

ONE
XXIX

than(by yon sunset’s wintry glow
revealed)this tall strong stalwart youth,
what sight shall human optics know
more quite ennobling forsooth?

One wondrous fine sonofabitch
(to all purposes and intents)
in which distinct and rich
portrait should be included,gents

these (by the fire’s ruddy glow
united)not less than sixteen
children and of course you know
their mother,of his heart the queen

—incalculable bliss!
Picture it gents:our hero,Dan
who as you’ve guessed already is
the poorbuthonest workingman

(by that bright flame whose myriad tints
enrich a visage simple,terse,
seated like any king or prince
upon his uncorrupted arse

with all his hearty soul aglow)
his nightly supper sups
it isn’t snowing snow you know
it’s snowing buttercups

ONE
XXX

weazened Irrefutable unastonished
two,countenances seated in arranging;sunlight
with-ered unspea-king:tWeNtY,fingers, large
four gnarled lips totter

Therefore, approaching my twentysix selves
bulging in immortal Spring express a cry of
How do you find the sun, ladies?

(graduallyverygradually “there is not enough
of it” their, hands
minutely

answered

ONE
XXXI

MEMORABILIA

stop look &

listen Venezia: incline thine
ear you glassworks
of Murano;
pause
elevator nel
mezzo del cammin’ that means half-
way up the Campanile, believe

thou me cocodrillo—

mine eyes have seen
the glory of

the coming of
the Americans particularly the
brand of marriageable nymph which is
armed with large legs rancid
voices Baedekers Mothers and kodaks
—by night upon the Riva Schiavoni or in
the felicitous vicinity of the de l’Europe

Grand and Royal
Danielli their numbers

are like unto the stars of Heaven. . . .

i do signore
affirm that all gondola signore
day below me gondola signore gondola
and above me pass loudly and gondola

rapidly denizens of Omaha Altoona or what
not enthusiastic cohorts from Duluth God only,
gondola knows Cincingondolanati i gondola don’t

—the substantial dollarbringing virgins

“from the Loggia where
angels by O yes
beautiful we now pass through the look
girls in the style of that’s the
foliage what is it didn’t Ruskin
says about you got the haven’t Marjorie
isn’t this wellcurb simply darling”
isn’t this wellcurb simply darling —O Education:O
this cook & son

(O to be a metope
now that triglyph’s here)

ONE
XXXII

a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
wearing a round jeer for a hat

fate per a somewhat more than less
emancipated evening
had in return for consciousness
endowed him with a changeless grin

whereon a dozen staunch and leal
citizens did graze at pause
then fired by hypercivic zeal
sought newer pastures or because

swaddled with a frozen brook
of pinkest vomit out of eyes
which noticed nobody he looked
as if he did not care to rise

one hand did nothing on the vest
its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt
while the mute trouserfly confessed
a button solemnly inert.

Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars

ONE
XXXIII

Babylon slim
-ness of
evenslicing
eyes are chisels

scarlet Goes
with her
whitehot
face,gashed

by hair’s blue cold

jolts of
lovecrazed abrupt

flesh split “Pretty
Baby”
to
numb rhythm before christ

ONE
XXXIV

this evangelist
buttons with his big gollywog voice
the kingdomofheaven up behind and crazily
skating thither and hither in filthy sawdust
chucks and rolls
against the tent his thick joggling fists

he is persuasive

the editor cigarstinking hobgoblin swims
upwardin hisswivelchair one fist dangling scandal while
five other fingers snitch
rapidly through mist a defunct king as

linotypes gobblehobble

our lightheavy twic twoc ingly attacks
landing a onetwo
which doubles up suddenly his bunged hinging
victim against the
giving ropes amid
screams of deeply bulging thousands

i too omit one kelly

in response to howjedooze the candidate’s new silk
lid bounds gently from his baldness
a smile masturbates softly in the vacant
lot of his physiognomy
his scientifically pressed trousers ejaculate spats

a strikingly succulent getup

but
we knew a muffhunter and he said to us Kid.
daze nutn like it.

ONE
XXXV

(ponder,darling,these busted statues
of yon motheaten forum be aware
notice what hath remained
—the stone cringes
clinging to the stone,how obsolete

lips utter their extant smile. . . .
remark

a few deleted of texture
or meaning monuments and dolls

resist Them Greediest Paws of careful
time all of which is extremely
unimportant)whereas Life

matters if or

when the your- and my-
idle vertical worthless
self unite in a peculiarly
momentary

partnership(to instigate
constructive
constructive Horizontal
business. . . . even so,let us make haste
—consider well this ruined aqueduct

lady,
which used to lead something into somewhere)

ONE
XXXVI

ta
ppin
g
toe

hip
popot
amus Back

gen
teel-ly
lugu-
bri ous

amus Back eyes
LOOPTHELOOP

as

fathandsbangrag

ONE
XXXVII

poets yeggs and thirsties

since we are spanked and put to sleep by dolls let
us not be continually astonished should
their actions and speeches
sawdust perpetually leak

rather is it between such beddings and
bumpings of ourselves to be observed
how in this fundamental respect the well
recognised regime of childhood is reversed

meantime in dreams let us investigate
thoroughly each one his optima rerum first
having taken care to lie upon our
abdomens for greater privacy and lest

punished bottoms interrupt philosophy

ONE
XXXVIII

Will i ever forget that precarious moment?

As i was standing on the third rail waiting for the next train to grind me into lifeless atoms various absurd thoughts slyly crept into my highly sexed mind.

It seemed to me that i had first of all really made quite a mistake in being at all born, seeing that i was wifeless and only half awake, cursed with pimples, correctly dressed, cleanshaven above the nombril, and much to my astonishment much impressed by having once noticed (as an infantile phenomenon) George Washington almost incompletely surrounded by well-drawn icecakes beheld being too strong, in brief: an American, if you understand that i mean what i say i believe my most intimate friends would never have gathered.

A collarbutton which had always not nothurt me not much and in the same place.

Why according to tomorrow’s paper the proletariat will not rise yesterday.

Inexpressible itchings to be photographed with Lord Rothermere playing with Lord Rothermere billiards very well by moonlight with Lord Rothermere.

A crockodile eats a native, who in revenge beats it insensible with a banana, establishing meanwhile a religious cult based on consubstantial intangibility.

Personne ne m’aime et j’ai les mains froides.

Royal Highness said “peek-a-boo” and thirty tame fleas left the prettily embroidered howdah immediately

Thumbprints of an angel named Frederick found on a lightning-rod, Boston, Mass.

such were the not unhurried reflections to which my organ of imperception gave birth to which i should ordinarily have objected to which, considering the background, it is hardly surprising if anyone hardly should call exactly extraordinary. We refer, of course, to my position. A bachelor incapable of occupation, he had long suppressed the desire to suppress the suppressed desire of shall we say: Idleness, while meaning its opposite? Nothing could be clearer to all concerned than that i am not a policeman.

Meanwhile the tea regressed.

Kipling again H. G. Wells, and Anatole France shook hands again and yet again shook again hands again, the former coachman with a pipewrench of the again latter then opening a box of newly without exaggeration shot with some difficulty sardines. Mr. Wiggin took Wrs. Wiggin’s harm in is, extinguishing the spitoon by a candle furnished by courtesy of the management on Thursdays, opposite which a church perfectly upright but not piano item:a watermelon causes indigestion to William Cullen Longfellow’s negro son, Henry Wadsworth Bryant.

By this time, however, the flight of crows had ceased. I withdrew my hands from the tennisracket. All was over. One brief convulsive octopus, and then our hero folded his umbrella.

It seemed too beautiful.

Let us perhaps excuse me if i repeat himself: these, or nearly these, were the not unpainful thoughts which occupied the subject of our attention; to speak even less objectively, i was horribly scared i would actually fall off the rail before the really train after all arrived. If i should have made this perfectlyclear,it entirely would have been not my fault.

ONE
XXXIX

voices to voices, lip to lip
i swear (to noone everyone) constitutes
undying; or whatever this and that petal confutes. . .
to exist being a peculiar form of sleep

what's beyond logic happens beneath will;
nor can these moments be translated: i say
that even after April
by God there is no excuse for May

—bring forth your flowers and machinery:sculpture and prose
flowers guess and miss
machinery is the more accurate, yes
it delivers the goods, Heaven knows

(yet are we mindful, though not as yet awake,
of ourselves which shout and cling, being
for a little while and which easily break
in spite of the best overseeing)

i mean that the blond absence of any program
except last and always and first to live
makes unimportant what i and you believe;
not for philosophy does this rose give a damn. . .

bbring on your fireworks, which area mixed
splendor of piston and of pistil; very well
provided an instant may be fixed
so that it will not rub, like any other pastel.

(While you and i have lips and voices which
are for kissing and to sing with
who cares if some oneeyed son of a bitch
invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

each dream nascitur, is not made. . . )
why then to Hell with that: the other; this,
since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

ONE
XL

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