Is 5/TWO

by E. E. Cummings

TWO

the season ’tis, my lovely lambs,

of Sumner Volstead Christ and Co.
the epoch of Mann’s righteousness
the age of dollars and no sense.
Which being quite beyond dispute

as prove from Troy (N. Y.) to Cairo
(Egypt) the luminous dithyrambs
of large immaculate unmute
antibolshevistic gents
(each manufacturing word by word
his own unrivalled brand of pyro
-technic blurb anent the (hic)
hero dead that gladly (sic)
in far lands perished of unheard
of maladies including flu)

my little darlings, let us now
passionately remember how—
braving the worst, of peril heedless,
each braver than the other, each
(a typewriter within his reach)
upon his fearless derrière
sturdily seated—Colonel Needless
To Name and General You know who
a string of pretty medals drew

(while messrs jack james john and jim
in token of their country’s love
received my dears the order of
The Artificial Arm and Limb)

—or, since bloodshed and kindred questions
inhibit unprepared digestions,

come: let us mildly contemplate
beginning with his wellfilled pants
earth’s biggest grafter, nothing less;
the Honorable Mr. (guess)
who, breathing on the ear of fate,
landed a seat in the legislat-
ure whereas tommy so and so
(an erring child of circumstance
whom the bulls nabbed at 33rd)

pulled six months for selling snow

opening of the chambers close

quotes the microscopic pithicoid President
in a new frock
coat (scrambling all
up over the tribune dances crazily
& &)&
chatters about Peacepeacepeace(to
droppingly
descend amid thunderous anthropoid applause) pronounced

by the way Pay the

extremely artistic nevertobeextinguished fla
-me of the(very prettily indeed )arra-
nged souvenir of the in spite of himself fa
-mous soldier minus his na-
me (so as not to hurt the perspective of the (hei
-nous thought) otherwise immaculately tabulated vicinity )invei-
gles a few mildly curious rai
-ned on people(both male and female
created He

then, And every beast of the field

“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voices of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

it’s jolly
odd what pops into
your jolly tete when the
jolly shells begin dropping jolly fast you
hear the rrmp and
then nearerandnearerandNEARER
and before
you can

!

& we’re

NOT
(oh—
—i say

that’s jolly odd
old thing, jolly
odd, jolly
jolly odd isn’t
it jolly odd.

look at this)
a 75 done
this nobody would
have believed
would they no
kidding this was my particular

pal
funny aint
it we was
buddies
i used to

know
him lift the
poor cuss
tenderly this side up handle

with care
fragile
and send him home

to his old mother in
a new nice pine box

(collect

first Jock he
was kilt a handsome
man and James and
next let me
see yes Will that was
cleverest
he was kilt and my youngest
boy was kilt last with
the big eyes i loved like you can’t
imagine Harry was o
god kilt he was kilt everybody was kilt

they called them the kilties

lis
-ten

you know what i mean when
the first guy drops you know
everybody feels sick or
when they throw in a few gas
and the oh baby shrapnel
or my feet getting dim freezing or
up to your you know what in water or
with the bugs crawling right all up
all everywhere over you all me everyone
that’s been there knows what
i mean a god damned lot of
people don’t and never
never
will know,
they don’t want

to
no

come, gaze with me upon this dome
of many coloured glass, and see
his mother’s pride, his father’s joy,
unto whom duty whispers low

“thou must!” and who replies “I can!”
—yon clean upstanding well dressed boy
that with his peers full oft hath quaffed
the wine of life and found it sweet—

a tear within his stern blue eye,
upon his firm white lips a smile,
one thought alone: to do or die
for God for country and for Yale

above his blond determined head
the sacred flag of truth unfurled,
in the bright heyday of his youth
the upper class American

unsullied stands, before the world:
with manly heart and conscience free,
upon the front steps of her home
by the high minded pure young girl

much kissed, by loving relatives
well fed, and fully photographed
the son of man goes forth to war
with trumpets clap and syphilis

little ladies more
than dead exactly dance
in my head, precisely
dance where danced la guerre,

Mimi a
la voix fragile
qui chatouille Des
Italiens

the putain with the ivory throat
Marie Louise Lallemand
n’es-ce pas que je suis belle
cheri? les anglais m’aiment
tous, les americains
aussi. . . . “bon dos, bon cul de Paris” (Marie
Vierge
Priez
Pour
Nous)

with the
long lips of
Lucienne which dangle
the old men and hot
men se promenent
doucement le soir(ladies

accurately dead les anglais
sont gentils et les americains
aussi, ils payent bien les americains dance

exactly in my brain voulez
vous coucher avec
moi? Non? pourquoi?

ladies skilfully
dead precisely dance
where has danced la
guerre j’m’appelle
Manon, cinq rue Henri Mounier
voulez vous coucher avec moi?
te ferai Mimi
te ferai Minette,
dead exactly dance
si vous voulez
chatouiller
mon lezard ladies suddenly
j’m’en fout de negres

j’m’en fout de negres (in the twilight of Paris
Marie Louise with queenly
legs cinq rue Henri
Mounier a little love
begs, Mimi with the body
like une boite a joujoux, want nice sleep?
toutes les petites femmes exactes
qui dansent toujours in my
head dis-donc,Paris

ta gorge mysterieuse
pourquoi se promene-t-elle, pourquoi
eclate ta voix
fragile couleur de pivoine?)
fragile couleur de pivoine?) with the

long lips of Lucienne which
dangle the old men and hot men
precisely dance in my head
ladies carefully dead

16 heures
l’Etoile

the communists have fine Eyes

some are young some old none
look alike the flics rush
batter the crowd sprawls collapses
singing knocked down trampled the kicked by
flics rush(the

Flics, tidiyum, are
very tidiyum reassuringly similar,
they all have very tidiyum
mustaches, and very
tidiyum chins, and just above
their very tidiyum ears their
very tidiyum necks begin)
very tidiyum necks begin) let us add

that there are 50(fifty)flics for every
one(1)communist and
all the flics are very organically
arranged
and their nucleus(composed
of captains in freshly-creased
-uniforms with only-just-
shined buttons
tidiyum
before and behind) has a nucleolus:

the Prefect of Police

(a dapper derbied

creature, swaggers daintily
twiddling
his tiny cane
and, mazurkas about tweak-
ing his wing collar pecking at his im

-peccable cravat directing being
shooting his cuffs
saluted everywhere saluting
reviewing processions of minions
tappingpeopleontheback

“allezcirculez”)

—my he’s brave. . . .
the
communists pick
up themselves friends
& their hats legs &

arms brush dirt coats
smile looking hands
spit blood teeth

the Communists have(very)fine eyes
(which stroll hither and thither through the
evening in bruised narrow questioning faces)

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
et cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)