here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when the judgement day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other somethings did--
you imagine His surprise

bellowing through the general noise
Where is Effie who was dead?
--to God in a tiny voice,
i am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five
crumbs chuckled as if they were alive
and number two took up the song,
might i'm called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb, i am should
and this is my little sister could
and our big brother who is would
don't punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb with some shame
whispered unto God, my name
is must and with the others i've
been Effie who isn't alive

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Forward to Exhibit: II

Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.

Never.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.”

Inspiration for layout

[web dedication]

suppose

Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a piece of money held between
his thumb and first finger
(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters, life has a beard" i

say to you who are silent.--"Do you see
Life? he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep, on his head
flowers, always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy?
Les belles bottes--oh hear
, pas cheres")

and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else
there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death, is slender;
likes flowers.

More from E.E.

in spite of everything

which breathes and moves, since Doom

(with white longest hands

neatening each crease)

will smooth entirely our minds

--before leaving my room

i turn, and(stooping

through the morning)kiss

this pillow, dear

where our heads lived and were.

"Since feeling is first"

lady i swear by all flowers.  Don't cry

--the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Estlin again

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

voices to voices,lip to lip

i mean that the blond abscence 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...

E.E. Cummings

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down