Tomorrow, Monday October 14 is Columbus Day, Italian-American Heritage Day, Native American/Indigenous People Day,  and Canadian Thanksgiving. But that’s not what this month of sundays about a months focuses on.

As a prelude; an introduction:

In those years between nursery school and the end of my first try at university – a span of 17 or so years – there are lots of “lowlights” in my education trudge. Despite all the cr*ap, there were incredible “butterfly” moments; awakening, expansion, bliss.

One day in some dreary classroom, I fidgeted:  friendless; odd; struggling with math and sciences due to an unrecognized dyslexia; the constant moving between curriculum and school; while keeping my accelerated reading comprehension to myself, a teacher I only remember as a woman who wore sweater sets, instructed us to [gasp, breathe, supremely runn-onn-ssentence!] open some textbook to page xyz.

And, there was e e cummings’ “mud-luscious” and “puddle-wonderful” poem.

Splashing in rubber boots across the page was the sort of unconventional, stretching of the poetic drum skins beating conformity that I understood. I saw the goat-footed balloonman, eddieandbill, bettyandisbel. It freeing like the first time I learned to read – and drove the neighbourhood nuts with my “I can read Dick and Jane. Listen . . .”

October 14 is his 125th birthday. The rest of the post is his words. Biographies, critical analysis of his work, and other “stuff” can be found here, there and everywhere. Closing with an example of how I channel him.

[in Just-] (1923)

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer 
old balloonman whistles
far       and        wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's 
spring
and 
        the

                goat-footed

balloonMan      whistles
far
and 
wee

 

l(a  (1958)

l(a

le

af

fa

ll

s)

one

l

iness

I carry your heart with me (1952)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

next to of course god america I (1926)

“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 voice of liberty be mute?”

 

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

Buffalo Bill (1920’s?)

Buffalo Bill’s

defunct

        who used to

        ride a watersmooth-silver

                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                  Jesus

he was a handsome man

                      and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

And some of his erotica (read at your own discretion)

I like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new.

I have written many e e cummings’ style poems (often it is E. E. Cummings – but I like adopting this particular version of his name). Kaleidoscope of Joy is a colourful homage I posted in response to a writing prompt back in 2017.

And, of course, Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. And, to honour my math dyslexia: Bob and Doug McKenzie (The Great White North  – the Canadian content on SCTV from the days when there HAD to be Canadian content on Canadian media – television and radio.)

Image: red rubber boots; falling leaf: lorraine; heart: line drawing by e e cummings; buffalo bill: mrs. brown ; america: american bench craft;  like my body: line drawing by e e cummings

And, since you asked  . . .

What I’m reading:

Ice Cold Heart, P.J. Tracy’s latest installment of the Monkeewrench gang.

What I’m watching:

Still Babylon Fiving it. (Got a ways to go . . .)

What I’m eating:

honeynut squash (the one’s I’ve been eating are a slightly browner shade)

What I’m listening to:

Nathanial Rateliff [and the Night Sweats] (reminds me of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as the Blues Brothers), Live at Red Rocks