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e.e. cummings - gee i like to think of dead

gee i like to think of dead it means nearer because deeper firmer 
since darker than little round water at one end of the well  it's
too cool to be crooked and it's too firm to be hard but it's sharp
and thick and it loves,  every old thing falls in rosebugs and 
jackknives and kittens and pennies they all sit there looking at 
each other having the fastest time because they've never met before

dead's more even than how many ways of sitting on your head your 
unnatural hair has in the morning

dead's clever too like POF goes the alarm off and the little striker 
having the best time tickling away everybody's brain so everybody 
just puts out their finger and they stuff the poor thing all full 
of fingers

dead has a smile like the nicest man you've never met who maybe winks 
at you in a streetcar and you pretend you don't but really you do 
see and you are My how glad he winked and hope he'll do it again

or if it talks about you somewhere behind your back it makes your neck 
feel pleasant and stoopid  and if dead says may i have this one and 
was never introduced you say Yes because you know you want it to dance
with you and it wants to and it can dance and Whocares

dead's fine like hands do you see that water flowerpots in windows but 
they live higher in their house than you so that's all you see but you 
don't want to

dead's happy like the way underclothes All so differently solemn and 
inti and sitting on one string

dead never says my dear,Time for your musiclesson and you like music and 
to have somebody play who can but you know you never can and why have to?

dead's nice like a dance where you danced simple hours and you take all
your prickly-clothes off and squeeze-into-largeness without one word  and
you lie still as anything  in largeness and this largeness begins to give 
you,the dance all over again and you,feel all again all over the way men
you liked made you feel when they touched you(but that's not all)because
largeness tells you so you can feel what you made,men feel when,you touched,
them

dead's sorry like a thistlefluff-thing which goes landing away all by 
himself on somebody's roof or something where who-ever-heard-of-growing 
and nobody expects you to anyway

dead says come with me he says(andwhyevernot)into the round well and 
see the kitten and the penny and the jackknife and the rosebug
				                                              and you
say Sure you say  (like that)  sure i'll come with you you say for i
like kittens i do and jackknives i do and pennies i do and rosebugs i do

Added: on November 3rd, 2005 at 1:18 PM | Viewed: 14343 times | Comments and analysis of gee i like to think of dead by e.e. cummings Comments (9)


gee i like to think of dead - Comments and Information

Poet: e.e. cummings
Poem: gee i like to think of dead
Poem of the Day: Nov 1 2002

Comment 9 of 9, added on April 14th, 2006 at 9:06 AM.

Personally, I don't see either of thoes. It could be interprited as such, but I definately wouldn't tack it down to that, merely because he mentions largness and the dance. Then again, I never liked it when people other than the writer tries to convince people of a meaning. The reason poetry is beautiful is because it's open to interpritation. To me it's about the beauty, and different forms that death takes. However if I suspended my disbelief enough, I'm sure you could interprate it to things soldiers go through in war, or puberty, or devorce. Either way, don't get caught up too deeply on tying it to tie it to something, just let it be beautiful, and influence you in it's own way.

Matthew from United States
Comment 8 of 9, added on December 30th, 2005 at 7:12 AM.

This poem is about a young adolescent exploring her new feelings of interest in men with both excitement and dread. "Dead" in the poem symbolizes her sense that the changes of puberty will make her someone as unimaginable to her younger self as the state of being dead is unimaginable to an adult.

Ronnie Apter from United States
Comment 7 of 9, added on November 3rd, 2005 at 1:18 PM.

ohhhhh that sent tingles down my spine- i love the contrast he uses, and the way he makes you pay attention with the randomness of the punctuation. intense

rinnnnnn from United States

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