in a middle of a room
stands a suicide
sniffing a Paper rose
smiling to a self
“somewhere it is Spring and sometimes
people are in real:imagine
somewhere real flowers,but
I can’t imagine real flowers for if I
could,they would somehow
not Be real”
(so he smiles
smiling)”but I will not
everywhere be real to
you in a moment”
The is blond
with small hands
“& everything is easier
than I had guessed everything would
be;even remembering the way who
looked at whom first,anyhow dancing”
(a moon swims out of a cloud
a clock strikes midnight
a finger pulls a trigger
a bird flies into a mirror)
I think it is a man about to kill himself, staring at himself into the mirror and talking to himself. In the end, he kills himself
No The refers to the man committing suicide. Like in many other cummings poems he uses a simple word to name his character. For example in his poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” he names his characters anyone and noone. The is actually the person in the poem. This shows there isn’t much left of this man, he has been so completely broken down by life that his name is only the word The.
The last stanza is the greatest use of imagery i have ever seen.
in line 15,
“the” is blond with small hands doesnt refer to the bird. the sentance is missing the noun that would be for the suicide, thus saying he had already died and doesn’t exist
This poem is about life having lost its beauty. Suicide is viewed not as a horrendous thing done in the spur of the moment, but as something planned, something to be happy about, new life beginning as old life moves on. The poem is also about the process of suicide, and the events that occur after suicide is commited. ‘The’ is the bird that flies into the mirror, has illusions of moving into a reflection of the world, of a better world shattered, as it is impossible to enter.
this poem strikes me so hard and i cannot even put all of my feelings into words. it is simply beautiful the way the confusion and even suicide is smiled upon in this poem. e.e. cummings often smiles upon death and i think it is indeed deaths turn to be smiled upon because no one ever does.