FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO REJECT MY POEMS [Prelude]

PRELUDE

in lustrous city, one was i

and claimed i to have found my voice

once lost in keys strewn across time

from 1926 until 1962*

in those years, somehow

before i even breathed

i asked those Muses to keep this

boy a poet, to keep this poet

his poet

still begging, through tears of loss

and jealousy

in years of shaking

i felt the sting of triumph

from someone else's hand

that night -

lying on her bed

with welling eyes she asked me

what was my purpose

after i asked her

what was the point

the Muses sang that day -

or at least they pounded drums of war

i told her four:

LOVE

BEUATY

ATTENTION

I AM i

then from Ken i remembered

swiftly

so many others

and from those who took my poems,

wrought them until their letters

spilled off of my page,

i dreamed dearly of how

i would show them

that light

i have seen

so many times before

no thoughts here,

just writings

to abandon that thing which i

spent what seems like eternity

building

nurturing

coddling until he

could walk on his own

in order to make something

stronger, forte

was too much

to resist

so i told the Muses

and my Muse

that i would tackle them on

for myself

for them

for the sake of my poems

i would take their eyes

and make them look upon what this

little poet could do

even without their dollars

and their little slips of paper

with my name in script font on them

a poem that is a poem but is not a poem

a poem that is a magnum opum

before i am truly dead

a poem that take the world

with its eight little hands

and rings its words

until all of its letters

fall on the ground

now Muses & Muse,

take these hands

see them alone

see them as one

see them as purpose

as all

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO REJECT MY POEMS:

here.

*E.E. Cummings's first book of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys, was published in 1926. Cummings died in 1962.