voices to voices, lip to lip

i swear (to noone everyone) constitutes

undying; or whatever this and that petal confutes . . .

to exist being a peculiar form of sleep

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

bring forth your flowers and machinery: sculpture and prose

flowers guess and miss

machinery is the more accurate, yes

it delivers the goods, Heaven knows

(yet are we mindful, though not as yet awake,

of ourselves which shout and cling, being

for a little while and which easily break

in spite of the best overseeing)

i mean that the blond absence 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 . . .

bring on your fireworks, which are a mixed

splendor of piston and pistil; very well

provided an instant may be fixed

so that it will not rub, like any other pastel.

(While you and i have lips and voices which

are for kissing and to sing with

who cares if some one-eyed son of a bitch

invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

​

each dream nascitur, is not made . . .)

why then to Hell with that: the other; this,

since the thing perhaps is

to eat flowers and not to be afraid.

—e.e. cummings