suppose a monkey

in a room with a typewriter

had ten million years to come up with the Encyclopædia Britannica

and suppose he/she/it had been at it for sixty years now

you know, the length to date of the reign of a certain monarch who shall remain nameless,

what do you suppose the monkey might have come up with?

maybe something like this:


r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(o-
aThe):l
eA
!p:
S a
(r
rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;


or if the monkey had a really high IQ and had been at it for a thousand sixty-year reigns (a feat even the nameless monarch is not expected to achieve), maybe even this:


am was. are leaves few this. is these a or
scratchily over which of earth dragged once
-ful leaf. & were who skies clutch an of poor
how colding hereless. air theres what immense
live without every dancing. singless on-
ly a child's eyes float silently down
more than two those that and that noing our
gone snow gone
yours mine
. We're
alive and shall be:cities may overflow(am
was)assassinating whole grassblades,five
ideas can swallow a man;three words im
-prison a woman for all her now:but we've
such freedom such intense digestion so
much greenness only dying makes us grow


well i suppose anything is possible, but these two offerings

were not made by a monkey,

they are two poems by e.e. cummings

andthatmyfriendsiswhatisknowninsomecirclesasart

[Editor’s note. In other news, today is the 68th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe at the beaches of Normandy in 1944 during World War II. It also happens to be the 54th anniversary of the day in 1958 when my Dad married my stepmother in a small ceremony at the Coppell Methodist Church in Coppell, Texas. It was a Friday evening. Earlier in the day Claire Lowell, Ellen’s mother, married Dr. Doug Cassen on the television soap opera As the World Turns. I’m pretty sure that was just a coincidence. Still, it is true that my stepsister named her second daughter Penny after the character Penny Hughes on the same soap opera. My father died in 1967. My stepmother died in 2004. If you think I know when Claire and Dr. Doug Cassen died, you have another think coming.--RWP]

P.S. -- I hereby dedicate this post to my friend Putz.

the sound of one hand clapping

If you know anything about Zen Buddhism (I know very little), you are familiar with the term satori (enlightenment, see Japanese symbol above) and possibly its cousin, kensho, both of which can be achieved, Buddhists say, through the use of koans, little questions designed to help you along the path to the aforementioned enlightenment. One famous koan goes: You know the sound of two hands clapping, but what is the sound of one hand clapping?

I think the writings of the American poet E.E. Cummings (also known as e.e. cummings and e e cummings) are in many ways the literary equivalent of the sound of one hand clapping. What I mean by that is “beyond the reach of my feeble understanding” (I would never be a good Buddhist). Here’s one of E.E.’s e e’s e.e.’s his most famous (and hence, to me, indecipherable) poems:


anyone lived in a pretty how town
by E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain


Do you hear the sound of one hand clapping yet?

Maybe this one will help. It was published in the January 1920 issue of The Dial and is in the public domain:



I must be making progress. I know the pigeons are clay pigeons.

Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

But since the dictionary I looked in defines clapping as “to strike the palms of one’s hands against one another resoundingly, and usually repeatedly, esp. to express approval,” is it even possible for one hand to clap?

e. e. cummings on spring

For everyone who ever posted a photograph of flowers on Today’s Flowers...

For lovers of daffodils, lilacs, and roses...

For the people of Puyallup, Washington; Rochester, New York; and Tyler, Texas...

For anyone who ever beheld the lilies of the field and knew they toil not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these...

A poem:

in time of daffodils
by E. E. Cummings

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me