Cummings' Guide to Love

Fear is good. Fear means you have taken a chance, leapt out of your comfort zone. Fear could be an indication of progress. Of crossing over. Of coming alive.

let it go – the

e.e. cummings

let it go – the

smashed word broken

open vow or
the oath cracked length

wise – let it go it

was sworn to

go

let them go – the

truthful liars and

the false fair friends

and the boths and

neithers – you must let them go they

were born

to go

let all go – the

big small middling

tall bigger really
the biggest and all

things – let all go

dear

so comes love



There are times when I go almost crazy. It happens once a month, consistently, without fail. This is when my face could deep-fry chicken. This is when I feel like a penguin walking on ice.

Weeks ago, I tried to rationalize my emotions. Sadly, I cannot come up with any mindblowing existentialist justification. So I turn to biology.

Just this week over dinner, I tried to rationalize again. Aided by a friend this time. We talked about religion, palm-reading, and skydiving. But mostly we talked about men. And why men do what they do.

We eventually got tired of talking about men so we decided to take a walk and find a toilet. We surmised that men are the way they are because perfection is boring. And that achieving the ideal would kill the motivation to live.

We never talked about men after that. Until the next bout of crazy, of course.

Neruda's Thing about Labels

We struggle everyday. Not so much with the people around us but with ourselves. I'd like to think that we have a huge collection of faces. Some face we leave some place at some point. Some we'd like to keep but can't keep anymore. How many faces have you lost?

Too Many Names

Pablo Neruda

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays

and the week with the whole year.

Time cannot be cut

with your weary scissors,

and all the names of the day

are washed out by the waters of night.

 

No one can claim the name of Pedro,

nobody is Rosa or Maria,

all of us are dust or sand,

all of us are rain under rain.

They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,

of Chiles and of Paraguays;

I have no idea what they are saying.

I know only the skin of the earth

and I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the roots

they pleased me more than flowers did,

and when I spoke to a stone

it rang like a bell.

 

It is so long, the spring

which goes on all winter.

Time lost its shoes.

A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,

what am I called or not called?

And when I wake, who am I

if I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely

have we landed into life

than we come as if new-born;

let us not fill our mouths

with so many faltering names,

with so many sad formallities,

with so many pompous letters,

with so much of yours and mine,

with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,

unite them, bring them to birth,

mix them up, undress them,

until the light of the world

has the oneness of the ocean,

a generous, vast wholeness,

a crepitant fragrance.