Everyone at Lake Kearney had a nickname:
there was a Bumstead, a Tonto, a Tex,
and, from the slogan of a popular orchestra,

Jayne Mansfield isn’t dead.
I know.
She isn’t living, maybe, but she isn’t dead.

It isn’t May-like, this impure air
which darkens the foreigners’ dark
garden still more, then dazzles it

In that high thin sun, in that provincial winter,
surely Madeleine
                          —et vous, Madame, mère bien-aimée

(tongue twisters, etc. for e.e. cummings)

THE CHEAP SHEIKH AND THE CHIC SHAH SEEK TO SPEAK AT A SECRET SPA.

((THE CHEAP SHEIKH AND CHIC SHAH SEEK TO CHEEK TO CHEEK AT A SECRET SPA. . .))

When evening breaks up
its mass of clouds
the grass fire can be seen

The sovereigns of the world are old,
and die without heirs.
Their sons die young behind guarded doors.

Sometimes in the evening I see
coming toward me, from a distance,
a kind of blossom: huge, blue, nodding

Even the morning dreams of it

Bent over those torn envelopes or steaming
Papers those Cubist towers

Sweet element, disguise,
like a partial illustration—
it is our own inviolable corruption.