e e cummings
in more than memoriam

Say, is there anyone more overlooked
than e e in the shadow of his fame?
How cruelly reduced into his name
are all his fancy poems — power-hooked.

All that, with it & mayhap under-crooked
can —
beautiful —
however trees aflame —
a certain what don’t nights
(or kiss a dame)
the stars & fair how if shall
(thunder) spooked.

My God, thus overshadowing himself,
he trembles like a leaf in autumn’s brain.
“Rebel without a cause,” as Newsweek put it.

But therapists will use him as a tool
where poetry still dates psychiatry.
“Time for analysis. Lie down, Sir Death.”