Originally meant to astound the Puritanical sensibilities of the 1920s, Cummings's poems of romantic and sexual love remain just as provocative, thrilling and fresh today. For today's prompt I have selected one which completely blew my mind:
The Mind Is Its Own Beautiful Prisoner
the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mine looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings
then decently hanged himself, one afternoon.
The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things,
your flesh, a succinct wand-like animal,
a little strolling with the futile purr
of blood; your sex squeaked like a billiard-cue
chalking itself, as not to make an error,
with twists spontaneously methodical.
He suddenly tasted worms windows and roses
he laughed, and closed his eyes as a girl closes
her left hand upon a mirror.
Cummings exhibited an ongoing interest in both love and the erotic as a subject in both his writing and his painting. As a painter, he dedicated a separate series of paintings each to nudes, burlesques, and to lovers.
As a poet, he was a sensitive and supple writer who ferreted out distinguishing nuances in relation to love and its complements unlove and lust. The poem speaks of a man who has lost his lover and covers various themes such as loss, betrayal, paradoxical dichotomy and mental self-imprisonment.
Our frame of reference is the title of Cummings's poem. Choose your own form or write in free verse, if preferred. I look
forward to reading what you guys come up with. Please do visit others
and remember to comment on their poems. Have fun!🍓