3 Hemmingway Poems

Advice to a Son
Never trusth a white man,
Never kill a jew,
Never sign a contact,
Never rent a pew.
Don't enlist in armies;
Nor marry many wives;
Never write for magazines;
Never scratch your hives.
Always put paper on the seat,
Don't believe in wars,
Keep yourself both clean and neat,
Never marry whores.
Never pay a blackmailer,
Never go to law,
Never trust a publisher,
Or you'll sleep on straw.
All your friends will leave you
All your friends will die
So lead a clean and wholesome life
And join them in the sky.
-Berlin, 1931

Lines to Be Read at the Casting of Scott FitzGerlad's Balls into the Seafrom Eden Roc (Antibes, Alpes Maritimes)
Whence from these gray
Heights unjockstrapped wholly stewed he
Flung
Himself?
No.
Some Waiter?
Yes.
Push tenderly oh green shoots of grass
Tickle not our Fitz's nostrils
Pass
The gray moving unbenfinneyed sea
depths deeper than our debt to Eliot
Fling flang them flung his own his
two finally is one
Spherical, colloid, interstitial,
Uprising lost to sight
in fright
natural
not artificial
no ripples make a sinking sanking
sonking sunk
-Key West, 1935

Defense of Luxembourg
So now,
Alive
Join the Daughty Dead
The chutes hanging from the trees
And the high tension wires
All of us long gone
Firing on all airplanes
Unbelieving nothing
Nor his brother
Except that we attack at first light
Come now and join us.
Bring for the week end
Ability to read a map
(This corresponds to shaving kit and pyjamas)
Bring unfear of death
(This corresponds to the formerley seven now five packs of
nationally advertised brands issued at the PX with cheerful
banter in the basement of the Scribe.)
Bring knowledge, subtlety, side-slippering, hardiness, fortitude,
quick and sound decisions, and the ability to abandon
knowingly and soundly all hope of every kind yet stay and
fight.
(this corresponds to a present to your hostess; a trifle
well selected with semi-impeccable taste)
Bring fuck-all,
Bring worthless
Bring no-good-
They can be carried as banners.
Or in the pocket.
But bring them to where we go now.
They are as valuable of soap (soap is made from the dead
horses of horse cavalrymen's dreams) and there is
No need to bring money.
No one can change it.
Bring shit
Bring Fuck
Bring hatred of these cocksuckers.
Now it starts to roll as when the wind comes into the trees in
a forest fire
Come on let's go.
What the fuck is holding it up.
What the fuck is holding you up
It beats the shit out of me lieutenant
Let's go
White jumped off at 0840
They are held up by M.G. fire. Krauts
are infiltrating behind our lines. We are fighting them now.
S6 states he wants to jump-off regardless. Blue following will
mop up infiltrated enemy.
Lets go.
-Finca Vigia, Cuba, 1945