can someone please explain the buffalo bill's poem by E.E.Cummings?

[Noe]

I have no idea what it means and I can't find much info on it.

[gointonh]

There is no right answer...but, for explanation, I'll try.

Replace the word "defunct" with "dead" just for a moment. Now think of how sometimes when a celebrity dies, they get more popular or their name lives on.

Maybe the poet is a fan. If he is, he has the ability to make Buffalo Bill live on, however, I do not really have a connection to this character Buffalo Bill myself, but the poet obviously has heard of him (he probably had some kind of show in the old days).

He's being compared to Jesus. I'm not sure if pigeons are a metaphor for something more important, but it seems to have something to do with showmanship or a TV show or how Buffalo Bill affected his fans.

"onetwothreefour...pigeonsjustlikethat" -- words jammed together remind me of target practice. They're show pigeons so maybe they're made of ceramic....

"Defunct" could mean many things, but certainly not "dead." The visual page and the cadence of the poem, when read, are lively and vibrant. So maybe it's just a tribute to Buffalo Bill written in a lively fresh way.

[THERESA]

This thread was useless without the poem... I am posting it just as it was written on 3 different sites.... there were no spaces between some of the words. I originally thought it was a typo but all the sites had it posted like this:

Buffalo Bill's/ defunct
Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

-- E. E. Cummings\ (http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Essiyer/minstrels/index_poet_C.html#Cummings)

I can't even begin to figure out what he is talking about.:confused: I hate poems like that. :(