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WEDNESDAY
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A Thought for Today
Freedom is the forehead of the morning. We risk darkness if we
fail to monitor each law enacted and tacked on to already bulging constitutions.
This
One Does It For Me!
Ken,
Is it my imagination or have you neglected to post anything from
"Intervals" lately?
It's one of my favorite books. My copy disappeared some time back so I'd
appreciate anything from it.
Sylvia Warrenton.
Must be your imagine as we've
posted a lot of pieces from "Intervals" over the years, Sylvia, but I'd be
delighted to do so again.
If you use the search facility
at the foot of this page and type in "Intervals" you'll be presented with
a list of past Flight Plans which contain that word. Among them will be a
number of poems taken from the book.
Hope you enjoy the poem I've
chosen for you today and thanks for writing.
Gremlins somehow got hold of our birthday list yesterday with the result
that we missed a very important name. Sherilyn Bottoms, a regular reader
and good friend
for some years now, celebrated her (mumble, mumble, mumble) birthday and
we all send her belated greetings. I hope Atlanta was ablaze with
celebrations and that a good time was had by all.
Got a favorite McKuen song, poem or story to share? This is the place we
publish your contributions so drop me a line at
kenb@mckuen.com and I'll make sure it
appears right here one Wednesday soon.
- Ken, Johannesburg,
South Africa, September 17
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McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Anne Bancroft o
George Blanda o
Mark Brunell o
Warren Burger o
Jerry Colonna o
Ken Kesey o
Dorothy Loudon o
Roddy McDowall o
Stirling Moss o
Frank O’Connor o
Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson o
John Ritter o
Wade Robson o
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Thomas Stafford o
Ben Turpin o
Hank Williams, Sr. o
William Carlos Williams |
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We are today,
tomorrow -- not what tomorrow brings.
Self-pity is a recreation for the intellectually unemployed.
There is nothing quite like kindness. We always recognize it
when we see it.
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INTERVALS |
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I close the windows
fire the furnace
begin to heat the bath.
The crawling things come out.
Great tangles of spiders,
small and friendly,
arrive from no place
(once started
long-abandoned
manuscripts,
books arranged by subject matter
and thus useless).
They forage over Compact Discs,
scale picture frames
to skate along the glass.
One climbs a clock,
another drops a silken cord
from wooden eagle’s shoulder.
One more pops from half-read Dickens
a gas bill page mark falls.
Termites carried from the woodpile
flee from kindling.
Moths flap and bat at table lamps,
do highland flings
and smack against the windowglass.
Orchid bulbs are popping open,
like time-lapse photographs.
Older blossoms move to sooner death.
A line of piss-ants
come and go along the stalks
get trapped in gooey nectar bait.
Wall spiders wait until each ant
is icy, frosty-covered, eclair-like
before they start
their choc-o-holic gorge
on the snared remains.
The heat now renders
all three cats
languid, lazy, droopy-tailed
and finally dead to the morning sleep.
Bingo’s on his back again, flat-out
all four paws hang in a hallway stretch
toward the ceiling.
Nikki sneezes and rolls over.
I take another crack
at ciphering a Schoenberg score.
My pencil breaks.
I fail to write another letter,
let one more deadline pass
( five hundred words on Barenboim’s
six-disc survey of Mozart sonatas ).
I start another lengthy list
of things undone
that once set down will be forgotten,
filed from one high stack of papers
to another,
to then be pushed along
and added to another box of stuff;
unopened invitations, calendar pages,
last year’s etceteras unreturned.
Here are Christmas cards
addressed last year to special people,
set aside for special notes
that stay unwritten.
Over there two clipped obituaries
with marginal notes about condolence calls.
A too-expensive koala bear
that Helen gave me
squats high above the clutter on my desk
where I can always see it.
A reminder of hallucinogen days
not gone yet, only different.
GROVE 10, Kern to Lindelheim,
lies open on the table at Lament:
Ceremonial laments performed by men are not unknown, but as a rule the
task is entrusted to women, most often the close relatives of the dead
person; sometimes, however, specialist keeners are invited to mourn. They
may be regarded, in some degree, as professionals. Generally they are
women of prestige in the village, with a known talent for keening, who are
invited to funerals to lead or augment the lamenting. If they are paid at
all, it is likely to be in kind, rarely in money.
A five-year garden diary
that’s been around for three
looks brand-new.
I plant, I weed, I harvest,
but never write about it.
I turn from musing ( odd word that)
to an article on psychic cats
Wade clipped for me.
I discover a paragraph
started yesterday,
wad it up and overshoot
the wastebasket.
It lands just this side of a shiny tin
rams head ice bucket full of day-old
tepid water.
Maybe I should take up drinking again.
But, no, there is no time to get it right.
When writers turn to alcohol
they must become Great Alcoholics,
or what’s the point?
A bold, gray eagle head,
a Larry / Walter
gift,
sits high above a bookcase
and
surveys domain.
His eye looks on and over
old oak four-poster bed,
one small corner used by me.
The rest devoted to Times, Herald,
Times - a week’s worth - books,
notes to no one, more CD's,
TV zapper, letters, scratch pad,
Magic’s ear-mite prescription,
March Schwann, April Gramophone.
Nearby a chair
almost as old as me. The cats
have clawed it till it needs
intensive care.
Coffee mugs are everywhere.
A toy the cats are bored with
has found a corner to its liking,
it lies there with a fading catnip smile.
Mismatched stereo components
vie with used but unmarked videos
for the dust’s attention.
On one speaker, Bulfinch Mythology
becomes a sandwich in between
a few more Compact Discs.
Near an unattended telephone
a Rolodex lies wounded on its side.
Unused tickets to last weekend’s
Previn concert
have joined orange peelings
for a still life.
They await the brush, the knife,
the shutter click
for layered immortality.
Another letter to the painter
started on graph pad
is lost but not forgotten.
A mended pair of reading glasses.
A Winston Churchill oncidium
carried from the greenhouse
needs a shave and trim
before it can be termed respectable.
Reading glasses on the nightstand
atop well-worn Thomas Aquinas.
On the mantel, reading glasses
nearly covered by unopened mail,
circulars,
catalogues,
cruise ship itineraries,
land auctions,
the stuff of somebody else’s dreams.
The radio is singing
What’s the Use of Wonderin’?
I switch it off and play Corelli
on the phonograph.
Satisfied and thankful
for the gadgets in my life
I turn it up and push the replay button.
Elizabeth is coming for the weekend.
Helen wants an outline.
Francis wants a meeting.
Charles thinks we ought to start
a poet / actor workshop.
Do I know Chuck Heston?
He knows Mickey Shaughnessy.
Edward slipped a note beneath the door,
let’s go shopping.
Someday, maybe.
When the work’s all done
and every bill’s been paid,
I’ll exchange a deadline for a lifeline.
I’ll go shopping then. Vacation then.
Spring arrives officially tomorrow.
I let the fire go out.
- from "Intervals", 1986 |
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