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Edward & Rod: The Brother's McKuen.
Photographed by Diane Kopperman, May 2002 at BB King's New York City
A Thought for Today
Even age and time take on sameness with
age and time.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Today four poems from In Someone’s Shadow and one from the album Sleep
Warm.
August 27
Hello,
I’m here.
I got through one more night
of jacking off and late, late shows
and sleeping pills
your doctor has prescribed for you.
I’ve arrived again
to turn your coffee on
and feed your cat
and take your last night’s garbage
out
and other menial tasks,
like making love to you
before you've had your morning bath.
How like that regiment of men
who’ve passed down through your life
I must be.
You crack the whip
as though you’ve had a ten-year practice,
barking your commands
like the whispered sighs of love.
I’ll never break the chain
that I might rattle it
from time to time.
I wouldn’t call my life with you submissive,
it’s nothing more than giving back
some of the hope I get from you sometimes
when we’re making love
or eating popcorn at the movies
and you smile at me and not the pictures.
Still, I go softly
when it’s time to go
and not wake up the neighbor’s dog downstairs.
I’m good at exits.
I leave them laughing like Durante would.
I never fight back any more,
though that’s what we all want,
a fight that proves we’ve each been wronged.
I’ve learned that when love goes
there is no one you can blame
unless it was The Book of Job
or Whatshisname.
October 3
If you had listened hard enough
you might have heard
what I meant
to say.
Nothing.
October 7
When we’ve finally learned to love
who’ll teach us to hate again ?
And what will we begin
to break down first,
our bodies or our friends ?
Like cats that claw
amid the chaos of new garbage
will we become adept at hate,
good enough to call ourselves professionals ?
Or will we go like gypsy vagabonds
seeking out new targets every night ?
October 14
It will be Charles Ives winter.
You can tell that even now
by the way the branches tremble after dark
and the wind rakes up the leaves,
saving the rain the trouble.
I’ve not yet become an expert on myself
though I thought I was a time or two.
But I’m willing to drop my mirror for a while
and hold yours up to you.
I have the winter just beyond the hill
to help me.
It will be a Charles Ives winter,
full of holidays
for someone.
- from "In Someone’s Shadow", 1969
The weekend looms again and I’ll be back tomorrow with my weekly Pass it
Along feature. Sleep warm.
RM 10/16/2002 9:56 PM PST Previously unpublished
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(posted 09/28/2002).
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