SOME OF THE BEST
November 19, 1998 |
|
A Thought for Today
Love finds beauty in
the plainest smile.
Thanks for being with me over the past
week or so. Rod will be back with you tomorrow and I'll bet he has a
ton of interesting mail to catch up on so make sure you join him.
I'll see you again on Wednesday.
- Ken, Johannesburg, November 19
HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, WINTER :
EARLY EVENING
Cold. The window open, curtains
spread as far apart as they will go. Outside, the sky dominates everything. Because I
haven’t closed the window yet, my bed is now so full of moon there’s almost no
room left in it for me. What a bed this is. What a wide, soft Dutch bed this old hotel has
given me this time to lie in by myself.
In a city like Amsterdam if you sleep alone, you do so by choice. But after all the
nights, good, bad, indifferent, not different I’d rather stay here empty inside /
outside than bed down just to bed down. I’ve been more alone when someone wrong was
here than I’ve been when no one came. Still... Never mind, if I don’t get up to
close the window now there’ll be no sleep at all.
I will not chase the shadows any more. I’ll draw the curtains tight and sleep.
I’ll work. I’ll read. I’ll go to sleep.
- from "Moment to Moment," 1973,1975 |
FOUR DAYS IN WINTER
from "Moment To Moment" |
|
Sunday Night
I’m living
no I’m staying,
down the street.
We can walk.
Monday Afternoon
Blinking like an owl in morning
I woke up wanting you,
for all the Denver days ahead
and ever
after,
for all the Sausalitos past
and Boston nights that ended
before they had beginnings.
Thick throated still
and not yet
wide awake enough
I finally came alive
to find you studying me.
I wish that I
had told you then
I wasn’t what you watched,
and given time to rearrange
my face and frame for you,
I’d be closer to the man
who picked you up
the night before.
Nearer to whatever
you must have wanted
or expected.
But seeing you
at my breath’s edge
filled my head
with such a wonder
that I could only
pray in silence
that though your eyes
were open
you stared at me from sleep.
A sleep I wouldn’t dare
invade.
Tuesday Afternoon
A cat
came off the higher roof
and down below my window,
balancing on so thin a rail
that even pigeons had not dared
that tightrope walk before.
A red and yellow cat
of some age
and some experience
sat the afternoon out
down below my window - waiting
as he must have known
I waited.
A cat for company
until the sunset started
then he leisurely climbed back.
Tuesday Night
I don’t know why we lie here
on the floor collecting dust
when both of us are well aware
that any bed’s more comfortable
than carpet over hardwood.
What the evening needs
is some suggestion.
One of us will have to stop
being or pretending to be shy.
Till boldness catches hold,
of you or me or we,
use my elbow as a pillow
let my body cover you
as lightly as it can
with this bumpy body blanket.
Now we’re eye to eye. Hello.
Wednesday
I move in close,
crouching
like a fighter
waiting for a chance.
An opening.
I cannot wait much longer.
Give in quietly or go.
Are you that wild
late blooming plant ?
If so you might not wait
to tell me
for there’s little time
within this life
and the next one’s
nearly spent.
Wednesday Night
I don’t have to touch you
to be touching you
nor feel your face
to feel your face.
Yet sometimes touching you
I feel you not at all.
There seems to be
so much of you at times
enough to fill
and spill across the room.
Other times
I stretch in your direction
and draw back to me
great armfuls of nothing,
great handfuls of air.
- from "Moment To Moment," 1973, 1974, 1975 |
