29th
& 30th October, 2007
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Rod at
Dos Vidas. Photo by Thomas Kist from the 2006 Arjan Vlakveld film “Rod
McKuen: A Man Alone” for Netherlands Public Television. Photo ©2006,
2007 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives. All Rights Reserved.
A Thought for Today
It's impossible to be in love, sensible, dignified and have balance of thought all at once.
FROM the¨BOOKS
DOSTOYEVSKY LIVED HERE
Images compound.
You threaded traffic,
head above the walkers
on a Monday winter day -
your stride and gait
as though in purpose,
when you were only strolling
to be strolling.
I think of you in motion,
always.
Never languid on a couch with bonbons
or prisoner to television
after supper and the dishes.
The dozens of you in every hour
afraid of what you'll miss
while not revolving.
I see you running,
eyes at constant blink.
The head inside the skull
in narrow roll.
Brain ever working,
left to right, head to front,
no cell celibate.
A smile always,
or some other decoration
that will not leave your face reposed.
Your arms go 'round me
and even then adjust.
Busy
fingers.
Your hands at times at needlework.
Writing letters. Sorting papers.
Jigsaw puzzling.
Stroking Sybel, our first cat.
and at the window box
you water in a pattern
that the plants appreciate.
In a hurry always,
to and never from.
Ever tiptoe poised atop a ladder
at the topmost bookshelf
rummaging but little through the volumes
since they are stored and catalogued
in secret thought.
Your lips part not so much in conversation
or the yawn
but more in silent thinking.
Perception bubbles to the surface
but every sentence is commuted
before it finds its oral frame.
I see you. Often are you here
in steady glide.
You float and sift through afternoons
that hurry with you.
The two of you impatient for the night.
Motorlike, without the noise.
Ferris wheel, sans calliope.
Metronome. No clicks.
You are clockwork without time.
And yet nerve endings never show.
Your gait is more the music box
that needs no eyes to be appreciated.
I watch afar at times
and do not enter in.
But when I ride the carousel
I ride with you in sync.
Observer, I am only that -
no pressure to be up and in the circle
as you do autumn acrobatics.
You somersault in summer too.
No season and no hour favored.
Abed you take your ease alive.
Love does not pass between us
it comes shuffling.
Arms and legs and eyes converge.
Never, never hammer-like or slithering,
above the bed we sail
not caught in pillow.
We do not copulate, we flow as river,
no finish line or starting gate -
no end and not beginning.
I am a third
that sees the two of us at love
as if reporting to the city desk.
One mouth between us over there
how can we breathe ?
Air flows in and out of us
as fair as air is fair.
We are each other's wheel
and axle well aligned.
I know one is the common noun
in lovers' conversation,
but looking on at distance
I see us onelike and no other way.
It all comes rushing to me in a rush
hill
the
climb
to
begin
I
As
these decades later.
Perfect, unembellished memory.
I'd lay at rest
what I dredge up each day
if I were able.
I am not.
I go hiking Stanyan Street
as if to crystal thought.
I must be seeking punishment.
There is no perfect peace or crime
while time is arbiter.
A child's balloon, bright red in color,
floats heavenward
until it's but a dot, then nothing.
Somewhere off beyond it's magnified,
becomes a globe.
So too the thought
that feeds upon itself grows larger, rarified.
- from "Suspension Bridge," 1984
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