8th
& 9th 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
Don't destroy your newfound joy by eating it all up too soon.
FROM the¨BOOKS
OURSELVES TO KNOW
Our losses are the sores
we box and bottle up
far back, ladder down
amid the unlit chambers
of our cluttered minds,
hoping they'll stay lost
or unrecovered
like the mother lode
of some as yet uncovered mine.
Those things first dear to us
then lost or yet undone,
no matter what the reason
go unlisted in our wills
and codicils.
No pirates bearing half a map
find the other half marked x.
the interview is over
when the questions
come too close.
Grudges come
and settle in with ease
when losses are the subject.
We wear our gains
like barfly gear
or rows of medals
on an unpatched shirt.
Hurt, like loss,
is no brother
to ill attention,
the more we leave it
unrepaired and unattended
the quicker it will go.
It leaves behind
at most a residue
like sediment
that bubbles
at the bottom of the wine.
Why is it then
that simple sorrows
seem to thrive
as though the weekend gardener
was charged
with keeping them alive.
One snub
and every act of joy
once raised in toast
and sweetly celebrated
is crushed into the never was.
Friends are not immune
to this ill treatment
and lovers bear the brunt.
Acquaintances
remain immune to arson
even as the ashes smolder.
Not yet close enough
for love or final friendship,
they remain unblemished
and unblamed.
Why make tedium
safer than it should be,
constant, crossfiled,
calibrated
dried and dreary
hauled out in a hurry
dusted off and fluffed
like paper flowers
that go unnoticed
as counterfeit and crude
until the posy paper
tears
or the paint upon the plastic
wears thin and peels
enough to warrant touching up.
Reality is square
and easy to make out.
Its shadings are
the works of men
imbibed with building
barricades and battlements.
The more we hide
our summits or our sorrows
the less of what we are
or can be
is reflected or looks back at us
from mirrors.
Pause
before you give up seeking
the exit to the maze
send the guard or guide dog
off to chase a bone.
Be unafraid to leave
some portions of your life
to fate, to change, to God.
Should a friend's behavior
worry you
you may at last be given
the chance to give
some friendship back.
Some unexpected love
arriving right on time
is more welcome to the ill
than penicillin.
We know ourselves
but we'd know our worth
and, yes, our worthlessness
better if we paused
with more regularity
to take the boards off
the shuttered windows
and let some sunlight in.
The worth of man
is not in how he treats himself
or his dearest dozen friends
but how, when it is offered him,
he treats the treat of giving.
- from "Looking For A Friend", 1980
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Monday
8 October
Columbus Day Observed (USA)
Rona Barrett o o
Robert "Kool" Bell o
Christian Bernard o
Jill Bonney o
David Carradine o
Chevy Chase o
Matt Damon o
Temple Fielding o
Frank Herbert o
Paul Hogan o
Jesse Jackson o
Rouben Mamoulian o
James Olsen o
Juan Peron o
Chad Petree o
Sarah Purcell o
Eddie Rickenbacker o
Pepper Rodgers o
Walter Schumann o
R.L. Stine o
Sigourney Weaver o
Stephanie Zimbalist
Tuesday
9 October
Scott Bakula o
Jackson Browne o
Zachery Ty Bryan o
Steve Burns o
Bruce Caption o
Bruce Catton o
Fyvush Finkel o
Georgi Griffith o E.
Howard Hunt o
Brian Lamb o
John Lennon o
Sean Ono Lennon o
Walter O’Malley o
Aimee Semple McPherson o
Michael Pare o
Joe Pepitone o
Eddie Rickenbacker o
Howard St. John o
Camille Saint-Saens o
Savannah o
Tony Shalhoub o
Alastair Sim o
Randy Spelling o
Jacques Tati o
Peter Tosh |
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Love is still the easy way through life.
Whatever you do, do with deliberation - but always keep an eye out for the consequences.
Don't consider life an avalanche. Take it as it comes, unless you're skiing.
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JOHN LENNON, 1940-1980 |
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This man
came across the universe
when needed
crying 'nothing's gonna change
my world'
and was taken from it
long before the job
that he invented for himself
was finished.
The silt that settles in and saddens
erases endings and enrages starts
is not that maniacs continue
to still genius,
it is the knowledge knocked into us
yet again
that peace is not with the people
and love cannot, will not be legislated,
It does not spread among us
with the urgency of pestilence or plague.
Lunacy is the new epidemic.
Will there be statistics soon
that tell us madness now strikes
one in four?
The widow and the child
the nation and the citizen
cannot mourn
and by so doing be relieved.
With presidents and popes
and poet minstrels
in the crossfire,
who walks in safety?
Not the Georgia child,
not the city subway rider,
not some divided country
believed that it fights a holy war
by sacrificing its people
to famine and fast.
It is not enough to hope
that ashes
taken by the wind so quickly
will come to earth as seeds,
and new John Lennons will begin to sprout
by the thousands and the thousands.
We must continue to BELIEVE
that many are the men of peace
who from time to time will set out
to walk among us.
Even now
as we await, anticipate
the arrival of the newest architect
of sensibility
we are late in joining hands
to form a circle of protection for him.
But I have noticed, only recently
that the widows of slain giants
take on a certain afterglow,
or was this the shine
that illuminated those great men
before the slayings
seen only now
because the greatness we observed
has been removed.
Perhaps it is a partnership,
one we never understood.
If so
the half that stayed behind
shines brighter than most constellations,
their guiding light or residue
remains a beacon
a searchlight that still scans the heavens
in search of that bright beam
that went ahead.- from
"The Beautiful Strangers", 1981 |
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