Post by Ken_Nye on Jan 25, 2008 12:12:55 GMT -5
I'm not sure this is a good idea, but I'm going to post this anyway. This poem, for which I have been searching for the last four years, is the only poem I ever wrote in my adult life until I started writing poetry four years ago. I wrote this poem in 1969 for Ann's 27th birthday when I didn't have any money to buy her a present. At the time that I wrote it, I thought it was pretty poor, but it had ideas that I wanted to get out, so I wrote it and gave it to her anway. (She pretended she liked it.) This poem pretty much convinced me that I wasn't a poet, and I never considered writing again until 2003.
I am not posting this poem to be reviewed. I'm not going to change a thing
in this poem, which I still think is pretty poor, but it has the seeds of a number of my poems that I have posted since. There are a few of you out there who know me pretty well, who will probably recognice some themes in this 1969 piece that have reappeared in my poetry.
On the other hand, this all could be boring as sin.
Again, no reviews please. This poem is history.
Ken
I have to admit I get choked up when I read this. My son is now 42.
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
Written in 1969when I was 27.
I never wrote another poem until 2003,
34 years and a lifetime later,
when I wrote "OneMoment, One Lifetime.
At twenty-seven and getting plump,
I'm called a "young adult."
But though my waist is "old" and wide,
My heart's not quite there yet.
I can think back to places where
We never thought of time.
The days were measured in meals and fun
And trees "adults" can't climb.
Whenever I see a rural scene
With a stream or a bubbling spring,
I still have an urge to dam it up
With rocks and sticks and things.
Or I see a gnarled old apple tree
And look for knobs to grip,
Or knot holes to put my feet in
To get me to the top.
And a cave sequestered behind a bush
Need only three feet
For me to climb inside
And build my own Fort Pitt.
But now I'm called a young adult;
These joys are forbidden me.
But my mind, in spite of the world's demands,
Still wanders back in time.
I can think back to places where
We never thought of war.
Our guns were sticks; the bad guy, Dan,
Had just had lunch with me.
We died all over Doug's backyard
Without pain or blood or cries;
We'd just flop down and close our eyes
And wait for death to pass.
While on the ground I'd smell the earth
And get grass blades up my nose.
And in the midst of battle, I'd oftentimes
Forget myself and look four four-leaf clovers.
War was fun and death a rest
And time a thing not known.
The streams we dammed and trees we climbed
Were challenges met and won.
But now I'm called a young adult,
And these joys are forbidden me.
Instead I go to work (for play)
And come home to a boy like me.
My son has years to go before
A cave becomes a fort,
Before he climbs the tops of trees
And dams a stream for fun.
Yet what world is there for him
When he sheds his baby fat,
When he can run and shoot and die
And then come home for lunch.
He soon will be a young adult,
And I his kids' "Grandad."
But the years of trees and dams and caves
Will be a golden past.
I am not posting this poem to be reviewed. I'm not going to change a thing
in this poem, which I still think is pretty poor, but it has the seeds of a number of my poems that I have posted since. There are a few of you out there who know me pretty well, who will probably recognice some themes in this 1969 piece that have reappeared in my poetry.
On the other hand, this all could be boring as sin.
Again, no reviews please. This poem is history.
Ken
I have to admit I get choked up when I read this. My son is now 42.
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
Written in 1969when I was 27.
I never wrote another poem until 2003,
34 years and a lifetime later,
when I wrote "OneMoment, One Lifetime.
At twenty-seven and getting plump,
I'm called a "young adult."
But though my waist is "old" and wide,
My heart's not quite there yet.
I can think back to places where
We never thought of time.
The days were measured in meals and fun
And trees "adults" can't climb.
Whenever I see a rural scene
With a stream or a bubbling spring,
I still have an urge to dam it up
With rocks and sticks and things.
Or I see a gnarled old apple tree
And look for knobs to grip,
Or knot holes to put my feet in
To get me to the top.
And a cave sequestered behind a bush
Need only three feet
For me to climb inside
And build my own Fort Pitt.
But now I'm called a young adult;
These joys are forbidden me.
But my mind, in spite of the world's demands,
Still wanders back in time.
I can think back to places where
We never thought of war.
Our guns were sticks; the bad guy, Dan,
Had just had lunch with me.
We died all over Doug's backyard
Without pain or blood or cries;
We'd just flop down and close our eyes
And wait for death to pass.
While on the ground I'd smell the earth
And get grass blades up my nose.
And in the midst of battle, I'd oftentimes
Forget myself and look four four-leaf clovers.
War was fun and death a rest
And time a thing not known.
The streams we dammed and trees we climbed
Were challenges met and won.
But now I'm called a young adult,
And these joys are forbidden me.
Instead I go to work (for play)
And come home to a boy like me.
My son has years to go before
A cave becomes a fort,
Before he climbs the tops of trees
And dams a stream for fun.
Yet what world is there for him
When he sheds his baby fat,
When he can run and shoot and die
And then come home for lunch.
He soon will be a young adult,
And I his kids' "Grandad."
But the years of trees and dams and caves
Will be a golden past.
Thanks for sharing it, Ken. I blanch at the thought of showing my bombastic early work. 
