Humdinger, Ken - if that's burn-out, wish I could have burnt out so impressively. The "It is not the same" lines remind me of the brilliantly wacky dialogue between Irene Dunne & Cary Grant near the end of *The Awful Truth*. Good to see you again - I was wondering where you had got to...
Martin
And the globe keeps rolling towards a pocket without a bottom although on the way the green cloth field is smooth. - Louis MacNeice
----- Original Message -----
From: Kenneth Wolman
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 3:47 AM
Subject: Ken/"Childe Kenneth to the Dark Tower Came Back"
Childe Kenneth To The Dark Tower Came Back
(Lyndhurst, N.J., 5/2/09)
Mazur's Bakery is where I left it, and
the Polish grocery on Ridge Road still
sells things with names I can't pronounce.
Across the same Ridge Road where
Dr. Williams lived forever, there's the church
where They poured water and chrism on me
so I could change horses *nel mezzo del cammin*
and still journey unimpeded through the mud.
Here is where I am supposed to say
"It is the same but I am not, therefore
it is not the same at all." But
it doesn't look that much different; even with
a new shopping mall it feels mostly the same
as when I left it nine years ago. It's said
that Lot's wife looked back at her old homestead
and underwent her singular transformation
into a common condiment. But this version
of the Disobedient Sinner doesn't even glance
at the restaurant with the hidden apartment
where he succumbed at last to the weight of earth
and began, slowly, slowly, to transform to a human being
often without salt or savor.
So where I used to live perhaps doesn't matter,
or I suppose not. It looks the same,
it doesn't, things are gone, things remain,
things are new: it is at last a zero-sum
pile of crafted rubble, a memory
about which I can write bad poems
when I should be writing good ones about
the things I truly remember.
KTW/5-3-2009
What a re-entry...I think I burned up hitting the atmosphere.
--
Ken Wolman http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com/ http://www.petsit.com/content317832.html
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"All writers are hunters, and parents are the most available prey."--Francine du Plessix Gray
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