A Swim

"from the vaults"

Tonight, still awake

to the complications

of my nature

I walk the carpet hall of fall

to a door

Father, yes son,

I've come to kill you

Mother, yes love,

I've come to know you

When the sun rises, I leave them sleeping

it's time, I went

for a swim

Ken e Bujold

© 1982

Author's Note

the very first poem I ever published. April of 1982 in a university anthology, spring of my freshman yr. 18 yrs old. While the idea is somewhat dark and brooding, or so I was told then and now (wife), the genesis was in fact very light hearted. Was sitting in pub with friends listening to them all complaining of mom and dad this and that, while the doors light my fire blared in the background. A handy napkin, and the rest as they say. I remember there was little revision to the napkin scrawl, and reading it this morning, nostalgia had me glancing through the anthology, I was struck that "Hey it aint bad." So says the poet.

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

No time to wallow in that mire.

Youth is such a strange age; everything from this end of life looks distorted looking back, almost as if old age is the dropped acid and youth the breathing walls.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

so well put. Indeed, while I can remember the day this was originally penned, the sentiments are almost alien, another world reaching out to tickle my mind's so full attic

[Dave Brown]

It seems the lot of the father to be faced with some excessive resistance, not too upsetting if you are the son but more so if you are the father
the reality of this is, it's becoming a much more common scenario, even happening just down the road a short while ago
if you do have an older son.............!!??

[Ken e Bujold]

the Oedipus complex as witnessed at 19. As I noted in notes, more of a cynic take on friends (mine as well I admit) chafing at the parental units. I do recall though, at the time this little gem raised more than a few eyebrows among the prim and proper set. Which was I suppose the real motivation for allowing its publishing.
ken