Please Knock (Harvard University, 1974)

Note: On Sunday, April 28, 1974, Max Havlick wrote the poem “Please Knock” to post Monday morning on his office door in Pierce Hall, Center for Earth and Planetary Physics, Division of Engineering, Harvard University, not to restrict his boss Atmospheric Sciences Prof. Michael McElroy (who at all times showed consummate respect), but for some of the post-docs who apparently thought the main duty of a Harvard staff secretary was to be interrupted without warning . . . by post-docs.

Please Knock

If necessary, please knock,
but don’t knock it,
because I’m in here knocking myself out,
and making you knock is one way of impeding you
from impeding my knocking,
and I’ve been knocking around long enough to know
that it’s better to make you knock
than have my own knocking indiscriminately extended
beyond the time when I can knock off,
knock myself out to get home,
and then knock myself out in family activities
so I can feel better about knocking back in here tomorrow
to knock myself out all over again.
So knock it off!

Max Havlick
Harvard University
April 28, 1974

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Copyright © June 2011 by Max J. Havlick, The Max Havlick School of Personal Creation and World Citizenship, a project of New World Community Enterprises, Inc., 16 West Vermont St., Villa Park, IL 60181-1938, all rights reserved. Permission granted to make exact copies of this page that include the introduction and this copyright notice.