14th & 15th June, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Everybody has the answers or they’ll make them up for you. Just once I’d like to hear a brand new question.

 

FROM the¨BOOKS

WINDMILLS ONLY

There are no dragons
                anymore
        only windmills
        nothing left
        to slay except
        the clock
that goes on stealing
time from us.

No one tells
the would be Don Quixote’s
how easily a windmill
chomping, churning
cutting through the air
can be stopped
or made to move
more slowly.

Who comes forth to say
the graveled growl
of these metal
wooden windmills
is only made
by old machines
rusted, needing
oil and care.

The only fire
they ever spew
         or spit
is the glint of sun
on summer Sundays
as steel slices up the sky.

Not here, upstate
or even on the floor
of Scotland’s lake
are there dragons
               anymore.

Should one pretend
his way into your life
stand back, take aim
                and blow.
Like some determined
birthday child
who puts the candles
on his cake
to smoldering
with a single breath,
you could send a dragon
fleeing with a wink.

Your lungs
are every bit
        as big
as those
of any windmills
on the farm
or in the
barnyard
down the road.
But anyway,
there are no dragons
                anymore.

- from "Coming Close to the Earth," 1977, 1978

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ROD McKUEN CONCERTS

ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES
notable birthdays

Thursday 14 June
Flag Day, USA

Alois Alzheimer o Rod Argent o Gene Barry o Yasmine Bleeth o Cy Coleman o Boy George o Marla Gibbs o Steffi Graf o Che Guevara o Burl Ives o Rudolf Kempe o Jerzy Kosinsky o Gil Lamb o Lester Lanin o Lash LaRue o Dorothy McGuire o Pierre Salinger o Harriet Beecher Stowe o John Scott Trotter o Donald Trump o Sam Wanamaker

Friday 15 June

Yuri Andropov o Rod Argent o Courteney Cox Arquette o Jim Belushi o Robert Russell Bennett o Ken Clark o Robert Cohen o  Mario Cuomo o Brian Eno o Erroll Garner o Terri Gibbs o Edvard Grieg o Julie Hagerty o Neil Patrick Harris o Xavier Hollander o Helen Hunt o Waylon Jennings o William McFee o Dina Meyer o Harry Nelson o Harry Nilsson o Geoffrey Parsons o Thomas Randolph o John Sample o Ernestine Schumann-Heink o Morris K. Udall
Rod's random thoughts Go forward, straight ahead. There are no limits on your life but those barricades you build yourself.

The victory party isn’t worth the having if the celebration’s done in solitary.

Fluorescent lights in public places were designed to challenge our good conception of ourselves.

COLORS OF THE FLAG

 Red should not always stand for blood
not even that spilled by our fathers
                       and our sons
in the great parade of wars with numbers
       one
               two
                      three.
Red is a sunset color
a painted desert dye
the color of the Arizona plains
and at certain times, the West Virginia sky.

Pride and purity may use the color white
but snow topped Colorado mountains,
ice across the Great Lakes in December
and Alaska every day of winter time
               claim the color first.
Not to mention that long strand of sandy Utah
and every New York / California beach.

So many uniform are blue
that we forgot the Truckee and the Mississippi
blue sky ocean to ocean, blue ocean sky to sky.

I know my history lesson, learned it well
that this nation to become a nation
ran forward into battle shouting freedom !
And often bore the tattered tri-color home again
for men to mend and start another battle new.

Aware I am
that flag makers make new fortunes
every Veterans / Decoration Day
and broken bodies bathed in canvas
        and the stars and stripes
have slid off ten thousand ships,
        maybe twenty thousand more,
to rest upon the bottom of the mother sea.
Excelsior at Iwo Jima.
               Bully at Bull Run.
One step for man and mankind
       murmured on the moon
Peace with honor... somewhere.

Gold Star mothers have their pride. Me too.
But I would rather paint my colors
               on a bright balloon
children then would wave at me
they never did the moon.

Old men who sit at tables making wars
don't do so in my name.
Not once, not twice, never again.
It has taken me two hundred years
to come down to this place.
I have earned the right to see red, white, and blue
not on a battered standard borne in battle
               but on my brothers face.
I love my flag.
To me it stands for love
kindness even to my enemy
and most of all, for brotherhood.

-from “The Power Bright & Shining,” 1980
 
     
 
© 1970, 1986, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Stanyan Music Group & Rod McKuen. All Rights Reserved
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