18th & 19th November, 2006
Catch Rod live in December -
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Photo by
Edward Habib McKuen. ©2006 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives
A Thought for Today
Failure is as certain
as success, but neither final.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Don't Imagine Endings
It doesn't end here.
Here being where you are
or where you go and go again.
Please don't read belief
especially my belief
as mysticism
it's only that I know
you cannot work or wonder
and go on working
and end up with only
wrinkles on the outside
and inside warped images
of what could have been.
No tricks or treats or magic
produce a heaven
or a proper hell.
Borrow? Yes.
Give back?
If your conscience
catches you in time.
Keep?
Not since they peopled pyramids
with bandaged bodies
soaked in henna leaves and oil
has one among us slipped away
and taken with them
anything of value.
But something's out there,
if not on platforms
or a cloud
somewhere, somewhere.
Why not believe?
The cost is negligible.
The truth of anything
not known, but certainly supposed
is not quite as sure
as anything we know.
What do we know?
Nothing anyone has yet
been able
to prove or if so,
improve.
Go to sleep with ease -
for hours or forever
as far as anybody knows
it could or could not be
your first step into heaven
or the last you take
leading from forever.
-from "Love's Been Good To Me,"
1979
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ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Saturday 18 November
Hank Ballard o
Imogene Coca o
Dorothy Collins o
Louis Daguerre o
Linda Evans o
George Gallup o
David Hemmings o
Jim Mennick o
Johnny Mercer o
Mickey Mouse o
Kevin Nealon o
Eugene Ormandy o
Graham Parker o
Jameson Parker o
Sinbad o
Susan Sullivan o
Brenda Vaccaro
Sunday
19 November
Roy Campanella o
Dick Cavett o
Tommy Dorsey o
Jodie Foster o
Indira Gandhi o
James A. Garfield o
Savion Glover o
Dan Haggerty o
Dorothy Jetter o
Larry King o
Jeane Kirkpatrick o
Calvin Klein o
McCaughey Septuplets o
Jose Molina o
Meg Ryan o
Keri Strug o
Ted Turner o
Clifton Webb o o
Alan Young |
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Real pleasure can be found from time to time by lapsing into
reality.
The soul lives beyond the age of its packaging.
Conscience is the hardest weight to lift.
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FOUR DAYS IN WINTER
from "Moment To Moment" |
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Sunday Night
I’m living
no I’m staying,
down the street.
We can walk.
Monday Afternoon
Blinking like an owl in morning
I woke up wanting you,
for all the Denver days ahead
and ever
after,
for all the Sausalitos past
and Boston nights that ended
before they had beginnings.
Thick throated still
and not yet
wide awake enough
I finally came alive
to find you studying me.
I wish that I
had told you then
I wasn’t what you watched,
and given time to rearrange
my face and frame for you,
I’d be closer to the man
who picked you up
the night before.
Nearer to whatever
you must have wanted
or expected.
But seeing you
at my breath’s edge
filled my head
with such a wonder
that I could only
pray in silence
that though your eyes
were open
you stared at me from sleep.
A sleep I wouldn’t dare
invade.
Tuesday Afternoon
A cat
came off the higher roof
and down below my window,
balancing on so thin a rail
that even pigeons had not dared
that tightrope walk before.
A red and yellow cat
of some age
and some experience
sat the afternoon out
down below my window - waiting
as he must have known
I waited.
A cat for company
until the sunset started
then he leisurely climbed back.
Tuesday Night
I don’t know why we lie here
on the floor collecting dust
when both of us are well aware
that any bed’s more comfortable
than carpet over hardwood.
What the evening needs
is some suggestion.
One of us will have to stop
being or pretending to be shy.
Till boldness catches hold,
of you or me or we,
use my elbow as a pillow
let my body cover you
as lightly as it can
with this bumpy body blanket.
Now we’re eye to eye. Hello.
Wednesday
I move in close,
crouching
like a fighter
waiting for a chance.
An opening.
I cannot wait much longer.
Give in quietly or go.
Are you that wild
late blooming plant ?
If so you might not wait
to tell me
for there’s little time
within this life
and the next one’s
nearly spent.
Wednesday Night
I don’t have to touch you
to be touching you
nor feel your face
to feel your face.
Yet sometimes touching you
I feel you not at all.
There seems to be
so much of you at times
enough to fill
and spill across the room.
Other times
I stretch in your direction
and draw back to me
great armfuls of nothing,
great handfuls of air.
- from "Moment To Moment," 1973, 1974, 1975 |
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