Wednesday 4th April, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Thought for Today

April is the answer to the unasked question: Will things always be and stay the same? For better and for worse - they will not.

 

This One Does It For Me!

Ken,

I've always loved the album "Live in London" - the song and poem choice was terrific and the quality of recording fantastic.

Please could you let me have the words to "Caught in the Quiet?

Thanks.

Barbara

Had a question about this a couple of years ago, Barbara, and it took me awhile to put the poem together.

The reason is because "Caught in the Quiet," as it appears on the album, is a collection of poems rather than one individual poem. You won't find this version in any book but you will find it reproduced below.

We're all still hoping this wonderful album will find its way onto CD sooner rather than later. I know some work has already been done on it so hold thumbs.

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Life quartered, life divided, is not life at all.

CAUGHT IN THE QUIET/
SOMETHING FOR R.J.

 Given the choice
getting inside somebody
even with a smile
makes more sense than always
looking through the glass
at someone else’s candy.

A sweet tooth
doesn’t always need
the richest cake.
Sometimes cookies
and a glass of milk will do.

Smiles
are passports
through the desert
and visas to
all alien countries.

I am your family
and your winter fire
let me do your crying
and you can make
my smiles for me.

Bare-bellied
in the bedroom
or coming from the bath
you look like every invitation
to every party I dreamed of
that never came.

I salute the sensibility
of your stomach
and pledge allegiance to it
as my only flag.

I know
that I’m preoccupied
with backs and bellies,
I’m told that all the time -
but God’s face and Syracuse
are too far out of reach
to be of any use at all.

So I am to love you
I’m sure of that
this month of March.
Could I go back before November
and take a different road?
I might.

But I’d have missed
your face against my own
that first December night
and turning on by turning
to look back at you
every time I went away.

Then coming
up the hill again
to face you head on
as you buzzed me through
your Spanish doorway.

In love
we are suspended
out there somewhere
between
held
caught in the quiet.

I wonder
if you looked on me
so gently
just because
you knew
looks were all
I’d get from you
all that you
could give.

Stringing me along
isn’t what you’re guilty of
not stringing me along
might cause
your citizen’s arrest.

You may puzzle at me
when I tell you
that your not loving me
is the most love
that I ever had.

But anyone who’s
given in to loving
will know and understand.

If summer has to come
let us seize it with both hands
four hands ... yours and mine,
and never let it go.

Quiet or no.

 - from the album "Rod McKuen Live in London", 1970
 
    AND FINALLY

I'll be back with more next week so please make sure you join me then. Meantime if you have a favorite McKuen song, poem or story you'd like to share, or a question you need answered, drop me a line, kenb@mckuen.com and I'll do the rest.

-Ken, Johannesburg, South Africa, April 4
 
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