14th & 15th November, 2005
Rod in Concert
Holland, December 2005!
San Sebastian Strings
albums now available on CD! Order
now!
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Photo by Edward McKuen 9/24/2005
A Thought for Today
The sea invents, we rearrange. The sea
takes out a patent, we infringe. The sea holds all the copyrights to all
the most important works, speaking truth that even time won't change.
And still we steal from her.
FROM the¨BOOKS
I AM HEADING HOMEWARD
Arms full of
promises
beds full of dreams
a head full of songs and none -
no one to hear them
at close quarters.
I am heading homeward
homeward bound am I
traveling from
the farthest point north
in California
to its middle and to home.
Having felt your strength
come into me
from the first long touch
to the last hand clasp
I am stronger now.
But I am weak for wanting,
tied up in knots from so much need,
wound in a ball and doubled over
from happenstance
that wouldn’t,
will not go on happening.
Stopped still am I
from your so fragile so firm hand.
You left me more a boy
and less a
man
than I might have cared to be.
Listen to me
I am finally going home
to double over and be sick
on my own ground
to weep my guts out
in my own back yard.
Leaving you was hard.
Your leaving harder.
I am going home to bear witness
to your having been with me
and some time up ahead
if I am living and still looking
I’ll restock the larder
you left empty.
I am still together
heading home
but not
sure how.
Though we’ll not meet again
I’ll still be melding into you
and sweating,
standing next to you, unsteady,
facing you afraid for always.
Down the never-ending
middle nights
out and over all the days
that may be left to me.
Your leaving gave me
my own birthmark
like the clot inside
some feeble
and unbalanced head.
I wear it up above my heart
my own red badge of courage,
my own and only birthmark
attesting to my birth
whenever.
I am heading homeward
let me go.
The heart grows tired,
timid and afraid sometimes.
It needs to rest
as much as any head
on aching shoulders.
If I can go on
dreaming up safe seas
and seaweed
my mind will still stay well,
but this old heart
grown older by its own mistakes
needs resting and a resting place. - from "The Sea Around Me ..., 1977
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Catch Rod McKuen live!
Click on the links below for details of
concerts and appearances.
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
ROD
McKUEN APPEARANCES
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Monday 14 November
St. Augustine o Travis Barker o Stephen Bishop o Charles, Prince of Wales o Aaron Copland o Rosemary De Camp o Chris Demetral o Johnny Desmond o Mamie Eisenhower o Robert Fulton o Nina Gordon (Smashing Pumpkins) o King Hussein of Jordan o Barbara Hutton o George S. Kaufmani o Brian Keith o Veronica Lake o Marya Mannes o Senator Joseph McCarthy o Claude Monet o Jawaharlal Nehru o Jim Piersall o Dick Powell o Leonie Rysanek o Harrison Salisbury o McLean Stevenson o D.B. Sweeney o Martha Tilton
Tuesday 15 November
Edward Asner o Howard Baker o Daniel Barenboim o Joanna Barnes o Jorge Bolet o Petula Clark o Beverly D’Angelo o Felix Frankfurter o Bill “C.W. McCall” Fries o W. Averill Harriman o John Kerr o Curtis Le May o Frida Lyngstad o Whitman Mayo o Clyde McPhatter o Bill Melendez o Marianne Moore o Georgia O’Keeffe o Erwin Rommel o Judge Joseph Wapner o Sam Waterston |
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Don't go yet, there's got to be some sea
coast we've not seen. Hold on to me and we'll go flying through the
spring.
I
have always been a man of elements, feeling that the best ideas and the
nearest thing to knowledge have to spring from the most real of all
realities the sea, the earth, the sky rather than from history or
philosophy books.
If the sea did not make me, at the very
least it rubbed me, rolled me out of darkness into light. For I have
seen my past and future on the whitecaps dancing out beyond a thousand
shorelines.
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A PRAYER FOR MYSELF |
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I have stumbled
and fallen somewhere in this day. Raise me up again, my Lord, that I
might work for You, and in so doing work for my own salvation, and the
salvation of my brothers and sisters. If I have lied, enlarged on truth,
or made up fact, instruct me, Lord, in the true way.
If I have sinned against my neighbor, I have no excuse. If I have
coveted what is my neighbor’s, I have no excuse. If I have been
distant to a friend or stranger, I have no alibi that will justify my
actions, and if I think I have, teach me otherwise.
Take me from myself and let me serve You while I breathe Your air. Let
me worship You. Let me share Your kindness with those men and women of
God I know and will come to know. - from "An Outstretched Hand", 1980 |
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