SUNDAY
|
|
Edward & Rod: The Brother's McKuen.
Photographed by Diane Kopperman, May 2002 at BB King's New York City
A Thought for Today
Love is still the easy way through life.
FLIGHTS FROM6THE
PAST
9 NOVEMBER 1998
FLASHBACK, BOSTON
Your back is to me and I’m only half-asleep. Things fuse. People start to
be that one you always half expect. There haven’t been so many, but as
years go on you isolate those qualities you wanted from the ones you
didn’t want and chisel them the way a sculptor would into a perfect mass.
Not a statue but a someone bending your own way and bending you to theirs.
New England? If not then take a compliment, for that full face and body
met and living there needs no addition or subtraction to be as perfect as
perfection is.
If it was not you, blue white eyes framed by wire spectacles, that brought
me from across the room, then allowed me to imagine back. Don’t interrupt
my thinking and I’ll not interfere as you sleep up the sun.
I remember that I looked away in wonder, that it happened, that I had
proof of it, that spring is all that everyone, including me, has said it
is.
Will I one-day rephrase, reappraise the Boston spring that handed you over
to me? You for two days only, one on your ground, one on mine, a third
split down the middle. Am I to have the luxury - for luxury, read time -
to find out if you really are as you really are or do I go on definitely /
indefinitely seeing in my head only your thighs inside / outside mine?
Let me come back. Let us both come back. I’ll pole vault high, clear
through the middle of your mattress next time and pull myself straight
into you. Even winded after all the stairs, you’ll know I’m there. Wait
for me. Keep the windows open and your tooth gap smile alive a while
longer. Just a small while. I won’t be long.
No elevators leading to high rooms and canopied beds in old hotels, we’ll
stay and be in your room only or walk the whole of Boston in a single
afternoon or one long endless evening.
-from "Moment To Moment", 1973, 1975
Join me tomorrow for another go round of mail received and answered. Sleep
warm.
RM 10/20/2002 2:33 AM PST
Click on the heart logo to
buy Rod McKuen books, CD's and lots more
Click
on the Stanyan House logo to subscribe to the McKuen Mailing List
Catch Rod McKuen live!
Click on the links below for new details
(posted 09/28/2002).
ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Herschel
Bernardi o
Dr. Joyce Brothers o
Roosevelt Brown o
Art Buchwald o
Barrie Chase o
Robert Craft o
Snoop Doggy Dogg o
Margaret Dumont o
Michael Dunn o
Arlene Francis o
(Mother) Dolores Hart o
Charles Ives o
Wanda Jackson o
Grandpa Jones o
Bela Lugosi o
Mickey Mantle o
Brown Meggs o
Donnii Minogue o
Vigo Mortensen o
Anna Neagle o
Fayard Nicholas o
Jerry Orbach o
Tom Petty o
Arthur Rimbaud o
Will Rogers, Jr. o
Christopher Wren |
|
 |
|
We
ought to dine with angels every day.
With understanding comes both recognition
and resignation.
Snow melts in the telling.
|
|
NORTH STREET REMEMBERED |
|
You’ll have a
phonograph
a chef’s hat
and a yellow suit
of your own choosing,
even if we have to
pay for them on time.
A canopy above the bed
that I can chin on.
A headboard
you can prop your head against
and
read.
You can write and polish words
while I sit quietly
in some dark corner
watching.
I’ll teach you music
slowly and without pain
and you can show me
how to make Quiche Lorraine.
I’ve never been up Beacon Hill,
you can take me there.
Later in the summer
we’ll go to that beach
in Provincetown.
You can show me
where you started
writing out your poem.
Don’t you see
I’ve got it all worked out
we’ll follow every sun
there is to follow.
We’ll be equal in all things
you’ll give me youth and you
I’ll give you more of me
than I yet know.
Each other we will give
each other’s other.
I’ll lose weight, you’ll see.
Before we leave for California
Paris or wherever
we’ll get it all together.
I never sleep so well
as when I’m sleeping
next to you
or talk so much
as when I’m talking
at your ear.
My hand
while touching
just your back
has touched the sky
as sure as God has groped
the stars.
Ask my name
and it’s now yours.
Demand my purpose
and you know it’s you.
My needs are only
those wants you want.
And when I sleep this night
or any after this,
though you be miles gone,
my head still rests
against your belly,
moving down.
Or at your back
against your shoulders
moving not at all.-
from "Moment To Moment", 1973, 1975 |
|
|
|
