Rod McKuen - Flight Plan


MONDAY 22nd & TUESDAY 23rd		Rod on Maui, August 2003. Photo by John Scoggins. ©2003 by Stanyan Entertainment. A Thought for Today Being without love too long makes us ready as the rose . . . to be caressed and then be ruined by the rain. PLEASE NOTE From now on I’ll be writing one Flight Plan for Monday & Tuesday. Ken will continue with his usual Wednesday feature “This One does it For Me” on Wednesdays. I’ll do a new two-day Flight Plan for Thursday & Friday and Ken and I will alternate weekends for our Saturday and Sunday feature. EDGE OF THE EARTH No man wants the hidden hand of anything to be his pilot. He should set out on some journeys with only maps of his own choosing; no compass but the one he carries in his head. Should he then sail beyond the earth's edge it will be his business only. At times I try to chronicle my life with the sea. I am not in love with any one ocean - it would be hard for me to decide whether I like the light blue water off the coast of Greece, the deep azure color found along the coast of Mexico or the blue-black water off Fire Island best. Oceans are oceans and they draw me. - adapted from the introduction to "The Sea Around Me", 1971 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 details of concerts and appearances. ROD McKUEN CONCERTS ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES



		22 SEPTEMBER Scott Baio o Shari Belafonte-Harper o Andrea Bocelli o Debby Boone o Nick Cave o Lord Chesterfield o Michael Faraday o Tom Felton o Richard C. Hottelet o John Houseman o Bonnie Hunt o Joni James o Joan Jett o Ingemar Johansson o Tommy Lasorda o Alice Meynell o Paul Muni o Catherine Oxenburg o Martha Scott o Eric Stoltz o Erich Von Stroheim o Henryk Szeryng 23 SEPTEMBER Autumn Begins Jason Alexander o Colin Blakely o Agustus Caesar o Nick Cave o Ray Charles o John Coltrane o Erik Estrada o Matt Hardy o Julio Iglesias o Ben E. King o Walter Lippman o William H. McGuffery o Louise Nevelson o Jarmina Novotna o Kip Pardue o Paul Petersen o Walter Pidgeon o Mary Kay Place o Mickey Rooney o Elliot Roosevelt o Romy Schneider o Bruce Springsteen o Pat Suzuki

		Love must be the best life has to offer for most of us are miserable without it. Invest in your country by investing in your friends. To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.

MIDNIGHT SAVIOR		Have you come to save me ? Very well. I’m teetering between the earth and hell. I’ll gladly take salvation over pot and pills and cheap red wine. I’m grateful for your arms but open up a little more so that I need not love you out of gratitude but only for yourself. Let me lie against your belly inhaling all the night air you let out. Let me reach inside you slow and easy, deliberate so that your anatomy will be my primer, your sighs now heavy my own northwest wind. Let me probe a secret place no one else has so far touched. Allow me this small favor to pull you to me from the inside, to live inside you half of every night. The star-filled half. Don’t be discouraged if I fumble or become inept. I’ll try again, now slower still. Then moving to your face your eyes will dazzle me as our mouths match, the insides probing one another’s insides. Slide next to me. See, no position is uncomfortable or wrong. Such space there is between your back and each new morning. Such emptiness my body and the sunlight cannot fill. I’ll try, I will. Remember that you caught me on the heels of what I thought was love. - from "The Sea Around Me, " 1976, 1977

Birthday research by Wade Alexander o Poetry from the collection of Jay Hagan o Coordinated by Melinda Smith o Sound & Fury Dr. Eric Yeager o Webmaster Ken Blackie

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