26th & 27th October, 2006
Details of Rod at The
Luckman in November - click here
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Photo by
Edward Habib McKuen. ©2006 by Stanyan Audio Video Archives
A Thought for Today
The only enemy I bother to do battle with is noise.
FROM the¨BOOKS
OF SONGS AND CITIES
I lived beyond the reach
of my own self sometimes,
outside of me.
Beyond the days
that chased me
down the summer beach.
Closer to the night
but not a part of it.
I am moved by others
and the schedules
that they've set for me
rather than my own watch.
That's all right.
I have always been a driven man.
The difference now
is that more often I'm a passenger,
instead of he who turns the wheel
and drives.
My battered sneakers
have carried me down streets
I may never walk again,
through towns I can't remember.
I've kicked them under beds
in musty rooms
and worn them on the gravel
of a castle courtyard turn-around.
Coming off a stage one day
I heard a lady whisper to her friend:
He's making money now,
surely he can afford a better kind of shoe.
Ah, but that's the thing -
money's earned for comfort's sake.
I'm comfortable in old things
with so much newness
working through my life.
I'm asked for wisdom sometimes, too.
Whatever the message that I have
to give is woven in the texture
of my poems and my songs -
plain though they may be.
When all the schedules
have been met
and I'm alone again
new songs and parts of those
who've grown
and gone off
on their own
come rushing in;
demanding to be held
or asking if they
might be lent or given.
What I do
and give away
I do with love
there isn't any other way,
or if there was
I wouldn't use it.
Believe that,
for the only lies
I tell these days
are those I tell
about myself.
- From "Love's Been Good To Me," 1978
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