11th & 12th March, 2010

Photo by Eric Yeager ©2009 All Rights Reserved

A Thought for Today

Given a chance the spirit will always shine.

TO BEGIN WITH

Moment-to-Moment is a book that was largely written in Holland in the winter of 1973. It went through two revisions and was first published in 1953 by Cheval-Stanyan in two separate editions. Meanwhile a substantially different edition of the book was published in Great Britain by W.H. Allen. Two years later I revised it yet again and it was republished by Simon Schuster where it became an immediate best seller. All these years later I still tinker with the contents trying to clarify it’s diary-like entries even further.

HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, WINTER: EARLY EVENING

Cold. The window open, curtains spread as far apart as they will go. Outside, the sky dominates everything. Because I haven’t closed the window yet, my bed is now so full of moon there’s almost no room left in it for me. What a bed this is. What a wide, soft Dutch bed this old hotel has given me this time to lie in by myself.

In a city like Amsterdam if you sleep alone, you do so by choice. But after all the nights, good, bad, indifferent, not different I’d rather stay here empty inside / outside than bed down just to bed down. I’ve been more alone when someone wrong was here than I’ve been when no one came. Still... Never mind, if I don’t get up to close the window now there will be no sleep at all.

I will not chase the shadows any more. I’ll draw the curtains tight and sleep. I’ll work, read, go to sleep.

- from "Moment to Moment," 1973,1975

“Moment To Moment” British Edition published by W. H. Allen

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ROD McKUEN CONCERTS

ROD McKUEN APPEARANCES

Thursday 11 March

Ralph Abernathy o Douglas Adams o Thora Birch o Bessie Lorraine Boles o Vinette Carroll o Sam Donaldson o Dorothy Gish o Mary Anissa Jones o LeToya Luckett o Jessie Matthews o Bobby McFerrin o Rupert Murdoch o Dominque Sanda o Charles W. Swan o Lawrence Welk o Harold Wilson

Friday 12 March

Edward Albee o Graham Coxon o Barbara Feldon o Steve Harris o Al Jarreau o Ron Jeremy o Jack Kerouac o Vern Law o Gordon MacRae o Liza Minnelli o Vaslav Nijinsky o Wally Schirra o Roger Stevens o Darryl Strawberry o o James Taylor o William (“Buckwheat”) Thomas o Paul Weston o Andrew Young

To love is to lie down with the angels.

When we are home, we are usually in a better place.

FOUR DAYS IN WINTER

I’m living
no I’m staying,
down the street.
We can walk.

Monday Afternoon

Blinking like an owl in morning
I woke up wanting you,
for all the Denver days ahead
             and ever after,
for all the Sausalito’s past
and Boston nights that ended
before they had beginnings.

Thick throated still
and not yet
          wide awake enough
I finally came alive
to find you studying me.

I wish that I had told you then
I wasn’t what you watched,
and given time to rearrange
my face and frame for you,
I’d be closer to the man
who picked you up
          the night before.
Nearer to whatever
you must have wanted
or expected.

But seeing you at my
breath’s edge filled my head
with such a wonder that I
could only pray in silence
that though your eyes
                      were open
you stared at me from sleep.
A sleep I would not dare
                             invade.

Tuesday Afternoon

A cat came off the higher roof
and down below my window,
balancing on so thin a rail that
even pigeons had not dared
that tightrope walk before.

A red and yellow cat
                of some age
and some experience
sat the afternoon out down
below my window - waiting
as he must have known
I waited. A cat for company
until the sunset started
then he leisurely climbed back.

Tuesday Night

Why we lie here on the floor
collecting dust when each of
us is well aware that any bed’s
more comfortable than carpet
over hardwood. What the
evening needs
          is some suggestion.
One of us will have to stop
being or pretending to be shy.

Till boldness catches hold,
of you or me or we,
use my elbow as a pillow
let my body cover you
         as lightly as it can
with this bumpy body blanket.

Now eye to eye. Hello.

Wednesday

I move in close,
        crouching
          like a fighter
waiting for a chance.
An opening.
I cannot wait much longer.
Give in quietly or go.

Are you that wild
late blooming plant?
If so you might not wait
                       to tell me
for there’s little time
within this life
       and the next one’s
                nearly spent.

Wednesday Night

I do not have to touch you
to be touching you nor feel
your face to feel your face.
Yet sometimes touching you
I feel you not at all.

There seems to be so much
of you at times enough to fill
and spill across the room.
Other times I stretch in your
direction and draw back to me
great armfuls of nothing,
great handfuls of air.

- from "Moment To Moment 1973, 1974, 1975. With minor revisions 3/2/2010