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Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.
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Rod McKuen
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I've been going a long time now
along the way I've learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times and make them into big times
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren't so good.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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It's nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you're still alive.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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These long years later it is worse
for I remember what it was
as well as what it might have been.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Unless you call attention
to your presence
who will know you're there?
Even a country
has to weave and wave a flag
as proof of its existence.
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Rod McKuen
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Strangers are just friends waiting to happen
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Rod McKuen
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It happens just because we need
to want and to be wanted too,
when love is here or gone
to lie down in the darkness
and listen to the warm.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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For every star that falls to earth a new one glows.
For every dream that fades away a new one grows.
When things are not what they would seem
you must keep following your dream.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Be gentle with me, new love.
Treat me tenderly.
I need the gentle touch,
the soft voice,
the candlelight after nine.
There's been so many who didn't understand
so give me all the love I see in your timid eyes
but give it gently
Please.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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We will all wake up semi-angels,
If we wake at all.
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Rod McKuen
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This is the way it was while I was waiting for your eyes to find me.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Theres no misery in not being loved,
only in not loving
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Rod McKuen
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I have fallen in love with the world
And I am aware that I have chosen
the most dangerous lover of them all.
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Rod McKuen
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and if the world breaks down, I'll be around.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Now is next to nothing compared to where I've been.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Who is not a love seeker when December comes? Even children pray to Santa Claus.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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How can we be sure of anything
the tide changes.
The wind that made the grain wave gently yesterday
blows down the tress tomorrow.
And the sea sends sailors crashing on the rocks,
as easily as it guides them safely home.
I love the sea
but it doesn't make me less afraid of it
I love you
but I'm not always sure of what you are
and how you feel.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Crowded rooms and lonesome tunes and very little sky.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Thank you for the sun you brought this morning
even though the sky was full of clouds.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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I was rich in those days, for a week I had everything. I wish I'd known you then.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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The journey back is always longer than the forward run.
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Rod McKuen
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Sometimes I think people were meant to be strangers.
Not to get to know one another,
not to get close enough to damage the heart
made older by each new encounter.
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Rod McKuen (Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows: Poems)
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Sorry no one could see how beautifully happy we were.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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I'm not the first man or the last
who had a thirst to leave the past.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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I will not ask you where you have been tonight
I'll only say hello
and hope.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Always I glance both ways.
Why chance missing love
wherever she or he may lurk?
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Rod McKuen
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I had a pet raccoon that took my tooth brush once,
But only to another room.
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Rod McKuen
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Looking back few friends had we
but I've got him and he's got me.
And when the golden minute comes
when we no longer wake to smell
the river where the wild swans sailed
the orchard where the blossoms fell,
we'll smile a little thinkin' of that.
Me in my shirt-tails, him with his whiskers
me and the cat.
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Rod McKuen
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I want to see the world within the circle of your arms and sail the wide sea of your thighs.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Eternity sneaks in
her arms full of wild promises.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Only when we pause to wonder do we go beyond the limits of our little lives. βRod McKuen
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Mark Owens (Cry of the Kalahari)
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Love is a sweet thing caught a moment
and held in a golden eye.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Did you think of party dresses
and high school plays
or hallways full of lovers not yet met?
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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No map to help us find the tranquil flat lands, clearings calm, fields without mean fences. Rolling down the other side of life our compass is the sureness of ourselves. Time may make us rugged, ragged round the edges, but know and understand that love is still the safest place to land.
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Rod McKuen
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Laws and machines are shaped to fit the classes.
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Rod McKuen
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I went back to look for you.
Not understanding the language of hello,
I thought Iβd speak it just the same.
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Rod McKuen
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Ideas are few
another might not come by soon.
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Rod McKuen (Listen to the Warm)
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Sometimes I think people were meant to be strangers.Not to get to know one another,not to get close enough to damage the heart made older by each new encounter.
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Rod McKuen
Stephen King (The Tommyknockers)
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Happy Christmas
and I love your ears
tomorrow weβll untie
the package of another year.
Twelve more months of summer
if you stay
winter if you go.
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Rod McKuen (The Carols of Christmas: Poems and Lyrics)
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Rod McKuen. One of his poems says something
about it not mattering who you love but the important thing is that you love,
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Carolyn Brown (The Wager)
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And if you loved my face as much as you love Christmas, Iβd be safe from year to year. The same anticipation that you hold for holidays would smother me and glad Iβd be to die so loved.
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Rod McKuen (The Carols of Christmas: Poems and Lyrics)
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Fall down with me, for now.
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Rod McKuen (And to Each Season...)
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This is for the poor like me and the rich, those that cling to life because they want it... this is for the Greek and the Italian and the Negro, this is for the Indian and the Chinaman, this is for everyone, this is for the beloved, this is for the banished, the victor and the beaten and the homo, the second-story man, the mother-in-law and her daughter, the girl I held in my arms last night, this is for the wishless..." (Rod McKuen on his show for KROW)
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Barry Alfonso (A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen)