So long Kenny. See you a little further down the road.
Sail away with me to another world…
Next post: The Starbugs “Let me forget about today until tomorrow…”
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— BY THEODORE ROETHKE
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Comments on this entry are closed.
Whuddaya know. Somewhere in the darkness, the gambler, he broke even.
Many years ago, at WE Fest, in Detroit Lakes, MN. I had my back to him, as I was security, see? But I overheard a guy ask him, “Do you ever get sick of singing, ‘You got to know when to hold up,’?”
Kenny’s reply: “Man, I am thrilled that anyone wants to hear me sing that enough to pay me.”
every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for
is to die in your sleep
That’s been with me for thousands of dark nights. Thanks, Kenny.
For a long time, I assumed one or both of them wrote Islands in the Stream. Wrong! The Bee Gees wrote it. Cross-pollination at its finest.
Gordon Scott: great story. KR was a true gentleman artist.
Saw kenny in the 80’s
His opening act was the righteous brothers
Wonderful show
Late 80s at the Arena Theater in Houston. KR puts on a great show and as it is coming to a lose he reintroduces as a former rocker and breaks out with a very raw and classic ‘Condition’. About 1/3 of the audience jumped up and ran for the exits! The rest of us laughed our asses off.
Got to see one of his lat shows 2-3 years ago at Michael Berry’s Redneck Country Club. KR had lost some of his edge but the gratitude he expressed to that sell out crowd was exceptional. Still had a sense of humor and did a great job of telling stories of the past 60 years of doing what he enjoyed.
Kenny Rogers Roasters. Great chicken.
We Five.
RIP,Kenny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO1CqLpadAM
First Edition,Not We Five. Thank you,Tim. Great song,too.
I’ve been taking too many duhhh pills lately.