From Here

"It's done..." 

It was hard to hear exactly the words he said. Kept his head hunched down under his shoulder, under the music of the bar, under the people next to us, the drinks, ordering, yelling, laughing. The club was heavy with sound. Just a thick cloud of sensory over-load surrounded the two of us, so his Bogart-esque comments were less dramatic than they could've been. But I heard one thing, "it's done."

And I shook my head. Not to deny him, but just cause that's all I had. All I could give. Sometimes there are no words. Sometimes things are too big to hold much less comment on. And sometimes I get tired of retreading. 'We've been here before. This face. This voice. This argument. I've been here in Denver. In Nashville. I've seen it in Brooklyn and Toronto. I've fought this down the P.C.H. And back through the south, Albuquerque, El Paso, Dallas, Little Rock. So here in a small bar in Indianapolis. I'm not surprised.

He turned away. His head hovering over his half-drank pint. 

You can know something is true with out understanding why. 

"Alright." 

Might be the last word I said before turning towards the merch table. 

I slid behind the table and sat on a tub of t-shirts, watching people pass. Watching the main band play. 

Phillip, the dude working the merch for the other two bands, was on a break. He was older, professional, and always on top of his job, but left whenever he had half a chance.

I was lost there alone, with no thought for a few moments until the band hit a song right in the middle of the set. A pick up from the song before, and the local lighting girl took it as a cue to try some things out.

And just as the bass came in to the song, there was a flash of red. Then blue. Then red. Swiping left and right. Pulses of white from the back of the stage coming at me with the beat of the drum. Flash. Flash. Flash.

I saw the face that spread continents and time. Haunting the spaces between flashes. Between the red and the blue.

White. Cut in shadow by hard lines. Red. Eyes hooded. Blue. Across both sides of his nose. Black. A thin top lip. White. The beard. Red. Staring cold. Blue. The finality of disappointment.  The white flashes.

"Somethings you can't come back from." 

Seemed like a voice from out of time. From another place. 

"They go and go. Hiding behind you. Following close but always out of reach. They won't come back. It's done."

"And if I want to go?"

His lips immobile, but the words were there, "You can't. You can't be the same and leave it behind."

And then I knew, from a thought that was not my own, the words came to me. 

"The I can't be the same. I must change with everything else. I'm not the same. From here. I am new."

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter

mood RIP Prince: 

Importance?

As some of you may know I do a lot of different kinds of writing

songwriting

fiction

blogs

poetry

And my poetry I just started to share on my Instagram. And I've gotten a great response. So I wanted to give a general thank you to everyone who has been awesome and joined me in this.

Poetry is something I've always kept close to my chest. Mostly because I have had so many negative or mildly negative response to sharing it in the past. But that's a story for another post, or to be self-referential that's a memory that will remain in the dark until later...

But the other day I was prepping a poem for Instagram. When I went through several really intense emotions while I was writing it.

I'm not sure why this poem is/was so different for me, but I found myself thinking this is something important. Not important in a Deceleration of Independence historical way. Or in a Origin of Species scientific discovery kind of way either, just in a personal journey moment.

I felt like I had summed up a big idea. And it was a complete giving. A full statement of itself.

Normally if I write a love song. It is not the end all statement of Love that I have. It is not a closed line. A definitive stamp on the subject. But this poem felt like a full expressed idea. 

Maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow and come back to the subject with new eyes?... I mean of course I will... it must be something intrinsically human to retread ideas and to find new facets... see I even did it just now.

So I guess it is not stop the presses type of news. But it is a poem that, for now I feel proud of. I will post it in parts over the next few days... maybe but for now here it is in it's entirety. 

-rene

mood:

why do you care for flowers?

I was in an ivy-autumn cafe
when she read me and asked
-- "Why do you care so for Spring? And for flowers?"

A Fragile Thing. Of Porcelain. I wrote
But she rolled over me asking
-- "Why can't you write of blood?
Of the black and blue bruises of Children?
Of the dark red streets soaked in heartache?
Have you seen all the shades of appropriation?
Do you know the colors of isolation?
Like glass hung over us?
That colors us?
And our visions of
ghosts like walking
dreams from lives lost?
But flowers," she said,
"Why do you care so for flowers?"


Gone. A Fast.
For Five days my words gone.
Away from my Paris-were-Texas-Fever-Dreams.
Away from hills. And meadows. And God-Damn Flowers.
She had asked, "Writer -- what good is a word if it doesn't speak for children? How honest can you be when you've never known an honest thing like hunger?"

Week 2 The Wheel Of Perpetual Turning

Yesterday. 

The morning was colder than I expected. Not enough blankets. The air was crisp like winter and my back and shoulder were wrapped up to each other for warmth. 

I checked my phone.

My alarm hadn't rung yet. 15 minutes early.

"I could still be sleeping... ugh." 

I rolled up a blanket to my shoulder, but it was too late. I was awake. 

Mirror.

Too early for you.

Mirror.

Too early for myself.

My eyes don't keep open long enough to really look anyway. 

I washed myself in the cold sink waiting for the heat to come, but what can I do... it's a slow morning.

Somehow I had routine-d my way to therapy across town. 

Hygiene. Clothing. Traffic. Parking.

There was a pretty young woman doing squats at the wall. There was a fifty something man, with his butt in the air working out his spine on a massage table, there was a young golfer in his twenties working out his wrist, and me at the wheel of perpetual turning. 

And we all had the same face of morning grimace. 

Mirror-less. 

There is little interaction between the patience here. Every now and then a quiet conversation. A polite excuse me as someone sneaks past another. But not much more than that. 

Turning my wheel. 

Listening to the grind of metal wondering, 'Am I allowed to have headphones?' They have Top 40 playing on a little computer in the corner so it's not dead silence. 'But if I'm gonna be here for an hour plus... it would be nice to disappear into headphones. While I turn.'

Turning. This wheel.

Things are starting to loosen up. My body isn't locked into itself anymore. And I'm actually feeling better.

And I start to wonder what a strange creature we are. Who are we that can sit in rooms and turn wheels and improve our state of living?

No other animal could be so silly as to think of this. But no other creature can heal like this.

5 mins forward. 5 mins back. Don't worry about lunch till I'm out the door. And headphones. 

No other being on this planet is crazy enough to have these thoughts while they are in pain.

Turning this wheel. 

And now writing.

This wheel.

Moving.

On.

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter.


mood:

Therapy Week 1

'Try.'

It's what I've been telling myself. Sitting in a chair in the middle of a therapy center with five other patients beside me. Varying ages. Varying problems. This one has a hurt back. That one is working on her legs. Standing against the wall stretching is a women with a shoulder injury and her husband, sits by her side, watching the other patients as he waits.

The two therapists are at a computer station, typing out something. Maybe paperwork. Before they make another round to check on our progress. 

Breath.

Count.

Try.

Stretching my neck left. Hold five seconds. Stretch it right. I can feel something in my shoulder clicking and the sound radiates through my neck and into my ear. And it is horrible and loud. The pain is quick like getting a shot, and leaves as soon as I bring my head back to center, but the sound stays with me.

Breath.

Count.

Try.

I give it a moment. Before I do another set of 15. The old lady and her husband move to a machine that is kind of like a stationary bike except you pedal with your hands. Churning the handles in circles. Moving out the shoulders. It makes a whirring noise as she goes. The sound of resistance inside the machine. Turning. Turning. Fighting. Turning.

The husband is quiet. His lips shut tight. And his eyes dart back and forth across the room behind his glasses. She laughs, "It's hard to go backwards."

And he snaps awake for a moment, and whispers to her. Reaching his hand out to her. She laughs again. "No Daniel," she laughs to him and takes a moment to breath with her eyes closed.

"Keep at it," he whispers.

Her eyes shut tighter, "I can't. I can't." Her voice is quick and snappy. 

He whispers again but I couldn't hear it.

She takes a breath, and puts her hands back on the machine. And lets out three quick, Agh's.

I move my head left. Then right. Waiting for that cracking noise to pull through my shoulder. 

Breath.

Count.

Try.

'Lucky,' I thought, 'It could be worse.' And start moving out my shoulders in circles. 15 forward. 15 back. 3 times. 'It could be permanent...'

My therapist comes by to check me out. How am I doing? How does it feel?

"The same." I answered. 

And he nods. 

'Is it supposed to feel different? There is no way I could feel better this soon?'

He explains that the grinding, clicking noise is the sound of the muscles loosening up. That my body was in defense mode. And it is calming down. Eventually it will relax again and go back.

And that is comforting... for a bit. Till that crack rips across me again. That sharp pain. That ringing sound. A reminder. This happened. I'll try to heal it. But I can't reverse it. This happened.

The old lady begins at her machine again. And her husband closes his eyes.

Breath.

Count.

Try.

'It is hard to backwards.'



-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter


mood:

les noces de pierrette pablo picasso