>
OK, don’t be silly.
I’ll try.
So, a poet?
Apparently
so?
I am honored
& humbled,
both.
That’s not poetry, it’s just format.
Yeah.
Why do you do that?
What?
The staggered line break thing.
This publisher guy told me people need lots of white space on the page these days because our attention spans are so shot.
That’s it?
That and a stint through Nashville songwriting while studying wisdom books like Ecclesiastes & the Tao.
Ah.
Darkness. Light. Contrast. Beauty. Chaos. Cadence.
It makes you sound
more profound
than you
really
are.
And in songwriting, the economy of words. Saying so much with so little.
Right or wrong, I tend to choose song over story. But to have both is the sweetest magic.
Example.
Guess I shoulda
known
by the way you
parked your car
sideways
that it
wouldn’t last
bangbang. bang
Is it the rhythm? The story? The melody? If you take it apart it dies a little, so it must be alive. Kind of nonsensical, really.
So what is it?
Emotion. And emotion can be so senseless. Make me feel something. Give voice to my secret joys & private pain that I cannot find the words for. Teach me something about myself I did not know but sorely need to learn. That’s always been my goal: To speak from the secret place and try to make people think & feel something. Because the forces of lethargy & distraction are legion.
It helps to be mysteriously spiritually smitten & given to magical thinking.
I liked when that quirky girl wrote: “You are one dark-ass bastard but you write about Jesus in ways that somehow don’t offend me.” A lot of people feel you are fixated on the religious stuff.
I’m an absurdist at heart & art is my apologetics.
Maybe. Man, I don’t know. If I have any religion, that’s it. I don’t know. But I know
that I hope and I believe that hoping is greater than knowing because I’ve gotten to the
point where I know a lot less and hope a lot more.
So, sir, are you a poet?
I don’t know…
Heh.
…but I know I love the power of the words. Words change the world. Can I leave you with a Scripture?
What am I going to say, no?
John 1:1
In the Beginning
was the Word.
& the Word
was with God
& the Word
was God.
& the Word
was Life
If that’s the Beginning, what about the End?
There is no end.
The Words never End.
your words
blossom
when they land in the soil
of my mind
yea,
verily, I
am the fertilizer
the bard of manure
where dark things
grow into the light.
Hee.
This
is
Great.
I, too
LOVE
Prince,
and
That
Song
In
Particular.
In fact, I’m writing a novel right now where the protagonist listens to that album over and over again.
I’ve been trying to figure
that song’s magic out for
years now.
I play it on a piano
very slow
legato
and it still works.
Why? Just a song
comparing some loose chick
to a car?
Pocket full of Trojans
some of them used?
That’s not even high art.
and yet….
Ooh, send me a sample
from your novel.
At heart I am a guy
who can talk for hours
about the nuance
of 1999.
Send me the chapter on:
Good evening.
This is your pilot Prince speaking….
I will so talk Purple Rain
with you.
One day,
JM Blaine.
I might be the only Massage Therapist is the world who has “Purple Rain” on her ambiance music shuffle. The clients go nuts for it every time.
It’s Summer.
I’m going to write a whole post
on Prince
so we can all talk.
Yes but
can you talk about that
certain something
what it is about
the Beautiful Ones?
Oh, you can?
I noticed a slogan on my bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce over dinner this evening. It reads: The Sauce Is The Boss. I use this brand of sauce religiously.
I feel the same way about you, JMB. You’re the sauce, man. Cheers.
LRC
i may be the sauce
but you ma’am
are the Boss.
How did I miss this?
Golden.
Like
William Lee.
jm blaine
i’m late to this shindig
but i think i just realized
your magic:
you’re like
midnight mark
in “the boat that rocked”
a man of few,
well-placed
well-thought words,
swarmed by the ladies.
Maybe
Midnight Mark
is like
me.
all the ladies
in the house
say
shhhh
I am
Midnight’s Mark
by far…