06 July 2006

Bluesy Blues



Muscle and bone, just a routine miracle in carbon and water
stardust capable of greatness but condemned to obscurity.
Notionally intelligent while screaming insane.
Excuse me while I break my own heart.

Gimme a bitter placebo or slip me a strong panacea.
Just gimme pretend meds to mend my pretend head,
a wasted waster wasting his decades.
Excuse me while I numb my own heart.

Stinging tears screamed and howled away on racing rubber.
Needle reaches vertical and my knee trails the blacktop
leaning hard into a long fast bend.
Excuse me while I smash my own heart.

An ocean evening hot and humid, deep and tight, wet and smooth,
shuddering. Sparkling waves, deliciously soft pressing sand.
Rolling to stare at the cold "maybe" stars.
Excuse me while I stamp on my heart.

Biting the top off a bottle would be so fucking simple.
Calendar, yearbook, milestones and pledges swallowed.
A screeching halt at the precipice edge.
Excuse me while I consider my heart.


"There goes my hero, he’s ordinary…"
Foo Fighters - My Hero

16 comments:

Anna Piutti said...

That picture is simply amazing!

Your verses are strong.They sometimes sound like a "reined" stream of consciousness.
I sense some kind of bitter humor in the final line that's both hilarious and heartbreaking (just to stay in theme).
I like the alliterations, too.

Anonymous said...

i read this again and again... but, i still don't know what it all means. i want the whole story. tell me where you bleed.

excuse me while i examine your heart.

Neetee said...

Your words are so strong and beautifully written about the contrasts in life, the kind of contrasts that convinces one to travel right to the edge of comprehension and bewilderment.

You write this complex dialogue with such ease. It's the kind of dialogue that a translator would have trouble verbalizing though the feeling was clear.

It's amazing. It's quite impressive. It's a brilliant piece.
Thank you for sharing your uniqueness with us little brother.

Perfect Virgo said...

Anna - I took the photograph 3 years ago on holiday in Florida. If you enlarge it I notice there are birds flying near the horizon line.

As the verses spewed out I realised some irony would soften the hard edge hence the final line.

Jane - my obfuscation is not clever just deliberately obtuse. A 6:30 read would detain you but when you pull up your chair later it'll be clearer.

I bleed in my heart. Examine it with your careful hand and give me your prognosis. See how it fits uncomfortably in my body, can it be re-aligned? Should I surrender it? Take me in a side ward and tell me your wisdom. Why has my rate slipped to a beat every 22 years?

Neetee - for a long time I trod the quiet path and looked neither left nor right. A straight ahead view leaves no room for confusion. Even a dangerous glance will alight on agony or ecstacy so I used the last line in each stanza as a grab-rail to hold on to. Thank you for your encouragement.

Russell CJ Duffy said...

hiding your light no longer which, as far as your blog mates are concerned, has to be a good thing.
stream of consciousnes indeed.
brilliant PV.

Anonymous said...

oh dear. this is serious isn't it? come into my infirmary and let me mend your broken heart. i can't determine a cause, but i'm sure my treatment will be effective none the less. i have already received your file concerning patient history, but i will need a current assessment before offering a prognosis. all fees will be waved due to your desperate condition. i am patiently awaiting your arrival.

Perfect Virgo said...

CJ - hid my light under a bushel all my life, old chap. Then it sputtered and went out. Bummer.

Sirreene - Join in the chorus then, sing up!

Perfect Virgo said...

Jane - deadly serious. The ailment is clearly of the cardiac sort as your exploratory touch has diagnosed. I have submitted ten separate sheets of supplementary notes (of an extremely detailed nature) but a nurse tells me they have not arrived. This perplexes me and makes me worry my heart right out. I am screaming but somehow it is coming out as a silent whisper.

Anonymous said...

I hear every muffled sound. I am anxiously waiting for the noise to move closer and become clearer. Thump-thump. I know it's working at least.

Perfect Virgo said...

Jane - I just had a visit from the doc which reassured me... no danger of flat-line so it seems worth putting in a food order from tonight's menu. An insistent bleep reminds me the beat goes on. The muffled gurgling of lifeblood from one ventricle to the other is strangely comforting.

Perfect Virgo said...

Sirreene - thank you. The patient took some powerful medication and is regaining some of his customary composure in a convalesent room. "bleep"

Elena Horowitz-Brookes said...

Your words are so powerful and alarmingly real, I had to console myself by reading some of the others more light hearted comments and your spirited answers. Yes, my big bro is still heartily in the game! Silvermoon's comment really says so much of what I feel about this. I love your "beat" style of writing here. You are truly a gifted, brilliant writer PV and here you have accomplished pushing this human heart to the edge of that "precipice" with you.

Perfect Virgo said...

Silvermoon - thank you for your kind thoughts. A strong heart can still be fragile and in need of surgery. I hate hospitals but sometimes my own self-therapy is just not enough.

I'm pleased the sunset appeals to your photographer's keen eye.

Boulies - "take it to the limit" urged The Eagles. Getting dragged to the edge of free-fall is scary and I am in deep debt to a broken-heart surgeon. Thanks for reading and knowing about hearts.

JJ said...

Hey bro - I love you! And I see you too.
JJ
PS: You know where I am if you need me.

Anonymous said...

Perfect,

Truly I unuderstand, I do. I am pleased to see that you are writing it down and letting it out enough for me to know what you mean.

Me? I'm holding it in but you gave me an idea to stop the tears I hide.

..at 136 as the trees blow by me, I can halt all these tears that come from inside me. Bobbing, weaving and scraping the peg is just what I need to get out of this head...thank you for touching my heart...

For now at least I know where it's coming from, yet another disease to steal those I love. When will it end.

I hate seeing people who have struggled all their lives finally pull it together and get back on track only to have life whisked away, it kills me inside to try and be strong, to keep my head high to help them make it though. Its selfish I know, but what can I do....

more later

Perfect Virgo said...

JJ - thank you. I am recovering well.

Doughgirl - 136 is reckless but exhilarating. Into a blinding setting sun is even better, cranked hard over in 6th at 12,000rpm. Do or die. This week I decided to do. The drinking reference is just that, a reference. An old memory of ingrained behaviour.