Relentless

Well, an old song has ruined my workout this morning.

I'm far from angry.

I went to bed last night at 7:30, my normal time. The plan was to get up at 3:30 this morning and work my upper body before my eighteen mile fast bike commute into work. The afternoon heat, which is far more than just the "heat index" of one-hundred-and-eight, when one adds to it the heat coming off the blazing hot asphalt at four in the afternoon, has left me ravaged these last three days. I've ridden over a hundred and eight miles so far this week. By the end of the week it will be over two hundred miles, which I'm used to yet until recently those long miles were done in the cool of the morning.

My body is adapting, or will, yet until then it's an epic struggle. Maybe I need to back off this morning and just do the ride. It's too late for that decision; it's done and it's really because of this song. Rather than the muscle strain, I engage my brain and write...think of this song, and write.

As my head rested on the pillow last night, I had the headphones on. I don't remember "The Rain Song" but its clear that my mind did. I woke up with it resonating in me like an ear worm. It's just one of those songs. We all know they are no longer made like this; epic and sublime, classic chord and key changes, owing to timeless compositions of the past yet brand new and purely original. A song telling a dreamlike tale, when rock and roll turned inward and considered.

Now, I awake and I consider. I am doing what I do. The writer in me slumbered for so long over so many years and now that writer has awakened and he's not a pleasing fellow. I have a poem stuck in me for the past few days. It has no structure. It has still, no words. It barely has a theme, yet it is there. I know it's there because when I run into pure artistry, the muses of other souls; my own muse tortures me. Subliminally I listen, I read or I watch and as I absorb within the journey of the story, my stomach churns. I am haunted by my own composition while within the realm of another's. It's been happening
the past few days, and like the flu it lingers.

I am not cured until I write and it must be what it must be and nothing less.

It's an illness that won't go away because no matter what I write, I'm not there yet. My stories, my poems, are not "there" yet! I finish writing and sometimes they're close and sometimes the writer muse within relents; gives me a rest, let's me breathe once again. Yet I go back and read, days, weeks, months later and I realize,

"That's not what I wanted to say."

And the muse never stops.

This song invaded my soul last might at a vulnerable time, when the dream world awoke. Now, the muse screams within. Six a.m.; I write hopeless babble now. I pray for Friday to come so that my mind, free of obligations, can find my path again and I can release this poem and I pray it's close to what it really wants to be.

Until then the relentless heat of summer destroys my body and the muse eats at my soul. It dawns on me that the warrior prays for rest and the rested dream of
fighting. Those of us who pray, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" fight on. We scream for mercy yet we continue. Some of us poor souls carry the fight on when we rest, that cruel paradox dreaming of the coming "conquest" instead of letting go.

I have something within that must be shared. From a cloud that shades me in darkness,
sheltering me from the blazing sun, my words rain down in small showers every now and then, disjointed, not focused, yet like the rain constant on a rock, it slowly works itself in, devouring the earth little by little. I carry on, praying for the deluge from within to be released finally. This greedy muse of mine promises rest when that happens. In the meantime, I listen to this song again and my muse works, plies his trade upon me. My bike ride in fifteen minutes will put him to sleep, my work will keep him there, and God knows, the torture of the sun this afternoon will keep him comatose.

But, tonight will come and my head will be on the pillow. I may need to keep the headphones off this night.