Keeping the meter running…

Pursuant to my recent quest to write more frequently and keep everything I’ve been thinking about writing top of mind, I submit this quick one.

On Facebook, on a whim I whipped up the below little poem pretty quickly. It reflects what I was thinking about with my recent battles to stay sane in the pandemic as well as (in some degree) my attempt to try to reconcile the Raney family members burden – from Dad, Doug and finally me – to always be perfect, and the inevitable toll it takes when we can’t. I have no illusions anymore, just tremendous new creative energy to straighten out all my shit (Ask my 5 cent therapist, she’ll tell you)

So on the subject of writing & poetry, I know naa- thing. But I think I have pretty good instincts, albeit untrained.

The Divine Madness
Is that
One cannot play God
Or Messenger
Without taking sanity hostage
Taking that energy
All at once
Is a Toxic Cocktail
In deed

So given I know nothing I was wondering, how was I decided when the poem was right/finished? What was my editorial procedure? The instinct to edit and remove? I just sort of wung it.

(winged it? wung it? swing it? swung it?

Fuck it.

Editor please chime in…I’m a wingnut for windings.

Was that a cereal?

help

me…)

So I started looking at my editing sequence and I began to notice a pattern. This poem is in 9. How do I determine that? Well for that I draw on another job skill I’m pretty good with, Excel.

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It now strikes me I have a good reconciliation and modus op for what was driving me into my batty stagnation – that is – the “how” part of how my father comes up with stuff like below (seemingly) off the top of head. The snapshot is from my “white whale” the unpublished Raney Methodology Book:

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Thinking rhythmically was like speaking for him! I know this because I remember attending a highly noted clinic run by Attila Zoller in Brattleboro, VT in 1982 where Dad just started talking about music concepts with the students, then playing to demonstrate what he meant and immediately realizing he was phrasing in 6/4.

So he then went about replaying the exact phrase he played, until he had it and then counting through it. There were quite a few mouths agape to witness this revelation, as – at least at that time – not many people were talking about this. Much less just rattling it off in real time – both spoken and played.

Anyhow, this new theory of rhythm from spoken, intuitive language – as it relates to Jimmy Raney – is a super-important avenue of exploration for me. I know have at least a hook on something to go back into this Raney water and hunt the whale again. Wish me luck.

Cheers,

Jon