By Bob Devin Jones
. . .
“CHAT”
. . .
June focus on Arts and Healing
. . .
When she wrote “Speak so you can speak again”
Zora Neale Hurston, jarred the floor
she urged that all of all of us, everyone of us
need to share our voice
our truth
in order to breath
. . . . in order to live
in order to get some…
life…
some love…
some nuance
some sweet honey in the rock
You have to jar the floor
You have to give vox to this existence, right here!
right in the instant
prophetic and the profane
It is essential for creation, to ponder out loud
and to make a joyful noise about it
. . .
. . .
. . .
I jar the floor
. . . . with somewhat plaintive, demonstratively emphatic pleas
it is almost always and in all ways, for me at any rate
a cry of the heart,
from the heart, albeit sly, deeply ironic, often witty
and a little bit anxious
it is where most all of my desire for human connection and communication emanates from
It resides in my heart
. . . . like a possum in repose or one pretending to be
I chat therefore I am
I scream as much to be heard as to be seen… to feel
to get down to the gritty, nitty
the antediluvian impulse for us humans to expiate in sound
like other mammals
even a grunt has tantric release
to unburden…
To share if you will what we see or imagine beyond the horizon
my hear is freighted with joy as well as pain
and thanksgiving and homecoming
most often it is the pain
that ballasts the joy
the joy that releases the deliciousness of life
what Lady Macbeth refers to
. . . . as the propensity of the
heat oppressed brain to confess… to speak… to connect
to chat
to speak
to jar the floor
. . .
. . .
. . .
I was nine and one half days in hospital
in hospital
in the ICU (summer of 2020) with the covid
icu delirium
icu bedlam
icu isolation…
. . . . my mobile phone malfunctioned
actually I dropped it
I dropped it
I dropped it
and it dropped me
I was desperate to chat,
. . . . with anyone beyond the four walls
of my hospital room
and as I had dropped my link to the outside
I dropped my ability to chat
I believed or at least I thought I believed
. . . . that I was in hospital only for two days
alas, it was nearly ten
which is much closer to a dozen than just two
I could not make my mobile phone connect to my contact list
so I copied down (on a desperate napkin) the three numbers I could recall
. . . . my work
. . . . my partners mobile
and our home number in the Old Southeast
irrespective of time of day, I dialed
I dialed these three numbers incessantly, leaving incoherent
sonnets of desperations
eventually the mobile stopped working entirely
it ran out of juice
I dropped it and it crippled all incoming
and outgoing calls…
. . .
. . .
. . .
I lay in the hospital bed staring at the walls and the ceiling
gradually sound began to drift away from me
the slow drip and the ambient welter of my life ebbing away
no sound was coming in
and all sound was going out, I could feel the slow drip
and all
all that was going away from me…
life was becoming quiet
and I was becoming silent
well it hushed me
I was becoming fainter by the second
and everything I tried to keep purchase of
. . . . was going out in an alarming calm,
. . . . not in a frantic
but rather like surf retreating from the shore
that cinematic moment in a tsunami, where any sort of escape becomes impossible
odd to observe, nearly impossible to understand
and futile to avoid
and just at that precise moment
when I arrived at the nadir of my solitude
where I could no longer perceive any noise
or make any sound
my journey under protection of life’s song had ceased
I had slipped ever so fleetingly to the other side…
of what it is to be alive
a liminal state of non-Earthly desiring
however brief
I can’t really say I was frightened
I was concerned…
there was a chair in this other where place
that had my name on it
I did not however take a seat
nor did I run… well I couldn’t, so I stood… silent
curious
greedy…
perhaps to taste one last glimmer of noise…
sound
and then I did,
I heard it
the chat that is life
I felt the sound come back to me
very slow and faint at first
then distinct, not really urgent
just rather incessant and oh so necessary…
. . .
Here are just a few necessary places to get your chat on
. . .
Tombolo Books
Black Crow
Craft Kafe
Keep St Pete Lit
Factory/Fairgrounds
OG’s, Kahwa Coffee and Studio@620
. . .
