In the Beginning There Were Rugs & Bones

They say poetry is a lonely endeavor, but I beg to differ.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking

Years ago, I was sitting in my chair in Berkeley, California, late at night with a pen in hand.  The words, "rugs and bones" spilled out on the page in a crooked sprawl.  I liked those words, loved them, in fact.  Sometimes, words are ready like that, ready to be put to life.  Where they came from, I'm not really sure and didn't have a clue for years.  They just were there. When I finished, I saw the poem, "Rugs & Bones", had a wild, tribal beat, that it was fun and explosive energy. 

Rugs and Bones

Music, William Fuller and dRAW PiNKY

Lyrics, Viola Weinberg

© Viola Weinberg

When we were young and overblown

We built a house of rugs and bones

On the street of passion dreams

We made the walls of moans and steam

You played the ham, I rang your bones

On rafts of rugs and floors of stone

I'm the master, you're the slave

We have a child he makes us brave

We knew the moment he was alone

Deep in the wall of rugs and bones

And now we drive on roads of steel

To baseball games, hands on the wheel

Stolen bases, sliding home

With balls of rugs and bats of bone

Colors wept from hues to tones

The shade was made from rugs and bones

Soon we'll be old and full of air

With hair so white or head so bare

We'll weave the rugs from dreamy tales

Of men and girls and empty sails

Late at night, misunderstood

Bones white as light in tangled wood

I'll press my lips against your spine

We'll talk of love and speak of time

Think of all the lovely thrones

Where we stood fast with rugs and bones

The very next morning, I typed it up and sent it to William Fuller III, my long-time cohort and collaborator in music and performance.

William Fuller back in the day - courtesy of Ozzie Archives

Bill certainly knew what to do with it.  I have always imagined that, upon receiving such things from me, he puts on a pair of fighting gloves and boxes my flabby words into shape.  But this time, I also imagined it wouldn't be hard work.  The rhythms were strong, the images were vivid; it was ready to go for collaborative process.  Bill is a consummate creator.  I've always had faith in him, and in the other members of the ensemble with whom he works.  In this case, "rugs and bones" quickly became "Rugs & Bones", the poem, then "Rugs & Bones", the song -- for which I am eternally grateful.

http://www.facebook.com/l/5169aHbalq4Ktbc0mZ2I9OoG-CA;www.drawpinky.com/music/ig09_rugs.mp3

Fast forward a few months.  Imagine me, alone in a picturesque cottage a morning stroll away from Puget Sound on Whidbey Island in a writers colony.  That's where the tape was delivered to me.  I quickly left the calm of the residency, loaded it in my car stereo and set the volume on blast.  As I drove around the empty roads of the island on a sparkling day, I felt a real thrill.  Somehow, Bill had kept the beat, kept the sheer energy of it, and made it something greater.  Jane Kennedy Hastings and Bill vocalized (verbalized?) the piece with every shred of fun possible--the music was hip and wild as a March hare.  I thought about it as I drove.  The bones of my previous marriages and a couple of fatally flawed long relationships were embedded in Rugs & Bones, along with my words, the rugs that would always keep me steady and warm.

In collaboration, a fountain of unkillable energy erupted and flared, a beautiful thing.  Bill and Draw Pinky, their band of the time, made it something greater than it could have been in my lonely cottage.  People heard it and loved it when the band performed.  The first time I heard the band perform Rugs & Bones, I remember laughing delightedly, pleased that something written in such monastic quiet could possibly be so entertaining and happy.  I know I've thanked them all years ago for the joy of it, but I have to say it again, thank you. 

I was prompted to write about this by a friend who responded to Rugs & Bones, the blog.  She said she liked the pleasure I seem to receive from writing here, but didn't understand it.  While I don't quite buy that entirely, I think I know what she's saying.  What are Rugs & Bones, anyway?  I have called it personal archeology, a place to think and dig ideas, based on deeply embedded intimate concepts that may be born from the distant past of my own development.  Sometimes, it's out the the primordial soup, sometimes it's a response to something else that pinched my nerve.  Frankly, I hope it's never completely laid bare in the skeletal analysis of literature!  There's a bit to enjoy about a mystery.  I love my rugs and bones.