My daily train in SoCal crashed. I have to admit that part of me wants to have been on that train. What a grand adventure it could have been.

Yesterday’s show was bloody wonderful. C.R. gets on stage and I fill with pride because he’s come so far, he’s got a chance again to make things happen. It’s like a little gift from somebodies heaven. A beatbox angel, judging the world to not be quite well enough for his daughter. Thrilling glow spreading from the mike to the room, smiles erupting erasing everyone’s shame to cry. I’ve been around so long I remember when it was almost too hard for him. A forever uphill battle to get the show on the road, because it ain’t poetry, it’s rock and roll. It was like touching something special, a peal of soul thunder blues, glorious. I can’t explain the movement of it, the flow and move your body feel of it. On my daughters fifth birthday, I gave her a doll house and a pocket knife. Harmonica, false drum machine effects spitting from his tongue. I finally understand what it means to have your heart swell. I carried her around one day, when she was almost too small to walk. Last night C.R. shined with a star quality, he made some people die.

It was a little like watching Shane. It’s unreal how silence falls when he’s speaking. His skill with words is meaningful matchless. It’s like he’s cruel to have us sit and listen. It’s animation and spirit incarnate. I remember stories of magic, fantasies spun from the finest silks, when he mouths them to life. It’s pain and desire spun into one to make us laugh and it hurts. There’s a certain something in the way he says things. I wish I had the words, but I have nothing like his. In this forever I will be a girl in his shadow. They ring with fire and passion and he means what he says. He’s got a book coming out soon and I trust it will be a bible. It’s like sparks flash off his hands as he gestures in a little bit of wanting fury. Sometimes I think I’m his little dream and sometimes he agrees with me. For years he’s softly haunted me. Last night he quietly dedicated something to me in a way that no one else could see then met my eyes before launching into his poem about his mother. Write, hand, write. I will forever be sorry that she died while I was away. We cried together in the hallway after. It’s an odd friendship, but I should have been here. The power in his speaking, it takes you over, winding in your ears and holding on with hooks in darkness made of light. I have never heard anyone more transporting. I don’t think it’s possible. I wish I could show you more than just a little piece of video of him winning some finals or a piece for the CBC. I wish I could take your hand and drag you to him, to see this gift, this symphony. I’m scared one day my name will appear, but I don’t think it’s in the unwritten rules. Somewhere out there he’ll say it, but I’ll be far away. On the wind I’ll hear a faint In Excelsia and gauge it rightly in admiration. Poems as music, as the finest tradition. The devils tongue encased in a brilliant frame.