Irresistable

       This being the last day of April, which is International Poetry Month, it feels appropriate to post a poem that I’ve been afraid to publish.
       This poem happened fast. So fast, in fact, that I didn’t have time not to write it.
       The inspirational flash, as exciting as it was, immediately brought me somewhere I didn’t want to go. But that’s part of the beauty and the beast of the creative process; we don’t always know where we are going to end up. We may recognize parts of the journey; or it may be a foray into completely unknown, even hostile, territory.
       This poem started from the end and worked its way to the beginning. The last line came to me first. The word unnerved me. Male ego immediately got in the way and told me that, under no circumstances, could I admit this reality to anybody. Including myself. I couldn’t even admit this to any.....thing. Including the universe. Just writing it down violated some sacred code of macho control. Forget letting another human being know it. And the world at large? Out of my fucking mind.
       The deeper the place that we create from, the greater the potential for some sort of internal upheaval. And thus, the greater potential for healing. Getting to what’s going on inside of us can be a major challenge in itself. Owning it is another step; sometimes a giant step. Awareness is always first, without which no other steps are possible. But just being aware of something is not enough. Because just being aware of something does not necessarily lead us to creation or to healing.
       Once you are aware of it, you have to own it. That means you can’t just stand there, looking at this awareness, this discovery. You have to wrap your arms around it, embrace it, get to know it. That’s owning it. That can take time. That can be a process. Or it can happen instantly.  
       When I owned this word that came from deep within me, this word that scared me to death, I opened myself up to the possibility of creating something from it. I created the possibility of healing from it. Only when I wrapped my arms around it was I able to create. Like getting pregnant, you can’t do it from across the room. You have to get up real close, wrap yourself around each other, and make love. The creation of life. The creation of art. Creation, period.

I ache for a word

One
Single
Word

To describe my whole experience of you

So I go to a pace
That I am afraid to go

And the word I hear

Scares me
Excites me

Empties me
Inspires me

Haunts me
Smiles at me

Overwhelms me
Elates me

The word I hear

Makes me shake
Until I dance

Makes me cry
Until I laugh

Makes me hide
Until I’m found

I can not wrap myself around this word
Anymore
Than I can wrap myself around
You

Ultimately
You are
To me

Irresistible

Irresistible

Irresistible

        - Clint Piatelli, 2012

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

I Know It's Only Rock N' Roll

       Getting ready to go out the other day, the movie Almost Famous was on the television, playing in the background. In the middle of brushing my teeth, I was suddenly assaulted by the opening notes of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”. Then, what’s happened a million and one times, happened again; something in my soul stirred; something in my heart caught fire; something in my mind exploded; something in my body felt unstoppable. Music took me away to that magic place once again. I literally had to stop brushing and just let the experience soak in.
        The loves of my life have seen this happen to me. I shared one ex-girlfriend's writings about it in a post called The Original Mistress Music. Some of my lovers have been able, in those moments, to crawl inside me. And I love it when they do. Because now she’s part of this magnificent experience with me. Now I’m intimately connected to her, sharing one of the most powerful events in my life, with her. I’m no longer alone in those sacred moments. Now it's the three of us. Me. Her. Music. Just like watching a sunset by yourself is beautiful, but watching it with someone you love brings the experience to a whole new level.  
       This connection and sharing is important to me because, the only other thing on earth besides music that does this to me is.......her. The only other thing that can bring me to that place, that can stir my insides so magically and powerfully, that can enchant me so utterly and completely, is her. My woman’s love for me, like mistress music, makes me at once her slave and powerful beyond measure. She does that to me. I want her to know that. I want her to see that. And I want her to love me madly for it......

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Love Smiles

  

       Early this morning, whilst at The Daily Brew in Cataumet, Massachusetts (my favorite coffee shop on the planet), I thought of this picture, and the phrase "there's a smile in our eyes" came to me. Just that one simple line. Then, I wrote this poem. In, literally, under five minutes. It flowed out of me effortlessly, and I changed very few words or phrases once I put them to the page. When inspiration this powerful hits me, it feels like Creative Divine Intervention. And it brings me to tears. Every. Single. Time. 

LOVE SMILES

There’s a smile in our eyes
Born of real love
It comes from within
It comes from above

My heart was so full
In this moment of joy
The man that I am
Living lovingly with the boy

No conflict
No strife
No doubt and no turmoil
A precious moment in time
That nothing could spoil

When I think of all the time I wasted
Not connecting with my brothers
I am filled with a sadness
And a pain like no other

But that quickly passes
When I feel our connection
It’s never too late
For such delicious redemption

To those who I love
Let me say from my heart
If I’ve pushed you away by my foolishness
Let me make a fresh start

When I fall
I get up
When I fail
I go at it again
This is the way of love
And it never ends......

                - Clint Piatelli, April 25, 2013

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

All Of Me

       A few days after my mother died in May of 2012, my nephew Steven had a gig in South Boston. On Mother's Day, actually. All of my siblings and I decided to go.
       At that time, I was still estranged from everyone in my family, except for my sister Cheryl and my mom. Prior to my mother’s death, the five of us, meaning all of my siblings, hadn’t been in the same room together for years. So agreeing to all attend this event was no small feat.
       At the gig, my twin brother Mike and I got up on stage with my nephew and did a few tunes with him. Mike and I used to play in a bands together. Lots of bands. Over many years. But it had been a long time since I shared the stage with him.
       My family is extremely musical. Kind of like The Osmonds without all the Mormon bullshit. We all have vast talent, passion, and an irresistible gravitation towards music. Most of us are involved in actively playing live music, to varying degrees, as of this writing. Thus, there is a powerful common connection between us all that transcends the strife and pain and mayhem of the last ten years of our collective relationships.
       Not long after my mother’s death, when, at the time, there was little communication or expressed love, we all reconciled. Music played a role in this story, because it was one very powerful common area that we all connected to. Like a hub of beautiful flowers ringed by a pile of horse shit.  
       The song in the video is entitled “All Of Me”. It’s one of the greatest love songs ever written, which has stood the test of time. Appropriate that a great love song is being performed by my nephew, my twin brother, and I. For there is, and always has been, a great love between us. Even if it was buried beneath a lot of hurt, bad behavior, and misunderstanding.
       “All Of Me” emotes the passion of a man who is literally giving himself, all of himself, to the woman of his heart’s desire. He’s saying; “I’m here. I’m showing you everything I’ve got. Take it. Take it all. Take ME, baby. Because without you, my complete giving of this priceless gift doesn’t mean much.”
       It’s a romantic and impassioned plea for the acceptance of one’s whole being; a total giving of such love that it staggers my senses. And yet here it is, this priceless gift of love and self being offered, completely and freely. As though he were offering a Tootsie Roll to a kid.
       That’s what great love songs are made of. That’s what great love relationships are made of.

 Thanx, Boo, for the nice camera work.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, Steve Memmolo, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.

Zen Continuum

       Polarization: a very western concept. Eastern cultures don’t dichotomize with the concepts of Either/Or, and Black/White, like westerners do. Instead, the Zen of Both/And is rooted into the philosophy of Buddhism and other eastern religions. The Yin and Yang concept from Chinese philosophy describes how seemingly opposite, contrary, or polarized forces are interconnected and interdependent. What we westerners see as dichotomized, or opposing forces, eastern cultures see as complimentary elements interacting to create something far greater than either separate part. Shadow can not exist without light.
       I continue to examined my own internal struggle with polarization. Like many of us, I tend to polarize what appear to be opposing forces. When I do that to elements of my own personality, my own behavior, my own self, I can get into big trouble; I can lose myself. If I see parts of myself as opposite, and I create the Either/Or paradigm, then I create a reality where I can’t be both. But I am both. So who the hell am I? Because I make it an Either/Or, I doom myself to internal strife, no matter what.
       More than one person has described me as a contradiction. And at times, I do indeed experience myself as a contradiction. So f I am polarizing myself, I’m going to project that. Which is not to say that even if I don’t polarize myself, I won’t still be seen as a dichotomy to some. If people are not conscious of their own need to polarize, it doesn’t matter how I show up. They are not going to know who I am, for they are going to see me as a contradiction, regardless of what I’m projecting. I have no control over that. All I can do is resolve myself to myself. If I show up more whole, I’ve done my job. I can’t do theirs.
       As far back as high school, I’ve been aware of elements of my personality that may come off as opposites, or contradictory. I’ve bumped up against that my whole adult life. But every time I hit that wall, I come away with a clarity that I previously missed.
       Frame behavior and emotions on a continuum, like this:

   
       To keep it simple for demonstration sake, let’s say at one end, there is the capacity to experience pain. On the other end, there is the capacity for joy, love, excitement. The circles at the ends represent the very edges of our own individual capacity. And let’s say most people’s capacity is represented by the length of the line above. Most of us never push the edges of that, so we actually live in place represented by the two vertical lines. That is where we spend most of time, emotionally and behaviorally.  
       My objective, with myself and with people I work with in MuscleHeart, is to not only expand the overall length of that continuum, so that our capacity for feelings and behaviors are greater, but to move the vertical limiters out further as well, so that we push our own envelopes more often. We can be in that space of greater feeling, more vibrant self expression, and freer behavior, more of the time.
       Visually, it would look like this:  

       Essential in this new paradigm is that we don’t polarize the ends. The visual above is imperfect because it appears that whatever is at one end is opposite of what’s on the other end. But that’s only if we polarize. If we take a more Zen approach to the whole diagram, then we see the ends as complimentary, not opposites.
       Our capacity for incredible freedom of behavior, love, joy, excitement, can only exist if we also have that same capacity to feel pain. That doesn’t mean we have to spend the same amount of time in pain as we do in joy to “balance it out”. But it does mean we have the capacity to feel that much pain. And that when we do, we feel it all the way. We don’t shut it off or shut it down in order to not feel as much.
       The truth is, if we limit our capacity to feel intense pain, we limit our capacity to feel intense joy and love. The same goes for our behavior. We increase our capacities for all types of behavior, across the entire continuum. What we actually do, how we behave, is another step. We get to choose our behavior, based on many factors. What we open up is our capacity for different behavior. We vastly expand our choices.
       Love and sex are great arenas to demonstrate this. How far are you willing to push your own envelope, in loving another and being loved? How willing are you to push your own envelope in the bedroom? Are you willing to tap into deep desires and passions and act on them? Are you willing to dig deep, explore, and expand?
       It’s worth it. Trust me.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All rights reserved.