I. [Race medals on wall or just race medals] Two thousand nine was quite the year for me I finished Boston twenty-six point two And Ironman, the race, I did all three The swim, the bike, the run, my ego grew Caught up in all my training I forgot That life was more than just some storied race But Kona’s Ironman was what I sought I didn’t think that I would fall from grace The grace of one more medal on my wall From one more race as hard as it might be I didn’t think that I would ever fall But fall I did and how I fell you’ll see They saved my life when I was nearly dead A TBI persists within my head.
II. [Hospital image in bed] My helmet saved my life but brains will bleed And scars will form in place of what we know New neural pathways form to meet the need Of “normalcy” a “normal” brain might show My normal was my racing, which was lost Paralysis replaced my “normal” self I had to learn to walk again, the cost Was more than unused shoes upon my shelf I had to learn to eat without a tube I had to learn to walk without a cane I had to learn I wasn’t just some rube I had to learn to use a broken brain A broken brain that used to be so bright I learned my “normalcy” was this: to write. III. [Hand writing in notebook] What else but racing had I done before? Before my TBI changed everything I’d written sonnets. Could I write one more? One little song a troubadour might sing Resiliency requires that I write Again like I had written once, when whole Not whole? I know, I seem a “normal” sight But I have lost and found a lofty goal My goal’s now this, to write in storied verse The tales of all that I have stood to live I’ve learned that life is more than to rehearse And life has many stories left to give Thoreau said I should live before I write I’ve lived through death so Henry, let’s not fight! IV. [Human heart with "iamb" emerging from it like a song] My name is more than just an anagram Sonnettics is the way I choose to live A sequence made of sonnets is the dram I drink, I write. It’s what I have to give Iambic lines sound like a beating heart A beating heart sounds like a subtle drum Familiar pulses fill my veins with art I hear them find their words and watch them come They find their way around my TBI They find a way to bleed out on the page I hear them talk, at least I think they try The words are gods whose confidence is sage The wisdom of familiar words to sing Is how I’ve learned to deal with everything. V. [A plowed field with iambic words or a verse of pentameter… maybe the first line of this sonnet] Resilience is a sonnet that I write To help my brain find pathways it once knew Resilience won’t be easy, but it might Be how I learn to do the things I do Like walk or write a sonnet: here’s one now I know we’re in the middle of a tale A tale of sonnets, dirt before the plow The plow is me before you to regale Regale you with the hope of what I plant I hope the seeds I scatter here will grow And then I hope the harvest won’t be scant True hope is like a secret that I know I know to share my life in metered verse And hope it doesn’t go from bad to worse! VI. [Some image of a poet..maybe you in a kilt… on a cloud] I know it doesn’t seem a lofty goal Like running Boston Marathon or such A poet pays a dithyrambic toll To write in sonnets (or to write too much) More sonnets than the Bard of Avon did More time to write than Dante spent in hell If hell were fourteen lines in which we hid The price of all the metaphors we’d sell The poet might descend in hopes to rise To rise to heaven to entreat the Word Then metaphorically I might disguise My soul with verses God might find absurd But God knows how to laugh, a hearty sound And laughs as all the angels fly around. VII. [Brain] I saw them fly to Earth and pick me up I saw them hold me back from life’s last leap And every card they dealt me was a cup Each dealt me an emotion I should keep For TBI had stripped emotions clean The cards were my prostheses, mine to hold I held them to my chest, each one I’d seen I might have lost such precious veins of gold The gold of my emotions, unrefined Was mine to keep in neural pathways new Emotions had been lost but not my mind I found a purpose, what I had to do I had to find the stories I could tell And Dante-like I had to go through hell. VIII. [Brain surrounded by stars] The hell of finding pathways ‘round my scars The scars that blocked the pathways of my brain But even in such hell I saw new stars That marked the pathways where I stood to gain To gain a poet’s life I’d been prepared To gain a life at all, I didn’t die At times it’s true that I was very scared It’s not some phony story to deny Denial is any easy path to walk But I had run as hard as I could go If medals on my wall could somehow talk They’d tell the world of challenges they know The challenge now is writing songs of art And finding stories deep within my heart. IX. [Scott writing poetry with medical team in the background] I think that most good poets start with doubt I found my doubt that year I almost died I learned that words could not be lived without As there I laid with no one by my side Oh, there were doctors, nurses, quite a few I love them all, for by their art I healed They fixed my poet’s brain, but never knew The poetry my broken brain concealed Within my mind, my poetry was lost I journeyed there through seas of doubt and pain I paid the piper, such an angry cost So that I might be whole and write again They couldn’t heal my doubts, that job was mine Such doubts constrain, confuse, and yes, confine. X. [Scott writing. Fates in the background.] The poetry I sought was to unbind Like Kubla Khan to Xanadu I fled The sacred river Alph I sought to find In words that I composed while still in bed I spent my time with words; each word was god I rearranged these gods to make them sing A little song that mortals might enjoy I found what my mortality might bring To bring the knowledge needed of the now The now my chronoception can't conceal Resiliency is more than Fates allow And so I write in hopes I might reveal Reveal to all who read or hear and feel That poems too are gods of words that heal. XI. [Scott writing in hell] Let’s focus on the sonnet now to see If songs of words with some familiar beat Might amplify my own resiliency Or if they should have left me on the street Do iambs come in groups of more than five Are neural scars poetic in my brain I guess I’m glad that I am still alive Regardless of the death of unseen pain The volta of my life, a TBI Is part of the great sonnet of my life I write my little songs, at least I try Regardless of the scheme of hidden strife It doesn’t make a lot of sense, oh well Like Dante I still write while deep in hell. XII. [Scott writing under a rainbow] The hell I’ve come to know and overcome Is finding life in sonnets that I write So why then write? Is writing sonnets “dumb” They may not heal my brain, and yet, they might Resiliency in hell that no one sees Is more than just the writing of such verse And normalcy is more than just to please The people who believe that they’ve seen worse So, worse than any hell that I’ve been through Would be to stop composing little songs I write, I write, I write; it’s what I do Pentameter is where my soul belongs My heaven of pentameter is this: A broken brain that’s found it’s normal bliss. XIII. [Sonnettics in the middle of a circle. The circle has hearts around it or is made up hearts brains] Chiasmus is returning to the start It’s like a circle showing us the way I think I found the way through this my art The art of sonnets since that fateful day Iambic blood goes pulsing through my brain And through my heart, my soul, and through my pen The neural pathways I propose to train Are sonnets I will write and write again Familiar as my name, I’ve found they help To bring me back from places I have gone A bitch called out to this poetic whelp Like Xanadu called out to Kubla Khan The similes and metaphors are real When I compose the sonnets that I feel. XIV. [?] I am my song, my pulse, my turn, my scheme If that constricts your mind then you should leave I’m more than just a vision or a dream In which some simple acolytes believe And yet, I’m not a temple on a hill I’ve seen too many temples come and go To make pretenses which I can’t fulfill Pretend I sound like somebody you know I am iambic meter at my core Pentameter I place where it belongs A sonneteer and yet I’m so much more Much more than I express in little songs I’m fourteen lines, and yes, a volta too You think you thought you knew me, now you do.
