The Artist

The Artist

it was a fever at dawn

a slow-motion vertigo

searching for my faith

craving your opposite

ripped from feathery

                daydreams

wading through vague

corrections about what

happened to you

where did you go

fortune’s darling

prophet

pimp

protester

high priest

witness

the artist formally known

with a downcast incertitude

your opulent life and times

softly passes back and forth

between the brokenhearted

trembling through every last

shade of purple

for illumination

for heartsease

where did you go

what does it symbolize

               

            relentless

rigorous

taskmaster

while we wait

while we weep                

the song remains

                                the same

               

this is

truly what it sounds like               

                when Doves cry

**

My phone exploded the day Prince died. I found it hard to believe much like the news of Bowie's passing. Prince was such a large and funky part of my life's soundtrack, I am certain so many others would agree. It took me a few days to process the news. It was unbelievable until I realized that CNN hadn't whispered a word about Donald Trump in almost two days. It was surreal, it still is. I cried watching Stevie Wonder being interviewed. It's a grave loss.  He was music, a level above and beyond genius, and someone who changed music in the most profound of ways. He was a genre unto himself and the world will never see the likes of such a thing again. 

We are losing our icons. 2016 has been a difficult year for the music community and those of us who live for and support it since we were knee-high to grasshoppers. It still pains me to know that this generation will never know how exciting it is to have experienced music before the internet, when it was a rite of passage to stay up late for the Grammy Awards and American Music Awards, music TV ... they were amazing days. The beauty though is that the music, in the case Prince's massive body of work, a timeless discography, will live on, play on and continue to inspire young minds and artists. 

Music does save. It is eternal, even when our icons leave us. That is the blessing and to have ever had them in the first place.

There are so many ways I could have written about Prince but it only seemed to write from an honest and emotional place, the same place where I feel music. 

In propinquity,

Nic