EXCERPT from introduction to Day's Night (poems) by Jorge Reyes
Day's Night and other poemsProduct DetailsPaperback: 82 pagesPublisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; First Edition edition (January 3, 2014)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 148121599XISBN-13: 978-1481215992Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches |
INTRODUCTION
Who
wrote these poems?
Once
upon a time, I fell in love with a stranger. It was at a now-defunct
local club in Miami called Pump, the place where these poems were
born. I was't planning on going, but a friend of mine had asked me
to and even though at the last minute she cancelled on me, I went by
myself. Even now years later, often, I close my eyes and still see
myself at that club dancing to that trance music I love so much;
music that awakens my soul to living. The atmosphere that early
morning hour at the club was very intense, edgy, raw; the music had
an intense, hard-pounding beat; bacchanalian music, pagan in nature,
jam-packed with men and women defying the early morning hours of
South Beach. Unbeknown to me as I was dancing someone was observing
me intensily. Suddenly, this stranger pulled me by the arm, looked
me over and asked, Where have you been all these years? I smiled,
laughed nervously. And slowly, oh, so slowly, I opened my eyes and
saw a face I’ll never forget. Thank
you, I said. We chatted. We danced
a bit. We went home….
What
a night and what a day that followed! What beautiful days and nights!
Days fused into weeks filled with passion. For the first time, ever,
passions were awakened in me unlike anything I’d felt before. It
seemed too good to last, and it was.
Day’sNight is a collection of poems about
those days; of crying alone for no good reason; of feeling alone
though surrounded by many people; of being alone in the world, let's
face it, is a lonely place. Mostly, these poems are about the
mental horror and depression I lived through after the end of a
relationship I had idealized like the naïve person I used to be.
Written many years ago, these poems today still have the power to
unrattle me.
Day’s
Night, a fitting title taken right
out from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems, is a collection of poetry
loosely connected to love’s manifold effects.
i
These
poems, however, deal with a troubled mind, mine, lost to itself.
Only then are these poems tangentially related to love; I was a
troubled man lost to himself; writing about a world in chaos and
beyond my own comprehension. (I'd like to think that not all
relationships end like this.) In these pages, you’ll read poems
that are dark and experimental, often written in a state of complete
dejection.
Love,
so closely related to a negation, is known for its capacity to
trigger the very best in you, or its direst opposite. Love is, after
all, a tug of contradictions; an ideal pit against its very
antithesis, reality, and we all know that there is nothing loving
about reality; reality simply is. And in such war, one side wins,
the other side loses. Embroiled in this unexpected battle, all I was
able to do was write—just write. Day’s
Night became my confessional.
These
are my day’s nights. What started as an inconsequential passion
of self-destruction, transformed me forever. Who would have known?
4 comments:
Reyes has always had the ability to turn even his most painful experiences into a work of art. His book on Cuba, though short, was filled with such emotion that it is one of my most memorable books.
From the most intense pain come's beauty and art. These poems are like a work of art, a masterpiece! The author takes you on a painful but poetic journey.
Funny he mentions Pump. It was an underground afterhour club that closed over a decade ago in Miami.
Funny that he mentions Pump, a club I used to attend too. IT was mostly an underground club. It closed down many, many years ago. I remember that it would open at 5 am, and close at 10 am. It was really very raunchy.
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