Phoenix Rising

Dearest Friends & Phoenician Family…Our history is thick as thieves. Shifty like smugglers. Dangerous, dynamic, deadly dealers.  We have dug graves together. And for each other. Out in this barren desert. In every kind of way. In the blistering sun on the hottest day. In the middle of the night with rattlers surrounding. Coyotes howlin’ and vultures waiting. “This is what we do. Sick, hung over, tired or thirsty. We show up & play. We do our best.” By now we are interwoven, a quilt of platonic incest. Accept these facts as gospel & rest. We know them to be true. To you it might be sick & twisted. We love the badness. We see the beauty in our bizarre connections. Absolute love in our collective weirdness. Undeniable ugliness & constant truth reflected. In songs & sonnets you may feel pieces of our stories repeated. Can you hear those cicadas sing? And the bare footsteps crushing shells beneath?  You may scoff or scowl at my station here but I feel blessed. Maybe you feel bitter, angry, jealous. Maybe you fuckin’ hate me because I once screwed your ex. Or you now lay down with mine. Maybe you’re terrified of our once magical & now ancient time. Yet…I feel love for you. All of you.  Every one of you endangered species like me…born, raised, living or loving in this city. All of it. Every bit. Every closed down venue & broken old man bar. All the hours spent as a child digging my heels into hot street tar. Every hole in the wall holding secrets of Southwest Mex. PS…We do in fact have the best. I love the sacred & superior native culture, the canals & old adobe. Kachinas dancing while the women are chanting. Boys on vision quests & medicine men drinking peyote tea. The ghosts that haunt our alleys & the myth that named our valley. Everything here now & all that’s gone, every part of our past is a piece of us. Every tragically talented unknown artist. And under-appreciated musical genius. Along with everyone struggling between.  All the buildings lost to growth & prosperity. Every legend from our outlaw history. All the crazy encounters & bizarre beautiful unique individuals. Every cactus falling over. Rotted & dying yet breeding new life in the clay dirt. You may see death, chaos & depravity here but I see the miracle of rebirth. I see the tortured thriving against the elements. I see desert creatures basking in a shallow pool of crystal clear content. You may only see a bird on fire, only feel the heat & the scorpion sting. But in each one of us & in every 120 degree day…I see a Phoenix Rising.  
 
“This is what we do….” –Tiniest bit modified 2007 Quote by Vince Bocchini(RIP)  
 
Written August-September 14th 2018.