a dark mind’s season
has never-ending self-doubt,
formed such rough visions
How to Write a Haiku in English Form
A haiku for this week’s Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge of ROUGH and Season.
© 2020 Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
© 2020 Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
Sometimes I look and search for a story to tell.
Walk down the same lines, find I’m unwell.
But is that really the case of what I really and truly am to be?
Or is it something else other people have planned for me?
I know I’m not great inside, making confessions and fail.
But does that mean that I am really unwell?
Only time will tell.
Music, songs, lyrics and their meanings. Anyone that can write a novel in the space of a chorus and a few verses has my envy. Some people have said I should do something with some of my lyrical poetry. Can’t write or play music so that’s kind of a brick wall. Besides, my story is always the same.
Today’s song came out of left field. I was not really feeling any of the Beatles songs I was looking at and I really wanted a song writer. Billy Joel was suggested but then one of the best song writers of the modern era came to mind and I ended up with Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty. It helps I’ve seen them in concert at least twice.
Unwell.
On the live DVD Show: A Night in the Life of Matchbox Twenty, Rob Thomas states that he wrote the song as a metaphor for humanity in general, a song for people who are “messed up and feel alone like that. We all feel a little messed up sometimes… you’re not alone.”-Wikipedia
I just rediscovered this song today. As I read the lyrics, as I do first when looking for a song to connect to and share, every line hit with me. Though I don’t ride the train, being in public in lines of any type is a train of sorts.
Wearing sunglasses everywhere I go and earplugs 24 hours a day 7 days a week and in public draws glances and kids stare at you. You hear the whispers. “What’s wrong with that man?” Up to that point you trick yourself into thinking nothing is wrong.
I don’t remember things from before but I know feelings of situations. For a man who at one time total strangers would say “You stay here near that man while I run into the restroom” at an amusement park now being that man that there is something wrong with, that’s the unwell part. It’s not the actual problem that is the problem, it’s the problem people make out of the problem that’s the problem. That’s what makes me unwell.
Reading the lyrics, yeah I stare at the ceiling, finding those familiar shadows. I know where the spot that reminds me of a puppy is. I also can look at the designs in the floor and find the clown face or the robot.
Am I headed for a breakdown? Probably. I haven’t stepped over that line yet but I can see it and the chalk has been blurred a bit. I am unwell. I discover how to be well but then unwell happens. Sure, I’ve become the master of appearances. Look at Rob Thomas. All those lines inside of him. He taps into something to come up with these great lyrics. Great lyrics come from a genuine place. Is Rob unwell, or was he when he wrote this song? How is he now?
I’ve resigned myself to unwell. I’m okay with it. I don’t sleep much. Sometimes none, sometimes 2 hours. Occasionally I will get 5 in. Less than 4 is the norm. The rest of the time is spent writing and reading, both of which I am not really supposed to be doing if I want to be well. But you know what?
No
Way
Am I going to stare at the ceiling
All
Day
Waiting for the
Break
Down
Everyone knows is on the way.
Stop comparing me,
To who I used to be.
All day staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
Feeling like I’m headed for a breakdown
And I don’t know why
But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know right now you can’t tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me
I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be, me
I’m talking to myself in public
Dodging glances on the train
And I know, I know they’ve all been talking about me
I can hear them whisper
And it makes me think there must be something wrong with me
Out of all the hours thinking
Somehow I’ve lost my mind
But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know right now you can’t tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me
I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be
I’ve been talking in my sleep
Pretty soon they’ll come to get me
Yeah, they’re taking me away
But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know right now you can’t tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me
I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired
I know right now you don’t care
But soon enough you’re gonna think of me
And how I used to be
Hey, how I used to be
How I used to be
Well, I’m just a little unwell
How I used to be
How I used to be
I’m just a little unwell
Ronovan The Unwell but You Can’t Tell
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I know it will happen. Heaven knows my son comes home with things all the time. One day he even came home after some older kid hit him in the face with a base from the baseball field. Kid just picked it up and slammed ‘B’ in the face.
The kid was fortunate. You see the kid is a little taller, but ‘B’ is one strong kid, and his first instinct is not to come out swinging . . . yet. His first thought is, “Why in the world did you do that, you idiot?” He has a reputation that is such the other kid was in serious trouble even though no teacher saw it. Yeah, it’s a school where a teacher has to witness things, but not this time. It was a bit obvious what had happened, and my son isn’t known to be a liar about things like this. He actually never complains.
I’m the kind of dad that says to his 10 year old son, okay he was 9 at the time, “Okay, get on your bike and ride as fast as you can off the end of the porch.” I figure if he falls, he’ll be fine and he’ll see it is just a fall. Okay, so it isn’t but like a foot off the ground, but he thought it was like huge. He was always worried about falling on his bike because of the whole protective mother thing. Having been a boy and knowing that even running into a tree with my bike didn’t kill me, I am of the mind to let the boy go and fall and get back up and have fun. In fact they have more fun then because they can take a little more of a chance knowing that a fall is just a fall. This past summer was great for ‘B’. Bikes, chopping through vines to clear away Grandma’s hedges, climbing ladders. Oh, the ladder? I’ll get to that ladder, I mean later. (Anyone want to shuck some corn, cause I got lots more where that came from.)
I put out an article yesterday about my son not playing football and included information about concussions and a certain football team and the actions of the coach and trainers. Well, here is the problem I have with the way football is, it’s the coaching and the staff I have a problem with. I got hurt playing football, baseball, and basketball. I got hurt riding my skateboard. I got hurt picking a book up off my bed. Okay so that last one was in my 30s, I think, and I already had back problems, but you get where I am coming from here.
Hurts happen, but there are degrees of things that can be avoided if a coaching staff does their job properly. The quarterback should not have been allowed to continue the game. He was in a condition where he could have been hit again and permanently damaged. That’s the problem I have. A fully aware quarterback has a difficult enough time as it is avoiding 300 pound monsters, a badly shaken up, glassy eyed one could end up in the hospital.
My college football team is UGA, The University of Georgia Bulldogs. Last year we had a great quarterback, broke all kinds of records. What did he do to end his time at UGA as a member of the team with no more than like 3 games left? He tore an ACL and didn’t leave the game. He kept playing one or two more plays. That wasn’t the coaching staff because all he did was limp. The quarterback had this mindset that can come into play in some competitive sports. UGA isn’t one of those ‘push the player while they are hurt’ schools. I’ve taught the Head Coach’s kids. My son interacts with another coach’s kids. In other words I know the products of the people behind the scenes.
I don’t mind my son getting hurt. It happens. I even let him climb a ladder to get his ball off the edge of the roof, of course with me below him and holding him. He thought that was the coolest thing ever. And yeah, I had to stop him from trying to climb on the roof. He’s crazy like that at times. And he has learned to hit the brakes on his bike and slide it around, he calls it drifting. Thank you The Fast and The Furious. Wait, he hasn’t seen that. Maybe it was Cars. Disney us evil. I am the one the encourages taking the calculated risks.
I am a ‘protect my child from a bad situation if I can help it’ dad. I have a great kid who has obviously been brought up nicely. Great grades, very courteous and respectful to his teachers, knows reality versus fake, and is just really very mature in many ways and also very much a kid in many ways. He can play for hours with various toys he has. Awesome kid, so I guess something is being done right. I am most proud of him at church during his Sunday School class or when they have children’s time during service he stays quiet, letting everyone else have a chance. Then either one of two things happens, if no one is giving a right answer the person will then look at ‘B’ and say, “Tell us, ‘B’.” And he gives the answer. Or if time is running short they will just go straight to him.
I was going to mention other sports yesterday but instead I stuck with football to make the article short and to the point. A little league kid was hit in the chest with a fast ball pitch while up to bat. The pitch hit right over his heart and stopped it. He died. Pitches also have line drives hit back at them to the head. Basketball has ACL problems, broken noses, and all sorts of things going on. Golfing has back problems and shoulder problems. A man died in a short dirt track race not long ago when he was run over. He had been smoking marijuana prior to the race and then got out of his car to confront the other racer who was actually still driving around the track. Another driver’s father died several years ago in a crash. Divers hit there heads on the side of the pool or the bottom or even the platforms or boards.
I could go on and on but I think you see that I know about other sports.
One of my favorites sports I played in college was racquet ball. I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game but it is not an easy sport. There are these things called walls that tend to want to stop a body running stupidly after a bouncing rubber ball.
Oh and I have to tell you this one, it’s funny, in a way, but maybe it explains a few things about me. I guess I was in High 
School when this happened or just after. I went golfing with my Dad. He was showing me a
few things and said, “Stand right there and watch what I do.” He actually put me in a spot to watch from. Either his arms were longer or his club was longer than he thought. His follow through ended up with the flat part of the club, fortunately it was a driver, square in the center of my forehead. We could not have rehearsed it better. I simply gave it no thought, although he freaked out big time. I think mostly because he was afraid I was gonna tell my Momma on him. (Tiger can’t believe my Dad did that to me.)
So my question to you is this:
Ronovan
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The question comes up here in the United States about my son his school of “Is he gonna play football?” This is the American type of football.
If you have time, watch the video and then continue onward. If not you can skip the video, but to get a good idea of where I am going with this you will want to see it. You don’t even need the sound.
My son is 10 and almost 5 feet tall, broad shoulders, athletic. To be downright personal, his shoulders were so broad he was delivered by C-section. His school is in the state playoffs, think championship tournament, each year, even making it to the actual championship game one of those times and the football program is not even 10 years old.
The school has the children of elite athletes including former professional quarterbacks, think the guy who passes/throws the ball down the field to his teammates. One of the coaches helping out was the winning quarterback in a Super Bowl. In other words, football is huge for the school.
He’s not playing football, or at least that is the intent. Why? If you watched the clip above you know why. Concussions are common in football. More common than anyone ever knew, because before they were kept quiet or the players didn’t say anything. A key player out of a game could actually cost a coach his job.
If you watched the video then you know it was obvious the quarterback should have been out of the game. Who should have known? Anyone watching. Some might say the coach didn’t talk to him on the sidelines, that a trainer or someone did. The trainers are actually the ones that can say yes or no to a player playing. Notice the quarterback never took his helmet off. He wasn’t thoroughly checked out. And then, in he goes.
Some people outside of the United States don’t think football is all that much. That we wear these protective pads. Okay. Imagine your soccer players being hit straight on by a 300 pound 6’5″ man running almost at Olympic level speeds. Hitting the player in the head as they are moving forward passing the ball, defenseless.
One of my high school friends learned how to drive a van last year. I’m 44 and so is he. It took that long for him to get enough control and get the right van to drive. You see his neck broke during a game in high school. A game that should have been stopped because we were losing so badly there was no way to win. A game that even the opposing team’s coach wanted to stop, but our coach said no.
My friend uses one of those breathing things to operate his chair with at times, and he has just enough control with his hands to be able to drive a specially modified van.
I always wanted my son to play football. But I would rather have my son.
The coach of the team in the video said basically that he had no idea and that if the kid wanted to come out he would have. Bull! The quarterback position is a competitive spot. No quarterback wants to come out, no matter what. And then you have the kid obviously banged up.
I love college football. It’s really the only football I even keep up with, the only sport for that matter. I used to be a huge tennis fan, but that was long ago. But I am slowly losing interest as time passes and the ethics of the coaches are revealed. The coach said he didn’t know. Yes the boy had a hurt leg from earlier, but what college guy is going to hang on to another player in front of thousands of people and hold his hand? The kid got nailed!
Will my son play football?
No.
My rant is over.
Much Respect
Ronovan
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I Destroy
I destroy that which I love
My words wander into oblivion
They drift sedate and comfortable
Always driving away everyone
I know not what they do
They slip through the cracks of my mind
I despise the day
A fall flipped a switch for no control I can find
My judgment is hindered
My life is incomplete
My ways are forced hesitant
I always fall in defeat
The beginning is a fortune
Times bring happiness as if a boy
But always and inevitable
The best I have . . . I destroy
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