Let me say this, my Muse will continue to inspire me – no matter what. If Rena dropped a safe on my head, and if I survived, I would write sonnets about the experience.

Artists and other inspired people, do not work nine to five. They do not clock in when it comes time to be inspired, then stop the flow when they clock out. This stalking charge has really made me think about the boundaries and limitations of ones inspirations. Are we really allowed artistic license to do what we damn well please, whatever it takes to remains inspired.

Having established in ten tedious post that I can not be guilty of stalking, I looked for the real motive Rena went to the sheriff. I have to assume I did something that really pissed Rena off, or, she would have called me, or sent e a letter, and corrected me, let me know why she is angry. Why didn’t she do that – before she called the sheriff? That was a pretty gutsy thing to do. Folks who are reclusive stay away from the law and such. Why did she wait almost ten days after she got my letter to make a report? The answer has to be, she saw something on this blog. What did she see?

In writing this out, in thinking out loud, I read something that stuck in my brain. Dan said Rena is not going to send me anymore stuff about her, and, she seems interested in getting an attorney to have something removed. What could that be? I think I know. Here it is, the post where I have Nisha reading Rena’ poem, and, showing the poem. I did think better of it, but, this was a once shot deal. I had no phone number for Rena so I could not get her permission.

Artists and Musicians go around collecting a huge pile of information, and they are assimilating it all the time. We work hard to keep our motives, pure. We step on each others toes all the time. Our bickering and in-fighting can get fierce. It would take a book to tell you about the crazy-shit that has gone down since Kenny Reed approached me about helping him do Poetry & Jazz at the Granary. Goof friendships have been shattered – for good! I was accused of coming on to a poets wife, who is a poet, after she came on to me. There was this crazy dude who I got to film us reading, and he got between my friendship with Black Horse who was a good friend of Josh, the owner, who flipped out and tore up the Granary. He owns three of the best restaurants in town, and he is on his way to jail for assault. His parents are selling everything. It’s over, some good times and good food. Josh and I were ding these alternative money meetings.

Gosh, I hope this is not why Rena got really pissed at me! Because, my motives were pure in regards to coming the Granary to read Rena’s poem, in that Kenny and Marilyn are kin to one of the authors who wrote ‘Fela’ that is now a dance and song hit Off Broadway, and, Marilyn is a high school firned of Jeff Pasternak, who I approached with my idea of ‘Love Dance’ that I wanted Rena to help get off the ground because she is a choreographer. I have posted on this idea.

As I waited to ge up and read ‘All Winter Long’ was inspired to consider getting a woman to read. Just then, Nisha sat down next to me. She had never read. This was her last chance.

When I put the blog up, my angel alerted me to the possibility that Rena would get jealous of a young woman reading her poem with me standing next to her then giving her a hug. I tried to make it clear that my Muse came into the room, came into Nisha, and bid her to sing. There is more to this.

I called Nisha’s mother the night the sheriff called me, and we quickly arrive at what I did wrong. After she asked not to make our contact a “affaire of the heart” I suspect I made Rena fall in love with me, not again, but for the first time. I think I did this by sending her a CD of me reading ‘The Birth of Venus’. That I recorded in 1987. I suspected Enya’s music might have been her late daughter’s favorite, and said so. I said this music and words might be the birth of the child we never had. When I looked at Nisha in the video I wondered if she looked like Kathleen Easton.

I’m sorry. I can not stop crying for Rena’s loss after I read her obituary.

Marilyn said this very slowly and seriously;

“I know what happened!”

Marilyn fell deeply in love with me when she was fifteen.

I am in so much trouble, and I should keep my mouth shut, but, I’m not. When I began that portrait of Rena I said she started to haunt me. She went where I go. She lay down next to me when I slept. She had nowhere to go. When I read that Kathleen had died, I wept and wept, and my beautiful ghost said goodbye. When I got Rena’s letter, I wept for five minutes before I opened it. Read that letter again.

When my childhood friend Bill drove on the railroad tracks, at 12 midnight, I was doing an automatic painting, and I painted where he was. I painted the tracks and the tress being lit up by the bright light on the engine. I put a beautiful blonde boy standing next to the tracks, and, I said;

“Hello Bill!”

And he was gone.

I love Rena with all my hear and soul, and always will. She replace Bill in my life. Rena was my beautiful playmate and fellow camper. Bill and I would have Poetry Writing Day, down in his studio he made in the basement.

But, what truly endears me to Rena is the incredible struggle she had with her jealousy. Bill and talked about that struggle all the time. We were just thirteen. Coming to terms with ones jealousy is paramount to becoming a great artist. I never made Rena jealous. She avoided me dong that to her for forty-four years. Now the question has to be answered…..did I do it on purpous.

To Be Continued

Jon Presco

Copyright 2014

When I went to visit Rena Victoria, she was staying in a woman’s dorm on the grounds of the University of Nebraska. I was not let in to the building, and was told to wait outside. Fifty minutes later, the large wooden dorm door opens and out flows Rena in a long green velvet cape. She sees me standing in the quad, lowers her head, and comes towards me.
“Show time!”
I am blown away – as intended! This is almost as good as the time she came at me out of that darkened doorway in Venice. Here come the girl of my dreams – ad nightmare – for how can I lose her now. This is it……The Point of No Return! If I can not win her heart – I am a dead man!
Students cross our paths. Folks are on their way to the Cornhusker football game. Fifty feet away, her gaze is locked on to me. She is a high fashion model coming down the runway. Rena Victoria is wearing high leather boots. I only have eyes for her. The rest of humanity, fades away. If Rena Victoria wanted to bite me on the neck and suck my blood – I was all hers!
Hence, I watch these gorgeous creatures strutting their stuff on the runway, and ask;
“Why do women get to wear clothes like that while men must wear a drag uniform suit that give the message to women they are SAFE, are not a serial killer or vampire. I have read there is some serious witchcraft going on for centuries on the Isle of Wight. Rena gave me hints this is what she was into with her boyfriend who drove her to Los Angeles. When he came to the Harkin’s home to take her back to Nebraska, he gave her the sign of Satan when she severed their bond.
OF course if Rena is reading this, she will never come out of hiding and reveal herself, now! Has she become a staunch conservative keen on concealing her witchy-hippy past? Is she a Christian? What she was back when, was………THE DEATH!
Rena wanted to make damn sure I would never forget her, never be able to get her out of my heart, and would never be with another woman, again, due to my severely broken heart.
A year later, I am Peter Shapiro’s roommate. I am standing before a empty canvas plotting how I can get her, and keep her, in my life – forever! I behold the pure white linen. I dip my brish in the colors, and attack! If I can capture her, my beautiful vision, then I will become a famous artist. I will buy a house sitting on dramatic rocks overlooking the sea. I too will wear a cape and riding boots as I ride my black steed to the top of Withering Heights with my hounds baying close behind. For spare change I will author romance novels. How can she resist me when I come to her little town to autograph my books?
A week later I stand before my masterpiece. I am looking at Rena standing on Mount Tamalpias wearing a blue cape bordered with stars. She is beholding the setting sun with a crescent moon behind her, almost crowning her head. Tamalias means ‘Sleeping Maiden’. Christensen means ‘Christian’. Consider Christine Daay, and Sleeping Beauty. I throw off my cape to reveal my true identity. I am the true artist behind Rosamond. I am the Phantom of the Soap Opera. For this is what life did become, an inane series of little heartbreaks that captured the attention of the American women who turned real Love into a costume party, while Their Man went to work in a suit to pay the mortgage.
Well, folks………The Rightful Landlord has returned……..for his heart!
Let us retreat a little, and look down on the quadrangle. Rena is seventeen. She will be eighteen in six months. While her peers are still in High School wondering who to be, here come Rena Victoria as the High Priestess, and the true Rose of the World. If she was too beautiful to go to High School, she was now too Damn Dramatic! Rena was over qualified in every area!
When I was thirteen I used to own a copy of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Man and Superman’. I listened to an LP of Shaw’s ‘Don Juan in Hell’. Juan means, John.
The book Dona Irene Victoria Easton was reading on the beach in Santa Barbara- with her back to the ocean that frightened her – was Jane Erye. This is Rena’s true story. She was sent away to live with her elderly grandmother, while her three beautiful sister’s got to stay at home.What story does this remind you of?
In the video ‘Music of the Night’ note the painting of Christine, her doll, the stage, the life-size image of her wearing a veil. The High Priestess is – veiled. When Christine faints, she is picked up, and placed gently in a Swan Boat Bed. My Rosemond kindred were Swan Brethren.
Who is the author of this Love Story? Do you need – just one more clue?
Christine is Don Juan’s Muse. She is the Muse of the Night, she is John’s Divine Inspiration.
Rena and went to see the movie ‘Yellow Submarine’ before it was time for her to see her boyfriend for dinner. I counted the time it would be over. Movies last about two hours.
Sitting in the dark theatre, Rena reached over and took my hand, and put in under her cape.
“Feel my stomach. I’m getting fat.”
I spread my fingers across her stomach that was still very flat. What I felt was that beautiful layer of fat that women acquire when they begin to mature. On our mountain top we watched the sun set alomost every evening. I made a throne for Rena with my legs as we sat on the side of the hill in the summer grass. Sometimes we stayed like this till we could see the Milky Way.
In our tent, we spooned. I placed my open hand on her stomach, the hand of an artist, and sent creative energy to the core of her being. Rena required this before she fell asleep. She missed this. When I see the Phantom’s hand upon the stomach of Christine, I close my eyes, and behold the Milky Way in my mind, two beautiful souls, asleep in the night.

I don’t think we dream, because, we were the dream, complete. What more could anyone want?

Jon Presco

Copyright 2013

https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/the-priestess-of-high-drama/