It was June 1st
I remember it very well. The truck had just left and I finished moving the rest of my belongings into a small two-bedroom apartment in the upstairs of a private home. The rooms were somewhat small and the kitchen was even smaller. The white walls were freshly painted and the house smelled from wet paint.
Man, that place was empty….
The wood floors were clean and the bright sunlight pushed Continue reading
Monthly Archives: May 2014
Prose: a slight rant
The good old times never last forever.
Eventually, they end because they have to.
Same as the night has dawn and daytime has sunset, the times we are able to live wild and carefree are limited to a certain age.
And after that age, our frenzies are limited to weekend spurts, or small get-togethers and reunions.
As time passes, the old jokes seem to fade. But we still laugh because we still understand them. Only now, the laughs are distant because we are distant from who we once were.
Our crowds change; our friends change, and all that remains are pictures, of say, us in our perpetually young state.
All that’s left are scattered memories, which alter with age, and usually end with someone saying, “I can’t believe we got away with that.”
We lived as fast as we could and stayed crazy to the best of our ability. We laughed at our downfalls because there was always that thing called, “Tomorrow,” and we were enough to depend on that.
But at some point, I reached the bottom of the bag, and there were no more tomorrows left. Tomorrow became today and I had to pay the balance of every yesterday I left behind.
I always said, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Except, tomorrow charges more interest than any bank, or credit card, and its terms are always pay on demand.
However, the system is always willing to make a deal.
And yes, I had to sign on the dotted line, Yes, I had to lose in order to win.
Nothing was given to me—I had to work for what I have, just like the rest of the world.
Here I am, and I am fine with that.
Here I am, and my yesterdays are mostly paid for.
And there you are…..
Your yesterdays are adding up, and you’re still looking for someone else to bail you out.
There you are. Still talking.
Still laughing at the same old jokes.
You still hang around the younger ones because they believe you.
Either that, or their youthful ignorance is a perfect match for your lack of ambition….
Memorial Day Thought (The Daddy Diaries)
Watching the sunset from the deck in my backyard, I pat my stomach after a meal and then I exhale the kind of breath that only comes after eating a big dinner.
As I write to you, I sit in my room and on the wall behind me is a certificate signed by the President of The United States of America. Continue reading
daybreak
And on the morning of the seventh day, I rested with a cup of hazelnut coffee and a chocolate glazed donut. I looked out the front window of my home, and across the street at my friend The Old Tree, which now stands, half-dressed, with most Continue reading
Poem: this thing I have…
I have this thing I keep.
It isn’t something you could see
or I could show you
It isn’t something you or I could touch
it’s just something I can feel.
I have this thing and I keep everything I own inside of it
I keep my memories and my love
I keep my tragedies and my downfalls
I keep my blessings as well as my benefits.
I keep everything here.
Right here….right inside
Continue reading
Surroundings
My Old Man used to tell me, “If you sleep with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.” Then he would talk about my friends and say, “Get ready to start scratching kid, because those friends of yours have a lot of fleas.”
The Old Man would tell me, “Show me who your friends are and I will show you who you are.”
When he thought I was slovenly dressed, or my room was too messy, The Old Man would say, “Show me the environment you keep yourself in and I will show you how you feel about yourself.”
He would say, “It’s easier to be brought down than it is to bring someone else up….so always be aware of your company.”
And The Old Man hated quitters because, “Quitting is contagious.”
He hated liars too because, “There’s nothing worse than a liar.”
“If a man doesn’t have his word, then he doesn’t have anything in my book.”
I used to work as an operating engineer in a commercial office building near Park Avenue and 34th street. There were two different machine room floors. One, which was designated for the heating and cooling for the lower half of the building, was on the 12th floor. The other, designated for the upper half, was at the top of the building on the 42nd floor.
Neither room was properly maintained. The lighting was Continue reading
wednesday morning dreams
Here it comes….
We are days away from the unofficial beginning of summertime.
Bodies will soon flood the beaches and the days will become longer as nights grow hot and shorter.
I am thinking of a time I had. It was the first time I broke through Jones Inlet and headed out to sea on my own vessel. The boat was 31 feet in length with a beam more than 11 foot wide. Beneath two separate hatches, diesel engines, each with 240 horses behind them, hummed in the deep sound of a slow-moving rumble. Continue reading
Prose: stages of my life
1)
I was told, “Stand up.”
Then I was escorted from the glossy wooden bench in the front of the courtroom and escorted towards my counsel.
After positioning me before the judge, my appointed attorney leaned close and whispered in my ear.
“The judge is going to read off the charges against you and then he is going to ask, ‘How do you plea,’ understand?”
I nodded yes.
“After he says that, you are going to respond, ‘Not guilty,’ and he will either set bail or release you on your own recognizance. Do you understand?”
“Well, which one is it,” I asked. “Is he going to release me, or is he going to set bail?”
“I’m kind of curious to find out myself,” said the attorney.
As the judge spoke, I Continue reading
stop
Early Sunday morning and I walk down from my front doorstep, across the wet spring grass and beneath the sky with its rising sun.
I enter my car, start the engine, and back out as I make my way to this place I call work.
My body moved in autopilot as I drove through the Long Island parkways, onto the Grand Central, and then onto The Long Island Expressway, where in the distance, I could see Continue reading
story time prose
Lying down, my little girl pulled the covers up and held her small stuffed bulldog beneath her chin. She moved over to the side, allowing a spot for me to lie down beside her.
Looking up at me as I tucked her in, my little girl removed her arm from beneath the comforter. She slapped the top of her mattress as if to ask me to stay, and with a bright smile she asked, “Daddy, will you tell me a story?”
This is our time together. In that moment, I am nothing else but a father and there is no one else but us. There is nothing more important than her dimly lit room with pink flowered nightlights, which she selected, and I hung Continue reading
The Written Addiction 