I once stood at the north shore on one of the islands in Hawaii and watched teams of surfers try their skill on some of the greatest waves in the world. This was like nothing I had ever seen before. There were others watching with me; there were others staring out with the hints of sunset coloring our faces.
The incoming waves slowly built into tall curling walls of water. Then they crested, and then they folded into the shore.
One of the spectators mentioned, “People come Continue reading →

I don’t know why things happen the way they do. I don’t know why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good.
I don’t know why we get sick or pass away. I don’t know why it rains on days when we need the sun most, and I’m not sure why our plans fall through. Continue reading →

Yesterday morning:
Girl sitting next to me on the train had bed breath. I knew this because she was waving a large manila folder across her face, like a fan, and each time the folder swayed in my direction, it sent over a whiff of her breath.
I have been riding this train for more than 20 years, and not always by choice. If there was Continue reading →

I used to call them Velvet Ropes. And by this I meant the pretty ones.
I called them Velvet Ropes because the pretty were always chosen. Meanwhile, the average or below stood on the outside looking in.

After the spinning lights and smoke-filled rooms with loud trance-like music in a Midtown nightclub, and after the Continue reading →

Seems work has been busy lately. One day folds into another and I lose myself trying to figure out what day comes next.
But this is life, I guess.
This is life on life’s terms.

After a full week on the job, I woke early yesterday morning at the sound of my alarm clock, and I wiped the sleep from my face. I noticed the sunrise is earlier now. By 4:30 the sun was already on its way, and by 4:35 I was on my way to work.
I stepped from my front door, down the steps, and then into my car.
At this point, my body is in automatic—I know where to go and which way to turn. I know what roads to take from my simple Long Island town and how to end up in the city that never sleeps.
I have made this trip more times than I could figure, so I trust in my inner autopilot, and I move on.

My thoughts were almost suspended in hibernation as I drove and turned left on Seventh. By the time I made the right onto Newbridge Road, the machine in my head took over, and the radio was just like noise in the background.
I turned left on Hempstead Turnpike. I passed the bus stop in front of Chase bank, passed the homeless man wandering near CVS Pharmacy, passed the McDonald’s on my right and passed the traffic signal beginning Prospect Avenue on my left.
I drove by the tall building at Nassau County Medical Center, which I think is called Nu-Health now, but I grew up calling it the Medical Center, so the name Nu-Health means nothing to me.
I passed the stores on my right and the Home Depot on my left. Heading west, I noticed the color of sunrise reflected on the only tall glass buildings in my town. It was originally known as EAB Plaza, but the property has been bought and sold, so now the tall office buildings are just a side piece to the edge of a town known as East Meadow.

I could feel the sleep still in me.
I wished for my bed, but my wishes would not come true.
Driving along the Meadowbrook Parkway, passed the energy plant near Zeckendorf Boulevard, I looked over at plant’s cooling towers and its white mist that lifted to the sky. I remembered when its original smoke stack was demolished. They blew the original stack with dynamite and crumbled it to the ground.
Man, that was decades ago…

By the time I made it to work, Saturday was officially underway. As part of my responsibilities, I had bathroom detail, which meant that I had to change all the batteries in every women’s room.
This meant all the automatic faucets and soap dispensers, including the automatic flush handles, because in our germ conscious world, people do not like to touch anything in the bathroom, so the bathrooms at work are all hands free and automated.
Hands free sinks, hands free soap dispenser, hands free flushometers to flush the toilets, but no hands free paper towel dispensers, at least, not yet.
They really need to come up with a hands free door knob, because in my experience as a building engineer and in building maintenance, I find people often leave the restroom without washing their hands.

I changed approximately 420 D batteries and 420 C batteries yesterday, making that 840 batteries in total . After this, I switched to the refrigeration side of my job. I filled the condenser water system in the ceiling on the 19^th floor, which is currently under construction.
Then I replaced the missing ceiling tiles near the elevator reception.
I waited for the pipe fitters to finish their day, and after 14 hours on the job, I washed my hands and face. I washed the ceiling tile dust from my hair, changed my close, punched my card, and then I went home.

At this point, my body was in automatic. I left through the rear entrance, walked outside the loading dock gate, and then I sat in my car.
I turned on the air conditioning and the radio was like noise in the background. Again, my body knew which way to go so I trusted my inner machine to take me under the Midtown Tunnel, out through the Queens side, passed the Long Island Expressway, and back home to my simple town on Long Island.

By the time I returned home, the sky was almost the same as when I left. Only now, instead of rising in the east, the sun was setting in the west.
A purple hue tucked into the underbelly of the clouds and the color of sunset reflected off the light-tan bricks on the 19 story hospital, which I will always refer to as the Nassau County Medical Center.
Near the end of my trip, and by the time I turned right onto Seventh, my body was done. I felt the pain in my lower back from crouching underneath bathroom countertops. My knees hurt from kneeling on hard tiled floors, and my skin itched from the remnants of ceiling tile dust, which made it down into the inside collar of my shirt, and irritated my skin..

As I write to you, I am back where I started yesterday. I write to you from a small locker room with light green walls and a light green tiled floor. The quietness here is the sort that makes your ears ring. But this is where I earn my living, and in a short while, that silence will be replaced with pipe-threading machines and the sound of wrenches clanging on sprinkler pipes.
By the time I finish my day, the sky will look exactly as it did when I left my house this morning. Only, instead of the sun rising in the east it will be sinking in the west.

I don’t mind the work or the long hours. After all, this is life on life’s terms. I suppose I will be able to feed my family this week. I suppose I might be able to pay the mortgage, and the electric company too. Maybe I can buy an extra plate of food this week….and that’s a good thing.

I suppose I could think of better ways to spend my mornings during the sunrise. Say, like maybe standing on the beaches at Montauk Point, or on the rock piles where the Atlantic Ocean meets Jones Inlet.

I have dreams, but I suppose some of my dreams will have to wait for now. It seems now is not my time. It’s not my turn to relax; it’s my turn to work and feed my family.
By the end of the day, my hands will be toughened from another shift on the job. By the end, I will be tired and not just tired from work, but tired from listening to the sound of machines and less-educated men arguing about the better ways to get over on their boss. And why do they argue about their boss? Because the boss is an idiot, that’s why.
He’s the man in the suit and tie.
He’s the one telling everybody what to do, even though he has no idea how to do it himself.

The boss is an idiot. He’s a jackass.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
But right now, the boss is home enjoying his family….
And guys like us are here on the job, calling him stupid, and saying, “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Perhaps now is not my turn to enjoy my Sunday. But it will be soon.
Soon enough, I will be home.
And soon enough, I will be standing on the rock piles where the ocean meets Jones Inlet

Enjoy your morning, folks.

North of the airport on Dixie Highway and over the 17th St Drawbridge, heading east over the Intercoastal to the land’s edge of my beloved country, there is a small place west of the main strip in Fort Lauderdale Beach, Florida.
Just beyond the Marriott’s Beach Place Towers and the upper-crust lifestyle of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, passed the curb side restaurants where well-dressed people enjoy fine dining, consuming appetizers, such as beef carpaccio, or oysters on the half-shell with vinaigrette; I found myself in my rented vehicle heading past Sebastian and Alhambra on North Atlantic Boulevard and turning left onto Seville Street.

The mid-block hotel and apartments, tucked quietly between North Atlantic and Birch, looked as though age had taken its presence. Those that burrow in its rooms are the seasoned and traveled drunks of our civilization. And while some only visit, others live week to week in a small flop house known as The Seville. Atop the yellow and white building is a green sign, written in capital letters, which says “HOTEL.” At its face was the name, “Seville,” written in scripted lettering above the tiny office, which is often unmanned by any personnel.

It took some time, but eventually, I was greeted by an incredibly short woman with short hair and yellowed, crooked teeth. She spoke with a heavy French accent and advised me to the rules of the establishment. She reminded me there are no cleaning services on Sundays. She also advised me that the towels, sheets, pillows, pillowcases and comforters are to remain in the room. Otherwise I would be charged for any missing items. There are no phones in the rooms, but there is a television. There is no such thing as room service or hotel concierge, but then again, I was not here for a vacation.

Alone in my room, I placed my things on what was called a king-sized bed, but was more accurately, two full-sized beds (including the headboards) placed together with a gap running down the center. I could smell the mold hidden behind the bleach from the previous cleaning of the pink-tiled bathroom. I could hear the mechanical winding sound from the small air-conditioner, which was placed through the wall above the bed, and sounded like vibrating metal, cycling in a constant rotation and surging as if the machine were on its way to the graveyard. I could hear the flushing water hissing from the continuously running toilet; and in an otherwise extremely bright room with yellow-painted, crackled walls, white ceiling, and an almost rubbery impersonation of a hardwood floor, I prepared myself for the chores at hand.

Outside the door of a room downstairs, a tall overly-tanned gentleman wept underneath the sunshine through the sounds of his guitar strings and swiveled into the clear glass bottle of its nearly gone scotch. His blue eyes watered with red veins branching throughout the whites that surrounded them. His balding head was browned from drunken hours beneath the sun and the gray unshaven stubble on his chin matched the close-kept hair at the sides of his head.
Once wealthy and worldly, his poetic alcoholism sunk him into his one bedroom flat, complete with a bathroom, a small but empty refrigerator, a white tiled floor, a microwave, a paper cup, and perhaps the clothes he wore were the same as the ones after his release from the county lockup.

Facing east from the curbside of my spot, fabulous bodies gathered and glistened as they sunned themselves along the beach across the avenue. Tourists roamed the sands, searching for memories depicted with seashells or small bits of broken coral. To the south were the resorts, and to the north was another motel I recalled from a time when I first found love. It was then that I realized I too came here in some form of unscheduled poetic return. During the hours of early daylight, I walked along the shoreline, eager to soak my thoughts in the blue waters and feel the warmth of our southern sun.  I ate without company and penned my thoughts. I found my resilience, and after, I drove north to Pompano Beach where my Mother resides with her fellow elderly in assisted living.

Through the front doors of my Mother’s residence known as Grand Court Village, I signed my name in the visitors log. Next, I spoke with the administration as well as the nurses who assured me my Mother is getting the proper care, and as I walked down the long corridor towards room 76, I thought about the unfairness of age, passing the quietly sat residents, and acknowledging each of them as they watched me move through the hallway.

Inside room 76 is the curled spine of my Mother. She slumps now. Her memory is off and her patience is that of an unhappy child. Her eyes are glazed from pain management and each pill she swallows, though slightly numbing, further alters her perception of life and clear thought.
This Monday was her birthday….
Though limited, we were able to leave the premises. We were able to whittle down her list of needs and shopped for the little things like a soap dish and a mirror for her nightstand. She was able to eat a meal away from her table, which is table #10, where she sits with two others. One is a deaf woman and the other is a woman stricken with Alzheimer’s—so I assume their conversations are limited, at best. However, my mother is well liked and well known throughout the community of 105 patients. She speaks well of most, but not all.

Like each meal, her meds are scheduled. There are two cats, which keep the residents company while sitting outside. And indoors, there are three bird cages. Facing the cages and to the left, several blue and white parakeets chirp and fly throughout their white-barred palace. In the middle is a green cage with an African Gray parrot. The parrot is kind and he has an extensive vocabulary. To the right of this, several tiny brown finches dance inside a large cage to, I assume, add life to an environment where most are concerned with death.

After I finished the visits with my Mother, I returned to my temporary vehicle and headed south on Dixie, east on Oakland, and back to North Atlantic, passing such places as The Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort and The Westin Resort and Spa. Then I passed Granada Street, and turned right onto Seville to return to my small room. Alone again, I could hear the drunk in his room below mine. He was still drinking and continuing to weep his poetic tragedy through the sound of his guitar strings.

At night, in the darker unlit section of beach, vagrant men sleep beneath the stars not far from the fancy lighted area where the fortunate play and dance until sunrise. This is where both halves live. This is where the rich and poor intermingle at the border of each other’s existence, and somewhere in between is me—a poet. Somewhere in between, I saw myself in the reflections of the moon above the Atlantic Ocean. I heard the howling laughter of families as I walked southbound down Atlantic passed the gifted resorts, and on my return, I saw the distinction between them and the less-fortunate that slept on the beach.

After several days of heading to and from, I woke before sunrise this morning, looking out at the dawn above Mother Earth and headed back to the airport where my temporary vehicle lives. Shortly after, I boarded a plane …. and here I am, home again.

My trip was not without benefit. I saw my Mother, which helped her—even if only for a short while.
I saw the beauty of palm trees and felt my toes dig into the sand.
I was graced to feel the sun warm and bronze my flesh; I was fortunate to have conversations with different people from different parts of the world, and I am blessed to return to here …. where I am now…..with you…

There but for the grace of God; I am home
…. and that too is poetic to me

In the summer of my young adulthood, my troubles were behind me and with my new life ahead, I was invited to a small actor’s studio in the lower Westside of Manhattan. I had never been to a show like this before, but through a friend, I was told about an acting group that formed their own stage and performed in front of small, to medium sized groups.
Outside, the door to the studio was mostly black with chipped paint and different names and graffiti etched into its steel. Above this, a bright light bulb shined with a rainbow-colored halo around its glow. The light was partially protected in a cage and the electrical wires were slightly exposed and seemed to almost dangle from the brick-faced building.

At the time, I smoked Camel filters. I was waiting Continue reading →

1)

Soft evening light fades into yesterday
and you…..like a fragment of lost rainbows
promise me the remnants of purity upon my return.

It does not bother me when, for example,
you say tomorrow will be different,
but you never explain why. Continue reading →

verses

1)

It is too late to recapture the first moments when laughter was less expensive and the nights along Bleeker Street were punctured by the first signs of daybreak.
Besides, most of the stores have changed now. They no longer translate to say, me amidst my wild longhaired days of confusion and you in your short skirts, fishnets, and Doc Martin steel-tip boots.

Same as we have grown, so have the avenues. same as we have aged, the streets have changed, and all the remains are the memories of St Mark’s and a diner called Stingy Lulu’s.

It seems even then, I knew I would meet you. I just didn’t know how or when.
I knew you though….
I knew you existed because I thought of you often and wondered if you thought of me.

I once wrote to you, but I never had the tongue to share it.
I wrote:

If I listen, I can hear you in my thoughts.
And if I look, I can see you in my dreams and behind the walls of my eyelids.
But I only hope the day comes soon
…and I can hold you in my arms forever.

This was the poem I used to describe you.
I knew who you were, but yet, I never saw your face. I knew how you would sound, but yet, I never heard your voice.
I knew how I would feel as soon as I saw you, but I wondered for too long, and I grew impatient. Continue reading →

I used to light fires….

I am not sure how old I was the first time this happened, but in the crazy atmosphere of youth fueled by substance abuse, I often found myself hiding from the wreckage of my behavior.
I had to switch friends and change the places I would go to avoid a beating. But inevitably, I found myself alone.
At 14 I was removed from my junior high school and placed in an alternative school for students that struggled in regular, classroom settings. The school itself was a transformed barn, located in the heart of a picturesque campus of a nearby college, and surrounded by specimen trees, rolling landscapes, horses, and it was attended by Continue reading →