Success is never an accident . . .
In exchange for its title, it delivers its share of failure and mistakes. It comes with bruises and battle scars—it comes with fears and concerns and it often comes with casualties, as well as losses. These are called lessons . . .

Success is a decision. It is alive, like you and me. It lives and it Continue reading →

Yesterday morning began with trips down to the basement, scratching my head, and looking for boxes of Christmas decorations, which apparently, would be much easier to find if I just listened to my wife when putting things away.
The tree stand was to the right side of the room and the clear boxes of ornaments and tinsel was on the left. The wife brought up the Christmas stockings and the Garlands. We found the white icicle lights that hang in our windows; we found the Santa decorations that go in the bathroom and on the other shelves throughout the house. We found the small white Christmas tree that stands in my daughter’s bedroom window; we found all of the little figurines that we place around the white tree in our own version of a miniature, winter wonderland.
Then, of course, out comes the white Menorah with electric blue lights. This decoration is out of respect for the religion I was raised with. These decorations sit on one of the shelves in my daughter’s room, along with cottony-white pillows of fake snow, blue and red Dreidel lights that string above her bed (A Dreidel is that four-sided top that we spin around on the floor) and next to the white Menorah, which stands on puffs of pretend snow on the shelf next to her bed, there is a small white snowman with tiny lights that shine inside of its crystal-like belly. Its eyes and a mouth made of coal; it has twig arms and a pointy orange carrot for a nose. Continue reading →

Years ago, I watched a documentary on filmmaking, in which, the producer explained the importance of sound and scenery. He explained how different backgrounds and different sounds or styles of music can change the moods of the film.
As an example, the producer took clips from different Continue reading →

Billy walked through the side gate of a white-picket fence next to the detached garage at Mike’s house. It was beyond the midnight hour and the star-filled sky was accompanied with a full moon.
Billy was covered in a long, black overcoat. The wool collar was pulled up to cover his neck from the cold wind that blew through the streets of his somewhat normal, but otherwise suburban town.
His filthy, but untied, white shoelaces to his Continue reading →

Thanksgiving morning, November 27, 2014

I was raised in a decent sized family; however, years and distance as well as arguments, and in some cases, old age has changed the size of the guest list at my Thanksgiving dinner table.
The need for more tables and chairs and has dwindled down. There are no huge piles of coats on the bed in one of the bedrooms at say, my Aunt Sondra’s house, which I used to play in when I was little.
I used to hide beneath the pile of coats that were thrown on the bed . . . and I am not sure why I did this. I suppose hiding in a pile of coats and screaming “Roar,” or “Boo!” when someone came in to find their jacket is something little boys do—or at least it was something I did.

It has been decades since I Continue reading →

The light fell to the delicate flicker of two candles which stood in the corner of the bedroom. She moved from the bed and then over towards the closet door.
“Where are you going,” he asked.
“Nowhere,” she replied with a teasing smile.
“I just want to get something.”

Tucking herself behind the door of his walk-in closet, she undressed and slipped from her clothes. She reached down to retrieve the blue, buttoned down dress shirt he had been wearing that day.
She quickly slid her arms through the sleeves, and fluffed her long blonde hair over the collar.
She left the shirt unbuttoned to allow him a view of her cleavage, which pushed the shirt opened and teased him with an inside look of her well-shaped breasts. Continue reading →

We went passed the halfway mark of November and Christmas decorations have already dressed some of the buildings in Manhattan’s Eastside. Kids are preparing their Christmas lists while parents ready their boxes of holiday lights, tree decorations, and red stockings with white fluffy tops, and names written on them in script with glue and multicolored sparkles.

Soon every television commercial will tell us about holiday sales. Flyers will come in the mail and the race to the stores will become unbearable and painfully busy.

A friend of mine works Continue reading →

1)

Love should never be a complacent thing.

I forget this sometimes . . .

We take these moments for granted, you and me.
Like now . . .
There is nothing between us but a small piece of distance.
And so long as we are within reach,
we should always touch.

Agreed?

I have been thinking about what the scenery looks like in
different parts of the world.
I began to think how I have never seen the sunset
reflect across the waters in Aruba.

I have never watched the waterfalls in Hawaii,
and I have never seen the sunrise in Cabo San Lucas.

There are so many things I want to see.
There are so many places I’ve never been to before—
and I dream about them often—
but I dream about them with you.

So,
forgive me if I seem too quick or short tempered. . .
I know days pile between then and now.
I know that we were young once.
We had plans too, but age crept in to pull off its trick.
Inevitably, life changed
and so did we.

I once watched the sunset over the desert
in a town called Paradise, Arizona. You were there.
Remember?
We watched the sky change color as the last moments
of daylight faded into the horizon—
I remember this clearly because the reflection in your eyes
was even more beautiful than the sky which it mirrored.

2)

Perhaps I never told you this,
but the way the wind blows your hair away
and reveals your face
is something that makes me want to become
a better person.

The way you smile or laugh . . .
The sound of your voice . . .

I could be anywhere; I could be anywhere at all—say,
like on an empty beach after it slipped
into the cold months of hibernation.

I could be anywhere—and it wouldn’t matter.

So long as I am with you.

3)

It was a strange morning in this place called Limbo.
Your soft expression
seemed to leave an indentation on the pillow,
which lays next to me on a daily basis.

It was strange to lay there and see what
your half of the bed looks like when it’s empty.

This is why I say love should never be a complacent thing.
And since there is nothing between us but a small piece of distance,
and so long as we are within reach . . .

we should always touch.

Agreed?

And so it begins . . .
In seconds, the world will change
and I alone can rearrange my footsteps
to dictate the direction of my future

In seconds,
Now will have passed and grow further from the moment
In seconds, today will be tomorrow
and if I do nothing then nothing will be different.

If I do nothing,
then I will be nothing more than a man trying to serve his time
while sinking into the quicksand of complacent failures
and wondering,
“Where did I go wrong?”

The crowd inside of the union hall was filled with out of work men with out of work attitudes and out of work faces. Most of them are not hirable—which is why they are out of work. They sit in the chairs, or stand around, waiting for either of the delegates to step from the doorway and call out a name. And each morning, they arrive Continue reading →

I start my day by looking at a blank page on a computer screen. Often times, I sit in the dark with nothing else but the dull light from my monitor to brighten the room. My day begins like this; my day begins with an empty page and I wonder what I might fill it with when it ends.

I work in an industry where if you ask, nearly everyone says they are the best at what they do. If they are not the best, then most say they are very good.
But fingers point and the blame rolls downhill. I work in a place where Continue reading →