Find Your Seat On The J

The last one is off to school

a little nervous

but looking cool in his

green shirt and blue Chucks

It's good to see him

find his place

sitting on the only J

on the teacher's alphabet rug

It's hard to leave him there

and be confronted in the hallway

with the passage

of time

Heard A Cover of This on The Radio in The Car Today

Humble

She dumped a lot of rain

surged the seas and scattered leaves.

She dropped a tree, quite mercifully

right beside the house with no damage.

The last of the winds

are still blowing through here

now, after midnight.

Clear skies

all quiet, save for the wind

scoured, cleansed

There was a time this afternoon

when the winds waned

and the birds, all at once,

re-emerged.

Goodnight, Irene (Be Kind)

Four O'Clock And All's Well!

Sunny, calm - it's eighty-five degrees

as Hurricane Irene churns this way

whirling malice and raining flood

The Oracle says she's staring directly at us

her course set for right between my eyes

I'd like to be drunk in the sunlight

listening to one of the patrons

sing along with Dinah Washington,

maybe I'd sing some too.

I'd like to be drunk and

worried about nothing at all

content to let tomorrow

blow us flat or drown us deep

if that's what it's got a mind to do.

All this struggle and worry

and how much can you

really prevent?

I remember the story of an

Irish ancestor in the bar after work

on Friday evenings -buying and drinking:

drinks, all around

And in the midst of the happy din

a little girl appears tugging at his pant leg,

sent by her mother to save the rent

before it's all drunk - you see

nothing could reach him

like she could.

I couldn't understand then how he could be

so weak, so mean, so addicted, 

so whatever it was

In this moment, from this stool,

I wonder if maybe it was something different,

some kind of sad universal love,

that and knowing tomorrow wasn't his to have

at all.

She's working her way up the coast as we speak

and my little boy is nervous,

but right now the sun is shining,

and I have but one beer to toast

your health with,

and I do.

Because I Forgot Just How Mighty It Is

The sound on my computer is far too puny for this song. I hope you have hardy speakers and can enjoy this at the maximum freakout setting the song deserves. For you youngsters, if anyone reading this is a youngster, this is Rock.

Where Does It Come From?

Last night he spent awhile sleeping next to me

waking me with jerking limbs

and fear in his voice

more than once

dreaming

What did you dream?

I asked in the morning

One hundred monsters

one hundred tornadoes

one hundred hurricanes...

.....

A young woman with

too many kids

and not enough help

calls the crisis line

routinely at midnight

in a panic:

hyperventilating,

tightness in her chest,

dread without a source,

certain she's going to die

Where does anxiety come from?

and you search the darkness for an answer

to give her that might help

and say something like

it's depression's twin

which doesn't help

and only gives her another illness

to worry about

you want to tell her

anxiety comes from believing 

that you are just too small

to handle the enormity

of all that you are dealing with

combined with all that's still to come

instead you tell her to exhale fully

and take a big, slow breath

slowly out

slowly in

slow your breathing down

and your heart will slow down too

focus only on the next breath

just the next step

she says thank you and hangs up

and then in the darkness

you find sleep has slipped

out of the room

and you try to focus on

breathing the next one

slowly

Testimonial

documenting your own descent

on you tube

brilliant, confident, beautiful

recent graduate

private school

full of promise

you would have made them all

so proud

if not for

what runs in your blood

Hold On

Another Tidbit From The Mind Of Young Jack

He's getting dressed and ready for kindergarten orientation this morning, his hair still mussed from his pillow. He finds a tiny figurine of the Statue of Liberty that he dug up in the basement yesterday and shows it to me.

"I want to live in a big city. I don't want to live in this old lazy town", he says, making a sweeping gesture with his arm.

"I want to live in New York - like the Statue of Delivery!"

To Wear Still The Coat

Slammed on the breaks

and came to

on the highway's edge

snapped awake in panic

where are you?

who are you now?

and how did you get here?

you're going to change

so much more

before this is through

how much so

you cannot know

will you recognize

you?

Paycheck To Raincheck

now you've given
yourself a fever
smart guy
trying to work

an extra week

on the weekend

now
I've got the chills

amazingly

mercifully

it's been a quiet

shift and my bed

is just another

three hours away

I line them up in front of me

in segments of 8, 12 or 16

and then I look for more

I scramble

for crumbs

while dreaming

I am a vagabond

always walking away

to find a better

adventure

only to find myself

startled by every

child's laugh

or cry

and

haunted by

colored

memories of home

some version of home

it's

a helluva

thing

Town With No Cheer

Welcome Chicken Underwear!

It is wrong to work 24 hours in a row

even if during some of it

you're really just marking time.

It is also wrong to be away

from your children

for five weeks.

Right is falling into bed,

before the heat of the day hits,

the sound of crickets and

nothing else.

It is also right

watching your boy through

a window playing pirates

with his best friend

first love

his face brightening

even more when

he notices you.

That's enough for today

that's

enough.

What Am I Doing Here?

Notes on This Place

My son asks why it is so bad,

at ten years old,

and I know what he means,

but am compelled to defend it

Estrella de Jacob

tries to outshine the

piles of syringes and decay,

the pimping of a white girl

Jesus and Heroin in

endless running skirmishes

for dominance of these blocks

and it's people

Today on the radio, yesterday.

One heart

gone dry

the other

wilts.

Both still live.

Frag

A chorus of experts

singing,

between well and ill

there's but an inch.

Here Haiku

enter a place where

the patients tell versions of

my own life story

Sunday Morning

I feel like
I am coming to the point
in the dream

where there are no

dreams.

Carousel of Progress

Lesson From A Five Year Old

Yeah, it was cool to stay in the resort hotel with its miraculous ceiling and polka dotted rugs. Then there was an afternoon in the pool complete with tropical themed waterfall which was very nearly a dream come true all by itself.

That night we could hardly sleep in anticipation of the Magic Kingdom. 

Breakfast was tasty, if incredibly overpriced, and we had our pictures taken with Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy (coolest of them all). We made our way to the Magic Kingdom, like Mecca, thronged by pilgrims and devotees. It was at least 95 degrees and the sun was in a sadistic mood all day long. We bought a Goofy hat and rode a couple of rides in Tomorrow Land. The five year old melted down in the super-loud, strobe-shattered darkness - Stitch, on the loose and menacing.

That was it, not a full hour into everybody's dream-day-come-true, and he was all done. He spent the best part of the rest of the day with his fingers in his ears and a look of sheer terror on his face. "It's too loud with music, train whistles, parades, and too many people talking and laughing all at the same time...". We never made it to "It's a Small World After All" after all.

After dark, a sudden drenching downpour sent him shrieking. He must have assumed it was the moment of the absolute end of the world after this day long Apocalypse of the senses.

After the deluge ended, we found a relatively quiet corner and a bench to sit on.

"Dad, eventhough we didn't ride too many rides, I loved the "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow!" ride, and the Country Bears. I got to have some fantastic snacks and bought this awesome Goofy hat, and we walked around and we were just hanging out. It's still half a dream come true".

Sleep Walk

I'm world weary. Going on vacation. See you in a week.

Wonderful World of Disney

Matter and Anti-Matter battle for dominance of my tattered soul. I'm tired. I'm tired of crisis - the experience and the management thereof. So I will join my wife and children for a vacation next week. I will relax - try to relax. I will not think of work and I will allow any crisis to occur or not without my intervention. I will try to focus on Matter, on what matters.

Al Green

Chinese-Americans Digging On Al Green

A bar called Winnie's in Chinatown

in the shadow of The Tombs -

Central Booking - Manhattan's jail.

We drank and sang

almost fought then felt ridiculous

and we met people, talked, joked

liked them just fine

and seemed to be liked in return.

How unusual.

Why?

Beach Boys - Wind Chimes

From The Shuffling Madness

We goofed on the train on the way down to the Lower East Side. While most of the other commuters rode with their earbuds in, shutting it out, I was straining to listen and taking it in. Of course, I was only visiting.

I made stupid faces for my sister-in-law's camera.

I thought of a story I recently heard on the radio, set in this city, of a man falling onto the tracks while in the grip of a seizure directly in front of an oncoming train. Many people saw this happen and looked on, I imagine, helplessly. One man, there with his two young daughters (4,6), jumped down to try to help as the train hurdled toward them. The seizing man was limp and could not be moved. The train could not stop. The intervening man laid the man down between the rails and then covered the man's body with his own. The train passed over them, breaks squealing, finally coming to a stop with the two men somewhere underneath. The little girls screamed. The on-lookers looked on.

Both men were unhurt, and the radio show went on to investigate why, in times such as these, some people act heroically while some do not act at all. What is the thought process? The motivation?

I like to think it is some kind of inborn nobility. On top of the rest of the mess, we are more good than not. But that rings of mythology, simplistic, and I'm just not sure.

We find a Nepalese restaurant where the food is cheap, simple and excellent. The people running the place are working hard. They have come very far to engage in this struggle -the American Dream. My companions go for vegan options, while I seek out meat. It's a small place and a crowd of people come in. They're loud. Listening, I feel as though I can write the dialogue before they speak it - stereotyped, flat, moronic. I scowl, as do my companions, not because we have anything against them, really. It's just that we wish we did not have to endure their fake good time.

Vitriol, Senhor Coelho might say. Not good.

I wanted to ask each of them who in their group would they cover with their body to protect them from the harm of an oncoming subway train. That'd sober them up. But instead I ask what's wrong with me, and where the hell my vision of nobility went.