Man at Work

Or maybe I should title this page "Putting Out".

It's not so much about ERT work as it is about poetry...and the poetry is about work. I am collaborating with a bon-i-fide editor, and in negotiations with Xlibris to publish a volume of my poetry on the subject of September 11th, 2001.

This is my big news. I am hoping to pop my cherry, so-to-speak, and enter the world of publishing with this most intimate and personal account in verse of my impressions of the days, weeks, and months that followed that life altering event.

To say the least, I am excited. My poetry has always been another outlet of expression for me, my most immediate, most near and dear to my heart. Sharing it has never come easy. After my father's death, I now feel obligated to let others decide if they care to read me or not. I feel I must give people the opportunity to decide for themselves. Poetry about such an event is something I never felt comfortable submitting to publishers with the possibility of rejection. So I have decided to self-publish, but in order to provide legitimacy to my voice I am working with an accomplished writer and editor who has agreed to take on the task and I can't thank her enough.

As usual I am all over the map. My headshots and resumes are in envelopes ready to be mailed, I am studying rigging, hoisting and tower cranes for an up-coming test, and there's work and overtime and all manner of distractions pulling me this way and that, not to mention a deck to paint and a stoop to repair in Rockland at my sister’s house and a nude beach in New Jersey calling to me on sunny summer days, but hopefully I can manage it all and still get my book out.

My horoscope says this new moon is the right time for this project...and did I mention it's a two book deal? I can publish a second volume at no additional cost. What subject should that book deal with? Stay tuned.

What Work Is

What work is…for me. Most people can’t wrap their heads around what it is I do to make a living. I work for the Buildings Department in New York City in a special unit called ERT which stands for “Emergency Response Team” and is basically descriptive of the work we do…except for the hours. We are only activated at night, on weekends and holidays. We are the staff of the department when everyone else is home. Our schedule rotates between seven tours a month consisting of the afternoon and evening of one day and the morning of the next. We work round the clock on weekends and extend those weekends into the various Monday holidays.



Basically, we are the people the Fire Department, the Police Department call when the lives have been saved, and the fires put out. We coordinate recovery efforts, we stabilize situations, we tell the FDNY they can go home, we ask the NYPD to stay and keep an eye on things. This work is also carried on during the day by the myriad of other units in the department. In my line of work, I have witnessed many disturbing things, tragic things, heroic things; I was in my office just six blocks away from the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11^th and heard the first jet fly by my 14^th floor window and an instant later impact tower one. I, we, my colleagues and I, have been responding to fires ever since.

For the past ten years, I have been immersed in training, both giving and receiving. New York City recovered from the devastation downtown and is courageously fighting through this economic recession. None of it would have been possible without the outpouring of support from around the world, and for that; as a New Yorker who stayed to rebuild, I thank you.

Oh, Yes We Did.

Say hello to our little friends. So there we were...in an undisclosed tropical paradise....our long delayed, solitary, all inclusive honeymoon type vacation. It felt good, exotic and strangely a bit dangerous as we relaxed poolside, oceanside, side by side for a week. We almost did not know how to do it at first...but quickly got the hang of it.

White sand and gray bracken

Shoulder a blacktop road

Leading up to and away from

A tongue of rocky beach

Shadowed by the towers of Tulum.

Pane-less portals gape

At deep tossed blue tropical sea

Haven for ancient wind and spirits

Which rule the Earth when we do not.

Flat jungle tangled and twisted

Bleeds down to water’s edge

Like wreckage strewn by

Intangible impacts

In gifts of stormy rage.

From massive heritage of pale blue sky

Hawks circle on high

Sweep wisps of clouds of time as

Weathered petro-glyphs

Say nothing, mean much

Stone hard to my mind

Soft to touch

Bring messages of

The Past.

I wrap my arms around me

Rock forth and back

Like waves on the ocean

And read a solitary sign

From that deserted highway:

GUARDA SU VIDA

Post a watchman at our door

For some unbidden intruder

Invited by the ennui of this age

Seeks to usurp our moneys

Our stones, furs and...

Something more, that inexplicable

Something always more powerful

Greater than...

Sorcery is very strong in this part of Yucatan

Where stars are more than they are

And man is less than large

La Na Bu Ma Ti Yo Nu Ho

Recovery of the Inner Child

The Boy in the Wooden Box

I found him

While on a search for the source

Of some dangerous thoughts

There he was tiny as a pixie

A near naked blue eyed imp

Scrawny but for his bushy blond

Hair

Enraged and hidden deep

Within a wooden box

Upon the walls of which

He thrashed and crashed

Angry, shameless, crying

Over his broken family

One long ago fractured and

Splintered under the weight

Of Norman Rockwell’s America

To calm the violent beast in him

I acknowledged his predicament

And I set him on my shoulder

He was abandoned and alone

So, I set about to father him

And to mother him the best I could

Now, when dangerous thoughts

Enter my mind

I know it is time

To bring him forth

Where he stands placated

Holding onto a lock of my gray

Hair

Sucking his thumb

Poem for Yesterday Today

Jawbone of an Ass

This shit will rot your brain
This mass media thing selling
Multi media masturbation
Promoting a different kind
Of Onanism

It seduces your intellect
Until the only thing
A brain is good for
Is predicting the plots
Of silly sit-coms

(Forgive my slathering
The dentist got angry
When I ordered composite
Instead of amalgam
And shot my face full
Of pain killer)

They want me on that couch
They need me on that couch
Watching anti-mysterious who-done-its
Finding commercial advertisements
More entertainingly clever
Than the repeat programming
Constantly, annoyingly, more comfortable
And familiar than my own left hand

(The subway smells like
Roach spray
I guess it could be worse
Because even with all these distractions
Even with all these restraints...)

I feel a little more lucid
A little more here
A little more with it, man
With that little, tiny bit
Of Mercury
Removed from the back
Of my Jaw

New Work

Feeling really out of sorts lately. I am trying to figure out how to proceed with my "second act". I've given my self the freedom to do nothing, to loaf, to be lazy, to miss dad, my childhood, my youth. I nap a lot. I love to cook dinner for my wife, my family and our friends. My mom actually let me take her out to dinner on Easter Sunday. She let me pay and everything. It was amazing.

One constant has been the poetry. I am trying something new, a lttle new for me, just going ahead and free writing and maybe trying to figure it out later. Or maybe not figuring it out at all, ever. I put together things from here and there inspired by this and that. I even composed a verse in my sleep one night. I'm going with it. Here's something:

When things fall down
When things collapse
When April feels like October
Wet, cold, and dark

When I miss you
When my world ends

When worlds collide
When cars go crash

When you deny
Your denial
Like a crack of the lash

Paranoia of perfection
Image in the bathroom glass
Is not mine, not me

My wind chimes sing
Of wind and rain
The hardware on the flag pole
Clangs now and again

Busses and trucks hiss
And whoosh
People hurry by slicker-ed and umbrella-ed

When lives diverge
When language
Will not serve
When cruel seasons
Binge and purge

Another cold spring.

Loss

I keep losing and finding
The same 10 pounds

Letting the days go by
Is just like it sounds

Leaves bud on trees
Street buskers sing

Without you here
It doesn't mean a thing


Missing you today Pop

Love markie