Black and White

I've got the photos of my family arranged in front of me on my desk. There we can be together without argument or frustration. I miss my dad everyday. I have missed him my entire life. This is a photo of our parents long before any of us were born. I think they said it was Baltimore. I've always liked Baltimore. I even like the word. Baltimore, Baltimore, Baltimore. I like that Counting Crows song "Raining in Baltimore".

Depression

I fear, my dear

I’m sinking down

To a place that can’t be

Found

When you’re not around

I’m going down

Lower than low

That’s where I go

And why that is

I just don’t know

But when I’m alone

I feel so alone.

My mom still has the same brown eyes I first looked into as a baby in her arms. I really love visiting her and looking into those eyes. I makes me feel like I'm at home.

Looking Back

This was then. Then, about fifteen or sixteen years ago. I am still him, just wrapped differently, not too tight, not too often, still mad, still angry, but calm, a lot calmer than before. I was in a lot of pain for this photo shoot. It was summer then, I had gone back to work on the Met Life Building complex on twenty third and Park Avenue South. I used to sunbathe nude at lunch time on the roof, higher than anyone could see. I didn't eat much, didn't drink, just worked, and worked out in a gym that later became a theater where I performed Bruce Springsteen songs. In those days I was in training for my own one man show. The plot was a lot like the one in the "Wrestler" where an old, broken down, busted chump gets a second...or third chance. Now, I am enamoured of the Obituary Cocktail. Two parts Gin (or Vodka) One part Absinthe, 1/2 part dry Vermouth. I've gotten my second and third chances and I am so in love with the lady I married, and so happy I am not driven so crazy as to feel the need to doff my clothes for the camera.

Drinking in the Afternoon

Is it too early

To start drinking?

I’m trying to slow down.

Trying to de-tox

So I can re-tox

I never used to be

A drinking man

But now

I have my favorite bartender

She feels like home to me

So, I married her

And, still I collect them, bartenders

And barmaids

Like some collect

Little porcelain statues.

There is Maya, Mike and Matt

And Routh and those

Whose names

I do not yet know

But who mix and serve

My favorite libations

Suiting every occasion

Today... I am home on a Monday

Afternoon writing

And toasted Lager

From

My very own ice box

Precedes a night of

Love.

We will catch up with each other about our day, I will show her what I made for dinner and we will dine sumtuously. She will give me all the boring details of how New York sucks and we have just got to get out of here, and I will laugh and hang on every word, drift off into my own thoughts, fantasize, and be chastized for not listening, I never listen. "My nerves are bad tonight, yes bad, what shall we do what shall we ever do?" Yet, I love it, all of it, 'specially her. She will never know, they never do. I am older now, I savor everything now. Life is, indeed, short.