I Have To Write About This!

This is Farrah on the ferry from Orient Point Long Island, N.Y., to New London CT. She was a popular doggie. We were taking her from Wainscott in the Hamptons to North Branford, CT to live with her new family. The odyssey started for us the night before when I was at work and Jen was sick with a cold. Neither of us got much sleep at all. Yet when I arrived home from work at about twenty to seven in the morning, my lady was up and ready to roll. The skies were gray and heavy, rain already started to drizzle down. We jumped into the Colorado and headed for eastern Long Island. The ride out was uneventful, yet we were nervous about making our noon reservation for the ferry. Having never taken the South and North Ferry from Shelter Island to the North Fork of Long Island and Orient Point, we were not completely sure of the timing. And we were not sure how long it would take to pack up the pooch and get on our way. However, despite a last second dash to chase some kids on an RV, we got the 2 year old Golden into our truck, said our goodbyes, and headed north. She was a wonderful companion on the road. Not a problem at all, and such a hit with all the other dog loving ferry riders. When we arrived to her new home, we had a warm welcome despite the rain. The dog was soon frolicking in the backyard with her new boy. Mom and dad very happy to have this beautiful creature drop seemingly from heaven to the laps. All in all we feel we did a good thing for everyone concerned. We stayed the night in Guilford, partly because we wanted to make sure no complications arose, and partly because we were both exhausted, and Jen's cold got worse. We summd the trip up in this fashion: Tank of gas: $60.00; Ferry fees: $100.00; Dinner at the Chowder Pot: $80.00: a night in the Guilford Comfort Inn: $180.00...the sight of Farrah pooping in Holly, Jim and Tyler's back yard: PRICELESS

After September

Those of you who follow this page are the first to find out that my book of poetry, "After September" is now available on Amazon.com as well as Xlibris.com. My author page will link you to the book :

Author page: www.xlibris.com/Ransom.html

100% of my royalties are being donated to the:

National September 11 Memorial and Museum
at the World Trade Center

I can't thank everyone enough who has helped bring this project to such rapid fruition. A process begun in early June of 2009 is now complete. Well, almost. Now I have to get the word out and hope people will react. I wrote this book not so much for those who were there that day, though I hope they find it helpful in expressing their own emotions, but for those who were not, those not even born. In a sense this is a milestone in my own emotional recovery from what took place eight years ago. This moment represents my own personal climax to a healing which began on September 12th, 2001.

Moving Forward

Some last hurdles have been cleared and I am getting ready for the release of my book of poems. It all started innocently enough when I clicked on an ad on FaceBook which led me to Xlibris and the rest is...about to become history. Don't let anyone tell you that advertising on the internet doesn't work. I only wish that I thought of this a year ago when my dad was still alive. I think he would have been proud. But last year I was up to my eyeballs in work training new recruits at the DOB. No regrets. Everyone says I am a late bloomer. All the details about when and where the release will take place will be duly noted. Stay tuned.


After September
by
Mark D. Ransom
ISBN: 978-1-4415-5497-0

Mark David Ransom — comes from a long line of craftsmen. His Italian
immigrant great-grandfather worked on the world famous Brooklyn Bridge.
His German/Irish father practiced his trade at the 1964 World’s Fair and
on the State Capital in Albany, NY. He spent many years himself restoring
masonry buildings in the five boroughs, including the Brooklyn Museum and
the Empire State Building. The son of a slate roofer and a bookkeeper, and
educated by the public school system of New York City, Mark’s chosen crafts
have been making song and theater. He has done poetry slams at the Nuyorican
Poet’s Cafe and readings at Reckless in Hell’s Kitchen. He is a member the
White Horse Theater Company where he played the title role of Half in a
workshop production of the original play. A lifelong resident of New York
City, he is a poet, an actor, and a singer/songwriter. As a building inspector
and civil servant, living in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, Mark witnessed the events
of September 11, 2001, from a unique perspective, one that provided him with
the inspiration for this, his first volume of published poetry. In his official
capacity as an inspector, he documents the physical damage of city buildings.
As a poet, he investigates the emotional and psychological topography of a
new era emerging from the old. His chronicle in verse, dedicated to the city of
his birth, is written with words of healing, admiration, respect, and love.

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