With And Without

Remembering Old Friends

This piece is dedicated to the remembrance of old friends. I moved to a small town called Rosendale when I was 6 years old. Rosendale is located upstate NY. Just outside of Kingston. It’s a small mountain town and is where my heart still longs for today.

The poem I am introducing to you today is a reflection of that time and mainly about a friend who I grew up with. He has since died and I reflect once in awhile about our life such as it was.

Brian was my best friend. We hung out, cut school, partied and did most everything together. I could go into detail about our life but I think it would take a lifetime to put into words.

Brian died at the age of 27 and the way I found out was a total shock to me. I had moved on, was married and living in Portsmouth NH. Every year I would visit my parents who still lived in the old house I grew up in. I would come for a visit and always visit Brian and his grandmother who he lived with. We would hang out, party and always have a great visit. We would always be the best of friends and always happy to see each other.

To make this story a little shorter, one day I was visiting my family in the summer of 1983. It was sort of a family reunion and I was home for the week. The very first day I was home I had to walk down to Brian’s house. I couldn’t wait to see him. To my surprise someone else answered the door and said the people who lived there had moved away. They said that the guy that lived in the house was found dead from an overdose of drugs. His grandmother found him and had a heart attack and was under the care of a nursing home.

I was in shock to find out the news this way and have never been the same. I blocked it out of my mind for many years until one day when I was walking and started to reflect. Anyway this is what I wrote with my best friend Brian in mind.

Folks, DRUGS KILL!

Brian, if somehow you can read this I wrote this with you in mind.

With And Without

As I walked down the street
Faces, oh so many faces

I turn to greet a friend
But he’s not there

When I turn around again
Faces so strange, unknown
Unlike a feeling I’ve ever known before

Nothing like a friend
To talk to when things are hard

But now you’re gone
It’s hard but I must go on

Even though your not there
I can’t help but think you are
And somehow it makes it all easier

What about this emptiness
A word that is used to describe a pain

Hurting is a teacher
It teaches me to understand

That nothing lasts forever
Nothing in this great big world
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a lost cause

Why am I here
A question I ask myself

What is my purpose
A reason for me to live this way

I was born of this world
I will live of this world
I will die of this world

Here’s to long lost friends

Becoming Self Aware For The First Time

As you may or may not know, I started drinking at the age of 10 and never looked back until the age of 33. In my opinion that is 23 years of pure dysfunction. I come from a large family and am second youngest out of ten children. Many parties and plenty of alcohol, I don’t blame my family though it is an easy excuse.

I didn’t write this post to become an AA meeting rather an introduction to this next poem that I wrote back somewhere around 94.

Let me set the stage:

For a couple of years I walked around with this notion that my dysfunction was a result of society and I felt that society owed me big time. I was in debt up to my eye balls and looked for the US Government to bail me out. To make a long story short, No One Is At Your Beckon Call. If you need help you had better be ready to go through many channels to get it. The US Government is not there to help you rather it goes like this.

The US Government, My Representation:

Hi, I represent the US Government and I am getting paid, and quite well I might add. I am here to process you into the system. I see hundreds a day and I don’t want to hear about your problems. You need money? Go stand in that line. You have mental problems, the medical line starts there. What! You just came out of a rehab. So what do you expect from me? I’m not the one who put a drink to your mouth. My advice is to get a job. I can’t help you with an alcohol problem.

A person who has fallen can be made to feel just like that. It is a humbling experience and I don’t wish it on anyone.

I’m The Man
Writings about self awareness.

There’s a man I know who sells flowers on the street
Who can make a lady smile while he puts a dollar in his pocket

He’s a wicked old man that relates to the fact
Not unlike the man we know as the Politician

You can stick your nose where it don’t belong
But when you pull it back you will find it’s grown a little long
So take that dollar bill and put it in your pocket
I’m sure you’ll find you will need it on a rainy day

Sticks and stones and name calling was a thing of the past
You are in need my friend; you’re upside down and inside out
As this big old world turns round and round
So give me a home where nobody roams and the only thing that blocks out the sun is a tree
And I will show you the man with a sense of reality

If I can’t make you understand then let me take you by the hand
I will lead you on a journey, I will mislead, oops, I mean lead you through the land
You are after all what make this big world turn round and round
As I can only tell you that I’m The Man