Into You Like A Train

He didn't make a sound  when he hit the dirty floor, 'cause there was no one there to hear him anymore. Under the kitchen table: cobwebs and balls of dust. There's that  antique jackknife,  That you thought you lost. And then your heart stopped. It was weary and broken. All the loved ones lost, The "I Love you”s  left unspoken. And the ones you cared about, have all passed away, The children you once played with, now live so far away. The sink is filled with dirty dishes, Moldy food in the ‘fridge. A grease spattered wall, Is this really all there is? The end of every month, Seven hundred in the red. No money for food or beer Is it any wonder that you're dead. I wouldn't view the body Something I couldn’t do. That's not the way  I wanted to remember you. A camo shirt and sweat  stained hat, Sitting at a park bench, Down at Fort Mott. Ashes in the water, pale clouds billo...

It’s about nine in the morning when she hears him clomping up the wooden steps and unto the back porch. “About time!”, she thinks to herself as she places the cup of Nescafe on the formica table top. She turns toward the shaky aluminum screen door just as he enters, carrying his silver lunch box in one hand, a brown-bagged six pack in the other. He responds to her bland “good morning” with one of his own as he walks over to the refrigerator. He sets his lunch box (with it’s hand painted iron cross and his work nick-name “Mad Dog”) on the top, pulls the six-pack noisily from the bag, and puts it in the fridge, while pulling a can loose from the plastic rings that hold it together. He pulls the tab off the Reading Beer tall-boy, and takes a long much needed draw as he pulls out the chair and sits across from his wife. “How was work?”, she asks, without interest. “It was alright”, he responds. He takes another long draw off the tall-boy, savoring the cold wetness and a...

As I plodded up the back steps, I could already smell it through the screen door. My stomach churned. I knew what I was going to have to eat for dinner. It was my Dad’s day off before switching shifts at work, and he was making one of his favorite meals. As I opened the door, a steamy blast of putridness, the smell of tripe, from the steam loudly hissing out from the pressure cooker rattling the regulator. For those of you who don’t know, tripe is the muscle wall of a cow’s stomach. Disgusting, right? Spaghetti with tripe in tomato sauce. I felt nauseous as I climbed the stairs to my room to do my homework, but instead read Isaac Asimov’s Science-Fiction Magazine. Finally, the call came, “’S’eat!”, my Dad yelled, thinking that a clever contraction. Crap! I had to eat what was put in front of me, whether I liked it or not. Even if it was disgusting. My Stepmother would tell me that plate would stay on the table until I finished it. Didn’t matter how long. Even if it got mol...

Laurel Lake is in the pinelands of South Jersey, in Cumberland County, New Jersey, close to Millville, and beside the scenic Maurice River. The lake is man-made, as are all lakes in Southern New Jersey, usually created by damming for the purpose of running mills back in the early days. Originally, it was a summer resort area, but now, and when I lived there, it was more of a low-income housing area, summer cottages adapted for year round use by attaching trailers and adding small wood-frame rooms, garages, sheds and other simple structures. Commercial Township also allows trailers to be placed on lots that are not designated mobile-home parks. There are nice houses on the north side of the lake, but we lived in a green and white trailer on Dandelion Road near Doris Drive, on the southern, poorer side of  Laurel Lake. Still, there were cottages and trailers that served as summer retreats, which when vacant were frequently burglarized. I was guilty of this myself, breaking into...

Sunrise Gardens was the rundown apartment complex where my Dad lived…and died. Click on the link (blue text, which turns red when hovering) below to watch a little music video I made, in honor of my Father. Sunrise Gardens.

My Dad's Buick Roadmaster in front of his apartment. Hard to fathom the darkness into which I have descended. the accumulated grief of years, pent up, your heart implodes. Never letting the tears come. suppressing the sentiments with alcohol. Living numbly, when I used to feel so much. I am still crushed by the death of my father  who expired on the dirty floor of a grease splattered kitchen. in that dusty apartment, the sink and counter filled with dirty dishes, that was more then enough to look at, I couldn't look at the body  which was at the funeral home  almost a week before we could get out there and make the necessary arrangements. then realizing I knew his loneliness and desperation well, all the feelings of loss and grief.  he lost everyone: his father, mother, brother,  then his wife of twenty-some years, that slow smoking suicide, the emphysema, the murder of her son, the slow overdose on her pr...

My Dad. Probably mid to late 1970s. Looks like he's been drinking.  I am quite certain that my Father would still be with us if he hadn't drank as much as he did, given his health issues. He was diabetic, type 2 I believe. He was on medication for it. When I was there going through his personal effects, I noticed an unopened test kit on his dresser. I seemed he had stopped testing his blood sugar levels, while still drinking around twelve Milwaukee's Best Lights a night. When he could afford it. His bank account was usually in the negative at the end of each month. While his wife, my stepmother, Geri was still around she used to remind him to test himself. She died in 2006. I don't know how much he kept up with it after that. Not to mention that he was pretty depressed after that. I remember him speaking of his brother, my Uncle John. He told me that he would sometimes drink a case of beer or so at night, and call my Dad, weeping, talking about his (and their) un...