All I have is what I got,and the power of the heart and mind,who knows about the road ahead,or just what I'll find.
"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.
Then the man said,
"Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,
because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
-Genesis 32:24-28
On these warm summer days, I make alot of ice, no AC...so I make alot of ice,I put ice in my whiskey, and whiskey in my coffee,I put ice in a bag and put it on my knee,a little ice for the nag of an old injury,in the hot afternoon sun,I shuffle down to the One Lucky,step in only to have old Beer Mugs tell me that the ice maker's broken,"Broken? Your jokin'!" I yell,"He's anything but," a drunken Tortelli replies from his barstool,his busted up fists still red and scabbed from a fight the night before,"You want me to drink whiskey neat on a day like this? How the hell am I supposed to cool off?" I protest,"Why don't you ask her" Beer Mugs says pointing to a nasty but hot lookin' broad in the corner of the room, champagne eyes and tattooed legs that went on for days,"Ain't that French's girl?" I ask quietly,"Nah, not anymore she ain't...take a run at 'er." Beer Mugs replies,13 highballs and a plate of 50 suicide wings later, I'm back at her place filling her bathtub with bags of ice while she slips into something more comfortable,I jump out of my jeans and slide into the ice bath,I hear her coming, "Close your eyes honey..I made this bath real special for us." I say,"Ok...I dunno..." she replies,She enters the bathroom slowly, eyes closed in just a kimono,"Yah just drop that robe down honey and slide in." I suggest,She says giggling, "ohhhh kayyy...."As soon as her soft white skin hits the ice water she jumps out with a shriek,"You bastard!" she shouts."You're a freak...a real freak you know that!?" she yells picking up her robe and slamming the door on her way out."I guess I sort of 'am honey! Hey listen, if I hurt ya, just put a little ice on it!" I shout.Chuckling to myself I slide farther down into the ice bath..."Ooooo baby... that's cold." I say quietly... taking greedy puffs on my cigar.
a small company is hired by a sleepy bureaucracy to handle work the bureaucracy can't do, without the golden benefits of government, the sick days, the personal days, the vacation days, the compressed work weeks, the pension, the cash-for-life, the small company hustles and sweats to complete deliverables as deadlines shift and jerk to arbitrary and ever illusive departmental management policy,the highly-insulated, slow-moving government machine sits high above the safety net of the public purse and remains impervious to accountability no matter the level of error or depth of incompetence...oversights,misplacement,mis-communication,misunderstanding,their strange and habitual occurrence of "lost invoices" puts a small company in rough waters and without money owed for over 4 months,oblivious and distracted bureaucrats soil the credibility and effort of smart, hard-working ones, as they shift blame from person to person, department to department, process to process, yet as they flounder and rationalize very simple failure to live up to a contract, the small company struggles to pay the electrical, the rent and the salaries, so as the tired company delays the pay, the workers go home to their families empty-handed.It's unethical.The bureaucrat doesn't hear, as he lies comfortably in the pool deck sun in his beach shorts, listening to his Ipod, eyes closed, his round oily belly jiggles and his arms dance quickly as he pretends he is the conductor of a large orchestra.
You're not invisible,I can hear you,I can hear you during the day,I can hear you in the night,your crying echoes through my dreams,I'll see you in a glance,and then you're gone,I can hear your voice,then there is silence,I know you are out there,and I know what they did to you,I don't know where you are,and I don't know when you are,but I know what they did to you,when they made you believe you weren't divine,so please hold on,I am doing my best,and I will reach you.
city sweats in July heat,buildings sink and wallpaper peels,a muted trumpet plays Miles Davis,insomniacs do laundry,a Chinese restaurant cook has a cigarette in the alley,steam pours from rusty pipes,coffee is on forstreet sweepers, newspaper trucks,drowsy cop cars,Mr. O'Rourke from 207 is humpin' some whore,you can hear 'em hollering and groaning two floors upwhere I lie awake on an old mattress,room lit by a neon strip club sign,out the window,a drunken bum sings,a slurred Dean Martin's "Somewhere there's a someone,"as I read an old urine stained Gideons bible,pouring over the last few verses of Lamentations,sweat drips as I dream of tender lovers of the past,thick steaks and icy martinis,it's so hot, even the angels stink of B.O.
reduced to mumblings,head-scratching and neurotic concern,I'm a shell of a man,eating beans from a can,cloaked in the driving rain,half bottle of whiskey,and a gypsy's curse,I watch the fan spin,and an ant on the window ledge,crawling closer to my perception's edge,think about the same problem,from a different angle,like celebrities flashing a hand made triangle,a room with four walls,a twisted fate,a programmed construction of a god of love and hate,did this same god create this same ant to drag a wasp ten times it's weight?
