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The Ring-A-Ding Solution

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When I’m suddenly caught In the swirling inlet riptide of heartbreak I turn to my invisible friend of record Capitol Years Frank, to croon away the pain. Frank The interpreter of maladies and melodies was the tough guy Priest of the Church of Me Too who preached from the cathedral of barrooms in a plume of Camel smoke “This is a gentleman’s drink,” Sinatra once said referring to his signature cocktail which was a mix of four ice cubes, two fingers of Jack Daniel’s and a splash of water. He would never touch the rim of a glass but rather cupped it in his hand with a cocktail napkin and then he would proceed to thinly slice the gabagool of his wrists with the jagged blade edge of rejection like the time he tried to commit suicide to perhaps match the faint forceps scar that ran from his jawline up his cheek to his ear whose skin was mutilated by cystic acne which he hid with make-up. His voice arrived In the ink well of night Like the cavalry Armed with the lyrics Of broken soldiers Stri...
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We Come Back As Dogs

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What if the truth is we come back as dogs who can’t tell us who they really are, which is why they act crazy — spinning in circles, chasing their own tails, licking our faces like they’re made of quickly melting ice cream. Maybe there’s a little carryover from their previous lives, which is why they nap all day like Nana or Poppy used to when their eyelids became as heavy as the slow decline of afternoon light. Maybe when we reenter the world we return to our prehistoric state when early man could only say: I’m hungry. I need to go outside. I love you more than you’ll ever know. By barking. Which was once upon a time the official language. Back when we said so much with our eyes, the way all dogs do when they stare into our souls, which they see as clearly as a CAT scan. Or try to signal us with their tails and jiggling butts like they’re desperate to win a game of charades no one at the party can figure out. Playing fetch? The message is clear: I will always return to you. Sleeping at...
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The Doe-Eyed Girl With Late August Skin

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Time is the quotidian commute of the sun, the month-long striptease of the moon, the lazy hammock sway of a metronome that sits like a Buddha high atop the lace-covered crest of a Baby Grand— in a splash of sunlight where specks of dust whirl like dervishes. Time is the only thing we want when we’re in love. And the one thing we cannot bear lying awake on the observation deck of our nighttime bed, counting the pink dahlias in the shadows of the wallpapered meadow  that what won’t  let  go. Time, in the daylight hours, is my closest friend— the only one who can take me back to anywhere but here, to the threshold moment of 1970, when the doe-eyed girl with late August skin answered the door, sopping wet hair, a shirt barely snapped, a Hula dancer’s smile whose beauty hit— point-blank, and I was gone falling  backward like Capa’s fallen soldier.
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The Every Day Cafe

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Despite the empty seat across the infinity of a quiet table, I can hear you above the chatter and clatter of the everyday cafe. As Sinatra sings, “All The Way" from the piped-in great  beyond, your hand journeys past the tiny civilizations of sugar and salt to claim mine. My food delivered like an offering sits - still as a Thiebaud. I close my eyes to go to where you live now and watch moments spin by in a swirl of creams, golds and soft pastels like the Carousel de Saint Pierre whose horses all tell a different tale Some rear. Some gallop. Just like we did when you said I love you too  for the very last time.
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You've Become

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You’ve become the keys I cannot find, the misplaced glove the forgotten song that knows the opera of my secrets and lies. You’ve become the unreliable narrator of daydreams And you’ve become The dog, Scampering,   despite the pain along the shore, following footprints the way I do, collecting evidence, never once turning back. Because it knows: no matter what I will always be here.
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The Divinity of Impulses

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When I pass beneath the Greyshot Arch, bound for shadows and sleep, I leave behind the song of the unsettled heart, and enter the stillness — stone and river,  deep. Even so, I will miss walking barefoot on the rolling tide of the Central Park meadow, like Jesus wandering the fringes of an Irish-green Galilee. I will miss my moseying — a derby-topped, cane twirling Chaplin — sailing past the silent cyclorama of East Side shops. I will miss being lifted from my feet by the scent of that temptress pizza, falling into the waiting parmesan-coated arms of Ray. I will miss greeting every dog I pass like a returning war hero — thanking them for their service with a formal salute. I will miss the currency exchange of a second-long smile with a passing looker who disappears into the crowd of swells like a film noir dame armed with a shimmy and a smirk. I will miss the stroll through the cornfield maze of The Strand, in search of meaning  that breathes in the belly of books But most of ...
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The Hidden Companionship of Saddness

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  I remember my little boy soak tub when bubbles would ricochet off tiles with pop and circumstance. I remember the sleepy time choir of late August crickets whose notes would take flight  and soar in formation in honor of  the death of the day. I remember the sound of my dad laughing at Sid and Imogen like someone was tickling his feet transmitted from  faraway living room island to the shores of my crib which for a one brief second erased his blackboard  and made him forget  the chalk of everyone he had lost and still ached for  just like I did whenever mommy said good night  and would disappear into holy foyer light perhaps forever. Despite the fact that my job then was the pursuit of happiness I was always acutely aware even at two of the hidden companionship of sadness which lived in the secret places of grown-ups who, at the end of each day, from behind the grieving hush of closed bedroom doors, would slip out of their work costumes and life...
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