Prologue to New Novella

          Eva dragged her tired, pregnant body through the alley behind the Fourth Street Diner. Price and Mitch sat against the wall, a bottle of Mad Dog tipped toward cracked and dirty lips in a perfectly timed rotation. Back and forth the liquor traveled from weathered face to weathered face. That was dinner and Eva was just in time for dessert. Diligent begging had procured enough money for a good size crack rock. Price took the last swig of Mad Dog and noticed her.
          “Hey, baby, how’s our mommy doing today?” Price slurred.
          “I told you not to call me that. As soon as I have this kid, I’m dumping it at the fire station. I got things to do and places to go.”
          Price laughed and patted the pavement next to him. “Yeah we know what places you gotta go to. You’re pimps waitin’ so he can take some more trade out on you.”
          Eva slapped Price’s arm and pointed toward the yellowed crack pipe. “You got some extra in there for me?” She had no intention of sharing her rock, that would be for later.
          “Nothin’s free little girl. You know the drill.”
          “Jesus, Price, I’m nine months pregnant. How the hell do you get off on bangin’ a pregnant chick?”
          Price laughed as Mitch threw up violently from a coughing fit the crack had induced. He grabbed the tube from Mitch and thrust it into Eva’s hands. .”Who said anything about bangin’ your fat ass. A blow job will do just fine.”
          Eva cradled the smooth glass in her hands in a way she would never cradle her baby and inhaled deeply while Price held the lighter. The instant gratification of a high that allowed escape from her reality sent calmness through her. As she reluctantly handed it back to Price, the baby kicked and Eva gasped.
          “What’s wrong?” Mitch finally uttered while wiping his lips on the back of his ragged sleeve.
           “It’s moving. I hate when it does that. I wish this damn thing would just come out so I can get back on the street and make some big money again.”
          “Yeah, right,” Mitch snickered. “You’re seventeen and all used up. Who the hell’s gonna wanna pay for damaged goods? Your pimp didn’t have no problem dumpin’ you when he found out.”
          “Go to hell, Mitch. He told me he had to cut me loose until it’s born so the other girls don’t get any ideas about getting knocked up. As soon as it’s over he’ll take me back. You’ll see.”
          Both men laughed and waved their arms in the air shouting.
          “Rah, rah, little Miss Cheerleader, keep telling yourself that line of crap.”
          “Why do you have to be so -”
          Eva groaned and grabbed her stomach as she doubled over in pain. The frightened looks on Mitch’s and Price’s faces scared her even more. A gush of water flowed between her legs, steaming as it hit the Autumn cooled pavement.
          “Oh, God, it hurts. What do I do? Get me some help. I’m scared guys.”
          They stared from her to the ground and back at her in baffled amazement. Standing up, they tossed a blanket at her and hastily retreated into the darkness of the alley. Eva cried as the reality of her situation surfaced. She pushed herself up from the ground and staggered to her feet, the pain heightened by the crack cocaine coursing through her. Breathing heavily and taking slow calculated steps, she worked her way to the opening of the alley that led to Fourth Street. The early evening crowd leaving work and heading home bustled by her, oblivious to her existence. Eva felt a scream rise in her throat as the pain again gripped her insides like powerful hands trying to squeeze the life out of her.
          A man in an expensive three piece suit walked by her and as she reached out for him, he spat at her and hurried on as he muttered under his breath, “trash.”
          The pain subsided and Eva made her way to the curb. She caught sight of Ephraim, standing on a plastic crate, swaddled in a dingy white sheet, his hair standing straight out from his head, shouting about the coming of the Lord and the death of non-believers. He seemed to feel her gaze and looked back at her. Pointing his finger slowly, he shook as he shouted, “You! Dirty little girl. You will bring death and destruction on all of us. Your demon seed will destroy the earth.”
          Involuntarily, Eva wrapped her arms around her distended belly and turned her back to him. Ephraim’s shouting grew more frantic and people were stopping to witness the commotion. She stepped toward the edge of the curb, and looked both ways. The hulking brown frame of a UPS truck hurtled down the street beckoning for a piece of her.
          Thoughts of the pathetic nature of her life caused her stomach to churn even more. Home had been bad, but this was worse. Two years on the streets had taken her life force and shredded it beyond redemption. The question that had been plaguing her arose again. Why bother being alive? She knew the baby would be damaged, because she’d been doing drugs and drinking the whole time. Ephraim’s words lost their clarity, and all she could make out was him coaxing her to step off the curb and do humanity a favor. The pain was coming on again as she placed her foot on the litter strewn road. She was oblivious to the sound of a blaring horn and the mad screeching of tires on the blacktop, as a pair of hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her back. The last thing she felt was the searing pain of the life inside of her fighting to get out.
                                                                                *****
          When Eva opened her eyes, the muted sunlight falling between the slats of the blinds forced her to squint while trying to focus on her surroundings. The crisp sheets she lay between gave her the familiar feeling of home. Turning her head slowly, she focused on a figure sitting in a chair off to the side of the bed.
          “Well, young lady, welcome back.” He was sitting in the shadows and his disembodied voice made her feel ill at ease.
          “Where am I? Who are you?”
          “In a safe place. A friend.”
          Eva realized something felt different and instinctively reached down toward her belly. She grasped the loose skin that had been taught and itchy just…what, hours or days before?
          “Where’s my baby?”
          “The babies are fine.”
          “Babies?”
          He finally rose from the chair and entered the halo of light next to the bed. Smiling, as she gasped, he took her hand and squeezed gently. Eva was amazed at what she saw. His beauty was overwhelming, though she would not have been able to describe him to someone if they asked for his features. There was a glow about him that gave her a sense of peace and longing, though for what she did not know.
          “What’s going on?” she pleaded, frightened by the purity of this man.
          “Your girls are fine. We’ve named them Lilith and Hannah.”
          “Who’s we?”
          She tried to rise, but fell back to the bed as a sharp pain coursed through her abdomen. Moaning, she gazed back at him as she heard the door open. A woman of equal beauty, yet absorbed by the shadows putting a darkness around her, stood there gazing at Eva.
          “It’s time,” she whispered.
          The man looked down at her and smiled. “Soon you will be at peace. You’re going home.”
          “I don’t want to go home. I can’t. Don’t make me go back there,” she begged
          The man picked a syringe up off of the nightstand and jabbed it into her arm before she could react. The darkness began to envelop her immediately as she felt the slowing of her heartbeat and a gradual sense of blackness enveloping her. The last sound she heard was the faint cry of her babies.
          “Sleep child, your work is done.”

© R. MonaLeza 2011

Don’t tell me I can’t do it!

Years ago when I first started taking poetry seriously in my writing, I decided I wanted to make my living as a poet. I don’t think I ever met a person that said, “hell yeah, go for it.” The usual response was, “that’s nice, but you know you can’t make a living as a poet.” For some strange reason, I believed it. After all, in a country that has gone such a great distance beyond reading and romance that isn’t technologically driven, how on earth could poetry stand a chance. And that, my friends, is where the problem lies. A large percentage of the population in America has no real clue how far poetry has come and what changes it has created in the world. Poetry is not just an emotion driven outlet of wrist-cutting, desperate women, or gay men that have to hide under the societal rules of manhood, it’s a medium that creates change on so very many levels. Poetry is a revolutionary voice that will, has, and will continue to make changes across the globe.

Poetry can define every human emotion, trials and tribulations, fallen heroes, rising stars, injustice to humanity, and the list goes on and on. There is no other writing medium that can span the scope of the human condition quite like the poetic words of a feeler spread across a blank page waiting for that revolution to begin, flourish, and come to an end. Poetry is a journey of the mind, heart, soul, and body. It fits neatly into a four letter word – LOVE. Poetry is the blood that pumps through the veins of the creative body. It feeds all other mediums and that is what must be brought to light in the literary world.

To my fellow poets…continue to share your gift with the world, create positive change, and educate the masses on the fine art and powerful gift of humanity…

Stay tuned…

9 Months

It’s been four months since I’ve posted on my blog.  Seems I fell head first into some kind of weird twilight zone slump.  I have been privy to writers block through the years, however, I always attributed it to not having enough drama in my life.  The more drama, the more writing, which creates more drama, thus more writing.  It’s a beautiful, vicious cycle.  There has been no lack of drama in the past nine months of my life, but there has been a serious lack of writing.  I’ve pondered and wondered and speculated and then just plain given up on trying to figure it out. I’ve always worked my way through my life issues by writing about them and then discarding them into neat little boxes that sit on dusty shelves like memories of the worst of times.  There is a small shelf way in the back with tangles of cobwebs that hold the little boxes of good memories.  I don’t ever open them up, as they are way to precious to let back out of the box.

In the past 5 months I’ve moved, come to terms with my definition of motherhood (in understanding the empty nest syndrome), reconnected with an old friend that was once the love of my life only to lose him again, lost a dear friend, gained many new friends who don’t really know the depth of my insanity, and experienced the fear of losing a child (thanks be that he’s okay).  I have doubted myself on all levels, dealt with extreme loneliness, decided to move to a new place half a dozen times, and were it not for my fear of death, bordered on wanting to check out a few times.  I’ve had too much time to think, and my mind never stops spinning from one vortex into another.  I laughed my way through the imminent Rapture, only to wonder,what if?  I’ve questioned my abandonment of an ingrained belief system that never really gave me comfort.  I wondered why, as capable and wiling as I am to love, there is no one to receive it.  I’ve given up a bad habit,(smoking), only to have it rob me of the comfortable skin I lived in.  I loathe my reflection, but my lungs are happy.  My blood pressure issue is resolved and I don’t live in the brink of a stroke every day.  I’ve been able to walk away from my 40 hour a week yoke and dedicate all of my time not working on my Grad degree to writing.  Though I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, I’ve worked my way through menopause without hormone replacement therapy, and psychotic mood swings.

So, in light of all of these changes and life alterations, there should be at least 4 or 5 new books on my shelf.  Alas, that is not so. I’m crawling through the days, waiting for the nights, writhing in nightmarish dreams that give me relief from the banal circumstances I find myself in, and each morning I wake up wondering if I’ve broken out of the placental sack of my self imposed imprisonment.  Each morning I gaze at the empty space on the other side of my bed and wonder if I will find my creative self  in dead repose, mocking me.

Now, just a few days past the life altering shift that took place 9 months ago (my hospitalization for high blood pressure), I seem to have found some answers to questions that have been causing the turbulence in my brain.  With all of these life experiences and no words on paper to stuff into little boxes, I wear them like a post apocalyptic pelt that keeps me bound to doubt.  Nine months, the gestation of a human life…nine months, when the body changes to accommodate that life…nine months,  the time it takes to push that new life into the world…nine months, and this was the morning I woke up and found my creative self lying in repose next to me with open arms…

Stay tuned…

Day 3

It started at a young age, 12.  I grew up as an only child until that prepubescent age right before the teens begin.  My mother was told she couldn’t have anymore children and lo and behold my dad had some pretty kick ass swimmers, so she became pregnant at the age of 43.  I really didn’t care one way or the other, as I didn’t feel it would change my life at all.    The pregnancy was tough on my mother, because she was older.  She lost all of her teeth and had implants done after my brother was born.  When she came home from the hospital with him, I thought he was kind of cute, but that wore off quickly when he woke me from slumber at all hours of the night, cutting short my dreams about my newest crush.   Within weeks, I was changing diapers, feeding and burping him, and rocking him to sleep at night.  My parents gushed about how cute I was, like a miniature mommy.  It was at that time I decided I never wanted to have children.

With twelve years between us, there wasn’t much chance of a deep bonding between siblings.  I was more like an ersatz mom.  Life changed dramatically as we moved to Livorno, Italy, not long after he was born.  I’d already spent the first twelve impressionable years of my life with no real connection to family outside of my parents.  I clung to the minimally normal family life I had.  My parents barely spoke, my mom cooked, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned,  (yeah to excess), worked a full day, ran errands, and basically fulfilled the 1950′s version of the female persona.   She barely had time for my brother, so I was given the responsibility of entertaining him.  I can admit now, all these years later, I had such deep animosity toward that little boy, that at times I hated him.  Little did I know, we were both victims of a set of parents too busy with everything but nurturing us, and a father that didn’t hesitate to kick my ass to prove a point.  I was held responsible for anything my brother did “wrong.”  I had no social life, or chance to get involved in after shcool activities, and hanging with my friends was limited to the weekends when my mom didn’ t have to work.  More animosity built up.  It is one my life’s deepest regrets, not having him as part of my life, because we share the same blood, the same DNA, we are bound by things much deeper and stronger than a selfish bastard that walked out of both of our lives between the legs of another woman.  He caused irreperable destruction to me, my brother, and my mother.  And yet, I call him my father…

Of course all of these years later, though I don’t know my brother at all, he lives in Germany, I realize we were both victims of some bizarre need for my father to have a son.  Though I spent the better part of my childhood being injected with how to be a male, I just didn’t have the equipment to carry on the name.  That was very important to my father.  Irony…he and brother have no relationship and though my brother has a son, my father doesn’t know him either.  Karma can be a bitch. 

The reason for this trip back through memory lane, is because it was the beginning of determining who I became until about three weeks ago.  The mother, the nurturer, the protector, the womb to propagate life, the caretaker, and above all else, the denier of anything outside of that.  Without the daily struggle to provide for my children, I became an empty shell with no idea of what to do to feel like there was any value to my being.  I entered a void, a vortex that has spun out of control and is eating me alive and worrying me to death.  Who am I now?  What is my purpose?  Is there a value to me outside of being a mother?  Will I spend the rest of my life alone?  It’s hell.  It’s fucking hell and yet as has been the case since the age of seven, I still cannot shed a single tear.  The one thing that definitely stuck with me from the bowels of my fathers controlling mouth is, “Don’t cry, it’s a sign of weakness.  Once you start, you can’t stop and it will destroy you.”

The identity I spoke of earlier, the mother, is the one that now eludes me on the level it has been since the age of twelve, and has me standing outside of myself for the first time in this life, looking in and wondering, why does it feel like this is the end?  If you have the guts, step on the train and ride through this journey with me.  I’m going to prove that “EMPTY NEST SYNDROME” is very, very real, and devastating to the psyche that society has created for women.

P.S. I love you Junior…

Stay Tuned…

Day 2

With each life task comes a set of principled and conditioned responses.   Though there was a time when humans learned by trial and error, success and failure, comfort and discomfort, etc., such is not the case anymore.  Now there is an unwritten set of rules to follow that place us within the expectations of societal norms.  Any deviation from those rules tilts the axis of our personal universe.  We are quick to jump back into the game inside of the parameters that give us a comfort level assuring that all will be well.

I suppose that’s why I’ve been on a hell ride almost my entire life.  I’ve made it a mission to function outside of the rule pool.  My earliest memory of being subliminally infused with a personality trait was my father telling me I was born the wrong gender and should have been a boy, because I didn’t “act” like a girl.  I suppose I wasn’t too sure what the difference was.  He said I was too strong to be a woman and for that reason I would likely not be able to “hang onto a man” because of that.  He assured me that strong women are destined to be alone, because men don’t tolerate that trait well.   He made sure to beat the idea into me for the better part of my childhood.  I’ve wondered through the years if he was trying to beat the strong out of me.  I also wonder if that’s why I leaned toward marrying a man that didn’t hesitate to kick my ass to make that same point.  Two marriages and two divorces later, I’m stronger than ever, and yes I’m alone.  I see it as a bit of a conundrum, a trade off of sorts.  Being strong has brought me through dark times, being strong has forced me never to cry out of sadness, being strong helped me raise two kids by myself, being strong kept me in mental armor to make sure I couldn’t be hurt again.  In the end we know that’s an impossibility, because if there is a chink in the armor, someone will find a way into it no matter how small, and tear it wide open.

I used to see that as a test of faith until I realized I invited the intrusion into my fortress, because it gave me a reason to keep fighting, to prove nothing could bring me down.  Strife is our greatest motivator.  Without it we lose purpose.  Without a challenge before us, we fold in on ourselves and become complacent and unsure of what our life purpose is in light of such a change.  It is the daily battle to invent and reinvent ourselves that keeps us alive.  When we give that up, we invite illness on many levels into our bodies and minds.

I’m standing on a plateau wondering where to go from here, because the life change I’m going through has nothing to do with a mid-life crisis, it has everything to do with the loss of an identity that has ruled my life for the past 31 years.

Stay tuned…

Day 1

I spent a tremendous amount of time researching an interesting part of the human condition.  Being a lover of words, I began to delve into the labels that are put on certain aspects of what a person is going through.  I traveled through the world of phobias, bizarre other worldly illnesses, mental illnesses, and so on.  Each of these labels has a certain set of symptoms that isolate it into a particular category.  How frightening is this concept to you?  It scared the hell out of me.  There was a time when people functioned in life with the very simple matter of  “living.”

With the evolution of our species we have adapted to the changes time has created, but somewhere along the way we abandoned our ability to maintain control of our lives and what surrounds them.  We’re poor or rich, sick or healthy, one color or another, straight or gay, good or evil, and so on.  Then within those very simple black and white labels are the gray areas that expand being poor into a race, a color, a location, which then further breaks down into developing a sense of apathy if it does not affect us personally.

I began writing a list of some of those labels that have been projected into my world, biracial, claustrophobic, single, middle aged, and the list goes on.  Every part of my life has some kind of label.  I used to look at those labels as just ways to describe aspects of my life, but the reality is that as each depiction of where I am in life leaves a connotation that keeps moving me further and further away from who and what I really am.  These ideas of being create a sense of fear and confusion, and eventually pushes the brain into a box to contain thoughts that would place us outside of the very unnatural condition of subjugation to an unseen, but very real force that keeps us bound.

I started thinking about my next writing project, as I have been on an extended hiatus from writing since developing my new label, sufferer of high blood pressure, the silent killer.  You feel great, you feel normal, then one day you’re gone, just like that.  It makes one face mortality day after day and eventually raises the level of fear to a point where it exacerbates the condition.  All of this has raised some rather interesting ideas for my new writing project.  I’m pushing myself back into the skin of a lover of words, a lover of ideas, a lover of impacting lives…a writer.  I won’t kid you or myself, it’s a battle, and one that has me puzzled, because I’ve identified myself with that label in a loving and nurturing way for many years.

I’ve been sweeping aside the debris for almost a week now and am excited about the journey.  This book will be about a label that never seemed real or viable, one I always laughed about which has now become very real and very revealing.

Stay tuned…

Drifting…

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve written, a couple of months that have actually raised a ton of questions and provided few answers.  I’m amazed at how much of an ongoing process growth and realization is when meshed into the human factor.  Each time a change occurs, I believe I’ve reached some new height that puts me in a level place.  In actuality, with each life change, I waiver more and more from what I perceive to be solid ground.

It’s been about four months since I first faced my high blood pressure issues.  I’ve always been an extremely healthy person, no childhood illnesses, the occasional cold, my children were born naturally with no drugs through labor or delivery, well you get the idea.   Suddenly I have this thing thrown at me and it takes me somewhere I’ve never really been before…it takes me face to face with my mortality.   As much as we believe, “it” can’t happen to us, the bottom line is, we’re here, then we’re gone, then we recycle and move on.  It’s not a mystery, it’s not an anomaly, it’s not something exclusive to some and not others, it is what it is, part of the process.

So why then do we grasp onto whatever we can to prolong the inevitable.  Is it a sense of not having accomplished what we set out to do?  Is it a need to see out life’s endeavors come to fruition?  Is it the fear of what comes after?  Is it just the idea of not being anymore?

I’ve come to the conclusion that life from birth til death is a journey of statistics.  It’s not really an individual living process, it is unique to each person  Throughout a lifetime, we are in some kind of group or another, some kind of scenario or another, some kind of process or another that we really have no control over.  Fearing what life will evolve into or out of is exactly what controls our growth as intelligent, creative, and independent life forces.  Contributing a life force that can create change, and initiate a thought process that makes our world, our lives, our very existence and experience worthy of the marvel a human life form really is.

We adopt a range of emotions that take us through the everyday life experiences that we believe give us meaning.  There is such a varied sense of being from individual to individual, that it is not surprising we drift through this life like lost sheep seeking just the right place to lie down and rest before we have to venture on.  The connections we make along the way, are not really connections, but more like taps of energy to keep us moving forward.  On occasion we do find that link to another person that makes us feel truly alive and at peace.  All of these encounters happen for a reason, a mutual reason that requires seeing beyond the mundane and forming a union that can move mountains and part seas.  It is what we call “god”.   It is the gift we share as a living species existing in an infinitesimal place of wonder and amazement.

What I can’t seem to figure out is how we came to take it all for granted, how we’ve learned above all else to destroy it, and how egotistical we are to think it won’t turn on us and eradicate an ungrateful life force hell bent on annihilation.  I for one have looked beyond my own banal platitudes to a force beyond my understanding, and embraced just how small I am in the grand scheme of things.  I’ve never felt more gratitude in being allowed to experience the joy of being a part of it all.

Stay tuned…

The first shoots

I entered the photogaphy aspect of this project with some trepidation in light of the fact that I wasn’t taking the photos.  I wondered if having Tiffany as my photographer would diminish or alter what I was trying to get across.   We did the first shoot, which was about Domestic Violence at my place in the bathroom, which deviated away fromwhat the poem portrayed.  Nonetheless, I loved the pictures.  The second shoot about Gangs in the inner city was done in South St. Pete, and though it went along with what I’d written, didn’t seem quite right.  Later in the afternoon we went to Anderson Park in Tarpon to shoot an incredibly beautiful pregnant woman for the Pro Life/Pro Choice images. 

The first two shoots didn’t feel right and Tiffany and I decided to redo them.  The third one with the pregnant woman (Sara) turned out to be not only amazing, but inspiring.  Everything was right for the shoot, the time of day, the location, the model, and the vibe in general.  It helped us to figure out what elements we needed for every shoot.  Sara was surrounded by beams of sunlight, and of course her pregnant woman beauty shone through in amazing ways.

That following Tuesday, we redid the Domestic Violence shoot at Tiffany’s and added in another element, a baby.  I will admit that once the makeup was applied and the tone was set, my heart was hurting and my stomach was in knots.  It brought back some pretty awful memories.  A few times I had to look away, walk into the other room, and catch my breath.  I feel the model was equally affected in the second shoot. 

That Friday, we arranged to shoot another series of photographs for the Pro Life/Pro Choice images with George and Debbie.  Again, there were emotions coming to the forefront that touched all of us in different ways.  Debbie did an amazing job of portaying the emotions I wanted to see in the images, and George followed suit with ease. 

This past Sunday, we did the third part in the Pro Life/Pro Choice series with Maggie.  This series of photos will surely create a tremendous amount of controversy, but I felt it was necessary to include this image.  Maggie did a wonderful job and though we all had a few reservations about the location we chose for this shoot, we emerged unscathed from any police involvement!  The final shoot for this series of photos takes place this Saturday.

Tomorrow night we are shooting the Embracing Individualtiy series with Candace, Emily, and Elliot.  I’m particulary excited about this shoot, as I will be graced by two of the most beautiful and talented women I know, along with a young man I’ve not yet met, but look forward to portraying in his own unique sense of beauty.

As we move foward with this project, I feel the excitement of what the end result will be.  I was informed on Sunday night that we have a definite venue for the opening of this exhibit and a supporter that is likely to help us accomplish the goals we are setting out to acheive. 

The entire reason behind this project is to bring society issues to the forefront without any veils or fears of upsetting those that view the images.  We want people to be affected.  We want people to be involved.  Above all else, we want to bring awareness to societal issues that play a large part in destroying what little humanity we have left.

I look forward to the completion of this project and sharing it with all of you.

Stay tuned…

Finally underway

I first began planning this project in August of 2009.  I had a vision of what it would bel like to have images that paint pictures of my words.  I began the process by writing 20 “poems”, or visions if you will, and then imagined what those words would look like as photos.  I talked to my friend and a wonderful photographer, Tiffany, and asked her what she thought about the idea.  Her excitement was not easily contained and we made the committment to pursue the project as a team.  Sadly, Tiffany’s camera went FUBAR and we had to put the project on hold.

About two months ago, a wonderful friend and artistic benefactor bought me a Nikon D5000 SLR digital camera.  I played around with it, did some random shoots, then approached Tiffany and let her know I was ready to proceed with the project.  Last Saturday, after she got her tattoo, we hunkered down at Borders Book Store and picked the first ten images to work on.  We laid out the details of which people we wanted, the locations, clothing, lighting, etc.  It was exciting to bring the whole idea to life.

This past week I’ve been contacting the models for the first three shoots we’ve scheduled for the weekend.  Tiffany and I are very excited about how quickly it’s progressing and how it is finally becoming a reality.  I’ll be blogging as we progress to keep you all updated on the progress.

The thread that links them all together is the nature of the words and the images which depict societal issues in America and for that matter the world over.   The first three photos will depict, gang violence in inner cities, domestic violence, and sexual preference tolerance. 

Once the project is completed, hopefully by the end of the year, we will be pitching it to museums in the area.  This is by far the largest project I’ve invested myself in, and it steps outside of the norm of just the written word. 

Stay tuned…

Ready to begin again

After publishing five poetry books and a novel, I somewhat came to a stalemate on what to do next. As much as I love poetry, I knew I needed a break from it, and an infusion into something altogether different. My first published book was a Manifesto that played a great part in the healing process that was much needed in my life. It was a catalyst in every sense of the word.

This manifesto is coming from a much different place. I cannot put into poetic form, the words that spring to the forefront of the ideas I’m bringing across. These are flashes of thoughts that blind me momentarily, and when the specks of light behind my eyelids fade away, the words are born. This book will be compiled of many “what-ifs”, which we all carry in our secret universe, but often deny.

Though I initially felt this was a journey best not shared, as truths will be revealed, nightmares will come to life, and realizations will give brief reprieves, I knew there was no alternative but to put it all between the covers of a book, send it out into the world, and hope even one life can be affected in a positive way. This one isn’t for me, it’s for every man and woman out there that has even a momentary sense of hopelessness and confusion about the reason for being. This is proof that despite it all, life is a fickle bitch and we make love to her every moment of our existence. We are all gluttonous creatures when it comes to wanting more than we ever really need…it’s what sets us apart from every species that lives for the sake of living.

Just a thought…