it's the bitch of living...

i have decided that i should not be afraid of the zika virus...because i have used the women's bathroom at penn station...and i am still breathing...although, i am still trying to shake the image of various homeless women and their life's belongings in carts...and trying to erase the sound of the woman screaming in the booth next to me from my memory chip...although it could have been a lirr commuter rejoicing in the fact that a truck didn't hit a queens overpass at 430pm, that a distracted soccer mom didn't run a crossing at 3pm, and that someone did not feel a track in suffolk was a great place to check out...ah, penn...east side...west side...pee around the town...welcome to new york...de blasio's new york...or as i now refer to it...urinetown...the new york post...i cannot really call it a newspaper...it is really required reading at trump university...however, when they published pictures last week of various people peeing into subway tracks...parks...streets...well, i thought there's hope for you yet...someone needs to blow the lid off this bullshit...because the city council approved easing punishment for public urination...littering...and other "little things"...those little things that impinge on daily quality of life...whatever quality is left...and now...2016...well, you need rain boots and an oxygen mask to walk the streets...before bed last night i caught a story about a poor woman walking on the east side...6pm...a man came behind her and shoved a bag of shit down her pants...i just can't...the pretenders had it...just not ohio...i went back to new york...but my city was gone...watch where you walk out there...although it just may be the tracks of my tears...

prose like a butterfly, blog like a bee...

and so the poetry spouting beloved boxer is gone...supreme athlete...poet if you didn't know it...american...muslim...conscientious objector (look that up if it's before your time)...husband (several times)...father (of nine!)...muhammad ali...finally succumbing to parkinson's...the ultimate price he paid for his prowess...the mighty are falling...the musicians...actors...writers...and so many who have shaped the worlds we have lived in...but tell me...what athletes today would truly defy status quo...be so eloquent in the shadows of a beautifully violent sport...can you imagine coming home with olympic gold...and not being able to sit down to eat and celebrate where you wanted?...we have come so far...or so they say...how can so many sing his praises...post pictures of his face...and hate who he was at the same time...and here i am railing against the machine...because i am not painting pictures with poetry here...no, this blog is for the day to day...the tedious...the nuance...the things that hurt...and anger...and sometimes if i am lucky...the fleeting moments that sing me to sleep...and so tonight i am hoping that muhammed ali's soul is drifting peacefully to a better place...where he is loved and admired for all that he was...the messy imperfection that is the human soul...and for that we say...amen