That Sword

You are such a clean steel instrument.
 Silent and true. 
Wrapped with cloth tight and firm 
A wooden handle at the hilt.

Nothing blunt in your appearance. 
Slender as you are in style.
A creation like no other. 
You will not be still.

You are my sword. 
I'll live by your code. 
It has become my oath.

You are majestic. 
Valiant my virtue.  
your strength confides in us both.

You are my sword, 
hammered steel so beautiful
Honor and truth will be my life.
Perseverance I'll get from you.

A world of hurt on my shoulder

All that I love or that I like has been ripped out right from under me.
Rafael L. Gonzalez 2010

A million times in my life I ask myself why?

A thousand nights and some days

I sat down, prayed,

asked the lord to be saved,

drained from this pain.

Still it remains

so I Pray and pray.

Like my mind deep inside

my eyes and ears are not opened wide

so he listens and hears and he does not reply.

A thousand days may go by

before I realize

it is I who has to unlock the mind inside.

So I write this today

to share the way I feel,

not to say

I can’t make it go away

no matter how hard I try

until I open my ears and eyes.

This is why another million times in my life

I’ll continue to ask myself why o why.

10 to be exact.

It’s not your love that is missing it is you.

I have seven sisters and three claimed brothers that give me the very same love that you do. My Aunts, Uncles and Cousins in every way, all hug me the same, filling my heart like you do. If ten of them would hold me at exactly the same time. I know I’ll feel it, I’ll feel that warmth, I’d feel like I was hugging you. All my friends, offer advice, every now and then, sometimes, it’s like listening to you or hearing your voices, in their words, again. Ten of them is all it takes, to say the things you do. None the less of all of them, none equal you two. It takes only ten of them, ten in all, ten to be exact.

The Club

A cocktail lounge

As I think back in time about my Father’s murder in 1983. I can remember that strong feeling of something being wrong or oddly off. I remember the feeling of really missing my dad. I go up to my mom a few times and ask about dad. Her replies were always brief and nonchalant. He’s probably away doing something; you know your father. “Ay Deja Me Quieta, lla” Just let me be my mom would say. I remember how worked up I was. I go about pacing the house. It is very difficult to sit still. I have this overwhelming sense to go to my dad’s club. I got this uncontrollable urge almost a strong need to see my dad. Why is he not around?

I traveled from Astoria Queens to East New York Brooklyn on a quest to find my dad. He hasn’t called or came home and now two days have gone past. I make my first stop at his place of Business. A little social bar exclusive to friends and family. His Chevy van is parked across the street from his establishment and mom has the car so if he isn’t here, he is off on his motorcycle somewhere or worst. I knock on the door impatiently. I hurry to the storefront windows which are covered from the inside by thick dark drapes. I reach into my pocket for my change and grab a coin. I then began to tap sporadically on the glass. After a few seconds of tapping I take a few steps back and begin to whistle.

As I look up to the second floor at the windows of the office and extra rooms, I whistle with every air of breath I have, repeatedly, to no avail. I then call the Bar from the corner payphone. Not an answer from either form. I am overly concerned now and decide to visit my aunt and cousin. My dad spends a lot of time at his half-sister’s house. There he and my cousin share most of his time, while visiting my dad and cousin would do a little partying by snorting of that Cocaine. My dad’s closest family members and a few friends were all on my plans to visit these next few days if I had still not found my dad.

A day has passed, now two, and three.

My father was nowhere, to be seen.

He’s not been home, nor to his club.

Three days have passed, I’ve had enough.

At his club, my worries begin,

Through the roof, is how I get in.

There are three floors, to this club.

I start my search, from the floors above.

What I find, no man can bear.

I had no choice, for I was there.

A girl was shot, once in the head.

While she was asleep, alone in a bed.

No one else around, on this floor.

I checked every room, just to be sure.

To the first floor, I must hurry and get.

It’s the only floor, I have yet to check.

What I had seen, caused me to lose my mind.

My Father was lying there, dead, all that time.

In this place, he called his club,

he was left, lying, in a pool of blood.

I can say here and now 30 plus years later, I still am not fully sure as to whom really did this and why this happened. Other than it’s always drug related, with my Parents.

3 yrs to boot.

Don’t let the great High school years fool you.

Those three years were the worst my life could bare at that age. The very reason suicide became an idea in my thoughts and a failed attempt so mind boggling I never tried again. High school pushed me to get my Diploma. Pushed me out of school and back to the streets where I belong. As it turned out I was very street smart by my latter teen years. Having been around every corner just about in NYC. In lots of parks playing handball and smoking blunts. At a few nightclubs way before I was eighteen. I even managed to get myself arrested and sent to Rikers Island before then too.

Having parents that make you the best you can be, comes with the very same attitude of being better. I had such a greater than attitude. I had so many hidden talents. Not many of my friends knew I could sketch. Not many of them and certainly not the ones that knew I could sketch knew I could write Poetry. Not many of them knew I could read and play music. And most of them didn’t know I learned French for two years. One thing about me I can most definitely say is I kept most of my attributes to myself. My girlfriends and my High school sweetheart would be the ones to receive my poems. They would hear me play the guitar only one heard me play the violin beside those in my Seventh grade, music class. And my mom and sisters were the only ones to hear me play the recorder. Again except for those in my fifth grade, music class.

All my years of going to school was more of a drive. A mental drive. I wanted to go to school. Or was it that all I ever really remember my Father saying is go, to school. Get a great education and I’ll pay for your college. All throughout my years until the day he died. Those words I heard more than any other.

School was easy for me.

Going there not so easy

Although I do not believe I’ve learned anything from school, necessary for life.

I was off on a beating path. I had already started school and was in my second year when I first got into trouble with other students. Not along side other students. Not my luck. Against other students. As kids do, maybe not all but yes some will Lie, Cheat and Steal. Some kids said things untrue. Some kids would trip me, and others would take what I had. The first time I got in trouble was just a matter of being bullied.

My Mother drew in front of me, a man on a horse, holding a lantern one Saturday morning. For the cover of my book report, in the fifth grade. That was when I learned I can draw. I had just finished writing the name on the top of the plain brown book cover to my report when she reached over and said let me see that. Glancing through the report she had said to me, that it was very good. She then placed the book report in front of her, on the dinner table where I usually did my assignments.

Took hold of one on my pencils and started to draw. School showed me I can shape clay into all kinds of things. Including an Ashtray. School taught me a third language. French. School taught me I can carve wood into many shapes. Including my name. I learned Music in School. Three instruments. Guitar, Recorder and Violin. Of which I am good at none of them. Yet I learned how to hold them strum them breathe into them follow the written music as I tried to play the tunes. I learned I was an Artist in School.

School taught me math. English. Here is what it didn’t teach me. The work life. Skill sets. I learned plumbing from my Uncle. Another taught me how to paint. My dad taught me how to fix cars. Well he taught me a lot more than that too. Most of my Family or Friends of the Family have taught me the trades of the work life. Carpentry. Tool use. Safety.

I have a Bio-Dad

During the first thirteen years of my life I knew nothing of any sorts about my biological Father. I had been told that’s your father while pointing across the church grounds during my communion or Mass. I can recall seeing him around my school every now and again. I think he even stood at the corner of my street once or twice. I was raised by my mom and my stepdad for the first seventeen years of my life. The man that raised me was my Father. This short dark-skinned man, a little on the heavy side. He has a heavy beard and a full mustache along with a few craters to make up the face he is. The face I see and have seen before as a kid. I do not know this man or of him. He enters my life and creates these few lasting memories during the early months of 1979. It isn’t the kind of memories you’d want to have about your father, but hey it is for me. As a teenager leaving school one day with a few friends I take notice to a man laying on the ground on the opposite corner of the street where my school is. What really caught my eye was the Black German shepherd dog. Just lying there right by the man’s side. As I continue to look I get to see who this vagabond is laying on the ground. This drunk, dirty, urine drenched man was my Father. And that black Shepherd is Duke. Now that is one nice dog for sure. well trained very disciplined and super smart. As I take that final look and confirm I continue to walk with my friends around the corner and away from the man lying on the ground. This is my first solo encounter with my biological father as a teenager.

The memories are all similar in perspective. Three years go by and he is buried just after the summer of 1982. His death is also an experience I received first-hand. As it gets me a flight to the Island of Puerto Rico. His birth place and that of my moms. A short stay just after the Funeral and then back to the states I go. I now leave behind a man I was just getting to know. A man during my fourteenth and fifteenth birth year I was calling my Father. As a child I grew up knowing the man raising me as my Father. He too was born in P.R. He was my Dad. My Pops. My old man. As I progress in age I learn he is my Stepfather. My mom had known my Stepfather in all kinds of ways, about a year or so before my Father left the scene. Looking back at my youth I see all the signs going against me, ripping and tearing my future life to shreds. I look back and see the things that even I did that showed how my Fathers destroyed my life. As a child I dreamed all kinds of dreams. I wanted many things and I wanted to see much more. My childhood would not seem so strange looking in from the outside.

Category: Parental discression