YOU CAN'T PUSH A STRING UP A HILL

YOU CAN'T PUSH A STRING UP A HILL:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/667904

  STRUNG UP: Why helping your cousins can only lead to ruin – no good deed goes unpunished!

·  A STRING ALONG: The misadventures of a screenwriter in Hollywood at a Pitch Fest, trying to get his screenplay accepted.

·  BLAME IT ON RENO: a romantic comedy screenplay treatment about two couples, lifelong friends, who go to Reno to get married, but get so drunk on the wedding night, they marry the wrong partner and live happily.

·  THE HAPPINESS ALCHEMIST: The adventures of Aloysius Williams and how they tested his belief in the need for happiness.

·  JAKE, THE SNAKE: A complaint about a friend who was a bully, coward, and successful businessman.

·  CANE & ABE: The story of two friends whose lives go in opposite directions yet somehow teach the same life lessons.

·  PUSHING ON A STRING: An American and an Anglo-Caribbean discuss culture shock while traveling across the Sahara desert.

·  THE HELPER: A poem.

·  THE POET: Working with poets is like pushing a string up a hill; only those with limitless patience need apply.

·  PULLING ON A STRING: What is the meaning of life? Perhaps you find it going for a swim?

·  LIGHT-FINGURED LOUIE: The adventure of a thief and his conversion to Christianity.

·  TIE ME UP, Tie me down: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was a twentieth-century marriage – the perfect imperfection.

·  ANOTHER COUNTRY: An African-American man and an Anglo-Caribbean man meet in Israel and discover that it’s a culture that connects and divides people, not color!

·  MONEY: PUSHING ON A STRING: If all economists were laid end to end, they would still not reach a conclusion. A study of the origins of the term “pushing on a string” and a look at how economists screw up the economy.

·  CULTIVATING BLINDNESS: A poem.

·  SEASONS ON A ROPE: The trials and tribulations of an immigrant who does everything to fit into American society but runs afoul of a twist of fate.

·  HAWAIIAN HANG-UP: A son returns to his family in Hawaii for his father’s funeral and finds himself caught up in the family’s gangster past and present – “Do the meek inherit the earth?”

·  ROLL OF THE DICE: The ills of gambling clash with the sensitivities of a man who only wants to help.

·  THE PRODIGAL FATHER: No matter what he’s done (or hasn’t done), you can’t give up on your father!

·  ONLY IN AMERICA: A young boy from Ghana comes to America on a visit and is confounded by the use of a ubiquitous and uniquely American word.

·  THE VANITIES OF DESIRE: A poem.

·  THE END OF MY ROPE: After eleven years enduring petty racism, obdurate spitefulness, pointless bickering, and cowardly and deceitful behavior, I had had enough

Should Auld Acquaintance    

And too soon this will end and another begin

we check ourselves for revisions

but the New Year demands newness not regurgitation.

So we meditate on our ki, adjust our yang

and make love to our synapses.

All is ready

just wait for the bell to toll

the clock to strike

the kisses to smack

the mistletoe will do the rest.

But wait.

We did this last year, and the year before and the year….

So why should this year be different?

A year older, lonelier, bolder, surer?

Yes, of our new destiny!

Let us go back then to

the beginning of our time here.

It was about our acquaintances, friends

bookends that held the 

leaves of our meaning together.

Yes, that was it.

We start again each year

reminding ourselves of our

loved ones pining for each other

in some forgotten region that we

have not entered for the past 365 days.

Divine Providence 

Suffering –

God given for

punishment

&

edification?

The sacrifice

of suffering offers

no reward

but

the consciousness of the self

floating

in

a void

of its own

misunderstanding.

Pain –

is the measurement

of

our trial

through

this

life,

The

litmus

test

of our

machine

existence.

Man will give up everything but his suffering!

God if you are near

God if you are near

Listen to my heart.

If I’m a short distance

Tell be how far.

In your garden of senses

I breathe in butterflies

Littering the sky

As the dank putrid earth

Blossoms in jasmine.

Alone with the creatures of your roots

I mark my place - forgiven, forgotten.