2013: a Year to Grow

I promised my friend Alyssa that I would post some new material on my day off from work, which is today, and I am not one to break promises to friends so here goes nothing. 

I sit here, a full week into a new year and I sit and wonder where will I be this time next year. I have a few goals that I want to accomplish by this time next year and I know I can make them a reality if I can find a way to abandon my notorious lazy streak and extreme ADD. I don't really have an extreme case of ADD, but if you were to take a look at my writing portfolio (by which I mean the pile of composition notebooks stacked on the side of my bed)  you would be smacked in the face with, half finished short stories, random lines of poetry that are beautiful yet remain without any other lines to keep them company, beginnings of random screenplays,, doodles upon doodles, scratched out words, maybe a few entries of my Bro-CodeOlogy series that have yet to see the light of day, and full of ideas for other stories scribbled down at three in the morning when I have a crazy dream and realize how wonderful it will be as a story.

That is my ADD. With that said, my first major goal for this year is to finish some of that shit, I owe it to myself to prove I can finish something I start. Along with that I have started a novel; it wont be the next great American novel, it wont be taught by literary scholars, but I think it will be a unique story that will make me proud when I finish it. Now saying I will finish it by the end of this year is asinine, but I do want to see it go from the little I have written and turn into a few chapters. None of this will be posted until the last word is typed in, and the last coma has been check. I want this to be my first complete work. Not like the shoddily edited crap I put up here, I want this to prove to anyone (including myself) that I have the talent to became a successful writer.

to grade my success, people moight look at money and if I havent made much they might not view me as successful. That is not what success is to me. Those who actually know me know money is not what I strive for, though I would lie if I didnt say I wish I had more than I actually do, but as long as I have enough for a roof over my head and food in my stomach I will be a happy man,

So what equates success for me? That's a good question, my main mark of success as a writer is that when people read my work it makes them think, it evokes feeling, it brings out emotion; regardless of what the emotion it is, I just want people to read and feel. If I can have even one person read the words I write and feel I view myself as successful.

 Sometimes it takes just the emotions of one person to change the world.

Though I doubt my words will bring out enough emotion in a person to change the world anything is possible, and words have been known to do the impossible in the past.

That is what I expect to accomplish this upcoming year as far as my writing, but my life is not just writing. My main goal outside of writing is to get myself moved out again, and have a place of my own (or with friends, just not living at home anymore).

This has turned into a ramble fest and I shall not continue. Just expect more of Daniel Perrucci this year. 2013 will be a year where I will continue to mature and grow as a person. Good luck to everyone of my friends this year, may we all have a successful one.

It was

love upon first sight;

the most powerful feeling

when your eyes met mine.

Everything stood still

while you were wrapped in my arms:

it all seemed perfect.

You gave life meaning,

but even the sun must set

to birth a new day.

Gone, yet you remain

essential for my future

When Nas Was Illmatic (revised)

Back when Nas was Illmatic

it was a better time.

A time when modern life was all Rocko’s.

A life where slime was glorious.

A time when turtles ate pizza,

while Clarissa explained it all.

During a time when Sabrina was our favorite witch,

and Buffy made slaying sexy.

Back when Tia and Tamera were our sisters,

Bill Nye was THE science guy,

and we searched the world for Carmen San Diego.

A time when being phat was rad.
and being rad was awesome.

A time when Zack loved Kelly.

and before we went to bed we asked:

are you afraid of the dark?

It was a better time

when Nas was Illmatic.

Searching for the Words (revised)

This is a revised edition of a poem I wrote back in the day, I am working on a new poem as well as some fiction and nonfiction: It is time to get back into it. You can view the original poem, the differences are not great but I feel the change in spacing adds to the affect of the piece here http://danielperrucci.blogspot.com/2011/10/searching-for-words.html

I can’t find the words to say.

I search the books on my shelf,

but the all those words seem cliché.

I look deep inside myself,

yet the words still elude me.

I turn on the television,

the silence knocks me down like a tsunami.

I don’t want to use the usual jargon,

I want to tell you how I feel in a way,

that has never been heard.

I want to avoid the usual wordplay.

The only thing that has been conjured,

is a phrase used more than a tribal tattoo;

that phrase: I love you.

A Haiku for You

Happy haikusday, I mean its almost over, but I wrote what I am calling a super haiku. It is 5 haikus put together to form one longer poem. Enjoy, and as with everything I ever post one here feedback would be nice. And please just know I really am not as creepy as this poem seems on the surface.


Rain drips on my head:
tears from angels above
as I dig this ditch.
The evil is past
torturing on my soul stays as
rain drips on my head.
The sun is far off
darkness consumes my mind as
rain drips on my head.
I still hear the screams;
shrill, loud: trapped in my head as
blood drips on my hand.
Rain drips on my head.
I fall to my knees and cry
as the ditch is filled.

How Time Changes Everything

I finally got my diploma in the mail, making it official: I am a college graduate. It feels good, though I have been done since December some late paperwork postponed the actual piece of paper from reaching me until now, but that is not the point. The point of this is I am done and I have the documentation to prove it.

It is now setting in that I am an educated man. I guarantee if we were to hop into Bill and Ted's phone booth and take a journey back ten years ago to a small, scummy town called Hopatcong and asked people "where will Dan Perrucci be in ten years?" I can tell you that there would maybe be one or two people who would have thought I would be a college graduate. They all had this impression of me that actually wasn’t who I was, or who I am; they thought I was a stupid, angry, asshole. Well they were right on two of three things: I was an angry asshole (now I am more of just an asshole).

I was never stupid, though I can understand why people thought that: I got bad grades, but in reality I have always been smart. I just never wanted to show it, I never felt like applying myself. School was boring and I was surrounded by people I hated and wanted to slam all their heads in the lockers. (Please note that if I went to high school with you and you are taking the time to read this, I most likely didn't want to bring physical harm upon you . . . but I probably really did). Seriously, if I continued on the path I was on I would probably be in jail or some other asinine shit.

I changed, one day I realized where my anger problem was going to take me and it wasn't a place I wanted to be. I was close, but fate led me out of the situation that anger had put me into which brought about a new me. I only regret that I didn't get this brutal lesson sooner, but regrets are like a man's nipples: pointless.

Regardless of when I learned the lesson it was learned and with the support of friends and family I made it out of the darkness and moved on with life. Will this come back to haunt me at some point in the future? Maybe, but it also made me into the man I am today, which, though flawed in many ways, is a person of great character and talent.

Well that sounds conceited as all hell.

Back to what I was saying:

I look at what happened that day as a blessing in disguise, I found out how much the people around me care about me and made me realize how fucking stupid and childish I was. I'm not saying this time was easy and I walked through it without fear, on the contrary, I was terrified. I woke up and replayed what happened in my head thinking of all the things that I could have done to prevent it, but it didn't change the fact that it happened. I cried at times, I tried to laugh at other times, but I was always afraid.

Anyway that is the past, this is the now: I am a college graduate. It feels good, I know I still have to find a job, but I have a nice piece of paper in my hands that ten years ago I, and the people who knew me then, would have never thought I would get. This is my proudest accomplishment, the first of many things I want to prove to myself and the world that I can do.

Paris, NJ

It has been a very long time since I posted anything, I feel I owe you guys something awesome, but instead you get this. This is my first draft of first story of a book I am trying to assemble, so feedback, good and bad, is welcome. It is the first draft so I am hoping on improving it, so any helpful advice. Thanks friends.

The antique shop below my apartment was packed out the door; it had been that way every Friday night since Sam, an elderly black man from the South Side of Chicago, took over the store year ago. It’s not the antiques that were the draw, but it was Sam’s blues band. It gave this small Jersey town a glimpse into the old blues that owned the windy city nightlife during the 50’s; it provided me with the “I Can’t Sleep Because of the Blues, Blues,” a tune by the legendary Muddy Waters, I believe.

I stood on my second floor balcony, and tapped my foot along with the smooth electric guitar chords being plucked in the shop below; I took a few puffs of my cigarette and looked out over the cobblestone sidewalk and took in the cool fall evening— that’s when I saw her.

Her face was gleaming in the light produced by the neon Eiffel Tower, which stood as a marker of the shop since Sam started running the store; her dark hair seemed to fade into the night. Her red dress seemed to reveal everything, yet keep it all to the imagination. My eyes were fixated; they had never seen such natural beauty in their 28 years of being open. I didn’t notice the clouds beginning to roll into the night sky blotting out the moonlight: it only seemed to intensify the mystery woman’s radiance.

As I continued to stare at the lovely woman the bluesman downstairs went into his original song “Woman in the Night.” Yes, this sounds cheesey and like a fairytale, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

I had to get to her; I couldn’t stand observing from a distance any longer.

I put my cigarette out and rushed down the stairs. The cool September air flowed through my blonde hair, I didn’t even care that my feet were bare; my heart was in charge that night not my brain. As my foot hit the last step the rain began to come down, that didn’t dampen the mood in the antique shop; the blues continued to blare and the crowd continued to grow. I pushed past the line of people waiting for their chance to see the local blues legend,

Reaching the corner; I stood in the rain, illuminated by the faux Eiffel Tower, but the beauty that occupied the same spot moments ago was nowhere to be seen. I walked up and down the street searching for a glimpse of her again, but luck had never been something I had. My heart began to ache, and finally my brain took over and I began to shiver in the rain. I lost my chance at finding love in the prescience of the tower like so many romance stories, though, I know, it wasn’t the real tower the romance of Paris was in the air regardless.

The next afternoon I went down to the shop to talk with Sam to see if he could help uncover the identity of the woman since he seemed to know every beautiful woman in the town. I walked into the shop to see Sam fiddling with an old grandfather clock, his heavy black hands working effortlessly on the gears inside, like a surgeon he was precise and quick. Without turning around he heard me approach him.

            “I learn’d how to fix these back in Paris, I was der tryin’ to become a great bluesman, I wanted to be the nex’ Howlin’ Wolf, but I wasn’ gettn’ much money fo’ my show, so I took to fixin’ clocks in a small shop.” He paused and stepped away from the clock, “lor’ that seem like a million years ago,” he seemed to drift off into some distant part of his mind, a part where he still lived and breathed the Parisian night.

            “Sorry to interrupt Sam, but can I ask you something?”

            Still being lost in his memories of La Ville-Lumière, Sam didn’t even hear me. “Come here fo’ a minute, look right der on the counter. Those are picture of my Paris time. That der first one is me playin’ at a bar down by the Eiffel Towa. Da Towa a thin’ of beauty. It stands in da night, glowin’, like a gorgeous woman, you just drawn to her. I fell in love under da glow of that der Towa, I gots a picture of her somewheres, hold on a second.”

            I starred at Sam’s picture, his white hair was a solid black, his smile was dazzling, his hands gripped his guitar with such strength that if the guitar was alive it would be gasping for breath; nothing like the man that stood before me, he is a frame of his old self. His hair as white as his teeth once were, his teeth no longer glisten anymore. I suppose it was from the toils of a struggling musician; dental coverage isn’t usually something clubs offer to perform.

            “Right der, dats Délia an me; my French beauty. Now ya tell me if ya ever seen a mo’ beautiful gal.”

            Sam handed me a black and white photo, its wooden frame cracked and worn from time, my eyes were first drawn to the Tower in the background of the photo; it illuminated the dark cloud-filled sky.

            “Now, what you haf’ to ask me friend?”

            I ignored Sam; I didn’t need to ask anymore. I stood looking at the woman from the corner: Délia, standing with her arms wrapped in Sam, smiling. Délia’s face gleaming in the light from the Eiffel Tower; her dark hair seemed to fade into the night sky. She appeared just as I saw her the night before— a woman of exceptional beauty, so close yet unattainable.

When Sam passed away, about three years after his Paris crossed with mine; I took the photograph and hung it in my apartment, like a painting in the Louvre. My Délia: there to look at, but never to have.