Arcángel

Si solamente con llorar se remediaran los problemas
Seria fácil
Si en cada lagrima se fuera la nostalgia y la tristeza
Seria fácil

Si con dormir cambiara todo en una noche
Si al despertar ya no existieran todos los reproches
Seria fácil vivir
seria fácil

Si no doliera el desamor y del amigo la traición
Seria fácil
Si se pudiera detener el tiempo y nunca envejecer
Seria fácil

Pero no es fácil ya lo ves
Somos humanos
Sentimos todo y no podemos evitarlo
Hemos nacido por y casi siempre por amor es que lloramos

No es nada fácil si se tienen sentimientos
Porque la vida no es como un libro de cuentos
Y el que no siente su dolor es solo por una razón
Porque esta muerto...

Originally Dated: Jul 11, 2005

Imagine walking down Broadway and sometthing catching your eye that you can't quite explain...

I didn't know her name,. didn't know how old she was, didn't know where she was from or even if she noticed me but, how could someone so beautiful, with that beautiful of a smile, look so sad on the inside?....You could tell that she was forcing that smile. I just wish that I had the chance to make her smile genuinely. The only thing that I could actually say might have provided the smiles realness to her at the time was the ice cream she had in her hand. I'll call her Dixie for now. Maybe I'll get to know her one day, maybe I won't. Here's to hopes and dreams, here's to wanting to get to know, here's to mystery, here's to you, Dixie. Smile like you mean it for once in your life.

Preface: If anyone here has read the poems My Tunnel, Keened Blvd. or anything closely related to them, you'll get exactly what I am talking about.

Take a look at these links if you're looking for them:
[URL="http://beasttoast.com/blogs/el-subestimado/380-battery-belt.html"]The Battery To The Belt - Beast Toast[/URL]

[URL]http://beasttoast.com/f18/kennedy-blvd-my-tunnel-part-ii-12925/[/URL]

[URL]http://beasttoast.com/f18/few-poems-one-post-12028/[/URL]

Another life
Another chance
Another reason to get back on the road
But I'm still the same old guy
with the same old car
with the battle-scars to prove it

This 67 corvette of a heart of mine
Cracks in the paint
Cracks with the pain that all have felt
Parts overworked to the bone
But yet, not one sputter
Noe one squeal
Not one jolt
Not even a stutter
New spark plugs since someone came around to fix her up

Merging back with the rest of the rush
Coming back into sync with that ocean of red and yellow
Red, white and blue 278 keeping me honest
While black and white 50s keep me coasting
Shimmering gray with those white stripes to keep me on track
Right lane
Top down
Wind going through my hair
The smile returning to my face as the sun comes back into sight
Taking it easy
No time for rush hour
Because either way, I'm getting to where I have to go
To who I want to me
With who I am to be with
To add more stories to tell the youngins, along with the Battery to the Belt

But for now, as I roll within the land of the Kings and Queens
I say goodbye to what was
Not to forget
But to move on
And say hello as a zoom by Astoria
to whatever lies ahead of me.

I can definitely say that 2008 has been a rocky year for me, and many other people that I have had the pleasure to get to know. But for once, I am making a smoother transition between August and September. I cannot say though, that this smooth transition is without mixed emotions.

School will be starting for me in a little less than 2 weeks, and I have to say that I am very happy that I am going to have another chance at furthering my education. However, at the same time, I can't help but be nervous. Perhaps I am thinking about what may lay ahead too much? Maybe I am, and if so, that is one really bad force of habit.

My schedule for school has already been set and yes, I am very excited since I get to go into something that I actually have a passion for but, what do you do when the voices in your head keep telling you about the "what ifs"?

One can have all the will in the world but, when it comes to your own mind, what do you do to counteract that? Ya know?

I guess I'll wrap it up for today and continue counting down the days before I catch that early morning express over the Willie B. but, before I do, wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

[IMG]http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a140/rubioriqueno/r62de.jpg[/IMG]

Today, for just a moment, let us pause to remember a very unfortunate tragedy - one of many - in the history of the New York City Subway.

At approximately 12:10 AM, on August 28,1991, an accident occurred just north of the 14 St. / Union Square station, killing five people in what a Wikipedia author calls "one of the worst wrecks since the Malbone Street Disaster of 1918".

For those who are curious as to what happened, or for those who would like to add to this, click comments. Otheriwse, a news article that describes the disaster is below.

___________________________________________

He began drinking in the early morning when he got home from work, just a few sunrise beers to unwind after a long night hurtling through the dark subway tunnels. But by early afternoon, investigators said, he had switched to Dewar's White Label Scotch and he drank until after 3 P.M., when he went to bed.

It was sweltering in New York that day, last Tuesday, and Robert E. Ray slept through the worst of the heat, rising at 10:30 P.M. to prepare for his final graveyard workshift of the week, eight hours in the dead of night at the controls of a train roaring up and down the Bronx, Manhattan's East Side and Brooklyn.

He put on dark trousers, a pair of sneakers, a white short-sleeved shirt with a Metropolitan Transportation Authority patch on the right sleeve, a blue sweater and a blue baseball cap. Then, investigators said, Mr. Ray, a 38-year-old divorced man deeply troubled by family and alcohol problems, had a couple more quick drinks. Flirting With Danger

It was thus after 11 P.M. -- Mr. Ray was late again -- when he finally left the 37th-floor apartment he shares with his fiancee and her two children in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, and, as was his habit, caught a taxi to the IRT's northern terminal, Woodlawn station, where he began work each night.

For all its heavy responsibility, his job was an anonymous one: Mr. Ray, one of 2,900 New York subway train operators -- commonly referred to as motormen, even though more than 100 are women -- was glimpsed fleetingly, if at all, in the tiny cabs of trains entering stations, but was entrusted daily with the smooth operation of multi-million dollar trains and the safety of tens of thousands of passengers.

While the potential for catastrophe is always present, experts say, New York's subways are statistically safer than traveling by car. But for anyone who wanted to take note of them, there were many indications, beyond a work record spotted with infractions, that Mr. Ray had been flirting with danger lately, and that tragedy lurked down the tracks this night.

Within an hour, Mr. Ray's train -- after a nightmarish ride downtown with overshot platforms, abrupt stops and other lurchings -- jumped the tracks at breakneck speed, plowed into walls and support columns and lay in a tangle of crushed and twisted metal in a smoking tunnel near Union Square in Manhattan. Five riders had been killed and 200 injured, and subway and surface traffic would be snarled for a week in the worst subway accident in New York in 63 years.

Mr. Ray has been charged with five counts of manslaughter and accused of being drunk during the accident; tests 13 hours later showed 0.21 percent of alcohol in his blood, twice the legal limit for drunkenness; so high, in fact, as to suggest chronic alcohol abuse, experts say. But Mr. Ray's lawyer, Michael Parson, has insisted that his client is innocent and that any alcohol in his blood was the result of drinking after the crash. Recurring Signs Of Alcohol Abuse

This alone gives me the chills but, if you woul dlike to read more, go here.

Complete Story from the New York Times:
[URL="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE5D61138F932A3575AC0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1"]Catastrophe Under Union Square; Crash on the Lexington IRT: Motorman's Run to Disaster - New York Times[/URL]