Down Home With A Little Heart and Soul

About the Book

Poetry has been with me for the last thirty years, so to speak. That is to say, I started writing in the early eighties. Poems would come along little by little.

Sometimes they would come weeks and months apart. I used to hum a tune that I made-up while I was working on my job. The next thing I knew, I started rhyming words to the tune. I would forget the words so I started writing them down.

Before long, there were a good number of poems. Never thought that they were good enough for anything so I just kept putting them away. One day a friend of mine came over to the house while I was writing. He happened to pick up a few of my poems and started reading them. When he was finished he said,” These ain’t half bad, you ought to do something with them”. Well, he got me thinking and one thing lead to another and here you are.

A lot of my dreams, memories, heartaches and happy times went into this book. The subjects range from love poems, to country poems, to religious poems and everything in the parameter of good and evil. They span from the age of three years with Tristan’s Carousel to old age with Those Senior Moments. They touch the heart with sad moments like Stuck Here in the Blues and My Christine My Christine.

Turn around with great joy with That Special Love or Forever Yours. A little down home country will get you going like Don’t Look A Gift Horse In the Mouth or Soldier of Fortune or Being Back Home. A touch of inspiration with poems like A Prayer or Reflections. A little back slide to the bad side with Old Hag Hattie or Hickory Row. What ever you are looking for it just might be in this book.

About the Author

What do I say about myself? You know that's a hard subject. Not that there is a lot to say, on contrary there is not enough to say. Normal is the best that comes to mind, with a little wacky thrown in for abnormal measure. I mean, when you consider that I went over the hill and am half way down the other side, those senior moments come more frequently these days. Wacky just seems to fit right in there. I'm really just your home brewed, garden variety, take care of the house, work your butt off earning a living, going though that dull every day life, kind of guy. Just call me Joe.

Life started for me in up state New York. My parents had me just after World War II. We lived in a small town called Tarrytown. It's the little town where Washington Irving wrote the story The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow. Maybe that has something to do with the wacky in me or not. Two years into my existence we moved to Levittown L.I.N.Y. This is where life sculptured the person that you are reading about at this moment. I guess you could say I had a normal boyhood. In and out of trouble, from one girl to the next. You know that could have been most of the trouble, oh well. Well boys will be boys. I graduated from Island Trees High School way back when. Than screwed around at the local college in Farmingdale for awhile. It wasn't long before the wedding bells were ringing and reality said it was time to get a real job. From that point came the family. The pitter patter of little feet, eight little feet to be exact. Four boys that dad, that's me, am proud to call my own. They were just like me too, a hand full. We lived out in a town called Riverhead. In 1974 we made the big jump to Orlando Florida. My folks had moved down a few years earlier and dad said jobs were really good down there. So down we came, lock stock and barrel, cats, dogs ,kids. I just love moving, no not really! Came to Florida as a carpenter and ended up as a biscuit maker in a bread factory. Needless to say that is what I have done for last thirty some odd years. But retirement is just around the corner and I can't wait.