Blog Home

Hello and welcome to my blog. I am John Loraine and I am a poet and a writer. Check out my new book, a collection of short stories and poems “Nicetown”. Thank you for reading. Cheers!

Rant about jobs

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments

Jobs are different kinds. There are full-time jobs, part-time, contract, contract-to-hire, passion projects, soul-crushing jobs, there are self-owned businesses, gig jobs, freelancing, and whatever, you name it. As many as there are problems in our lives, as many there must be jobs because all jobs should help solve the problems we have. We all need jobs. We all should get jobs. We spend our lives working jobs, making careers, busting our balls trying to make it, or making ends meet. We are always told that “It’s good that you have a job”, “It is good to be busy”, “Busy is good, right?” I guess it depends on what you are busy with and how much of it you really care about. Most of the time, we all hate our jobs, but we have our obligations, debt, family, kids, bills, loans, and we work and work and work until we die.

I am one of those “lucky privileged bastards” who finished college, and now I have had quite a few years of professional work experience behind my belt. I am considered middle-class or somewhere near that based on my salary, and I am supposedly the one “who made it.” I came to this country, and I’ve got my education, and I’ve got multiple jobs over time, and now I am who I am, a professional. I followed the traditional path to “normal life” by getting a four-year degree and working my many career jobs so I could be promoted over time and move from one position to a better one. Back in the day, that sounded like a great plan. Back in my early college days, that seemed like it was the only way to “make it.” I didn’t want to work at factories and construction sites all my life like most people that I knew did. I wanted to be in the office, working clean and safe jobs and getting promotions as time goes by. I guess now I’ve got what I wanted. As this became my life now, I started wondering, what the fuck did I really achieve, and why am I so fucking miserable all the time?

There are a shit ton of people out there who, with or without the proper education, made a tremendous success in life, whether it is building a business or creating a new product or service or new app or whatever. Most of them never got a proper education; most of them were college or high-school drop-outs. Most of the people you know or see hitting the road to work every day on the highway, are with an excellent education are just fucking office people who none of us will ever know or hear from or notice them amongst the crowd. They are the masses, the masses who followed the plan. It is not always bad to have a secure job and steady income and keep on “growing” and living a “normal” life. The problem is the cost that you pay for it. It is not the price of your salary. It is never just those fifty or one hundred thousand dollars in school loans that you’ve borrowed because you were led to believe that you are investing in your life, your dream, or your future. Sometimes it is true, but it is so fucking false in most cases. Once I get a decent job, I think that it will take me about a year or two to pay my debt off, and then I will be free and happily living my life in peace and comfort.

 Continue reading →

Poem: You and Me

~ John Loraine ~ 13 Comments

The day changes the night
As the night changes the day,
And so it goes on forever.
There is a unique dynamic there
With darkness and daylight
With quiet and noise,
With life and death,
With you and me.

I am here and you are there.
You leave and then come back.
I talk and you don’t listen.
You do something when I don’t.
We are just like the night and the day,
We are positive and negative,
And there is this attraction of opposites
Between us and keeps us together.
I smile, and you cry.
I walk, and you run.
I leave, and you don’t come back.
And I go out searching for you.
And we are back together again.
We play this game forever
As it all repeats over and over…on and on…

Spring was still too far away

~ John Loraine ~ 16 Comments

The weather forecast was terrible for the next couple of days in Philadelphia. Jake knew that if it were snowing heavily, he would be out of work again. He needed to work, and more so, he needed the money. He’s shit was out of luck. His savings disappeared as fast as the new bills came in the mail. He couldn’t get to the city to work. Jake lost his office job for the second time in the last six months, and his bank account was slimming down to the lowest balance in years. Driving for Uber was the only immediate option for him to make some money. His situation was dire. Somebody had to pay the lease on the car as well as a bunch of other bills. There were not too many options for him but to wait. The waiting was hard. Jake had a couple of bottles of red wine on the shelf. He liked to drink red wine, especially when the weather was bad and there was nothing else to do but to drink and hope that everything will be alright. There wasn’t much to do at home while the snowstorm was dumping on the city. His car was too small and useless for driving in this snow. Things were not looking up for anybody.

Jake’s wife had a full-time office job, which she didn’t like. Nobody likes their jobs, but financial stability and job security somehow make it all work. Jake remembered the days when he was supporting the family. He remembered the days when his paycheck was good enough for both of them even before she got her first job. He got used to the steady bi-weekly paychecks, good red wine every evening with dinner or on the weekend, paid healthcare, 401K with contributions, PTO’s, and the rest of the corporate benefits that are supposed to make people happy and satisfied with their jobs. That job security and stability are really making a man too dependent and much weaker. When you are always uncomfortable and struggling, you get to enjoy life’s little moments and appreciate your achievements, work, and career progress. When you are too comfortable in your job, just one thought about the possibility of you getting fired is terrifying. How would you live? What would you do? How will you pay your bills? What’s going to happen to you and your family? After Jake lost his second job that year, these questions were not terrifying anymore. He knew he could make it without a corporate gig. He knew that he needed to hustle all the time to make it. He would be driving for Uber to make enough to cover the bills and put food on the table for him and his wife. There is no more corporate nonsense, no more useless meetings, reports, no presentations, and no more pain in the aching young soul. But that fucking snowstorm for the next two days was screwing his plans. He needed to get a little over $500 to cover his bills in the next few days, and he couldn’t leave the house because of the snowstorm. Jake was becoming desperate. The weather had a different plan. The weather was always fucking things up for him.

 Continue reading →

Fuck you, 2020!!!

~ John Loraine ~ 2 Comments

It’s December now, and it is unbelievable that we’re still here. It is unbelievable that we are all made it and that this fucking 2020 is about to end. Like anybody else, I had a rough fucking year, and as we all know, a lot of weird shit happened that nobody could expect and account for. Fuck 2020 and fuck the pandemic. This shit is about to be over. But is this true? Will the new 2021 be a better year? What will make it better? The new digit won’t do shit about making a year better. We should work harder on ourselves to make sure that we are faithful and better people moving forward.

I ended last 2019 year with a post, and my year’s review and accomplishments in “Time is all we have.” I was proud of myself, and what I could accomplish in that year; in particular, it was one of the most successful years in my life so far. I accomplished many things that I wanted to achieve in my personal life, from improving my lifestyle to becoming a father. Also, I was focused more on my writing, created this blog, and I made and saved the most money I ever have in my life so far. It was true. I had high hopes going into 2020 with my goals were all set up, with lists and priorities listed, and my mind programmed on success. Success is the weird fucking word to use for sure. Things didn’t go well or as planned, let me tell ya.

From the beginning of this year, something felt strange. There was something weird in the air besides COVID that made me feel strange and notice that somehow things are not the same. It almost felt that I was pushing for something that didn’t mean shit and didn’t matter, and I wasn’t feeling it at all. It almost felt like I want to procrastinate more than accomplish anything or push myself harder. Two months into the new year, we’ve got the major fucking pandemic going on with, and the lockdowns began, and later the country drowned in hate and burned in the fire. I knew that some of the things that I set myself to do somehow, I cannot accomplish right off the bet. It just felt weird, or instead, I didn’t feel like doing much, to begin with. I was sick for almost four weeks at the beginning of the year. As I found later, it wasn’t coronavirus, but I was sick as a dog, and those cold / flu-like symptoms would never go away. I have been miserable but still went to work every day and was just dealing with it on the go.

In the second week of March, we’ve learned that there is a dangerous virus in the air, and the company will shut down its doors, and we will all be working from home. I overheard a conversation in the office that there was somebody sick in our building one floor up and that it took these assholes about a week to figure out what to do and whether they need to shut down and announce that there has been a case and that we all have to be careful. No shit. I might have used the same elevator with that sick person. Who knows? But as long I never got ill with coronavirus, I suppose I wasn’t exposed. Who knows how many others got sick then? Working from home felt strange in the beginning, but I knew this is temporary. I knew this was a two weeks matter, and we’ll be able to go back to the office and resume ‘normal’ working conditions. How wrong was I?

 Continue reading →

Poem: 6 am philosophy

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments

It is not here or there,
It’s deep inside our minds and souls,
It’s hidden yet we all can see it,
It’s showing only when it’s time to.
The madness of the world
And the comfort of the early mornings,
The crazy of modern life
And the future that is so uncertain,
It’s what keeps us up at night
And crazy all throughout the day.
One never knows what life is
Until you’ve reached that point
Of madness and despair.
You and I will be there soon,
And all of us, at some point.
There is no escape from life,
There is no end to this future
That is so uncertain and thrilling,
And it keeps us going, all the time.

Poem: From dusk till dawn

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments

The early morning hours
Usually, go by slowly.
They are taking their time as
They know that there is no rush.
The streets, the trees, the cars are
Motionless through the night.
They know that
There is nothing to do
And there is nowhere to go
Until the sun wakes up
And the new day begins.
Everything begins with dusk
And it seems like I am the new person
During those early morning hours.

Things happen and things change,
And by dawn, it is already another day,
It is another me,
It is another life.
We all live from dusk till dawn,
Hoping, thinking, struggling.
We all know that nothing’s last forever,
We all know that neither dusk nor dawn
Will help us stay alive for a while,
And neither will make us better people.
Surely, they will be here.
Long after we’re all gone,
Before we turn to dust,
There always will be
The same old dawn,
The same old dusk,
And the same dull life
For somebody else,
But not for us.

One thousand Sundays left

~ John Loraine ~ 9 Comments

The traffic on I-95 was dead. My morning commute is usually rough. I was up early at 5 AM and rushed to work. I always wake up early because I have so much work to do every day that there are not enough hours in a day. I am forty years old, and I am the Director of Operations at one of the major finance companies. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I am working harder every day to make sure my job is done well and on time, and according to the plan. Even though I make a decent salary, I can hardly prioritize my personal life, like spending time with my family. I have been married for 15 years and have two kids, 4 and 8. I wish I could spend more time with them, but I am always busy at my job. I show up in the office before anybody else does and work long after everybody else leaves. When I come home, I work some more and then more on the weekends, holidays, and pretty much every fucking time. Often, I feel like if I stop, the job will never get done, the team will underperform, and the company will collapse, and there will be no tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, I was on the same I-95 staying in bumper-to-bumper traffic, getting more frustrated and annoyed with every minute. The radio played some random lame morning show. I decided to browse through the channels to see if there is anything better to listen to. There’s hardly anything good on the radio anymore. As I scanned through the channels, I stopped once I heard the soothing voice of an older man talking. He mentioned something about “the theory of a thousand balls,” which caught my attention, and I turned the volume up. I sat in my car listening to this older man talking while watching the dead highway. There was nowhere to go and nothing else to do.

“Ok,” said the old man on the radio. “I can bet that you are always very busy at work, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, old man,” I replied to the radio.

“So, you are always busy, yesterday, today, and you will be busy tomorrow and so on and on … and supposedly you get paid a lot of money.” The older man grinned as he said that and continued his speech in a serious but kind voice. “They are buying your life with money. Just think about it. You are not spending your time with your family or your friends or significant others! I just refuse to believe that you all need to work that much to make a day-to-day living. You work to please yourself! But see, the thing is that you are just like a hamster in the wheel. The more money you make, the more money you will need, and the more money you will spend, and it is a never-ending cycle. Regardless of how much money you have, you will always want more, and you will work more for that purpose. Just stop there for a moment and think. Do you really need all these new things or more things that you already have? Do you need that new car or brand-new phone with all the bells and whistles or anything else that bad? And in order to have all those possessions, are you willing to miss the time of watching your kids grow up, the first dance performance by your daughter, the first baseball or soccer game by your son? Let me tell my story about how I’ve learned to figure out what is really important in life.”

 Continue reading →

Poem: Virus

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments

It’s in the air
It’s in the sky
It flies
Like the time flies.
It is here
And there
And it is every fucking where.

It’s on the surfaces of life
It’s on people’s breath
It’s in on the people’s mind
It’s fucking everywhere.

You cannot see it,
It has no smell
Or color,
There is no trace or
Texture or the end of it.
It comes and goes
And comes back again
Stronger than before.

It grows
It spreads
It is in our bodies
And our antibodies
Saying “Fuck it!”
It is part of our lives now,
It is behind our masks,
And it is up in the air,
It is just every fucking where
And we have to live with it.

I am a happy man

~ John Loraine ~ 48 Comments

I am a happy man. I know I am. Even when things don’t seem to work out to my best, I think I am a happy man. Things were rough lately, but the man isn’t always in control of everything. Things do go out of order occasionally. I stand and smile, looking at the ceiling with my tired eyes. I think this isn’t so bad. Things will get better soon. I know they will.

They say this virus is so bad; they say it is so dangerous and difficult to survive. It is out there and everywhere, and is contagious, and it kills. I am not the healthiest person, and I a vulnerable person; I am afraid of this stuff. I am never leaving my apartment. I am not going out anymore. I find my peace just sitting at home and get buried in my books. Oh, I have so many books! I love my books so much! I love my jazz collection, and I love my classical music collection, and I love to be alone. I love to be with myself and nobody else.

One time, as I opened my doors to take my trash out, and my neighbour walked out at the same time, so I ran back inside. I don’t want to talk to my neighbours. I never have before, and now, it is just too dangerous. I shall be safe and stay inside. I wore a long coat, scrubs over my shoes, a face mask, and the shield over my eyeglasses and the two sets of gloves. My eyeglasses got foggy in a minute, and I could barely see anything, but I have to protect myself. It is too dangerous out there. The virus kills.

I don’t have any friends, and I am not looking to meet any. Not in these crazy times. They say it is so dangerous to be amongst the people. People should stay apart and away from one another. I like that. I never wanted to be amongst other people; I never mixed with them. I have always been an outsider and a loner, and I liked it like that. I don’t need anybody else in my life. I need myself and my books and my jazz music collection. I remember how I always been frustrated with meetings and conversing with other people at the office. Oh, my God. I always wanted to escape and to avoid any contact with anybody. They always talk to me about their lives, their dogs and cats, and kids, and all their problems. How great it is that we all have to work from home and don’t talk or be around one another. I have nothing to talk about with anybody. I don’t want to. My life is quiet. I am different. I am a happy man when I’m alone.

 Continue reading →

Poem: Leaves are falling

~ John Loraine ~ 14 Comments

It is fall
And the leaves are falling.
The leaves are falling down from the sky
And on the ground,
Like everything else is falling down
And brakes to fucking pieces.
Little fucking pieces of everything,
They are scattered all around everywhere.
All broken, and rotten, and dry.
It is hard to find comfort in the struggle.
It is hard to love the madness of life.
I knew that life wouldn’t be easy.
I knew that once you fall
There is a chance to get up.
I knew when you stand tall,
There is a chance to fall down.
The leaves don’t mind to be on the ground,
They are getting older and yellow and brown.
The leaves don’t mind to be stepped on them,
They know that this is the end.
The fall is rich and complete with
All those colors and leaves and the fresh sky.
I watch them all around just laying
On the ground
As I walk minding my business
Into the madness of life.

Why I started my blog a year ago

~ John Loraine ~ Leave a comment

This week marks the first anniversary of my blog. A year ago, I decided to create this blog to help improve my writing and do more of it and share it with the world. Before, my writing was very random and sporadic, and all over the place. I had various pieces saved on my cloud drive and flash drive, and nobody ever saw or read any of it. Not even me. This blog gave my writing a new life and another chance, and most importantly, it gave me an excellent opportunity to write more and write regularly.

I decided to create this blog because I wanted to get my writing out there in the world. Before, in my early days, I was trying to submit as much as possible to various journals and literary publications, and magazines with very little or no success. It could be because it wasn’t any good, or because there were too many submissions to choose from, or because of the content itself, or because what I write is not necessary the pretty and safe writing I’ve seen in so many places. After a few years, I had a few successful submissions, and then I asked myself, why in the fuck am I wasting so much time and effort and money trying to get accepted by some assholes who will decide my future as a writer. I wanted to determine my future as a writer. I didn’t have to wait for someone else’s acceptance.

Looking back at it now, all I needed then was to get at least something accepted and published by another publication, so I could proudly call myself a writer, a poet, or whatever. That moment came, and it was a very proud moment in my life. I was finally happy for a short period of time. After so many efforts, somebody read my work, liked it, and offered to publish one of my poems. Great, mission accomplished. However, that feeling of great success was relatively short-lived, and soon I felt empty again. I mean, it wasn’t enough. I thought that I need to do more, that I need to write more, and for fuck’s sake, I need to stop worrying about being accepted and published. All I needed was to focus on my writing, and work it out, develop my style, work on my poems, craft my lines, develop my sentences, dialogues, prose, all of it. Finally, I was able to write whatever hell I wanted, and it all is published now, here on this blog.

 Continue reading →

Hello, World!

~ John Loraine ~ 14 Comments

Hello, world! What the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, it seems like just yesterday everything was okay and then, all of a sudden, everything and everybody went fucking crazy. People lived their lives, going to work, raising and feeding their families, enjoying its moments, and taking it all for granted. And now, it seems like we all are fucking hating each other, want to crush each other, want to ruin whatever we have built this far. This is not how a community survives. This is not how the country survives. This situation is more like the end of us all; the end of all the human things that we’ve accomplished over the centuries and decades. Every fucking thing is going to hell now.

It is hard to imagine that we can now build cars that drive themselves, we can shoot the fucking rockets into space, we can engineer pretty much everything, but that God damned virus is something we don’t know how to deal with. And after six months into this pandemic, we are not able to figure it out at all. It seems like bullshit; for some, it has taken people’s lives; for some, it is a political thing, and it also is a fucking propaganda. But at the end of it all, it is just us, the regular people, who’ll get fucked the most. We need to think about us first. But we don’t. We are just trying to find who’s a fault it has been and who we should be angry with. And that, my dear friends, is bullshit.

Long gone the days when we could just go out and about. Long gone days when we were just doing our shit, going about our business, not thinking, not worrying about anything pretty much. Today, all we think is the virus, who’s to blame, who to vote for, who’s worth anything, who should we fuck over, who should we cancel, and so on. We cannot talk to each other, we cannot see each other, we cannot get together anymore, we cannot be in the same fucking room anymore, we cannot go to churches, we can’t go to work, we cannot go out without a mask, we cannot ignore our governor’s warnings and curfews and shit. What in the fuck is going on? When did this all start? Why are we such a lousy, fucking scumbags, so easy to manipulate, so easy to scare away and so dumb at the same time?

 Continue reading →

Poem: Staring at the sky

~ John Loraine ~ 14 Comments

Inhaling the smoke deep down
As the remedy for life,
Looking up at the night sky
Staring at the night.
Drinking the whiskey of piece
With ice cubes and freedom
Life wasn’t great lately but
There are things I can
Still enjoy.
Another sip, another drag,
Another star up in the sky,
The life goes by, yours and mine,
As the clock is ticking,
As the cigarette is burning,
As the ice is melting in the whiskey glass.
I know that things will be better one day.
I know that for sure, but not just now.
I hope I can make it through.

New Life

~ John Loraine ~ 10 Comments

Jack woke up early that morning. He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t able to fall back to sleep for a while now, but he tried to stay in bed as long as possible. It seemed like the sleep was a long time gone, and all he did in the last two hours was just twisting and turning. He had a bad dream, something weird from the past was going through his mind and his dreams, and he couldn’t lose it. The minute he’d fall asleep, that same weird, strange dream came back to haunt him. It almost felt like watching the same annoying video on Youtube on repeat. At some point, he just gave up. Fuck that, he thought, I guess that is enough of the battle. It is time to wake the fuck up and smell the roses. It is another day, and it is a new day to start things fresh. Maybe it is time to start life fresh?

He went to the bathroom, took a piss, and turned the cold water on to wash his tired face. The cold water felt great. It felt refreshing, even though he still felt the same old tired. He watched his reflection in the mirror and noticed that he is not the same person he thought he was. He noticed that he’s changed. His face changed, his attitude changed, and there was some grey hair sticking out of his temples, letting him know that he’s no longer that young and careless lad, and reminding him that life went on taking its toll on him. Damn, I am getting old, thought Jack, with a bit of sadness. 

Coffee was on his list next. Jack liked a good, freshly brewed black coffee, made in the Moka pot, the way Italians made coffee for decades. The good old coffee tradition that stock with people for years, even today, in these weird fucking days, people are still brewing the same coffee the same way. It felt more authentic to Jack and more pleasurable to brew his coffee himself. Hell, it was so much better then that drip filtered bullshit or anything you can get at those fucking gas stations. The classic music radio played on his smart speaker, and it just felt normal. The only normal thing about his life was coffee and classical music. 

Continue reading →

Poem: There goes another poem

~ John Loraine ~ 8 Comments

There goes another poem
Just to show you that there is still
Something more to say.
There goes another line,
Just to show you that
We are moving on.
We all know that there is the way out,
But we don’t know where exactly that is.
We don’t know how to get there
And we all try very hard to find it.
To find that way out.

The morning sun will never lie to you
But your mind will,
You will lie to yourself
Looking for the truth,
Looking for comfort.
There is more comfort in the lie
Then in truth,
There is more comfort in rain
Then in the blue sky,
There are better days somewhere
Out there
Waiting for us
With all the rain and blue skies, and
All the poems in the world.

Like the Catcher in the rye

~ John Loraine ~ Leave a comment

We were poor and young and happy. There was very little to worry about because life was so simple then. We were trying to enjoy our lives as much as possible. We were new to adulthood and responsible life then. We were yet to find out all its tricks and challenges. I remember all those turning points that affected me as a person. There wasn’t much of anything to take from 2017 except for this vacation. This was the best thing that happened to me in a long time right before all the shit hit the fan. These were truly the best and worry-less days of our lives, and they still bring pleasure when I think about them now.

It was a hot July of 2017. The vacation season was here. My wife and I, married for about a year then, decided that we need to take a break from everything and go on vacation. I worked for a finance company in Southern Jersey, and she was working for an accounting firm in suburban Pennsylvania. The company I worked for was going through some transformations and leadership changes as my job were becoming less and less relevant and soon to end for me. My wife’s job was an hourly contract position with no benefits, a few hours a day commuting, and the same boring accounts payables every fucking day.

I was on the market, secretly looking for something new. I’ve lost any interest in working in the office at all. But, I had to do it, I had to pay the bills and credit cards and the school loans and anything else that I owed to anybody. This is the game which we all have to play. As long as you play it right, you should be okay. I didn’t have any particular interest career-wise as I started thinking about becoming a writer. I was already playing it wrong. But becoming a writer doesn’t mean that I would pay my bills right away with my writing. Maybe I could? If I could only dedicate myself to the craft more. I surely could. We were both fed up with our jobs, and the daily routine, and taking a vacation was a no-brainer.

We booked a hotel in Center City Sarasota, Florida, for five days over the July 4th holiday. Things were about to change for both of us right after this trip. But before that, we lived pretty happy and boring lives and didn’t have many expectations. The trip to Florida in a car was roughly about eighteen hours, with just some brief food and restroom stops. Since we both lived paycheck-to-paycheck, driving was the best option for us. The hotel was booked for July 4th. We’ve decided to leave Philadelphia on the evening of July 3rd to get there in the afternoon on the 4th. We were going to celebrate Independence Day in the beautiful Sarasota, getting baked under the bright Florida sun. Our hotel was located right there in Center City, close to all restaurants and the best beaches with the whitest sand and the most gorgeous sunsets ever.

“Okay, my bag is ready. Taking that to the car. Are you ready with your stuff, babe?” I asked, feeling the internal rush inside me as we were packing our bags and stocking them into a car.

 Continue reading →

Poem: Ghost Town

~ John Loraine ~ 15 Comments

Ghost town,
Lost town,
It was once beautiful and strong,
Now it just exists, so
Empty, dark and grey, and
All the shades in between,
With all the ruins in between,
With all of us amongst the ruins.
We were once strong,
We made the history of now,
Then history repaid itself,
We’ve become the slaves of our time,
Living in the long-forgotten,
Ghost town.
I knew you in your early days,
I knew you in your prime,
I wanted to be here forever,
But it is time to say goodbye.
Until the next babe, I am gone.
I’m filled with sadness and relief,
I’ve turned the page,
I’ve changed my books,
I hope you will recover soon,
Until then, you’ll be in my dreams.
As a once the legendary town,
Of our youth, and the good times
Of our prime,
And the home for oh so many.

The old man who played chess

~ John Loraine ~ 14 Comments

I met my neighbor Gene when my family moved to our new house in North East Philadelphia. Gene was in his mid-eighties then, a short, older guy wearing his old-school clothes and eyeglasses. He loved to play chess, and he would always ask me to play with him every time he saw me around. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gene. I am just a little busy today, maybe we’ll play next time?”

“Ok, sounds good. We’ll play next time.” Gene would say with his signature older men’s smile on his face. He was already excited to play a game whenever that would be. He was old and lonely, even back when his wife was still around. I never told him I have no clue how to play chess, but I always thought, what the hell, eventually, I will play with him. The old man might teach me a thing or two. He had 80 plus years of experience after all, and I was just an asshole, his next-door neighbor, who was trying to figure out what to do with my own life. 

I worked full-time then for the finance company in Southern Jersey at the time. I hated fucking it. I hated that company, financing, leasing, bullshitting, people who worked there and bullshitted their customers and bullshitted each other. I hated all people who stuck in the daily morning traffic over the Palmyra bridge driving to Jersey; I hated my colleagues, my asshole boss, and myself for working there and contributing to the great evil. It was around that time, back in 2016, when I discovered and was reading a lot of Charles Bukowski, and my world has changed along with me and everything I was about in this life. I loved his honesty, sense of humor, the ugly truth of the brutal reality, and the never-ending drunken shenanigans he lived through, and wrote about in his poetry and fiction works. But there was something else to it. There was the real-life feeling of hardship and misery, an enormous passion for writing, the close feeling of life and death with all this living on the edge full of despair and failure. Bukowski’s work inspired me to become a writer, and I remember that powerful feeling from the deep-down: “Fuck that finance company, I want to be a writer!” 

 Continue reading →

Poem: Everything will pass

~ John Loraine ~ 12 Comments

Everything will pass,
Everything will go away,
Someday.
Nothing will be the same,
Nobody’s still the same.
These long and useless days,
These short and pointless nights
This everything will pass.
Everything will become the past, at last.
This line above is now the past.
This poem also is the past.
The dark and the light will pass,
The birds, the trees, the grass,
The sea, the trees, the smile and tears
Will pass.
The youth, the health, the passion,
The shame, and sorrow, the hangover
Will also pass, at last.
The future, the present, even the past
Will pass.
Time will tell, time will heal, time will pass.
The struggle, the passion, the good and the bad,
It all will pass someday.
Nothing is here to stay,
Nothing is the same.
I am never the same
As my life is never the same,
As my troubles are never the same.
Who gets to leave? Who gets to stay?
These questions will remain.
Just wait, just wait, my friend, awhile.
Look at the sky and smile.
I hope the sky will stay.
I hope the sky will never go away.

Key West, Hemingway, and Sunsets

~ John Loraine ~ 8 Comments

We finally arrived in Key West Florida around eight o’clock on a hot Tuesday evening in mid-June. The trip from Philadelphia was annoying and too damn long, but sure worth it. It took us a car ride, two shuttles, two airplanes, a rental, and a total of eighteen hours to get there. I am an inspired young writer trying to make it in a corporate world and my six-month happily pregnant wife, we’ve left for a little get-away right before the pregnancy, and traveling becomes too much of a burden for both of us. 

We’ve decided on Florida because it was a relatively affordable trip with an excellent travel package for a week and, of course, because of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway resided in Key West from 1931 to 1939. His house is a historic landmark and a museum, and it’s the primary destination for so many people coming down here, to the edge of the world, the far end of the Florida Keys. We stayed at Havana Cabana, a cool Cuban style hotel-resort located just about ten miles away from Hemingway’s house. We stayed there for the next five days, and this would be our last trip with only two of us before the baby arrives. 

Continue reading →