Every month I try (and am usually successful) to send my lovely daughter money to help with school and bills. I like to wrap her gift in poetry so that , maybe, she will be smiling when she cashes the checks (and because she's my daughter and deserves to smile).
But why stop with my daughter, I should be striving to hand out smiles to any and everyone on a daily basis. It is a staunch reversal in the manner in which I used to hand out cries like they were hot cakes on a cold morning.
Please, have a smile on me.
I wrote all of these while sitting in the hospital on the seventh floor. I knew I would be sending my daughter a check and therefore I wanted to write her smiles. I had to ask the nurses at a nurse station for some paper, which they gave to me. I sat, I wrote, I thought and I looked. As I worked, in came un viejo caballero. He was the real deal. Rough leather skin on his neck and hands, dusty old boots on his feet, working pants and shirt coupled with his weathered cowboy hat painted an amazing picture. At that point I started writing about him, and then started writing haikus in Spanish. As I composed, a young Hispanic secretary came in the relax on break. I asked her what a few words were in Spanish (heart...corazon and love amor) and she told me and commented that I must be writing a love letter to a girl friend. When I explained to whom I was writing, she fawned about how I was the sweetest man she had ever met. She asked for and read my haikus and we parted after she gave me her phone number (big smile here). After I finished writing all but the last haiku, I wanted fresh paper to perfect my handwritten poems upon for sending. Off to the nurses station I headed, but on my way there I ran into the same nurse who had given me the paper to begin. We spoke, I asked for more paper and then she noticed my hand written Japanese Haiku (my daughter is taking Japanese this semester and Google Translator is AWE!SOME!). She asked if they were hieroglyphics and I explained about the daughter and the Japanese and the checks and what not. AGAIN, I got the "awwwww" factor and "how sweet" and a "I wish I had a man like that in my life" reaction. We parted with an exchange of paper, a phone number and smiles. Two women, two phone numbers and two smiles all for me being who I am and doing what I do. And then I sat down and wrote the last haiku. I am who I am. I do what I do. And I am happy in my own skin. We all should be so lucky.
My Favorite Name
By stu pidasso
13August2013
I
heard
That
word
Again
today
It
made me grin
And
almost cry
It’s
the single thing
I’ve
been called
Which
I’ll cherish
Until
I die
This
title, my friends,
Means
much more
Than
any words
I have
to say
But
I’ll attempt
To use
my words
To
explain how
I felt
today
For
nothing in
This
world, if you please
Will
break a man
Down
to his knees
As
hearing a small voice
Chime
with such rejoice
This
simple, light,
Beloved
moniker.
It is
a label
Oft
reserved
Easy
to earn
And
quite deserved
By any
man
Who
has taken time
To
love and guide
A tiny
mime
As
I’ve been known
To be
addressed
In
several dozen ways
Once,
it was brown berry
Most
often
It’s
plain old Jerry
And
once it was
Johnny
Meg
Still
it’s Shroom
The
hooker of doom
I was
known as
Andrew
Evan too
My
pseudonym
Was
Mr. Pidasso
Also
known as Stu
I’ve
even been called
Uncle
Fatty
But my
favorite
By a
long shot
Is
just the simple
Daddy
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