Watch the music video based on the poem by Michael Domino. Read the poem below, and in the book Cadillac on the Bowery.

He Fought the Good Fight

Manhattan, NY

2007

I saw a chance at another life.

I was in an egg.

I needed to chip away hard at the egg’s shell from the inside.

I made a small hole.

I popped my head out.

I visited Vietnam for 15 days.

While I was there I began to write short stories and poems at night.

During the day I took pictures and made videos.

I was still inside the shell but I could feel my body moving further outside of my shell.

I travelled locally and wrote about my adventures.

A small local newspaper published my stories.

My family was not interested in my stories and poems and pictures and videos, but I kept coming out of the shell alone.

A big crack in the shell developed

And I wrote more stories and my mind began to change.

I started to see myself in a different light and with a promising future,

Maybe as a writer or artist or traveler.

I had two arms out of my shell,

Reaching towards the sky,

Trying to pull my body fully out and away from the hard shell.

I went to Europe for another 15 days and travelled to eight countries, all by train.

When I came back I wrote more stories.

I felt good,

And when I least expected it,

I started to get impulses to write poems

And they came fast to my mind like bolts of lighting

And they were already written

And all I had to do was copy them down onto paper.

I always shared my work with people and friends by e-mail and the little newspaper.

I was almost entirely out of my shell.

I rearranged things in my business to give me time to travel and think and write and explore.

The possibilities seemed endless.

I came home one Friday with so much energy to write a story.

My writing table was gone.

Moved to the basement.

I was shattered.

I could feel my body going back into the shell.

I tried to resist.

I kept falling.

I had to leave.

I could not stay.

Soon the egg would engulf me and I would be inside the egg again.

So I left.

I tried to regroup.

The short poetry came but no more stories.

I was losing my will, my strength to make longer stories.

I switched to pictures and video to try and keep the creative momentum alive;

But it just was not the same.

Work began to call.

“We need you. We miss you. Please come back.”

Accountants, lawyers, insurance, money, family…

Profit and loss,

Profit and loss,

Profit and loss.

I’m almost back in the egg now.

My head is still out.

I can see out but my strength to climb out is mostly gone now.

The crack in the shell has repaired itself.

Soon the hole will close up entirely and I’ll be back inside.

The shell has one wet spot…

A single tear drop.

Word count: 493

2007-2014 © Michael Domino