What is a Friend?
by Robert M. Katzman © December 27, 2020
A Year End Essay:
Took me a lifetime to learn this
To clear away the debris
To comprehend the fundamentals
Now, I’m old enough to know:
A true friend is
Someone to hold you, silently
When you’re lost
***
Someone from your past
Who felt it was worth
Teaching you enough
To help you become someone
Worth being a friend
What’s a real friend?
A person who
When your life is crashing
Drops everything to be what you need
***
Be it cash
Protection
A bed
Someone who believes your story
No matter what
The sort of person who
When you really need
A straight answer
No matter what
Be it wonderful or fatal
Gives it to you
***
To be a friend like that
Requires great risk
But the reward is impossible
Unmeasurable
Unless knowing your own self worth
Is enough
***
As the year ends
We must brace for
The Tidal Wave of Death
The Pestilence of 2020
Surely coming
Because irrational people
Seem to choose it
***
If you have such a friend
Still within reach
To sit next to you
Or be on the other end of a phone
3,000 miles away
You are blessed
***
Why?
Because the warmth and relief
A true friend brings into your life
Just as you begin to feel
You are disintegrating
Makes me think God
Created the idea
That two people
Standing together
Facing the fear
Is a universe unto itself
***
What’s a friend?
The guy who shows up.
***************************
Publishing News:
Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words
Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one mans lif’e than a person may imagine.
Please visit my new website: https://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.
Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:
Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.
Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM
Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping
For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95
(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95
I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.
My Fighting Words Publishing Co. four original books, published between 2004 and 2007 are now out-of-print. I still have some left and will periodically offer them for sale on my new website.