Tag: marc d. goldfinger

  • Paying The Price

    Paying The Price

    About two weeks ago, my chest started bothering me. I couldn’t really describe the feeling; it was like an itching across the inside of my chest. I didn’t know whether it was my heart or my lungs. When I was 11 years, I started smoking Camel non-filters and smoked regularly from then until my last…

  • The Church of The Coveted Glen (Conclusion)

    The Church of The Coveted Glen (Conclusion)

    Read part one here. Lucy practically moved into his residence. Greta, at first, took great umbrage at the Lucy Pharr invasion. This, in itself, was extremely unusual. Most of the congregational women that had fallen under the spell of the passionate minister had not even registered the flicker of an eyelid belonging to the now…

  • Voices from the Streets: A Hidden Violation (Conclusion)

    Voices from the Streets: A Hidden Violation (Conclusion)

    Read part one here. (I had just gone into the courtroom, attempting to take care of a matter that was more serious than I had presumed: a felony possession of heroin with a suspended sentence.) I placed my hands on the rail so Judge Luby wouldn’t see them shaking. My public defender explained that I…

  • Voices from the Street: A Hidden Violation, Part One

    Voices from the Street: A Hidden Violation, Part One

    I had been in recovery for approximately four years and was extremely active in what my support groups called H & I, which stands for hospitals and institutions. A few of us would go to speak at various hospitals and detox centers to people who were trying to kick their drug habits and alcohol addictions.…

  • VOICES FROM THE STREETS: As We Age

    VOICES FROM THE STREETS: As We Age

    When I was young, I traveled far and wide and never worried about finding a bathroom during the trip. Well, at least not to take care of my normal bodily functions, that is. But now a new horror has risen over the horizon. Last year, my wife Mary Esther and I were traveling to Vermont…

  • VOICES FROM THE STREETS: Opioids for pain: the best idea

    VOICES FROM THE STREETS: Opioids for pain: the best idea

    It astounds me how much controversy exists about prescribing opiates for pain. The fact is that opium-based prescriptions are by far the best painkillers around. When pharmaceutical companies make opiates, they make regulated doses. There are no surprise overdoses, unless the patient takes more than is prescribed. Does this happen? Well, human nature being what…

  • VOICES FROM THE STREETS: At the speed of life

    VOICES FROM THE STREETS: At the speed of life

    I was late to graduation, just like I was late for everything. Flying down the right hand lane on South Livingston Avenue, doing close to 90 miles an hour with my 1958 Plymouth Belvedere convertible top down when I heard a police car hit the wailers and saw the lights in my rear view mirror.…

  • VOICES FROM THE STREETS: How not to go missing

    VOICES FROM THE STREETS: How not to go missing

    I was reading an article in the Boston Globe about a homeless man that the police found.  Well, actually, they found his legs first.  They had been severed from his body and were lying by a Connecticut train station.  From DNA testing they found out that the man’s name was Ray Roberson. They’ve found what…

  • VOICES FROM THE STREETS: Changes In Life

    VOICES FROM THE STREETS: Changes In Life

    I sit at my desk looking around my office and I have to feel gratitude. It’s 2015 and just 21 years ago I was strung out on heroin and didn’t know where I was going to lay my head at night. In the last issue of Spare Change News was an article about me as…

  • LAST WORD: Marc D. Goldfinger

    LAST WORD: Marc D. Goldfinger

    This week’s Last Word features an interview with Marc D. Goldfinger, Spare Change News’ resident writer and poet and the newspaper’s poetry editor for the last ten years. With the help of the poet Lee Varon, Goldfinger is currently putting together a poetry anthology featuring work published in Spare Change News over the years. Writing…