Remembering Mark J Andress

Died Sober, June 26, 2011

We hear the talk our minds they balk

We learn to crawl and soon we walk

We’re taught to stand new friends in hand

Our jaded pasts have future plans

Some get this quick while others fail

What good are hammers without some nails

What is this thing we all attend

What is this message we attempt to send

What do we know when we arrive

A human famished and barely alive

The few who step forward to take such a chance

With a handicapped spirit to perform such a dance

I weighed barely nothing, my anger, my rage

A self-induced prison where I remained caged

I don’t blame anyone from decades of shame

I don’t behave anymore like an animal untamed

I don’t growl any longer with a scared vicious bark

I credit these rooms but in truth it was Mark

He knew of my pain and saw me insane

His interest in me and my ball and my chain

I talk out of bottles, I know where I am

An ounce of his love weighed more than a gram

So I’d dress myself sober when life didn’t fit

He never once judged me every time I would quit 

He’d pick up the phone at the worst time of day

And tell me he loved me as I wasted away

For years this went on and for years he stood by

He encouraged me daily and came down to my size

And even the failure I felt I’d become

The beat he played then is now what I drum

For the rest of my life the one sober member

If ever there was someone to remember

It surely will be the man on the roof

Whose message was stronger than one-hundred proof

We think we all know, I know we all think

The message is simple - we don’t pick up a drink

And that is the meaning behind him today

To remember this man who lived just that way