My experimental documentary short Fragments of the Living is now available for viewing on YouTube. The film is composed of public domain home movie clips. It is a celebration of the American family, a nostalgic salute to the past and a meditation on the fleeting nature of life. It was screened at the NewFilmmakers New York Screening Series (2016), Athens International Film Festival (Athens, OH; 2016), and Syracuse International Film Festival, SpringFest in 2016.
Two years ago today, I underwent my sixth brain surgery at Upstate Medical University Hospital for a recurring benign tumor on my pituitary gland. A neurosurgery and ENT team removed the stubborn craniopharyngioma in a four-hour surgery on July 24, 2023.
Upstate Medical University Hospital (Photo by Francis DiClemente)
I wrote a poem based on the postoperative medical report uploaded to the MyChart portal. I consider this a “reverse redacted poem.” Instead of blacking out words from my source text, I pulled words and phrases from the summary.
Neurosurgery Report
Date of Procedure: July 24, 2023
Endonasal endoscopic
transsphenoidal resection
of tumor
with nasal septal flap.
Preoperative diagnosis:
Recurrent craniopharyngioma
Postoperative: Same
Patient is a 53-year-old male
with a long history
of known craniopharyngioma.
Recurrence of craniopharyngioma
abutting the optic chiasm.
Not a great candidate
for repeat radiosurgery—
not enough margin
between the tumor
and the optic chiasm.
Counseled on the risks
and benefits of endonasal
transsphenoidal resection.
Elected to proceed
despite the risks.
Patient was intubated
by anesthesia.
Positioned supine
with the bed turned 90 degrees.
Endonasal approach
to the sphenoid sinus.
Once the sella was exposed
and the bone drilled down,
we began our resection.
A long handled arachnoid knife
was used to incise the dura.
The tumor was located
mainly on the right side.
We then encountered
thick scar tissue,
which was also incised
in cruciate fashion.
Once both layers of dura
had been opened,
there was immediate egress
of thin viscous brown fluid.
With the endoscope
we could see a
calcified appearing tumor
just in front of our field.
At this point, there was a brisk
CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) leak
from the chiasmatic cistern most likely.
Once we had attempted
to scrape along the floor
of the sella posteriorly and laterally
along the cavernous sinus,
we then turned our attention
to the tumor hanging in front of us.
We used laryngeal biopsy forceps
to coax the tumor out.
At this point, the tumor
seemed fairly stuck and plastered
to the arachnoid superiorly,
and thus we resected the
remaining tumor in front of us
in piecemeal fashion.
Given the brisk CFS leak,
our ENT colleagues then turned to
the right-sided nasal septal flap.
The ENT repaired the CSF leak.
Packing Surgical and NasoPore dressing
placed by the ENT surgeons.
This concluded our procedure.
The drapes were then removed.
The patient was returned to the stretcher.
He was successfully extubated
by anesthesia and transported
to PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit)
in stable condition.
Now, two years later, I am still living with a brain tumor. My last MRI in December 2024 revealed:
“The lesion measures 14 mm x 13 mm (TV by AP; Transverse by Anteroposterior), unchanged compared to prior scan dated 5/17/2024, allowing difference in technique and slice selection. The superior aspect of the mass abuts supraclinoid ICA, which remains patent. The right prechiasmatic optic nerve demonstrates mild atrophy but remains unchanged.”
My next MRI is scheduled for September. I suffer some mild headaches and have double vision when looking at a computer screen without my prism prescription glasses or gazing to the extreme right. But otherwise, the tumor is not affecting my health.
And I know what Dr. H. will say when he reads the MRI report in September. He’ll say, “Your scan looks good. It hasn’t grown. Let’s leave it alone and get another MRI in six months.”
This wait-and-see approach works well for me. But at the same time, I can never get the tumor out of my head—literally and figuratively.
And although Dr. H. is the surgeon and I respect his medical advice, his Pollyanna outlook ruffles me.
That’s because Dr. H. isn’t troubled by a repetition of sneezes that I fear could dislodge the tumor from its nook and cause it to invade healthy brain tissue. Dr. H. doesn’t worry that eating an entrée of fish and chips will add protein and fat to the tumor cells and make the mass larger. He’s not worried that the tumor will expand and start pressing against the optic nerve.
Craniopharyngiomas consistently grow back; that’s their nature. Having this dormant beast taking up real estate inside my skull feels like having Godzilla asleep in your cellar. You know he’ll wake up eventually. And then what? So how can you sit at the kitchen table and blithely enjoy a quiet dinner when you know the predator lurks beneath your feet?
At the same time, life and death could trade places on any given day. I’ve lost two cousins younger than sixty years old in the past six months (Derek DeCosty and Damon DeCosty), and I know tomorrow is not guaranteed. I am also very fortunate not to have a malignant tumor or a fatal disease.
And since I have no alternative, I live with the tumor as best as I can and try to forget it’s still there. Meanwhile, the tumor remains in the act of waiting—waiting to decide what it will become, waiting to find its path, waiting to strike. The neoplasm’s presence inside my head troubles me if I allow the image of the fluid-wrapped mass to provoke my worst fears. But for now, I try not to disturb the sleeping beast.
My younger cousin Damon DeCosty died of a heart attack in Jacksonville, Florida, on May 25. He was 53 years old. A celebration of his life is planned for July 22 (his birthday) in Jacksonville.
Damon’s high school yearbook photo.
Damon’s death was a huge blow to our family because his older brother, Derek DeCosty, passed away from pneumonia in January 2025.
My high school years overlapped with all three DeCosty brothers—Fiore (nicknamed “Fee”) being the oldest, followed by Derek, and then Damon, who was two years younger than me.
My cousin Fee (right), Damon (center) and I celebrate my sister Lisa’s birthday in 1980.
His obituary notes that he was born in Rome, New York, and was a member of the 1987-1988 undefeated Rome Free Academy hockey team, which won the state title. He played hockey and studied art at the State University of New York at Fredonia. He later worked in construction in Key West before beginning a career in agronomy at TPC Sawgrass Golf Course near Jacksonville.
The 1987-88 state champion RFA hockey team. Damon is the last player standing in the second row, next to Coach Dick Meiss.
But those facts don’t resonate with me on an emotional level. And in processing this loss and trying to write about it, no coherent narrative emerged. There’s no Hero’s Journey or three-act structure to guide you in mourning a loved one.
Instead, I recall images and voices—murky memories and episodic scenes that, when juxtaposed, add up to the human being known as Damon DeCosty and what he meant to his family and friends.
The things I remember about Damon:
His bronze skin, dark eyes, and black hair. He was of Italian American descent on his father’s side and Native American, with Caddo Nation heritage, on his mother’s side.
His artistic talent. I remember his hand moving across a sketch pad and seeing his artwork hanging in his room.
His placid, reserved, and affable personality. Although Damon possessed a James Dean coolness, he wasn’t aloof. Instead, you felt a sense of calmness in his presence, and people gravitated to him because of his kindness.
Damon with his dad, my Uncle Fiore DeCosty.
Damon had heart surgery at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse when he was about five years old in 1976. While my Uncle Fiore (Fee) and Aunt Pat stayed with Damon at the hospital, Fee and Derek spent the night at my parents’ house on Stanwix Street in Rome, near the Oneida County Courthouse on North James Street. I think it was a school night, and my mom packed my cousins’ lunches in their twin metal lunch boxes featuring Brazilian soccer legend Pelé.
When Damon recovered from surgery, he insisted on a sleepover at our house because he missed out on the fun, and I remember stretching out on the floor next to him as we slept.
I recall Damon and I spending a summer afternoon at our grandparents’ house on Crossgates Road. No one else was around, and we ran around in our bare feet on the patio, our feet turning black, and frolicked on the lawn, leaping over a sprinkler (a poor kid’s substitute for a swimming pool), our denim jean shorts getting soaked as we inhaled the scent of fresh-cut grass.
My cousins lived in a housing development on Seville Drive in north Rome. It seemed like a subdivision had been dropped in the middle of cleared farmland. Damon’s mom, my Aunt Pat, was a dietitian. And while the growing boys always had enough to eat, she didn’t buy them junk food. Their cereal choices were healthy, whole-grain products, such as Wheaties and Cheerios.
Damon (seated) and Derek with their mom, my Aunt Pat (sometime around 1980).
But on at least one occasion, while spending the weekend with my cousins, I remember my Aunt Pat went out shopping, and Derek and Fee sprang into action. They raced around the house, collecting small bills and coins, and gave the money to Damon with instructions to run across a cornfield and buy a box of sugary cereal at a nearby convenience store. Damon returned with a box of Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Pebbles, Trix, or Lucky Charms (I can’t remember the exact brand). But we all sat at the kitchen table, passing around the milk and wolfing down bowls of cereal, then discarding the box and hiding the evidence before Aunt Pat returned home.
In remembering Damon, I also find myself thinking about my late father, Francis DiClemente Sr., and reflecting on how divorce complicates family relationships, especially for children. When families fracture, the boundaries between relatives blur.
My mother and Damon’s father were siblings. Does that mean when my parents divorced, my dad stopped being an uncle to the DeCosty boys? Or after Damon’s parents divorced, did his mom (who was also my godmother) cease being my aunt?
Does divorce sever relations with non-blood relatives? Do you erase the bonds of love and family just because a couple separates? That’s a topic for a whole separate essay.
I bring this up because many years after my parents split, my dad would ask about Fee, Derek, and Damon. He really cared about them. And if they visited the Sears store in Rome where he worked, they would seek him out and say “hello.”
And it’s not politically correct, but whenever my father asked about Damon, he would say, “Hey, how’s the Little Chief doing? What’s up with the Little Chief? Tell the Little Chief I said ‘hello.’”
I must also admit that when I heard Damon had died, one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was that Fiore is now The Last of the Mohicans (also not politically correct).
Damon and I bonded over our mutual love of music. Our shared tastes included U2, The Cure, Grateful Dead, Genesis, The Replacements, R.E.M., Jane’s Addiction, The Cult, The Smiths, and many other artists.
Damon and I were part of a contingent of Romans that went to the Metallica concert in Weedsport, NY on July 16, 1989. We were more eager to see the opening act, The Cult. Damon is wearing the backwards baseball cap.
Fee shared a couple of Damon’s YouTube music playlists with me. One is titled Essential Dead, and includes tracks from the Grateful Dead and other jam bands. The other is titled simply Work.
I enjoy shuffling through the Work playlist and imagining Damon mowing a fairway, adjusting a pin placement at TPC Sawgrass, doing some odd carpentry work, or putting the final touches on a large-scale oil painting. The playlist contains more than 300 tracks—over seven hours of music—and it consoles me knowing I’m listening to songs curated by Damon, tracks that held special meaning for him.
For a recent film festival, I had to submit my project through an unlisted YouTube account. Now I’d like you use that account to upload some past projects.
The first is Black Box, a 2013 experimental short film that uses the power of music and dance to explore emotions. In the strictest sense, it is a dance film; however, it serves as a conceptual video art piece as opposed to a straight performance work.
The dancer in the piece clutches a black box representing the human heart as a repository of life’s emotions. It is a metaphor for the turmoil and pain we carry inside. Through a series of movements, the character becomes free from the heavy burden of the black box, and he can leave it behind and thus arrive at a state of inner peace.
The idea for this video originated with the music, the second movement of Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. I had always loved this melancholy and stirring piece and thought it could serve as the foundation for an artwork if the song was married to powerful visuals.
Once I developed the concept and treatment for Black Box, I turned to choreographer and dancer Brandon Ellis. Ellis interpreted the concept and developed and executed the dance routine.
For the production I collaborated with Michael Barletta and Courtney Rile, founders of the Syracuse, New York-based production company Daylight Blue Media.
Credits:
Choreography by Brandon Ellis
Cinematography by Michael Barletta and Courtney Rile
Edited by Courtney Rile
Produced and Directed by Francis DiClemente
Official Selection, 2014 Athens International Film and Video Festival (Athens, Ohio)
NewFilmmakers New York screening series (2013)
I saw a melting ice cream cone on the sidewalk while out for my Sunday run today. Luckily, I brought along a pen and a scrap of paper. I jotted down some notes, which became the sweaty, messy first draft of this poem.
Melting Cone
A Drumstick ice cream cone
lying in the middle of the sidewalk
on a blistering July Sunday—
the vanilla ice cream liquified,
while ants scale the surface of
the dented waffle cone.
Did the child cry
when the cone hit the ground?
And did Mom let the girl
run back inside to
grab another from the freezer?
But maybe a kid didn’t drop it—
because in reality,
ice cream misfortune
could befall anyone.
The forecast calls for storms.
Soon heavy rain will scatter the ants
and cleanse the sidewalk,
erasing the evidence of this calamity,
as one more taste of summer fades away.
Stanwix Street
A vanilla ice cream cone
covered with sprinkles of dirt,
a handful tossed by small, grimy hands
across a chain-link fence.
A blond child’s whine—
flat, constant and eerily melodic.
The girl then turning away,
screaming upstairs to her mother,
sound asleep in the mid-August heat,
the lime-green curtains fluttering in the
second-story window of the adjacent brick building.
The child just standing there, scraping off the grit
and licking the melting residue
trickling down her forearm.
Streetlight Paradise
Chalk marks on sidewalks,
fireflies stalking the night,
creaky porch steps,
chain-link nets and
the crack of the bat.
Sour-puss lips break a smile,
then sneak a kiss.
It’s cool to hold hands with
the girl of your dreams,
the one who says she’ll
love you forever.
But forever is too far away.
Our time is now—a passing moment
when our parents look the other way.
Summer fun in the springtime
of our lives, sucking it all in
under this streetlight paradise.
The Mystery of the Wolf
A summer evening in upstate New York—
a backyard sprinkler hisses
while the smell of fresh-cut grass
is pungent and delicious.
Crickets chirp and a coffee-colored mare
snorts from across the barbed-wire fence.
I am alone, kicking a soccer ball,
when a gray wolf emerges from
the high weeds lining the fence.
I try to run, but my legs lock up,
and I tumble to the ground.
The wolf circles me,
then sweeps in on my limp frame.
I can hear its stomach growling
as it hovers over me.
The tongue is extended
and drool splashes my face.
The wolf takes my neck in its mouth,
but does not bite down.
And I wake up in my bed,
thankful that the encounter is just a dream.
I am safe, and no wolf invades my room.
Yet I remain troubled,
afraid of closing my eyes,
drifting back to sleep
and ending up at the mercy
of another predator.
Minors
Toledo in July—a Mud Hens game:
Big league dreamers with names like Bubba, Fausto and Tyler
toil away in the minors,
hustling for the scouts perched behind home plate,
diving for line drives and sliding head first,
with egos in check and mouths full of dirt.
Pillars of artificial light frame the setting sun,
and from beyond the azure sky,
the ghosts of washed-up utility infielders
and middle relief pitchers
pull for these hard luck Triple-A players.
They want to scream, “Take heed, savor it now,
for this is the best you will ever be.”
But they’re under orders to keep their mouths shut,
and can only blow a home run foul every once in a while.
The steel girder stands are filled with a crowd
that still believes in this clockless game.
They listen intently for the crack of the bat,
and sing with all their might during the seventh-inning stretch.
Little kids with hot pink shorts and noisy flip-flops
smear their faces with mustard and hug Muddy the mascot.
They scatter peanut shells and scamper after foul balls,
and for them the score is merely an afterthought.
The summer night comes to a close
with a game-ending double play and a fireworks barrage.
The fans file out and load into their cars,
going back to real life with memories of Mud Hens
now stitched in the seams of their minds.
(All four poems were previously published in Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems, Finishing Line Press, 2019).
Here is an original artwork by my nine-year-old son, Colin (with minimal photo editing). It made me think that sometimes the chaos wrought by autism can render beauty. I like the use of white space and the Jackson Pollock feel.
Untitled by Colin DiClemente.
But the sundry objects and paper cutouts scattered in his bedroom and on our dining room table might indicate his preferred medium will be collage.
Dining room scene.
Often, when Colin is doing his repetitive tasks, such as lining up blocks or wooden letters of the alphabet, I’ll ask him questions, like, “What job do you want to do when you grow up?” If you could only be one, would it be a police officer, a firefighter, a doctor, a teacher, an artist, or a cook? And I’ll name a whole bunch of other occupations. But nearly every time, Colin’s answer will either be Artist or Cook (he loves mixing the batter for pancakes and muffins).
I joke with my wife, Pam, that we should encourage him to pursue a career as an accountant because earning a living will be easier than working as an artist or chef. I also tell her we should let Colin pursue his artistic endeavors so that he can 1) Explore and develop his creative expression 2) Maybe sell a few paintings one day that will pay off the mortgage and perhaps fund some experimental or documentary film projects.
I also realize that the parents of an autistic child have to let go of any desire for a neat and orderly home. It’s just not possible, at least in my experience. Pam and I try to laugh about it and embrace the futility of those moments when Colin takes up too much real estate in our house with his strewn objects or refuses to pick up his mess.
I am running a Goodreads giveaway for my new minimalistic poetry collection entitled Poecabulary. You can enter the Kindle giveaway here.
I am excited to announce the publication of my new book, a minimalistic, experimental poetry collection entitled Poecabulary.
Here is the description:
Poecabulary is a minimalist poetry collection that blurs the line between vocabulary and verse. Words appear in unexpected pairings, creating connections that surprise, challenge, and invite reflection. Each combination is a deliberate act of linguistic play, where alliteration, sound, appearance, randomness, rhyme, and meaning collide.
The author explores how similar or opposing words interact, encouraging readers to discover their interpretations and associations. Both a playful exercise and a meditation on language, Poecabulary celebrates the power and flexibility of words.
This collection will resonate with language lovers, poetry enthusiasts, and anyone curious about how words shape meaning. Sample pairings include Autistic/Artistic, Diffident/Different, Lonely/Lovely, Perfection/Perception, and Reject/Respect.
Poecabulary front cover.
The book began with my obsession with vocabulary and discovering connections between word pairings.
As part of my compulsive, lexical behavior, I check four different online dictionaries daily for their “Word of the Day” features:
TheFreeDictionary.com
Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster.com
WordGenius.com
This project is an example of how the crazy ideas that percolate and fester in my brain are the ones I need to chase, since they are the ones that elevate my creativity and spur risk taking.
Here is the author’s note from the front of the book:
Obsessed with vocabulary, I created this work as wordplay—an exercise to incite imagination and elicit connections in the reader’s mind. I consider the word pairings a hybrid of vocabulary and poetry—which could be labeled as “Poecabulary” or “Voetry.”
Quite honestly, I don’t even know if you can call Poecabulary a book, but I do believe some “word nerd” readers may enjoy it. And it’s a quick read. Although it’s 190 pages long, the word count is less than 650.
I would also love to collaborate with a visual artist who could make large-scale paintings featuring select word pairings from the collection. I could see the text-based works hanging in a gallery space.
Here are a few of my favorite word combinations:
Autistic/Artistic
Diffident/Different
Lonely/Lovely
Perfection/Perception
Reject/Respect
I received a nerve conduction study last week related to symptoms of my rheumatoid arthritis. The bearded electromyography (EMG) technician, Mark, had dark hair and an athletic build, and he wore glasses. We made small talk while he placed electrodes on me, stimulated the nerves with mild electrical shocks, and measured the results on a computer.
When I asked him where he was from, he said he grew up in Syracuse and went to a local high school. “It was a really good school,” he said, noting its academic and athletic excellence. “But I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I was kind of a screw up.”
He also explained that his mother was a custodian at Syracuse University and how he could have gone to college there for free, but didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. “I blew it,” he said. “But I had to find my own way.”
And then he said a jewel of a statement regarding regret. “If you focus too much on regrets, you don’t appreciate the life you currently have.” Or he may have said, “If you focus too much on regrets, you don’t live the life you currently have.”
Regret is a recurring theme in my poetry. I think it’s something all adults at a certain age wrestle with—this idea of ambitions versus reality.
Camera Angle
What would I choose
if I were given a chance
to lead a different life?
What mistakes
would I correct?
What new road
would I take?
But you can’t splice
the scenes of your life
to edit the past.
You can only point
the camera forward
and zoom into the future.
(The Truth I Must Invent, Poets Choice, 2023)
Formula for Success
Life can
be tolerable
when you
relinquish
aspiration
and settle for
acceptable.
(Outward Arrangements: Poems, independently published, 2021)
Shift in Thought
At some point
you have to
deal with the
Who You Are
instead of the
Who You Want To Become.
By now the
form is fixed.
You are
complete as is.
Don’t expect
anything else.
Don’t hope
for anything more.
(Outward Arrangements: Poems, independently published, 2021)
Francis DiClemente 