As a child I was quite fond
of staring into the future
for hours on end, when
my parents told me
to get my head out of books
and go outside to play.
I never could see much
in my staring, thought
I was probably myopic
but my parents said I
couldn’t need glasses, they
cost far too much
for someone my age.
I realize now, now that
that future is mostly
my past, that I wouldn’t
have understood anything
I might have seen, had
I ever seen anything at all.
God sits at his easel, brush in hand
and thinks about the butterfly
alighting on the oak.
This man would rather paint
the nightmare of hell, but
he has been cast out and
his memory has grown dim.
He remembers being a small child
amused by the worm peering
from soil in a fresh rain and how
when he split it, both halves
would slither away
in opposite directions.
Now he rocks in the chair
and watches night fall
and shatter on the winter ground.
First Appeared in Medicinal Purposes: A Literary Review, Vol. 1, No. 6,
Spring 1997.
My younger step-siblings had it easy
once our father made seriouis money,
for then my mother decided we needed
a live in housekeeper, one who
could cook, clean and take care
of all those things domestic.
So my siblings had only to put
their dishes near the sink,
their laundry down the chute,
and keep their rooms marginally tidy.
I had missed most of that when
I was their age and father kept
us afloat with nothing to spare,
so I knew how to wash dishes,
how to run a load of laundry,
skills that served me well when
Uncle Sam gave me KP duty,
and waist deep in dishes and pots
I imagined how my siblings
might fare in that situation
for I needed a good laugh then.
When I least expect it, one
may unfurl wings and lift
into a clouded sky searching
for the hidden sun, or
it may wander off, a child
momentarily free of parents
off to discover the real world, or
it may retreat back into
the pen, unwilling to be seen,
objecting to its misuse, or
it may sit in front of the TV
and watch soap operas
and game shows, not caring
what is on the screen, just
escaping from the damned page, or
it may sit still, be tucked away
and hope one day to be accepted
for all the world to see.
On the mesa you can step outside
and look up at the sky,
clouds building mountains
that threaten to eat the sun,
swallow the moon whole.
On the mesa you can step outside
and feel incredibly small,
listen to the coyotes with
the ears of scared children,
unable to run like the jackrabbit.
On the mesa you can step outside
and look up at the sky,
more stars than are possible,
and listen as the wind
whispers in the voice of God.
Stevie and I were probably eight
sitting on the front stoop of our flat,
he the only one in third grade smaller than me.
There was no snow to be seen,
none in the sky, none on the frozen
and still patchy lawn, just the wind
of an always cold December day.
Christmas is coming, I said
aren’t you excited, with all the gifts.
Stevie smiled, they’re always great
but maybe this year I’ll finally meet Santa.
I laughed, lacking the heart
to shatter an infantile dream.
Do you buy into the sled
and reindeer thing, or does he come
more by way of magic.
Of course it’s the sled, but
I wouldn’t be surprised
if it had some pretty good jet engines.
And you think he comes
down the chimney I asked.
We don’t have one, you know that
so he must use a back window,
the one where I broke the lock
last summer when we were spies.
He looked momentarily sad,
you don’t have anything like Santa,
although you get lots of neat gifts,
just not all at once.
At least eight, most years more
but you’re right we have no Santa,
but we have something even better.
Better how, what could be better?
Each year at Passover, Elijah
comes in during our Seder
I don’t see him but we have
to open the door for him during dinner.
Does he bring you anything?
He’s not like that, he just comes
all old and bearded, and
before you can even see him
he’s gone again, probably next door
at the Goldstein’s or maybe
with Larry Finkel, though his mom
can’t cook very well.
So what’s he do, this Elijah?
Not much, I admitted,
but he does have a drinking problem.
First Published in Friends & Friendship Vol. 1, The Poet, 2021
He says he has found
a treasure trove of home movies
8mm film in small metal cans,
the sprocket holes intact
for the most part, my childhood
I thought captured on 35mm slides
that I am too cheap to pay
to have digitized, my adoptive
parents ill at ease with a camera
assuming always back lighting
was preferable, and I admit
it was nice to be an angel
or at least so my perpetual
halo allows me to claim.
But we have no projector
and given his photographic
skills, his cinematographic ones
suggest a black and white
zombie film of embarrassment,
but I tell him thanks
and imagine several uses
for the circular metal cans.
Tell me, the master said
what did you know
of the world
before you first
had words.
If this perplexes you
ask the infant, newborn
in his tears and smiles
all of Dharma
is laid out
before you.
A reflection on Case 10 of the Shobogenzo Koans (Dogen’s True Dharma Eye)
I am there, a classroom,
elementary or middle school,
Charleston, West Virginia
1930’s, girls in proper skirts,
saddle shoes, the old woman
at the front of the room,
first day of a new year.
“Jones”, a hand goes up,
“Murphy”, another rises slowly,
“Padlibsky, what kind
of name is that, Jew, or
some kind or Ruskie maybe?”
A small voice answers
Lithuanian, ma’am.
A scene that never
happened, a name changed
so that day the teacher
called out “Wells”
and she smiled and
quickly raised her hand.
First Published in Culture & Identity, Vol. 2, The Poet (2022)
At the moment of your birth
my son, I grew suddenly older,
mortality became a reality
that I could no longer avoid.
You could not imagine this,
and I doubt others could see
but I knew and the infinite
collapsed inside the event horizon.
Your brother came later, but
that death was incremental,
a single cut among thousands,
a step on a path you chose for me.
You have your own children now,
your shochet impatiently
waiting in the shadows, and
they cannot imagine their
roles until the play rolls out
and they are thrust onto the stage
with no possible exits, and an audience
that knows how this play ends.
an old writer and his words 