I was born in Shanghai, China, the son of Holocaust survivors, and grew up in New York City. I now live in the booming metropolis of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where there are a surprisingly large number of good, cheap, hole-in-the wall ethnic restaurants. Two of my four grandchildren live in town, so I get to spend a good deal of time with them, playing tag, which is sort of like running wind sprints. For over thirty years I taught in the English department at Saint Cloud State University, where the kids from Lake Woebegon go to college, and I can attest to the fact that they all are, in fact, above average. Please take a look at these two chapbooks, which are available for download at the amazingly low price of nothing:  Blue Season (with poems by me and V-V regular Joseph Lisowski, and ​Return of the Bride of Frankenstein — click on the book titles.)
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City Heat


I saw anger on the avenues, 
how it swelled
as traffic growled and leapt 
at the heels of pedestrians, 

and old women in the park
bent over their hands, waiting 
for a great sea to carry them 
towards a house made of shells 

and glass. My shoes scraped 
pavement, I was afraid to look 
around at blurred faces 
cracking open in gray sun

with its wrinkled heat rising 
from steaming bricks. 
Over and over, the sound 
of trucks and the subway roaring 

as I waited for sky to melt 
and burn, raining its soft drizzle 
onto spear point buildings rising 
like teeth into the flesh of another day.





Furnace of the Sun


Above the dam, heat 
dances, visible rays 
shimmer from concrete. 

We can’t peel away 
enough clothing; 
even our hair, our skin. 

Everything sweats 
and sticks, water 
bottles slick in our hands 

as we pound along
the river. Mosquitoes 
and gnats have gone 

to ground, hidden
in some tiny, shaded
grove as we race, two 

lunatics flinging
themselves 
into the furnace of the sun.





Another Dream of Home


This time it was a block of red
brick apartments in a less desirable
part of town, with sparse grass
planted in the small squares
and broken playground equipment
that never got fixed, green paint
peeling on hard benches where
teenagers came to smoke and drink
beer. Security lights from the school 
across the street bathed the faces 
of girls, turning them pale and hard.
Someone had a radio, so tinny music 
bounced along the wire fence as summer 
night expanded, menace strung with joy. 





Twelve Days


My name on the wall, painted
large as the figure of a man.
And then it rained.
For twelve days water spilled

from the sky. First we danced
naked in the streets, then
we rowed in our boats 
to the store. Finally we climbed

to the roof, tears mingling
with wind-driven drops.
Last night the wall crumbled
adding my red name to the flood.




I Give UP
After Mark Strand

I give up my place in line, that early unmarked grave.
I give up my attitude.  Here, take it.  Come on, it's yours.
Whatsamatter, you don't want it?  Not so big now, hey?
Yeah, I give up my parking tickets.  I roll them up in a big
cardboard ball and throw them in the East River.
I give up my socks, they have holes in them anyway.
I give up my hair, little by little, year by year.
I give up my barber, his jokes suck.
I give up ketchup, or cat soup, that blue collar 
condiment.  I give it up reluctantly, I give it up 
as a sacrament.  I give up spreading it on french fries, 
those deadly, crispy snakes.  I give up oil and salt.  
I give up the ocean, that gray-green roar, that scent 
of decay breeding life.  I give up sand and merry-go-rounds.
I give up baseball, that dead horsehide game.  It crawls
across my t.v.  I give up instant replay
of pitches that catch the inside corner, I give up 
the sound  of a foul tip, the ball smacking the catcher's glove.
I give up chalk.  I give up the sound it makes 
on the blackboard, the white residue on my hands.  
I give up its alkaline smell.
I give up the detritus on my desk.  With the back 
of my arm I sweep it all onto the floor.  And I give up 
the floor and the dead rat rug lying there like a bad hairpiece.
I give up rock n' roll, I give up Vivaldi, that cagey Jesuit, 
I give up my pickup truck.  I give up Paris and London 
and Rome.  I give up New York, my home, my home.  
I give up the E train, I give up Washington Square, 
I give up Columbia.  I have crossed the Hudson, my 
Rubicon.  I give up bagels and blintzes and diphthongs 
and the "ng" click, which means I give up Lawn-gi-land, 
which means I give up streets, which means I give up, 
I give up.  Which means I'll always be camping out.

Originally published in Snakeskin, June, 2008