Be a Man

 
Be a man she said, and I can but what for,
being a man is such a damn bore, I’d
rather wimp out and be a complainer,
whining’s cathartic, for health a no brainer,
 
so my boss doesn’t like the clothes that I wear,
and my backstabbing colleagues do not play fair,
and it’s either too hot or it’s either too cold,
and it sucked being young and who wants to be old,
 
and the house is a mess that we really must clean,
and Jimmy the neighbor’s incredibly mean,
and the kids don’t appreciate meals that you make,
and when we have sex why do you get to fake,
 
and I detest Jane and I detest Lee,
and I loathe when detesting them you don’t agree,
and I can’t understand why I have to drive,
and you get to text and rest and revive,
 
and I saw the red light and the car that cut in,
and the warnings you give me get under my skin,
and when we go out can you please not be late,
and pray do not tell me you’ll just have to wait,
 
and I could simply go on spewing demands,
and wouldn’t you know it, that’s just like a man.
                                   
 



Nature Versus Nurture


Water hardens
into hoarfrost
dew drops form 
on grass at dawn

bears take naps
throughout the winter
bees swarm when 
the weather’s warm

sweet corn grows in
summer seasons
leaves fall off 
autumnal trees

clouds develop 
out of nowhere
sea tides wax  
then they recede

nature changes 
not so nurture
that is what 
I want to see

I will love you 
you will love me
always and 
unceasingly. 





Summer’s End 


A crescent beach, seashells, lapidary waves. 
   I walk past couples lying on the sand glistening
with oil and good intentions. I turn my head to 
   catch the breeze and watch fishermen going out 
to sea in rickety boats, eating, laughing, drinking beer.

Marching home into the woods a deer bounds across my 
   path full of health and vigor I no longer possess but 
can’t help yearning for. I make my way towards an 
   updated bungalow facing the Pine Barrens where a 
family of five wild turkeys moseys across my lawn, a 

pair of jays as blue as the sky in spring fly in and out of 
   the Americana two-hole birdhouse I built last year, 
a mailman deposits mail inside my green galvanized steel 
   post mounted mailbox. Orange and purple irises planted a 
month ago finally coming into bloom. The sprinkler goes 

round and round. My neighbor across the way brings over 
   beefsteak tomatoes just harvested from his yard, invites  
me by for barbequed hot dogs, burgers, corn, watermelon, 
   ice cream, homemade apple pie. He asks when I’m 
returning to the city. I want to say never, but I don’t.






Within this vale               
Of toil and sin 
Your head grows bald 
But not your chin

I wish I had written that jingle 
I tell myself in 1963 as I read small
sequential signs along the road touting

the virtues of Burma Shave that my father 
chuckles at and my mother says to me why 
don’t you write clever stuff like that instead of 

sending poison pen letters to Penny Patarshky, 
a real sweet girl despite crooked teeth,
flabby arms, chubby legs, and an affinity

for chopped chicken liver and store bought 
gefilte fish that doesn’t hold a candle to 
Grandma Gertie’s ground deboned piscatorial
 
delight served with a dollop of homemade horseradish 
and chicken noodle soup you could die for when a 
car carrying death zooming the wrong way on a 

leafy suburban sun-drenched street hits baby Bobby, 
Aunt Sherry’s blue-eyed blond cherub child, 
the apple of her eye, riding his tricycle by the Road 

was slippery Curve was sharp White robe, halo 
Wings and harp I jot down on a piece of paper 
that rips my mother’s heart out with its glib 

portrayal of an unplanned passing and  
extinction of her sister’s life on 
a bright summer day when 

A child at play 
Will play no more 
God speaks in rhyme 
A heap of gore.





Buzzkill


The wasp nest outside 
the apartment window
beneath the eave of 
the terrace above us,

the final blow 
to staying here,
the final blow 
to graying here,

unbearable
not repairable
can’t stand the noise
can’t stand the dirt

can’t stand the buses,
subways, taxis, got to
get away from here, got to 
get me far from where the

sidewalk’s full of chewing gum, a 
vagrant’s reeking from cheap rum,
pavement peddlers hawking stuff,
enough I say, enough, enough,

Litter! Litter! burning bright 
in the city day and night,
no hot water boiler’s down
likewise the incinerator,
    
cursed hell, ain’t it swell, 
count to ten, count to twenty, 
does no good, hate the ‘hood, 
screams redeem my self-esteem, 

shouting madly, acting badly, 
but we still are living here, 
cannot get my ass in gear,
change is hell, a thing I fear.