Martin H. Levinson Verse-Virtual 2016 September

September 2016

I write poetry because it helps me make sense of the world around and inside me. It piques my interest in the past and prods me to think more about the present and the future. I find the act of writing poetry joyful and self-reinforcing, even when the content of my poems is about sad or traumatic events. Please visit my website: martinlevinson.com.

Elegy for my Father

He’d come home from the office,
collapse on the couch,
bitch, bitch, bitch.

Marvin’s backstabbing me in front of
Milton who is badmouthing me to Max who
is stealing my ideas, saying that they’re his.

I wanted to be out of the house when he was
in it and when home I‘d flip the conversation
to anything but his goddamn work. Yet he was

good at what he did and mom said he stayed at the
firm ‘cause he had a family to support which if he
didn’t he would have gone into business on his own.

I’m glad he left me alone when I was a kid,
never asked me how my day was, didn’t lecture
me about the birds and the fucking bees.

I’m glad he threw the paper at me when I dissed
him, let me drop out of cub scouts, didn’t give a
rat’s ass about me cutting out of school.

Thanks for finding a lawyer to get me off
for scalping the 1964 World Series tickets
your company gave you that you gave me.

Thanks for not hitting me when I hoisted
a Hamilton from your wallet to go with
my buddies to Coney Island. Thanks for

saying a zillion times life’s unfair and
you got to watch out for yourself because
it’s a tough world out there and your mother

sees it through rose-colored glasses which
she can afford to since she’s got a husband
who knows the score. That was good advice

and I wish I could thank you for it now but
living to ninety-one is a pretty good run and
in the end with my shopping for your food

and keeping mom company when you were
in the hospital, I wasn’t such a bad son.

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