Poetry, fiction, literary non-fiction
Selected Poems
Central Park, East Meadow: A Covid Poem
Central Park East Meadow,
Not famous like Sheep Meadow,
Simon & Garfunkel didn't sing here,
No Philharmonic concerts,
Nor John Lennon looking down from the Dakota.
Central Park East Meadow,
Where she tramped through snow drifts
with Ingrid in the fifth grade,
Lugging sleds,
Searching out a hill high enough to sled down.
Where her father
Told stories of being a naughty boy,
Circling until they reached a sunny bench
in the shelter of the tennis house.
Where she crossed time and again
with Evelyn, over to
Soup Burg on Madison,
Gossiping over vanilla Cokes.
Near where she sprawled with her classmates
Ted and Wendy, Toni and Vicki
on late April afternoons,
Reciting from 11th grade anthologies
verses by Wordsworth,
As daffodils danced
almost two centuries after the poems.
Central Park East Meadow,
She glanced
from the big windows of Klingenstein Pavilion
between labor pains,
Anticipating arrival of her daughter into the May morning.
Near where she crossed by the Guggenheim with Arlene
last Christmas Day, marveling
how instinct led them to the West Side
over paths untrod since childhood.
Central Park East Meadow,
Not famous like Sheep Meadow,
Simon & Garfunkel didn't sing here,
No Philharmonic concerts,
Nor John Lennon looking down from the Dakota.
An unsung corner, an open expanse
near baseball diamonds,
Where families cheer their players,
Where schoolkids toss a football
back and forth, dreaming
to make the A team.
Central Park East Meadow,
Overnight a field hospital erected
upon tender spring grass.
Ambulances, fences, white tents
obscuring forsythia and azalea,
With stretchers and rubber sheeting,
With scanners, monitors, snakes of tubing.
Also coolers with snacks
for exhausted staff
receiving the overflow,
The overflow of people
desiring one thing:
That enough air pass in and out of lungs
To grant them more days upon our verdant Earth.
April 2020, featured on WNYC
Upon not going to Poland
In towns I was not born
I grew.
In round-ups I did not flee
I ran.
In bunkers I did not crouch
I hid.
In sewers I did not snake
I crawled.
In selections I did not pass
I filed.
In streets I was not shot
I fell.
In camps I was not killed
I died.
So what need now
to snap them
with Minoltas?
To compose
sanctimonious testimonials
of latter-day remembrance?
To drown with self-indulgent tears
the spongy soil
of Latvian burial fields?
No need.
My tears have already fallen then
when they did not fall.
- Out of Line
August Baby
I am an August baby,
a birthday girl whose big day stole by
year in year out, while everyone was out of town.
Marked by cards from a faithful few,
celebrated by a solitary ice cream cone, or two.
I want to ask the other August boys and girls:
Does the toll still crawl on inexorably
even minus fanfare and cymbals?
Or, if she pushes ahead unnoticed through the years
does an August baby remain forever young?
- Feature poem for month of August 2005, Scars 2005 Poetry Wall Calendar
For May, when her lithium is wearing thin
May, I want to give you
a daisy chain
as long as the dreams floating in your head.
A daisy chain yellow as sunlight
you can weave for calm.
I want to give you a poem
you can hang your hat on, May,
so that the soft brownness of your eyes
won't glaze over
with monster volts.
May, I want to give you a poem
you can hang your hat on,
so we can sit beside you and not fear
you will mimic a Lewis Carroll book
and we will all have to look the other way,
and talk fast, and pretend we don’t notice.
I want to give you a poem
you can hang your hat on, May,
so that you will keep quiet, and
not make us wince,
or blush, or squirm.
We lucky hypocrites
we lucky Size 10's,
we who wear the cloak of rationality
more easily.
-California Quarterly
The Yiddish I Never Knew
My 1 AM buddies, I've nicknamed them Otard, Hennessey, Martell:
the old VSOP gang.
As night deepens into Courvoisier dreams,
into Remy Martin reveries,
and the musings of imported brandies,
sets the midnight moon.
Cognac is my RSVP.
Morningtime, I'm hobnobbing with Descartes,
back to base 10,
and moisturizer with SPF,
wondering who will win the Series.
But come inky midnight,
I stand grasping at the windowsill,
waiting for Poe's raven to alight
and raise a toast:
in the name of pacifism,
and the Yiddish I never knew,
and the pain of old betrayals.
-Zygzag