A Holocaust of Toads

As boys-
we dropped rocks
a flurry of bomblets
on a passing phalanx
of toads.
 
Commanders for once
free from the clamp
of parental constraint
punch drunk
with the notion
of our control
of fate
life
death.
 
And like
mini Dr. Mengeles,
we experimented
stuffing firecrackers
down their
twitching throats
and watched
with clinical fascination
as the blood
and amphibian skin
amounted to no more
than a small amorphous mess.
Well,
after all they are only pests.
 
We watched them march
time after time
and we kept
our lethal promise
for their well-appointed death.
So many of them
black spotted, green, gray with white
all that blood
those terminal hues
we were just boys
we were Jews.

________________________

Ashes to Ashes/Dust to Dust

* A kaddish to my late Dad. 

The Hudson

was a misty

broad sheet

of placid water

that enveloped

the fine, powdery

spray of

fallible flesh and

brittle bone--

all that

was left of

the man.

The river slowly

dragged him downstream

past the

worn, world-weary

Bronx tenements

of his youth--

Then passing

the teeming city

he loved, left, but always returned to--

the very city

he cut his baby teeth in. 

Finally

he was flushed out

to the

wide mouth

of the open sea

his essence--

where

he always

wanted

to be.

____________________________________

 __________________________________

"The Heartbreak of Psoriasis"

* A TV and Radio AD Slogan.

As a kid`

when I heard that

commercial on the radio

I imagined

a lonely heart

a man

in a barely, furnished room

uncomfortable in

his own tortured skin.

Had he hoped for something better?

Something more in porcelain perhaps?

A clean sheet

to hide

the true to the

bone skeleton,

a proper draping

for what was

really beneath.

A second chance

for that second skin

he thought,

as he rubbed

and white flakes fell

like a flurry of pristine snow

much like the ones outside

his window.

* Ekleksographia

 ____________________________

SARDINES

 
In a tin
the metallic flap
pealed away
like a skin
what a predicament
they are in.

All eyes
neat rows
well-oiled
packed in, like
well,
what they are.

I wonder
what school of
thought they
were in,
before their
terminal canning,
before this twist of fate--

what were they planning?

 

____________________________________

STEM CELLS

Harvest them now
just before they truly grow
give them the right to vote
make them into a huge left-leaning
political cell
 that will spare us
from Republican hell.

Pure and asexual
and never ineffectual,
let the press ponder
their intricate code.

We will produce them blindly
we'll get
the mother lode.

It's all about getting the vote
if the truth be told.

 _____________________________________

Furnished Room (Newbury St. 1978—Boston, Mass.)

The raw, coiled

red glare

of the hot plate–

the urine stain

of a sink

and the waft

of Red Sauce

from Davio’s below–

The head

a short, anxious scamper

down the hall,

the hacking cough

of the retired civil servant

through a thin wall.

And the spinster

who peers from

the crack in her door

gathers her pennies

and courage

for her big trip

to the corner store,

the wooden ladder that

ascended to a tar roof

the sweet /sorrow scent of city, rain and sea…

and my youth…

______________________________________

 AM I A MAN OF BONE OR FLESH?

 Am I a Man of Bone or Flesh?

I am more
than stick
or bone
an empty
coat rack
for no one's
home.

Can you still
feel my supple flesh,
like a fruit's
skin blushing
with its ripeness?

And yes
I know
where I
stand
and the bone
lays perilously close
to the flesh
of my hand -

Still I am more
than brittle bone,
the cold
unfeeling face
of glacial stone.

________________________________

THE PERFECT LAWN

Far from Boston
I will neuter it.
I will
mow that plot
before the plot thickens,
cut all the intrusive
outside of the box
gay blades -
In my narrow mind
I picture a broad lawn
a perfect rectangle
where I draw the line
with the demarcation of lime -
no random weed
or itinerant seed
will drop
will mix
will be felt
on my flawless
green pelt.

_________________________________

Spring On School Street. Somerville, Mass.

      *A poem about the street I live on.

It always had a bit of animal magnetism.
How can you explain
the cars that careen down
its pockmarked pavement
like a school of frenzied
hypersexual salmon
Salsa and Hip-Hop
blaring from the open windows
racing
to spawn with the others
on Somerville Ave?
It attracts
the turbaned men
with long shocks
of white beards
the pedestrian
who screams consistently
at 5 P M
to imaginary demons.
In the Spring
always a new breed
of lovers
their faces so fresh
they put you to shame...
Invariably
you drift to the porch
with the first waft
of a fragrant breeze
the cat perched on your shoulder
above it all
to take it
in
again and again.