____________________________
POETRY
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.
____________________________
"A
Skirt of Heresy for the Religious"
* Quote from Michael Todd Steffen
It's
time to put
on that pleated red skirt—
expose those long
and repressed games
cap them with stiletto heels,
give a sacrilegious high step
to that grimacing higher power
in his divine ivory tower.
This is a skirt
to skirt the commandments
faultless
in its many flaws—
moon the stained windows
dirty dance on
the church's floors.
____________________________
"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 Felsh?
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.
____________________________
Publishing History
A
Holocaust of Toads - From Children Church and
Daddies
SARDINES - Handful of Dust
Furnished Room (Newbury St. 1978, Boston, Mass.) - *
Oddball Magazine * Taj Majal Review
AM I A MAN OF BONE OR FLESH? - Laura Hird
website
Spring On School Street. Somerville, Mass. - From Poetry
About. Com
____________________________
Afterword
Email Poetry
Kit -
info@poetrykit.org - if you would like to tell
us what you think. We are looking for other poets to
feature in this series, and are open to submissions.
Please send one poem and a short bio to -
info@poetrykit.org
Thank you for taking the time to read Caught in the Net.
Our other magazine s are Transparent Words ands Poetry
Kit Magazine, which are webzines on the Poetry Kit site
and this can be found at -
http://www.poetrykit.org/
