poem

 Dads

Come to think of it, my dad didn't have to give me back the stuffed animal just before sending us down the gangplank to get on the plane returning us to Ohio at the end of that summer. I’d given it to him for a very special reason that even today eludes me. He should have kept it. Not written my name in blocky all-caps on the white bottom and ambushed me with its offering. Yes, I started to cry and then my little sisters did too, seeing me crying, and the first 30 minutes on the plane were a mess. Three little kids in a row, all weeping, disconsolate, trying to soothe themselves. I remember scratching Jackie’s back, telling her everything was going to be ok. The poor flight attendants didn’t know what to do. It was just some dumb, friendly-faced dinosaur plush toy I’d won the week before at Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas tossing coins on glass plates or maybe it was the game where you have to pop little balloons on a wall with darts. Two out of three wins a prize. It was my favorite one. I slept with it on the top bunk I shared with a half-brother I didn't consider a real brother which got me into trouble with Grandma because she had half siblings too and she considered them real and full and anyway I wasn’t used to winning prizes and Dad seemed proud of me, I guess. At the gate something came over me which I didn’t know how to manage other than to give him this dumb thing I cherished. Our six weeks of summer in Arizona had gone by so fast and we had to go back to mom and school was starting and I wouldn’t see him again until he maybe came back the day after Thanksgiving. I think I was 10. Anyway, he shouldn't have given it back, made it all about him. As if he were the one giving up something important. He didn’t understand the situation at all. He never did. Just like that time I wrote him a letter the morning after I’d heard him and mom up late screaming at each other again. Wrote him that I was sorry I hadn’t cleaned my room or put my toys away in the yard and that I loved him and hoped he had a nice day. Then I put the letter and a crisp $20 bill I’d received for my birthday inside an envelope addressed to “Daddy” and slipped it under his bedroom pillow. Back then, twenty bucks was a lot of money. I was going to use it for a new baseball glove. It was all I had actually. I don’t know what I expected. From the beginning I’ve always been a soft, sentimental little bastard. But I never heard a word. The act went unacknowledged. I never saw the twenty spot again. Over the years I’ve tried to imagine what may have happened. Maybe it fell to the floor under the bed while he was sleeping. Maybe he put the envelope in an inside suit pocket, meaning to open it later but forgot about it and then it got lost at the cleaners. Maybe mom found it, and pitched it in the trash. Or maybe dad opened it, put the money in his wallet, spent it at the gas station or wherever and went about his day, oblivious. Maybe he meant to say something to me but forgot. It remains a mystery. This was my first experience with the hard fact that one doesn’t always get what one pays for. That giving comes with no guarantees. That giving is just giving, nothing else. That love freighted with fear, anxiety and materiality can be misinterpreted. Or just missed. The world keeps the things you want returned and gives back the ones you’ve willingly released. To this day I get anxious with any sort of giving. How much will I have left? Has it been wasted? Should I have given more? And receiving is no easier. Acts of love pass right through me like invisible quantum particles and I don’t even know it. It’s all pretty fucked up. Man hands on misery to man etc etc.  Look at me, casting a shadow starting to look suspiciously like my father. Making it all about me. I ought not to be so hard on myself, though. It’s different, I say. I was just a kid, uncertain if I was being seen. If I was even in his field of vision. That’s the problem when your parents divorce. When you’re with mom, dad can't see you. And vice versa. Whoever you think you are gets split into two. But when dad is 2000 miles away and you only see him a few times a year, there’s a risk of disappearing. Forgetting you exist. Or at least it feels that way. Especially when he gets married again and has a whole new batch of kids he comes home to every day. But you grow out of that— which is a way of saying that something on the inside hardens. You basically have to or else go insane chasing after it. I have other people looking at me now. I feel their gaze like rays of morning sun after a midnight thunderstorm. I don't know where the dumb dinosaur is. I’m sure it’s lost forever. Part of growing up is learning some things only get found when you stop looking for them. See? It’s in my hand. My empty goddam hand.

6/15/25

poem

 The Wasteland

One day you stumble upon a secret realm

Of color and harmony.

It’s the Land of Poetry!

Everything here is made of it—

Trees, grass, squirrels, the

Pain in the ass neighbors

Who complain when your kid’s ball

Rolls down the hill into their yard.

We call them a sestina.

But you think — What a marvelous discovery! 

It’s been here all along!

Just when you thought all the magical

Wonder of the world had been used up  

And there was nothing left to write

That hadn’t already been said

And no good way of framing it

That hadn’t been done before. 

But soon the adrenaline wears off

And a certain kind of paranoia sets in,

A feeling of not only being watched

But the watchers are all waiting for you

To start doing something about it—

Linking and braiding and looping 

Some of these bits and fragments

Back together again in interesting ways

We’ve never seen or heard before.

You know you’re on the right track

If just reading them elicits

Nostalgia for the ethereal world 

Of dreams our old selves used to have 

Alongside memories of events that actually happened.

What we did and how it felt

Finally meeting up after all these years of parallel play.

If you can pull that off, good on you.

You’ve accomplished something worthwhile.

It isn't easy, though. Look around. Pay attention.

Summon every last scrap of pain, joy, sorrow, rage and love you can muster,

Mash it all together like a leftover casserole and release it all

In the form of an archaic keening, as long as you can, until your voice goes hoarse

And you're forced to either take a breath or die....

But before the sudden silence swells a second longer 

You hear a voice screaming back

And it’s not just your own echo.  

Configurations like that very rarely happen.

Probably a combination of luck and hard work,

Living and suffering and loving,

So you better get cracking.

But you don’t know how.

You’re a poem yourself

Written in a dialect from 15th century Gallipoli.

To your mother you’ve always been 

A walking, talking Shakespeherian sonnet.

All your friends could see it

And loved you because you didn’t.

Good old Jeff, trying to pass himself off as prose again—

Over-plotted, whimsical, and morose.

Even your notepad and pen

Are stray verses wandered off

From an ode on the love of your life

6/9/25

poem

 Strangers on the Plane

The women across the aisle 

Have been talking this entire flight

It was apparent that, prior to boarding,

They had never before met.

I’ve been silently reading a book

That’s supposed to help improve 

My social interactions but the constant

Chatter is a bit of a distraction

It continues even through periods 

Of heavy turbulence 

I don’t know how they do it

When I was younger I had to make

A list of things to talk about before

I called a girl on the phone

The last item on the list

Was always some variation of why

It would have been better if I'd never called.

6/9/25

poem

 Channel One

Everyone is television channel now

Broadcasting 24/7 round the clock

We sit down to watch, flipping

Through the choices listlessly.

Nothing seems good enough to commit to.

Half the channels are endless loops of commercials

Asking you buy something you don’t need

Like an expensive juicer or the cleansing solution specially formulated 

To get all the juice stains out of your carpet. 

Sometimes you stumble upon an old show

That you used to like for very specific reasons

You don't quite remember, but it’s nice and comfortable.

Reminds you of a time when life was simpler, safer, less chaotic.

It’s only nostalgia but you’re probably not going to find anything better.

Thousands of channels, nothing worth watching. 

That’s not what you paid for! Cable/internet is expensive!

Come on man, it’s been a long day, you’re tired

And don't really feel much like reading tonight

It’s only Pessoa and Simic on the nightstand

And this is not a good time for them

But is it asking too much from your passive engagement device

To come up with something a little more distracting 

Than— The Man Who Was Embarrassed By His Own Feelings 

Or— The Girl Who Reheats Her Leftover Cod in the Office Microwave

Or—  The Uncle Who Isn’t As Good To His Nephews as His Uncles Were To Him  

Or— The Surprisingly Malignant Ex-Wife

Or—- The Woman Who Stayed Angry at a Man For 45 Years

It doesn’t even dull the clarion call alarm

Coming from inside the house 

Warning that you don't have the wherewithal tonight 

To deal with the deluge of despair and despondency

Ominously clacking their way up the basement stairs.

Remain patient. Go back to the beginning.

Press the home button and see what your options really are.

Maybe a glass of Spanish red wine.

Your wife is in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.

One of your kids is upstairs

And the other is downstairs.

Suddenly you drop the remote.

It all makes sense now.

You’re a television show too.

A side character like Norm from Cheers.

You yell— hey everyone! come in here and watch! it’s my favorite show!

But no one comes

They don’t hear you, or maybe they do.

It’s a rerun

And they've seen this one before.

6/9/25

poem

 Hallelujah

Poetry is just the ashes

You have to imagine the fire

Which only makes you wonder 

How many things will burn 

You didn’t come up with it

It’s always been here

You were the stupid part of it

You fell into it

The love of your life is here

Hidden in metaphor 

You only meant to lend it to poetry

But expected to get it all back

6/9/25

poem

 Reimbursement Adjustments

In light of the recent decision of the federal government to cut reimbursements for American surgeons and defer cost of living inflationary adjustments, a new math is required. Maintaining a viable practice will grow increasingly untenable. Run the numbers. Now you have to whack out our gallbladders to make your monthly mortgage payment. Three abscesses will need to be lanced to justify your continued reliance on expensive brand name cold cereals. You’ll have to take an extra 4 days of call per month to afford to get your kids’ braces off. The equations are inscrutable but unfailingly correct. Seven appendectomies to assuage the guilt of four complications. Eight hernias will need patched to fill the hole you made in your own heart. One night you’ll get called in late for an emergency surgery on the festering open wound of your life. No one else can save it. In exchange for a successful outcome you get nothing from us, as per the terms of your last employment contract. Check the fine print. The math holds up.

6/9/25

poem

 The Hanged Man

Strange suited playing cards

Scattered across the land 

Jack of stars

Queen of stones

Ace of scythes 

Someone is searching 

For the rest of the deck

So the game can resume again

No one remembers the rules 

The card you’re holding has been 

Passed on for generations

Hold it up to the light 

To read your fate. 

You’ll never know 

When it should be played

6/5/25

poem

 Editing

I’m a character in someone else’s dream

Who wakes up before finding out what happens.

I’m the icing on the unbaked cake

Of somebody’s forgotten birthday. 

A candle, at a romantic dinner, where 

Only one person shows up.

I’m ice skates collecting dust in the garage

Waiting for the pond to freeze in August.

Bandages stashed in the first aid kit

For a wound that healed on its own.

Am I being clear or are these just words

Of a language that hasn’t been invented?

Are you the translator of the old scroll

Someone found buried with an ancient civilization

Modeled after the town I grew up in?

I say it shouldn’t have been written.

You say bollocks!. Go fuck yourself!

You’ve just been too afraid to listen!

I’m afraid I’m the show you’ve already watched 

When there’s nothing else to do.

The prayer you've been saving

For when it's too late to be forgiven.

I’m the lines you had to edit out

To make it your best poem.

6/1/25

poem

 In the Hospital

In the hospital of the city

Where I’d never lived I sat

Next to a patient I’ve

Never operated on and looked out 

A shuttered window at the 

Car I didn't own parked in a vast 

Meadow of asphalt that wasn’t there.

The patient was trying to speak to me

In a language that sounded like heavy

Machinery in need of an oil change 

You don’t get it, I tried to say, in an overly loud voice

Like an arrogant American speaking to foreigners

Trying their best to help me 

When I woke up, all the lawyers were there

Shuffling papers and checking their watches.

They looked at me like I was a character 

On a TV screen who had wandered onto the set

And forgot he didn’t have any lines.

It was impossible to change the channel

Even though I wanted them to.

So I sat for a while and watched the news

While my old patient fitfully snoozed 

Hours after the difficult operation

I had assured him would make him feel better

But surely had not.

Once I was certain I wasn’t being watched 

I felt for a pulse that had long since stopped

And counted the number of skipped breaths.  

When he suddenly opened his eyes and spoke

Very clearly of children and wives

Using names that sounded 

Extracted from a science fiction novel.

When his family arrived they called for the nurse

Who arrived momentarily.

They were righteously aghast—

How long has he been like this?

Why does he speak to a ghost?

6/1/25

poem

 Calvary Cemetery

There’s a cemetery on the way to the Midtown tunnel

From LaGuardia that caught my eye 

So I looked it up when I got home 

And I think it’s called Calvary Cemetery.

According to Wikipedia it has the largest number

Of internments (nice way to say corpses)

Of any burial grounds in the country. 

It’s just enormous. 365 acres.

A lot of the headstones were sort of thin

And tall and tilting, mimicking in miniature the skyscrapers 

Jutting from the island behind them.

I can’t remember if this is metonymy or synecdoche

I'll have to resort to analogy or smile:

Envisioning an old photo in black and white—

A child playing with toy soldiers on the front porch

While daddy embraces his beautiful wife before he marches off to war.

Only here, the cityscape is a make believe

Game passed on from generation to generation

While the toys are the real thing

Sent across the river to an exile far away 

Meant to remind the boys

Of the blessing it is to play

6/1/25