SCREWED

                                                My wife found another man.

The night she told me,

Having waited

For just the right moment,

But it wasn’t the right moment

For me.  I felt bashed

And assaulted.  Mugged.

Dying would have been easier.

It was as though I’d been pressed in a winch

By a wench, until no air was left within.

Months passed.  I survived.

Understanding would take longer.

Two years later she wanted to return,

I no longer wanted her.

I was coming off a fill-in relationship

So filled with sex, I lost my virginity again.

My lover was a young mother

Rocked by her own divorce,

Remarkably kind and giving.

She gave me such tender attention

The gaping hole in me

Stopped throbbing.

I doubt we had a clue as to

What we were really doing.

We were both too bruised and needy

To create a sound place to stand.

We mistook physical comfort

For solid ground, but at least

This was our moment, our 15 rounders

Were over, we could leave the rings behind.

MY EULOGY - RABBI ERWIN ZIMET

                                    Erwin carried himself with gentle dignity,

An unobtrusive figure,

What he lacked in height,

He made-up in stature.

His spirit, like breath on a frosty day,

Rose above the crowd,

Even Hitler couldn’t diminish

The sparkle in his eyes,

He could lift with his wise words,

Inspire by the sincerity of his deeds,

Warm with his inner glow,

Light a fire by the intensity of his moral stand.

His convictions were vertical like girders,

Yet he lived with his feet touching the ground.

He loved his wife, children, community;

Also sand and sea, the beauty of nature.

He knew no other way to be, no other deeds to do,

No other words to say, no lessor love to feel.

His life, like a shooting star lighting the darkness,

Left a sweet, lingering afterglow.

WHEN THE BAY MEETS THE OCEAN

I live on a sandbar

And expect someday,

The ocean will wash

Me out to sea.

Till then I write.

I write poetry, but wish

I could write a good joke.

Did you hear the one

About a priest and a rabbi

Meet in a bar…that’s as far as I get.

When I was a kid,

My parents never told me

Not to write poetry,

So I’ve been at it

For 50 years.

Now that I’m older,

I can’t decide

If I’m turning into

My mother or my father.

One was water, the other land.

It doesn’t matter.

I keep writing, waiting for the big one

When the bay meets the ocean

And sweeps me and my poetry

Out to sea.

I AM SEA GLASS 

AGE and LOSS

Age had cost the old man

Most of his sight,

More than half his hearing and

Much of his memory,

But he could recall

A summer morning

When the crows

Squawked their claim

To the telephone wires

And a yellow sun rose

Through low clouds

That magically turned it red.

He told his son

That was the day

He waited at the train station,

Bouquet in hand, but

She did not arrive.  Undeterred,

He waited hours for

The next train. 

“I’d have given my right arm to see her

Get off that train,

But she didn’t come, nor call.

Who needs sight or hearing or memory

After such a day?”

His son put his hand

On the old man’s arm,

Squeezed it and said

Without even a hint of recrimination,

“But Dad, Mom did get off that second train.

You married her

And lived together

For 50 years. 

You just don’t

Remember.”

PAST BONDAGE

                                                            Go ahead –

Quit, Give up,

Go back to Egypt,

Be a slave, worse,

Be a content slave.

The eternal struggle

Between a past

You can perceive

And a future

That’s God’s secret.

But the past has

No possibilities.

Lock that door.

Jump out

The window.

Brave one,

You can fly.

Look back,

You have

Hero’s wings.

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SEA GLASS PEOPLE