ON TO EDGAR CAYCE

It was you caring and sharing a flake
of your life with me
sharing your work as well as your fun
sharing your joy as much as your confusion
It was your comforting, your chiding
you really cared, you put me first
when I came to your side
when I wanted just to be with you
I must have told you before
how good it felt listening
while you shared your wisdom
I know now I should have
You'll be married soon, to someone you love
And with those vows, I'll never see you again
you'll be a husband with a wife
a friend of mine a thousand miles away
And you being where you'll be
I doubt I'll see you much
but if anyone asks me who it was
it was you, brother, my friend

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

LAUGHTER

I like the sound of the word fronds
I think, though, it should end in a Z
And all I can think of
is a palm frond.
I suppose you can hold a frond
in your palm
without saying you're holding
it in the palm of your hand.
After all, where else do you
have palms?
You have balls on your feet
But are there palms on your feet too?

I like the sound of the word balms
and the way it ends in a closed mmm
like some thing you ate that tastes too good
for words and all you can say is mmm
and soothes you like, well, like a balm

I like the sound of the word laughter
although I think it should own an F
in there some where.
It reminds me of living happily ever after
but when you change one letter
it changes to a sound like water
(at least, where I come from, it does.)
I know laughter and daughter
and I like the sound of each
in its way to make me smile.

AMERICAN BOY PUSHING SIXTY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

APOCALYPSE

Yes, I am
well, anyway, I used to be
that is, that was, before the rock sheet
wrapped in rolling pins
ruined my recollection
that is, of early childhood
but that's been done before
long before
Yes, I will be
if I've the half-chance to work
long and hard with my buddy who passes the
pen with the phosphorous ink
it glows with the harking angels
in the sun if a fat man's shadow
undresses slowly nearby
No, I'm not very sure
but if you say so, I'd believe you
that is, if you weren't lying through
you teeth, that is, if you never
lied to anyone before, but you've got a point
what is the use, to you or to me
of trying to tell the truth
from someone else?

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

SELF PORTRAIT AT 54

after Ted Kooser Self Portrait at 39

Fifty four years ago in 1954
I was born
about ten years after
D-Day in Normandy.

Now look at me
What have I done
done to the promise of youth
who heard what was promised
any more than what was wished

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

SINCE YOU’VE GONE

I hope this letter finds you well
I was trying to remember
If I wrote you since you’ve gone
Or if I just thought about
writing to you and never got
around to it since you’ve gone

I do want you to know
that I think of you,
Mostly when the subject
of Egypt or the West Bank
becomes the conversation
But at other times, too
I think of you
whenever I stop to chat
how long I’ve been here
and the people I’ve known
and you having started
just months before me
always are in that jumble
of work memories.

Though I know you’d
rather not be here, you’d much
rather be talking of cameras
and fine photographs
and about Venice, too,
I’m talking this moment
to tell you that even though
you are not here
I think of you.

For all the years I’ve stared across
this shithole of Hudson River
I still can’t say the names
of more than a half-dozen
buildings over there.

Rockefeller Center, I’ve been there
looked back at this place, too.
I hit the Empire State Building, too
a long time ago with a friend from Ohio.

We walked over at Ground Zero
but if the buildings had names
I don’t know them, and never did.
I still see the exhaust towers
for the underground PATH
and it makes sense now
that sometimes ahead of the car
pulling into the station
You get that flash wind
of diesel fumes that choke you
But as for the rest of the everything
over there, names on buildings
seem to mean the least of all.

ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

SUNDIAL

Spring time and the legs are back
but what of the goose babies at the sundial?
Gone are the goslings. The trimmed flora
leaves no coverage and mamma goose knows it.

Just wait – you just wait soon the sun will warm
this place and soon you’ll stand elbow to elbow.
Your buoy, green like a watermelon
floating in the murkish water
like a giant bobber waiting for a strike.
Who ever would have thought
a watermelon would float?

If this hotel is supposed to be
a ship docked for people to see
then why not this pointy building
a rocket to the moon?
Launch-ees would look down
& see Miss Liberty waving bye-bye
“Ya’ll come back now, heah!”

We could wait near the sundial for
joggers and power walkers,
kissers and friends and post cards
from OUR MAN on the moon

last year the goslings on the pier
piqued our curiosity
fuzzy little birds and protective parent
the babes hopped skipped & looked cute
Maybe like the sparrows or the swallows
they’ll return to Hyatt pier – for old times’ sake

ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

TAKING THE PLEASURE OUT OF TRAVEL

Years ago when I traveled for work,
I saw much of the U.S. of A.
Mostly I saw airports
Hotels, convention centers
Not a lot of time to take in the scenes
When you’re working

That put me in New Orleans, San Fran, L.A.
Atlanta, Las Vegas, Lansing, Mich., Phia
W. Palm Beach, Fla., Kansas City, Mo., not Kansas
And Chicago more times than I’d like to count.

Some hotels had TVs and phones in the bathroom
And most of the rooms were interchangeable
A bed, a desk, an armoire with a TV, and
A mini fridge with overpriced food and drink.

In all those places the boss got the best room
And the staff were shuffled off to the farthest rooms
But once, my last time in Chicago, the new boss
Put my family and me in a suite.
My daughter, five years old then,
Had her own room, bathroom, TV and phone.
My wife and I had the same, and in between
Was a double sized room big enough for a party
And its own bar, to entertain,
and two separate bathrooms
A Murphy bed discretely tucked into the wall
And outside from our perch we got a clear view
Of Lake Michigan in the distance,
And the funky green river running down below.

That was the year they lit up Wrigley
I think it rained on the first try
And I remember learning,
after my wife and daughter left for home
while stayed behind to unwind,
That Raymond Carver had died
And how much I enjoyed reading
His short stories when I traveled.

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

PIZZA WARS OF 2006

Pizza War of 2006
by Anthony Buccino

Only in my town with its open school lunch
Would there be so many pizzerias
Vying for label of Best in Town
You had Ralph’s for a while
Then they stepped aside, to be fair
Until it was time to raise more dough
And Michael’s claimed the prize
With the count it was disputed in the backroom
And two winners emerged with the title
The formerly friendly businessmen
Now engaged in a firm debate
Who puts the best pizza on the plate

It all started so innocuously, innocently, in fact,
For the Jaycees who raised scholarship money
So Nutley’s best and brightest could afford college

So now you have a pizza war
And the tossers’ dispute unsettled
As we wait for the this year’s winners
Have called in the big guns to decide the winner
The League of Women Voters will be overseeing
The pizza wars this year, and they decided
That each person shall have only one vote
The Pizza Challenge they are calling it
This the tenth annual event of pies
When once again Nutley pizzerias will vie

The loser this year, we hear, will
Sleep with the anchovies

- By Anthony Buccino

From the upcoming YOUNTAKAH COUNTRY A Poetic View of Nutley Old and New
Copyright © 2010-2017 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

BEAMS

The beams there in the river.
What are they?
The boy in me wants to know.
No.
The boy in me needs to know.
But the guy in the tie
does not want to be obvious.
Not too obvious at all.
There among the rusting tailpipes
in the dirt two beams are
exposed and washed by dirty waves.
Are they wood that rode in on the tide?
Or concrete ballast to protect the seawall?
The boy here would climb down the wall,
perhaps slipping and sliding on the moss
covered rip-rap, getting slacks and hands
smeared with muck in pursuit of knowing
what those damn beams are made of.
The guy in the tie has a different theory
to learn about the beams. He would walk
around the fence and find a rock,
or maybe a handful of rocks.
No dirt-bombs.
Then he'd ease to the edge
of the water, standing on the wall,
and one at a time, throw a rock at one
or both beams and then listen.
It's been a long time since
the guy in the tie threw anything,
let alone a rock. And even though
it's less than ten feet to the beams in the sand,
it'll take most of the rocks in his hand
to hit either beam once or twice.
And to hear above the gentle waves
what noise the beam makes when struck
by the rock, that might even require
yet another handful of rocks.

ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

MY OUTLOOK HAS AN INBOX

FOOD
I grew up on white bread and butter
My milk had cream at the top of the glass bottle
We drank coffee and soda pop
And ate donuts and original Oreos
Ate red M and Ms
We ate raw hot dogs, and fried baloney
Fluffer-nutter sandwiches
And fried chicken – skin and all
Wheat germ was for health nuts who did yoga

ENVIRONMENT
Rode in eight-cylinder autos with no seat belts
Rode our bikes without helmets
Breathed in war veterans' second-hand smoke
Topped off our tanks with leaded gasoline
Our rivers caught on fire and dead fish lined the shores
Wringer washers crushed the buttons on our shirts
And our laundry dried and froze on the clothesline outside
Now, my Outlook has an inbox.

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

WHY DON'T YOUR POEMS RHYME

You ask why my lines of poetry don't rhyme
except for once in a while, or from time to time?
Well, the fact of the matter is my dear,
the words I scribble on the lines that appear
float down from the ozone through the dense air
and somehow, sometimes catch in the wax in my ear.
That's when I wrestle them to the dirt and make them linger
long enough for the thoughts to travel to the end of my finger
and hope that they're still there when I scratch them or type.
But if the words in my lines don't rhyme, it's okay, I won't gripe,
Even though I know they are easier to remember in sing-song style.
Why would anyone want to memorize a silly poem even for a while?

The IDIOM February 2008
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2008, 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

ALOHA II

Do the pretty girls
ever get tired of being
stared at?
Does their endless
beauty daunt them?
When men (and women, too)
stare and drink in
the rareness of their beauty
do the pretty girls object
do they raise the evil eye
to ward off stares
to save their own loveliness
for themselves or
their sacred ones?
Do they worry about the time
when others stop looking?
Will they even notice?

Aloha, do the pretty girls
think they are?
Does their beauty
hide frailties unseen?
Will this beauty fade
the way a cute birdie
grows into an albatross?

ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

PETER IV

I heard about your loveseat
And your near-new davenport
So why doncha write me a letter
Give it a try - be a sport
I figure that you're busy as a fever
And even teaching in a real school
So why doncha write me a letter
Tell me how it feels to break jewels
I heard you're going to Florida
New Hampshire, or even Vermont
So why doncha write me a letter
Tell me how it feels to have to want
I keep hearing about your Volkswagen
Black as a spade and sweet as a girl
So why doncha write me a letter
Tell me how to get around the world
I figure I can always trust you
Even if I never see you anymore
So why doncha write me a letter
Then deliver it to my door

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino
Also known as PETER II
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

AFRAID OF MONEY

Afraid to spend
Afraid to save
Afraid to ask for advice
Afraid to plan
Afraid of ...
Afraid of swindlers

What if I lose,
Give me St. Mattress
Lotto magic

Afraid of parents’ needs
Afraid of children’s needs
Afraid of our own needs
Afraid to do anything
but live in the here and now
Afraid of inheritance tax
Afraid of nursing home
Afraid to not start reading 

the money book again

No wonder people 

are afraid of money, 

money is scary!
People fight over it; cheat over it,
Worry and connive to get more of it
Abscond, horde and fret over it

The love of it is the root of all evil!
And yet, There’s no getting around it,
money makes the world go round.

It can make your head go round,
and your stomach spin queasy bad.

No matter how you feel 

you have to have money,
at least some, a little bit,
enough to tide you over. 

But for how long?

You could be like the guy 

in the Internet boom
Super Bowl commercial and have
money coming out your wazoo.
Or you could be crying nickels
and laughing pennies

Wherever you go 

in this civilized world,
there is money,
standing around you,
taunting you, calling you, teasing
and pleasing you.

The reality of money
(as opposed to the perception
of money – thanks Rolling Stone)
is you can’t always get what you want
(thanks other Rolling Stones)
but you might get what you need,
but you’ll not know the difference
until all is said and done.

Maybe you’ve thrown quarters 

around like sewer plates,
maybe you’re afraid of money, 

maybe money in all its denominations 

scares you
because of its uncertainty 

in your relationship.
Money, unlike life, 

is not a cabaret old friend.
Be afraid
Be very afraid.

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

HEAVY WATER

Any aquarium cleaner
will tell you
that a gallon of water
is eleven pounds.
And put enough
of them together
and find
that makes for
heavy water on hand.
But the other kind
of heavy water
is the kind
that will drown you
and you won't
even get wet.

AMERICAN BOY Pushing Sixty
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
*****************

BRILLIANT RED

At lunch you go outside,
lean against a railing,
face the sun,
close your eyes
You see a red
you've never seen before
when you close your eyes
Is this the color
of the blood
in your eyelids?
Is this what you see
when your eyes are bloodshot?
Still you stand in the sun
on a cold winter's day
And feel the sun heat your face
And hear the clicking heels
passing by
The helicopter overhead,
the water lapping behind you
The tick tick tick
of the dog toes
as they pass
Your eyes closed
you see the sun
without looking
Until the red
turns to black
as the sun hides
behind a scattered cloud

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

BREATHLESS

I’m trying to tell you about my trip
but the words don’t come fast enough
to do justice to the countryside, ah!
The Apennine Mountains an exoskeleton.
The Duomo tucked in perpendicular cliffs,
monasteries, villas all perched atop mountainsides.
My words and then my voice fails.
I’m trying to tell you how the trip went
but the feeble description is sucking
the air out me and I’m breathless
gasping for the perfect word
to describe the indescribable

- By Anthony Buccino
Sometimes I Swear In Italian
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

BROOKDALE SODA

Who could wait to drive
the family sedan or wagon
to the Brookdale soda depot
on 6th Street or Sylvan?
Empty cases in the trunk
Scooting through tree-lined streets
To the back yard driveway off
Sylvan Avenue in Bloomfield
or the Allwood Circle.
Or downtown at Heller/Heller
on Franklin Avenue.
Grab a hand cart
and an empty case
Splintering wood
and later dark-blue plastic
Go through the stacks
of cases and fill them:

Birch beer – two or three,
kola, cream,
pale dry ginger ale, Cheers.
don’t forget quinine, too.
Blood red cherry and cherry-pit,
another birch
and fill it out with root beer,
more Kola, too
and orange soda, cream,
and bright green lemon-lime
Life never got
any better than this,
and we wouldn’t know
that for a long while

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Memories of Brookdale Soda

TELL THE WIFE

You know what,
I'd rather tell her
I’ve been running around
Carousing with loose women
Drinking myself stupid
Tripping old ladies on the sidewalk
Kicking our dog
And firing rocks at strays

I’d rather wear a tuna suit
in an alley full of cats
Tell her I’ve been to the moon
Joined the Navy to see the world
Been called to fight on a foreign shore
Got abducted by aliens
Ate the last piece of pie
Put back the soda with one swig left
Left the seat up again
Took up a killer addiction
Lost the rent money playing pinochle

Oh, God,
I'd rather tell her anything
Anything at all,
Than tell my wife
I’ve been canned

- By Anthony Buccino
From CANNED - Booted, bumped, down-sized, fired, forced out, hated, hired, jobless, laid off, let go, out of work, out-sourced, pink-slipped, terminated, sacked, unemployed
Copyright © 2010-2014 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

THERE’S BEAUTY

There's beauty for you
beauty for me
There's a thousand miles
on the Erie track
So many men that used and
broke their backs
So many men all sang
the Railroad Blues
They said it drove the
pain away from you

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

DEAR ROY

You won’t believe how the world has changed.
It’s hardly fifty years since you rode the ranch
and yet you wouldn’t know this place today.

There are million dollar condos up on Ambush Ridge
where you and Dale and Pat Brady and Trigger, Buttercup
and NellyBelle, Pat’s Jeep, all showed up in the nick of time
to round up rustlers and bank robbers and murdering thieves.

And that hidden valley below the pines
has been paved over and stocked with stores
that cater to people too busy to cook meals
at the chuck wagon for themselves.

And those back woods logging trails
where the pheasant and partridge ran plenty
are filled with blue swimming pools
and swing sets, covered sand boxes and such.

Those pure water falls that flowed freely
from the hills have been dammed and piped
underneath the pre-fab mega movieplex
where they show naked people on the screens.

No, you wouldn’t recognize this place any more.
And except for the memory of you galloping wild and free.
I can’t think of any other reason to be here
Except to see first-hand how nature was robbed
when you weren’t looking.

AMERICAN BOY Pushing Sixty
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Trigger for sale
******************

LUMBER

Honey sweet smell, pungent and green
(If you know what green smells like.)
Scent lingers, full of warm, cozy memories.
Sawdust covered floor, slippery, dangerous.
Shop floor of shaved wood curls,
Sharp slivers and needlepoint splinters.
Underfoot, remnants of long ago projects:
Bent nails cast off in yellow pine,
Blocks of trimmed wood and clipped dowels,
Chiseled chunks that made way
for a shiny brass door hinge.
Two by four beams sweat sap
Despite the trip through the kiln
And the long ride
From the mill up north
To this dusty old lumber yard
Where weathered carpenters
In torn overalls pick and choose
From the straight and true beams.

SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

MILKWEED

Gless Avenue

Billy said
if you cut open
the milkweed
and drank the white stuff
that drools out
then, you can get drunk.
We looked at him
like he was nuts.
Why would anyone
want to get drunk?

AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

POEMS

Poems are like homes
After a flood has struck;
Just a funeral - without a tear,
A display for sightseers,
A memory of an old time dear.
Poems are like rocks that rolled
Rumbling down a hill;
Nothing sacred to the ironic eye,
Hurting more than healing,
Showing a pain once alive.
Poems are like tears
Shed long ago in sadness
Painted on pages with life-like feelings
Bringing back those old growing pains,
At three a.m., an emotional drain.

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

COWBOY

All I ever wanted was to be a cowboy.
When I dreamed, I dreamed of horses
in our one-family house’s garage
in Belleville, New Jersey.
Alas, the only horses I’d ever seen
were at the 6th Street pony rides across
from the Newark City Subway station
where we caught the trolley to shop
at Bamberger’s department store
in downtown Newark, New Jersey,
on Saturday mornings.

AMERICAN BOY: PUSHING SIXTY
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010-2017 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

HERE I AM

I'm waiting for the snow to fall
from an ulcer in the warehouse wall.
David saved Goliath from cutting his hair,
You came marching by with a polar bear.
I'm waiting for the moon to fall
behind the weary warehouse wall.
Matt threw the paper through the window,
You act innocent, as if you didn't know.

DAYS YOU KNEW ME
- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

MY APPLE CRY

I swear I heard my apple cry
when I pierced its spotted red skin
with my serrated plastic knife.
The apple cried to the celery sticks
and the baby carrots as well,
witnesses all to this painful act.

So, somewhere the celery would write
and the baby carrots grow up to read
the tale of the hungry man and this awful act!
“Please,” the three of them pleaded,
“eat a cheeseburger instead!”

By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

ROLL CALL

Where does she get those names
the names she reads every Sunday
when we are in church
you know, right after we pray for the sick
and we pray for those church members who have died
and for those in the room having tough times
and for the families we know
and their soldiers off at war.

Where does he get those names
the names of the week’s fallen
on two fronts of the war
their ages from the teens to fifties or so
and those names, some so hard to pronounce
where does she get those names
and when will the list stop?

St. Marguerite’s Retreat House, Mendham, N.J.
Dec. 11-13, 2009
By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

BOOK ON A SHELF

I'd hate to be
a book on a shelf
that's only been bought
but never had its back
broken
Yes, I'd hate to be
that book
sitting on the shelf
unloved
with all those other books
that have never been read

From DAYS YOU KNEW ME
By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

A WASTE OF PAPER

She says
all this writing
is a waste
of paper.

I go electric.

She says
all this writing
is a waste
of electricity.

Maybe she's right.

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

A POEM ABOUT YOU

I tried to write a poem about you,
Just like you asked me to.
It wasn't working.
I kept trying
I saw your red hair in the spotlight
I saw you cringe as the baton
Rolled down your arms
I saw your confident smile
When you caught it with both hands
But I couldn't make it a poem about you.

I heard long ago conversations
when I took you out to learn to drive
on the back roads in Montclair and Clifton
where we rode streets neither of us had seen before
But I couldn't make it a poem about you.

I felt the weight of the video camera at your competitions
When you tossed three batons in the air
Twirled around and caught each one with ease
I carried the trophies to the shelves I built in your room.
And saw the lone trophy I turned backwards
So you'd know I'd been there
But I couldn't make it a poem about you.

You asked me to do one thing
One thing that should be so simple for me
You asked me to write a poem about you
I could see you with your dolls
And then in your brand new car
I could see you sleeping over at a friend’s
Then traveling to China, Japan and Europe too.
I could see you on your first bike
With that humongous helmet on your head
And I could see you with your car packed
to the mirrors with your college stuff
I could see you with a bowl of cereal
watching Saturday morning cartoons
And speaking to thousands as president
of your college graduating class
I could see all these things, the old and the new
But I couldn't make it a poem about you.

- By Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.