ROAMING THE AISLES OF TJ MAXX

Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

I’m wondering did she say meet her at Saks?
Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

I can’t spot her at all in the dresses or slacks
Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

She would look good in the reds, blues and blacks
Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

She gets so mad I don’t listen, then she attacks
Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

She would never go camping, rain or shine, in plastic macs
Roaming the aisles of TJ Maxx

It’s been a while since she said to wait here, or was it Saks?

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

SOME DREAMS ARE NOT MEANT TO COME TRUE

They are meant to be longed for

A shining light ahead,
a tall tale with no truth

A simple wish for things that were

They are meant to spark feelings

Simmer emotions, and sympathies,
or stored in a box

Inside a lonely mind

Left to rattle precariously

In less than copacetic
syncopation or sickie

Tiki tave sound alikes

-- Copyright © 2010-2012 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?

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Honor the Fallen
Faces of the Fallen

RITUAL (second tier decorations)

In the cold attic they wait.
The heat of summer long gone,
the chill of December wheezing through
eave vents, we pull down drop-stairs
and peer into the darkness above.
Flip the light, start shifting boxes
hand them down to the second floor.
Sort house decorations to the top of the stairs,
boxes of ornaments and tree lights
into the spare room.
Boxes done, light off, stairs up.

Begin the first floor boxes.
Sorting and primping.
The singing mouse goes on the TV.
The snowman collection to the mantel.
The Santa collectibles to the breakfront.
The mistletoe to the doorway, and the wire mesh basket
to the finishing nail on the back of the front door
to await Christmas cards that will overflow.
The tree light box decorations to the end of the sofa
next to the three-foot stuffed Santa.
Another Santa sits on the stairs awaiting cover of darkness
to trip someone. (Usually me.)

And on and on it goes for hours
until all the good decorations
are out and the second tier decorations
are back in their boxes, the boxes that go
up to the attic to await the passing
of the holiday when all the ornaments
will be together again in the silent darkness
of our attic.

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used without written permission.

BTW - That chemistry set in the back never did come to anything good except in the decision not to pursue the sciences...
******************

FINGERNAILS

Fingernails scratch the paper,
They point at a blank page.
A voice says, "Write something!"
So, he writes: "Fingernails
scratch the paper,
They point to a blank page."
#468
1974

-- Copyright © 1974, 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
First published in DAYS YOU KNEW ME.
Written overlooking the baseball fields in Brookdale Park, Montclair/Bloomfield, N.J.

ONE TRUE LOVE

ONE TRUE LOVE

Did you spend the last fifty years with her
in the morning kitchen worrying together
through evening bouts of doubt
Are the children safe?
The grand kids okay?
Will the K-car start tomorrow?
Can we afford to fix it if it won’t?
What’s on cable TV tonight?
Is your dog getting enough cheese?

Did your one true love leave you
looking like a frigging penguin
standing alone outside the prom hall
with that stupid look on your face?

What about those wild nights
and the long rides
and the long talks?
Where did those endless roads lead?
But for your one true love to someone else
and you shifting through an empty cupboard.

Have you carried around your broken heart
crushed so long ago by your one true love
or have you mended and moved on
to find the one other person in this world
who could love you this much?

Do the stitches in your mended heart still sting?
Do they twitter and twitch with reminded regrets
on those days when nothing will go your way
and you long for the one true love who got away,
forgetting for an instant the one who holds your hand?

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty

On Kindle

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino
Photo and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE

What’s it like to be
Married to different people
At different times, of course,
But how is it different?
Do you spend a lot of time
Comparing this one with that one?
Do you try not to repeat mistakes
That you’ve learned?
What is it like
Each day to be with
Somebody who is
Different than the one
You thought you’d spend
The rest of your days with?

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

FIRST KISS

No wonder he had to steal a kiss! (1970)

My first kiss came on a cold November night,
A Saturday after Thanksgiving in a stranger’s church.

My first kiss was a surprise, not for me,
I’d been thinking about it all night.
But she was surprised when she tried
to shake my hand in peace I charged in
and stole that kiss.

Her light blue eyes – I am still remembering
And the round cheeks of her smiling face
That Saturday I kissed her.
It was the only time.
On Monday we headed back to Jersey
And I never saw her again.

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty

On Kindle

Remembering November 1970

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

AQUARIUM

AQUARIUM

Somehow it seemed
I got everything I wanted.
I wanted a German shepherd,
I got a mutt named Butch.

I wanted an aquarium
just like my friend Rich had.
His had guppies and swordfish
and neon tetras, catfish and snails, too.

I wanted an aquarium
and the fish and the purple gravel
and the lighted lid and aerator pump
and the wrought iron stand
that went with it all.

I wanted to set up the pump
that made the bubbles
come out of the diver's mask.

Dad said no to the fish tank
and Ma said I'd pay for it myself
and Dad said, in his best dad voice,
"That's not the point."
He never said what the point was.

My aquarium had angel hair in the filter
and fish down below a floating wooden block
the turtles sat on after I fed them baloney
in the water, or until they got soft and died.

On the bottom, in the gravel
I set up Dad’s shells from the Fijis.
Rich and I kept Grant's pet department
going and made fun of the old lady
who sold plecostomus catfish.

My guppies all ate their babies
and the other fish got ich.

I kept that aquarium through
my teen years and then
set it up again in my house.

But lately it's been in the attic
for how many years, who knows?
I know now I never knew
what I wanted
and I still don't.

- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER

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

DON’T TRUST MYSELF

DON’T TRUST MYSELF

I don’t trust myself
to be here years from now
When it’s time to retire,
kick off my shoes, and
Slip into that coma of retirement.

It’s a matter of all those things
that came before
Finally coming around

to get their due
And collect the toll to pay
that appears too large.

I don’t trust myself to change
the few things left to change
That would make up for decades past
in the few decades to come
And alter the visions
the soothsayer’s seen.

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

PALS

PALS

In the middle of the night
the TV lights the room
he snores in the recliner
the big dog alongside him
snores almost in unison.
The TV show neither one sees
and neither one hears,
a movie repeated from before
when they fell asleep
at the early edge of night.

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

******************

ALL THE BEST FOODS

ALL THE BEST FOODS

Turns out the little pills
they assign you every day
that fix your cholesterol
and manage your sugar
and keep your blood steady
and fix a bunch of things
that won't fix themselves
and as you take that
handful of meds
you are reminded
to drink more water
because water is good for you
but not too much water, you know,
you have a separate pill for that
And remember those pills
you take by the handful
some work best on an empty stomach
and some work best
after you've eaten a meal
but with all of them you'll find
the foods you ate all your life
and all your favorites
are the foods you can no longer have
and this will help you live longer
thanks, what ever for?

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty

On Kindle

The poem was first published in RATTLESNAKE REVIEW 12/2007

Copyright © 2007, 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Photo from Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, NYC, by Anthony Buccino
******************

ADVICE

Now, Sam, did you really think
That you could step out of mediocrity
And step into the love of your life?

You didn’t think you could do it
Without having lost once or twice
And you can’t keep love alive without
Working and struggling at it.

If you thought it was so simple
Now, you know it’s not
And the loss of your most sacred lover
Will pass as others come before you.

Remember now as you encounter lovers
It’s not just a ‘give-me’ gig

If you don’t want it to work
Don’t bother to look, but if you want
To succeed, keep looking, keep working.

When love is right for you, you’ll know
The feeling – though you’ve only felt it
Once before.

If love starts to walk away
Go after it, man, follow it,
Don't let it get away.

- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Photo, The Kiss 2, by Anthony Buccino, taken at the Hyatt in Jersey City, NJ. These two youngsters were at it for quite a while ... as the next shot in the series will show later this week. 

Alternate ending:

If love starts to walk away
Follow it to the end of the earth
Where new love is old love renewed.

******************

PIPELINE CREEK

Belleville, N.J.

We played our games and looked under rocks
Alongside the creek where the water bubbled up
Through a sandy swirl of a drainage ditch
On the low side of the underground water pipeline
Where it crosses under buzzing power lines overhead
On the hottest days of our Jersey season of steam
We always found water flowing, always enough
To soak our summer sneakers and run through a while
With squishing feet through the paths we trod.

We filled our plastic Army canteens
with fresh sparkling water In that hidden rut
of the overgrown field when we played war
and flopped dead in tall grasses.
We doused our temples and wrists with the cool water
We were sure flowed from secret streams
In Iceland to our dead-end field in northern Jersey.

No fish ever swirled in our little creek.
Maybe a turtle or frog showed up
but I don’t remember that detail any more.
The creek was still bubbling the purest water
when I moved away in 1964
but the last time I stopped by the open field of my youth,
the place where the spring had sprung was dry as could be
in the passing years the grown-ups came along
and fixed the pipeline leak.

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
A Belleville poem
******************
See also Greetings From Belleville, New Jersey

ON MY SHOES

Pompeii, Italy

Horses pulled carts down these ancient streets
Rocks and trenches, uncovered now
After centuries of mystical curses
There you see the woodless rooms
On these dusty roadways so old
It rained a torrent in the streets of Pompeii
Here, in the middle of narrow streets
You see stepping stones to cross in floods
And troughs centuries old that wagons rode
Yet the brothel mosaics are almost fresh
After ages of heat and dust on this old mountainside
Long gone is the rumored second floor.
Once this was a kitchen, that a bedroom.
These shelled out, roofless rock caves
Where glassless windows grasped the slightest breeze.
This was Pompeii, in Campania, Italy,
The rich sea brought sailors and good times and riches
Until everything perished under stinging soot.
Under the recreated mummified remains
The dusty brown hound sleeps and dreams of what?
Does he see the ghosts of this terrible nightmare?
Or does he dream doggy dreams of strangers with food?
Hours later we entered Roma weary from our travels
Walk past foreign graffiti into the high class hotel
On my black shoes, the dust of Pompeii

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

******************
Sometimes I Swear In Italian by Anthony Buccino
in print and on Kindle

TWO PAYCHECKS

Once, you laughed at her rag picker's frumpy clothes,
and her stringy, dirty hair,
but now, you see,
you're just two paychecks away.

I never thought you would be so snooty
like you have forgotten where it is you started
your clothes were always clean.
your hair washed and brushed
and a roof always overhead.

But now, you see, you're just like her and me,
just two paychecks away from a cardboard box.

- 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 by Anthony Buccino, content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.


******************

TRAVELS

TRAVELS

I want to go somewhere where I can see
without my glasses the faces of strangers
the lines in their faces the wrinkles on their trousers
the pleats in their skirts

I want to go somewhere where the headlights
don’t blind me till I cry the ground lights
don’t sneak up from my shoes
or the flood lights flood over me with light

I want to go some where
Where I can see in the dark

- By Anthony Buccino
From ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY

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

******************

HAND CAR

HANDCAR

I always wanted to drive one of those
special trucks that also ride on
railroad tracks.
You don’t have to steer much, accelerate and brake is all.
I guess they use them for maintenance work.
They ride the tracks on those metal wheels that real trains have.

I’ve even thought of operating one of those
see-saw cars where you pump the handle
and it goes on the railroad tracks.
You used to see them a lot in old movies,
mostly Westerns, the see-saw carts, I mean.
I guess they come in handy
in mines and Indiana Jones
movies, not to mention
Blazing Saddles when
you’re building a railroad.

Who knew before this poem
there are societies for the
preservation of the handcar,
pump car, jigger, Kalamazoo?
Or that the cart in my pipedream
had a name or two.
We can all thank the mighty
Internet for bringing
pieces of history and fact
into my daydream.

- By Anthony Buccino
From VOICES ON THE BUS

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

First published in Medusa's Kitchen

YOUR BIRTHDAY

YOUR BIRTHDAY
Jersey City, NJ

In honor of your birthday
I fed the pigeons on the pier.
A few showed up, then a few more.

Seagulls arrive to watch from a distance
Squawk for their friends to join the scrim
For pieces of bread I've cast off for them
Into the Hudson River shallows

But mostly today,
in honor of your birthday
I fed the pigeons
on the pier.

- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER

For my dad, the proud pigeon flyer.
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

WORKING FATHER

He's so old and worn,

been through a lot since he was born

Works hard everyday

to put food in our mouths

so we don't have to pay

Tries to love us but can't,

begins to show us,

he's proud, but can't

Been in a war,fighting and sick,

he's lived through four

He coughs and gags

from years of choking his smokes,

we pretend not to hear,

His shirt is dull and torn,

from nails and rails,

and he's old and worn

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