DEAR BOSS

It’s been twenty-five years since we worked together.
You remember, after twelve years you traded me
to another location for someone with the same job title as mine
They want to get rid of him and you thought I would be better off there,
I could learn more as a small fish in a big pond.
Well, you know how it all went down.
The trying times I had, the angst and all the ire
and you and your guy butted heads, too, I heard.
But me, I moved on,
left that huge company with those great benefits
and the seniority and a stable paycheck
And, yeah, like Dennis said at my farewell,
“Andy, you shouldn’t be my boss, you should be out there
writing stuff, writing books, that’s what you should do.”

I took those writing jobs, it’s what I was supposed to do all along
some jobs lasted only two months, some eight months,
two I had for five years, and the one I’m in now, for more than ten.
It was during those no-work times when I wondered
where I would be if I had stayed in that sucky job with you.
And I realize, no matter how close to nothing I have in my wallet
and no matter how rough the seas in my marriage
these twenty-five years since I left your job have been the best...

- By Anthony Buccino
Adapted 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, all rights reserved.
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LAKE ERIE AT SUNSET

June 1976, Ashtabula, Ohio

Green waves crash again and again
on the gray blocks of the breakwall,
A glowing orange sun sets in a hazy horizon,

An old man in a tattered suit fishes
for two hours with two rods outfitted
with two open-face spinning reels;

He caught two sheephead
with crippled worms on bent steel
and tonight it will be his meal.

"There's other fish to catch --" he says
sucking in breaths of the sea air,

"Perch, and salmon, and great ones!"

But he's only got the two fish
at the end of a drag line
floating in stagnant water.

His dirty fingernails and dusty boots
are lonely for the other hundred people
who usually fish here on the breakwall
at night.

"It's cold -- he says in a harmless
old man's dirge.
It's beautiful, I think in a silent gaze;
The waves, the lake that ends beyond
the wide, wide horizon;

It's breezy, with the wind ripping
through the checkered shirt
and the old man is tired.

The sudsy green waves crash against
the huge gray blocks of stone.
They did it today
They'll do it tomorrow…

Discarded beer and soda pop cans,
and green slimy driftwood
All in different stages of decomposition,

Rotting fish and crusty skeletons
decorate the shallow marsh
this side of the breakwall.

The sun has set, the light grows dim,
The old tanned leather-faced fisherman
takes in his lines and leaves.

It's not his life, this lake
but it make his day…

Young long-haired people in curtained vans
And young couples in love
swallow the crisp Lake Erie breezes
Listening in half-deafness
to the rush of the waves.

Great cargo ships as long as
skyscrapers are tall
Chug west on the flat greenness
of the lake;

A yellow Bug and an M&M green Datsun
Stand quiet in the gathering darkness
of the mellow night
So full and rich with the calmest
sounds of the sea.

June 1976, Walnut Beach, Ashtabula, Ohio
- By Anthony Buccino
From DAYS YOU KNEW ME
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
 Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

LAST DOG

For Zamboni

You benefited from dogs before,
dogs tied on a chain and staked
Dogs penned in cold plywood houses,
dogs that dug into cool pools of rain water.
With each passing dog came an improvement
from the yard stake to the first floor
to the doghouse and the heavy chain
to a nap in front of the fireplace
to a penned-in doghouse
raised off the cold ground
and overflowing fresh straw inside,
for sleeping behind,
a burlap bag door.
From a shared pen
to the basement crates side by side.

All to you, the last dog who sleeps on a $200 orthopedic cushion
Intercepting concrete cold chilled by an underground spring.
You, the last dog,
who whimpers when left outside alone,
Who nudges again and again
for a long-nailed belly rub.
You, the last dog,
who takes the kid’s dirty laundry
And cuddles it like a pillow.
You, who never learned
to take a biscuit in a gentle way
Or come when called
if there’s a better deal elsewhere.
And I won’t go into the things you ate after a scolded “NO!”
And the way you returned that contraband.
Oh, you remember, don’t you, the slime ball in your crate that day,
It had us wondering which end it came from and what it was,
Until some prodding proved it to be a sock you ate
From a stranger’s shoe left on the soccer field one night.

You are the last dog for this old man.
The mornings are dark and cold in winter
And the summer nights
full of stinging mosquitoes.
That, six, is the magic number,
that, after you,
Last dog, there shall be
no seven, no other dog.

- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty

Also appears in Retrieving Labrador Days - Dog tales in prose and verse

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

First you want a body of water
To look at out your window
Then you want
A sailboat to float by
On the shimmering sea
Then you want a body
Steering the sailboat towards you
It should be someone sexy, you say.
And the sailboat, slick and sleek
As it approaches your shore
Then you want no window between
You and the sea, a summer breeze to blow
Wisps of sea spray to keep bugs away.
Next you want more vacation time
To sail away on the sea, and that, my dear
Is why you can see no sailboat, or foamy water
You see nothing from within your cubicle

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