by Anthony Buccino
Verse about commuting in Northern New Jersey.
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Showing posts with label Belleville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belleville. Show all posts
September 21, 2011
Voices on the Bus
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On Kindle NOOK
November 21, 2010
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
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
August 24, 2010
BUTCHIE
School 7, Belleville, N.J.
Can you believe that little kid?
He got all the way here
fighting, fussing and dragging
and sits in a class stupid
as if the world around him
has been replaced by fools.
They talk in gibberish fluently
but only to each other
and often in his direction.
And these adults are puzzled
at the boy’s every word.
This school is supposed to have
smart people and teachers
but how smart can they be
if they can’t understand
a few words from little Angelo?
The boy who speaks only
his mother and father’s tongue
who never knew his full name
until this first day at school.
- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Can you believe that little kid?
He got all the way here
fighting, fussing and dragging
and sits in a class stupid
as if the world around him
has been replaced by fools.
They talk in gibberish fluently
but only to each other
and often in his direction.
And these adults are puzzled
at the boy’s every word.
This school is supposed to have
smart people and teachers
but how smart can they be
if they can’t understand
a few words from little Angelo?
The boy who speaks only
his mother and father’s tongue
who never knew his full name
until this first day at school.
- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
August 17, 2010
PLENGE’S FARM
Belleville, N.J.
At the swampy river bend
of Plenge’s peach tree orchards
the kids splashed buck-naked
in the makeshift camp
they carved in the woods
Birds, too, sought sanctuary,
flying carefree,
drinking among the reeds.
Upstream the kids watched
the water for red or blue dye
from the Bloomfield ink plant.
Fat muskrats lived on the banks
and fish floated among the rocks.
Swashbucklers swooped in to steal
the skinny dippers’ clothes
who waited ‘til nearly midnight
to slither home naked
- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
At the swampy river bend
of Plenge’s peach tree orchards
the kids splashed buck-naked
in the makeshift camp
they carved in the woods
Birds, too, sought sanctuary,
flying carefree,
drinking among the reeds.
Upstream the kids watched
the water for red or blue dye
from the Bloomfield ink plant.
Fat muskrats lived on the banks
and fish floated among the rocks.
Swashbucklers swooped in to steal
the skinny dippers’ clothes
who waited ‘til nearly midnight
to slither home naked
- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
August 13, 2010
WAITING FOR THE BUS
Belleville, N.J.
Cars speed down Franklin Avenue.
A small curb, two breakaway traffic signs,
a concrete trash can and a fireplug
protect me from skidding chunks
of steel, glass, plastic and rubber.
Up the block old men cross
to the Chandelier Restaurant
in the rain. The cars do not slow,
the old men time them as they pass,
then muster all their speed to scoot across.
When it rains at the bus stop, you get wet.
An umbrella might help a little bit,
but you get wet.
Duck in the doorway of the Bank of America
but keep an eye on the traffic up at the light,
that’s the first place you’ll see the bus
coming for you.
In the doorway of the bank
you stand out of the rain
but you’re still out in the rain.
Your umbrella here is as useless
as a three-dollar bill. You get wet.
At Continental and Franklin, sometimes
waiting here for the bus, you smell burgers
or something else cooking at Wendy’s.
Did you know General Washington marched
by this very corner a few hundred years ago.
Makes you wonder what the traffic was like
crossing this road in 1776 with British troops
not so far behind trying to take your fare?
I remember when A & P was where Wendy’s is.
Teen Angel and I went to buy stuff kids buy
at the supermarket and we’d dally a bit after paying
to check out the beautiful blond checkout girl
who wore short skirts. She was always nice to us.
Her younger sister was equally beautiful.
She was our grade but she was one of those girls
who was too beautiful for plain Joes to talk to.
She ran with an older crowd.
Maybe the A & P moved out already
before the building burned down to the ground,
I’m not sure anymore.
Nowadays, there’s a new, bigger A & P
around the corner a ways
where the Acme used to be
on Belleville Avenue in Bloomfield.
When it was the Acme store, my mom
won a diamond pendant in a giveaway.
They called to say she’d won, she thought
it was a joke. She never won anything.
There was that once on Bowling for Dollars
when she was the home winner.
And a few times she finally won at Bingo!
Splitting $25 with eleven other winners.
My sister won the raffle once
at the Holy Family bazaar.
I remember she gave some money
to the little girl who picked her winning ticket.
My sister used to take the bus from this street
to the subway to her key punch job
at Mutual Benefit. When she was late for work,
teasing her hair or putting on makeup,
she asked Mom to drive her
to this bus stop on the corner
or if she was real late
to the subway station on Fifth Street.
The same place I’m heading this very day.
If there was one thing Mama didn’t like
it was driving in rush hour traffic.
When she was a girl she lived in Newark
and took the trolley everywhere.
When I was a boy, we took the 37 bus
to the old subway and shopped downtown
at Bamberger’s department store.
If I wasn’t too much of a pest, she bought me
a hot dog and orangeade at the basement stand.
Like those Presidential Subway Cars, that A&P
and Bamberger’s, though, Mama is gone.
Here, the bus is coming for me.
- By Anthony Buccino
From VOICES ON THE BUS
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Cars speed down Franklin Avenue.
A small curb, two breakaway traffic signs,
a concrete trash can and a fireplug
protect me from skidding chunks
of steel, glass, plastic and rubber.
Up the block old men cross
to the Chandelier Restaurant
in the rain. The cars do not slow,
the old men time them as they pass,
then muster all their speed to scoot across.
When it rains at the bus stop, you get wet.
An umbrella might help a little bit,
but you get wet.
Duck in the doorway of the Bank of America
but keep an eye on the traffic up at the light,
that’s the first place you’ll see the bus
coming for you.
In the doorway of the bank
you stand out of the rain
but you’re still out in the rain.
Your umbrella here is as useless
as a three-dollar bill. You get wet.
At Continental and Franklin, sometimes
waiting here for the bus, you smell burgers
or something else cooking at Wendy’s.
Did you know General Washington marched
by this very corner a few hundred years ago.
Makes you wonder what the traffic was like
crossing this road in 1776 with British troops
not so far behind trying to take your fare?
I remember when A & P was where Wendy’s is.
Teen Angel and I went to buy stuff kids buy
at the supermarket and we’d dally a bit after paying
to check out the beautiful blond checkout girl
who wore short skirts. She was always nice to us.
Her younger sister was equally beautiful.
She was our grade but she was one of those girls
who was too beautiful for plain Joes to talk to.
She ran with an older crowd.
Maybe the A & P moved out already
before the building burned down to the ground,
I’m not sure anymore.
Nowadays, there’s a new, bigger A & P
around the corner a ways
where the Acme used to be
on Belleville Avenue in Bloomfield.
When it was the Acme store, my mom
won a diamond pendant in a giveaway.
They called to say she’d won, she thought
it was a joke. She never won anything.
There was that once on Bowling for Dollars
when she was the home winner.
And a few times she finally won at Bingo!
Splitting $25 with eleven other winners.
My sister won the raffle once
at the Holy Family bazaar.
I remember she gave some money
to the little girl who picked her winning ticket.
My sister used to take the bus from this street
to the subway to her key punch job
at Mutual Benefit. When she was late for work,
teasing her hair or putting on makeup,
she asked Mom to drive her
to this bus stop on the corner
or if she was real late
to the subway station on Fifth Street.
The same place I’m heading this very day.
If there was one thing Mama didn’t like
it was driving in rush hour traffic.
When she was a girl she lived in Newark
and took the trolley everywhere.
When I was a boy, we took the 37 bus
to the old subway and shopped downtown
at Bamberger’s department store.
If I wasn’t too much of a pest, she bought me
a hot dog and orangeade at the basement stand.
Like those Presidential Subway Cars, that A&P
and Bamberger’s, though, Mama is gone.
Here, the bus is coming for me.
- By Anthony Buccino
From VOICES ON THE BUS
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
August 4, 2010
BOOTH PARK CAROMS
the former Texaco station
down the wall in the Third River
the ducks await castoff cakes
The geese, and seagulls too,
show up for their dough,
then all,
merrily, merrily, merrily
swim upstream.
Third River runs
through Booth Park
right down the middle,
breaking up
upper Booth Park
from lower Booth Park,
breaking up the wide field
for baseball and soccer
and some sledding, too,
on the high side,
of the Yantacaw Creek
running through
from the lower playground
where once upon
a summer day long, long ago
my cousins and I played caroms
like Minnesota Fats
and Paul Newman’s Hustler.
And there in Booth Park
in 1964 my puppy,
a mongrel mutt named Butch,
lost out the ‘smallest dog contest’
to the Nutley kid,
a favorite and a regular, too.
My cousins cried out, “FIX!” but
my dog and I just went home
across the river that runs through
Booth Park and up the hill
to good old Gless Avenue
in Belleville.
- By Anthony Buccino
From Retrieving Labrador Days
- By Anthony Buccino
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty
also appears in Yountakah Country - a poetic view of Nutley old and new
Copyright © 2009-2013 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
June 28, 2010
A Poem A Day - Anthony Buccino
The verse posted in this blog are from the collections listed below and other uncollected or published here for the first time.
Enjoy, comment, and don't forget to tell them where you found it!
Verse Collections
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
SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
AMERICAN BOY: PUSHING SIXTY
RETRIEVING LABRADOR DAYS
VOICES ON THE BUS train, subway, sidewalk and in my head
ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
Buccino's Verse Has Appeared In:
Paterson Literary Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Rattlesnake Review, Medusa's Kitchen, Voices In Italian Americana, Edison Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, CHEST, The Idiom, Fox Chase Review, Up & Under, Caduceus, South Mountain Poets Anthology, MEWS, LIPS, More Sweet Lemons, The Poem Factory, On The Quiet Side, PowWow Review, and other places, too!
Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010-2018 by Anthony Buccino.
Enjoy, comment, and don't forget to tell them where you found it!
Verse Collections
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
SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
AMERICAN BOY: PUSHING SIXTY
RETRIEVING LABRADOR DAYS
VOICES ON THE BUS train, subway, sidewalk and in my head
ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
Buccino's Verse Has Appeared In:
Paterson Literary Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Rattlesnake Review, Medusa's Kitchen, Voices In Italian Americana, Edison Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, CHEST, The Idiom, Fox Chase Review, Up & Under, Caduceus, South Mountain Poets Anthology, MEWS, LIPS, More Sweet Lemons, The Poem Factory, On The Quiet Side, PowWow Review, and other places, too!
Anthony Buccino
Copyright © 2010-2018 by Anthony Buccino.
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