Fingernails ... scratch ... the ... paper

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

© 1974-2018 by Anthony Buccino.
First published in DAYS YOU KNEW ME.
Written overlooking the baseball fields in Brookdale Park, Montclair/Bloomfield, N.J.

Yountakah Country, a Poetic View of Nutley

YOUNTAKAK COUNTRY

A Poetic View of Nutley Old and New

By Anthony Buccino

Local writer takes some history, some folk lore and some current news and mixes them together in this humorous and thoughtful collection of verse about the little town in north eastern Essex County. On these pages, Anthony Buccino brings together the Lenni Lenape, Annie Oakley and pizza wars.

Over The Back Fence

Available on Amazon, covers vary

covers vary by edition

More Information

COMING ALONG

COMING ALONG

You know and I know

There’s something better I can do

Something better than sitting in

The Town Pub to get close to drunk

Something better than working

Like a boss telling myself

I’ll be leaving soon.

Something better than lying to myself

Is maybe you lying to me

Something better always comes along

And you keep telling me so

-- Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
Adapted from long-lost FROM A WAREHOUSE chapbook.
******************

RETURN TO DODGE

2008, Newton, N.J.

If I was a famous poet I would eat
in the famous poets tent and have food
for famous poets but instead I head
back to Mimmo’s over and over
for the minestrone, the chicken cutlets and
the Taylor ham, egg and cheese

And each time I go they ask my name
to write it on the ticket
and when Rose, the owner’s wife,
brings it over, she says, “you again?”
She’s genuinely nice like the nice you find
in people who are not in the city.
The pizzeria restaurant is in Wharton, some place
nearby, but I couldn’t say where.

Rose says you like the food, so, now
you should come to the restaurant.
To Rose I’m not a famous poet
not famous at all, just a hungry guy
who wears a camera and a knapsack
and a hat (sometimes) that says
Zamboni on it.

Rose is pretty in a young wife way
What is young to me, twenty, thirty,
forty, fifty or whatever.
But she says it’s the blond who works there
with her who’s memorable.
Rose doesn’t know how memorable
she herself is.
But come Monday she’ll be back at work
at the law office and I’ll head to work
in the city, and if I don’t get
to Wharton at all, we’ll meet again
at Dodge in two years.
And if by then I’m a famous poet
I’ll dash away with these books to sell
and stop at Mimmo’s to say hello.

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

From 2008 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival

A Brief Respite For a Restive Spirit
Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
The latest news on Mimmo's
******************
In 2012, the Dodge Poetry Festival was moved to Newark. Mimmo's had gone out of business.