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.
******************

FIRED

fired for not bleeding
the company colors
fired for not reading
the boss's mind
fired because the boss
spent all the company
money at the bar

fired because the boss
stole all the money
fired because the boss
took his girl to Aruba
with her new boobs
fired because the rent
wasn't paid
fired because your paycheck
kept bouncing
fired because there
was no one minding the store

- 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, all rights reserved.

MURRAY THE GROUND HOG

On the west bank
of the Newark City Subway tracks
near Davenport Avenue
and the abandoned Heller Parkway stop,
near the senior citizen warehouse
and opposite the pathetic junkyard
that passes for the maintenance yard,
there, sometimes, on a sunny day,
often in the evening ride home,
when the lightrail in which you are traveling
might be stopped for traffic,
you might look out your window
towards the setting sun
and down below,
above the tufts of grass
you might spot
a cute ball of brown fur we call
Murray the ground hog looking back.
How he got here, who will ever know?
Maybe he took a left at Poughkeepsie?
He rises to see us go by, sometimes.
If you blink, you may miss him.
Oh, sometimes he’ll be in his burrow,
blogging or surfing the net
for gophers and prairie dogs
looking for a good time.
You see Murray the ground hog lives
in a fairly safe world.
He doesn’t get screened by big machines
set up by Homeland Security,
the nearby fences are topped by barbed wire
and the singing overhead wires
warn away hawks and such from the sky
above his wildlife patch.
Not too many four-legged foxes in town.
Maybe an occasional bear lost in the city
but they rarely get to this side of the park.
Newark is no place for wildlife.
You see, Murray the ground hog’s
burrow entrance is off the beaten path
and tucked into a berm,
mostly covered with weeds and such,
but his very presence alongside man’s Iron Horse
threatens modern locomotion.
You can be sure the suits in NJT’s
downtown penthouse
are concerned Murray could dig the wrong way,
and, well, ZAP!
Not only to Murray,
but he could short circuit the city subway
and the new loop to Broad Street.
It could happen, you know.
I’m loathe to reveal
Murray the ground hog’s exact location,
or even his real name and sex,
as he might be deemed a threat to Homeland Security
and before you know it,
crews with rakes and hoes
set upon his ancillary brush to lure
and remove the cute critter
from his underground shelter.
(If you see a cement mixer along the fence,
bet it’s not getting a new foundation!)

I like to think my cute ground hog is safe
in his underground chambers and tunnels.
Maybe he’s sitting in the air conditioning
reading the NJ-dot-com Transit blogs?
Although, truth be told, I haven’t seen
the little guy in a while.
Maybe it’s been too hot for him.
Maybe I forgot to look out?
Maybe he’s got a girlfriend across the mews
and they are looking to settle down
and raise a family in the lush green park.
Or he shifted his train-spotting hours.
Or maybe it has something to do
with the large rocks and sticks cast
about his entry point.
He’d surely be a loser when set upon
by street-wise boys with implements of destruction.
Or maybe Murray the ground hog has moved on
because of the defoliant used alongside the tracks
to keep them clear of undergrowth,
some modern day version
of Newark-made Agent Orange,
that turns the vegetation brown
and allows the run off storm water
to run off somewhere else.
If you see Murray some day,
give him our regards.

- By Anthony Buccino
From VOICES ON THE BUS
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

WATER FROM A GARDEN HOSE

Before we knew what sweltering is
Gary and I sweltered, playing hours
on sun burnt days in Jersey summer.
We wrestled our way across the path
and tumbled, gritty and sweaty
at the spigot on the side of his house.

Our slippery hands tugged down the hose
and our small hands twisted the tight knob.
Gary grabbed the snaked garden hose
and waited for the rush of water
so we could get a drink and be gone
before we got chased for making mud
in the peonies and the snowball bushes.

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

BOOTH PARK CAROMS

Behind the bakery,
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.

NEEDLE

Gless Avenue, Belleville, N.J.

We lived the cliché: Grandma downstairs
without a word of English;
Children frightened by the needle
she proffered and the thread;
And by the big old woman, herself
whose strange breath and odd teeth
and white-yellow hair
framed her large nose and haggard face;
She cornered the little girls – my sister
and two cousins on the stairs
as they tried to pass by in play,
talking in a gibberish tongue
thrusting a needle at their eye
as a thread danced in the breeze,
a kite tail without its cross ties,
held tightly in the swollen,
battered, stuttering old hand.
What she wanted must be so obvious.

- By Anthony Buccino
From SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER
From AMERICAN BOY: Pushing Sixty
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

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.

AIN'T LAZY

You don't know me, that I can see
you judge me anyway, that's okay
but you should know
that wherever I go
I work my share,
and then some, too,
because I ain't lazy.
I work hard, you know.
Just that me and bad breaks
keep smashing our heads
and that's why I'm here
starting over
to work at your job
and prove I work hard.
You will know me
by the work that I do

- 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, all rights reserved.