New Love at seventy

who would have imagined
I would yield under the cumbersome
flesh of you, stroke the balding
of your head, feel your whiskers
scratching on my breasts
shout into your half-good ear

with my tongue touch the spaces
of your missing teeth
feel your glasses hitting mine
and in the room where once
my children slept

I lie with you, my old guy
while your musician’s fingers
play me like piano keys
pulsating under your touch

LOVE POEM TO BUKOWSKI

Bukowski,
when I first saw your face
I thought--
my god, he’s uglier than I ever imagined!
that big
pock marked puss
bulbous, alcoholic nose
looking like some scary
Halloween mask

so, how did you get all those women?
some of them ‘dogs’, I admit
whores and druggies
but a few—
almost sophisticated
artistic, even beautiful

and when I read your poems
I don’t think of that face
or saggy flesh in baggy pants
stumbling
along owl streets
after an all night binge

greedily, I suck on your words
let them touch me
like a tongue
in places
no man has ever gone

My publications include many literary journals in which I have had poetry, short stories and one-act plays published. One of my poems was honored by Ted Kooser in his on-line column American Life in Poetry and an article about me was published in one of Newsday’s On the Isle Sunday column.

I am a recipient of an honorable mention award in the 2012 Alan Ginsberg Contest sponsored by The Paterson Review, in which my poems have appeared many times. I am a winner of contests on Long Island, including the PPA yearly poetry awards.

One of my one-act plays appeared off Broadway and in the Northport one-act play festival this spring.

A poetry book, IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE, was created with a grant from The Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation.