Tag: david lewitzky

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Cave with Familiar Faces – David Lewitzky

This is the second and final poem of David’s that we will be posting (just for now, of course). We appreciated the wry yet deeply relatable sentiments he raised in “Cave with Familiar Faces,” as well as the edgy sweetness laced throughout “Not an Anniversary Poem.” Enjoy.

Cave with Familiar Faces

In this revealing moment, 

this cave holds many meanings for me. 

My uncertain self, an unsolved puzzle. 

Isolation, suffocation. 

Here’s my mother on the cave wall, 

pushing me. Complaining. 

Here’s my batty father hanging upside down, 

playing solitaire. Mumbling to himself. 

Here’s Julie and our children, 

imploring me and out of reach. 

There’s a gallery of betrayal here. 

The hosts of people who’ve betrayed me, 

the hosts that I’ve betrayed. 

No one will tell me what’s going on here. 

But I’ll have my say. 

Destiny’s a dead end, perception’s mean and fake. 

Fuck Plato. Fuck this cave. 

David is a 79-year-old former social worker/family therapist living in Buffalo, New York. In 2002, he resumed writing poetry after a 35-year hiatus. During that time, he carried a sandwich board in his head declaring him, “Poet. Not writing!” He has published about 100 poems in a variety of lit mags, such as Nimrod, Passages North, and Tidal Basin Review.

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Not an Anniversary Poem – David Lewitzky

Not an Anniversary Poem

For Julie (and For Me) 

Here’s a celebration of our several adulteries: 

hot and cold, 

secret memories stashed between our ears, 

behind our throats 

where we hide our jewel box, 

where we keep our fancy carvings. 
 

Let’s keep on doing what we’re doing: 

the incriminating emails, the furtive texts, 

the phone sex, the anonymous motels, 

waging, spy-on-spy, our erotic intrigues. 

Let’s play party games: 

Musical Chairs and Twister, 

Red Light Green Light, Spin the Bottle, Switch. 

Yeah! Let’s play Switch. 

Make hay while the sun shines, gather rosebuds, 

live life greedily. 

Let’s be lewd and lovely, 

corrupt and dirty and unrepentant. 

Let’s be glorious in our sinning. 

Let us honor, you and I, 

the complex of betrayals underlying all our vows, 

all those risks we take. 

Ah, the risks we take. 

 
The sacrifices that we make for satisfaction, 

the covert pursuit of joy, 

the dark aesthetic that we crave.

David is a 79-year-old former social worker/family therapist living in Buffalo, New York. In 2002, he resumed writing poetry after a 35-year hiatus. During that time, he carried a sandwich board in his head declaring him, “Poet. Not writing!” He has published about 100 poems in a variety of lit mags, such as Nimrod, Passages North, and Tidal Basin Review.