(a new one by my friend David Belmont)

a quirky 
sacrilegious 
communist

he taught 
physics at 
stevens tech

turned us on to
lord buckley
lenny bruce
tom lehrer
scotch

on his way to new jersey
weekday mornings
he drove us into
manhattan 

so we only had 
to take one train
up to high school
in the north bronx

he took the big turn
on the queensboro bridge
two lanes at a time

commenting on
the wqxr news 
like an erudite
mr magoo
with waving hands 
seemingly oblivious 
to the traffic around him

at his memorial
his grandchildren
put all the Cal-isms
they could remember
up on the walls
of the queensview
community room

there were almost 
two hundred of them

my favorite:

did i wake you up?

no, i had to get up 
to answer the phone