Corey Weinstein

Corey Weinstein is a retired homeopathic physician whose poetry has been published in Vistas and Byways, The New Verse News, Forum, California State Poetry Society and Jewish Currents. He currently attends writing classes at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in San Francisco and hosts their Poetry Circle. Weinstein has also been published in a number of medical/academic publications. He was an advocate for prisoner rights as the founder of California Prison Focus, and he led the American Public Health Association’s Prison Committee for many years. In his free time, he plays the clarinet in a local jazz band, his synagogue choir and woodwind ensembles.

Poem on Belonging

ID

I’m a down to earth ankle dusted
mud splattered poet rooted in
the moment of what is right now
obverse of obscure anti-opaque
plain text stain glass clear
held in the tentacles of my time
Yes a pure bred, full blood
pickle eating, klezmer chirping
99% Ashkenazi by DNA.
Full throated, Yiddish singing
clarinet playing, temple going,
Sh’ma and Barachu bowing,
flat A’d northside Chicawwgo
jewboy, dawn praying
chorus chanting, herring eating,
non-Zionist, survivor,
‘cause we left before Hitler,
‘cause only slightly tainted from
the genetic tragedies birthed
by a 1,000 years alone in the Pale.
Yes, bacon eating, matzo loving,
draft dodging, protest marching,
and as always and ever…
Keeping tabs on what is good
and what is not good for the Jews.

Copyright © 2022 by Corey Weinstein. Used with permission of the author.