Irony at Unity – Corey Weinstein

What a joy to walk to school,
A path well-trod, to and fro,
Past the bus and street car stop,
Dumping loads of molding minds,
For me a bid to keep from molding.
Ring of the rails, the breaking buses
Ptishshsh, ktoooshah, whiiish.
Unity Plaza our common ground
from bus to coffee to class,
Tabled chaired talkers in full throat,
A mixed multitude, pods of Chinese kids
one fourth my age. Flirtatious youth
studying, soaking up the sun and each other.
Grannies with rollaways and canes,
Homeless dragging houses behind them.
No suits, more stick figures than six figures.

Clacking of skate boards crash the air,
As I set to walk into the clatter
a reared up board and boy tumble at me,
The trick not meant to crash old men.
His “sorry, sorry” met with my brush off.
Walking away he yells something about
old white men, I turn to his “you heard me.”
Angry young man of color liberating his grudge.

But that evening I could only puzzle,
The irony of a cat call about whitey
three days after eleven of my tribe were
massacred by a lone white supremacist
while in our sacred place at peace in prayer.

Corey Weinstein
Since retirement Corey Weinstein has devoted himself to his passions of clarinet and poetry, playing with the Or Shalom music ensemble, chamber groups and his neighborhood jazz band. He published two CDs and wrote a play, Erased: Babi Yar, the SS and Me performed in 2016 to commemorate the 1941 massacre at Babi Yar.

Bernadette Bohan
Bernadette Bohan is a multidisciplinary artist and renaissance woman, not only topping her long-standing fine art career with new recycled, museum-ready collection of pop-art pieces but she is also a singer-songwriter, musician, writer, performance and installation artist, dancer, talk-show host and activist. She is a member of both Ducal and Imperial Councils and on the leadership team of the Comfort & Joy non-profit. She has raised awareness and thousands of dollars for amazing causes in the Bay Area and beyond. Her impact and influence on the art scene in San Francisco is fierce and pertinent, contemporary and charismatic.