Foggy Day

I’ve a poem in the May issue of Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices. Here is the poem:

FOGGY DAY

I drove through Penns Valley
in the thick of an early morning fog
like a chess master
playing blindfolded.

You see, I’d forgotten
how to sleep
and been nowhere at all
since the virus blew through.

Now I could only hope
my long history
with this winding road
would do, instead of sight.

Truth is,
I was nowhere
still. But perhaps instinct
makes the man.

After twenty minutes the fog
suddenly lifted—as if someone
had taken the cloth from my birdcage—
like an unexpected smile.

Give Them All to Me

I have a poem in the new issue of MacQueens Quinterly. Here is the poem:

Give Them All to Me

But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows…

—Richard and Mimi Fariña*

It was the year of chili dogs
and reheated beans
at the encampment
under the interstate—
between the smoldering forest fire
and the sad little carnival
in the supermarket parking lot.

The year of departed parents,
of locust and gypsy moths,
of tearful love songs
picked on a guitar
held together by tape,
with voice and harmony
hollow with sorrow.

The year of counting coins,
bottles, and cans,
and playing on corners
for dimes and quarters.
Dinners warmed over Sterno
and nickel bags
in the alley beside the liquor store.

The year of sitting handcuffed
in the back
of a patrol car—
broken teeth chattering—
gigantic shadows
in the blossoming light
of cities burning.

The year I helped you carry
our brother home.
Cares and all,
he was less of a burden
than starlight.
That year he finally slept
through the night.

Young Again

Up at Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices

YOUNG AGAIN

The storm that blew through
yesterday,
left a sea of debris,
and air so clear
even the pigeons
sparkle.

I trace
the path of today’s sun,
dawn to dusk,
kick my weekend’s work
down the cellar stairs
and declare a personal holiday.

I have a simple approach—
lounge chair, cooler, chips,
although I spend some time
finding the perfect spot
for my chair.
I will have a purpose—free day.

Like a day at the beach—
no need for justification
in triplicate.
Nah, just sand and sea
a few cold beers
and franks with mustard and kraut.

Surely you remember—
back before the busyness
grabbed you by the short hairs
and deadlines kicked
you in the keister.
I was a kid once—weren’t you?

Having Grown Apart

my poem, Having Grown Apart, is in Issue 3 of Cool Beans. Here is the poem:

Now that I need not
wake for work
I rise at first light,

tired but present.
It is my time
for contemplation,

although my frivolous thoughts
might make the Buddha
chuckle. Sometimes

I think of you.
How close we were
and how the distance

has grown past reconciliation.
Would you even recognize
me now without prompting?

I’ve thought of writing to you.
I imagine you
still in your childhood home

anxiously opening the envelope,
worried it might be bad news.
I’ve tried, halfheartedly, but find

I have few words to share—
unsettling for someone
who made his way with words.

But, there is a slowing here—
I fear I won’t conquer
the world after all.

Have you?
I don’t suppose so.
Another class graduated

this week—so many plans,
so much horizon,
hourglass be damned.

Tripping

my poem, Tripping, is in the Winter Issue of the Bond Street Review. Here is the poem:

Tripping

Three stringed guitar
and a cowboy hat for change,
you made your way
up and down

the New England coast
singing for sustenance.
You coulda been
a fine baritone.

had you not liked
the high life more.
Striding the sun-tinged
clouds at the white

water’s edge—
no one
walked with you,
fearing the things

you saw when the tide
came in might
swallow
them whole.

Erato

Pleased to have my poem up at the Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Here is the poem:

 Erato

 

I searched the town

and finally found her 

at that ramshackle café.

 

with the tin roof

next to the boarded-up

train station.

 

It was teeming—

the rainy season just begun

and how anyone could stand

 

that racket was beyond

my ken—

but she sat at a counter

 

in the corner of the shack

muttering prompts 

into her cardboard 

 

coffee cup.

She looked like hell—

all resemblance 

 

to that lithe Greek goddess

drained by a million poets

complaining of writer’s block.

 

I thought to comfort her

and grab that cup,

but muses are fast as

 

lightning bolts. 

She fled through the roof

leaving her cup of golden

 

prompts—written in a Greek

so old only Zeus

could decipher it.

Reunion

My poem, Reunion, is up at the Red Eft Review. Here is the poem:

Reunion by Steve Deutsch

Mom and Dad
loved lupine,
but couldn’t control it.

Year after year, they’d plant
the finest seeds
in the finest soil

but it bloomed where it would.
My brother left
home the day

after his sixteenth birthday.
I hear from him now
and again—chicken scratch

on the back of a postcard
or a long-distance call
from some place

in the California desert
where lupines are native.
Perhaps he is harvesting

some to bring home—
a handsome gift
for a nurturing couple.

The lupines come up
whenever they will
wherever they will

and my brother
just called
from someplace new.

In a better world the lupine
Would grow where they plant it
and my brother would walk in the door.

Long Time Gone

Just published in Issue 7 of Livina Press. Here is the poem:

My Poem, Long Time Gone, was just published in Issue 7 of Livina Press. Here is the poem:

Long Time Gone

I always leave one lawn chair
out to overwinter
hoping for a day or two
I might bundle up

and sit in a sliver
of sunshine.
Today as I watch the blue-
black clouds

move in from the west,
I rock gently in my chair
as if putting a garden
or baby to bed

were much the same.
The snow will be heavy
today—an official end
to the gardening season.

Isn’t nature clever that way
burying the remains of the seasons
so thoroughly, we are left
only with memory and a vague hope.

Echo Point

here is my poem from Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices:

ECHO POINT

I came here often as a kid.
We would climb the hill

whenever we liked.
The hike today had all

the spontaneity of an antarctic trek.
Wool socks and water,

a carefully prepared snack,
four kinds of sunscreen,

and half hour updates
on weather.com.

Yet my new hiking boots
left blisters that may never heal.

My high-top sneaks
never did that.

Three of the four of us
made it to the top.

The fourth waits halfway
a lump on a log.

We didn’t come for the view—
the echo here the best in the state.

First the standard “hallo”
but it quickly gets crazy.

The three of us screeching
and flapping our arms

just like too many years ago
just as if we were eight.

For the Asking/ Out Loud

I have 2 new poems in Volume 57, Fall/Winter of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Here are the poems:

For the Asking…

Strolling beside Spring Creek,
I look for trout in the deeper

water. It looks so cold
I would need hip boots,

hooks, lines and sinkers,
and a personality transplant

to catch anything other
than a lingering cold.

One summer day
Dad took us deep-sea

fishing. He was a born fisherman
with a cast iron stomach

and the patience of a saint—
Saint Cabbie of the Brooklyn

Docks. We always came
home with a pail full of flounder.

I knew I’d never meet you here—
yet I often expect you around

the next bend.
And though I know you’ve

been confined a thousand
miles away, stranger

things have happened,
as dad would say

while baiting my hook.
And that improbable

dream might be ours
like fish learning to fly,

you know,
just for the asking.

Out Loud

Last week—alone in the market
I began to talk to myself.
Simple reminders like don’t forget

the milk, that would normally pass
through my mind, I said out
loud. Softly first, as if testing

the acoustics, then forcefully
with the appropriate gestures.
I am more presentable than most street

people, so the looks I got
we’re not fearful—just bemused
as if people were telling themselves

“Just like Uncle Leo,
before they took him to the nut house..”
Truthfully, I liked the feeling

reminding myself, on the way home that
“I’m good at this,” in a fine falsetto
that made me laugh—out loud of course.

Tonight, after much discussion,
We ordered “Conversational Italian.”
We felt it was a nice touch.