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.

Deadheading

My poem, Deadheading, is in the current issue of Thimble Literary Magazine. Here is the poem:

Deadheading

I woke early
this morning,
took down
the two

photo albums
that bookended
the mantelpiece,
and began

to cut your image
from each
of the photos.
I planned to bury

the remains
behind the old
shed—where
once our tire

swing sat.
But mom
caught me at it
and she hasn’t

stopped screaming
since. It’s been
a week
and no one

knows where
you are.
Do you?
I cut

the images
using the small
sharp scissors
you put through

your tiny palm
once. One
of our countless
trips to the emergency

room. What was
it you were
so desperate
to say?

Was god so distracted
he didn’t notice
the difference
in the clay

he held in each hand—
twins that bear
such little resemblance.
A bubble gum light

cuts through
the house.
An official rap at the door.
You’re home.

Winter 2045

My poem, Winter 2045, is up at the New Verse News. Here is the poem:

Winter 2045

We bought the corner place
on Burroughs Street—
I’m sure you know it—
a stately two story
built when the neighborhood
was only good for grazing cows.

It took two years of construction
now that the summer restrictions
are in force. We replaced the windows,
added insulation and central air—
two bathrooms and a kitchen.

Only this week, we found our way
to the attic. It’s a wonderland.
Skis and snow shovels
and sleds for children and adults.
And in two huge chests
clothing for a winter fashion show
on an air-conditioned stage.

It was cold here once—
although the children refuse
to believe it.
It was cold here once—
although I hardly remember.
Ice hung from the trees—
the snow so high
we could barely open our back doors.

My parents would go
south for the winter—
to Florida or coastal Carolina.
To places first scorched then drowned—
to places now as bare
as the surface of the Moon.