Stevie's Law

My poem, Stillness, was just published in the Fall/Winter 2021 issue of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Here is the poem:

Stillness

It’s perfect right now.
Early evening
distilled through the oaks
in a lattice of light.
The air cooling
to that first fine chill.

In these enlightened times
mindful meditation
is offered three times a day
on Zoom—
and my smart watch reminds me
every hour to breathe.

“Be in the moment,”
we’re advised—
which brings a smile
and memories—
zen koans, Alan Watts,
the sound “of one hand clapping.”

Truth be told
my mind would wander beyond
the droning “om,”
flip through the rolodex
of people and place,
promise and regret.

You and I are lucky
that age can cure
what discipline
and study cannot.
I welcome the enveloping evening
calm, empty, and open.

I have two poems published on RavensPerch. Here are the poems:

AT THE GRADE-SCHOOL REUNION

No,
of course you
don’t remember
me.

No doubt,
you remember
the cut-ups
who sat in the back—

passing
notes and
planning to hold
up the liquor store,

and those in front,
tiny adults—
scrubbed and
glistening,

listening
to every word and
imagining the doctors,
and business leaders

they were sure
to become.
I had a seat near
the middle—

away from
the window
side with
the mediocrities,

the ones
destined for nothing
grand.
For fun,

we used old photos
to place the grown ups
in desks,
and google

to trace their histories—
but nothing stood out
except the number
of empty chairs.

KINDNESS

This morning
I watched from
my window
as a neighbor
cleared my iced-in
walk.

The sound of the shovel
took me back to when
I liked a little
winter,
although I
can’t remember why.

I had imagined
myself shut
in til spring—
these days
I enjoy nothing as much
as the thought of calamity.

I don’t believe
she worked up a sweat
or sent her heart
racing—although
she saved me from both
and a sore back,

but when she finished
she carefully tapped
her Apple watch—
nowadays even
kindness must
be counted.

My poem, Forever, is in the current issue of Sheila-Na-Gig online.

Here is the poem:

Forever

Aloft
a single-engine prop
pulses against a head wind,

vibrates briefly,
like a drill biting bone,
then silence

over the forest of
Pennsylvania.
Progress seems little

more than slow-stepping
above the scented pines
and hemlock.

The horizon
unchanging as glass
and I am lonely

like I have never been
before. Is this how
forever feels—

to coast the empty
sky in the silence
of the blue-green afternoon.

My Doonesbury inspired poem Zonker is up at Backchannels. Here is the poem:

Zonker

My love affair
with the sun
began early one
March, after
a particularly brutal
winter.

No one could
have predicted
it. After all I
was a pale
and pasty
child, who shriveled
outdoors
and spent
summers slathered
in calamine
lotion.

These days
I like nothing
better than
to sit in full sun,
skin alive
from the warmth,
like the afterglow
of a lover’s
caress.

Recently, a friend
called me Zonker
and the name took off
like a solar
flare. I haven’t
had a nickname
in 60 years—
and Zonker
is so much
finer than what
they called me
when I was young.

Today, as I sit
in the morning
sun—like a lizard
reviving, I imagine
Sol bequeathing me
the perfect
tan, as I hoist
the First Annual
Zonker Tanning Award
up to the full sun.

Here is a link:

https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2022/02/two-poems-by-steve-deutsch.html

The Mercury

will peak

at -2 today.

Declaring a holiday,

we let the kids

sleep in,

take coffee 

in the toasty kitchen,

and stare out

frost-crazed

windows

willing something,

anything, to motion.

When they wake

we will make  

a big breakfast,

watch road-runner 

cartoons,

and play 

for the ping-pong

championship

of the world.

I remember 

my grandmother

let me sleep in one day,

not caring if I missed school—

my parents off at work

after their bone chilling walk

and wait for the elevated.

I woke that glorious day

to matzoh brei

and coffee

and we continued 

our game 

of 500 Rummy—

keeping score 

with the rigor

of monks 

recording events

during the dark ages.

As we settle in 

to February,

what wouldn’t 

we give

for something special—

for a spot of color,

brighter than the sad

and distant sun,

to enliven lives 

as bone white

as the bleached

landscape.

 Slipping Away

Last week,

I thought I saw

you board 

the uptown bus

I shouted and waved—

just another lunatic 

flapping his wings 

on the avenue.

I remember how we met,

but not how we lost touch.

Isn’t that the way of it?

At eight

I got a kite

for my birthday 

and flying it

began to learn 

the rhythm of its motion—

updraft and downdraft,

when just for a second

my attention drifted

and the kite

flew off

untethered

in the wind.

I heard him say it

dozens of times,

but the first time I said it

I laughed out loud.

Dad never had 

two extra nickels to rub together—

my parents the king and queen of getting by—

and, get by they did—

money not nearly as important 

as a house full of family.

He was a soft touch—

never able to say no to a friend.

I often wonder how he’d fare today

when money is god and we worship

those who have gobs and gobs of it,

like we worshipped the gods

of mayhem on Mt. Olympus.

Perhaps they’d think him a fool—

that small-statured man 

who wouldn’t say no—

who’d find a way to help

from a well worn-wallet—

certain to tell you 

that he’d be the “same millionaire

with or without it.”

Up in December on Street Light Magazine. I didn’t know until yesterday.

My mother told us—
“If you turn the light on,
then turn the light off.
Learn to love the dark
you will reside there
soon enough.”

She insisted we earn
a shower—
“worked up a sweat, did you,
sitting in your chair reading?”
And reminded us that cold
water cleaned
as well as hot.

Mom told us
It was the little things—
conserve, conserve
conserve and sabotage
a coal refinery.

Dad told us we might
take the car
only If we had a definite place to go—
reminding us that our two legs
were remarkably useful
for locomotion.

He taught us to repair
everything with simple tools
that fit nicely in your hand.
“This was once expensive,”
he often said,
“and doesn’t belong
in a landfill.”

Dad told us
it was the little things.
Do it yourself, do it yourself
do it yourself and short-circuit
the power grid

My grandmother—
a woman of kindness
and depth,
taught us to read
by candlelight—
her mantra—
“better than tv.”

She’d say it was
the little things.
and taught us to
meditate and to make
bombs from leftover
household products.
“All power to the people”
she’d shout from her
rocker—raising her
arthritic fist as high as
she might.

On Silver Birch Press

My poem, written as Stevieslaw, is up at The Drabble. Here is the poem:

In My Next Life

I will make
music—

classical
strings

Sunday
afternoons,

rock operas
Saturday night.

My music
so awe inspiring

it will float
like Chinese lanterns

dance like fireflies
in July.

Free—free
as the grass

in your favorite
park.

For in my
next life

the only
currency

will be
smiles.

My poem—Ready, Aim, Sing—is up at Cactifur. Here is the poem:

Ready, Aim, Sing

My sister, Angie, thought

she’d save the world.

She grew her black hair long

and fancied herself

the next Joan Baez.

Angie was sure song

would silence the guns.

Never shy, she belted out

a steady stream 

of Paxton, Prine and Collins.

It made dad smile to hear

“Farewell Angelina,”

though he couldn’t fathom the lyrics.

He tried to save the world once,

humping an M1 across France and Germany.

I used to make her crazy—

isn’t that what brothers are for,

with a refrain from Lehrer’s spoof—

Folk Song Army.

You must know it—ready, aim, sing.

At sweet 16, my sister played 

the pass-the-hat dives

on Bleeker Street

where drug 

and protest culture collided.

Sure, she would save the world,

but wasn’t it easier if you were high?

She hit the road at 17–

four wannabes in an old Nash Rambler

heading for the summer of love.

They never made it to Haight-Ashbury—

burned so much oil crossing Kansas

it looked like they had chosen the Pope.

Dad drove out to get them—

the car tomb-silent all the way home.

I have her old Gibson 12

and pluck out a Paxton now and again.

My sister, Angie, married money—

she lives in Dallas and voted for both Bushes

while her grandson, Dylan, vows to save the world.

My poem is up at Schlow Library as part of local response to the traveling exhibition ”Americans and the Holocaust,” at the Penn State University Libraries, January 29th to March 10th. The Schlow exhibition of art work and poetry is up for the month of January.

The poem considers the ”Voyage of the DamnedT” and the imagined response of those on board. From Brittanica:

The MS St. Louis sailed from Hamburg on May 27, 1939 with 931 passengers. Most were Jew trying to escape Nazi Germany. The travelers were denied entry to Cuba (a popular destination while waiting for a US Visa), the United States and Canada. The ship was forced to return to Europe, where the passengers were eventually taken by England, France, The Netherlands and Belgium. 255 were killed during the war—the vast majority in concentration camps.

The incident was chronicled in the book Voyage of the Damned (1974) by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan and later adapted into a film (1976).

The poem:

MS St. Louis

My brother turned

thirteen this week—

he was to take

to the Bema,

and read from the torah

salvaged

from our synagogue 

in Berlin.

But, he decided

just the day before,

not to.

At ten,

I must start 

studying, 

although my brother

says, “why bother,

since we are sailing 

East again.”

The mood

on board the boat

has changed

since we left 

the lights of Miami

behind—

smiles

are hard to come by

and my dad and mom

are more 

than just seasick.

The Rabbi says

we should forgive

those who have 

forsaken us—

but my brother says

“the rabbi is older 

than Methuselah 

and we will 

bury him at sea

before too long.”

Dad told us

“there is so much

we have been

blamed for, 

that they fear a contagion—

like the Black Death

arriving by ship 

in Messina in 1347.”

My brother shakes

his head to agree.

“To help a Jew

is to become 

a little Jewish,”

he says

“and who would

ever choose to be 

Jewish.”

But, the boat

steams on

and soon, 

we will see

Gibraltar

again.