Stevie's Law

My poem, Zeus Redux, is up at the New Verse News. Here is the poem and a link to the site(with a great cartoon).

Zeus Redux

We do it by ionizing
the radiation and shifting
the polarization of the earth’s
magnetic core

millions of times per second.
We control it
from a basement apartment
in Hoboken—

that bluest of blue towns,
paid for by the DNC.
The four of us
do the weathering

on two old Apple laptops.
Our biggest concern
is the intermittent loss of the internet.
Damn Comcast.

We do our best
to make the heat and storms
believable—
blamable on climate change.

What a hoax.
Few have noticed
it is only the red areas
suffering the ill effects.

But now, one or two of the wise
have picked up on it,
I assure you that will end
with completion of our next project.

Lightening bolts.

https://substack.com/redirect/db24254a-ef59-4706-8a70-493eec39471b?j=eyJ1IjoiNjR6a3kifQ.9qYTbqZK2l6AxgatKZVJQbZlOePwc_wfKXWRokRNlGU

My poem, Poker, was just published by New World Writing. Here is the poem

          Poker

It is nothing to me who runs the Dive.
Let’s have a look at another five.
–Robert Frost in Dive’s Dive

My grandma taught me.
She wasn’t some namby-pamby
who’d let her grandson win
to build his self-esteem.

Nah. She took my allowance
and my lunch money
and had me out on my bike
delivering the Daily News.

She showed me how to mix
and deal—from the top, bottom
and middle, like a card sharp
on a Mississippi paddle boat.

She taught me position,
the ratio of pot to bet,
and had me calculate
the odds of a draw on the fly.

Nana let me watch her games
to teach me tells—
catch when six finger Johnny taps his toes
and black-eyed Susan rubs her nose.

She taught me to look a stranger straight in the eye
and lie. Convince him my five cards,
good only to mark a place in books,
was at least a high straight.

Grandma kept the money she won
from me for in a glass pickle jar.
I always thought I’d get it back—
but not a nickel.

Many thanks to Clare MacQueen, editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly, for nominating my poem, Give Them All to Me, for the Best of the Net Anthology. 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.

*Publisher’s Note:

Epigraph is from the song “Pack Up Your Sorrows” written by Richard Fariña and Pauline Marden (the eldest of the three Baez sisters: Pauline, Joan, and Mimi). Richard and Mimi Fariña performed the song along with others on Rainbow Quest (Episode 16, 26 February 1966), hosted by Pete Seeger. The show was taped two months before Richard’s untimely death in a motorcycle accident on 30 April 1966, Mimi’s twenty-first birthday.

My poem, Four Strong Winds, is up at One Art today. Here is the poem:

Four strong winds

swirl the gathering clouds
like vapors
from a witch’s cauldron.

The road is out, car stuck
in a forest of hemlock
bordering West Virginia.

And as the moonlight
and starlight go out
under the thickening clouds,

I question my leaving—
although we talked of it
so many times before.

Tempest tomorrow
but tonight will be
the blackest

night of a black year.
No light from the sky
can pierce the clouds

and the forest
darker than night.
I try my guitar for comfort—

but there is no comfort
in the simple notes
that hang heavy in the swollen air.

How fine and simple
we were once.
How our summer stole by.

In the current issue of PA’s Poetic Voices:

INCOMPLETE

By the second week
I searched for an ending
without real hope.
Ran through the usual—
birth death,
youth old-age
middle-age, angst,
hoping to find
something stirring
I might use
to close
without a thud.

Shame.
The poem is packed
with gorgeous similes—
ice like frozen water,
and verbs—
propel, propulse, and pulsate,
that rocket you to Mars,
but I’ve no idea
how to end it.

Perhaps
a single word
might provide
inspiration,
so I thumbed through
my Oxford and its
companion thesaurus.
Millions of words
waiting to take
their place just before
that final period.
No dice.

I try to find
a way out
through memories
of friends and family,
book titles,
and words
that end
my favorite movies—
“beautiful friendship”
doesn’t fit.

Then I remembered
what my mentor
told me
that changed my life.
He said

I have two poems in Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices. Here they are, formatted correctly this time.

IN THERE SOMEWHERE

Truth be told, we bought the house
because the garden
enchanted us.

It stretched for 50 yards—
taking a gentle
slope down to a creek

that had no name, but burbled
and rushed as it should,
and probably harbored trout.

The garden was overgrown
by every weed known to man—
Strangleweed and Poison This

and Poison That
and Kudzu
that had smothered the trees.

But in this wilderness I could pick
out signs of a formal garden.
Flagstone paths and brick

beds—and even a bench or two.
And when I plunged in
I came out scratched

and bleeding from rose bush thorns.
This will be fun, we shared with a grin,
and ran off to gather the tools.

SCAMPER

It isn’t easy now,
you know.
That uphill walk
I’ve taken every
day for 40 years
has me stopping,
once or twice
to catch a breath.

And my left knee
wise cracks titanium
with every other step.

The garden
is first to greet me—
straddling the top of the hill.
it shakes its overgrown
head like a six-year-old boy
finally acknowledging
the need for a haircut.

We speak of entropy
like we imagine
scientists might—
one more disorder
like bad eyesight.

But, the walk will get no easier,
the knee no less creaky.
The garden will never return to its
well-ordered beginnings.
Nothing fixes itself.

It even affects our speech.
I imagine words
I will never need again.
The first to pop up
is “scamper.”
It’s a great word for the youngsters
I think, as I try to imagine I’m
scampering up the hill,
which has me smiling, then laughing
then coughing.

I have two poems in the current issue of Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices. Here are the poems:

IN THERE SOMEWHERE

Truth be told, we bought the house

because the garden

enchanted us.

It stretched for 50 yards—

taking a gentle

slope down to a creek

that had no name, but burbled

and rushed as it should,

and probably  harbored trout.

The garden was overgrown

by every weed known to man—

Strangleweed and Poison This

and Poison That

and Kudzu

that had smothered the trees.

But in this wilderness I could pick

out signs of a formal garden.

Flagstone paths and brick

beds—and even a bench or two.

And when I plunged in

I came out scratched

and bleeding from rose bush thorns.

This will be fun, we shared with a grin,

and ran off to gather the tools.

SCAMPER

It isn’t easy now,

you know.

That uphill walk

I’ve taken every

day for 40 years

has me stopping,

once or twice

to catch a breath.

And my left knee

wise cracks titanium

with every other step.

The garden

is first to greet me—

straddling the top of the hill.

it shakes its overgrown

head like a six-year-old boy

finally acknowledging

the need for a haircut.

We speak of entropy

like we imagine

scientists might—

one more disorder

like bad eyesight.

But, the walk will get no easier,

the knee no less creaky.

The garden will never return to its

well-ordered beginnings.

Nothing fixes itself.

It even affects our speech.

I imagine words

I will never need again.

The first to pop up

is “scamper.”

It’s a great word for the youngsters

I think, as I try to imagine I’m

scampering up the hill,

which has me smiling, then laughing

then coughing.

Here is my third poem from the current issue of the New English Review:

Seven Mountains

At the top of this hill
is the cabin we shared
when so young
and unworldly

we thought that spring
would last forever.
It was beautiful here.
How could we know

how flimsy
our futures were.
Most nights
we’d sit on the porch

and watch a truck
or two struggle
up seven mountains—
long before the four lane.

Long before our lives
said hurry up.
Time knows
just one direction—

up and over
and on.
Remember the blues
harmonica I once

played. Tunes so
hauntingly sad—
we never understood why,
did we—until time explained it.

I have three poems in the June issue of the New English Review. Here is the second poem:

Roaches

Dad said the tenement shuddered
when the furnace finally
flamed out.
–
It was 1 A.M on a February
Saturday, and by sunrise
there was no way to stay
–
warm. We wore
everything we owned
and huddled over the kitchen stove.
–
Around us,
Brownsville burned.
The tenements
–
and brownstones
had not been kept up,
and needed repairs
–
that went beyond
string and tape.
The landlords fled
–
“to wherever cockroaches
go in the day,” mom said,
with her usual flair
–
for words.
We moved in with
mom’s mom
–
for the next few months
in a tiny apartment
on Riverdale Avenue.
–
My grandmother
hated my father
and fought with my mom,
–
but at night
and in the morning
I was warm.