Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream V22 n8

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Septe

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream



Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamSeptember 2001

Winds of autumn, as I walk'd the woods at dusk I heard

your long-stretch'd sighs up above so mournful.

— Walt Whitman "Children of Adam"



WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 22 Number 8 September, 2001Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara FisherThomas Perry, Admirable Factotum

c o n t e n t s

Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $25 a year. Sample issues -$2.60 (incpostage). Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelWaterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127

©2001, Ten Penny Players Inc.

http://www.tenpennyplayers.org

Will Inman 4-6

Fredrick Zydek 7

James Penha 8

Geoff Stevens 9

Lyn Lifshin 10-11

Charles Pierre 12

Herman Slotkin 13

John Grey 14-16

Ida Fasel 17

Joanne Seltzer 18

Susanne Olson

Arthur Winfield Knigh

Kit Knight

Albert Huffstickler



Walt WFeinberg-W

Librar



sometimes a breath — will inman

sometimes a breath of wind can reach

dark to winter or down a million years

to the end of earth.

sometimes a poet

or a postman can look up and know

down his spine what wind foretells:

being told doesn't always take words

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what's known in me i cannot prove — will inman

the brown electric blanket i sleep under napping

or, deeper, at night — when flung aside, becomes

a sleeping bear, snout extended toward my

pillow, she

sleeps soundless. when i return to bed,

i pull her stretched skin over me, her dugs trembling with

original warmth, which i suck through my pores

like mother-milk.she does not growl nor threaten.

our old enmity turns close and calm when i lie under her

wrapped in brief recall of her winter sleep,

snowed in and cubs-companioned.

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a casually folded

towel takes on features of an old shaman, with hooded

eyes, wide mouth skin drawn high over cheekbones.

shaman watches with father-keen eyes, harkens withmother ears. she does not warn me of the bear, but he

cautions me about tricky eyes, that i see with a dark

growing from in. but i

know what i seem to see:

earlier days accompany my ancestral memories

that lurk in me where i remain wary of denying

what's known in me i cannot prove.

First published in The Lucid Stone #26, summ

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A Chill to the BonesFredrick Zydek

It's been raining since early autumn.The slate tiles on the roofglisten like polished ebony, haveendured, too long, the dark pursuitsof rain that chills the bones.

There are bloated earthworms

in every puddle and pond,pink testaments to what drownswhen the rain keeps talking untilit has no more secrets.

I stare into the fire, wait for shadowto warm my bones, to sluff offthe pose of another long wet winter.There were no leaves to shufflethrough this year. The rain turned

them to pus - slick dangers for anyone

dumb enough to be out walking.Odd how a single drop of rain makesthe same noise as the backdoorwhen it clicks shut for the night.

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Without You I — James Penha

Without you Iexpect the worst:loss of contact,abduction, car wreck, plane crash,heart attack,(yours then mine),a reheated frankfurter on white toastat suppertime.

Later an abundance of microwave popcornfor a Shakespeare videowhen I keep missing the dialogue and so stopat web sites tanglingwith other liars avoiding dreamsthat come to bed.

Even this poem had to waituntil you returned.

I am not myselfwithout you.

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Hark No More — Geoff Stevens

Hark, no more the mournful sighs

of autumnal winds above the woods,but the continuous hissing of rain.

Through global warming,

the crisp, dry breezes are no more

and Whitman's children of Adam

once more wait the Ark.

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Missing Blues Panic — Lyn Lifshin

'breaking' up awoman with raven

hair writes herfrom the west

coast. She saysliving alone isterror, shakingas I'm dazed in

the east, terrifiedtoo but not ofliving alone, ofleaving not arms

but the dark wood

holding me,exchanging it fora flesh cove

without the bluestain of mulberries,the musk of darknessthat drifts up, braids

the house's skinto my skin

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Flu — Lyn Lifshin

sneaks in likein thru the smallest

chink. You nevernotice the momentit starts to nextin your blood, tearsbits of energy intoits own quilt, stealsany grain of oomph.I couldn't run, it

skittered faster. Iwas half dead. WhenI tried to sleep,

paws sprinted overmy face, rubbed mythroat and skin toroses. The colder

outside, the deeperin me he burrowed,kissing my forehead,

rumpling the pillow.When I pretend to sleepit sits on my nose,spreads a tent ofKleenex as if, confinedwith each otherI could love this

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House — Charles Pierre

The attic is emptied of past attachments,even of dust that lent a smoothness to the touch.

Nothing now but naked space: unplaned raftersslanting downward, splintered planking underfoot,

the rooms below completely strippedof anything to lean upon,

my family gone beneath the waves—

beyond the touch of any hand.I stand alone in the cellar,amid the beams and cinder blocks,

looking about without a plan,my eyes alive to the vacant air.

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Remembrances — Herman Slotkin

I am an old album of remembrancesin which are pictures of Eleanor and Franklin,

and Aunt Ada offering me half an apple,the sight of Mama sitting doll-dead,the feel of forced separation from wife and life,the prides and wounds of work,births, maturations, marriages.

But I am the last of my family.When I forget, there is no one to ask.When I die, who will remember?

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Our First Version — John Grey

Watching from the bedroom window,we saw the distant funeral

stumbling toward the cemetery,coffin in hand.

My mother later relatedhow she knew the man,reduced his lifeto a few passive-verbed sentences.She attended with my father,remarked on the beautyof the flowers,and how good it was to see peopleshe hadn't seen in years.

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From our telescope,the ribbon of carsswaying slowly westwas not about lives

or beauty or even human contact.Death was something more to plot,to trace to the horizonwhere it disappeared throughOak Hill's rusty gates.

Did dying seem less cruelfrom that distance?Or was it light relieffor small boysweaned on the potential to amuseof all strange and moving things?

I only know it did not look sador terrifying,more like the spoor of some strange awhose food supply ran out here

and that had gone searching for succoin those far-off shreds of cloud,the soft red rooftops,the string of purple mountainsdoused in pale, restrained light.

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Pine Grove — John Grey

It was a brand newdevelopment, named for what

was here before it.

It was the third houseon the fourth street, bothhouse and street so new

you could still smellthe razed forest.He was reading an article

about dolphins caught intuna nets, could imaginemammals, struggling against

the trap, flapping pointlesslyinto their own dark drowning.

It was some three weeks after

his wife said, they wouldboth be very happy here,the day before he had to

drag his son in from the front yard where the kid was staring atall the other lightless houses.

"Soon you'll have neighbors,"he'll say warmly, likethat's a good thing.

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Circling the Seasons — Ida Fasel

Morning air begins to have a bite to it.Trees widen their arms to let in sky.

We turn lights on earlier, earlier.Where is the line that preciselymarks off the changing season?Who saw the first leaf fall?

Nomads roam the flagstones, herdtogether under the locust, covewith cones round rampart evergreens.A few marigolds resist going underfor shelter, blaze Van Gogh bright

yellows and oranges in the cold.

Winter slides softly on stage,dimly visible, fumbling props in place

like an apprentice between scenesof theater-in-the-round. Airis flaked with tentative snow.

Six green leaves still hangon a branch, late, vital, lingeringlike me: never the garden overand done with, always the glimpseof violet stipends in the wings.

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Voices — Joanne Seltzer

After I am dead you will walk along the street

and feel a sudden gustof wind against your faceand sighs will stir the treeson that quietest of daysand you will hear me say,"I love you Ed."

There are voices of the throatand voices of the heartand voices in the headsof those who are obsessed,

there are voices on the pagethat do not age.

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Hawks — Susanne Olson

Two red-tailed hawksdraw in majestic flight

effortless arcs around Bee Rock.They soar, one with the gentle wind,float as part of the sky.

A few strong strokes of their widewings, and they glide endlesslyabove the mortal land. Their flightpaths cross but do not touch.In double motion separate and freethey weave their lives in one designbut trace each circle on their own.

Unreachable and lofty, weightless

yet of indomitable strength, the hawkare my own silent yearning for boundleliberty, freedom from life'sheavy burden, serene eternity.

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James Dean: The Old Country — Arthur Winfield Knight

I watched her go. She was wearing high heels and a pleated Pendleton skirt and hburnished hair hung down over her shoulders. It was just before the coming of comp

night. I watched her step down from the curb and get into the Buick that seemed tfor her. Watched her light a cigarette while the car idled, her hand shaking. The tthe cigarette glowed when she inhaled. I wondered if she was still crying. She'd toher mother wanted her to date someone respectable. Someone Italian. Someone CaA nice boy, like Frankie Sinatra. Or Vic Damone. Someone she could have bambinos I hated crooners. Pier's voice had been carried away by the wind as we stood on thein front of my apartment. The sky over the Hollywood Hills was red, but there were

always fires during the summer. Pier had said, “I hate my mother, but I can't disobeIt's the way I was raised, Jimmy. Things are different in Italy. You have to understWe were living in the freest place on earth, but we might as well have been in the OlCountry. I waited for her to wave, but she didn't look back as she drove away beneaburning sky.

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Not True at All, 1919 — Kit Knight

I'm 90 and not the least bitsilly. The fool was right

when he wrote that Lincolnas a young lawyer rented a roomin our house. Of courseAbe knew my sister; he knewme, our dad, the neighbors, andhe knew Ann's fiance. Andeveryone mournedwhen Ann died. But,there was no romance—ever—between Abeand my sister. I rememberAbe calling steps

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for a barn dance. “Nowswing your pardner,skin the coon andturn him wrong side out!”

And he never even dancedwith Ann. Years passed;he was elected President.Steadily, Lincoln ledthis country throughfour of the worst years

in history; over 600,000 mendied in The Civil War.They wore blue and grayand blood. Lincoln was shotin 1865 and several books

were rushed into printdefining the leader who said,"I shall do nothing in malice;what I deal with is

too vast for malice."Lincoln's old law partnerwas the fool who insistedLincoln had been in lovewith Ann and remainedheart broken. The fool

told the worldLincoln's mournful facewas because of my sister'sdeath. It's not true.It's not true at all.

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Woman in Long Dress — Albert Huffstickler

I imagine my head

beneath her skirt,the warmth

the briney sweetness

of her smell.

First published in Twisted Savage, issues 3&4 Tampa F

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The Passing of Our Days — Albert Huffstickler

The day Jack, my younger brother,came to tell me he was leaving

I was living on Singer Islandin Florida in a motel roomwriting a dirty book. At thetime I was still hoping thatsomething would happen withJoAnn but it never did. I wasdrawing a lot then too. My

mother lived across the peninsularin Ft. Myers. Jack, who lived inAlabama, had had a cerebral hemorrhageand was lying in the hospitalwhile the doctors decided whetherto risk an operation or not.

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I'd called the day before andthey thought he was doing better.Then that day about noon withthe huge high Florida sun above

and the palm trees swaying justthe way they should and everythingdoing exactly what it was supposedto be doing, I came out of theRanch House café where I hadhad a hamburger and was goingback to my motel room to type

my daily 15 pages and I had just opened the car door whenI felt him. It was like when

you sense someone standingbehind you and you know who it

is before you turn around. Hewas there. And he said "Well,I'm leaving. You'll have totake care of Pearl." Pearl

was my mother. And helingered another moment ortwo and then he was gone andI stood there shaken. It waslike someone had reached throughall my walls and touched myliving heart. Later, I’d

remember how much love therewas around me at that momentbut only later. At the time,it was all I could do to pullmyself together and drive back

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to my room and, for want ofanything better to do, typemy fifteen pages. You see,it was too nebulous to follow

up on. And what could I do —call home, and freak everyoneout by asking if he's died?No, there was nothing to doso I typed my fifteen pages anddrew some and later went outto supper and came home and went

to bed. I wasn't sure what Iwas doing on Singer Island inthe first place besides waitingfor JoAnn who wasn't comingand writing a dirty book which

was how I made my living then.So I went to bed and drifted offto sleep wondering what to donext. It seemed that a great

deal of my life had been spentlike that — wondering what to donext. And then about threein the morning, just as I knewit would, the phone rang and itwas my brother-in-law tellingme that Jack had died in the

night. So the next day, I gotup, packed everything and movedback across the island to mymother's and stayed with herwhile my sister and brother-

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in-law drove up to Alabamafor the funeral. And so Istayed there at my mother'sfor a couple of months till I

was sure she was O.K., finishedthe dirty book I was working onand then one day, for noapparent reason except that Inever could handle Ft. Myersfor very long, I packed mycar and moved back to Austin

where I met a new bunch ofpeople and a whole lot of thingshappened that are not germaineto this particular narrative.And it was only years later that

I saw JoAnn again and by theneverything had cooled down. Shewas mostly fantasy anyway, kindof a dream that had risen

there in Florida sunlightbacked by swaying palms anda medley of those Hawaiian-typesongs that you don't rememberlong enough to learn the wordsexcept that all of them haveAloha in them somewhere, usually

several times.

First published in PartinGreensboro NC, V.9 No. 1, Summ

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For 2002’s monthly themes, we look at lines excerpted from poems which appeared in WaterFebruary, 1983 (vol. 4, no. 2) when we published a celebration of Greenwich Village.

January, 2002 (deadline December 1, 2001):

I, for one (and others probably)didn’t even know that I was there,having gone to the Cedar Streetat different times of dayfor talks with charlatan poets and editors,late breakfasts with a crazy and bizarre Australian pornographer,beers with fellow NYU mediævalists;

and we were all unawareof action-painting, spilling and swirling around.

— John Burnett Payne, Sometimes a Name

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ISSN 0197-4777

published 11 times a year since 1979very limited printingby Ten Penny Players, Inc.(a 501c3 not for profit corporation)

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream V22 n8