Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 10

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 10

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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 19 Number 10 November, 1998Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara Fisher

Thomas Perry, Assistantcontents

Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $20 a year. Sample issues -$2.60 (incl

postage). Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envel

Waterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127

© 1998, Ten Penny Players Inc.

Will Inman 4-11

Ida Fasel 12-13

Joy Hewitt Mann 14-16

Joan Payne Kincaid 17-19

Janet McCann 20Sean Brendan-Brown 21

Charles Pierre 22

Ronald M Thompson 23

John Sokol 24-25

Fredrick Zydek 26

R. Yurman 27Thad Box 28

Leonard Goodwin 2

David Michael Nixon

M. M. Nichols

Albert Huffstickler 3



http://www.scribd.com/doc/37737061/Streams-10



at the far edge - will inman

it’s time for me to goi’ve been telling myself

what time remains will ride a cusp of waitingi’ll mull and mull, trying to see it all in focus(or was it always meant to be a blur?)

i expect dark woods and high summitby now to speak each other’s language.i expect ocean and steep sky to make love

whether in serene tides or in hurricanes, or both,i shall listen for more than wordsmore can be said in a touch or in high windthan in cogitations

but when clear seeingand soul-waking – work together in tune,

4



a mandala of knowing strikes the brass gong:an old man nods and embraces resonance

lean into it, let it open you like a flower

it will fade, but knowing it can bewill never leave you, thatis the Voice: that Sound

is at least half you. the other half is god. youcan’t tell the difference for there will be none.dawn and high noon, afternoon and sunset

will enter your ribs with their own lights and darks

trust your love, and be waryeven of god. most of all of god.wariness will not diminish the waking

reach out for sleepers, listen to their dreams 29 September

5



the final ebb - will inman

tide ebbs.

tide ebbs, taking everything.

it’s not so hard to let go as I thought.two college special collections want my

papers, letters, books, manuscripts:

to become known for what i am, i

need to strip naked of these records i’ve

saved, obsessive packrat, all these decades.

they can poke through my pettiness, candiagnose my feuds, analyze my largest

vistas: are they true visions or just bubbles?

somehow, i’m willing for it all to go

out with the tide.

6



much is trivia. much may be illegible. papers

and journals, catacombs of hope festooned

with cobwebs.

but insights occurred. they willshow through, their dry rhythms still ready

to incite heart.

track of a long trek

inward. to the common center of all things.

to the space where ribs come rainbows.

soon i

will follow the tide. never grieve me. i’m

a turtle hatched from under a dune of words.

my eyes will carry living irises

23 Ju

7



angel to the damned - Will Inmanto my cousin Mary Ann

My North Carolina cousin who has graduated herself

from a sick Southern family to another dimension inOakland(oaks being the oracle trees of perceptive

women)phones to tell me she’d been on a speaking

tour and entered through clanging gates of SanQuentin to talk to and with an assembly of inmates.She

did not give the expected circumcised speech,her verbal presence needed a haircut, but convictswho are blasted with sanctimonious bullshitmuch of their waking hours

knowwhen someone speaks

8



fresh from the heart: theyresponded to this

diminutive woman’s large spirit. Shetold them of

decades of Southern wifely subservience: theyknow

what it is to be at the mercy of absolute power thatrules by guilt and fear.

They could rejoice with one whohas shed off the inner obedient skin and is able to benaked to those who can see and hear.

She knew I wouldlaugh with her rainbow reach. I who was born backwardin a backward place and time – have joined her

not at the front ahead of others, but with armsoutstretched, fingertips touching,, as we allrun side by side to this real now and here 26 June

9



that female receptiveness by which genius becomes - will inman

the focus of fury is potential everywherethat tyger’s paw abides no cage:

atmosphere out of balance

continental plates jammed, stretchedsuppressed rage in humans

do not waitfor a deific finger: very potentialmay be seen

as god. intrinsic motion,suppressed or sublime,

carries divine dimension,cosmic purport: whateach unique manifestation

meanscannot be gone after:

but must be opened to:true listening is that female receptiveness

10



by which genius becomespregnant

with insight:more than observation

or measurement,an assimilation of resonanceconveys what is and does and has being

withsounding gutstrings of listeners.

what is heardmoves interior on its own waves

and on waves woken

upon center where, deeper than analysis,that reality is sown alive, known

no matter howturbulent or how serene

as kin integralinevitably

so. 26 March

11



November - Ida Fasel

Approaching winter

all coming clear

the best time, really, for a view

between here and hidden there

the landscape uncluttered, spare,

certain to come through.

Now with the ultimate air

not a leaf interferes.

All clear straight ahead

and I for the first time aware

that you in the grip of the first Novem

across the distances between us

are as cold as I am here.

12



Divided - Ida FaselSpirit is an entire star. -- Paracelsus

When I came through the woods,

two parallel ways cleared. I took both,learning the geology of one,

meditating the other. For a time,

under fire, I was a Thomas

performing the pas-de-deux of paradox,

continuously divided and not divided.

Two ways that never converge:

one droned in the passive tense,

the other volatilized with miracles.

I have not finished with miracles.

I sift the facts. I am latticed

like leaves in changing light and shad

In the end, I straddle two paths:

the numbered street, the legendary le

to the secret place of the psalmist’s s

an octave above the words of prayer.

I favor the surer foot.

13



Bursting Bubbles - Joy Hewitt Mann

At ten

I was never happier

helping my mother do the dishes

washing

then drying together

a little crowded, but we both

liked doing both.

There’s something about hot water

stirs the brain and we’d

both talk about what we wanted out of life

me, to be a chemist

her, to live to see grandchildren. Mother

was old when she had me

14



her first children floating away

like bubbles.

I married in my teens

and after family dinners

with my son running off the meal

we’d do the dishes together

me washing

her drying

because her eyesight wasn’t so good

and we couldn’t talk much from laughing

and my father and my husband yelling

they couldn’t

hear the game,

but damn

the water felt good

and I told her how she looked nice in

that colour

and the hairdresser had done a good

with her hair.

And I never got to be a chemist

and she never lived to see

my last two kids

and I can never figure out why some

doing dishes makes me cry.

15



Still Life with Raccoon -- Joy Hewitt Mann

There is never enough wind when you need itand you sit whimpering,, praying for a dry spell;there is too much light when you pray for shadow to hidethe shame of raccoon eyes.

Which makes me wonder if raccoons cry, sitting in moss,rubbing their fur with crayfished paws?Do they hunker,ringed-tail wrapped tight for comfort,tiny fingers flicking nervously, wishing

for a place to rinse the salt away? Forthere is never enough moss to soak up the female pain;there is never enough salt to make itpalatable;and there is always too much shadow when you are prayingfor light.

16



The Hedge - Joan Payne Kincaid

the hedge is growing too high out by the frontyard’s border where the dogs run past and birds

hover protection from nor’easter. Do we paint becausewe want to know the landscape of what we do?To gain control of trees or clouds or suggestions of things?The order in the universe finds you wandering;sinning outlandish songs of choreographyGot no bounce left in ma shoesain’t got nothin’ but the blues...

Out back alone early morningstirring at the white plastic table by the cosmosnodding down an early fall coffee,regarding the half moon in its blue half worldopposite the sun’ slow westward arc.

17



We think of you over in England and Italy the furthestyou have ever been by telephone telling me there is no time

for anything to sing, but that you do know England now.

They do not know how much a cold mothercontributes to autism or art if it is genetic...the distancing need for control and orderand order is a private thing... do not ask meto expose that which has been designed.

When you are suffering or surfing thingscatch you by surprise through the wet grasscaring for plants as you would tend a child.

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Or later limping through undergrowth to witnessredtail hawks scream in the sky and a kestrelhump a sharpshinned up by the moonnow appearing from a Wednesday window;

vague melodic theme of feathers and green dreamyou can paint without looking to heighten the sense of touchcouching imagination as if practicing to hit a target.

(How satisfying to have the spell check gracefullyand magically transform your lapses)...this block, this village empty!

Everyone gonetill bedtime everyday, so silentall the tight little white defining fencesand flawless laws the wind sweeps alongas if all the properties were combined in a singlebaronial estate where little migratory songbirds hide in hedgerows.

19



The Cave - Janet McCann

You are given a tour

of what is exactly like

the thing they forbid you to see

cave drawings that would break

in the light

and the guide, telling you in French

about the cavemen who would have madethese if they were real,

the guide who has never seen the real ones

which are there, protected,

in another cave with the gate across the door

the gate that has always been closed,

and they are so almost true, the archaicanimals and their tints,

you can so nearly touch the flesh of time

what will you do then godless

with nothing to follow?

20



Fish Shop, Pike Place

Sean Brendan-Brown

In this worldyou slip and risk everything.

Bankrupt,waking between lives. Cans of hardheart beer on fishblood paperfurnishing rooms.

In breakdowns this worlda burning villagea tattered wife

cryingyou’re wrong, don’t go,you’re wrong, wait,let me help you, don’t go,you’re wrong, don’t go.

In this world you slip.

Sam the S. Korean wrapping 3 pounds of soleknows this. He has marched,filthy and shell-shocked. Now he is flag-free,

the beauty of today.

“Sam” I say, “No green eggs & ham.”He likes this. Our mindless societypleases him. He’s safe here, he says,black & white racists don’t faze him--

the Northkilled everything he had.“My fish best fish!” he says.

In this worldpeople feedor kill you. War/harvest,

isolation/tabletalk.I love the way Sam’s hands close.

In this world you slipbut there are beautiful hands.

21



Career - Charles Pierre

The smashed bodies of clams,

crabs and whelks on shore

tell what the world’s about.

Yet from the shadows

of a broken shell,

a small insect walks freely

into the sun,its path etched

in the sand’s crust.

22



Crappy Slum

Ronald MacKinnon Thompson

Something should be written,

Graffitied on the walls,

Something should be told.

Curses on this crappy slum.

Unkempt roads dividing houses,

Cracked sidewalked unskated place,

Streetlights with lightless thrust,Towering, bare and worthless poles.

A man’s clawed hands in useless dirt

The child’s worn toy destroyed,

Women fear to walk at night,

Creatures there may not be safe.

Gray skies of acid rain,

Smog filled oven places,

No rain can ever wash away,

Nor hail the passions cool.

I can say, though just a bum,

Curses on this crappy slum.

23



Letter to a Sister I Don’t Have - John Sokol

Maybe your name is Lila, or Sarah.

Maybe we live very far apart. Maybe

we haven’t seen each other in ages.Perhaps you’ll come to visit and

we’ll go to a Spanish restaurant where

the waiters really speak Spanish and the

courtyard tables are covered with big

umbrellas. We’ll spend all day, drinking

sangria, eating paella and tapas, garlic

soup and grilled grouper. We’ll open grape

leaves like fortune cookies and read

blessings and compliments to one another.

We’ll sip grappa from little green glasses

rimmed in gold. We’ll whisper and laugh;

24



everyone will think we’re very close.

You’ll tell me what a friend I’ve been

and I’ll tell you about all the ones I’ve lost.

I’ll ask you what it is, and you’ll be kind,

and say, it’s not you. When the sunsets through the honeysuckle on the gate,

and twilight dapples the stones beneath our

feet, we’ll talk about Cezanne. When our

eyes are glazed from wine, we’ll remember

our parents and sadness will somehow

fill and soothe us. We’ll paint our tongues

with saffron and blueberries. We’ll inhalethe scent of lilacs and lemons. After

everyone else has left, we’ll slow-dance to

Waltzing Matilda, and the waiters will watch,

as the juke-box breaks our farewell hearts.

We’ll hold each other and sway-in-place

like there is no sorrow. And even thoug

summer, snow will begin to fall;

big, fat, beautiful flakes,

like you’ve never seen before in your lif

from Rain City

June, 1995, Portla

25



Sun Dance - Fredrick Zydek

It was the way of our peopleto stand with arms outstretchedbefore the rising or setting sunand deliver wonderful prayers.

In the morning we were glad to seeit rebuild its elegant fires.Some even danced before the sunto celebrate the miracles

it brought in the form of seasonsand the great urge of thingsto wander their way over the willingplanet and into our bellies.

In these dances the soul sought

to lose its shadows in the sun,to let the deepest roots of lightcrack through the spirit’s darkness

until plumes from the sun’s firedanced like airy feathersover everything we namedin the liturgy of being human.

But Whites passed laws forbiddingsuch things and built jailsto house those who dared to greet

or bid farewell to the great sphere.

They believed we worshipped itand did not know that he for whomwe danced lived well beyondthe rising and falling of the sun.

26



First Tricycle - R.

Yurman

A red trike

The high high hillMy father’s face

clamps my feet

to the built-up

pedals

on the long

downward

glide

Yes you’re good

Yes I’m proud

You’re my son

My mother’s face

not smiling

from the window

It’s too dangerous

Not for my son

Show her Show her

How it’s done

fat pedals

flying free

bang my knees

flight

into air

into ground

my breathshocked

then loosed into s

and his face so distan

27



Short Rains - Thad Box

welcome rains fall

seedlings emerge

promise lifeprosperity

tropical sun

dries soil and seed

plants wither

spirits sadden

a rain showerbrings hope

to be lost

plant’s withered carcasses

rattle

small brown feet

guide a lumpy football

over bare groundbefore the next rain comes

will their bodies

wither like tender brown plants

before starvation’s wind

28



At the Automat - Leonard Goodwin

On a chilly Saturday afternoon

when red and yellow leaves covered

the ground in Bryant Park behind the 42nd Street Library

Father suggested to sister and me

we stop at the Automat

Our books in one hand

we used the other to push

through the revolving doorinto the warm, brightly lit area

facing the large circular cashiers’ booth

Behind the glass windows

rimmed with polished brass

several men and women

were exchanging nickels

for larger coins and bills

Father handed the nearest cashier a d

and carefully counted the nickelsshe dispensed in a single motion

He gave us four nickels each

to use as we wished

Along the cafeteria walls

aligned in columnswere small brass rimmed windows

through which I could see

sandwiches, deserts, and other trea

Three of my nickels

entered the slot beside one window29



I turned the handle

the window swung open

I pulled out a plate

holding a Swiss Cheese sandwich

Put it on my trayclosed the window

Around went the mechanism

and another sandwich

appeared behind the glass

Then, with cup in handto the hot chocolate dispenser

I followed the sister’s example

pulled down the silver handle

Steaming liquid flowed

almost to the top and stopped

We found a table

Sister had an American Cheese sandw

Father had his favorite

a small, luxuriously smelling dishof Boston Baked Beans

There was something reckless

about spending money like that

during the Great Depression

While I’ve spent much greater sums

in more sumptuous waysnow forgotten

Moments at the Automat

remain vividly alive

30



My Best Work - David Michael Nixon

All day I have struggled with paintings so

powerful and delicate that they are not there.

I turn back to the empty easel,which pours invisible paintings into thin air.

31



Child in the House of Heavy Thoughts

M. M. Nichols

The shadows groanThe sunbeams are speckled

In dingy roomsthe thoughts grow ravenous

I feed them syrupy nuggetstill they are fat and drowsy

Once upon a time they took me inI was flattered when they let me be Caretaker

They are very grown up nowbut can’t leave the house without a nanny

I carry them out and back On the street, they speak when spoken to

The house is a messThe other children flew away

All day I’m coddling these old onesEverything falls down around us

Under the spotted sunbeamsand moaning shadows

I wish they could get up and run outI wish light ones would come like little b

On nimble feetWith moron jokes and riddles

Rope for skippingAnd 99 games to play

32



Take One - Albert Huffstickler

I want you to know that there was no mercy

on the streets of Hollywood that night

as I walked away from the St. Francis Hotelafter being fired from that magazine sales job

and there was no love and not a penny in my pockets

and I have never felt more a stranger and alone

than in that strange city that had by some odd chance

become the symbol of glamour and arrival and

universal acceptance. But I didn’t know whereI was going to find a room that night or,

for that matter, an ego structure after being

humiliated before the entire sales group

then fired as an example. Every moment of my life

33



converged on this one with a finality that

took my breath and left me barely able to walk

and that so slow that it was no problem for Metta

to catch me, running down the street after me crying

and thrusting money in my pocket so I could finda place to stay – her in the same group but

something of a star having sold two subscriptions

in an area where no one (and they tried every day)

had sold a subscription in five years.

“Where will you go?” she sobbed.

“I don’t know.”“What will you do?”

“I don’t know.” I was still stunned.

We stood there staring at each other helplessly

while the neons flashed over us.

34



I felt totally non-utilitarian.

A car screamed by. Someone yelled.

A beer can rattled against the curb.

“I love you,” she said.

The words sounded as out of place as Swahili.“Call me tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Meet me at the bus station.”

I ducked my head, then nodded.

“None of this matters,” she said.

But it did. Because working and keeping a jobeven if it was a stinking job selling magazines mattered

because that meant you could keep your head out of the clouds

and keeping your head out of the clouds mattered.

“Meet me?” she asked again.

35



“O.K.” I kept my head down and walked on,

feeling her looking after me.

I found a room for two dollars,

walls reeking of desolation and slept the same drugged sleep

as the winos who usually slept there,woke to the same bleary dawn, wondering what to do.

There was something I needed to remember, something about love,

but this wasn’t the place to think about it.

Maybe somewhere else. Maybe another planet.

from Ru

North Yorkshire,

no.

36



Credit Check - Albert Huffstickler

This morning it was still raining so

I went back to bed. It seemed the only

place to be with that sound of falling,falling and the room still dark and it

was like another place, another planet

even, well finally I started thinking

about coffee and had to get up and make

a cup in my one-cup maker and then sat

and smoked and felt the greyness andthe damp in my space as though it was

raining inside me somewhere and that

not a bad thing gentle and fluid and

healing really and the thing about time

came to me again and I sat there smo

and letting all my times be around m

yes, even that longest time of all that

led up to my retirement, thirteen yea

in the same room, at the same desk, tsame thing endlessly till hope was go

and sorrow was a numbness like a st

with amnesia and I sat and wondered

the way I had just kept on kept

on, never my strongest suit, and thou

about Santa Fe where I went when Icould and just sat being a stranger in

that city or sat in the Saint Francis

Cathedral there for as long as I neede

to or could stand it and the needless

37



impossible luxury hotels where I spent

more than I ever should and blamed

myself later and then went back and how

could I have gone back without that

time and of course it was on credit butit’s all on credit, isn’t it, the whole

thing, we come here on credit and we

leave with the debt still unpaid, the

cosmic scale never balanced, maybe

that’s what they mean by original sin,

it’s not sin at all but original debtso I borrowed timelessness in Santa

Fe to get through the time at work, those

thirteen years. Smoking, smoking till

the rain-grey air was blue in the chair

at the foot of my bed and the rain

falling, falling inside and out and

time a rain falling in me, over me

so that I came out of that room one

day, stunned by the light, old, asthough I’d grown old overnight but o

course I hadn’t, I’d just not been pay

attention, there was an attention debt

also, I’d gotten behind on my attenti

and now I’d come out and would hav

to start paying attention to everythinto catch up on my debt. So I sat and

thought of time with the rain falling,

falling, and then finally went back to

bed and fell asleep again and dreame

38



that Gina (a pretty young woman friend)

was kissing me, tiny quick kisses with

a flick of her tongue into my mouth,

sudden and quick as raindrops, in and

out and something of youth and quicknessand the lithe beauty that falls through

your life quick as rain and then she

said let’s meet for breakfast one day

and I couldn’t remember which day I was

free and that brought it back down from

lyric beauty and all time to hard timeand how we come here and forget who we

are and then have to go on and on till

we remember because there’s no way back,

only forward, the prison of days, the

atonement of years, sitting in my

cubicle-cell at my desk, awaiting the

absolution of my remembered name

my hair went from dark to grey, my

a silver grey like the rain, falling,falling and the anguish of that tiny

mouth pressing quickly as youth aga

mine, that small tongue flicking, flick

against my lips and how quickly a lif

falls through time, a rain drop, a tear

from angel eyes somewhere we can neven remember. And waking once m

to that remembered touch on my mo

like all the dreams of love in a life-

time all the dreams that would never

39



be because so much was behind now and

getting up and making another cup, it

almost noon now and sitting once more

to smoke and drink coffee and this

at least was still there andconstant and all the words put on paper

while those thirteen years fell through

my life, thinking what if it was all

a mistake and then well if it was then

this room then and the rain falling

and the touch of a remembered kiss onmy lips and there was no equation to

reckon and say that this was good or

valuable and that should have been

disposed of, there was only this room

and the rain falling and the warmth

of coffee and myself in this room

seated, smoking and feeling, still

feeling how time moved through and

around me like a grey fall, likethe grey smoke of distance and cigar

smoke, like the warmth of a rememb

kiss found in a dream and lost then

in a waking.

from Ru

North Yorkshire,

no.

40



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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 10