Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 4

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 4

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, April 1998

Some adults get mad

when they see what

they never had.

When parents

see we are part of them,

we act out their past

then point out their pain,they go insane

and we are to blame.

-But Im You Terriel S., STREAMS 4, 1990


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 19 Number 4 April, 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.

Robert Cooperman 4

Ida Fasel 5-6

Billie Lou Cantwell 7-9

Dave Michalak 10

Leonard Goodwin 11-12

Sean Brendan-Brown 13

R. Yurman 14-16

Will Inman 17-18

Charles Pierre 19

Terry Thomas 20

Joan Payne Kincaid 21-22

Albert Huffstickler 23-24

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/37266298/Streams-4


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Coming HomeRobert Cooperman

At your fathers funeral,

your twin brother bursts

into the room like a Cossack

and gathers your daughter

into his arms, as if saving her

from you: a convert toJudaism.

Ruthie fidgets like a kitten,

his tobacco and scotch-

stale breath choking her.

Your wife strides over.

Dennis! a whip whistles

in her voice,

I m so sorry for your loss,

to free your daughter

from his pirates grip.

He has no choice

but to let his hostage go,

and scans the room,

targeting you,his handshake sincere

as a used car salesmans

when he whispers,

Isnt it about time

you came home to Jesus?

You retreat to your wife

and daughter, an agony

to get through this day:

grieving for your father

who always said

all the right words of lo

whenever he widened h

armsto hug you and Ruthie a

Ellen.

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A Street WherePeople Live

Ida Fasel

My neighbor has gone to China.. She wants

an infant she can begin with, hold close,

warm in her care and thoughts. Her husband

says Yes, a life entrusted to us.

The wonder works both ways.

We cannot have a child, and we can.

A young woman has gone to a bar.Happy hour. She needs to be happy, home

all day with two small hyperactive kids.

She comes back at midnight to find them

both dead in the apartment

fun with matches set on fire.

I thought when they had abortion clinicsthere would never be unwanted children

But too often the fabric of the family is

pierced with the needles that seam it tog

What can I say? I grew up poor.

What we children needed we had.

What we craved we forget.What I knew then -- and it was plenty --

now seems a joke. I wish

I had known better my mother and fathe

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This is not a Love PoemIda Fasel

Are there so few love poems written nowbecause love is hard to write about

without drooling or because

love takes two and so many people

think one should do? Well, it doesnt.

Love isnt a shadow box

of Joseph Cornell enchantments,

much at they please and fascinate.

Thou and I. Me and you.

Interesting to each other.

Getting to know why.

Its a blessing that doesnt

let you off easily.

Its a phantom sensation so tactile

it lasts all your life.Its so subtle you hardly know its there,

as complex as the Ode to Joy,

as simple and unintrusive

as holding hands any time youre togeth

apart, confirming how far youre in for i

and want to be.

Dont take this for a love poem.

Love poems dont explain, itemize, anal

They just are and are and are

and thats what a good poem should be.

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KinshipBillie Lou Cantwell

Clink, clinkHe heard the ice against the glass

Glanced at the clock

An hour till noon and at it again

It had taken all night to find his dad

In a dive on the waterfrontHunched over a table

Lips too numb

To form the words:

Leave me alone

It had taken all morning

To clean him up

To put him to bedIt was too much

He picked up the phone

Arranged to have him committed

The people came

Two orderlies, a social worker

He put up a struggle

For a minute or two

Then, shrugged and walked away

With a last look back

Accusing

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A week went by and the boy

couldnt see him

A part of the program they

said

He sent him books and candyCigarettes and a plant

He worked and worried

Repainted the old mans room

And waited for the new man

to return.

The call finally came

Were sending him home.

A doctors voice cold

Accusing

His father entered the door

Took a hesitant step

Hung his head for a moment

Before he put down

The brown paper sackAnd poured himself a drink

The ice in the glass went

Clink, clink

The boy grabbed the bottle

With wrath and despair

Hovered with it an instantOver the sink, then

With a curse, turned up the

bottle

And gulped the demon that

Burned and teased his soul

When the tears cleared

his eyes

He saw the outstretched

Took the glass his fathe

offeredThey sat at the table

Two looks

Accusing

Misery reflected in

Each others eyes

Defeat accepted byA refilled glass

They drink together now

Clink, clink

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After a BingeBillie Lou Cantwell

Anger, accusation,hurt, resignation.

I see it in your face

and it makes me want

another drink.

becausewhen I look at you

I see a reflection of myself

becoming

permanently etched.

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Us, or My Parents?Dave Michalak

Their lives are lapsacross the YMCA pool,

doctors orders, for medical reasons,

steady,

never crossing

the red and white lane markers.

Never even kissing friends

or neighbors,

never paying any, any bills late.

Never hugging or fighting, just watching

tv and drinking.

And drinking.

And making sure they go to bed at different

of

night.

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Magic and the LunchwagonLeonard Goodwin

When the Great Depression struckfather lost his job as a civil engineer

I was too young to comprehend the details

but felt the downward plunge

in our move to a poorer neighborhood in Brooklyn

Father bought a lunchwagon on Flatbush Avenue

--a full breakfast for 20 cents

Sister took me to the wagon

painted green with golden trim

I watched in fascination

as the cook made pancakes on the grill

turning liquid into solid

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I could hardly wait to leave

Breathlessly asked mother for a frying pan

She questioned why

I told her of this man who made pancakes out of milk

She laughedand there was little to laugh about in those days

I insisted, absolutely sure of what Id seen

The milk covered pan heated on the stove

Liquid bubbled but did not thicken

The magic transformation did not occur

Since then more serious disillusionments

have come my way

But that one awakened my awareness

of the need to see

beneath the surface of this world

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BootsSean Brendan-Brown

I disgraced them in townin the shops & public houses

main street cafs and churches

where nods & whispers

sought them as hornets

seek sweetness or meat.

I reminded them of each other

whom each now hated

with their own pasts--

youths lost,

my mother said,

a night

the wind came so hard

it sounded like high-heeled

deerskin boots kicked-off.

Ah, I get it, I told her.

But I never did. My face was

so alike that old sin she never

could more than smile to me

politely, like a maid.

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In Praise of Body HairR. Yurman

My father was the hairiest man Ive ever seenwhen that great lover of babies peeled off his shirt

he revealed such a tangle of growth

it sent infants into screaming frenzies

As I grew up

I watched the hair sprout on my body

dreading the fear I would inspire

My closest friend in high school

(his chest as smooth as I wished mine)

ridiculed the fierce tuft at the small of my back

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just above the line of any bathing suit

Twisting about in front of a mirror I could barely see it

but did not want it seen

especially by girls

at the beaches where he dragged me for the summer

Yet when I held my arms in sunlight

they shone gold

I loved to stroke that hair

and the patches swirling

on my chest

down my belly

to my crotch

So many different shades

I couldnt help admiring my varied self

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Later I found lovers

who nuzzled this pelt with tender lips

and stroked my arms as I had

Now it shocks me to see my grown son naked to the waist

dark hair in two dense clumps

one above the other

on what was once his tender smooth torso

Still his cleanly defined triangles of body hair

make me smile

This sight wont frighten any children

and women must love his chest

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a testament of will

will inman

i want to sound trumpets among high places

i want to sound violoncellos in caves under mountainsi want to make love with dolphins, male and female

i want to seduce the young to believe in themselves

and in each other

i encourage them to choose to be worthy of that belief

my reasons for such wishes are healthily selfish:

unless they believe in themselves, theyll have

nothing to believe me withim arrogant: im leading them into uncovered darkness

im leading them to high mountains in

themselves

until they make friends with darkness, they can never

embrace light

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unless they can explore secretmost caves in themselves

their mountains will never come alive

their mountains will never be seen to be great waves

i will help them hasten slow time

i will help them slow down time fast

i will help them find their own true paces

i will help them discover original, and create new, rhythms

i can help them find nothing that is not already theirs

i can help them find nothing they are not willing

to discover alone

im arrogant: my discoveries belong to everyonethey do not belong even to me if no one else enters them

(modesty is a posture of politicians

humility is a nakedness of one with nothing to hold to

but seeing)

1 Ju

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NicheCharles Pierre

The need to speakfrom this seaside plot

shrinks my world

to a single point,

throbbing hard

with all of me,

a heartbeats way

of stating where

I live and die.

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Close Cover

Before StrikingTerry Thomas

I still dream about my father--

some good ones:

reluctant pitch and catch,

his staccato laugh at a joke;

some bad:

pretending to run over me

with a racing engine,

the overall dread at

his faltering step.

Then the glassy stare

just above my head

and I would firm my

jaw, back and butt

for the blow. When I got

older I didnt know if there

was a change in behavior--

his or mine--

but I guess I did

fine on firming up for everything--

including my heart.Now hes a part of my near

and far past; maybe now,

at last, I can open up more,

at least in my dreams.

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ParentJoan Payne Kincaid

My mother decidedthat we would live

in separate glass houses

when my father died.

From my cubicleI saw her lack

of energy or concern

for the barricaded world.

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Her little life

closed -off all entrances

and exits to depression

enabling her to exhale Lucky Strikes

hooked on nicotine dreams

reading the daily News

planning her next

operation.

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How It All Came OutAlbert Huffstickler

A sociological treatise

What the Sixties people never seemed to figure out -or Alan Watts for that matter -was that all this drug-inducedopenness, this ecstasy, was inevitablyfollowed by paranoia.It was pretty simple really:the drugs blew out all their armorand, since there was no real psychological preparation

for this armorless state,there was always a a reaction.A crisis would come up where they needed their armorand, lo and behold,theyd reach for it and it wasnt there.It was gone -and all their dream castles with it,plunged into some dark recess of the soul that theyd

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never envisioned in that temporary,drug-induced state of bliss.And gradually the tempo increased: the paranoia followedso quickly that it was hardly worth the trip.The world grew darker and darker

drugs became fashionable,and suddenly that ephemeral world,that world of bliss, was gone.The hardier souls beat a quick retreat back to normality.They got jobs, anchored themselves in the mundane.They grounded.The less hardy are still out here somewherebeyond the moon,their abandoned bodies wasting away far below.Meanwhile, the world goes on and those of us left continue,gripped from time to time by longing, a nostalgiathat we lack both the will and the willingness to implement.We dont really want to go back, you see.

from Rattle, Issue Number 8, Volume 3, Winter 1997, Los

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 4