Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 8

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

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Letting Go - Joy Hewitt Mann

Beyond the exhaling grass

the river is stillholding its breath, looking sidewayswhile the bruise-coloured sunset pushesout the shadows of four pines.

The fifth is new,barely shelter for a rabbit.Wind bends it to the groundwhere it buries secrets, sighsand opens itself like a gift,but the small tree knowshow fragile is its spine --

even young

it knows this.

The riversparkling like a thousand eyesturns away,exhales one long breath of helplessness

and anticipates the moon.

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Coming October Storm - Joy Hewitt Mann

The sun has lost its balance:

the dogasleep on the porchwhimperseven half asleep noticinghow the leaves wait motionlessand thunder growls somewhere out of sight.An escaping rush of air rattlesthe screen doorand the dog joints itbegging to come in.

The buzz of my neighbours chain saw cuts off suddenly.5


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This Edge, This Center - will inman

I dont like to live at the Edge. Even when Ilean over, I try to bring my Center with me, but its

like dragging the mantle of a galactic snail. Edgeand Center may be opposites only in my mindbecause, though I live in an Infinite Now, I do notlive forever.

More and more, I take time back from others expectations. I find serenity most

in solitude. Yet, as I age, the momentumof earlier reachings-out--pulls me to new Edgeverges.

Im asked to do a feature reading at aprestigious Poetry Festival. Getting naked before somany lovers, and who knows if Ill be able

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to get it up?Im invited to a New York reunion

of 1948 North Carolina radicals. I must fly with no

parachute to catch me down crowds in vast terminalsbetween flights. Ill wear decades of memories in myeyes, but they will not hide my nakedness.

In thesecrowds, I am alone but have no solitude. I must keepleaning at the Edge if my life is to provewhat its been lived for.

I must be willing to fail.To be lost. To go over the Edge trailing a Centerthat will not always wait at the bottom of the cliff.In the black hole center the galaxy, center self, Godmakes love, relentless, with sharp teeth.

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I know foreverfor a few rare instants of peace. I must bring thatpollen to the living flower of your trust.

But, no, Imnot just doing you one more obligating favor:if I

do not approach the Edge, my Center was only a nestand never a waking of wings.

Without this terriblerisk of reach, my marrow was not yours and not Gods.Without this raw Edge, my Center is not mine

first published Pudding Magazine #37, Summer

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first sounds, from under dunes - will inman

the boy rounds his lips to shape the sound of O

he cannot know this is the original soundbut the sound knows its origin down through himto a beginning long before this single sounding

the rest of his mates take off from the tonetheir harmonies radiate from that one soundimplicit center comes alive in the singing

birds, even ghosts of wolves, know that callbreaks between some things only seem to existsilence carries a steep burden of continuousgenesis stays contemporary with descendantsonly a present garden makes death unenviable

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so the child drinks with open mouth true firstsfutures germinate in steepwoke tones

how can so many rainbows dance out of one throative kissed that fraught darkness and come pregnant

a child is a person from that first cryhow mother feeds her unborn with her voicethe young one scratches a poem in blood on womb wallshow mother sings those lines as hatched from under dunes

from Rag Mag, Sprin

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night laughs, and I want to run - will inman

im tired of being afraid of night, of the dark.

i walk out at midnight, at one or two, or someodd hour in-between -- night crouches around me.night flings herself like a flying squirrel,and soars, her dark pelt shining. she murmursunder her silence. now she laughs.

did you knowlaughter is created of sinews of chaos,a resonance of cosmos setting out beyond sacredgravities and fixed orbits. night laughs, and iwant to run. i want to hug her. instead, shesneaks around behind me and holds me ever sogently in her loose sweatery arms. she can be

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still warm from a summer day. she can be frostychill. she can be soothing as a sister tree. nightperches in trees, she winds around the brancheslike a great flying serpent, covered half withsoft dark feathers, half with hard bright scales.im tired of being afraid of her. afraid of dark.afraid of umbra faces. afraid of death. nightlaughs, and a little gravity is set free to reachbeyond the furthest stars to cosmic rainbowsdown the far pit of space where god waitsand watches like a lost spider trying to recallwhich webstrand to climb back centerward on,to start creation again.

but first, night,like god, must devour her mate to spin shining

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webs from, to spin laughter down my strainingeyes, to perch her lit shadows in the cornersof my lips waiting to mate with yours.

nightlaughs, in and between. we are sinewsof chaos. we are passionate black rainbows.we dissolve ecstatic into her laughter.

imtired of being afraid of night. she isfreedom, willing to be risked. wanting to beknown. in the dark

from The Lucid Stone #1

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Fire-Ant Bites - Jane McCann

These angry welts, these red blisters arethe price of living in Texas,the price of walking the dogbefore dawn across the deceptively flatfront lawn. Too late, I feltthe twenty needles. Howling, yelping,we ran for the house. Now I dab

calamine on my ankles, the dog saidno thanks, headed to lick himself and whinehimself to sleep in a corner. I will too.These ugly splotches, they must bechildhood resentments, coming out at last

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in middle age, parents gone, not their faultanyway, I wanted to be a doctor(the big red pearl, just beginning to ooze)

my teachers hated me (the fan of small ones)and blamed me for everything, even the thingsI didnt do, I was thought sneakyand subversive, my best friend moved away(the broken one I scratched, it burns)boys called me skinny. Theres one

right on my knuckle, ouch, and now Im fat.Come on old dog, quit picking at those sores,lets go for a walk.

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Transposition - Joan Payne Kincaid

An ancient custom in our villageis visit the water every day

and briefly, vanish;

a ritual often reserved for sunsetsthat connects the mind and soul

with salt air, water, sky textures,evanescent atmospherics

even a viewof the earths curvature:

there may be only mistmilk white sky or grey

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Tonight Crickets SingJoan Payne Kincaid

Katydids begin;on tv, African Americansmarch in Harlem and are attackedby police for not ending soon enough ::a helicopter flies just above their headslike a futuristic novel of the sixties;a jet crashed at Peggys Cove...relatives fly to Nova Scotiato peer through fog from rocksfor closure in the mist whereonly fragments float;a President plays golf in Ireland

after disgracing a country for 18 monthwith fornication, adultery, lies,

witness manipulationperjury and the restyet few call for resignationas if his private life is not public!

You sit in your home, yard, carregarding life electronically,

as if from prisondecade after decade, paralyzed.

Insects of the nightechoing each others soundsilent in the day.

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the wailingDavid Michael Nixon

go tothe wailingwallleanpilgrimwho wailsmore thanthe wildestwallwails

lean onthe wailingwallleanpilgrimshow ithowwailingmay bedoneby onewho isneverfinished

make themoonwailas nocoyoteeverwailed

do notbe stillforever

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Flowers - Gertrude Morris

Mothers writing was barely legible,but she pressed a flower in each letter:sweet peas, usually - her love code.

Once she wrote to a niece and nephew.They were appalled by that crippled script;it troubled them to be reminded

that their people remained illiterate,that they were a mere generation awayfrom the immigrant ship Astoria.

If it took love to know when love was given,theyd never decipher the code.He filled the lacuna with a sermon:

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See children? This is what happenswhen you dont go to school!The other guests could see my pain;

She seemed to enjoy the bloody show,chain-smoking cigarettes, unfiltered.In a year or two the smoke took her.

He mourned her death- in his way,then he took a series of faded beauties,old stars with hair incarnadined.

They gave him all that he required:a cook, a hostess, and a tasteof elderly pneumatic bliss.

Theyre all gone, and all their troubles LorSome simply slept away;mother went to the dark, knowing.

She was a beauty without artifice,illiterate as the world sees it.Too shy to go to school, but

wise in the ways of gardens and flowers.I still keep the sweet peas she sent me,between the pages of my fairy tales.

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All It Takes - Ida Fasel

What if the expertsare counting down to apocalypse,what if the world as we know itis really coming to an end,there before youglistening copperrubbing elbows with the sun,your bulwark against despair,your shining breastplate of defensewaiting for you to pick it up,

happy for youthat all it takesis a little thing like a pennydropped in the parking lotto make your day.

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Making It Simple - Ida Fasel

I walk through the gorse of TV news,clothes clawed, flesh raked.In a world where countless chain-mailhearts interconnect iron-cold,it gets harder to tell love from hate,spirit from body, light from dark.It should be easy -- dark is coarse wool the skin cant bear.Spirit is nubbed with quality,gives love its fine silk texture.

I harness my spinning to Magrittes trwhere leaves change into birds.Warp meets woof with holdfast colors.Threads give form tocaress shelter comfort stillness accord,lustrous in the dark.Glossy black grackles gather, cackle.MAKE IT NEW! MAKE IT NEW!It is the gift to be simpleresponds my loom, soundingthe old Shaker hymn.I weave in contrary motions,one eye straight on, one eye turned baccoalescing into one. I followa given pattern improved with time.

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Is it snow laying down a carpetto flop on, angel-winged?

I pull the curtains.Rib cage ripples and stretchesto the cord. Backthrown headresonates the tear bag under the lid.

It is snow laying down a carpetto flop on, angel-winged.It is grey subdued to the duskygleam of pewter.It is the great apple treeall its white one bloom.

It is sky glossyas a plate from the dishwasher.It is sun defying the worlddown to one knot of wind,prophecies abounding of its end.

It is as it always is --the holding back of dark from light,the first amazement, the earliest aware.

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Incomparable Notions - Ida FaselTo be in any form, what is that? - Whitman

Cratefuls of skulls

diggers speculating impassive stonesthat receive and return so many echoes:

stymied in impossible probablesmy flame jumps the stop lineto incomparable notions.

As the difference between my body and souldiminishes,

I become more of what I always was --my own obstacles and oracles:

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Davids Burial - Gary Allan Wilmot

He rolled on the damp spring grasslike a child in a tantrum.

Frustration, anger, and disbelief showed in lines on an aging face.Members of the family turned awayin embarrassment,excusing the behavior to an alcoholic fit.

I felt something grab at meand squeeze in a suffocating embrace.The tears surged.I forced them back, shakingwith the pressure building in a torrentof pain.

In denial, I, too, turned awayand pretended to be sickened by the sigyet I knew a part of mewrithed on the grasswith Grampa.

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Easter Vacation - Fredrick Zydek

We celebrated the mysteryof resurrection by tilling

our garden this weekend.We began with the ritualof burning off the stubbleof last years bounty.

The smoke rolled like incense

across the lawn and deepinto the woods. A few crows

scolded the pungent odorsthough I noticed it did notstop them from building nests.

Later when we planted onions,those old maids of the field,the crows, watched from nests

that seemed more like choirlofts than nooks for the darkestbirds of the rurals. Even their

squawks were rich with polyphonyonce the garden filled with rowsof tiny tombs from which the magic

of green will emerge to remindus that what we look for in theempty tomb is always with us.

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Ground Hazelnuts and HoneyFredrick Zydek

Theres a hint of winter

in the wind again. I spotteda single yellow leaf at the topof the cottonwood. It knows.

Everything in the fieldsis busy making seeds. I wantto write songs for them,

keep them from the coming cold.Theyre better fit than Ifor these changes. I shouldhave been a hibernating bear -a cave creature waiting in sleep

for the plush pubic greensof spring to work their magicon what the world has learnedabout surviving the little death.

I will pick the last of the squashtoday, store them in an old washtubin the basement. We will roast them

with ground hazelnuts and honey.What can I tell them they dontalready know about the thin chillworking its way across our fields.Dare I explain whats in store for them

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Dogs Meet on Bridges - Kate Gale

you could die never acceptingthe love of a person crossing a bridgemeeting you collapsing into youbecause you both walked outon the same bridge at the same timeto see the same sunrise

you walked dogsyours an ugly mutt he thought beautifulin spite of its wrinkled facesagging teats too many puppies(the kind that chew flower bulbs)still live at home

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your dog had a curly tailexposing its behindin a way which was unseemlyto anyone but the dogwho knew nothing of mannerswith this dog you walked into the sunrise

where you met your loverand your lovers doga perfect dog you exclaimedpointed nosearistocratic bearingnearly human

you will die never knowingunless you plunge nowover the bridge becausefor this second spun in sunlightmomentary as the space betweenholding out hands and feeling nothing

you knowwith the clarity of dreams on wakingthat this collapse of beingsis an accidental beautyyou could plunge intofor the rest of your life

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The Road from Here to There - Constance J. Hall

The child grows; the child knowsOr does she hide what lies insideAnd make us guess what shell possessTo guide her steps far along the road to There.

Will eyes that see things yet to beEnvision scenes of kings and queensAnd reigns gone by in castles high

Shell write the tales far along the road to There.Her smile sweet, shell use to greetSouls in despair; make sure they fareBetter in life and ease the strifeOf those who fall far along the road to There.

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Shell choose the brush; paint in a rushBoth lands shes seen or never beenTheyll call her mad or not half badShell chart the course far along the road to There.

Build structures tall or gardens smallImprove the land with sights quite grandHouse those in need; grow food to feedOnes wandering lost far along the road to There.

Though trips to stars seem much too farWith tubes of glass, she may surpassThe dreams of those held in the throesOf illness dread far along the road to There.

With fingers long and voice as strongWill she save lives; speak out for wivesWhore beaten by some sorry guy

Walk beside them far along the road to There.

Or will that hand made to withstandMost sorrows great, support the weightStroke graying hair and help prepareThe old to stroll far along the road to There.

The child grown -- child of her ownSoothed by the sound in Mother foundPass to her child, both tame and wildLessons learned far along the road to There.

The child grows; the child knowsWhat she will be, though we cant seeWhat lies ahead; the journey spreadIn pieces far along the road from Here to There

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Chickens - Albert Huffstickler

I can remember a time in my life when my only companions were chickens.That sounds like a joke, doesnt it?

It is a joke. Its also true.It was the year we moved to Kings Mountain, North Carolina just before World War II.That is, my father, a soldier, went overseas and my mother, brother, sister and Imoved to Kings Mountain, his home town, to await his return.It was common knowledge by then that there was to be a war soonso this is where we would wait it out.Small towns are hard to break into.Any town is hard to break into if youre very shy.And I was very shy. One look could shatter me like glass.And we had moved three times in the last two years.Somewhere along the way I had given up on ever feeling at home with people again(I was thirteen at the time)

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rather, it seemed to suck what heat there was in the room up the tiny flu.The bedrooms had no heat at all.So, there we crouched in the kitchen cradling the gasping puppies who departed one by one,trying not to believe that this was an omen,

trying not to think of them in the same breath with my father on Bataan, the war started now.And every morning Id creep out into the cold to greet my new friendsand see if theyd laid any eggs during the night.I got that straightened out later and also built some nests.And the friendships blossomed and thrived and the eggs arrived in due time and the flock grewand eventually we were taking some eggs with us to sell when we went shopping at Aderholts.Much later, Bobby Early came into my life and then Bill Jonas and a few others.And one day I realized that I had graduated back to people at least in part.But we still held on to the chickens my mother for the eggs, and me, just in case.Time passed. We learned that my father was a prisoner in Cabanatuan.My mother bought a house with a half-acre of land and started a Victory garden.

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I crept furtively back to my chickens, who received me with open wings.The years passed. My father returned, a gaunt and stricken man soon to die,I graduated from high school and went off to college, still unable to talk to girlsand leaving my chickens behind.

This is how life goes.At college, I rose to even greater heights of social ineptitudeand, with no chickens to fall back on, plummeted into the void.Its possible that my whole college career would have been differentif Id been allowed to take just one chicken with me.I might have been invited to join a fraternity.I might never have become a poet.

More years went by. I flunked out of school, married, divorced, remarried, divorced,lived out my life in such manner as I could and here I am,continuing, alive, on my own: not a chicken in sight anywhere.I had planned to scale great heights. I dont know if I have or not.There have been moments crystalline, clear as sunlight on a morning lake

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and a lot of sorrow, loneliness and frustration.Im still shy. I mask it as best I can and go on, the dream still before me:that some day people will be as easy to communicate with as chickens yes, even girls and a new peace will enter my life

before the time comes to join that great flock in the skywhere the lion lies down with the lamb, the White Leghorn with the Rhode Island Redand no one is ever lonely or shy again.

from The Plastic Tower #30, January 1998, Bowi

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Documents

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 8