Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 8

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 8

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2 0 t h A n n i v e r s a r y

Septem

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream


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Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamSeptember 1999

Traffic and work and riot, triad of wakingare garbled into a full chord, drowningidentity in conquering vibrationimpinging on the air, loud, rising, makingthe city conscious of propellers shaking

from Night Flight : New YorkT HEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)Muriel Rukeyser


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WATERWAYS : Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 20 Number 8 September, 1999Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara FisherThomas Perry, Assistant

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

1999, Ten Penny Players Inc.

contents

Will Inman 4-5Ida Fasel 6David Michael Nixon 7-9Joy Hewitt Mann 10-11Joan Payne Kincaid 12-13Herman Slotkin 14Albert Huffstickler 15-24


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grease for the gristle - will inman

how can you get any place sitting there?off and on! move it! shake the dust off!now here is nowhere: tomorrow over yonderswhere its at!

never satisfied: thatspatriotic! thats the American spirit! thatspurs the Free Market!

put your shoulder

to the wheel of the world: be a shaker and amover!propeller your posterior! jet your

juggernaut!what on earth can you ever know

sitting alone harking to silence and stars?

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go to the ant, you slowpoke, consider her waysand be wise: shes always in motion: shestitches great futures out of tiny stings.

make a tall wide bridge to somewhere else, thisis no place to be caught dead:

how many timesdo i got to tell you? be somebody

else

(like me)

12 October 1998,

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Mission Accomplished - Ida Fasel

On January 23, 1986the space shuttle Challenger

flashed down

job unfinished but completelike Shuberts English

or Michelangelos Piet

the dedicated crewand those watchingworldwide

swiftly spedthrough sunlit waters

past sunlight reach

all that lovebrought to bedrock

dark

to glowamong thosethat glow in the dark

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Movers and ShakersDavid Michael Nixon

Everyone talking and shaking hands,and up rolls a herd of heavy equipment:bulldozers, steam shovels, front-end loaders,all picking up people, scoops of shakers,and rolling away with them, while they clamberto get back down, while the othersgo right on talking and shaking hands.

Here and there a rebel leaps offa bulldozer and lands on someonewhose hand is out, whose mouth is open,and who goes right on talking and shaking,brushing off the fallen leaper,who by this time is shaking, shouting

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Dont you see the bulldozers coming?The ground is shaking! Help me! Help me!The others go on talking and shakinghand after hand, while motors roar.

first appeared in Voices for and City New

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The Streets Are Full of Legs - David Michael Nixon

The streets are full of legs striding;lounging in outdoor cafes; poisedat the edges of traffic; lostin a legion of lost legs, nomatter how purposeful their gaits.The streets are full of legs fading--even the sharp bones disappear.

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The Work - Joy Hewitt Mann

I will not be one of those women who dieshrivelled and writhing like plowed up worms,worn out by overused wombsand soil that erodes deepinto the brain,picking stones from their hairless skullswith every bend of scabbed knees, everymovement of calloused hands againstthe weed-clogged dirt.

Butthis soil is relentless as an ocean storm,it surges round myresistive feet,its waves move me closerto the grave.

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The Dream - Joy Hewitt Mann

She has dreamt of silk sheets againand intact combs running

through her hair; she has dreamtof pillows and shoesthat fitand food that she has notkilled herself.She has dreamt of store bought jam againand sanitary pads and

tiny bottles of Aspirin.She has dreamt that the sun has risen in the morningand she has not.

His hand gripping her hairwakes her up.It is still dark.

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Visitors from a City Apartment Wonder HowWe Can Stand the Noise in the Burbs

Joan Payne Kincaid

dishwasher electric fanprofessionalgardeners with professional noisemachinery telephone company treetrimmers village tree remover ///~=dryer vacuum cleaner washing machine dehumidifier telephone dialerscars trucks helicopters jets motorcycles the guy next door\starts power washing his truck( illegally)every Saturday because he and t

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he neighbors between us are at * war! over their putting a central a/c nexttohis property line on the other sidehe has broken out his jig saw to do- it-

yourself front porch railing not to mention endless screams of children... inclusters of summer swimming pools^

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Origami - Herman Slotkin

Our hero doesnt win a waror make a miracle;nor is he martyr to a mission.

Our hero folds enfolding chaosto origami so original, so useful,that it will hold us for a long time.

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A Woman Named Circles - Albert Huffstickler

Her father, an old hippie, named herthereby setting her on the path thatwas to become her life, seeking closure,trying to round things out in a worldthat was all angles, a world of straightlines converging, mingling. She triedto adapt but it made her crazy. Evenher body was round, round and sleek anddesirable and she used it to try andchange the world into that full roundentity that she envisioned but of coursethe world was too full of angles andshe found herself used (in a circularfashion) then abandoned. And the years

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passed with her circling her way throughlife with nothing changed, nothingresolved. And still she circled on,older now and wiser but no more fulfilledthan the day her father, stoned on a reefer,baptized her with the remains of aquart can of Coors and sent her on herway. One day, old and discouraged, shewas driving home on the newly-constructedloop that bordered the city when abig diesel cut in front of her, collapsingthat little bundle of Japanese metalwith her inside it right there on theloop, the concrete circle that death,in his mercy, had contrived and bestowedon her. The very last thing that her

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sight registered was a big red signemphatically declaring WRONG WAY andthen she was lifted to a place thatwas all circles, giant circles, glowingcircles, revolving circles, all the colorsof the rainbow, circles, circles, circlesand a lot of music.

June 1from First Class, 1998, Milwau

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Whatever Happened to Kitchens? - Albert Huffstickler

I havent seen any of those people in years. Everybody I know has drifted away.Old Plantation Restaurant h

So be their place of one estateWith ashes echoes and old warsOr ever we be of the nightOr we be lost among the stars.

Calverlys, by Edwin Arlington R

Places people come to in the evening after workto eat and drink coffee, then wander back laterwith the dark coming in and the loneliness on them.Day in and day out, that little core of regularsmeeting in clusters, each cluster aware of the others,nodding to each other. And the waitress of many yearsknowing just what to bring when someone sits down.

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Weary with the day, they come, ready to mingle hopes and needs,voices tinged with boredom, a furtiveness about them,the furtiveness of one who has no place else to go.

What ever happened to Kitchens?

They find their places and they stay, year after year,a new face appearing from time to time, an old one vanishing,the loss absorbed slowly after endless discussion of

the manner of his going, his new estate;the light in the room a quality of their lives, a conditionmore familiar than the rooms to which they returnto fall exhausted across the rumpled bed and sleeptill morning draws a damp and cheerless hand across the drugged face.

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What ever happened to Kitchens? Where did he go?

The one who left unannounced, the one who broke all the rulesand vanished without a word-

the brawler, the bruiser, the banger against lives,who fought and cursed and spoke his mind and embarrassed themto a man,

who was ugly and graceless and knew all their flawsand flung them in their faces and laughed at themand was dragged out more than once drunk,cursing the world and the cops and all of them individuallyand returned unrepentant to their subdued midstto continue as though hed never left, haranguing, mocking them-And then vanished one night with a wave and a curse to return no more,black jacket flapping, bald head shining, beak-like noseplowing through the darkness like a ship at sea, big Harley roaring.So long, Motherfuckers!

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The shadows of the room converge, the talk goes on.The shadows listen and do not comment. The waitressmoves from table to table, filling salts and peppers, wiping

catsup lids.Voices sound from the parking lot, shrill and despairing.Lights flash against the window then vanish to the engines roar.They huddle closer in the close, still room.The night grows. They are dreams without a dreamer.

What ever happened to Kitchens?

They slouch in their places, humble before his absence.He shouldnt have gone away like that. He should have said something!Lonely and dissatisfied, they talk desultorily, watching the clock.Somebody oughta call the shop and ask.Maybe hes there and don't want to be bothered.

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Maybe hes the word never comes out.They crouch over their coffee cups; the shadows draw closer.His absence as bulky and menacing as his presencebut less acceptable.The waitress refills their cups automatically, her boredom a texture

of the spacelike the shadows in the corner and the night that swirls inwith each opening of the door.Hell, he could write! He could send us a postcard here. Theyd get

it to us!They sit on, later than usual. The talk turns to other things but no

one is fooled;theyre waiting.They think of seasons past: Kitchens stomping in in the cold,

jacket zipped tight, gauntlet gloves encasing his forearms,cursing the cold in his high, venomous voice;or shirtsleeved and sweaty summers, bald head glistening, cursing the heat.

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Now nothing.The silence descends like a shroud. They smoke and wait,gathering their courage, not meeting each others eyes.Finally, one stands, glancing furtively at the door.You leaving?He almost sits down again, then straightens, nods.Yeh, I gotta get an early start in the morning.Another shifts uncomfortably, settles back, then rises slowly.Me too, he mumbles.One by one, the others rise, stand hesitating,then slowly, one by one, move down the aisle and out the doorto stand there in the night.I guess hes gone, one says.Yeh, hes gone.Gone without a word.One by one, they move off down the street, heads bent,

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a dread on them of the night, of the silence,of the musky rooms with their rumpled beds and the darkness.One stops and stares upward, mouth agape.What happened to him?A car screams around the corner, then vanishes in a spray of light.He stands a moment longer, then trudges on,homeward beneath the clear, unanswering stars.

October 14, 1982, first published in First Class, Issue Seven, Milwaukee WI,

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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)

$2.50 an issue

Documents

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 8