waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol 19 no 11
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
1/34
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
2/34
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, December 1
Sitting upon a wooden shelf
an old dusty book
closed and all alone
no cradling arms to lie in
and no soft voice to hear.
Showing its ugly cover
its chapters have been
wasted away
to decay and mildew.No one dares to take
a look inside,
left alone forever
with secrets never to
be told.Ugly ChildCherilyn Jenkins
Streams 11, 1997
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
3/34
WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 19 Number 11 December, 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 4-5
Gertrude Morris 6-7
Joy Hewitt Mann 8
Ida Fasel 9-10William Woolfitt 11-17
Kennette H. Wilkes 18
David Michael Nixon 19
John Sokol 20-21
Gary Allan Wilmot 22Fredrick Zydek 23
Victoria Garton
Leonard Goodwin 2
H. Edgar Hix
Albert Huffstickler 2
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
4/34
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37861991/Streams-11 -
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
5/34
the littleness of words - will inman
it is not enough to measure the littleness of wordsagainst the ranges and reaches of galaxies.
the distances are as far inside us.but what other
creatures do we have to ride on so far and so long.telescopes are mechanisms and do notgrow from our marrow.
words known words,used words, words that give us back to ourselves
words have no limits but seize on images and visionsand, faster than the speed of sound, fast as light,create all that-out-there in a sizetrue enough to spread out in our skullsand still leave room enoughfor questions to ride in on elephants
4
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
6/34
but, no,words are not the thing, words
can never be the thing, but words can serve as waveson which processes of becoming
can wake and work and move. on words we can remembermeanings of images and high litaniesdown which to dive for what cannot otherwisebe held long enough to burn our fingers on.
wordscan be rainbows in mud,
shades of meanings and
possibilities can archbetween minds and gut-listenings.
godis not a word but can ride words backward down
prayers or perch on your hoping bruised lipsa hummingbird full of sky and the rustle of syllablesbefore they are more than wind
5
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
7/34
Photo Album - Gertrude Morris
I dont want to turn the pageon these snapshots, moments
stopped in black and whiteby a Kodak box camera,
of little Gertrude, age ten,with mother, brother and daddyin his best suit, on a Sundayin Crotona Park. It is warm;
a cold wind pinks our faces.We stroll to Indian Lake, renta boat and daddy rows us to theother side where stood a huge boulder,
a fallen star, glittering with micah.Steps were chiseled into the granitethat kids would climb on a dare.(One late day in Autumn
my friends and I were still in the parWe saw a shabby, sunburnt manreclining on the lawn.With a sick smile of complicity
he unbuttoned his fly, and alimp white thing fell out.He kept smiling as we ran.But we never told anyone
according to the rules of The Tribe.)Now, its time to walk home
6
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
8/34
past families sitting on bencheson Southern Boulevard. Shloime
The Fiddler plays old country tunes
with much glissando con brioand passes a cap for coins.He disappeared in the dead of winter,
(to Florida they said) each spring,migrating with the birds, to playin the yards of Longfellow Avenue,Vyse and Hoe, a middle-aged Pan
scraping a reedy violin off-key.Shloime is gone who knows where;the mothers and fathers are gone.Weeds sprout from cracked asphalt
where benches stood on the BoulevaBut on a Sunday afternoon,when the traffic stops for red,in the quiet of those days
you can hear a fiddle playinga frolicsome air you remember,when sprightly ladies danced with laand bearded men with men, to the tu
of a risible rabbi who lifted his caftacapered into the water dry,and came out wet again.
*old Yiddish fo
7
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
9/34
What the Hand Has Written
Joy Hewitt Mann
While she sleeps the man
holds her hands like a book,reading the words hiddenin the patina of toil,rolling them out like a scroll webbedwith inscriptions,words between the lines bleachedby disease.
He turns her hands,pushes,pulls the skin, holdseach finger up to the light,brings them to his face to smellthe words,
holds her palms above his eyesto read each letter with his skin.
Down again,
opened like wings, wordsbleed into the white as he cries.His own hands, trembling,are useless, sohe presses hers together,becoming his for prayer. OhHeavenly Father
pray for us sinners now and at the hoWaking,she encircles his sleeping headwith a wreathof arms.
8
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
10/34
Questions with the Answer in Them - Ida Fasel
I learn the heart sends 4,300 gallons
of blood 60,000 miles through the interiorevery day every day every day, a mere pump.
How do you measure the capacity to care?
I learn the Ice Age molded my brain
unchanged an iota the 30-50,000 years since.
How do you account for the leap,
the springing forth like a great new thing
in the bone and marrow of spirit?
I learn I am an organism compounded
of nitrogen and carbon over unimaginable
9
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
11/34
eons. But what set the sacred fire of will,
who vocalized the beautifully contoured phrase
of life?
I move in mellow air, frost danger over.
The sky is luminous with curlicued clouds
that drift above their own shadow,
brighter for the brightness they make.
A light breeze threads itself through my hair.
I make two of one primrose.
Wrong time, they say, to cut.
Busy earth profoundly
connecting with heaven in flowers,
I take your powers to heart.
I rise in parts. Must rise.
10
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
12/34
Zoe Watkins, Underground Musician - William Woolfitt
I went down there the first time
to help my neighbor Jenna study her astronomy notes.She unzipped her backpack and we squatted on the grate.
Our adjacent apartments were so cold
even the cockroaches moved out by Thanksgiving.
Jenna said next semester wed move into a packing box
and split the cost; with thicker walls we would live
as cardboard gypsies. We both laughed.
We got to be friends that way.
I went back because I wanted to sing and I was trying
to be brave. I had to search my own heart
for a sympathetic wizard, and when I took out my guitar,
11
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
13/34
that was me pinning a heros medallion to my chest.
The Emerald City was down there, in the maze of tubes.
I stood fifty feet from Henry because it seemed
the safe thing to do, safe because his customers included
ladies in business suits who called him by name.
I figured that if someone gave me trouble,
Henry would rescue me. Unless he was the attacker.
He had three shopping carts of books to sell,
hardbound classics, Harlequin romances, and Danielle Steel,
and he stuffed the money he made into the pockets
of his dirty plaid coat.
I started with Seven Year Ache and then tried
one of my own, Blue Violins Serenade Me to Sleep.
Some old guy tossed me a buck.
12
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
14/34
That was my pattern, something old, something new.
I thought it important to save old songs from oblivion.
I talked to Henry as we waited,
when the last of the commuters had wandered by,
and the automated monster worms filled the tunnels
with deafening noise. He asked me why I wanted to sing.
I said, When I figure out how to blend my voice, words, and guitar,
its like riding in a cyclone and painting the sky.
He picked up a paperback. He said, I love to read,
and his whole expression changed.
I asked him why. He said, So that the silverfish dont eat me alive.
13
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
15/34
Room Lit With Sparks - William Woolfit
Books saved me from my world of flames.
Mom, in her fluffy sweaters and pleated skirts, was the firebug.
Carrying home bread and milk, Dad always toted a can of gasoline.She called him names and he threw plates.
She made him sleep on the couch; he slammed the door
and drove away.
I crouched under the front porch behind the morning glory vines.
I drew a circle to mark my kingdom in the dirt.
I felt so tiny and feverish, and I knew that someday I would burn.
Swimming through the cool rivers of chapter after chapter,
I prayed I would turn into water that would not boil,
stone that would not melt,
earth that could not be scorched.
14
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
16/34
Last pages came and went.
Robinson Crusoe never sent me a map,
Tom Swift never built me a time machine,
and the Hardy Boys never solved the mystery of the burning house.
Our friendships went only so far.
I heard more noises in the kitchen. I opened another book,
glued my eyes to the letters like boulders that did not waver,
the lines of black print that streamed down the page.
15
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
17/34
Unwanted Property - William Woolfitt
The sisters couldnt bear
the sight of his household remains.
They let their fathers estate
waste away. The pine trees
grew thick and threaded their needles
into the window screens. Mice raided
the boxes stacked on the spare stairs,
nested in old patent leather purses,
nibbled the corners of books and magazines.
The covers of his detective novels turned
the color of the dust-filmed antique green bottles
that populated the basement. The stoves knobs
and burners rusted. The rubber hoses inside
16
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
18/34
the dishwasher rotted. Mold colonized the icebox.
The sisters let themselves in once after the funeral.
One of them had a half-hearted box of cleaning supplies.
Such a shame, they agreed.He let this place
go to the dogs. Nothing we can do to save it now.
They collected their flimsy rags,
shut the door behind them and walked away.
17
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
19/34
A Small Piece of Cheese
Kennette H. Wilkes
When I was a kid
thinking about being dead
thinking, eye level to the mouse
in the trap, its eye still life shiny
I wondered what death might be
maybe like a mouses ear, small
neat, listeningor even a whisker
quivering.
I did not visualize it still
but like a sustained vibrato
of bow on string
violin, cello
viola tuning up
before the sonata.
What it does to time
the conductors baton liftedin silence before
The Valkyrie
18
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
20/34
A Night in Erie County Penitentiary (July 15, 1971) - David Michael Nixon
When the lights go out, I shift in bed,talk to the others, try to sleep,
Meanwhile, in the soft folds of my mind,the people from the past are getting ready;when I finally go to sleep,they move within my dream, old friends,though slightly blurred around the edges.When morning comes, cell doors clang open:the dream shuts down, is over.
My friends slide backbeneath my minds warm covers,and I get out of bed,shivering in the early morning air.
first appeared in Rochester Peoples Yellow Pagewith the title A Night i
19
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
21/34
Butterfly Trapped in a Bookstore - John Sokol(Mandala Books, Pittsburgh, September, 1993)
. . . and now she browses around the display table
in the middle of the store, stops to rest on a freshcopy of Dantes Purgatorio; no solace in limbo, shehovers over Parmenides, overLegendary Dancers,
and then Twentieth-Century Roses, Andrew FieldsNabokov and Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings
before touching down on the glossy surface of
(honest to God)Jamaica and Its Butterflies.
Seemingly assured by this kindred port (moot ironyto her), she stays long and motionless, mocking
photography and contemplating her own opus:Empirical Escape. She seems to know Im watching
20
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
22/34
her, hence the apparition of a thought-bubble aboveher wings: No bookworm jokes, please.
Its Labor Day weekend and Im minding the store for
Frank. Not a single customer in the past two hours.I dont want to be here and Im counting the minutesuntil I can lock up and go home. Meanwhile, Papilio
Whoknowswhatsis has been winging her prayer over andaround these books and toward the light for nearly six
hours, beating the glass in the front window, a mere
two feet from the open door and freedom.
When I close, Ill use the OPEN sign to push and guideher out. Well leave together..
from The Advocate, Vol. 8 #1 Spring, 1994, Prattsv
21
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
23/34
An Unnecessary Loss
Gary Allan Wilmot
emptiness hovers in the air
like a foggy mist
clouding images captured
in a photograph
searching for a clue
i stumble over a threshold,
ironclad law of privacyshatters in silence
a poem
on crumpled paper
a poem
of regretful loss;
raw emotion in eloquent words,
words i wished youd express,
words i wished i could have expresse
the space between usthick as the wall
that kept me
silent . . .
22
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
24/34
Praying into All Our Spaces
Fredrick Zydek
We must learn to take our prayers
not just into the darkness
nor just into the divine light
but into all our visible spaces,
the slaughter houses of the spirit,
the ecstasies of our neurons,
and the disappointments waitingin our pocketbooks and mirrors.
Good prayers shouldnt just erupt
in the sanctuary. They should
follow us through the supermarket,
into the places of our toil,
even into situations where kisses
become colorless as the snow
and the hopes we piled on the altarcome back empty as a closed hand.
23
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
25/34
A Trace of Shadow - Victoria Garton
Rooms you vacate to that musty smell belong
in the past. Leave even a trace of your shadow,
you are lost in them forever.
Like a passing season when your life
is a river out of its banks; newspapers, letters,
and bills float past. Rising water drives your pots.
Your pans clink like armor. Possessions
tell how far youve come from the snail dragging its home.
Walking unbruised through dark rooms is a pattern whichwhen lost, insists that life is about loss. In your mind
there is a light switch above the book of poetry
on the nightstand, and a sweaty lover
you must reach over.
24
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
26/34
To the Library - Leonard Goodwin
Father led us up the stepsto the huge 42nd Street Library
on a summer Saturday morningWe passed the two great lionsturned to stone
Went through the swinging doorsdown the corridorwith vaulted ceiling, marble floorwood-paneled walls
To the Childrens Room.Sister and I stood for a moment
in the doorwayTaking in the spacious
sunlit areathe librarians friendly nod
Father departed for another roomassuring us of his return
One arrow pointed right
for older childrenAnother leftfor younger children
Sister went rightas I went leftslowly passing the shelvesbuilt into the wooden walls
Stopped at the sectionmarked Fairy Tales
Before me the red bookthe blue book, the green bookthe golden book of fairy tales
I took the golden book
25
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
27/34
from the shelfSat down at a large, round
polished oak tableopened to a story
on a picture-decorated page
The room faded awayas I found myselfin the enchanted forests and townsof handsome heroes, beautiful maidensgiants, sorcerers
I read faster and fasterto learn of adventurous outcomesin a world so wondrously differentfrom that at schoolor on the streets of Brooklyn
Father returnedannouncing time to leave
Sister was readywith two Nancy Drew mysteries
I asked them to waittill I finished my storythen borrowed three fairy tale books
The first was started Saturday eveningcontinued Sunday morningthe minute I awoke
Only after much urgingto get dresseddid I put it down
All three were readylong before the due date
26
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
28/34
Jushua - H. Edgar Hix
I found an old book.
(Rather like finding a baby
born 80 years old.)It had belonged to my father
and my grandfather before him.
It was slender and hard cover,
faded aquamarine with gold embossed letters
and yellow paper.
It was a theological expositionof types of Christ in the book of Joshua.
I opened it randomly to page 43
and read a passage giving me
a whole new insight into the relationship
of Moses, Joshua and Jesus.
In mid-sentence, I turned the page
and found myself on page 46.
When the book had been boundthe paper had been improperly cut,
leaving the outside folds
holding the pages together
like Siamese twins.
After nearly a century,
those pages were stillonly torn apart to page 11
and I had a new insight
into my grandmother,
my father
and me.
27
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
29/34
1927
A Self Portrait
Albert Huffstickler
(excerpts)
I dont want to make a big thing out of it (just because it is a big thing) but ev
time I am asked to present myself as Somebody, I freak out. I prefer to be the Nob
behind the poem or behind the story. Because, underneath it all and despite any re
ances I get from friends, family, enemies, I do not think I am Somebody. I am a w
class Nobody. I do not exist. That is why I work so hard on the writing. If I can
as myself, then at least I can manifest. Everything I write could be titled,AnotherAttempt to Define Who I Am. Because thats what I do. Oh, I rely on my past, on
often as not but the interpretation I give it is out of the moment, how I see things t
particular day. All my life I have admired and wondered at people who presented
selves with assurance, who knew who they were. Because I didnt really. The tru
28
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
30/34
that I am a fiction of my own invention. I am the Poet. And what is the Poet? He
that thing that produces poetry. Not much to hang a life on. I am not a specialist
kind. I am not an authority on anything. I have had no training. I have lived out
life doing menial labor of one sort or another, restaurants a lot of the time, because
didnt have any specialty and didnt seem able to come up with the determination athe discipline to develop one. I have limped through life on the crutch of my abili
use language. It is all I have. It is all I am. It is all I can do. So when suddenly I
asked to tell the story of my life as though I were Somebody, naturally I freak out.
not Somebody and therefore I cannot tell you the story of my life. I can only tell y
some things about myself. If my life had plot and continuity, I would have written
long ago. And sold it. And probably made a fortune in this age where no one realknows who he is. Yes, its true. Everybody is really like me. They dont know w
they are. But the difference between us is that I know I dont know who I am whe
most people have acquired a label, a role, that they think is them and therefore the
assume that they know who they are. I will not be trapped in that No-Mans Land
29
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
31/34
cannot tell you who I am and I cannot tell you the story of my life. I can only tell
some things about myself.
It seems to me that what my life has mainly been about is writing. Or put it an
way, my life has been a journey toward the center and the writing, the poetry, has bthe story of that journey. This journey really never ends or perhaps it ends for mo
at a time along the way when youre in love or when you have one of those crys
moments when everything is in place. But then the moment passes and youre on
road again.
I think perhaps, to a poet, art is a way of dedication and discipline, a mans of f
lowing a spiritual path. Its been said over and over again that any path will take ythere. I think that for me and for many of the artists Ive encountered in life and
through their work, this is the case. And I think that, by recording his journey of t
spirit, the artist can give hope and light to others as they follow their own path.
30
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
32/34
The Way of Art
It seems to me that
paralleling the paths of action, devotion, etc.,
there is a path called Artand that the sages of the East would recognize
Faulkner, Edward Hopper, Beethoven, William Carlos Williams
and address them as equals.
Its a matter of intention and discipline, isnt it?
combined with a certain God-given ability.
Its what youre willing to go through, willing to give, isnt it?Its the willingness to be a window
through which others can see
all the way out to infinity
and all the way back to themselves.
31
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
33/34
And so it ends. After a brief sojourn in the light, this Somebody gratefully retu
being Nobody. The Poet retreats behind the poems and is happy to do so because,
youve probably figured out by now, thats where he belongs, thats where he reall
lives.
excerpted from Atom Mind, The Living PoetAlbuquerque NM, V. 5
Wint
32
-
8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 19 no 11
34/34