Post on 04-Apr-2018
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M
2003
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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, March 2003
The music vaguely echoes the Forties:a saxophone content to muse over the melodywithout drawing attention to itself a non-violent, philosophical saxophone.
Albert Huffstickler
fromWorking on My Death Chantin the Hyde Park Bar and GrillWaterways, July 90also published inAileron, Austin, TX, vol. 10, No. 1, 1989
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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 24 Number 3 March, 2003Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara FisherThomas Perry, Admirable Factotum
c o n t e n t s
Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $25 a year. Sample issues $2.60 (postage). Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed enveWaterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-21272003, Ten Penny Players Inc.http://www.tenpennyplayers.org
Herman Slotkin 4-6
Joan Seifert 7-10
Sylvia Manning 11-14
Gertrude Morris 15-18
Robert Cooperman 19
Geoff Stevens 20
Bill Roberts 21-23
David Michael Nixon 24-25
Ida Fasel 26-28
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THE DANCE Herman Slotkin
First the music:
rhythms pulse patterns on taut tissues;melodies speculate in moods.
Then the dancers:
limbs and heads in lilting lines evolve in pure intimacy;
every lift, turn, dive, and catch is a covenant of love and trust.
I need pure intimacy.
I want love and trust.
I must learn the discipline.
I must risk the dance.
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DANCING Herman Slotkin
We dance through life,
waltzing to a fox-trot,calling it a tango,
loving the dancing,
wishing it was truer to the music.
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THE RIDE Herman Slotkin
In the turbid twilight before deep sleep,
as in the uneven caesuras of day to day,poems haunt.
They rap tap on sympathetic skins;
word-song tambourines tendrils to feeling
like the flaring of kindling.
Meanings float and flash
daring me to grasp and go along for the ride.
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OLD NIGHT TRAIN Joan Seifert
Long, long, short, long*
Whistle-wailing droning from the night train:
would the engineer have been amused to know
how eagerly we listened for that sound?
Rhythm and recurring code,
well-being, passed along,
dim at first, then growing,
then dim again,
on-going.
*trains whistle signal: approaching crossing, bridge, or tunnel
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Years ago across the prairie,
the night train wound
its softly-clicking way through town,
and sleep came gently.Remember how it felt to have no care?
Long, long, short, long
hymn of inner refuge:
watchfulness is happening;
all is well.
Every hope was for the constancy.
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HINTS THAT LISTENING BRINGS Joan Seifertnear San Juan Capistrano Mission, San Antonio Texas
Old San Juan Missions bell has run almost three centuries, now.
Daily call to prayer still understood through time;
theres steadfastness in its pensive peal.
Not far away, the citys strident neon claims the busy day,
flashing some assumed human need,
boisterous traffic clatter drowns any hope of quietude.
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But listen;
history echoes in other bells,
small, faint jingling bells of grazing goats.
They still forage, placid, near the ancient mission,as goats have always grazed out there,
secure, where theres no need of tethers.
Their signaling bells bring recognition, rescue
of loose dogs,
or danger, threaten.
Strays are always found that way.
Its worked for centuries.
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PANTOUM FOR TOM Sylvia Manning
Year after year, day after day
his request of life is music before coffee.Put the Beatles! like a new idea hell say,
or every once in a while, Willy!
His request of life is music before coffee.Weve played a Beatles collection till its no longer groovy.
Every once in a while he asks for Willy;
He likes Elvis, too, but prefers his movies.Weve played that Beatle collection till its no longer groovyin these years since he came to need our care.
He likes Elvis too, but prefers his movies.
Its the Beatles collection thats the worst for wear.
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In these years since he came to need our care
weve given him all the music he needs, and then some.
Its the Beatles collection thats by far the worst for wear.
But hes learned to find even classical music winsome.Weve given him all the music he needs and then some.As his body grows weaker, his health seems surprisingly sound.
Hes learned to find even classical music winsome,
but with Willy, its like an old lost friends been found.
As his body grows weaker his health seems surprisingly sound.
His movements, his state of mind depend on what we play.If its Willy, its like an old lost friends been found, but
year after year, day after day.
June 9, 2003, Palmview
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IM STILL ABLE TO FEEL PRIDE IN TEXAS BECAUSE Sylvia Mann
Scott Joplin was born here.
In Texarkana, so who knows?I doubt anyone bothered to keep good records
of where poor black babies were born back then.
It could have been the other side of town, in Arkansas.
Id tell you what year but my old Britannica, which does listJanice, of whom Im also a little proud, of course, deems
not even honorable mention of the great Scott Joplin.
I am staying sane in this barbarian state which hasbrought the world to rack and ruin too often
by learning to play Scott Joplins rag.
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Its very hard, as was his life
but sometimes, oh sometimes
(and when it happens right you know
youve sat in for a servant stealing moments
at the keys of the big house)
it is so poignantly soft.
And when it happens right, and only then,the shame dissipates slightly, the rag becomes the house
girl pretending to be just dusting the keys, and though I still cry,
it will never be as loud as Janis could; and though he still died, Isuspend disbelief and let belief exist, as surely as a soft soiled rag,
in the air of the dusty state where he was born, on a borderline,
the great Scott Joplin.
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LETTER TO ETTA Gertrude Morris
Dear Etta Jones: You must have known me;
I followed you everywhere.
Before that concert in the Atrium,You kissed a few black guys in their 70s.
Next time you kissed my lover, Id have said:How about planting one on my white cheek?
Your singing touched me so, I wish I could have
told you too late now how the broad stops
and rushes reminded me of Lady Day,how the lyrics, clear and plain as water,
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told me all I had to know. And I said
to myself: Yes. How true. This is what
it is, was, and will be. How time passes
and love remains. How the one you lovewill hurt you when he has to go,taking the only love you ever knew.
And now, youre gone, sweet singer,my irreplaceable you.
And I have only your tapes to play,Still sweetening my bitter.
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AKYENI BAAKO* Gertrude Morrisconcert of African High Life music in St. Marks Park
When drums beat, and a bamboo balaphon
dropped melons of sound on stone
to the growl of Second Avenue,
I could imagine crowned cranesbrowsing among the graves, beaks
arrowing East in seas of papyrus..
When the drummer cradled and tossedhis bead-sheathed gourd, and shook:
Tch! Tch! Tch!
*Akyeni Baako: First Drum. Akian language. West Africa.
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even the old felt the itch
in their thin bones and their feet
told them to get up and dance!
Now the dust rose like ghosts of Masaileaping in a trance of lions,
whirling the wheaten mane of lions gold,
reaching up the tall spire to the Lightwhere Gods great, brown laugh thundered
like First Drum, shaking the world.
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We light the candlesand say a short Englishprayer for peace on earth,and health and happinessfor everyone we love,
then watch the waxcarve blue, red,and yellow stalactiteson the menorahs scrollwork.
Its like being backin the caves, Beth murmursas the flames leapalmost as if theyre gazellesdancing over savannahs.
Just before the candles die,flames spurtin tiny supernovas,then gutter, smokespiraling, as if soulsflown off toe heaven,or sending small messagesinto the universe:
that, for the moment
at least, everythingis well with the world,even if we knowfor a dead certaintyit isnt.
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WATCHING CHANUKAH CANDLES BURN Robert Cooperman
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DEATH FUGUE TO THE LONDON PALM COURT ORCHESTRA Geoff S
Forget the risk of catching something serious,
I found the dirty sax of Rudi Pompelli
much more infectious
than the earlier sons of Adolphe
whose melodiously innocuous sounds
cropped up in 40s dancebands.
I was in 50s England when
the rock saxophonists goose-stepped
their music into Europe
and I loved it
though previously no fanatic
of the bass section
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A MELODRAMA IN SIX REVERSIBLE ACTS
OR ADVENT OF THE IRON HORSE COMING WEST Bill Roberts
Act Six
Curtain closes, lights come up.Woman and screaming child take bows.
Cowboy too dead to return.
Act Five
Dangerously pregnant wife visits cowboy in jail.Forced to miss hanging by arrival of child.
Names son after the cowboy father.
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Act Four
Cowboy rides hard across Missouri on one-eyed horse.Dust storm behind him looks ominous.
Finally apprehended at border.
Act Three
Cowboy says aloud to himself he must cross state.Curses his luck, hangs his head.
Curtain falls as he looks straight into horses one eye.
Act Two
Another man approaches steadily on a horse.Stops, asks cowboy to watch horse.
Disappears to right of stage.
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Act One
Cowboy looks in vain for train tracks.Finds none, issues expletive.
Walks in circles.
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IN MELTING MIST David Michael Nixon
Now we can seethe openings
in the ground fogand steer ourway along theuneven ground.
Sun has begunto dissipate
the fog slowlyand patience picksa path for feet,knowing that morewill come clear asthe morning warms.
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Meanwhile, we huma quiet tune,the notes barelypenetrating
the melting mist,so that oursong precedes us,floating overportions of thelandscape which arestill veiled to feet.
First appeared in B
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BETWEEN BINGEN AND KOBLENZ Ida Fasel
Heathrow on strike. Elgin Marbles in litigation.Gothic sinks under all its alterations
and accommodations. I pay my respectsat a presumed birthplace; hear another Hamlet;keep vigil at an old admiration, the cottagewhere Milton made his final ascentin visions on high.
Fast trains, competing skyscrapers, accent
scoffers. My foot rubs red on cobblestones.The Tintoretto stolen. At the great bronzedoors a lightness, burden lifted, panic of relief.Gone, gone utterly my overstuffed purse!Mother would say, Be more attentive.
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But I was! not wanting to miss a detail,in small space so fully told the ancientbible stories set in new perspective.An unscheduled trip to American Express
restores confidence in my tourists eye.
Up the cluttered Rhine, round the point the rush is on. The tour boat tiltsto the side we have brought our sensesmiles to see. There! The celebrated rockcuts clear of surfaces. Each stark line
sweeps into briefly possibles brief traces.A male quartet (the brochures never told us)beams Loreleis allure bei stereoto glut of barges, passing tonnage.Is that all? a voice among us.
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I follow the folds of her garmentsdown old stone to the waters edge.Her golden rings ripple. She tossesback her golden hair to show her face
in what the sky is up to,the legend reflected intact.
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