Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 11

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 11

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1999

20thAnnivers

ary

Dece

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream


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Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamDecember 1999

The fingers weighed on the triggers. December bitinto the bone, into the tight skulls, creaking one word.

from The Structure of the PlaneTHEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)Muriel Rukeyser


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 20 Number 11 December, 1999Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara FisherThomas Perry, Assistant

c o n t e n t s

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

1999, Ten Penny Players Inc.

Joy Hewitt Mann 4-5

Lyn Lifshin 6-8

Herman Slotkin 9

Will Inman 10-11

Pearl May Wilshaw 12

Gerald Zipper 13

R. Yurman 14-16

Ida Fasel 17

Joanne Seltzer 18

Arthur Winfield Knight 19

Donald Judson 20

Robert Cooperman 21-22

Albert Huffstickler 23-24


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Da Vinci dr


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Takeover Bid - Joy Hewitt Mann

Wild-eyed winter roarsunder eaves and hats and skirts

caresses thighswith frigid fingersgrins at crowdswith snowflake teethCrawl away you sickly wormsseek warmth in hissing stovesand Scotch

manipulate your bodiesin the heat of lust just stay out of my way.

These streets aremine.

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Expiring in Yiddish - Joy Hewitt Mann

Lying with her on the bedI breathed in Mothers voicefull of her brilliantly false British accentwaited for the catch in her voice, the quantum leap in years

click her tongue caught on a consonantflashed like light through a vowel and the breath I tookwas pickled and spiced with alien sound.I sucked in to drown in the taste of her pastwhile Aunt, clicking and flashing her needles by the bedstopped as fast as Mother travelled on:her bottom lip, hung over the memorieslike the shiny rim of a pewter jug,drew up in anger as she stoodscattering her knitting, leaning over meto smother with her lilac mask.Out!and I watched as Mothers backward journey was abortedwith pills placed gentlyon a white tongue. from The Dalhouse Review, Spring

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14 Days Before Shes Dying - Lyn Lifshin

my mother, 70 lbs, takenin mist out to the ambulances

stretcher is grinning, wantsto see daisies, black eyedsusans, is wild to get to theferry, laughs, wants Dunkin

Do Nuts, coffee, three kindsof muffins. Honey can you beok sitting sideways, shewonders as the ambulanceslips down hills. With so littleof her left, shes packed the

bank books she wants out ofmy sisters, packed her winter

coat, her warmest wools. Shedoesnt want another winterin cold snow, wants me to havewhat she has, wants me with

her even in the same graveshe laughed four years beforesaying of course shed be buriedwith a telephone. She wanted meto be with her, not wanting herto live so badly, but not to leave

until she does

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War - Lyn Lifshin

A woman walks all nightwith a husband with a

brain tumor and failingkidneys, wanders likepeople with nothing,no place to go, noplace to lie downand then, the rain,then the worldof mud

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At the Vietnam WallThis Fathers Day

Lyn Lifshin

grand children toucha name of a grandfathertheyll never know. Hermother says she cantremember what day ofthe week it was, just aregular day. It was in

the afternoon. It wasbright on a side streetin Chula Vista. She andher twin brother wereplaying near the kitchen.

She looked out thewindow and saw a darksedan with 3 men in itcome to a stop at the curb.

They watched the menstep out of the car in theirblack uniforms and standfor a moment in the sunshine. One carried anAmerican flag creased in atriangle. Another a folderwith papers in it. Just aregular day in October,1966. Just the twins, herolder brother and motherin the house, their father,gone to fight in Nam. Theyknocked on a door. My

brother and I startedlaughing and giggling.Some important men wercoming to our house and

we laughed, got silly, hidunder our bunk beds, stigiggling. They didnt stalong. Then we saw our min the living room. She wbroken down and wewere afraid. In the phograph he was always holdus. I think of you, of onmentioning two grandchiwondering if you ever tothem to the pool, if youheld them

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Hand and Name - Herman Slotkin

I say the Holocaust is history,but It is always my ghastly guest.

Sometimes I see slender-fingered Franzwho Zyklon-strangled Sophie and Max among others;

or Otto who, with practiced, blackened fingers,sorted gold and silver teeth and tossed the dross;

or Friedrich the philosopher who organized starvation.

Sometimes It is just The Plan-a business-wise erasure of people:goals, resources, criteria for success clearly set;costs and benefits envisioned, analyzed.

At worst, I see Winston and Charles,Franklin and me averting our eyes.

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after Muriel Rukeysers The Structure of the Planeand while listening to Beethovens 13th Quartet

with Cavatina and Grosse Fuge

todays bliss - will inman

today's bliss is a porcelain flowerin a tygers mouth. what the tyger cannottaste, he might crunch between his paradoxicjaws.

bliss

cannot last long in frozen shape,but such joy was always at risk. let the tygerapproach, let him lick out his galactic tongueand offer you the flower.

reachfingers

into his mouth and recover your bliss. let

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your hot hand soften porcelain, let the blownshape resume tenderness to petals. breathedeep from the blossom, suck nectar from the tipwhile your other hand scratches the tygers ears.

hemay lick your neck, he may bite your breast,

he may mount your wonder with a sky of darkresolve, he may impregnate you with godfuryand a tempest of butterflies,

his hunger is truerthan all the cannibal greed of patriarchs

and priests. hewill transform your glacial

purity to a veil behind which your eyes will openand see the rage and the tenderness of woken love

14 October 199

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12

Circums

tanceinExperience

PearlMaryWilshaw

Entrapped

amid

theriveroftime,

whirling,

flat,

pla

tterofstarlight

emitting

rad

iationfrom

poles

snatched

when

anearbyblackhole,

rarespecter

concealingthepoint

where

timeandspacemeet,

dancestheballet,

of

deathindarkness

invisib

leasagustybreeze

exceptthrough

actio

nsofsurroundings

seizedtoswallow,

a

companionstar

drawnin,

suckedup,

consu

medbybruteforce,


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Treed - R. Yurman

each paw striking soft earthI stretch my tail

and runThe baying at my heelsair tears my lungsinside my earsthe dizzy aching growsspit fliesfrom my tonguetheir hot breathsears my sidesthe teeththat filled my dreamssnap at my flanks

I scramble upthis deeper shadow

leave them yappingat its rootscirclingcrying for bloodtheir eyesyellow pointsthe slow upright onestrides among them

stick grippedbefore himwithout a yelpthe pack settles on its haunches

that long stickbursts the dark

sudden flashso brighttheir eyes are lostthen shattering soundthen paina quick fierce tearthen the yellow points agthe air takes me

ground callsand the sharp fangsfrom my dreamsclose over my fall

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911 - R. Yurman

Gimme your wallet, muthafucka,or Ill blow your head off.

Paperbag covered hand thrust toward mein the dark hes dark

inside the bagcould be a gun.

No headlights slash the evening street

the curbside trees wider than a man

the tall hedges hes backed me against.He pokes the bagged hand at my face.

I smell oil taste metal.Your wallet, he snaps.

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Show me the gun.His face closes on mine,

Your wallet, muthafucka..

Let me see the gun.

The pressure of his bodyhis thick strange hands

paperbag cast asiderifling my pockets

forcing me downIm caught between hedge and ground.

He flaunts the walletmoves away slowly.

I struggle to rise.He looks back.

Even in the dark his eyes

lock into mine,

Are you crazy? He pulls out the bills,waves them at me,

This worth dying for?He tosses the flat brown leather aside,

and not even running as I stumble afterdisappears down an alley.

No gun, I call,I knew there was no gun.

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Cinquains of an InsomniacIda Fasel

1.It isgood to questionlong held beliefs, but youmust be ready to question youranswers.

2.I amconcerned aboutchildren growing up ina world where to be infamousbrings fame.

3.Those twowho planned so wellnever knew To create

is greater than created destroy

Note: The quotation is froPara

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Of Hours - Donald Judson

After you had left your room, bagspacked, phone unplugged

and goneI calledknowing it would ring through, service not yet cut.Ghost rings.I called at fiveand then again at five-thirtyimagining the window, if I saw itfrom the street, and still there pushed up against its screenyour desk.

Yet, everything else now the subtraction of you.

The second call I allowed to count eight rings;the first, ten.Both ringing and nota voice, and nothing.

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On the Night of Orson Welless Radio Broadcast ofThe War of the Worlds, October 30, 1938

Robert Cooperman

While my not-yet grandmother listenedand gripped her chest to keep her heartfrom flying away in terror,my father and mother-to-besat in his older brothers car,the radio tuned to satiny swing music.

When they returned, holding hands,

my grandmother was screaming,my grandfatherrolling homeon a barge of beerswas trying to convince herthe show had been a hoax elaborateas any in a circus sideshow.

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Look! she shrieked,pointing out the windowto an unnatural glow:

the reflection of street lampsand billboard lights.

After she downed enough wineto see the launching padsof the Martian invasion force,she fell asleep, my grandfatherwinking as if to warn my father,

Still wanna be her son-in-law?

I wasnt conceived that night,real terrors to first be endured,Hitler worse than any monsterdreamed up in books or radio.

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youre not sure what. And soif thats Life, then Love mustbe that person sitting on yourlap next to Life while you gaze

off into the imagined futurewhere waits that woman who meetsall your needs, makes all yourdreams come true without anynagging or bad smells. Yes,thats the way it is so youwant to be careful: be carefulthat youre not so busy looking

at the water that you missthe boat.

from ART: MAG 21-A, Las Vegas, NV

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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

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 11

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