Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 2

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 2

1/30

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream

1999

20th

Annivers

ary

Feb


2/30

Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamFebruary 1999

Centrifugal power, expanding universewithin expanding universe, what stillnesseslie at your center resting among motion?

from The GyroscopeTHEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)Muriel Rukeyser


3/30

WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 20 Number 2 February, 1999Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara Fisher

Thomas Perry, Assistantcontents

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 4-7

Will Inman 8-9

Geoff Stevens 10-11

Barbara Sax 12-13

Terry Thomas 14

Kristin Berkey-Abbott 15-16

David Michael Nixon 17

Pearl Mary Wilshaw 18

Veva Dianne Lawson 19-20

Lyn Lifshin 21-23

Albert Huffstickler 24-28


4/30


5/30

I Have Heard the Screaming of the WindJoy Hewitt Mann

I have come to soundless streetsto escape him, wary, knowing the hundredwrong ways I can turn; standing mannikinto mannikin as he floats up the glass.The wind grasps the awnings; potted saplingstwist away. I tell her to be quiet.The most important thing is quiet,

knowing that neighbours are eyeless, earsin their feet. Rising, I flow through the pane,enter that silent window-woman.There is no hurt if I am not involved,though the air may scream.

4


6/30

In Search of Joy Hewitt

The smell of last nights perfume and muston the sheets;hair sings absonant and eyescrease with puzzled agony.

I have promised myself, not this time;I have promised myself, every time.But the limbs line upso nicelyand the eyes are soblue

and the night has a way of sucking you hollow,letting in aloneness --

space sans stars.

5


7/30

Looking for the MadstoneJoy Hewitt Mann

The incense of her burning hairrises like a potent genie.Pulling more grey strands from the linty brushshe lays them in the tray to savefor tomorrow. Her nailsare dark with imbedded dirtand she laughs

comparing them to the yellowed onesbedded in the garden.Under her pillow is a scrap of paper.She irons it each Thursday, knowinga name will be written thereone day. And if

6


8/30

she stares in the mirror long enoughhis facewill appear. Itwill be round like hers,the hair a distinguished gray,the eyes scored with lines, the jawrigidand the cheeks a littletear-stained.

7


9/30

light speeds almost as swiftwill inman

light speeds almost as swift as ultimatestillness, that infinite calm is fastest of all,waking in every center at once.

listen to thosefurthest reaches, hark steep to your own centerwhere far hurtling rims of universes are at home,

laying their eggs down you, rifewith black holes, sunbursts, foetuses of galaxiesand great random swirls of dust and meteorscharged fertile with gods chaos.

its all in you,how much a stranger are you to your own benevolentdistances? fly

those hungry closenesses, surf

8


10/30

those beyond-fathomings with the divine poiseof laughter, god is enemy only to glibexpectations: you be the one who rainbows yournecessary death with knowing all one being

can receive naked and delve in this infinitearm-reach of one lifetime.

we cannot blame godfor our one-time mortality: god dies and diesand dies and keeps coming alive again screamingout of fresh mothers, creating her around her painand her childs shaping. we, each of us, incarnationof that waking awakener, we look in to one anothersfaces and see all of time shining in our eyes

how that wave mounts us we mount that wave

7 October 1998

9


11/30

EarthGeoff Stevens

We are clinging onin the hope that you may ceaseto whirl upon your axis,stay the passage of timebefore our hair has gone grey,our bones brittle, breath bad,our brain churned of all reason.

We hold onto a hope for miracles.

10


12/30

Spin Doctor WGeoff St

Centrifugal power, acting ona universe of diverse matter,spinning in interactive orbits,while at its very center,one lone sock is motionless,as pants, towels, bras,blouses and skirts, tangle

in an orbit of asteroids,caught up in a washday turmoil,like the rings of Saturn.

11


13/30

MaytagBarbara Sax

so the big investment todaya washing machinelet me tell you this isnt just any washerthis is the new state of the artmaytagneptunecomes with a video narrated by

the TV maytag manwhat is most excitingit washes it rinses it drainsthats bestit drainsthe old whirlpool refused the draining part

12


14/30

this new machine is a landmark for energy savingsaves water detergent electricitysounds like a 747 picking up speed on the runwaytakes humungous loads

the dryer next to it just chuckledwont even try to keep up with its new young matepossiblythis washer will outlive me

13


15/30

PossibilitiesTerry Thomas

When she said,Keep the elbow away from the fan,I thought,Ill put it any damn place I want!Then I thought:You dont know who she is --(I dont either);

elbow could be me or macaroni --(its neither);

and a fan could be a gyrator,

an expectoratoror a spectator toan event which is constitutedto entertain and generate (or)a profit--

(Im a believer.)

14


16/30

Darwinian ConundKristin Berkey A

What mad impulse

drove that first prehistoric cowto ignoreevolution,to lumberback into the sea?

Maybe it grew tired

of land based gravity.Maybe it missed the sensationof grace providedby salt water.Maybe it could senseits bovine destiny.

15


17/30

Faced with chewing cud,being milked,and ending up as hamburger,the choice makes sense.

To leave the weight of the land behind,to return to aquatic life,cuddled by the tides,surrounded by the bright wallpaperof tropical fish -what animal wouldnt cravethese sleek, sensual surroundings?

Two separate existences.The dull domesticity of the cow,the bright intelligence of the dolpThat first cow who turned its bac

on its evolutionary dutydeserves accolades.

What foresight.How would our world be changedif a prehistoric chimp

had waded back into the water?

16


18/30

David Michael

To leapabove the pooland fall through air that shinesas bright as water in hard sun:no splash!

17


19/30

Waltz of a PointPearl Mary Wilshaw

A point, planar,moved,displayed a trailbecame linear.Heedless of constraintit bounded about,veered off course, went

askew to continue alonga curvilinear path.

Challenged at aturning point,the line segmentabandoned its goal

to remain rectilinearand adapted itselfto edging aboutin circular orb, pastthe hemicyclic stage,back to its point oforigin becominga closed curve,configured, a basicgeometric shape...the sacred symbol of

perfection.

18


20/30

UncertVeva Dianne La

At any point in time, an electronsspeed or its location can be measured,

but not both.Merely observing the infinitesimalobject causes it to change its behavior.Scientists are not even sure how toexplain if it actually exists

since it seems to come into beingonly upon careful observation.The principle is uncertainty.

I draw my words with sharp pen and dull knifeto carve out and explain an infini-

19


21/30

tesimal piece of existence, to describewith some accuracy, a feeling,an exquisite pain, even joy. And justwhen I think I have it, it whirls out of reach.

It is truth, but only for a moment,certainly not the whole truth. It is realto me, but I fear it is not even

close to reality.

So I grit my teeth and try.I can give you its location or its speed,

but not both.

20


22/30

Now Shes on MonetsLyn L

She pictured a yard of poppies, saw the house at night and itwas ok, it was the name of the street that got her, even ifarthritis twisted her fingers, even if it hardly made sense tounpack her pallets and easel shed have a street on her cardshe could live with. Forget the illustrators, the so cute designsshe made money doing, waiting for the time when she could paint

what she wanted to. Maybe she thought, packing up the photographs and pottery, for the 7th move in 11 years, in a state lesshumid and wet her joints wouldnt swell like her husbands rageat the last daughter, the one theyd paid so for a private highschool and then she drops out of college and takes up with thefirst boy, another drop out with a job that wont go anywhere

21


23/30

and theyre sure is on drugs, bad enough for any father butfor one in the FBI. My neighbor had had it, never sure each housewont be pulled from under her, but things will be different now.

On Monets Lane the light will be perfect, the stillness of flowers,nothing louder than the purr of a cat. Someone tells her of a townnamed for the painter that isnt anything like what shes supposed,

an abandoned mine town surrounded by dying farms. No poppies,no women with parasols, no green blue water, no regatta, noArgenteuil, just a diner, Monets Diner. And some trucks withthe name in red letters. But on her Monets Lane, my old neighbor isexpecting shimmery afternoons, none the same but all luminousas the dazzle of light on the cathedral at Rouen or the garden

22


24/30

of Tuileries and if she doesnt paint, shell be surrounded by abeauty better than paintings. Everything will be new, like a honeymoon again. Everything will be light on Monets Lane, the haystacks,the poplars and of course the lilies, soothing pastels, her greying

hair will suck in brightness and then, the news: the baby daughter hasher own baby daughter, decides not to give the girl away but to come

with the man and baby back to live. The daughters had colorless days,cant take any more, needs light, some comfort needs to drift gentlyinto a Monet riverscape where there is plenty of food pretty peopleflirting and playing, lured to the calm

23


25/30

InheritanceAlbert Huffstickler

In a sense, you could saythat I learned to write frommy father--even though henever wrote anything. Butwhat he did do, very often,was sit at the dining roomtable over coffee, cigarette

in hand, and his eyes wouldgrow distant, very distant,till everything around himwas lost in that distance.And he would sit that waywhile the coffee grew cold

24


26/30

and his cigarette burneddown . . . and I would sit byhim, mimicking him, trying

to gain that same distance,

go where he went. Yearslater, when I finally knewI would be a poet and wasstruggling to find thatplace inside myself thatthe writing came from, Ifound myself sitting over

coffee, cigarette in hand,going to the same place.Somewhere I have a sketchthat Jan made of me in thatvery pose, writing. In a way

you could say the writingis easy--once you know whereto go. And I know where togo, you see, because

my father taught me

from Pitchfork #1, Austin T

25


27/30

St. Francis Was a Flower ChildAlbert Huffstickler

Heres how it is:theres one part of usthat stays innocent no matter what.Now, that innocent part of ustakes everything as it sees it.You meet a cheerful guy,

you think hes cheerful all the way through.

But then gradually you get to know himand he starts telling you how depressed he really is.Bummer.Or you meet a guy thats all togetherand you think that all-togetherholds to the very core of his being.

26


28/30

Then graduallyhe starts tell you his fears, doubts, confusionsand the next thing you knowhes just like you.

What you learn and forget over and over is:that perfect face you see on first encounteris flawed - just like yours.Everybody is hanging on.I tell my therapist almost everythingbut I dont ask too many questions.I need that all knowingness.

I need for her to have it together.We all need for somebody to have it togethereven if its only God.That way we can maintainthat innocence that we need so desperately

27


29/30

to survive in a worldwhere the sharks outnumber the minnows,where mercy is considered a weaknessand a loving heart deformity.

In our hearts,we all need desperately to be flower childrenbecause when the flower dies,we go with it.

from Simple Vows, #2, 1999, San Ant

28


30/30

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 2