Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 21 no 4

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 21 no 4

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2000

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Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream


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Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamApril 2000

. . . for a gift is a mockeryif it be unfit for use. . .

from THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN (17Mary Wollstonecraft


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 21 Number 4 April, 2000Designed, 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

2000, Ten Penny Players Inc.

Lyn Lifshin 4-5

Will Inman 6-11

Joy Hewitt Mann 12-16

Geoff Stevens 17

Joanne Seltzer 18

Terry Thomas 19

Ida Fasel 20

John Grey 21

R. Yurman 22

Albert Huffstickler 23-24


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detail from portr

Mary Wollstonecraft1759-1797


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Three Days Before My Mothers Real Birthday - Lyn Lifshin

I think of the young woman I ran into last nightalmost staggering across the street. I rarely see

anyone I know in this town where people liveout of suitcases, so Im surprised its someone Iknow. She seems so pale. Then I see shes lugginga cat case and when I ask if the cat is ok, she saysno, a tumor. 17 years old. I think of my own cat,as old, how she has been drinking so much water,of how this years been a gift after the vet said

a year ago she was dying. A reprieve, an extra 4seasons. I think how when she doesnt eat, Imafraid, how it reminds me of my mother the lastmonths. I shopped wildly for treats, something thatmight tempt her as chocolate no longer could. Ibought her popsicles in exotic flavors blueberry,mango, apricot but still she kept shrinking until

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we no longer weighed her. All winter, coaxed andspoiled, my cat thrived, too heavy to jump up onthe bed, clawing her way in the night and nibblingdry food. Now with the air conditioning on, she

chooses a chair where its warm, some days seemsto be slipping from me as my mother did no longerworrying when I drove from the mountains to myhouse, or caring what I ate or where. On her gooddays, my mother and I sat in the jade light outdoorsand I brought her watermelon and strawberries andcream, one of the few things she still longed for.

Today I opened extra cans for my cat and she nibbledbut she feels lighter. When I brought my other to myhouse I knew what the end of her visit would be butnot how wed get there and I wanted to feel each day,however it went, was a gift wanted to feel grateful butthose last weeks, shriveling, she was like a kite I lostthe string to getting smaller and smaller

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lotto justice - will inman

Long time between real wars.Society of high expectations.

Frustrate ambition adds stress to testosterone.Drugs source big cash.Testosterone fuels risks.Jail a generation of young males,young men who might murder in the streets,lacking a war to legalize their rages.

Competitive system builds on losers.

Swarms have to be taken in.Many dont live up to expectations.Too many try to take an easy way.We breed hardnoses for legal advancement.We breed hardnoses and slick brains

for illegal advancement,Some shrew brains are intelligent but not wise.

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Testosterone promises they wont get caught.

Prosecutors play every trick to convict.The rest of us are scared and indignant:So what, some guys in prison didnt committhe crimes they were charged with. They

probably did things they thought they couldget away with. And, after all, no systemis perfect. What would it be likeif we had no law?

What will it take to change

our way of life? Prosperityand the safety to enjoy itare noble ideals for cannibals.

Dont take away my God-given things!

25 August 1999,

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38 axe wood fire - will inman

to cut wood with an axe is like taking stitches,like making love. its not just destruction, not

just aggression against the log, its a getting into,a laying down lengths for fire. but, too, its abeat, a rhythm of life and swing and haugh! witheach swing of heavy chop, i enter a deeper time, aplace in me where those ive loved still live,where they carry on, grow, become, in me butregardless of me, with me in me beyond me. each

blow, each thrust, is a body prayer, a magic bite,into an unknown, a place new that was just now face,now is naked under, come raw into sight, to bitterglad light. i look, i check the loose axe-head,jaw it firm in place by shocking haft-end hardagainst solid wood, then look and aim and swing andbring down haugh! with a force that shakes me, hurts

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my handbones, loosens my tendons, quakes bruises inmy shoulders. wood gives, cracks, breaks. i grieveits loss even as i rejoice in the breaking

fire. heat burns into face, through shirts intoshoulders. wood burns too fast, marks my own lifeseasons, again and again. i watch wood burn. iwitness my own mortality, i thrive in that fire.i endure in those embers. i scatter myself downashes. i lay on more limbs. now less lives to go

from Minotaur 1

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multiple births - will inman

she strode erect, head high, the way a proudman walks or a tribal woman with carrying vesselbalanced on her hair. i thought, If I ever get

married, itll be to someone like her. two dayslater, i saw her and a woman partner outside afive and dime store down the street selling notions.we spoke, our eyes lit by differents we thought weresames. next night, she came in from rain to the meatmarket where i worked, Bill, will you ride me home?But Ill have to pick up my two young uns from daycare. i did, feeling do-gooder and domestic. she

told me later that she and the other clerk had beteach other twenty-five cents which would be the firstto get a date with me. called that a date? she wasseparated from her husband, vowed she wouldnt makeit with another man till she was divorced. i didntpush.

months later, she stopped by where i worked

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(selling fish now), said i could come see her, nostrings attached. got me a hard on just listeningto her. we were together eight times. told me shewas pregnant. You said you knew how to keep from

that! she smiled, Now you can be an alternate inmy divorce. And now Ive helped prove to you thatyoure a man. the Party Chairman disapproved: Hereyes are set too far apart. i didnt send childsupport for five years, didnt believe I was hisfather till i saw his photo.

when he was fourteen,my son asked, Dad how many times did you and Mamado it? I told him, Eight times. he was indignant:Eight times! She told me yall just did it once.i looked at him, Bill, which of the eight wouldyou have had us not do it? Which seven? his eyesturned to mine, his mouth went O, i saw wisdomgrow in his face as he fathered himself for sure.

from Angelflesh #

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The Constant Lover - Joy Hewitt Mann

He tells me that he loves the sun: sends her flowers,blades of grass tied up with thistle down, dogwood

and pussy willow for her pets; offers her bouquetsof eggplant, symphonies of squash, pepper poemsto her beauty, mushroom murals from his palette of earth.She has gifted him with a kiss: a small blue molewith curling silvered edge has made him hers.Their love grows bigger every day.

previously published in Windsor Review

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Cherry Blossoms in the Ice Age - Joy Hewit

On the edge of this virgin lightI alone can foresee green valleys

dusted with pinkand crows against the skytheir darkness imploded.What else have I knownthis deep in winter? simple faith in solsticeand the gift of blossoms.Through this web of white

fall recedesand nothing guarantees wewill ever be warm again.

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Oriflamme - Joy Hewitt Mann

I never wanted roses. . . well, maybe one

held out to mehead teetering on itsstemand perhaps, a thornpiercinga fingeryour blood drippingon

my shoe

previously published in The Antigonish Review

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There's a picture of me catching myself onthe camera; he's standing with his back to me,

leaning away. Our son Danny's a grown manbut he must've took it when he was a kid,though why he didn't keep it, I don't know.

Earl leaned so far over the years hecouldn't touch me even if he really tried,although I still share his bed and listen tohis rote, the mumblings that the dark brings

close. He's not even energy for interestor even to turn over, and for me it's likeno one's been touched since Helen of Troy.

Early to Bed - Joy Hewit

The preacher says it's a sin, but not oneI'm guilty of.

I've seen the cloudsparted by giant hands; I've watched as layintersect. I've heard Nature's poundingand lightning's orgasmic crash. I've tremas the rains came.

It's not much past teno'clock, and the house is so quiet.

Previously published in The Harpweaver

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The Fall of Ripe Apples - Joy Hewitt Mann

Between the body of the tree and its rootslabored fruit is laid out and dying; waspsattracted by the languid scent of semi-death

are drunk on fermented apples.Stooping with a gathered apron in one hand, Iam picking windfalls, blood-warmin the sun, squeezing for firmness, fearingI may find a soft heart inside.

Knowing this, apples groan in the trees,skins beaded with the sweat of panic, pulseagainst the pull of gravity.

Sometimes, walking out like this, I feel likethat lost child again; too small to stretchI ate windfalls, streaked red and yellowlike the makeup of a weeping clown, satwhere the trees cried seeds into the earthand grass was slick with decayingapples. We

you and I, have lost that trail home.In this red face of late Fall, Isee your mouth empty of desire, discardinthe tart taste of new apples, voicehard as the hawthorns that fallbetween the barbs, tastebudsshriveled with age.

Remembering the fruit we once shared, I suck in air sweet scented as old perfume, the wind coaxing ripe appleseach tremble of leaf like foreboding;seeing us both brown and shriveled, readyto drop to the ground; holdingmy breath, wondering ifthe apples hold theirs.

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Geoff S

Even if you feel that a gift is unfit for you,Thank You is the only adequate exchange.

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Husbands ChoiceJoanne Seltzer

A box of chocolates,

bitter darknessfilled with nuts and fruits,the diabetics gift.

But she likes milk,remembersrich cream that flowedfrom her flesh factorythirty years before,has told him oftendo not bring menuts and fruits,do not bring me dark.

He licks his lips,remembersflavors and texturesuntouched by timeor insulin.

Like a classic bitchshe hurls the unwrapped,unopened boxat his face, an actshe will atone for.

Forehead spotted redhe stoops to gathereach paper wrappereach forbidden sweet,restores the box as ifit were not destinedfor the garbage.

And this is lovein marriage,the picking upof thrown chocolates,

the bruises,the forgetting.

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Had Two Poems - Terry T

Had two poems scratchingto get out, like dark

cats blinking green,eyeing prey; maybeprodigal sons on the runfrom law-and-order ego;rats gnawing through rotten wood.Had two poems die, killedlike bitter rivals fightingover space, somewherebetween my center and eyes.

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Of What Use These Gifts? - Ida Fasel

Since anangel lent me

her eyes for a moment,I see earth forever in afraction,

I healin the cadencedbeauty of a larks songthat only soared off with my lifesworst day.

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It is a fact that the microwaveand toaster cannot be engaged

at the same time.As much as I may wish them to,they cant beat along fiercely,side by side, chewing upall the electricitytheir motors desire.It is another factthat one woman at a time

is not so much enoughas how were designed.Two joys, two despairs,cannot co-exist,not even one of each.What I love must be

what I despise,who I am angry with today

is tomorrows fodderfor my best feelings.Only one thing can be beyond

reasonat a time.

Of course, when it comesto appliances competing for

the same juice,there is nothing in the guide booksto suggest such a scenario.The manual for the microwaveand that for the toasterare as self-absorbed as poetry.

Blowing thJoh

For the time spentindulging them in

their diagrams and instrthey are the one beatingin the entire universe.They allow for no other.And yet here I amreheating the coffeeand making the toast.Here I am praying thatthe one I never want to seis the one I never want tlet out of my sight.

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Street Mother - R. Yurman

The street requireseyes that scan

for things to wear,dry newspapers, warm corners.Id hold my daughters handif shed let me,show her how to cadge a smoke,which dumpsters yield unspoiled food,teach my son to hunt through garbage cans.

They thinkthey have survival skills already,hold jobs, pay bills.I want them street-wisenot street-blindthe way I used to be

a fool protected firstby fathers roof

then husbands name.

Suppose it turns on themit can, it willcould they learn to travellike me, on foot,without sleep or soap,live off leavings,

absorb the stares?

Theyre my childrenhow can I make them hear.

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Threads - Albert Huffstickler

Thomas Wolfe came into my life my first and last year in collegeat Chapel Hill, North Carolina. With his advent, loneliness became not just

a force but an entity. Wolfe made me conscious of something that Idsuspected all along that we are alone down here, that no one really knowswhats going on inside us. That was a heavy pill to swallow at seventeen.Add to this my natural shyness, my inability to summon the right words ina social situation, particularly involving members of the opposite sex, andyou have a crisis of mammoth proportions. You have an encounter with bothyour destiny and your basic riddle or is this redundant? Add to this anurge to write, to speak on paper the words that never seemed to come at amore appropriate time and you have purpose.

Oh, all of this wasnt that clear-cut at the time. I was too busyresisting it. I fled the loneliness, fled my fate like the hero of a Greektragedy. And it pursued me like the Furies. I attempted relationships. Ieven developed a mask since I observed that others succeeded with a sort

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of prefabricated persona which was able to respond in social crises. Ibecame The Poet. But the mask was made of very insubstantial materialsand many days I awoke to find it riddled with holes. I rode each day fromecstasy down to desolation. Finally I got married in the hope of stabilizing

my identity. All this my first year at college. It began with Thomas Wolfeand ended in marriage. In between was a lifetime perhaps severallifetimes. Thus came about myinitiation into my destiny and my madness.

from Clark St. Review #5, San Luis Obispo, C

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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)

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 21 no 4