Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 23 no 7

7/31/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 23 no 7

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2002

Ju

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream


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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, July 2002

A tall, slender, old man straight as a young tree, he passby every day with his basket of flowers. At intervals helstop, look up at the windows on either side of the street awhistle a snatch of an aria from an Italian opera.

Margot de Silva"Afternoon On MacDougal Street"


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 23 Number 7 July, 2002Designed, 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 en

Waterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-21272002, Ten Penny Players Inc.

www.tenpennyplayers.org

Ida Fasel 4Will Inman 5-6David Michael Nixon 7-8Peggy Raduziner 9-10Terry Thomas 11-12

Herman Slotkin 13

Susanne Olson 14-16Gertrude Morris 17-18Joy Hewitt Mann 19-21Joan Payne Kincaid 22-23Albert Huffstickler 24-27
http://www.tenpennyplayers.org/http://www.tenpennyplayers.org/http://www.tenpennyplayers.org/


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Souvenirs - Ida Fasel

Walking

with Brahms besidethe Rhine, along the lakes,in streets of Rome, I move in grandalles

of soundhe left on airas he composed themes andpassages that became musicI know

by heart,

my souvenirsthat wont tarnish or breakor lose their resonance packedfor home.

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dusk dance in wetlands shallows - will inman

forward waters of high tide drank themselves steadily but slow

into wetlands, bulrushes, cattails, and tall stalked grasses. hewaded in the brackish mix, his footsteps making shallowsdance. a white heron, scouting minnows and other small frysome yards away, watched him, meanwhile making her own

light dancing along tidal edges.he slowed his pace, slackened his dance,not wanting to disturb the heron, but she slowed, too,though darting her long beak after a careless minnow

or a too-brave frog.it grew late, and tide gathered herself in slow surges of shadows.came a while when heron spread her wide wings into stretching

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began to beat late air with feathers, lifted long legs behinddragged dusk into her ascending as she flewback along tides edge to her cypress nesting.

he stood fixed in shade, watching her, felt tidelift dark with fallen night into the hollow drumof his chest. he wanted to sing after her, he

wanted to flybut something in his wrists and shouldersbeat among waking stars. he smiledand a quieter frailer tide ran joyousout of his shining eyes.

from The Lucid Stone#29, Sprin

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Joes Blues - David Michael Nixon

No blues between the clouds,

but under Joes own blackone, a steady fall ofblue rain follows him,so he shall have musicwherever he goes.

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Wade in the Water - David Michael Nixon

Wading in the emerald river of jazz,

my jeans got soaked in that wild water,eddy and flow, then roaring current,and always the clear, cold, liquid present,keeping me focused and alive.

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Musical Village - Peggy Raduziner

It was a mild spring Saturday afternoon.Walking in Little Italy, across 3rd Street, I turned south

toward Bleecker and discovered the Amato Opera Theatre.A huge sign in front said CARMEN 3 P.M. FREE ADMISSION.I was curious and went inside to a dimly lit room, sat down (it

wasnt crowded yet), and was handed a program and an extraprinted sheet with the story of Carmen in English.

The hour came and the room went dark.The curtain rose.The scene was a factory. Two girls started arguing. Their

soprano voices hit the ceiling.

It made me think of a recent experience of my own.

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I was sitting on the edge of my seat.They started fighting for real. This part was so good!

At intermission time, Mr. Amato himself appeared on the stage.

With an Italian accent, bright smile, and a twinkle in his blue eyeshe said, I hope you are enjoying this performance. If you can,please make a donation so we can continue to give thesetalented students a chance to perform and succeed.

We all applauded, and when the box came around, gave a dollar.Some of those young people later became famous.

But that was sixty years ago. Now the Amato is over on the Boweryat 2nd Street.

Admission is $28 to see Carmen, Aida, and many other operas Ienjoyed back then from a front seat for a dollar!

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Augury in the Grape ArborTerry Thomas

Heard a fluteat the witching hour

Galway calling up fansor fiends. Maybe it was

a pan pipe. Putmy hands over my ears,

gritted my teethfillings ached, gums itched,feet twitched (wanted to get up).

Next day I found little hoof prall through my grape patch

some peeled, some heeledinto a juicy mash.

Maybe peccaries, if they walkon hind legs now.

Had to do something: splashed

some recycled lageron all four posts.

Human smell disenchantment.Next day...tracks and cracked f

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Made a scarecrowfierce. Burlapbag face, bearded in milkweed,beetle browed, nails for toes,

needles for fingerslike the creator.

Lingered a bit to admire Mr. Repellenttill shadows grew long...too long.

Next day, same thingexcept that

my cloth man was in tatters.like hed danced himself

to death.

Tonight Ill take his placeface the unknown and irritat

Already my heart is beginning to flu

as the moon slides,a glob of white hotbutter, behind a cloud.

Ill wait for somethinghave always beenthe Soul of Pagan Curiosity,

and what do I have to lose

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A Place Near Bleecker - Herman Slotkin

There is a place near Bleecker Street

with a circle and a squarewhere, when the lights went up,I was born again on ONeills stoney soil,feeling desire under the brooding elms;where Abbie, born Coleen Dewhurst,sat on a nail keg near my lap,

tears welling in her eyes,for her monstrous act of love,and begged for my understandingwhich I gave, which I give.

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Harmony - Susanne Olson

Morning is Peace

predawn quietlingering darkbirds chirping drunk with sleepbursting into full orchestracoolness enticing one last slumber

before the new days call

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Day is Peace

bright midday sunshutters drawnfiltering the glaring headquiescent dozingsupine languor

placid repose

Evening is Peacedelicate dusk

shadow floating over soulwrapping consciousnessin down and satinunder sloping branchesof an ancient tree

gliding into dreamsrecedingtranquil veil of silence

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Night is Peace

warm summer darksecret opaquesensuous fragrancenatal plum jasminemock-orange blossoms

voluptuous wonders of my bodyunfathomable depth of soul

Life is Peacethreatening storms sultry air

distances eruptinginto ominous flashesthunders rumbling rolldissolving into longed-for rainlightness relief

melting spirit intoPeace

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Other Rooms - Gertrude Morris

My brother learned to play on a violino piccolo

later, on a counterfeit Amati.

(Brahms whispered through the rooms that summer.)Now, when I hear a violin, I hear his voice

in the tender mathematics of Tartini,

of Bach and Corelli, a voice of reason

that heals, and opens the wound again.And I remember when he waited in coma-dream,

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until a red eye winked and his heartran off the screen, like a dancer exiting.

Too late we were learning to love each other,as the lion learned to love the lamb.

Now his body would go through the fire;he would become his photographs,

forever younger than little sister.

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Bedalis - Joy Hewitt Mann

Ten years in the Glebe and I never knew Bedali,

only his Specials, reduced Fridays, his

roll-your-owns burning away in a Pabst ashtray, all

his words ending with an a, sweeping street dust,

debris and flies felled by Vapona strips, his shoulders

round and hard as melons, the fluorescent lightsflickering above the foggy breath of coolers;

the way he pushed back his thin hair slowly, his smile

encompassing his small domain like a wife, the

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blending smells of fruit and cheese and vegetables

like the smell of a woman fresh from long lovemaking,

how he held an artichoke, heart moving beneath

fingertips stained red with the juice of raspberries

stroking the soft fuzz of an apricot, his

outspoken love for persimmons, flesh of glazed

flame, bing cherries glistening like saliva-tipped

nipples, escarole white as an inner thigh, holdingbreath for durian, like holding ones breath

for the taste of woman, the acid bite of jujube

or tamarind, the treason of pomegranates,

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lovers fruit like jeweled blood;

conjuring foreign things through celeriac, kohlrabi, salsify and taro,

smiling at loquat, mombin and sapodilla, incanting

akee, caprifig, icaco, sprinkling water like a priest.

Now the hair and accent thinner, the drooping skin,

the lustre wearing slightly from the eyes; but still

the loving touch, the cry of joy;

all those fruitful, vegetable days gone deep into my bodypushing life beyond the scent of marang, and the sweat

of one Italian grocer.

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Haibun At Forest ParkJoan Payne Kincaid

Water gone from water hole.Each time I added water to

Peters birdbath more birds

would come down. The birds

kept coming and taking turns

to splash and wash. There wouldbe two in at a time . . . Indigo Bunting

with Northern Oriole, Parula with

Bay-breasted Warbler, Common

Yellowthroat Warbler with Scar

Tanager. And all the while thenesting Wood Thrush was singin

in the canopy. It was a theatri

event.

these birds dont matchsplashing together

in the birdbath

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This May Late Afternoon - Joan Payne Kincaid

I remember such days on Bleecker Street

learning operas with Tony and Sally Amato;now on this grass and buttercup lawnI sip green teanext to a poston top of which four miniature mouths squeakthrough a tiny doorway:

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mommy daddymommy daddy . . .

interminably

I suppose were we in Italyit would bemia madre mio padremia madre mio padre

per sempre


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Eyes Albert Huffstickler

I think she was my eyes.

I havent drawn since she died.The pictures arent there.I think on some deep level,Im blind and wonderif theres some spell orritual that I can perform

that will bring my eyes back.We know so little andso much that were certainis under our control is not.

I look off into the distance

and see an old man, blind,led through an ancient cityby a girl child. She ishis eyes. They move together.What each would forfeitwithout the other is

beyond believing.

From Fireno. 14, Oxfordshire,

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Hickory Street Breakfast BluesAlbert Huffstickler

Morning coffeein anoutdoor caferememberingslowly

The birdshave made peacewith themorning traffic.

Theyve gonecontrapuntal.

Little bylittleI draw youup out ofme andstare you down.

You donthurt now.Youre justMemory.

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My mother,in her innocence,believed

it all beganwith howpeople treatedeach other.

Wanda,

old friendlong dead,do youhear the birds?

do yousmell the coffee?

I thinkwhen I dieit will justbe for a littlethen Illwake up standing

beside a roadin the morning light.

Your eyes

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contain the night.You hold sleepin your hands.

The geometryof woman flesh,the metaphysicsof your breasts,how stars are born

out of your navel

The brine ofyour thighs

washes me backto ocean depthsand

that first memory.

If I sat here writingall day,who could blame me?But the day

waits.

From Nerve Cowboy, Spring 1996, Au

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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

Documents

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 23 no 7