waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol 20 no 5

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream Vol 20 no 5

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1999

20th

Annivers

ary

May

Waterways:Poetry in the Mainstream


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Waterways: Poetry in the MainstreamMay 1999

The child will have a hard time to be an American,he says slowly, fathered by a man whose country is awho believes there are no heroes to withstandwind, or a loose bolt, or a tank empty of gas.

The Tunnel

THEORY OF FLIGHT (1935)Muriel Rukeyser


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 20 Number 5 May, 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 enveloWaterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127

1999, Ten Penny Players Inc.

Robert Cooperman 4-7

Joan Payne Kincaid 8-9

Ida Fasel 10-11

Terry Thomas 12-13Kit Knight 14-15

Joy Hewitt Mann 16-17

Will Inman 18-20

Kristin Berkey-Abbott 21-23

Albert Huffstickler 24-28


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Michael Enright, Class President of Central High School, Goes on a Crime SRobert Cooperman

School was too easy,teachers dumb as mail boxes,the principal so blindhe couldnt see I was shagginghis daughter behind his back.Nothing to look forward tobut more of the same in college

with a full scholarship;and then what, work? No thanks.

I bought a gun and a ski mask,and knocked over Mom and Popmarkets so often

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I shouldve given discounts;the last time,I had to stick the shooterbehind Pops earwhen he turned stubborn.

So I decided to cool itin Mexico, partying on the beachuntil the locals locked me upon a bogus charge in a jail

any TV hero couldve busted out ofwith a strong rope and a jeep.

After Dad finally sprung me,he insisted I had to enrollin that East Coast collegeto get me out of his hair,and conscience. Ill caseevery bodega in the city.Classes? Somethingto fall back on.

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Ellen Smith Remembers Her Terrible Journey to the Oregon Territory, Robert Cooperman

Williams heart crashed like a treesplintered by lighteningwhile he cheered the rest of us onnot to give up, nothing left to eatbut the cattle wed brought west.I was too froze and hungry to cry.

But worse was in store: my oldest,Eliza, pretty as a high-stepper,took ill with the typhoid.After she passed like a small wind,someone said four feet was deep enough.I swore Id dig the last two myself.

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Shamed, they put backs to groundwinter-hard as convict stones,and my young-uns trapped wood mice,almost the meat of a chicken wing.But we trudged on through snowfalling sharp as Indian arrows.

Finally, the oxen wouldnt pull,the men wore churchyard stares;

they stopped, sat, and waited for the endwhile I harangued like a peddler.Then, praise God, the miracle!a pack train from Fort Salemwith provisions for stragglers.

After we celebrated Christmas,I applied for my 640 acres,like William wouldve wanted.But its hard work without him and Elihard work and scalding tears.

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How Children Learn - Joan Payne Kincaid

This child says I want to be Presidentbut you will have to

give it a sex manual;teachers teach the valueof freedom but the head shakes sadly

at a burgeoning prison industry which cages usaccording to financial status and color;we are taught to value life

and see the death penaltywith its various methods of murderpitting us against each other;

this child sees a world of no ruleother than criminal or corporatewith nuclear secrets sold to the highest bidder;

we are told to value nature

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and habitats of all creatureswhile children must witness countries

like Japan continue to kill whales,buy old growth forest wood,

kill for tusks from those who grow them;this child sees forests cut down

with all their wealth of plants andeven yet undiscovered beings

for cattle to graze...the cost...extinction,the eyes of children are not blindto an infant death row in Iraq imposed by American bombs;

to the aged abandoned in warehouse nursing homesor homeless children, often prostitutes in every cityin a country that throws away all but the upper class;

this child is watching the lovely blue planetthat once was paradisebeing flushed down the toilet.

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Something Is Being OverlookedIda Fasel

They wrote the script and staged it.

They supplied the props, themselvesthe principals in the drama.We admire creators, dont we?We admire Renaissance types.

They planned, bought, assembled, savoredthe makings of their major military operation.They were younger than Alexanderwhen they had their first success.We admire action, don't we?We admire heroes.

They were achievers, clearly,famous before they reached twenty.They made the cover of Time

and are talked about worldwide.For they are celebrities, arent they?We admire celebrities.

They took their lives grandlyas befitted great powers.They will live on, cultified, glorified.For they are young gods, arent they?Fresh, new gods known by their first

Yes, April is the cruelest monthfor the handwork of these artisans.

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Hopefully, Next Time Round - Ida

Our timesare divided

between those who can breathebad air of high places and thosewho cant.

I longto cast my votefor one who wont rouse hateto win, one unaware he iswholesome

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A Lesson in Anatomical - Terry Thomas

The Devil never kisses on the lips.He just nuzzles -- puzzles out

distance tween throatand portal to the heart of despair.It isnt fair of him,but he licks at the pulse,stubble sticking like pitchforks,working skin likea jaded gigolo. I knowhe avoids the breath,like death. Besides, whywould he want to kiss a manon his sinful lips anyway --he saves that for the hot embrace later.

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It wasnt much,

(as round things go) didnt glow, glimmeror shimmer with a TinkerBell brilliance.Swell. Wasnt gold certainly wasnt old enoughto qualify as an heirloom;didnt even particularly cutthe gloom of adolescence.Was more brass, brassy,than anything else.

The Night Thomas Lost HisTerry T

Seems like it was shelved

most of the time unused, almost amusedin neglect.Pain-in-the-neck passion!Wasnt really fashionable orwatch fobby. ButI know its gone like the sad neglectof a pull tabfor the soul.

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Phoebe - Kit Knight

Its embarrassing to needa doctor to lance

a mere abscess on my armwhen there are over600 ruinously injured menwho really needthat doctor. The woundeddont complain and Im ashamedwhen I do. Southern mennever allowed their ladiesto be nurses, but The WarBetween the Stateshas forced us to use allour resources. The first thing

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I made was a pot of soup,and I assured everyoneId used a chicken and nota rat. Although two brothers

swore rats basted withbacon fat were excellent.I gave one soldiera haircut, wrote a letterfor another and washed maggotsand teeth fragmentsfrom the mouthof a third. Hed been shottwice, weeks ago. Somepatients hadnt seena female face for sixmonths; one rough Texan

stared hard enoughto make my nose bleed,then said I was as pretty asa pair of red shoes with

green strings. Indeed,hospitals are both lovelyand unlovely places. Anotherof my duties was assistingthe surgeons. I wroteto my sister, How courageousthe constant sightof amputations makes one--anything less seems trifling.

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Prosthesis - Joy Hewitt Mann

Mothers ambition for me at ten, ranacross her post-war smile, her too-white,

too-perfect English teeth. I would marrya rich Canadian; she would eat bananaseveryday. And if I ever needed placements,they would fit perfectly.

My mothers ashesgift Ontario soil and I, unmarried, pack herhand-made clothes, her Woolworths jewels,her man-made British teeth, to help theunderprivileged.

I see a mother smile, denturesmilk against her butter skin, brown eyesreflect her infant married to a richAmerican. She would eat everyday andsmiling would be natural.

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Scant milk in a flaccid breastand a fistful of rice held up against the day

a mother drowns her childcontinues to bend, bend, bendcalf-deep in the paddies;city children embrace the grave likea parent, kissthe fumes of slow poisonsor slower still, die and dieunder the bodies of a hundred foreign men.

Hard Bodies - Joy Hewitt

Olive skin and eyes black as Hellwont believe

in America it may be harder: not speathe language; living with sirens, screamand silences; avoidingbullets every day. Hard

to be a child inAmerica?

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do not make rules for incarnationswill inman

to be an American can be as diverse

as sand, as leaves, as wisps of smoke, asbrookwater, as rain

as alike as stonesin the shoulders of a road, or as shellsalong a shore or as trees on the mountain.never make rules for incarnations, theywill all cry god! from different faces,they will curse you, bless you, make lovewith you, hug you with distance in theirarms and lips, they can be so perversethere is hope for them.

when they whirl

like a flight of leaf-cutter ants, theylost. freedom must be watered withdisagreements. freedoms harmony mkeep fresh with sweat and questions.

dolphins know how to work withoutvoting booths, but we who mark a pagewith our opinions are sometimes too lato work for consensus.

if we could leto mark our boundaries wolf-style with piss, then cross and re-cross with laugmaybe we could learn to fly, being stiland love this land by asking whybefore we die for her.

8 October 1998

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feeding on shadows - will

what are those invisible vines crawlingthrough black space? theyll come right

down into your bed at night. theyllstroke your face with darkness. youllpull a leaf and chew it, and then

youll see the vines. their bloomswill be heads of creatures and humans,coyotes and chimpanzees, and even dolphins.they can all talk. youll understand everyword but not what they mean.

theyll getunder your fingernails. theyll crouchin your navel and under your secret folds.some critters and some humans will be

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talking to you out of openings in yourself.theyll be you being not-you. being morethan you. being who you are you didntknow was part of you.

about then, youlleat another leaf. youll feel a brick wallrising in your chestbone, separating youfrom who you thought you were with who

you never were not.hanh! now thats a trip

you didnt have to take a single stepto travel on. and a further distance than mapscan carry or telescopes can scan.

the vineswill creep down your blood vessels, coilaround your rib bones, lie listening

along the curves of your ears. youll heverything and things that are not evethere. itll be too late then: you can'tback out. cant run away. cant lie you

way out of it.you will sing the vines

and the vines will sound you. and shadof those dark leaves will curl around yand swallow you whole. if you wake upwill you know who you are?

7 November 1996

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Season of Migration - Kristen Berkey-A

As I sink my roots into the soilof this job and this house, I ponder

this century of human migration.Spring, the season of movement.Shad and salmon swim to new water, swallowsand butterflies flood the air. Even the treesin my backyard try to move elsewhere;with each shiver of wind, seeds siftthrough the air.

I buy more plants than I have earthto offer. I haul them around the yardin my wheelbarrow, looking for any blankspots in the yard where I can stuff

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them. Transplanted, they flourish in this alien soil.Im afraid we wont be able to saythe same thing about this current cropof refugees. Marched through the mountains,

herded from their homes,the very old and very young and the most sicklycarted along in wheelbarrows.A human line stretchesback from the border for six miles,

yet still they arrive, fleeing the ferocityof soldiers, fierce as a spring storm,cold fronts meeting warm air.

Thousands of miles away, I participate in the spring rituals.I buy matching Easter outfits for my daughterand me; I shuttle my son

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to baseball practice and think of refugee childrenplaying soccer with a coke bottle, playingin the muck that comes from too many humanswith too little sanitation. Earthly atrocities

make me hover, but I try to swallow my instinctto smother my own children with my motherlywing, to hide them from angels of deathwho might forget to passover our house.

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Celestial Beings - Albert Huffstickler

Jimmy Durante and theDalai Lama swapped jokes

and did a softshoeaccompanied by Ray Charlessinging and LouisArmstrongs trumpet andId never seen so much

joy in one place. AndI thought about this many times later,

laughing every time, anddecided that even if I never reached enlightenment,at least now, Iknew what I was looking for.

July 7, 1993 from zzz zine XXII, Arcadia F

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On the Trail of the Silver Kid - Albert Huffst

I can remember when I lost it.I was eight.

That was the summer I have my appendicitis operationand died --or so I thought since they put this thing over my faceand I couldnt breathe and they held me down till I lost consciousness.That was also the year I skipped a grade in the schooland my peers were no longer my peers but giantsthat I peered at from below

and, at recess, tossed me around like a handball.My teacher hated me because I couldnt do Palmer Method.I started staying home after school and reading Wild West Weekly.I knew when I wasnt wanted.My favorite hero was Solo Strant, the Silver Kid.

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He was small too but he dressed all in black with silver conchos on his chaps.And he had a silver skull on his black stetsonand nobody--I mean nobody-- messed with him.He was Death in a silver wrapping with two six-guns

and he went where he wanted to, all over the West,and nobody messed with him.Its a funny feeling, losing it like thatnot something you bring up at the dinner tablesince its obviously your fault.There was something you didnt do or didnt do rightonly you havent figured out what yet so you keep quiet;

you lay low and wait, hoping it will come to you and you can setit straight.

Meanwhile, youre a target for every sadistic hunter in the schoolyardand you dont know why.So you stay home and lie on the bed and read the Silver Kid,

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recalling your mothers favorite remedy, heard since infancy,If you be nice to them, theyll be nice to you,wondering where she grew up.Or your fathers, which was to take on every comer,

but to do that, you have to have a win once in a while.So you know youre wrong and you dont know whyand its not a thing you talk about so you read the Silver Kidand wait and dream a lot and just keep to yourself.If thats good enough for Solo Strant, its good enough for you.He didnt need anybody.So I didnt need anybody either but I did.

Only there wasnt anybody.Time was a burden and death imminent and I was eight years old.Things have been different ever since.The fragility never completely vanishedbecause once youve lost it, you know it can be lost again.

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The good things become more precious though less safe:they can be gone in a minute.But most of all: youre alone and know deep in your heartthat youll never quite be un-alone again.

And youre not the Silver Kid but just a kida kid whos not a kid anymore though not adultas now, adult, I remainthat kid whos not a kid anymore and will never be again.

March 3, 1984, from Heeltap, No.5, 1999, St. P

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ISSN 0197-4777

published 11 times a year since 1979

very limited printingby Ten Penny Players, Inc.(a 501c3 not for profit corporation)

$2.50 an issue

waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol 20 no 5

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