waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol. 24 no. 3

7/29/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol. 24 no. 3

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, March 2003

The music vaguely echoes the Forties:a saxophone content to muse over the melodywithout drawing attention to itself a non-violent, philosophical saxophone.

Albert Huffstickler

fromWorking on My Death Chantin the Hyde Park Bar and GrillWaterways, July 90also published inAileron, Austin, TX, vol. 10, No. 1, 1989


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 24 Number 3 March, 2003Designed, 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 enveWaterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-21272003, Ten Penny Players Inc.http://www.tenpennyplayers.org

Herman Slotkin 4-6

Joan Seifert 7-10

Sylvia Manning 11-14

Gertrude Morris 15-18

Robert Cooperman 19

Geoff Stevens 20

Bill Roberts 21-23

David Michael Nixon 24-25

Ida Fasel 26-28


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THE DANCE Herman Slotkin

First the music:

rhythms pulse patterns on taut tissues;melodies speculate in moods.

Then the dancers:

limbs and heads in lilting lines evolve in pure intimacy;

every lift, turn, dive, and catch is a covenant of love and trust.

I need pure intimacy.

I want love and trust.

I must learn the discipline.

I must risk the dance.

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DANCING Herman Slotkin

We dance through life,

waltzing to a fox-trot,calling it a tango,

loving the dancing,

wishing it was truer to the music.

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THE RIDE Herman Slotkin

In the turbid twilight before deep sleep,

as in the uneven caesuras of day to day,poems haunt.

They rap tap on sympathetic skins;

word-song tambourines tendrils to feeling

like the flaring of kindling.

Meanings float and flash

daring me to grasp and go along for the ride.

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OLD NIGHT TRAIN Joan Seifert

Long, long, short, long*

Whistle-wailing droning from the night train:

would the engineer have been amused to know

how eagerly we listened for that sound?

Rhythm and recurring code,

well-being, passed along,

dim at first, then growing,

then dim again,

on-going.

*trains whistle signal: approaching crossing, bridge, or tunnel

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Years ago across the prairie,

the night train wound

its softly-clicking way through town,

and sleep came gently.Remember how it felt to have no care?

Long, long, short, long

hymn of inner refuge:

watchfulness is happening;

all is well.

Every hope was for the constancy.

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HINTS THAT LISTENING BRINGS Joan Seifertnear San Juan Capistrano Mission, San Antonio Texas

Old San Juan Missions bell has run almost three centuries, now.

Daily call to prayer still understood through time;

theres steadfastness in its pensive peal.

Not far away, the citys strident neon claims the busy day,

flashing some assumed human need,

boisterous traffic clatter drowns any hope of quietude.

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But listen;

history echoes in other bells,

small, faint jingling bells of grazing goats.

They still forage, placid, near the ancient mission,as goats have always grazed out there,

secure, where theres no need of tethers.

Their signaling bells bring recognition, rescue

of loose dogs,

or danger, threaten.

Strays are always found that way.

Its worked for centuries.

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PANTOUM FOR TOM Sylvia Manning

Year after year, day after day

his request of life is music before coffee.Put the Beatles! like a new idea hell say,

or every once in a while, Willy!

His request of life is music before coffee.Weve played a Beatles collection till its no longer groovy.

Every once in a while he asks for Willy;

He likes Elvis, too, but prefers his movies.Weve played that Beatle collection till its no longer groovyin these years since he came to need our care.

He likes Elvis too, but prefers his movies.

Its the Beatles collection thats the worst for wear.

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In these years since he came to need our care

weve given him all the music he needs, and then some.

Its the Beatles collection thats by far the worst for wear.

But hes learned to find even classical music winsome.Weve given him all the music he needs and then some.As his body grows weaker, his health seems surprisingly sound.

Hes learned to find even classical music winsome,

but with Willy, its like an old lost friends been found.

As his body grows weaker his health seems surprisingly sound.

His movements, his state of mind depend on what we play.If its Willy, its like an old lost friends been found, but

year after year, day after day.

June 9, 2003, Palmview

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IM STILL ABLE TO FEEL PRIDE IN TEXAS BECAUSE Sylvia Mann

Scott Joplin was born here.

In Texarkana, so who knows?I doubt anyone bothered to keep good records

of where poor black babies were born back then.

It could have been the other side of town, in Arkansas.

Id tell you what year but my old Britannica, which does listJanice, of whom Im also a little proud, of course, deems

not even honorable mention of the great Scott Joplin.

I am staying sane in this barbarian state which hasbrought the world to rack and ruin too often

by learning to play Scott Joplins rag.

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Its very hard, as was his life

but sometimes, oh sometimes

(and when it happens right you know

youve sat in for a servant stealing moments

at the keys of the big house)

it is so poignantly soft.

And when it happens right, and only then,the shame dissipates slightly, the rag becomes the house

girl pretending to be just dusting the keys, and though I still cry,

it will never be as loud as Janis could; and though he still died, Isuspend disbelief and let belief exist, as surely as a soft soiled rag,

in the air of the dusty state where he was born, on a borderline,

the great Scott Joplin.

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LETTER TO ETTA Gertrude Morris

Dear Etta Jones: You must have known me;

I followed you everywhere.

Before that concert in the Atrium,You kissed a few black guys in their 70s.

Next time you kissed my lover, Id have said:How about planting one on my white cheek?

Your singing touched me so, I wish I could have

told you too late now how the broad stops

and rushes reminded me of Lady Day,how the lyrics, clear and plain as water,

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told me all I had to know. And I said

to myself: Yes. How true. This is what

it is, was, and will be. How time passes

and love remains. How the one you lovewill hurt you when he has to go,taking the only love you ever knew.

And now, youre gone, sweet singer,my irreplaceable you.

And I have only your tapes to play,Still sweetening my bitter.

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AKYENI BAAKO* Gertrude Morrisconcert of African High Life music in St. Marks Park

When drums beat, and a bamboo balaphon

dropped melons of sound on stone

to the growl of Second Avenue,

I could imagine crowned cranesbrowsing among the graves, beaks

arrowing East in seas of papyrus..

When the drummer cradled and tossedhis bead-sheathed gourd, and shook:

Tch! Tch! Tch!

*Akyeni Baako: First Drum. Akian language. West Africa.

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even the old felt the itch

in their thin bones and their feet

told them to get up and dance!

Now the dust rose like ghosts of Masaileaping in a trance of lions,

whirling the wheaten mane of lions gold,

reaching up the tall spire to the Lightwhere Gods great, brown laugh thundered

like First Drum, shaking the world.

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We light the candlesand say a short Englishprayer for peace on earth,and health and happinessfor everyone we love,

then watch the waxcarve blue, red,and yellow stalactiteson the menorahs scrollwork.

Its like being backin the caves, Beth murmursas the flames leapalmost as if theyre gazellesdancing over savannahs.

Just before the candles die,flames spurtin tiny supernovas,then gutter, smokespiraling, as if soulsflown off toe heaven,or sending small messagesinto the universe:

that, for the moment

at least, everythingis well with the world,even if we knowfor a dead certaintyit isnt.

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WATCHING CHANUKAH CANDLES BURN Robert Cooperman


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DEATH FUGUE TO THE LONDON PALM COURT ORCHESTRA Geoff S

Forget the risk of catching something serious,

I found the dirty sax of Rudi Pompelli

much more infectious

than the earlier sons of Adolphe

whose melodiously innocuous sounds

cropped up in 40s dancebands.

I was in 50s England when

the rock saxophonists goose-stepped

their music into Europe

and I loved it

though previously no fanatic

of the bass section

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A MELODRAMA IN SIX REVERSIBLE ACTS

OR ADVENT OF THE IRON HORSE COMING WEST Bill Roberts

Act Six

Curtain closes, lights come up.Woman and screaming child take bows.

Cowboy too dead to return.

Act Five

Dangerously pregnant wife visits cowboy in jail.Forced to miss hanging by arrival of child.

Names son after the cowboy father.

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Act Four

Cowboy rides hard across Missouri on one-eyed horse.Dust storm behind him looks ominous.

Finally apprehended at border.

Act Three

Cowboy says aloud to himself he must cross state.Curses his luck, hangs his head.

Curtain falls as he looks straight into horses one eye.

Act Two

Another man approaches steadily on a horse.Stops, asks cowboy to watch horse.

Disappears to right of stage.

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Act One

Cowboy looks in vain for train tracks.Finds none, issues expletive.

Walks in circles.

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IN MELTING MIST David Michael Nixon

Now we can seethe openings

in the ground fogand steer ourway along theuneven ground.

Sun has begunto dissipate

the fog slowlyand patience picksa path for feet,knowing that morewill come clear asthe morning warms.

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Meanwhile, we huma quiet tune,the notes barelypenetrating

the melting mist,so that oursong precedes us,floating overportions of thelandscape which arestill veiled to feet.

First appeared in B

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BETWEEN BINGEN AND KOBLENZ Ida Fasel

Heathrow on strike. Elgin Marbles in litigation.Gothic sinks under all its alterations

and accommodations. I pay my respectsat a presumed birthplace; hear another Hamlet;keep vigil at an old admiration, the cottagewhere Milton made his final ascentin visions on high.

Fast trains, competing skyscrapers, accent

scoffers. My foot rubs red on cobblestones.The Tintoretto stolen. At the great bronzedoors a lightness, burden lifted, panic of relief.Gone, gone utterly my overstuffed purse!Mother would say, Be more attentive.

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But I was! not wanting to miss a detail,in small space so fully told the ancientbible stories set in new perspective.An unscheduled trip to American Express

restores confidence in my tourists eye.

Up the cluttered Rhine, round the point the rush is on. The tour boat tiltsto the side we have brought our sensesmiles to see. There! The celebrated rockcuts clear of surfaces. Each stark line

sweeps into briefly possibles brief traces.A male quartet (the brochures never told us)beams Loreleis allure bei stereoto glut of barges, passing tonnage.Is that all? a voice among us.

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I follow the folds of her garmentsdown old stone to the waters edge.Her golden rings ripple. She tossesback her golden hair to show her face

in what the sky is up to,the legend reflected intact.

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waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol. 24 no. 3

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