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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, January 1998
A memory cannot be forgotten.It is part of you.You must learn how to deal with two things:yourself and your memory.
MemoriesSabrina, Streams I, 1987
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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 19 Number 1 January, 1998Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara Fisher
Thomas Perry, Assistantcontents
Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $20 a year. Sample issues -$2.60 (includes pos
Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelope. Waterways,Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127
1998 Ten Penny Players Inc.
Geoff Stevens 4-5
J Liveson 6-7
Jonathan Lowe 8
Bruce Hesselbach 9
Joy Hewitt Mann 10-16
Herman Slotkin 17-19
Arthur Winfield Knight 20
Joan Payne Kincaid 21-27
John Sokol 28
Nancy Rosing Saint Paul 29
Ida Fasel 30
Terry Thomas 31-33
Phyllis Braun
R. Yurman
David Michael Nixon
Kit Knight
James Penha
Albert Huffstickler
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Parcel Geoff Stevens
Grasping at memories,
you pull them together
and tie the drawstrings,
binding your immediate present
with your selected past.
You are a complex bundle,
passed around in dreams,
using the quiet timeto remove a wrapper
and delve into experience,
whilst preparing yourself
to face the music
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Dealing with Myself Is Okay Geoff Stevens
Dealing with myself is okay,
but there is the memory of that
which has been done to me,
the adding to and the taking away:
bruises, tongue-lashings & poisonous baits,
landscapes & vistas & the faces I liked.
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With closed eyeshe runs a hand across strings,
bridge, fretted neck,lays palms gently on the archingspruce belly.Like Jimmys still alive.
Craig dreamt of thissince he stumbledon the plywood mold.
A genuine James DAquisto SoloStradivarius of the archtop guitar,except Jimmy had the nerveto die before he finished.
They borrowed a Solo, dippeda dental mirror into each bend,matched every rib, joint, curve.
And now, Craig eases itfrom velvet, wraps
his hand around ebony,presses body to body,fingers caressing high-strung steel.He strokes a major,aching it blue, plucksa minor, hesitatesbefore inserting a seventh,
before sliding into a lyric cadence.No rush. They dont knowtheyre a guitar, yet.
They were trees most of their lives.
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Jimmys Last Guitar J Liveson
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Braille Jonathan Lowe
A slate world is easily erased.Nothing remains long.
Measuring time by the curvatureof a cheek, we reach for facesshadowed by memory.But the old is gone.New tales replace old constantly,as if truth could be told
an essence from fragments.Now, gently, you must guide my handto that hidden spacebetween the scarsto touch your heart.
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Ice Storm Bruce Hesselbach
The ice storm crashed on us,
breaking the limbs of trees,jagged edges in every yard.
What do I care about destruction?My friend, too, is destroyed.We are weak survivors, who tug
and pull at the downed branchesoozing death on our jacketsand arms and hands, like tar.
We cant remove the largest branches
until Spring shall free themfrom the grip of snow and ice.
When will the time come to freemy memories of ice storms,and the jagged edges left behind?
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After the Stroke Joy Hewitt Mann
I am now my mothers dreams:I am the voice she hoped for
when she was swapped forthe neighbours wife;
when her son died at nine daysa hole in his back the size of her heart;when she miscarried with syphiliscontracted from her husbands whore;
I am the dream she hadlying on her back, strangersbringing her no comfort; I amthe comfort she gave herself surprised discovery at fifty-two;
I am the relatives she never knew, allash and dried-out bone the Dutch
and German relatives who disappearein 1943. I am
the Jewish hair without the faith;the Jewish voice withoutthe history.
I am the voiceshe never learnedto use.
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The Kidnapping Joy Hewitt Mann
You were fair as a Gentile angel,
and your mother,black hair/black coat flapping fromher stout body,
was a fat, black Luciferas she charged the two nuns taking you
away.Mein Kinder,mein kinder, she screamedas one nun spoke softly to the crowd
Stop that fat German bitch.
It took three policemen and two
witnessesto make them let her goand your screamto melt the penguin witches away.
You never questioned what your futurmight have been,though I have.There are no Jews in your family now,Mother.
Or Catholics.
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Memories Joy Hewitt Mann
Its a picture of a young girl, in the shade,
sort of, behind a big tree nose and one eyepeeking out. Eye looks coy, or maybe feared always had trouble tellin them apart. Cantquite make out who she is. Photos old, stained,with fingerprints whorling round the edge. Thirty,forty, years ago shed be a grandma now thiswas took. Shes got a good throat, long and creamy.They gave me back this box of things I cantremember, along with a new suit and a little cash.I dont look like much, but I feel new to myself.
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The Bread They Wanted Joy Hewitt Mann
I shared my lunch with Aaron
while he spoke to a tree;bread suspended between his lips,fingers fell into the channeled bark.
He told me of spiritsand the cacophony of the fields,rocks walked by the fingersof the earth,the roots of the trees pulled down.
He was always hungry, Aaron was.His sisters and brothers too
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ate dirt and charity in a three-room farm house.My mother whupped me for crossing over.Theres a red thread in those kids, she said.
On Saturdaytheir farm burned downand I stood knee deep in the voices of the grass
watching Aaronfrom across the road
watching himunravel.
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East of Eden Joy Hewitt Mann
Remember Halloween we tipped the cineratorin someones yardand shotgun voices hit the ground as we ranHey, boys! . . . dammitand you laughedwhile I fingered my barbershop hairand thought of tipping it again;the summer we lit the world on fireSonny and Cher at the talent showand you grabbed my wigswinging it behind your back . . . back and forth. . . back and forth . . . until I screamedand you said Youre no fun anymore;
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and that last night when you ran awaywe hid beneath the open porchsqueezed friendship in the fusty sandand we promised to love forever and never forgetour favorite starbut when you tried to kiss me goodbyeI pushed you away.Im sorry bout that now.
They said it was a painful deathin a painful part of town.
James Dean.
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Papa Herman Slotkin
When you left your pregnant Reizel in Khastchevateand bummed your way across Europe to America,
what were you hoping, papa?I never asked.You never told.Ill never know.
When you sat at the kitchen table readingthe Forwards and The Day from beginning to end,
what were you thinking, papa?I never asked.You never told.Ill never know.
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When, at evening, you sat at the kitchen window,cigarette smoke trembling on your lips,what were you dreaming, papa?I never asked.You never told.Ill never know.
When you saw me on that floodlit platform,capped, gowned, diploma in hand,what were you feeling, papa?
I never asked.You never told.Ill never know.
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Mama Herman Slotkin
To the last of your eight babies,you gave driblets, mama.
The sips were preciousand I wanted more and moreas though you were a magic springwith all the world of water to draw.But you died and left metoo young to grasp what I had lost.
Now I rehearse your face and figure,your pride in what I have become,your rue at what was gone and lost.But rehearsal is not enough!Ay, Mamenyu, come haunt me!
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I remember: Theres iceon the windowpanes
of our motel roomwhen we get out of bedin the morning. Becauseyouve had a bad coldfor more than a weekI go outside, warming up
the car, scraping icefrom the windshield,my feet sliding on ice.It is only mid-Octoberin Meyersdale, but alreadythe red and yellow
maple leaves glitterwith frost. You look
worried, squinting,watching me from the window.I know your contact lensesare still in the ashtraywhere you keep themat night. Your breath
condenses on the glassuntil you seem to vanish,but I know youre there,watching. Each piece of iceI scrape is for you.
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Bicentennial Fall Arthur Winfield Knight
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She never married and wanted to move
to a college community for seminars and intellectual stimulation,but feeling ill, she made a fatal call to her niece
who now had inherited half of the house
She says the house is too large and more thanour neighbor can deal with and that shes never coming back.
The house will be sold as quickly as possible.An ambulance took her away.
She is in Brewster nowwhere the niece says by phone: She will be challenged
at Senior Citizen affairs;but she is going to fade lost up there
with 100 cats and a cow;there is a great gothic emptiness in the old housestanding alone by the back fenceon the other side of our yard.
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Short Story in a Glass Restaurant Joan Payne Kincaid
It was worth the trip to get out to Portparticularly considering the alternativesof trying to work too many cubbyholesof determination . . . here we are drinking cold brewbright and golden as sun and sucking tortillas,sliding down cold iced oystersisnt perfection, things are alwaysgoing to be missing . . . people forever dying either
because its time or doing it deliberately . . . heading off into thetale of a comet . . . at a place like this you tend to dreamwhich results in return of ghosts and spirits alone in a momentof picture-card picturesqueness;lobsters in a glass restaurant across from the open-maw ferry
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possessing cars running like ants into clenched jaws;image enters your mind on clouds that alternate spray andlight; you cannot wall yourself off from white-capped tossingstretched as canvas across a perfect view.
Formerly we were dis-empowered,evidence of self in an era where power is no longer a matter ofpersonal persuasion . . . but we evolved . . . if sitting almost silentlyregarding everything . . . having the leisure to do that isnot being stuck in endless routines going- down- that- way . . .we enter each others menu, crack shells and dip butter
savoring sweet meat and cold drinksafe in peaceful transparency, moving too fast
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Sweet Violences on the 4th Joan Payne Kincaid
Last night was the 4thwhich means preparationand attempts at creating somethingpeople want to shareand sales to chase for something affordablefor so and sos weddingand the clothes so hideousthe fabrics gross acetates, polys
and you look a wreck anywaythen the grocery ritual . . . grasping tangible fulfillmentshotdogs, potato salad, eggs to devil, hamburgers, apple pieand of course ice-creamso you fall in bed leaving the flowers
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to dry almost to death until tomorrowand always the pain from the dog-knock-downand funny odd memories bloomlike flowers in the summer heatlike perennials coming back surprisessparklers when you were a childnames of violent things like cherry bombswatching the rise and explosion of colorsalways at some parks watery reflectionfracturing the vividness of life
feeling the pain of a father departingthe eternal void of his falling away forever down the yearsthe sound of a piano on the radiodownstairs echoing thru the empty housesuddenly becomes a practice room
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from the past, and music of loversthat remain like ancient divorcesthat never really endentering the sweetness of early possession
the yearning and fulfillmentof coming togetherand expectations of future delightsof romantic dreams literally realizedand all the more preciousfor ephemeral shimmering
you never thought would fadewatching around our tablewith lamps hanging from the birchin the distance fireworks rise and falllike lovers climaxing and falling from the cliff.
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ever not having been?Can you remember a timewhen you didnt exist?When you try, does it makeyou feel like youve always been,or, conversely, like youll always be?Trying to remember not beingwill make your head hurt;its like looking into a mirrorfor a long time and tryingto figure out who blinked first;its an ontological Mbius Strip,the three-card monte of rumination.
When you check on thiswith Heidegger and Hegel,Schopenhauer, Kierkegaardand Kant, they dont help much.Not really. So why is itthat we cant rememberever not having been ?or for that matter, imaginea time when we wont be ?
from: America, Vol. 174, #5, February
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Can You Ever Remember John Sokol
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Eat the Rhubarb Piein the Freezer said my sisterSaved like an old wedding cake
for an anniversarya piemade by my mothertwo seasons ago before her death.
We ate the Rhubarb piewithout ice creamwithout her lips pursed by satisfactionmissing the pride in her eyesfor a job well done.
Take your Uncle WallysRhubarb and Plum wineits the last bottle said Aunt Anne.Friends and family sat sipping
the second to the last bottleremembering an uncle
who wished to please the crowd
clumsily guffawing at anothers expense.
Between the deathof my mother and my uncleMyrtle, their oldest sister diedin the Hollywood earthquake of 1994one of the 500 aftershocksstopping her heart
while taking a cake from the oven.I never met her, nor was I asked to sharethe last crumbs of cakemade by that family strangeryet part of the family that sought to pleasby feeding others.
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Rhubarb Moments Nancy Rosing Saint Paul
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Peters Tears Ida Fasel
The wished forgotten can neverbe forgotten.
Memory will not void its placefor the wished remembered.Look at Peters tears.He wept bitterly, the Bible says.By the time the cock crowedhe had disclaimed a friend.Not once, not twice, but three times.And now the condemning birdwould never leave his view.He would be inconsolableto the depth of his worshipful heartthe rest of his life.
He was forgivenbut who can forgive himself?
However many amends are made,however many blows are taken laterin the name of spirit,what was said cannot be unsaid.I have spoken out, I have hurt as mucHis tears tell my story.
Tears are perpetual. Tears redeem.Tears are the mandate of life.The place where true entwining begin
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Had to get back before recollections started to defect
and memories cracked, eggshell mortality.Took my oldest taught her the reality of reasonsand seasons of sun, snow and sins.We were in the cradle.I ladled it on like thick gravyon sticky potatoes. (No one knowsthe starch of days marked withdoubt and fear). When we nearedthe sacred grounds, stones tippedor pounded, gritty grins in greenexpanse, I glanced back to see
if she understood (tragic pastand the tragedy of passing monument
in the present). She was pickingher way through ancestors, pleasantcautious, peering at names and dates.And it was late time jerking backwards,ticker sticking on cogs cloggedwith regret. At the gate I askedher if she perceived and looked deeplinto grieving eyes, my eyes.
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Going to Heart Land Terry Thomas
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Got to get back point my feet,solemnize an afternoon,complete the circleand bury Danny Barrows.We went on a dare,fifty odd ago,slow to sap, like summer,but simmering with the glimmerthat hardens into manhood.We were afraid of dark waters, deep,of snappers, willow trapsalong the bank,
dank smells of deep snares,and sleepless nights of cowards.We stripped to skivvies,shivering delivered a few rocksfor courage, and slipped in.Funny how high laughter canbanish fears . . . sometimes.This time was different.Danny coughed in the middleof a chortle, sort of a gurgleand a burp, like bubbles risingfrom a far place. I looked.His face was white as a fish belly.He reached fingers miles away,
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Going to Dal Royal Pond Terry Thomas
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and something dark rose to coverthe sun. My stomach went to oldjelly, I backpedaled, panicked,broke and ran home.
They never found the body.Sometimes, when my sleep is deepand dank I see his face,funny look, and the way his eyesrolled in reproach. Then I wake,shiver and stare into the past.
So. Here I am. It looks aboutthe same, smells worse. Wouldyou like to take the curse off me,sink into some happy oblivion,envision him again, laughing.
But its too quiet: listening, watching,waiting to see what Ill do.Do? Throw a piece of chewed cloveron dark waters no ripple,
just a sad offering in the closedcircle of watery space,but his face is in willows,wet earth, laugh is inthe sad breeze. Please,release me from this ...
Im drowning at Dal Royal Pond.
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Weightless Phyllis Braun
I tug her gently she does not rise;she watches me with waiting eyes.
I tug againI pull her to the starsterrestrial to celestial.We float over Marsbreathing the strangered breath of aliens
with voice of sliding glasson glass in limbo akimbo,drifting like floatersin the eye of God.
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Rib R Yurman
what if she had reallybeen a part of himlocked inside his bodythen they wouldhave been onehe everything to hershe a fragment of him
maybe such unity of formsuch perfection made someonejealous or maybe someone wisesaw such intimacy would becometoo familiar too complacentor such unbalanced balance be worsethan separation worse
than the chill that slips-inbetween two sleeping forms
or perhaps some sculptors simplycan never keep their fingersfrom re-pinching the claymoving chunks here and theretossing bits aside to use lateror maybe someone powerfulset them apart justfor a moments fancy
once they both had eyeshis brown hers grayto gaze back and forthacross the space betweenand both had hands
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to stroke and tonguesand all that skinit hardly mattered whyor who tore this piece free
left that gap in his sidewhat mattered was the empty placeleft in eachthat never gets filledexcept those momentsthey spend holding
what they might have been
but even of those small momentsmaybethat someone is jealous still
Take this womancomes the decreeMake her long for a creatureof her own
fashioned inside herfrom the very stuff of self
Take this manMake him violent against heragainst himselfagainst their progeny
Then we will see
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David Michael Nixonfor Bob Jones
In the old house where the souvenir scarves,Paris, Florida, and beyond,lie in the drawers until the son comesto spread them open on the bedand frame or sell their tourist colors,the caged-in smell of old smoke waitsto seep out the newly opened windows.
When the house is stripped for the new owners,the aura of Violet Jones still staysaround the ceiling tiles and woodwork,indissoluble in harsh detergent.
first appeared in Hot A
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The day I fell in love
with John Wilkes Booth
my gown had 12 yardsof silk. The dashing actors
dueling scenes were
so startlingly realistic,
other--lesser--actors
sometimes fled the stage
convinced Booth really was
going to draw blood. My father,
a senator, introduced us and
I was thrilled when Booth bowed
to me and drawled, You
are lovely enough to stopa heartbeat. All of spring
was in that voice. I wore
my gown to Lincolns second
Inauguration. His words were
merciful and kind to
the all-but-defeated South:
With malice toward none;
with charity for all . . .
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Lucy Hale, April 1865: The Girl in His Pocket Kit Knight
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Five weeks later,
the inevitable happened and
Lee surrendered. Lincoln
had received hundredsof death threats while the War
lasted. But now,
on the fifth day
after Appomattoxafter
the truce had been signedJohn shot the President
whose wallet contained
a five dollar Confederate
bill. Poignancy
in a pocket. Lincoln died and
daddy says the South
will pay; itll be a hundred yearsbefore that region
recovers. Spurred by
$200,000 in rewards, the army
hunted John down. He died
with my picturein his pocket. My gown
was of varying and deeper
shades of blue.
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Part of Your Life James Penha
Mother at eightysaid shed gone with two guysat once when she workedon roller skates at Macys,one for lunch and onefor dinner. And then?I wondered [on roller skates?]about her. One took herto Sunday Polo on the Island
and one with a beautifuldeep baritone, Boband me went to concerts.
She lowered her voicealthough my father in frontof the weather channel couldnt hear.
I was very popularI think because I gotno attention at home
where her father dotedon first-born Josie even more after my unBillys BB smashed to smithereensher left eye. And from her palacetower Josie kept an eyeon my mothers misdeeds.
Do you know when she came homelast night? shed ask my father.Three in the morning! and he
beat the crap out of me,let me tell you,she did.
Id been engaged already(not to your father) so I toldBob, [Remember Bob?] Platonic Bob.
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We dated a year and never kissed.He wanted to, of course, he becameso nervous!But heres the story: Whyam I telling you this?Years later I had youand your brother with meduring Christmas at Macys. Ihadnt worked there for years,but I hear,and this is Macys at Christmas.Terry! TERRY!
Bob.Hes so excited. Hewants to take us to lunch, andI say no. What if someone saw?
So? No! Your father
would have killed him! But Bobtrails us to Gimbelsacross the street, oh!
So?No, I was so nervous
that someone would see us and think,but he says he married a girl namedTerry because shereminds him of me!
How terrible, I saidto do to her . . .
You broke my heart.[Bob, remember.]An
when he said goodbye to us . . .He kissed you!You remember?No, predict.Ive had a life, she said
and smiled, satisfied.
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Crux Albert Huffstickler
The truth is
I feel like Judas every time
I think of him, my son Joewhom I cant be around because
I cant handle his head so
I run him off. Yes, just like
that: I run him off out of
self-protection, that ragged
scarecrow who cant hold twomoments in sequence, who falls
through a hole in time every
time he places one foot in
front of the other. And that
reminds me of no, drops me
into a time when I was the
same way and suddenly Im
down a hole scrabbling at the
sides while the earth rainsdown on me and I keep slipping
back down and the hole grows
deeper each time I slip back
till theres only the sky
far above and then that slow-
ly grows dark and then theres
only me at the bottom of this
hole and then very slowly the
hole begins to cave in and
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I feel the earth around me
rising up over me and know
Im going to be buried there
in the earth in the darkness
and then its every man forhimself. And I run him off
and then feel like Judas and
theres no way to justify what
Ive done and theres no way
to feel remorse because it
was him or me and then once
its over I forget it for a
while because theres all kinds
of things to be done only
every so often he comes into
my mind suddenly out of nowhere
that ragged, bereft scarecrow
of a son of mine and then I
feel like Judas and so nowIve said it and if the purpose
of writing is to get a thing
out of your system so that
you can forget about it once
and for all, then this has
really been a waste of time.
from Main Street Rag, Charlotte N
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Death hangs over usbut it always did now we remember like a battlefieldin the first light of morning,the corpses glowing with
grotesque elegance amongthe trees and grasses,natural things like thegnarled branches of someincredibly old tree
that refuses to die.
Yes, thats how we are:just because were deaddoesnt mean that weve conceded.Its all one you see:the battlefield with itseloquent burden of trees,
bodies, grasses, morning light.Thats it, you see:deaths just part of it:were the light too.
April 10, 1997, Hyde Park Cafe, Aufrom Heeltap II, S. Paul M
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The Year After Tomorrow, We Can Begin: Little Journeys
Albert HuffsticklerIn Memoriam, Allen Ginsberg
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Respite Albert Huffstickler
Sylvia across the table from me
at the Tower Restaurant, pregnant,eating strawberry ice cream (shed
have eaten it all day and night if
she could, would have mainlined it
if shed found a way). Wed just put
the laundry in at Ching Wong andcome here on this summer breezy day
in sixties Austin, Sylvia eating
ice cream and me drinking coffee,
smoking, nothing to do but let the
laundry cook, silent, you dont start
talking till somethings wrong and
nothing was wrong for the time beingin Sixties Austin with the sun bearing
down and the light just so and the
laundry in and strawberry ice cream
and coffee and cigarettes and silence
and if you think this poem is goinganywhere, youre mistaken.
from Anthology M
Phoenix, AZ, No.,
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Turning Albert Huffstickler
Theres a place past loneliness like a night without stars, likethe moment when a toothache becomes a bomb exploding in your head(only this is the pit of your stomach) and there is suddenly for a
moment nothing at all of you or the world or the universe or anythingor anybody and that nothing in you and you cant even find it. Thatsthe same moment that you remember where you come from and know whatdeath is and then the pain returns and its just pain and building againand you cant for the life of you decide whether or not you want toexplode again and one part of you fights it and one part of you reachesfor it and then suddenly both parts of you are gone for another instant
and then back and then you try to think of new words for what is happeningbecause nothing matches what it is you feel at that moment, that fraction
of time that extends outward infinitely until time is swallowed so thatreaching back in time for that instant youre suddenly no longer intime and youre only absolute zero and at the same time the whole history
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of the universe, beginning to end, alpha and omega and stretched beyond
breaking and then only then do you begin to conceive how comforting itcan be to be human, just one body, one thing containing the possibilityof being held, contained, of hands finding and holding and touching you
and you begin slowly as though it were an infinite chore to invent aword for what it is you mean and need and have to have and the worduncoils out of the same void slowly till it finds the infinitely distantflesh that is your lips and they move in vast slow motion shaping that
word that means hold, touch, contain, find, believe, flesh here andfinite in this here and finite place. Love, you say, your lips barely
moving, love, the word uncoiling from your guts and spreading through
you surrounding you, holding you, that sound, the way that light enterstime and the dark withdraws and everything begins again as warm handscup you slowly into this one moment where it all begins and you insideit held and homed, past loneliness and not alone.
from The Red Owl, Portsmouth NH Issue
48
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8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 19 no 1
50/51
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8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 19 no 1
51/51