waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol 19 no 1

8/8/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream vol 19 no 1

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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

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waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol 19 no 1

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