waterways: poetry in the mainstream vol. 24 no. 10.ps

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, November 2003

We need to stop protecting each otherfrom ourselves.We need to trust that deepestmost delicate part of all,knowing it will survive,given the chance,

everything even us.

A l b e r t H u f f s t i c k l e rfrom Apology to RobinWaterways, April 91


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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 24 Number 10 November, 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 -- $33 for 11 issues.Sample issues $3.50 (includes postage).

Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelopeWaterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127

2004, Ten Penny Players Inc. (This magazine is published 8/04)http://www.tenpennyplayers.org

Joy Hewitt Mann 4John Grey 5-6Ida Fasel 7-9Joan Seifert 10-11

Joanne Seltzer 12

Robert Cooperman 13-16Jon Petruschke 17Dan Lukiv 18-19Jeanne M. Whalen 20-21

David Jordan 22-23

Anselm Brocki 24Sylvia Manning 27Felicia Mitchell 30Robert Collet Tricaro

Barbara Fisher


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The Redemption Joy Hewitt Mann

I know that all possibilities must becompressed into myself; that I

must keep my waiting roomneat as silence.A time will comewhen locked rooms will open,when your eyes will avoid mine, your bodyflinch;

and all the quiet sounds of mytrapped soulwill pierce your earspast screaming.

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Out of the Dream John Grey

Nothing between sheets and ceiling but myself

and the dream. I wake suddenly.Empty bed, blank walls, three a.m. EarlyFebruary. A hollow all around where there

should be music. Its as if there were a

wind blowing inside the house and that windsuddenly stopped. Gossamer thin, the shardsof dream float to the floor. Its deaths

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pile up invisible. Its loves thin out likethe moon. All I remember of it is thatfarmers slaughter sheep, a young boy runs down

a hill in his underwear, a mother scolds for

something impossible not to do. Thats whenthe dream stops. Its waiting for me to catchmy breath, to understand what it is telling me.But waking suddenly, its this room, not its

meaning that takes over. I am just myself,in this moment, waiting for the world to converge.Dreams are like small fish I figure. Theyget eaten by the bigger dreams we live in.

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Between Bingen and Koblenz Ida Fasel

I wedge my way through modern Europe

by fast trains, past competing skyscrapersand accent scoffers. My foot rubs redon cobblestones for a presumed birthplace,a plaque, a Tintoretto stolen. I keepthe vigil of an old admiration, lingeringat the saved frieze, the talisman marble,the cottage where Milton madehis final ascent in visions on high.

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At the great bronze doors, a lightness.My wadded underarm relievedof its travelers burden.

Mother would say, Be more attentive.But I was! not once had I looked away.Loss again my liturgy,an unscheduled trip to American Expresspartial relief.

Up he cluttered Rhine, round a 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 linesweeps into briefly possibles brief traces.

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A male quartet (the brochures nevertold us) beams Loreleis allurebei stereo to glut of barges, passing

tonnage. Is that all? a voice among us,I follow the folds of her garmentsDown ancient stone to the waters edge.Her golden rings ripple. She tossesback her golden hair to show her facein what the sky is up to,

the legend reflected intact.

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Hints that Listening Brings Joan Seifertnear San Juan Capistrano Mission , San Antonio, Texas

Old San Juan Missions bell has rung 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.

But listen;history echoes in other bells,small, faint jingling bells of grazing goats.

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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, rescueif loose dogs,or danger, threaten.

Strays are always found, that way.

Its worked for centuries.

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R e q u i e mJoanne Seltzer

1

Grandmother Fannie,the paranoia

Ive seen in myselfand in my mother

and in you who saw itin your own mother

must go back as faras the first mother,

Eve of the apple,Eve whose name means life.

2

Two of my daughterscreated babies

that carry our genesinto the future.

3I resemble youat least in profile

now my hair turns whiteand my skin wrinkles

and my eyes grow dfrom too much visio

Were the grandmot

the givers of genes

the bearers of dreof paranoia.

First publisFiltered I

Women RememTheir Grandmo

Vintage 45 Press

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Elmer Caldwell Watches Fox Hands Prepare for Their DepartA Shack Above Gold Creek, Colorado Territory, 1870

Robert Cooperman

After she made upour bedrolls,she took a small pouchfrom her neck,

and worked dried leavestill they became a paste:

her idea of protecting mefrom John Sprockett.

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She made me bend my headlike I was a superstition-Papist,and tied the bag

smelling like perdition,and cold as a dead mouse around my neck.

She chanted more words,and if I wasnt so frozen

with fear of Sprockett,I wouldve laughed,except her eyes were fierceas a mama hawk protectingher nestlings from a lynx

swatting at easy pickingsthough not reckoningon her dagger-beak

and talons sharperthan a Bowie blade.

When she was finished,she tied on her snowshoesignaled she was ready

to lead me into, and out othe jaws of death.

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Jennie Rousseau Looks Back at Her Careeras a French Spy Against the Nazis

Robert Cooperman

At twenty-three, I was blessedwith a face peach-innocentas a teenager painted by Renoir,so angelic that even the Gestapoconfided to me about Hitlersdeadliest secret weapons.

I was their translator,my German perfect,and these men more dangerousthan American gangstersthought of meas their harmless little sister.

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I kept my secret even from Papa,

who had refused to talk to meuntil I was thirteen,when it suddenly dawned on himI had a mind behind my eyelashes.His tongue would have loosenedas if hed spied the bomb designs

and rocket factory sites himself,the Germans with ears everywhere.

After the War, I lost all facilit

in that language of murderers,my memory reverted to a mediocrthe instant Hitler killed himselfI never told Papa my role. Why boHe would never have believed m

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Deodorants PoemJon Petruschke

Im in the middleof two deodorants.Only onemy girlfriend likesamidst my moistarmpit. She believes

it smells like grapefruit.

I wear the stickshe likes on the morningsof nights I see her.

And the other,

malingers in slow depletion,occasionally over my glandsbut only when I expectto sleep alone.

Even Ive grown to hate it

just for its lasting, as if,in the medicine cabinet,jealous and lingering, tryingto wait outmy girlfriend.

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Outer Limits Dan Lukiv

8:00, Friday nights, 1962,Outer Limits.

in bed in darknessat 9 at 9 years of ageThe giant insects that devouredflesh,the great eyeballs that sawthrough night and

into fear,the box that sucked the curiousinto a white beam,the horseshoe crab aliensthat bit and mutatedthe bitten,

the time travellers thatmessed up time,and lives,and the energy cloud that fed,on the life force,like an evil little boyeating a roast beef sandwich

They all went to bed with me,

and horrible others came too,goading me, terrorizing mewith colours of thoughttoo random,too delineated,too ferocious.

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I pulled arms and legs and handsinto the covers,left nothing overhanging the steel railsof the upper bunkthat would float, and yetnearly plummetfrom a great precipice.

A turtle, I, drawn up,

cursing myself from watchingthat show,living the horror of sleeplessnessin a dark room of fiends anddark evil.

Saturday morning Id awake,alive!eagerly breathing in the bright smelling the opportunity to runlike a crazed lunaticup and down the neighbourhoodrevelling in all the noisemy lungs could muster,

eagerly waiting,impatiently waiting!,for Friday night, 8:00,to watch another episode ofOuter Limits.

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Therapy Jeanne M. WhalenFive girls,we spent most

of our early childhoodin waiting roomswith one pack of gumand one coloring book,waiting for doctorsand therapiststo rehabilitate my brother

so he could be like other brothers.These institution afternoonswith our cousinswere a pleasant changefrom Sunday nightsin the hospital cafeteria

choking down dried-out hambursoggy fries, and ginger alethat burned my throat.We were always crying,and at three and five,my sisters clung tomy seven-year-old self(a surrogatefor preoccupied parents)while we all watched

our baby brothertry to breathe,his pacifier sliceddown the middleto leave roomfor the respirator.

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Palsy Jeanne M. Whalen

They smile a little differently,

hold their heads at different angleswith their Fruit Loop and popcornnecklacesand everlasting jam hands onfourteen-year-old menby someones standards

although shaving might presenttheir parentswith a problem.

My Michael, the brightest,

blue eyes never still,he smiles with his whole bodlegs out, arms long,mouth open wide and invitingand glistening just a little mthan youd expect.

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A Good Boy David Jordan

Be a good boy,my mother

always saidwhen I left her.

Pedalinginto an icy sunriseon the way

to seventh gradespimpled agonywhile she stoodin the kitchen doorwaypatting her pregnant belly.

Climbing

from the car atthe Little League fieldin my gray flannelWaner Brothers uniform(number 6, likeTed Williams)

for a game againstthe Moody Jetsshe would not watch.

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Crossing

the cracked sidewalkoutside Gordon Street BaptistChurch as I straggledto my Sunday schoolclass and she strode to hers.Her last words to me

were always the same Be a good boy.

I have three sons.

When they leavefor school or skateboardingor Cub Scouts,I say So long.Or See you later.Or even Adios.

I never say Be a good boy.That is not a burdenI wish them to bear.

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Neighbor Anselm Brocki

So many plums this yearfrom our backyard tree

that friends and neighborswont take any more bagsfull, so after gatheringthe afternoon falls in frayedcutoffs, sweaty work shirt,and rubber zoris, I decide

to take them next-doorto the famous, reclusivemovie director who movedin five years ago but havenever met.

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I hear the chimes blend,but no one answers the hugeSpanish door with a bug eyepeep hole. They think Ima peddler my mind says.Then through the screenof an open window nextto the entryway, I make outis pock-marked facefrom TV interviews. Hes

looking down at his deskin the unlit, cool room.

Im your next-door neighbor,I say quickly. Do you wantSome plums from our tree?

Celeste, he calls, come takea look at the plums.

God, he thinks Im selling.

The door opens. Celeste ispretty, much younger thanhe. Theyre very good,I say, something you cantget at the supermarket.

She moves to accept.

Put them in the fridge,I say, and wash them as youeat them. They last longerthat way.

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Thank you, she says slow,like not at home in English,but a white-teeth full smile.

Thats very nice of you,he says, not getting upfrom the desk. On whichside are you a neighbor?

I point west.

Whats your name?

I say my initials and name.

With an ior a y? he asks.

i, I say. Love your movies.

Thank you, he says.

I leave quickly, feeling Ive

been a good neighbor but losta little piece of my dignity.

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The Same Sylvia Manning

. . . the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth bthe Valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the Valley of the giants northwards

(Joshua

Any place on earthwas once the old country, motherland or fatherland of some one, some one culture or more,

some creature or diverse.Lodestones of wisdom,folk or otherwise, sought their own discovery.

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In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas,as example, one learned soon to give a child dehydrating, honey;and that it was decided by hurricane survivorsseasons gone to have your keepsakes in a satchel by the door; take them, if nothing else, to save your soul.

You could learn these things onceas a bird learns how to migrate; wisdomof the place itself came to you.

Now we wait for a civilized peopleto realize that all such lore has left the sphere material

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for having too long found in hearts too little resonance.

We wait fir all the creatures there to listen again even the lizards, even to the silence of a country loud with violence in a land which will claim no parentage if not for all.

We wait for Jerusalem itself to be heard again telling: how to save the dying children, how to save storm-battered souls.

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Beautiful Pink Cup Felicia Mitchell

It was a beautiful pink cup.

I didnt buy it for you.I bought a postcard somebody else wrote onin 1910: Hello. How are you now?We heard you were sick and mama and me wanted to goto see you but papa was using Mack so we couldnt go.Maybe we can come some day yet.

A postcard you wrote to me in 1985is tacked up in front of my desk.Will it find itself in an antique shop?Perhaps a hundred years from now

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another woman worried about her hairwill pause and read it: I think we will meet againon Guadalupe Street with the autumn wind

as fine as light on our faces.

You said: I think some day our ghosts will standand listen to the Mexican band across the street,plaintive and joyous,and laugh at the gentle clown

beguiling the children with balloons.

Do I think next time we lose each otherall we have to do is go to that place and wait?There was also a plate I also didnt buy,

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my favorite Indian Tree.It was old but somebody had taken gold enameland patiently repaired the border,

which was now too gold beside the fading flowers.

Genevieve wrote, We are going to have threshers some day sCant you come over then? Would like to see you.I will never know if Bertha got to go,but I think she must have.

Even then, in 1910, an upturned stamphad to mean something like I love you.Like I am waiting. Please come soon.

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It was a beautiful pink cup,so old the chipped handle

was smooth to the touch, like your touch.Hello. How are you now? I heard you were sickand I wanted to go to see you but you died.I am going to make coffee and cookies some day soon.I will not drink out of a beautiful pink cup.I will not eat off a plate that hides its age.

Cant you come over then? Would like to see you.I think we will meet againand laugh at the gentle clownbeguiling the children with balloons.

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Night Shift Robert Collet Tricaro

Where I work, dark is this industrys strength.I labor to keep the laden eyes of night half open.Ground down by five o-clock whistles,I lever the world back into motion.The work is hard and my taskmaster, armsakimbo, flogs me with loser if I whisper to othersthat night pales me and I yearn for lanterns or moon.

My taskmaster screamsgoldbrick if I squeezeseconds more from a two-minute break Ive earnedafter half my shift is worked.I can never quite understand what it is I do Ijust work, helping to keep the night world in motion.

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