Waterways:

Poetry in the Mainstream

2001

January
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream
January 2001

Last night I had an oboe dream—

Maxwell Bodenheim, "Bringing Jazz"

 WATERWAYS: Poetry in the Mainstream
Volume 22 Number 1 January, 2001
Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara Fisher
Thomas Perry, Admirable Factotum

c o n t e n t s
Joy Hewitt Mann 4 Joan Payne Kincaid 11-12 Gerald Zipper 21-22
Gertrude Morris 5-7 Ida Fasel 13-14 John Grey 23-24
Joanne Seltzer 8 Bill Roberts 15 Terry Thomas 25
Lyn Lifshin 9 Paul Grant 16-18 Don Winter 26
R. Yurman 10 Robert Cooperman 19-20 Albert Huffstickler 27-28

Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $25 a year. Sample issues -$2.60 (includes
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©2001, Ten Penny Players Inc.

Muriel's Father Played Heavenly Jazz - Joy Hewitt Mann

Muriel's father lies in bed, coughs,

smells of feces and phlegm, and longs
for the little nurse who washes him
so gently, and never looks.

Muriel's father plays jazz . . . puttee . . .

puttee . . . against the side bars, dreams
of Harlem nights filtered with reefer smoke
and city voice skat, fingers the metal
like a woman's breast.

Muriel's father waits for the needle that eats

the pain, and waits, and waits . . .
then wanders out on Fifth to play the sax
for sidewalk angels. Best gig he's ever had.

4
 Sax Man - Gertrude Morris
He died, hugging the sax.
He just blew, faded away
like the sounds he used to play —
in the tunnel — day after day.
Did his heart go first
or flutter to the last,
like the crazy riff of a drummer?
Poor white boy, too young to die,
who wanted to be black,
to blow like Bird and Trane.
Well, maybe he did. For all we know
maybe he's blowing now.
5
We never knew his name
but we knew he was saying something
when he blew Freddy Free-loader
and Bloomdido down the long tunnel
from 6th to 7th Avenue.
Even running late,
they'd drop a dollar, or two.
His old spot is taken now
by a kid playing bad guitar;
out of pity you'd slip him a coin.
But we remember that sax man
who talked the talk, and walked the walk —
sax in hand — to bird land.
 Sleeper Awake - Gertrude Morris
They never tell you, do they children,
that prince and princess do not always
live happily ever after. You see,
when Beauty was awakened by Florimond,
she gazed at him "with eyes more tender
than a first sight of him might seem to
excuse: — 'Is it you, my prince?' she said.
'You have been a long while coming!'
At first their union was true love's paradigm.
But having been too long "away,"
she could no more content herself
with embroidery, or conjuring potions.
6
And perfumes from simple herbs, or from
Essence of patchouli caravaned
From India. Restlessly she paced
the formal gardens in purple silk peignoir,
whose liquifactions stirred the cockatoos
imprinted there to fly like living
birds, so real, one could imagine their
harsh cries behind the purling
of the doves. Her own voice, tremulous
from long disuse, now grew stronger.
Poor prince, dismayed by such copia
verborum, practiced patience and prayer.
But when she intruded in the business
of his manorial demesne, he called
for wicked Uglyane to witch the
Princess Beauty's winding sheet.
Only a shred of pity saved her. When
"Ugly" magicked Beauty full awake
instead, the prince was most displeased,
but knowing a hellhag's power
held his peace. Sweet Beauty
held no grudge against Uglyane.
In fact, she called her "Annie," and they
soon became fast friends. A new name
and the affection of a friend —
the first she ever had — was balm
to a tortured spirit. Made nearly
beautiful by love, yet she would cast
one last spell — upon the prince
himself. Thus he became a peasant,
7
with no memory of higher estate.
Further charity provided him
a little land, a horse and plow,
And a squawk of chickens. He was
humbly grateful, and, in time,
he provided leeks and sorrel
for the castle kitchens, and fodder
for the stables. Beauty, of course,
became Mistress of the Realm.
Did he deserve his fate, you ask?
Only Blind Justice knows.
Still, even friends may live happy
Ever after. And so children,
Most happily, the story ends.
Morning Song - Joanne Seltzer

Do I hear
oriental music?
A bird
has brought me out of sleep
before the devil could make
his morning round.
But the song I hear
is not some wild bird
who doesn't care
if the world wakes up,
It is a prisoner
gone mad,
banging her head
against a window, thinking
she has found infinity.
8
The Mourning Ribbons in Boxes of Jewelry - Lyn Lifshin

crushed in a tangle
of pearls and cameos,
the black smelling of

her cologne and

old lace huddled
in the plum velvet

like old men under

an eave in rain,
their night cloth

sleek but crumpled,

each wing cut,
wounded blackbirds

9
I've Begun to Get Used to the Rain - R. Yurman

It's gone on for days now

so many I've lost count
dumping walls of water
over the eastern hills.
Even the wind at night
sounds like rain.

I'm no worshipper of sun,

My skin doesn't love
what the ozone starved air
lets in. But I do miss
the clear dark
the clean bright stars
Venus falling through the western sky
Toward a visible sea.

10
 Laughing Island - Joan Payne Kincaid
the loon have arrived
january's waves laughing up and down in waves
turn harbor into ocean bills pointed sky-ward
crashing on the shore they perform ghostly yodels
smashing someone's too late boat~ like cowboys breaking horses
carried away by the tide
here at Point Lookout
ice sun strikes gannets plunge in the foam
thrashing harbor foam behind a surfing seal
beating too fast a small sandpiper
light lines coil violently vies with gulls where waves wash-up
splash-battered monotony a rapid smiling bouquet

11
In a Glass Restaurant II - Joan Payne Kincaid

for Lobsters, glasses gleam transparent promise;

it was worth the trip to get out to Port
particularly considering the alternatives
of too many opaque cubby holes;
we sip, laugh, and slide down iced oysters;
at a place like this you tune to dream
and walls fall away
alone in a picturesque moment
safe in side this glass womb
cross from the open-maw ferry
possessing cars like ants in clenched jaws;
cloud images alternate violent spray and light;
vicariously separate from white-capped ocean
. . . we are smiling reflections.

12
 Rhapsody in Blue: Opening Night
Ida Fasel watchful
(New York City, February 12, 1924) for the cue to
bring the orchestra in —
inspired spontaneity
Busy at need.
elsewhere, he roused,
reminded five weeks left. A world
first the trunk, no — double trunk, in the making
classy uniquely enthralling
the listener with its brainy,
modern lyric,
and classical
brash jazz,
rhythmically combined.
musicianship
Where branches lacked, he improvised,
solid, the love affair
Whiteman
secure from the clarinet's long
sweet wail

13
to the
blast of trombones, Epilogue
the tender violins.
Anxieties are mulled over, Death bought
duly his teeming brain
early with a teardrop
dismissed. pearl, but for the diamonds
Tempo and phrase was outbid.
change from ebullience
to meditative calm, stately
cadence

of close
conversation
with his keyboard. But all
his words seem to be gladly meant
for us.

14
 I'm dreaming someone else's dreams
Bill Roberts
not mine any more.
They're vivid, full of action,
chase scenes, victory over the
bad guys (and sometimes gals),
then lots long kisses, passionate groping,
heated desire, even sex —
then the alarm clock goes off.
I haven't seen his face,
this guy I'm standing in for,
but he's glamorous, trim, muscular,
no doubt movie-star handsome.
I try to get to bed early,
get back into his dreams,
fulfill my desire for more action,
more wet kisses, more sex.
15
My wife asks why I groan so much
in my sleep, toss and turn.,
have such dark circles under my eyes,
and always seem to feel so tired.
I hardly ever lie to her.
I tell her I'm cross-wired
with this Hollywood type guy
who's taken over my dreams,
doing all sorts of exciting things.
She says maybe I need therapy.
I agree, telling her I'm getting all
the therapy I need in this guy's dreams.
 Touch - Paul Grant

It's been a while. The dark of woods

against the darker night
is no less comforting than ever, and no
more threatening. The wind's all over the hill,
jittering among the crowns of trees
as if they were tables in an after-hours
and it obliged to weave among them
in time to some sky-high, low-down music
to prove it can hold its humidity
(which, of course, it only sometimes can).

The strips of wielded metal that

define my chair are blind-embossing
parallel depressions on my ass
and there's no sign of the scarred box-turtle
I rescued last night from my cinder-block
16
footstool (Does it even count as rescue
if the one rescued is carrying
his coffin around with him
and living in it? Probably not.).

Anyway, it's been a while, and if I don't

go looking, there may never
come another. This the wind
insists while sweeping the smoke away
and trying to interest me in
another of its casual caresses.
Pay attention, it whistle-whispers,
this could easily be the last you'll get
till that sweet old whore the earth
wraps you in her nasty, loving arms.

17
 St. Dymphna's Hill - Paul Grant

The afternoon belongs to violets
And the others lying low and looking nifty —
snowdrop, dandelion, wild strawberry.
A layer of sunshine has crept just in time
up from the river to insinuate
itself beneath a mumble of apoplectic
clouds rolled over the strip-mined-then-
deserted West Virginia hills.
he just knows — again, again (the omen's
repetition refuses to be underestimated) —
red-tails will rise on unseen thermals
out of the valley of the shadow,
to help the violets and their kin —
high-centered in the driveway's curve —
preserve him from the Big Fugue's
relentlessly insane seductions.

And as he contemplates the templates

used to draft his life, and spasms
vellicate this bit and that
of the muscular past's necrotic music
with hands grown callused trying
to dispense with even those bits,

18
 Cheese Dreams - Robert Cooperman
"The royal family prefers not to eat cheese in the evening. They find it gives them unpredictable
dreams." —Prince Charles, quoted in The Times of London

Perhaps Princess Anne dreams

of being ridden by donkeys,
their small, sharp hooves
digging into her sides.
She wakes, the scent of cheese
a suffocating mist.

Prince Andrew dreams himself

A prisoner on the Malvinas,
chained to a dungeon wall,
the stench of Stilton
filling his nostrils
like seeping sewer gas.

19
The Queen does sneak Charles fumes, reaches
an occasional wedge of Brie, for the cheddar in revenge,
her elder son and heir and to hell with his dreams
warning her about the dreams that trumpet like elephants.
that will swarm like the bees
he'd laugh, to watch — as a boy —
attacking the gardeners.

"Besides Mater," he gulps

now, "one doesn't wish
to put it tactlessly,
but you cut the night
like a foghorn."
His mother scowls,
"Your Bowles woman's
loud enough to wake
the dead in Westminster."

20
A Cup of Coffee and a Slice of That Pie - Gerald Zipper

Rode the patchwork cornfields

the highway a string tied to the rim of horizon
the corn standing in military ranks of stiff-necked stalks
their silky hair waving cowlicks
"GOOD FOOD — STOP HERE!"
chrome diner was an alien landed in this patch of fields
HERTZ car smelling of chemical freshness
where are the birds?
silence holding its breath inside Diner's formica world
waitress with pleated handkerchief pinned to her breast
henna hair topping her defoliated eyes
"What'll you have, dear, pie's fresh?"
a cup of coffee and a slice of that pie
"Where you heading?"
Peoria Bloomington Terre Haute
"Doing 'em all, are you?"
21
Evansville Louisville Lexington
doing all the wall-eyed tired retailers
"I got a son in New York
I'll get there someday
see those Broadway shows big stars and all"
I rest my head there nights I'm not on the road
a tired egg nesting
waiting for my next cluster of cities my next cornfield
next chemically refreshed car next tired retailer
next slice of that fresh apple pie.

22
The Snake Killer - John Grey

It's as if he came
from many miles away
to do this thing,
to crack the back
of a long black snake
sunning on the road.

We both saw it at
the same moment
and I wished it slither away
to safety
and he begged under his breath
for it to stay there,
a long, thin unknowing target.

23
He couldn't have come He must have gone
from the place we the minute we were beyond
both had come from, that writhing death scene
where a woman made for there was another
many a sign of the cross in the car beside me then,
with shirts on a line pointing out the cattle
and young girls nibbling the low hill grass,
played hopscotch fiddling with the radio
on the drive-way for that perfect country station.
while dogs danced crazily underfoot.
He must have come
from over that dark mountain,
a booming word
from his God in his ear,
a thunderous instruction
to gun the engine,
press hard down on the accelerator,
slay the beast.
24
 Inscription - Terry Thomas
Is it normal to dream music?
Heard a bugle last night/
early this morning. Was in
a field sprouting stones,
like giant's teeth. Beneath,
the ground gummed, humming
to the lonely notes.
I couldn't move —
like a goat staked, bait
for the hidden tiger.
Woke with a wet face.
25
Yesterday Sgt. Swank called
for my son. An Army re-
booter. Made it through
the congy jungle myself,
never met a large cat,
but Swank's voice purred
and rumbled; I could feel
me, son, tumble into
a gaping mouth.
 Silent in America - Don Winter
If you were fifty-five
and your speech had been crushed
by factories and divorce
to a single vowel, you might drift,
as he did, transient as a dream,
beneath the random lettering
of a broken marquee, beyond
all bittersweet efforts to connect,
to make sense, to endure.
You might stumble at dusk
to the Shelter Workshop,
listen to a revivalist
swollen like a tent, in trade
for a few hours of cold
comfort. It’s taken years to forget
what's missing in your life:
26
the woman who bore you
eight children, the beater Dodge,
the engines hung from the rafter
like hams. Here, a pale blob
of cold light gasps
you awake. The heat takes care
of itself. You mechanically eat
a doughnut, drink a cup of coffee.
The door closes, final
as a slap. You wander neighborhoods wrapped
in sleep, past dogs barking
who are you and cars and the ear
of a basketball hoop that listens
for its one song.
What can anyone do for you now?
Notes of an Alien- Albert Huffstickler

I honestly believe I thought in my

deranged and benighted condition
that when you told people that
you were a writer, word went out
and less was expected of you
so that when you went on a job
and wandered around half lost
and not ever figuring out what
was going on, nobody would get
on your case. Somebody would
nod in your direction and say,
"Well, he's a writer," and the
others would nod and after that
they'd leave you alone to wander
in that alien space where art
was created — in the firm faith
that this was justified, or
27
would be, by the product created
at a later date. And in the
meantime, well everybody else
would have to do more because,
after all, you couldn't just
fire a writer, could you? The
great awakening came, of course,
after I was fired a few times.
I really was supposed to focus
and do something, no matter
how hard it was, no matter how
unfair it seemed. And it was
hard. How could anybody expect
you to go on doing the same
old thing over and over for
eight hours a day five days a
week. It was preposterous.
Especially since most of what
you were doing was dull, dull,
28
dull. I understood just what
they meant when they said of
Jesus, "He was not of this world."
But here I was, stranded in time,
certain I was in the wrong place
but unable to leave. Now, many
years and miles away, I still
feel the shock that came with
the realization that I was really
expected to work. And you want
to know a secret? Fifty years
later, I'm still convinced that
I'm on the wrong planet, still
scanning the skies for that UFO
that dropped me here when it
picked up all those earth people.
— December 1, 1997 —
First published Cerberus XL,
November 2000, Arcadia FL
ISSN 0197-4777

published 11 times a year since 1979

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