Waterways:

2002

Poetry in the Mainstream

July

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, July 2002

A tall, slender, old man straight as a young tree, he passes by every day with his basket of flowers. At intervals hell stop, look up at the windows on either side of the street and whistle a snatch of an aria from an Italian opera. Margot de Silva "Afternoon On MacDougal Street"

WATERWAYS: Poetry in the Mainstream

Volume 23 Number 7 Designed, Edited and Published by Richard Spiegel & Barbara Fisher Thomas Perry, Admirable Factotum July, 2002

Waterways is published 11 times a year. Subscriptions -- $25 a year. Sample issues $2.60 (includes postage). Submissions will be returned only if accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelope. Waterways, 393 St. Pauls Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10304-2127 2002, Ten Penny Players Inc. www.tenpennyplayers.org

Ida Fasel 4 Will Inman 5-6 David Michael Nixon 7-8 Peggy Raduziner 9-10 Terry Thomas 11-12 Herman Slotkin 13

c o n t e n t s

Susanne Olson Gertrude Morris Joy Hewitt Mann Joan Payne Kincaid Albert Huffstickler

14-16 17-18 19-21 22-23 24-27

Paul Johnston, fine press printer, author, and publisher, in front of the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library (1977).

Walking with Brahms beside the Rhine, along the lakes, in streets of Rome, I move in grand alles of sound he left on air as he composed themes and passages that became music I know

Souvenirs - Ida Fasel

by heart, my souvenirs that wont tarnish or break or lose their resonance packed for home.

forward waters of high tide drank themselves steadily but slow into wetlands, bulrushes, cattails, and tall stalked grasses. he waded in the brackish mix, his footsteps making shallows dance. a white heron, scouting minnows and other small fry some yards away, watched him, meanwhile making her own light dancing along tidal edges. he slowed his pace, slackened his dance, not wanting to disturb the heron, but she slowed, too, though darting her long beak after a careless minnow or a too-brave frog. it grew late, and tide gathered herself in slow surges of shadows. came a while when heron spread her wide wings into stretching
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dusk dance in wetlands shallows - will inman

began to beat late air with feathers, lifted long legs behind dragged dusk into her ascending as she flew back along tides edge to her cypress nesting. he stood fixed in shade, watching her, felt tide lift dark with fallen night into the hollow drum of his chest. he wanted to sing after her, he wanted to fly but something in his wrists and shoulders beat among waking stars. he smiled and a quieter frailer tide ran joyous out of his shining eyes.
from The Lucid Stone #29, Spring 2002 6

Joes Blues - David Michael Nixon No blues between the clouds, but under Joes own black one, a steady fall of blue rain follows him, so he shall have music wherever he goes.

Wade in the Water - David Michael Nixon Wading in the emerald river of jazz, my jeans got soaked in that wild water, eddy and flow, then roaring current, and always the clear, cold, liquid present, keeping me focused and alive.

It was a mild spring Saturday afternoon. Walking in Little Italy, across 3rd Street, I turned south toward Bleecker and discovered the Amato Opera Theatre.

Musical Village - Peggy Raduziner

The hour came and the room went dark. The curtain rose. The scene was a factory. Two girls started arguing. Their soprano voices hit the ceiling. It made me think of a recent experience of my own.
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A huge sign in front said CARMEN 3 P.M. FREE ADMISSION. I was curious and went inside to a dimly lit room, sat down (it wasnt crowded yet), and was handed a program and an extra printed sheet with the story of Carmen in English.

I was sitting on the edge of my seat. They started fighting for real. This part was so good!

At intermission time, Mr. Amato himself appeared on the stage. With an Italian accent, bright smile, and a twinkle in his blue eyes he said, I hope you are enjoying this performance. If you can, please make a donation so we can continue to give these talented students a chance to perform and succeed. We all applauded, and when the box came around, gave a dollar. Some of those young people later became famous. But that was sixty years ago. Now the Amato is over on the Bowery at 2nd Street. Admission is $28 to see Carmen, Aida, and many other operas I enjoyed back then from a front seat for a dollar!
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Heard a flute at the witching hour Galway calling up fans or fiends. Maybe it was a pan pipe. Put my hands over my ears, gritted my teeth fillings ached, gums itched, feet twitched (wanted to get up).
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Augury in the Grape Arbor Terry Thomas

Next day I found little hoof prints all through my grape patch some peeled, some heeled into a juicy mash. Maybe peccaries, if they walk on hind legs now.

Had to do something: splashed some recycled lager on all four posts. Human smell disenchantment. Next day...tracks and cracked fruit.

Made a scarecrowfierce. Burlap bag face, bearded in milkweed, beetle browed, nails for toes, needles for fingers like the creator. Lingered a bit to admire Mr. Repellent till shadows grew long...too long. Next day, same thingexcept that my cloth man was in tatters. like hed danced himself to death.

Tonight Ill take his place face the unknown and irritating. Already my heart is beginning to flutter as the moon slides, a glob of white hot butter, behind a cloud. Ill wait for something have always been the Soul of Pagan Curiosity, and what do I have to lose?

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A Place Near Bleecker - Herman Slotkin There is a place near Bleecker Street with a circle and a square where, when the lights went up, I was born again on ONeills stoney soil, feeling desire under the brooding elms; where Abbie, born Coleen Dewhurst, sat on a nail keg near my lap, tears welling in her eyes, for her monstrous act of love, and begged for my understanding which I gave, which I give.
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Harmony - Susanne Olson Morning is Peace predawn quiet lingering dark birds chirping drunk with sleep bursting into full orchestra coolness enticing one last slumber before the new days call

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Day is Peace bright midday sun shutters drawn filtering the glaring head quiescent dozing supine languor placid repose

Evening is Peace delicate dusk shadow floating over soul wrapping consciousness in down and satin under sloping branches of an ancient tree gliding into dreams receding tranquil veil of silence
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Night is Peace warm summer dark secret opaque sensuous fragrance natal plum jasmine mock-orange blossoms voluptuous wonders of my body unfathomable depth of soul

Life is Peace threatening storms sultry air distances erupting into ominous flashes thunders rumbling roll dissolving into longed-for rain lightness relief melting spirit into Peace

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My brother learned to play on a violino piccolo later, on a counterfeit Amati.

Other Rooms - Gertrude Morris

(Brahms whispered through the rooms that summer.) Now, when I hear a violin, I hear his voice in the tender mathematics of Tartini, of Bach and Corelli, a voice of reason

that heals, and opens the wound again. And I remember when he waited in coma-dream,
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until a red eye winked and his heart ran off the screen, like a dancer exiting.

Too late we were learning to love each other, as the lion learned to love the lamb. Now his body would go through the fire; he would become his photographs, forever younger than little sister.

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Bedalis - Joy Hewitt Mann Ten years in the Glebe and I never knew Bedali, only his Specials, reduced Fridays, his roll-your-owns burning away in a Pabst ashtray, all round and hard as melons, the fluorescent lights flickering above the foggy breath of coolers; encompassing his small domain like a wife, the
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his words ending with an a, sweeping street dust,

debris and flies felled by Vapona strips, his shoulders the way he pushed back his thin hair slowly, his smile

blending smells of fruit and cheese and vegetables how he held an artichoke, heart moving beneath stroking the soft fuzz of an apricot, his outspoken love for persimmons, flesh of glazed breath for durian, like holding ones breath or tamarind, the treason of pomegranates,
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like the smell of a woman fresh from long lovemaking, fingertips stained red with the juice of raspberries flame, bing cherries glistening like saliva-tipped for the taste of woman, the acid bite of jujube

nipples, escarole white as an inner thigh, holding

lovers fruit like jeweled blood;

conjuring foreign things through celeriac, kohlrabi, salsify and taro, smiling at loquat, mombin and sapodilla, incanting akee, caprifig, icaco, sprinkling water like a priest. the loving touch, the cry of joy; of one Italian grocer. Now the hair and accent thinner, the drooping skin, the lustre wearing slightly from the eyes; but still all those fruitful, vegetable days gone deep into my body pushing life beyond the scent of marang, and the sweat

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Water gone from water hole. Each time I added water to Peters birdbath more birds would come down. The birds kept coming and taking turns to splash and wash. There would be two in at a time . . . Indigo Bunting with Northern Oriole, Parula with Bay-breasted Warbler, Common

Haibun At Forest Park Joan Payne Kincaid

Yellowthroat Warbler with Scarlet Tanager. And all the while the nesting Wood Thrush was singing in the canopy. It was a theatrical event. these birds dont match splashing together in the birdbath
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I remember such days on Bleecker Street learning operas with Tony and Sally Amato; now on this grass and buttercup lawn I sip green tea next to a post on top of which four miniature mouths squeak through a tiny doorway: mommy daddy I suppose were we in Italy mommy daddy . . . it would be interminably mia madre mio padre mia madre mio padre per sempre
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This May Late Afternoon - Joan Payne Kincaid

I think she was my eyes. I havent drawn since she died. The pictures arent there. I think on some deep level, Im blind and wonder if theres some spell or ritual that I can perform that will bring my eyes back. We know so little and so much that were certain is under our control is not.

Eyes Albert Huffstickler

I look off into the distance and see an old man, blind, led through an ancient city by a girl child. She is his eyes. They move together. What each would forfeit without the other is beyond believing.

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From Fire no. 14, Oxfordshire, England

Morning coffee in an outdoor cafe remembering slowly

Hickory Street Breakfast Blues Albert Huffstickler

Theyve gone contrapuntal.

The birds have made peace with the morning traffic.

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Little by little I draw you up out of me and stare you down. You dont hurt now. Youre just Memory.

My mother, in her innocence, believed it all began with how people treated each other. Wanda, old friend long dead, do you hear the birds?

do you smell the coffee?

I think when I die it will just be for a little then Ill wake up standing beside a road in the morning light. Your eyes

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contain the night. You hold sleep in your hands.

The geometry of woman flesh, the metaphysics of your breasts, how stars are born out of your navel The brine of your thighs

washes me back to ocean depths and that first memory.

If I sat here writing all day, who could blame me? But the day waits.

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From Nerve Cowboy, Spring 1996, Austin TX

ISSN 0197-4777

published 11 times a year since 1979 very limited printing by Ten Penny Players, Inc.
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