,

THE NEW YORK STATE WATERWAYS PROJECT grew out of a desire t.o present to New York resident.s the artistry of the word in a novel setting. The waterways caught our imaginations from a concern for aesthetics and the ecology of New. York rivers and lakes. We thank the South Street Seaport Museum, the National Maritime Historical Society/the New York Harbor Festival and the Department of Ports and Terminals for their cooperation and recorrunendations. Payments to poets were made possible by grants from Poets & Writers and The New York State Council on the Arts. Additional employment of poe t.s was made possible through the CETA programs of the American Jew.ish Congress' Martin Steinberg Center and the cultural Council Foundation whose partiCipating poets were funded under grants from the US Department of Labor and the NYC Department of Employment CETA Title VI.

The 1978 schedule of events included exhibitions and readings at the South Street Seaport Museum on July 4th; at Pier 13

in Staten Island on July 21st; on Pier 84 at West 44th Street in Manhattan on July 29; at the pier at 44th Drive in Long Island City on August 12; at the North River Bulkhead in Greenwich Village (West Street and Bank Street) on August 19th; at the Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn on August 25th and August 26th; and in Kihgston at Roundout Creek on september 8th and September 9th. Each fair site was marked by the publication of a dated Waterways chapbook that included one poem from each of the participating poets. The Waterways Project will continue documenting the activi t.ies of poets working in New York State during the 'off-season' by publishing a bi-monthly series of Waterways Magazines that will bring to the reading public materials from poets writing in unusual workshop locations. The small press exhibitions and poetry readings will be resumed at waterways locations as soon in 1980 as the weather permits. Membership of presses

in the NYS Wa.t.erways. Project is welcomed throughout the year and individual subscribers to the publishing program are also encouraged. Subscription and membership information can be found on the last page of this issue.

i

© 1979, TEN PENNY PLAY'ERS INC.

Vol. 1, No.8 October, 1979

CONTENTS

9 Poets From a Performance Reading

20 Poets From a Poetry Workshop

The Waterways Project has been made possible through the continuing support of its member presses. Subsequent to

the printing of the covers we have been joined by Station Hill Press, Barrytown NY 12507, publishing offset and letterpress editions of poetry and graphic materials.

We wish to thank the J. M. Kaplan Fund for its recent grant to our program.

With this issue the Waterways Magazine goes to a bi-monthly format publishing October, December, February, April, June, 3-times in July and 3-times in August. We will continue to document the populist Poetry Movement by publishing poems of poets who appear at the small press poetry fairs we organize'. When necessary, supplementary chapbooks will be published to augment the basic 11 issues of the Magazine. A year's subscription to the magazine costs $15.00. Information appears on the last page of this issue.

Each issue of the waterways Magazine will contain a section of poems from poets who delivered readings at public events. The first group of poets in this issue read selections at the September New York Is Book Country event.

Issues of the Magazine that are non-fair related will also contain poetry from Writers in Workshop. This month's workshop is at st. Clementts Church, Manhattan and is taught by Janet Bloom.

'After the Fall' by Stanley Barkan, from THE BLACKLINES SCRAWL, CrOSS-Cultural Communications, 1976.

'Portrait Two' by Richard Davidson appeared first in PROLOGUE. 'Post~Bicentennial' by Harry Smith is from the forthcoming book ME, THE. PEOPLE.

WATERWAYS MAGAZINE is edited and designed by the co-directors of the project - Barbara Fisher & Richard A. Spiegel.

The Waterways Project accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts.

Published by Ten Penny Players, 799 Greenwich street, NY 10014. USISSN0195-718X

·

WINTER OLYMPIC NEWS - The Organizing Committee of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics has asked liS to be the literary event on one of the 100-Countdown Days to the Olympics.

We had announced Qur Book Fair and Poetry Reading for a date and place that is no longer operative. The Olympic Committee is working with us to move the fair to a different (but also accessible) Manhattan location. Information will be released as soon as we have it and we are still taking membership renewal/reservations for the event. The Waterways Magazine will be published simultaneous to the event in"a special Olympic edition and poets representing the small press and trade poetry press exhibitors will be reading from 11:00-6:00. Membership information is on the last page of this issue.

SOUTH STREET SEAPORT MUSEUM - Last summer we began our project with a book fair at South Street. We will be returning to the Museum this winter to work on some interesting projects. Early in December we will participate in 'A Day of Nonsense poetry' at Bowne grinting Company on Water Street. The day stkrts with readings of nonsense poetry and limericks. People attending are asked to bring light hearted pieces of poetry (12 lines and under). Afte:r: the" readings

we will break into smaller groups so that the participants can set their poems in type. Brayers and inks will be available so that the poets can do printing of linoleum cuts, soap, sponge, cardboard, or wood relief work. The v~sual

arid poetry material will then be printed (by the poet/artists) in a limited edition of 12 copies on one of the Bowne 19th century letterpresses. Participants are encouraged to bring their children and make it a family creative experience for the holiday season. The charge will be $10 a family. Although every member of a 'group' can bring in ~nd work on refining a" poem during the poetry workshop ... only I poem and graphic for each family group will be typeset and printed in the edition of 12 pieces. If you're interested call Abby Potter, Director of Bowne Printing, at -766 9020 to make a reservation and get the correct date and time of the program which will take place in the Water Street building.

In the spring we will be working on a series of poetry read'ings at South Street also with their education department and Ms. Potter of Bowne. We will release more information about that once we know the definite time, place, and theme of each event. Because pf the renovation at the .Museum we aren't planning any winter indoor boqk fairs at South street. That will come in the warm weather~with rain date).

I

NEW YORK IS BOOK 80UNTRY was an event held in New York City on september 16. Many small presses participated under the umbrella of The New York Book Fair. 38 poets agreea to read their material at this event and performed in front of The Museum of Modern Art (at 53rd Street) using a sound system loaned by the Words to Go Poetry Van, a CETA Artists Project of the Cultural Council Foundation. The scheduled poets were':

11:00 11:10 11:20 li:30 11:40 11:50 noon 12:10 12:20 12:30 12:35 12:40 12:50 12:55

1:00 1:10 1:20 1:30 1:40

George Montgomery Virginia Scott Chuck Nechtem Cassia Berman Yuki Hartman

Ron We1burn Barbara Barg

Rose Lesniak Marlowe Ferrara Athelantis Perry Barbara Fisher Daniel Lusk

Maja Cvetanovska Mia Barkan Pierre Chanover Enid Dame

Donald Lev Stanley Barkan Martin Birnbaum

1:50 2:00 2:10 2:20 2:30 2:40 2:50 3:00 3:10 3:20 3:i30 3:40 3:50 4:00 4:10 4:20 4:20 4:30 4:40 4:50

Susan Mernet Ko Won

Elizabeth Marraffino Roland Legiardi-Laura Ellen Marie Bissert David Gershator Sherry Mestal

Fran Winant

Joseph Bruchac

Bob Fox

Yuriy Tarnawsk.y Alice Notley Richard Spiegel Richard Davidson Robert Holman Harry Smith Sidney Bernard Brenda Connor-Bey Lucy Angeleri Matthew Parrish

The poets who read were all published by small presses

that are members of Th~ New York Book Fair. Richard Spiegel C?rganized and coordinated the poetry reading. Suzanne Zavrian is coordinator of The New York Book Fair. The next

N~W York Book Fair is being planned. Information about the fair can be obtained by writing to Suzanne Zavriart, 321 West 94th Street, NY NY 10025. Please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope.

Poems by these poets who Ron Welburn

Richard Spiegel Stanley Barkan Elizabeth Marraffino

/Bob Fox

read at the event follow:

Richard Davidson David Gershator Harry smith

Lucy Angel·ieri

am reminded of chloe

in the doelike flashing of her eyes and the puckering tease of her lips.

AFTER OUTING

Ron Welburn

after outing, the riding of the broadstreet train and hailing a cab. stockings

ease off the sleek brown legs

and grandpa carries them to the post at the head of the stairs

. ~

she dances from the shadows with tea and cakes

the ones her grandma baked

(because those the goddess gave her go untouched by the oven of hands)

eyeing her hair down

and the legs curled beneath her hips close to me, I

e-

l

WATER

Richard A. Spiegel

waking. walking waterward. waiting while waterfalls wondering:

what will wear-away. ' •. ? what will last a day ... ? what will weather weeks .•• ? what will !last a year •.. ? what will rest in peace ..• ? what will disappear •...

I

-

AFTER THE FALL

Stanley Barkan

After the flood,

the raven and the dove made nesting places

on the moon.

-=

After the rain came down,

the craters' manna made igneous the earth

the seas gathered

into Sargasso mists and albatrosses hung" from every: neck

or corpses straddled on the naked trees.

After the plowshares turned to swords slicing at the wind, the mustard seeds

burst into flaming vines ..

After the fall,·

the ape man and Lilith danced macabre

in the valley

of the dragon's teeth.

l

LARRY,

you are also my mother. I sought you forever because you know how to comfort so well.

When darkness monsters the room, when my shoulders

. creep from my body

when my breasts seem like grown-up's shoes worn by a kid too small for-them

when I need you to hold me, you hold me.

Elizabetn Marraffino

YOUR FRIENDLY LOCAL WATCHOOG HAS FOUND

/ (it is too expensive for you , L!o live in your own home your body does not need more

than one room at a time you do not spend half the energy you consume

your septic tank lies half empty you require too much q.ygen manufacture too much carbon dioxide & for all that radiate too little heat for a person your size

., therefore it is sending five experimental beings to live with you

why not compost yourself in

your garden let your corpse

sprout a salad to feed them

. ~obert R. Fox

PORTRAIT TWO

(A poero for Ree Dragonette.)

Richard' Davidson

She is intricate as grass, Wave upon wave of angry roots

Spark at her feet and attack the trees. She is careful as the clouds,

Yet 'childlike as dolls playing in some sun. There is a thin life here;

Go delicately; if you have knives be steady of their point. Her blood is not thick as dirt

But rather young 'and willing and full of mistakes~ She is intricate as grass,

Her memories flood her poetry like rain on roads. Too terrible to consi¢ler; too important to forget. She collects bruises ,i

Her anns are: aching with cuts; they singe her skin, They fire at the fingertips of her brain.

phe walks in' rooms of jumbled fantasy,

Yet the fantasies are real; real. as morning and twice as rampant.

She is intricate as grass,

Her lovers mount the halls in which she travels Like tired children in toy canoes.

Her feelings are whips; but the lashings of their tails Beat at her own skin first.

Her poetry ~s the perfect home where no rudeness may enter, Where she lives in temporary safety,

··Where the wounds 'Of today are retired for the night.

Her fantasies are written down; flesh becomes the necessary period~

. She is intricate as grass,

Her dreams ride horses of pure silk,

To some jazz melody half-played in the yearning mind. Her words the one way to knock at the gate,

To open the window,

To salute the tree.

There is much pain here: there is much buried pain here, Go delicately,

If you have knives be steady of their point; She is intricate as grass,

She moves toward self like a yet unproven sun, Go de l d ca r.e Ly •••••••••

Go delicately ....•..

She is intricate as grass.

-t

PRIME LIVE MEAT MARKET/HICKS STREET' David. Gershator

Eating horse meat in South Sicily B'klyn I turn into a stallion

get· into the ring and beat the black champ for an encore

I punch pigeons out of the sky and skin a few cats for supper.

eating cat meat in South B'k1yn I turn into a tiger

get into my car and rip the road to pieces at Indianapolis I'm the only one to zoom out of.a 14 carat chrome collision

. - the crowds roar and I roar back

with.da solid gold appetite for more car meat back home by the waterfront I feed crumbs

to a sick shark visiting B'klyn waters by accident it's a good place to visit but

It's no. place for sick Jaws'

you gotta eat horse meat from.Hicks Str~et every cut a winner

the~ you can turn around and hug. bunny rabbits 90 'close to your heart .

. '. they drop dead from the big beat

Harry Smith

POST-BICENTENNIAL

Ships' horns profundo are piloting in the new year in Brooklyn. ponderous bell-less birthing--Wnr.~~~~~~~~nn~~~~nn~~u~

slips the post-Bicentennial year to berth. Long

sounds resound in mind, remind

of a child's firstseen diesel streamliner long & strong THRILLSPEED 'cross sandy wastes

Might & Immensity

and a man's madness! of black diesel dump trucks bleating DEMO (Striking Wreckers) encircling City Hall tearshaking blaring America The Beautiful

the dump trucks of the Apocalypse relentlessly

and hailing horns, the grandfather ships sailing tall

in to Liberty harbor, Independence 200

201 ... Listening in black morning on the Heights

where Beecher preached & Lincoln listened.

I hear no bells ring out in Brooklyn.

Broken,

lowing, twilife cries the new age in.

Lucy Angeleri

A STATE PATIENT

The bloody semenfilled sheet

left on the staff room I- s floor fades

as i see

the gleaming chrome keyring against the dark of the open wardi

some day, the State says iwill be free-

to see the sun

-- but out there i will miss

;; gleaming chrome:

meanwhile i shuffle, take geometric steps or shift and drift

'-round and 'round two catatonics,

Iround and 'round a hissing, pissing incontinenti there1s not even a tremor from the catas

and the hissing never stops:

my chromosomes ache

to meet with outside

neurons electro-magnets

but where?

there is a stir, new circulation

as the aid dangles and twirls the key,

a myriad of keys:

the key-ring is a sunburst of chrome.

st. Clement's Church in Manhattan has provided for many years a haven for the. arts. The New York Poetry Festival, created and originally directed by Richard Spiegel was begun at the Church in 1976. The project now under the direction of Mary Clark is still offering poetry readings to the public. Janet Bloom has been conducting a poetry workshop at the Church for several years. The following poets have attended the workshop on a regular basis and are contributing material to thi~ issue.

Matthew Laufer/ Charles Trabue Robb Vincent Har~a

Susan Kronenberg Charles Tenaglia Dennis Nurkse 0/ Henry Rasof

Paul Tmnarkin Lester Afflick Richard Chilton

Teriananda Jennifer Borchers Richard Nelson Lucille Paisner Jennifer Wilson Phyllis Stern Nancy duPl~ssis Jan Meissner

Iris Berman

Hal Sirowitz

The workshop is open to other poets who are interested in this type of writing experience and is offered free of charge. St. Clement's Church, 423 W 46th Street.

POETRY & THE POET

Janet Bloom

Because I do not think any of us can operate with maximum efficiency in meeting the demands of our perils - personal~ urban, national, ecological perils - without poet±~ understanding~ I work to make it welcome and commonplace. Poets do not have to cut off the nose of fact to spite the face of feeling, or vice versa. Poetry's stock in trade is levels

of meaning. No one can manage an aberrant psyche or habitat at one level of meaning. in one tempo. Yet as a nation we try to get away with that· all the time: we try to handle all that is multiply determined, multivalent, with a citizenry and therefore a government and labor force trained in the sign language of one way streets. I write and teach from two clear convictions: that we can all see the consequences of 'and blah. blah,

blah. blah' if we are taught that language is demonstrably symbolic action~ and that we must all have some ken of a language that tries to accomodate all our complexities· if we are trying to get out of the ah-sweet-rnysterymisery ·-and-confusion-of-it-all, which is, to me, the amniotic fluid in which suicide. murder. rape, war and our other pet degradations are harbored. OUr skies are products of our imagination and we cannot clear

them without clear thinking: they can be no clearer than the language we use in_describing to ourselves how to handle the emotional and phySical pollution involv.~d.

By ~treating poetry as a health inducing acti.vi ty I hope to get my students and poetry moving on the road to the football stadiums, out there in. the fresh air with active bodies. away, at least sometimes, from the crowd of skeletons hanging around dingy living room and church readings.

I see my part in the global salvation job as helping to rescue at least American personal 11ves from the wastes of existential angUishc dope, and the therapy· chair to which they've been condemne4. Couched in the language of the problematic, or executed by jargon •. and segregated, our .personal lives are often without access to creative spark, joy and importance. If there is·to be any art to living, we must learn how to handle and value th~s personal material oai.ly, not only in emerge~cies; and must not slide further into handing it over to chemicals or experts.. Because poetry is the medium, or language, with the highest valency, in reading and writing it we can learn how to handle what runs through our minds. verbally, Visually and musically, as well as potters learn how to handle what runs through our fingers. With little interest in showing off. and great interest in engaging others in the same process, I try in my poems" and teaching to show how I, through poetry, handle crumbliness, wetness, slioperiness, sloshes, turning and firing, the violent changes in temperature that render my clays useful or broken.

When I came to see my salvation as a public service. helping others to rescue themselves and other creatures from an often terrible endurance of rejection and bei~g forgotten. then I began ,to feel that I was

in business: the kind of poetry business that matters, that can clear up our minds in the sarne way that sound ecological practices can clean up our air, water and sail; a business with a hope of expansiveness, of possible nobility, of respect and caring, of going beyond the· blown mind.

A READING'S RIVER (Dedicated to Nancy Ancrom)

Matthew Laufer

A poet straight as an Indian rocks with the river-pulse

of her chanting.

Her southern lilt surviving in ~taccato New York, weaving gesture' and crescendo,' she sways us. Silent, she seemed older.

Now she chants up a lover's river: 'Straps on for the f,lood,

holds on for the falls. I

Her chanting harbors rhythm of rafting,

from wild mountain source brimming to heartland.

,Her poems are blood music and rainbow fish. . , Melted-snow rills ripen the swell.

Precipitous waters sWirl to sweeping fullness. Her fertile rising leaves orchids in its train.

RENDEZVOUS

Charles Trabue Robb

Mold's furred tbe last of the red grapes I ate witb cheddar the other day, then added to the refrigerator clutter.

The sheen, the succor of days, whole seaons can taint that way. Even fulfilled dreams can.

A recontiliation I'd lost hope for, kindled. Discussions by phone: too ghostly, we both agreed

(odd to agree.)

Odd too that she. not I. chose that park pond to meet~-where. from a vandal-damaged bench

the day we'd broken off. I'd stared at reflected trees inverted like my world.

I'd come there a few times since to kill a pint, flip the ducks bread from deli sandwiches.

bought because to eat seemed sane. then scarcely touched (I'd saved the meat for my cats.)

Couples. like a movie sat through again, then yet again. had strolle'd the shore--

'; ,victims. celebrants of that binary illusion my part of which I'd strangled--tried to--

I I now stretched for like a lung.

I , • 11 •

Ne worked in nearbyoffices. she arrived first.

A sultry August evening. From a parapet above the pond. r saw her waiting in a blue frock, its straps

on bare shoulders. Such handsome shoulders, tanned. ,The couples cuddled in the long shade

of willows and plane trees. anc algae greened the pond

like the spirit of the dog days. '

A similar microbe of my mind. as I called her name

and hurried down the stone steps, scrimmed her Welcoming smile. r-o- how we both smiled! avid to chip again

V ,,-at each other's adamantine disguise.

'.'

\ ,

ST. FlREBREATHER

Vincent Harta

I have seen you -

anxiously gazing into the face of God,

imploring life

for the dying baby in your hands,

Bent kneel,ing, your lips glued to its mouth breathing life - a living prayer

I have seen your soul

courage blazin~ - a flame to fight a raging storm of fire

Asbestos skin is yours, with eyes of stainless steel God, I ask, are these men?

Your tears drop freely

in the company of suffering

your rage, and sense of helplessness knowing life is being scorched away beyond your grasp, your voice,

I have seen your eyes

transmuted, looking through the eye of God

being there' to ease pain 1 s searing touch or rob Death of its prey

Having given more than heart enough - the greatest gift. that God can ask

A place is set on Glory1s either side Before. your time is ripe, st. Firebreather, your hand is clasped in one of light

Susan Kronenberg

FORT TRYON PARK FALL '78

A wedding pa~ty being photographed on The Cloister's, lawn

follows a 'retreating s~otlight of late afternoon sun '

as the photographer directs

and the groom I s snu Le fades, reappears.

I

On some voiceless signal

the otl1ers bend in around the couple in a whisper of protection

aga£nst fading light, falling leaves, wind.

From behind a tree I watch, scribble notes on legal paper:

I

~ I

I

I could turn away, sit in the shadows on the stone wall over the river.

I' could join them, ,

feel the current pulse from hand to hand, the quiet recoil from my foreign body.

When the last picture· is snapped, they break apart gently,

drift down the road into cars,

and I, wanting to follow, stand where they ,stopd, while the sUn warms a spot

in the center of my forehead. '

NIGHT

Charles Tenaglia

night

has a power

a strangeness-

. which captures bewilders beckons

our minds

to

endless wanderings deep into the soul never-finding but forever winding

like a black tornado getting

deep

deeper

into the entrails

of

night

-.

CIVILIANS

Dennis Nurkse

Too much flesh was wasted. rFrom now on all must be justice,

Vl.§.specially our love.

The specks of dust

in the first sunbeam are worlds once again but now, pacified •

. We make love in the k i, tchen and the hall.

The war is blazing. We are home, home, street of small shops

locked with many keys for August.

(The trees in the yard inert as if stacked

in the hold of a rocking green ship.)

(A plane passing) .

It is for the necessary dead we wake

and for the wasted that we sleep.

r.

Henry Rasof

THE PET SHOP

A single fish swims back and forth

In a tank. The fish is without color

And always alone. Its nose is blunt

From hitting the glass and its gills

Frayed but the water rushes in and out Anyway as the fish moves back and forth Under the gray, algae. If the sun comes out The owner counts his rabbits -

And goes for a walk. The lone fish Breaks the surface now and then

With its blunt nose but gasps even more. Its frayed tail swipes back and forth

But always misses. It is a single fish With large goggle eyes that always look About to burst with the strain of swimming. When the sun goes down

The owner locks the door and goes home. A thousand children have asked him

A thousand questions and he feels good

About answering them all. His wife is ready With the net of darkness. She kisses his hair

And strips the scum from his arms. The single fish Grows frantic at night and dives and dives

To the bottom of the tank. The man

Waves his clean arms and frantically pokes his nose Above the covers as his wife straddles him

On the cold white sheets. In the morning

He gulps his coffee and runs to the shop.

A thousand rabbits crowd against the window Sniffing the glass. The single fish

Swims back and forth under the gray algae Gasping for breath but holding on

To its cold life.

I

L

-',

Paul Tumarkin

To grasp the air of nothing,

yet something always seems to' speak,

Listen, Listen,

an itch,

scratch it,

take a bath,

that was something,

relax

I like this nothing of mine,

it fills me,

and when I have been filled nothing at last

all o~~r me,

the ju'ice of nothing never something to hold never needing anything

a charred twig by a fire, maybe,

to smear my hands,

a butt to smoke

to make it complete,

wherever I go

I look for this

no one taught it to me,

. I

I found it out of need.

Lester Afflick

THINKING (OUT LOUD)

You have no leaning tower

that I know of or could imagine

you are mostly eternal and your streets that

are no~ like streets to me sing to me even now

even in this rain that falls on the both of us

and all of my talk of fortune

\

though this poem is not a song

that prays for rain so what can you say when you are poor

b~ .

that you should lcneel

1f you would want to

but the rain in my hair and the rain in my glass

and .the flowers and the honey and the almonds

your dark eyed daughters are dan~ing again

and genoa is another"way so I won't go

I firmly believe that if I sit' here

one more day or one more hour someday when I am gone someone will come here

and say

he sat here

at this table in the piazza not.talking

for a long time

a Rapallo he was held

FOR DON

and CONNIE WEST

Richard Chilton

mist-shrouded, forest hollow time-tested woman whose babes, cuddle and chide among their father's arms

grandpar~nts, and great grandparents, and g~eat-great dearsimple, downhome country steaders of willing minds and stout bodies

and spirit

quiet sweet sabbath .rain

westward the east morning's sun half-moon now buried in aftermidnight August shower;

warm autumn's children's dance southmountain plateau beats a heart's tune against the vast Appalachian sky

brave pioneering people

settlers upon a ragged, ancient land once ,proud, and unexp Lo.i, ted

seasoned farmers;

vete+an, black-caked coalrakers

being giveth and taketh away each hour the earth rumbles, and winds prevail

spirit 0 great grandfather spirit

our tribal customs lost as the Celtic

indigenous race Indian and slave',

black African, Euro-American

we are the,stock of which this world was created, and so

this summer's noon is blessed

Teriananda

Spirit guides my hand

and it will guide yours tooand mouth and feet

and entire being,

if you let trust grow. Follow first instinct

-that moment before mind.:intrudesPurify yourself so you feel clean. Follow no one else's prescription for salvation.

Learn to live with fear,

youlll be permanently lout on a limb I • But that's no problem,

the view's fantastic.

This is. all that shamen teach in their roundabout ways.

Jennifer Borchers

CBILDHOOD

Birgit told me that she liked me that April when I was nine

and she was new in town.

We crawled on our hands and knees,

picked dainty anemones, white and yellow, underneath high bushes •••

It was the first time anybody told me that.

When I think of Orna, I think

of fresh g~en peas, brown kale. kohlrabi. green beans. cucumbers. carrots,

the bench in front of the house where she sat inviting passersby for a chat.

the chair underneath the tree by the well behind the house where she enjoyed the company of birds. caterpillars. clover. bees. appleblossoms. dandelion. and her knitting.

I used to like sitting high up in the maple tree near the back door. near the kitchen.

I watched my mother come out

and feed the chickens.

I would listen to her harsh voice calling the chickens as if she loved them.

Sometimes I wished I was a feathered beast. Up safe in that tree I felt glad

that I could see her

but she didn't even know I was there •••

,Papa was like Oma, wp,o was his mother.

At night" when he came home from the fields, I ran dowh the road to meet him. . Wi th his bl.ack hair and sunburned face

he looked l.ike a gypsy.

Be smiled and lifted me onto the crossbar of his bike. 5il.ently we rode to the farmhouse

and the silence told me

that he loved me.

In May the swallows returned

to their nest inside the f·armhouse.

In June the babies crept out of the shells. I watched the parent birds feed them. watched them sit on the wire

enjoying the day, and singing.

Their top coats,

as black as my fathers hair. glistened in the sun •••.

in a state outside

BY APPOINTMENT

Richard A. Nelson

And it is

that we become

unto each qther

a pledged unity ••••.

We the two

\ only one certainty

in the drawn-out misery of an" exposed secret taken from ourselves •••.•

A horror of no horror a fear of no fear

from the need of no need from the hunger of no hunger

in a world

outside the world we sought to be •.•••

in a" country outside the country we appeared to be

within,the state

we feared to be .•...

c<V....... ----- -

. ., ... , ...........

15flO-PL 2'17 -HOB CJ49-HZH

FLA GPY-573 lJM-G'l'X 11H-1268 799-WIS 774-Q,TK

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That winter we were iced in,

a sickle1s harvest of winter sun lay pale on worn floor boards. The cat curled in the wan light, imagining summer.

We watched the ice

build up on the power lines.

I started writing poems about us, opserving you for material,

and I realized

I am always writing after love

never with the heat. I am now so distant, I have' forgotten you in a previous life.

WINTER HARVEST

Jennifer Wilson

dos shane kind/ dos dos klaine faigele/ dos klaine maidele/ ein klaine kind

shane maidele der tiere punim dos softig kind

IN THE SHTETL

Phyllis Stern

in the shtetl/ the medium sized tow~ in Poland/ the pale outside Odessa/ merchants with money

the poor ones with not even

their own house

welcomed a child sang

.lullabys at its birth

and I welcome the child/myself

on a night where there was perhaps no ele.ctricity

(a few;J had lights)

on the edge of the city

I s:i:ng to myself

of how I walked the streets like a ghost having no place to settle

how I painted. pictures taught 5ch~ol. how'I give myself now the lullaby

in the soft night where everyone

in the houses is my kin

sings my s9n95, speaks my language

many grandmothers

holding babies in their laps ll·

the night is 'my night and the lap

is soft

IT'S YER LIFE

Nancy duPlessis

money puts a shotgun to yer head money drives you right over the edge all yer safety catches

all those guard rails

can't hold yer hand steady

when a~l yer plans

are shook inside yer skull

accident reports and figures just jack up yer bills making troubles ~ore grave

than yer bedside vials of drugs for those who can use them-not you

one side of you listens· to reason to what yer friends know

and the doctors will say

even puts· in a good word for yerself but the other part kicks

like a newborn choking first air

who crawls to the nearest breastlike thing seeking mother

knowing that ain't no cure-all

money wasn ,. t on thei r minds

. when you were made

or that'd be the original sin and yer fall the final

, cause honey it ain't just money it's yer life

fire that through yer skull swallow that down

HOT AFTERNOON

Jan Meissner

Beating dusty palms, south winds sweep deserted streets. Men wait at corners for the hurried gait of ~omen at appointed hours.

Off the avenues that end in hills, down sidestreets there is life, and voices low behind a billowed curtain at a door.' White sunlight crosses sills', and kindles wqrmth beneath a woman's loosened hair. Lobes warm the gold that threads them.

Where awnings cast abandoned shade, smoke settles

~t the hour waiters linger over cards. Like metal to the taste, they breathe a fetid river atomized by heat. Heat gathers dogs down alleyways, bares, the teeth of sun bleached cats.

. By the shallow distance walls measure in cities, back-

rooms make remote the life within them. Through a crevice voices seepjas powders scent the acrid smell of sleep. Veiled by slatted blinds, eyes watch the sap of heat collect in hollows, cover bodies wasted as if visited by fevers. Blood beats in hollows where the scents dry.

Between noon's carillon and dusk's, sleep repairs the ravages of heat. In warmed air drawn of other lungs, and dust the viral winds bring, damp skin lifts o~ the throb of the vein. Through veins ancestral sediment is spun.

Downwind of plagues the city sleeps. Dark waters ru~h to rise as springs, become cold waters spun in reservoirs. And dreams of warm rain on the sill, are midday1s sweating gardener washing pavings down.

I

SHOHAMBUTSHO

for Tyrone _

J;ris Berman

Each separate snowflake reveals a pattern

like the lattice of my dream

hung with vines and fragrant flowers

A wonderful stillness abides

I

I hear beetles burrowing

in the earth

and toads roam freely in a natural light

Oh my Buddhist friend your black body

and cheekbones dating back to India taught me a source

I began to remember

how we sat together under the pear tree

through the chanting in a foreign tongue

in the rhythm of this language

I found the beating of my- heart.

I

I

ANGER LESSON

Hal Sirowitz

IJ 'A gallery is just a store that sells paintings, I she said. ---'- No No,' I said.

'It's a room full of hidden emotions.'

3ut she replied, 'You have never been to one.'

She leaned nearer.

r turned away but I had to listen

because I ·couldn't deny any form tl1at her sexuality took &,she said, 'Even my analyst agrees with me that you are

neurotic about money plus a few other things.'

'I never denied that I was neurotic,' I said.

(though it was always easier to play at being at odds

with the world dispensing with responsibility).

'&: this thing about the subways.' she continued, (with an antler I found so attractive

because my personal rage could only make my hands shake giving myself away

when I wanted so much to be the secret assassin making everyone proud of my unexpected powers). 'The subways are dirty & disgusting

but you treat them as if they were revolutionary outposts where peo~le go to· change the world.

You romanticize everything, I she said.

'Nothing escapes your romantic mind

though you could never tell that from your clothes with your old man pants

making us fight to see your beauty.'

'Look,' I said. 'I'm trying, sometimes only my mind seems real'

(because it is the only way I have of showing affection

to myself) .

I hang on to my one security

that aomewhe r'e behind all her discontent lies her true anger.

1/ ......
!-
READER'S NOTES & RECOMMENDATIONS
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