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2004

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Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, Volume 25, #3

All goes onward and outward . . . and nothing collapses,And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Walt Whitman

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WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 25 Number 3 *March, 2004Designed, 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 11/04)

http://www.tenpennyplayers.org

Lyn Lifshin 4--7James Penha 8Patricia Wellingham-Jones 9-10Ida Fasel 11-12Herman Slotkin 1314Geoff Stevens 15

Dan Lukiv 16-7Joan Payne Kincaid 18-19Simon Perchik 20-21John Grey 22-23Robert Collet Tricaro 24-25Fredrick Zydek 26

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Chicken Woman Lyn Lifshin

yes, she says, the extermination of seven

million broiler chickens is the moralequivalent of the Holocaust. Their hungerwakes her in a house so empty, even thesilence seems to echo. Its dark and stillwhen she moves past Freda Flower perchedon the bathroom radiator where Star and

Charley used to roost in a cupboard and nowfrail Dolina and crippled Sarah and plumplittle Holly huddle. She puts on a pot of coffee.They know the routine. Set back from the woodsof Delmarva Peninsula, the house is for the

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chickens. One chicken is on the sofa, another ona worn coffee table that stands marooned in thehuge living room. No walls of books, no cozy

retreats. Every file cabinet like a fortress. Framedphotographs of birds, boxes and drawers overflowing with research on the birds. There are 104of them living there now including one with indoorprivileges, all refugees from Americas poultryindustry. Most are sick or maimed. With her coal blackbangs, frosted pink lips she greets the chickens in theyard by name. Years before, walking thru backyardbramble she found an abandoned chicken coop, onlyone little white hen cowering in a corner. The birds legsand feet deformed, her eye lusterless. The woman who loves

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chickens took her home and made a bed near the stove, namedher Viva. The chicken, she learned, had been bred to slaughter,to produce a bizarrely large amount of meat while still young

and tender. As a result, walking was an awkward, wing-flappingordeal that left Viva distressed and exhausted. The woman wouldsoothe her, rub the soft bottoms of her feet. She remembersViva responded with frail beeps and twitching tail. The birdscondition worsened to the point where she had to be put tosleep. The chicken woman buried her in the back yard. In herdiary she wrote, November 28, 1985, soft Viva died. Then shebegan taking in chickens, rescuing them when they fell off poultrytrucks, adopting the grade school butcher projects, buying aspent hen from abusive egg farms, her sadness hardening to rage.I was so drawn to the chickens in a way I cant articulate. Watching

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them take a dust bath was the most appealing and enchanting thing.Nights she goes out in her red Sunbird to look for birds. Shefeeds them cabbages and grapes, dabs the infected chickens wounds,

wishes the chickens would stick to a vegan diet. Shes horrifiedthat they love worms. Her husbands gone, but she shrugs, he wasolder, arthritic, couldnt still help with the chickens. Loneliness isrelative, she says, I consider the chickens my friends. I get genuinejoy from their company. I love the fact that they want to be with me.Once she says a neighbors dog stole into the yard and killed a roosterI sat by myself weeping. Then one hen came over, buried her head in mown neck and I did likewise. I put my arms around her. Chickens willpurr like a cat, a little trilling sound. She stood there a long time. Shknew I was sad. She restored me. I wanted to stay in that moment for

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Contiguous StatesJames Penha

April snow shower:I dont hear wintersswan songtil she breaksthe fall.

Grass

has been growing . . .I feel itwhen the scytheperfumes the air withgreen.

The young muskrat swimsto the tunesof the reeds

that used to startle her.Sleeping dogs liethey smell the squirrelat the treeand appear barking.

In the leaves damp furrowone pink tonguetastes nothingand is forgotten.

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THE GROTTO Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Next to the road amid burned oaks,

seared dirt, a grotto stands. Its backwall a lava rock high as a mans neck,jagged, lichen-scorchedfrom recent fire. Side wallspilesof the rough stone, cairns balancedat the end of each wing. Inside the hollowpropped on a slab of cedar bark

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flowers riot in red, orange, pink paint.

The Virgin of Guadalupe nestleswith photos in crevices. Rosaries, stringsof plastic flowers, toy trucks dangle.A perch for ravens and quail, opento wind and rain, the grotto calls forth memoriesof all those who never returned home.

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Luncheon Special Ida Fasel

We were having lunchon the 54th floor of Security Life,

enjoying every hairof our seafood-sauced angel hair pastawhen someone stepped off the elevator,picked up the extra chair,smashed a window, jumped. Man overboard.

I remembered reading in Melville,I thought I was dreaming.Instantly his rope went down.The man played with it, let it go.Watchers cautioned. Not too close.

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The man tilted his head back,pillowed it cosily.A death at sea when the sea was calm.

The ship moved on.Like kin we trailed one anotherlooking perilously downas the siren closed in on our crme brule.

Why should anyone cheat death of a death,

life so good to have?From the blood-spattered concretehe still turns up to mehis astonishing face.

It was merry, Melville wrote.

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On And On Herman Slotkin

In just one instant your fond face

was wholly blotched to black on black,in five erased to white on white,the world now ever cold on cold.That moldering flesh is stripped of you,like bottles emptied and returned.

I am quite sure where you must be.Youre wandering all the wrinkled nooksof lovers thoughts and dreams we clutchand hold in precious darkening light.

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You write all Lennys listed tasks.You move in Danas dancing walk,in friends devotion to The Cause.

And who can tell in what strange place,on what brave and blooming faceyour warming smile will reappear.

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Deaths Alternatives Geoff Stevens

Pain or distress prepares

some people slowly for deathmakes them fully aware of the processwhile with others it creeps upand stabs them in the backor extinguishes them in sleepAnyway, death is inevitable.

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The Lady Who Lived Across The Street Dan Lukiv

Its hard to forget her gestures,

Her mad, terrified eyes,As she told me about the two planesOne passenger, one tinythatCollided above the Saskatchewan town,Sixty years ago now,Falling apart,

Tossing peoplechildren!ontoDusty roads, ploughed fields,A car roof that collapsed,A lady near her, looking up,Being killed.

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Children! she said,Her eyes round with memory:

Falling from the sky!She told me about the pregnant womanWho splattered. Then she heldHer breath, her nostrils flaring.

I remember her mad, terrified eyes,

Her awful gestures,And those nostrils.

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There Was Always Music Then Joan Payne Kincaid

No more daysof being

in lovewith lovethat endless lost plateauof delusionthat led to nude swimsin dangerous surfto illicit meetingsdriving awayin roadless snowstormsat risk of life and limbto desire and rapture

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in the romance of springor the fear of death in fallno more wasted plans and energy

on how to accomplishdependent relationshipsplotted to achieve beingtaken for grantedthen walking away foreverleaving someone suddenly

desiring that whichit was your turnto withholdremembering the numberscrossed-off in the book.

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Simon Perchik

Death likes to kneel, worknearer the ground, likes to drop

and under both kneesall this sun waiting for the end

for its lips to cover my wall redthough the bed weighs almost nothingthe sheets pullas snow will spread its sky closer

and I dont smoke a match

would be enough, strucknear my throat as if I could capturethe suns last breath every evening nowDeath strangling this floor

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closing its knees underneathnever again running awayor after you your name so cold

where were you! Even Ihear better on my kneeswithout a shadow to lift room to room.

Death needs to kneel.A name is so heavy.It cant be written, every page now

too weak. Even gravestones too.I know youre here.Only you can say itcan bring me to my knees and lifetime.

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A Time Spent Caving John Grey

Im afraid that, if I explore my beleaguered head,

Ill find myself wandering througha labyrinth of eerie grottoes,each rocked tight around the rough grave of an old love.

Instead I climb the basalt ridge,tear through the salt-bush mask,

follow a fissures grin into the desolate cryptof an ancient Aronan pueblo.

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Im fearful that, if I take myselftoo seriously, I could wanderaround in the worst of me for days, for years,

stumbling over deceit,despair, permanently distracted.

Instead, my curiosity chips awayat other times, other lives,scours dirt blotches from the warriors skull,

holds it up to my light,intrigued, exhilarated,the dead so realthe living cant be.

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Night Visitor Robert Collet Tricaro

Death walks in,wearing a beret

and holdinga palettewith a single color.With a winkhe slowlytilts the palette.

Catching moonsdim light, the color seemsfluid, tasting like fine claretwithout wetting my lips.It seems solid, feeling as

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silken threads of cashmereas if spunby a versatile worm,

with no touch to my skin.Appearing without form,it sounds like the puristnotes bowedon Guanerius del Gesu,without conveying notice

to my ear.A color that draws me to itlike January sun.A color I could stare at,forever.

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The Obituary Fredrick Zydek

Out in the seaall the coral

is dying.This death writesthe obituariesof the trees,

the elegies

of great whales.requiems for

those who stilldream of circlingother stars.

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27

Dayofthe

Dead,

PortRichmond,

NY

h

b

B

F i h

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