Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream volume 25 number 6

8/12/2019 Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream volume 25 number 6

1/30

J


2/30

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, Volume 25, #6

Which of the young men does she like the best?Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Walt Whitman

1


3/30

WATERWAYS: Poetry in the MainstreamVolume 25 Number 6*Designed, 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

2005 Ten Penny Players Inc. *(This magazine is published 4/05)

http://www.tenpennyplayers.org

James Penha 4-5Geoff Stevens 6Susanne Olson 7-8Patricia Wellingham Jones 9Joan Seifert 10-11Jeanne M. Whalen 12

Joanne Seltzer 13Herman Slotkin 14-15Robert Collet Tricaro 16-20Shannon Connor 21-23Ida Fasel 24-26Fran Farrell Kraft 27-28


4/30


5/30

TV RECEPTION James PenhaOn Kuta Beach, Bali

Dawn had not enlightened the volcanowhen I saw Salimi still postedat the trunk of a palm,feet planted in the sand.

Ingenuouslyhe scratched his butt justenough to raise the shadeof his skirt to showa copper thigh.

4


6/30

But it was only I,Bad night?

Nothing dropped by.He unhooked a fingerfrom his poutand straightened itpointing up past his nose.Only one of those.Salimi kickedthe coconut.

And elbow leveragedas Bacall would, or Mae W

he brushed a fingeracross his cheekwhere in moonlighta patina clotted now.And howcan I hide this, may I askwhen sometimesthey look at my face.

5


7/30

Geoff Stevens

Does he match the curtains?

Is his coloring sympathetic to the scheme?Will he fit into the scale of the room?Have I got space for him?Do I need to purchase new furniture?Do I need to redecorate?Will we need to buy a bigger house?

6


8/30

Union Susanne Olson

We live under the same roof

share name and mortgage,fused together by the small goldband, a piece of paperthe stubborn will.

Two plantsgrasses grown in different worldsdropped onto the same patch of earth.Roots hesitant to minglestrive for nourishment of another kind.

7


9/30


10/30

The Last Thing I See Patricia Wellingham Jones

The first thing I sawwhen I swam up from anesthesia

was your face furrowed with worry lines,your smile. I felt your handclasp mine, warm below the IV,felt your butterfly lipstouch my forehead.Since then mine was the face

furrowed over yours,then you were there again for me.Although you say youd rather nottread the path without me,I hope you will bethe last thing I will see.

9


11/30

Laughing Janies Upstaged Life Joan Seifert

The eager, outreaching girlwhod always had the urgeto entertain, be in front of crowds,get applause,instead,went down the aisle

with a quiet, charming boy,and had three kids.

10


12/30

Learned cooking on a budgetand to sew her own curtains,wore her clothes year after year,

saving dollarsfor things the little dumplings needed,

Shed always wanted center stagebut pedaled briskly in the background

now,just keeping up.

When her kids were grownthey were so solemn;doctor, scientist, nurse,

they wore white jackets,worked in hospitals, laboratorieone was helping find a cure

for some dread disease.(it was her husbands genes,all those brainy ventures,she laughed generously.)

She would never hearthose entrances, flourishes, wild appthough her grin was wide and boand her heart took standing ovawhen people spoke about her ki

11


13/30

Piano Jeanne M Whalen

Mist-swept outside an island cottage

I submit to breezeand the breath of a forgotten piano

newly blessed by a teenaged boy in sandalswho plays with avid emotion

that never performs on his docile faceor in his stoic frame

but only in his passionate dexterity.

12


14/30

Assisted Living Joanne Seltzer

One of the newlyadmitted ladies

calls herself a madam,the other female residentsher girls.

Mother worriespeople will think her

loose.Bald, bent, shrunken,three potential customersdont buy.

13


15/30

QUIET ELOQUENCE Herman Slotkin

In the darkest night,

In the deepest silence,I mark your talking.

The satin ribbon of your finger on my faceis declaration.

The lilt of your hips as you come and go

is suggestion.Your smile- the eye-lit flash of teeth-

is meaning.

14


16/30

Your mute moves tell me

what I need to know-your expectations and promises,your assurances and desires.

15


17/30

My Lady Heron Robert Collet Tricaro

Its likeness stood behind the glass,

beside some plastic plants, I drew closer to hearwhat the expert would say, hoping hed agreethat these avian ladies are divine.

I learned a heron lacks good sense of smellhas no lips, its hand is its beak.

It has an oversized heart, an undersized

trunk and no Circe of Willis in its brain.Its bones are porous, its hearing poorand while similar to, it is not a crane.

16


18/30


19/30

Then, resembling an opera priestess,she lifted the toes of her saffron shoes,

and slowly raised her plumed arms high.Dense as cotton candy, she sprang

onto a cushion of head wind toher three-dimensional stage.The moon her spotlight, she turned

briefly my waybefore soaring to the stars.

18


20/30

Lucy Robert Collet Tricaro

Comeliness and disposition

may mean much to most,but I avert my eyes to looks she lacks

and ignore those who sayher image is a scowl standingwith arms akimbo.

Who then, if not Aphrodite,if shed deflate the moon and hanga digital clock in that space?

19


21/30

Bright? From one to ten wheresix is average, Lucymight be five-point-two.

Who then if not Athena;if she thinks Chanticleeris a ceiling fixture?

We go back a long way. At age fifteen

minutes, I was in mothers arms. At agefourteen minutes, Lucy was on a respirator.

20


22/30

The Wrong Thing To Say Shannon Connor

I have seen the color of madness in your eyes.

I have seen you punch holes in walls.Ive seen my name spelled out in scabson the soft part of your wrist.

I have seen the pictures from your dresser drawer.Thats why its the parts of you I dont know

that scare me.Its why I lift up every sentence you speak and look underneathfor what hasnt been said.

21


23/30

Because I knowhow much deeper you can go.

And when you speak to me like this,greeting cards of conversation, might as well betalking of the weathermight as well hold up a mirrorto everything weve said before

when you speak to me like thisthen fall silentI fall to pieces.

22


24/30

Maybe its better to let you pretendyou are the reflection on the water,telling me what you think I want to hear.Maybe its best to imagine I love myself only,that you are my lovely Echo,and if I drown, I will drown at least in beautyrather thanin the armsof the beast below.

Youll swear that you are neither. But then,as always,my dearest love,youll rip my heart outand disappear.

23


25/30

Simple Arithmetic Ida Fasel

Sleeping Beauty, a hundred years older

than the Prince, reckoned Martin.Call it a fairy tale, a silly story.We were latecomers to love, too, zigzaggingthe continent to separate trips, planes late,cars broken down, yet we arrived preciselyto the minute when we were in the same place.

Call it coincidence. Call it unlikely.All is love, all is meeting.

And what then? work and bills,nagging decisions, slashing headlines,

24


26/30

family and friendly interruptions,hurts and hiddens of our own making.Love has a career too explores, develops;

as day follow day probes a little farther,looks back, stops to consider,consolidates, breaks through.Can happiness be complete?Can we be two blooms growing on one stem?

Love is the fine print of exalted feeling,intense, abidingly peaceful; in the marginstop and sides and bottom of everythingwe do away from each other and in betweenthe lines of everything we do apart. It is

25


27/30


28/30

Memory Fran Farrell Kraft

I often say If he hadnt died, Ida killed him.

But maybe its less simple than that.For ages I wore his shirts to bed.

In many ways he defined my adult self.As his acolyte, I gained confidence in my abilitieswhile accepting that I was nothing without him.

When asked how I felt, I had no idea;the concept of grief was a mystery to me.Over time I did bond with his children.

27


29/30

Twenty-five years later, his kids and theirsjoined me at the far-away lake where his ashes reside.His shirts are long gone.

28


30/30

Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream volume 25 number 6

Documents

Transcript of Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream volume 25 number 6