Autumn 1977

31 Pages·2016·6.03 MB·English

POET RY + NORTHWEST
VOLUME EIGHTEEN NUMBER THREE
EDITOR
AUTUMN 1977
David Wagoner
JAMES GRABILL
Two Poems.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS MARGARET SHAFER
Nelson Bentley, William H. Matchett Three Poems
LISEL MUELLER
Two Poems
COVER DESIGN ELTON GLASER
Night Letter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Allen Auvil
HELEN DICKINSON
Sleeping Alone 14
DANIEL HALPERN
Coverfrom a photo of royal carp in a pool located in Green 15
Coco Palms Park in the traditional home of Hatuaiian
PAUL ZIMMER
royalty on the island of Kauai. Two Poems 15
ROBERT LIETZ
Trying To Second-Guess the Gypsy 17
HARoLD WITT
Three Poems 18
PAT- THERE SE FRANCIS
BOARD OF ADVISERS Fire 20
Leonie Adams, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert B. Heilman,
CAROL FROST
Stanley Kunitz,Jackson Mathews, Arnold Stein Bonfire Makers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PHYLLIS HOGE
Letters.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
MARY TALL MOUNTAIN
POETRY NORTHWEST AUTUMN 1977 VOLUME XVIII, NUMBER 3 Grandmother's Dream
RICK ROBBINS
Published quarterly by the University of Washington. Subscriptions and manu
Two Poems.. . . . .
scripts should be sent to Poetry Northtoest, 4045 Brooklyn Avenue NE, Univer
sity of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105. Not responsible for unsolicited G. E. MURRAY
manuscripts; all submissions must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed Chicago Journal: Turning Thirty.. . . . . . . . . . 28
envelope. Subscription rates: U.S., $5.00 per year, single copies $1.50; Canada,
$6.00 per year, single copies $1.75. THOMAS BRUSH
Letter from the Street. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
© 1977 by the University of Washington SAMUEL GREEN
Comment/ Exchange with a Student on the Last Day 30
Distributed by B. DeBoer, 188 High Street, Nutley, N.J. 07110; and in the West
JACK MATTHEwS
by L-S Distributors, 1161 Post Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94109. The Bears 31
ROBIN H. SEYFRIED
Hanging On. . . 32
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DIANE FURTNE Y P OET R Y N O R T H W E ST
Two Poems 33
BRENDAN GALVIN A UTU M N 1977
Two Poems 35
THOMAS REITER
Three Poems . 39
JACK BUTLER
A Prayer for Jehovah's Witnesses..
. . . . . . . . . . . .
ROBERT GILLESPIE
Floundering for Firewood in Deep Snow in Maine, I Flash
Jurises Grubi ll Two Poems
on Dorothy Molter's Life and Then on Three Times in
My Own. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
LEwis TURco GUESSING SONG
The Bears in the Land-Fill . 45
"I guess I'm just like you,
MICHAEL MAGEE
I don't like strangers
Two Poems
Hovering behind me."
STEVEN GOLDSBERRY ( — a Portland store clerk to my wife
Witch Teeth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 as I was bending very close behind
her picking up a coin)
ALBERT GOLDBARTH
Two Poems 50
GARY MARGOLIS I guess I'm just like you,
Two Poems . 52 I don't like strangers
RICHARD BLESSING Hovering behind me.
Two Poems 54
I guess I'm just like you,
I can see the horse
Tied to the brass tree
In the amoeba
Of the first creation,
Planning the friendly demolition
Of stock-piled alarm clocks.
I guess I'm just like you,
A V of geese in the sky
Under the hammer blows
Of ordinary breathing,
All the geese wandering,
A flower of virgin misunderstanding
Surrounded by the dog bees
Of some worry and pleasure.
Change of Address
I guess I'm just like you,
Notify us promptly when you change your mailing address. Another hog's fly lost in the wake
Send both the old address and the new — and the ZIP code numbers.
Of the sweating hogs and horses
Allow us at least six weeks for processing the change.
Cooing under their breath
hide in the basement
Grandma, Grandma Beanstalk.
until somebody intelligent
And I guess you' re just like me,
comes down to save you
An iron-mongering cameo
Of the completion of the species,
nobody intelligent
A student of endurance,
gonna go down there
A nocturnal-born finishing school without you coming up
Wrestling in the nude, the penis first you gotta come up
Rising in the cool asparagus, that's what the hell
A Norse baboon at the cave's mouth
you doing down there
Under the crescent moon
learning to come up
Of predestined final ambitions.
I guess I'm just like you,
look the dogs are healthy
A sitar continuing to snore
and they eat any number
Like a car motor, a banjo
of things off the ground
Whose face had been disguised
Since birth, who was given up
and we' ve all been asleep
For lost week after week
for at least ten years
In the ocean's relationships,
maybe that's why
A raw dolphin harmonic
we keep eating
Meaning both I am you
what we say
And I respect your distance.
it's a goat night of April
and there's time to be looking
GOAT NIGHT
all around in the same look
it's night and sleep
it's time to be swimming
is my hound dog
instead of all that worrying
lying flat behind me
or maybe we've been competing
and beer is my billy goat
maybe that's the trouble
standing off to one side
it will eat anything
when we could come up
from the ocean floor
this dark beer tastes
of the work week
of the distant grains
and a bit of soil
breathing that saltwater
human energy
well a little soil
never hurt anyone
and whatcha gonna do
POETRY
NORTHWEST
Margaret Shafer Three Poems it echoes. All the old frescoes
have fadedi n the gloom.
But there is a doorway
A DREAM OF BEAUTIFUL COOKIES into your subconscious
or it may be a trap door
They are chocolate, immaculate close to the duodenum
with coats fine as dust. and something is about to be
If you could bite them digested.
they would break on your teeth
like champagne. It's a nice light there
If you could carry them away old tables wrinkly as brain waves
they would be in a little bag and benches like long scars,
clean and stiff as an envelope. peopled with your relatives.
But they have changed.
Suppose you are in the dream They have lost their baby fat.
which is a store. Imagine your hunger They are thin, all dressed in chocolate brown,
for it is a hungry dream. Every day you discover and starved into gentility. You forget their names.
that no one can be eaten Somehow they are too old for you.
like a cookie They are your father's aunts in crepe
and kept for your convenience, which is hunger nesting by fluted dishes of lemon drops.
and has a nice tongue And there are uncles in crestfallen suits.
and a mouth that draws a dry draught of air
while you sleep. Be brave. This is all you will have for dinner.
It is what you owned from the beginning
The saleswoman is in your way. when you were dosed with chromosomes.
She is blocking the view, Be polite. Eat the bones.
smiling like some exasperating teacher. Remember how you got through your first case of liver
I suppose she is your mother or was it a well-cooked tongue'?
and damn if you haven't hired her See. They are holding out their hands
for a major part. While she stands there heavy with tasteful rings. These are the family jewels.
time flies. While she stands there
you are nailed to the floor and when she steps aside Bite through.
there are cosmetics, lovely reds and browns
and bottles with thick silver caps.
But nothing to eat. JEAN
Your stomach is a monastery Your parents are asleep in the mirror.
with a stone cold floor. How cold their hands are!
When something walks there, And the veins in the hands all dammed with death.
POETRY NORTHWEST
of my heartbeat. They offer me
It is a deep mirror. Anyone would say
their stories and I drink
Such depth was impossible
an architecture of myth.
Except in certain eyes and bodies of water.
In the light their offerings
See how small your mother is in her grey
turn to dust and their wrappings
Undress, and how your father is turned to the wall
to rags so that I wait in silence
Almost as if he hadn't loved her.
and alone fort he honed edge of the oar
to slice the dark water.
Your hair sweeps out toward the stars
In free-fall. It is impossible to say
How much it slows you — that blonde hair
Lisel Mueller Two Poems
The numb wind whips you blind.
The satellites are busy reporting the weather.
FOR A THIRTEENTH BIRTHDAY
Your parents lie on a sort of bed.
They have saved you a place between them at the bottom. You have read War and Peace.
Now here is Sister Carrie,
not up to Tolstoy, but still
it will second the real world:
UNTITLED POEM
predictable planes and levels,
There are rivers in my hand, the pavement that holds you,
little Niles of milk stairs that lift you,
and I bury my mouth there ice that trips you,
in order to wake from the dream nights that begin after sunset,
four lunar phases,
a finite house.
that the felucca will not come.
Maybe it is caught behind the dam
with the oarsman asleep I give you Dreiser
although (or because)
and his cargo of dates
I am no longer sure.
overripe in the Nubian sun. Lately I have been walking into glass doors.
It is the hand that does nothing Through the car windows, curbs disappear.
to write or eat, the unschooled one, On the highway, wrong turnoffs become irresistible,
but here is the hope of boats someone else is controlling the wheel.
Sleepless nights pile up like a police record;
all my friends are getting divorced.
and the passage to antiquity.
Language, my old friend, deserts me;
In the jet of blood are the mummies,
with scarab and wrap, words are misused or forgotten,
awake at the sound
POETRY NORTHWEST
Venus supreme in the sky,
consonants fight each other
the miracle of always
between my upper and lower teeth.
landing on your feet,
I write "fiend" for "friend"
and "word" for "world," even though the earth
remember comes out with an m missing. rotates on its axis.
I used to be able to find my way in the dark, Start out with that, at least.
sure of the furniture,
but the town I lived in for years
has pulled up its streets in my absence,
NOT ONLY THE ESKIMOS
disguised its buildings behind my back.
My neighbor at dinner glances
We have only one noun,
at his cuffs, his palms;
but as many different kinds:
he has memorized certain phrases,
but does not speak my language.
the grainy snow of the Puritans
Suddenly I am aware
and snow of soft, fat flakes,
no one at the table does.
guerilla snow, which comes in the night
And so I give you Dreiser,
and changes the world by morning,
his measure of certainty:
a table that's oak all the way through,
rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap
real and fragrant flowers,
on the highest mountains,
skirts from sheep and silkworms,
no unknown fibers;
snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger,
a language as plain as money,
riding hard and heading west,
a workable means of exchange;
a world whose very meanness is solid,
surreal snow in the Dakotas,
mud into mortar, and you are sure
when you can't find your house, your street,
of what will injure you.
though you are not in a dream
or a science fiction movie,
I give you names like nails,
walls that withstand your pounding,
snow that tastes good to the sun
doors that are hard to open,
when it licks black tree limbs,
but once they are open, admit you
leaving us only one white stripe,
into rooms that breathe pure sun.
a replica of a skunk,
I give you trees that lose their leaves,
as you knew they would,
unbelievable snows:
and then come green again.
the blizzard that strikes on the 10th of April,
I give you
the false snow before Indian summer,
fruit preceded by flowers,
10 POETRY NORTHWEST
the Big Snow on Mozart's birthday
the snow in the back of our heads,
when Chicago became the Elysian Fields
whiter than white, which has to do
and strangers spoke to each other,
with childhood again each year.
paper snow, cut and taped
to the inside of grade school windows,
Elton Glaser
in an old tale, the snow
that covers a nest of strawberries,
NIGHT LETTER
small hearts, ripe and sweet,
No one can sleep. Tropic adagios
the special snow that goes with Christmas,
Strain through the dirty screen
whether it falls or not,
When a hard breeze is needed.
Immune to the moonlight
the Russian snow we remember
Blue-benign on theb edroom floor, no one
along with the warmth and smell of our furs,
Would walk five feet to look at the stars.
though we have never traveled
to Russia or worn furs,
But even in this dry bed
Where the sheets meddle and whisper,
Villon's snows of yesteryear,
We hear the prowl of the tomcat's appetite,
lost with ladies gone out like matches,
The pine trees rasp and palsy.
the snow inJoyce's "The Dead,"
And the scandal of our own breath.
the silent, secret snow
Blows sour through the bone.
in a story by Conrad Aiken,
which is the snow of first love,
On the first stray unseen star
To fall our way, I wish
the curtain of snow between the child
For an axis of instinct and concentration,
and the spacewoman on TV,
The escape from hot necessity, elision
Of doubt and bravado, al ove
snow as idea of whiteness,
As riverine as her long tawny hair.
as in snowdrop, snoio goose, snoioball bush,
In this hour of misconduct and obstacles,
the snow that puts stars in your hair,
Past the winter-slime and the spring's
and your hair, which has turned to snow,
Hubbub of glad bells, I send out this dispatch
Of languagec heapened by the darkness,
the snow Elinor Wylie walked in
A note set down for no one, asking
in velvet shoes,
Only to be delivered.
the snow before her footprints
and the snow after,
12 POETRY
NORTHWEST
Helen Dickinson Daniel Halpern
SLEEPING ALONE
GREEN
Dreams play leap frog
How the color pleased you,
back through years
how you worked its various hues
land on sunken
and wooed them and took them in.
lily pads
The green freedom of a singing bird,
green uncertainty, green fluency,
My grey friend barks
green of the wing and of the ring,
with his eyes
of the evil in the dry machine.
I wake and weep
You traced the paradisal green
for my sins
of slippers as they padded for you
then sleep a log
the muted sound of green.
all quiet
The air on your way to work was green.
The air of your dreams was green.
Prince Hal sails in
full bastard
There is a moment at sea
maidenhead cask
when the sun goes down that everything
on the fly
turns bright green.
I hack up his
Green fiction. You are gone,
royal bones
He rides to Kent
unwounded
I wake and scream Paul Zimmer Two Poems
for his sin
WORRYING ABOUT YOU
Now there's Norman
in the trees
Dear Wanda,
teaching kissing
Norman please Worrying about you all the time,
clear as oak arms I could just as well be drowning.
on the moon I went to see your act last night,
you are a priest-king Sat down on my piles, in the doldrums,
of my nights My soft teeth aching in the grind,
my undying Eyeballs burning through bifocals;
maidenhood Then you floated into the spotlight,
Hands unfolding, folding like sting rays.
Where are you now The cymbal started to sizzle as
old snowbank
14 POETRY NORTHWEST
And a pair of rutting reindeer.
You slipped out of cloths and floated
The snow geese boarded each other
Them to the sharks in the audience.
In anticipation of their nest!
The circles of your thighs and calves,
Wanda, I had big plans for us as well,
Bob and weave of belly and breasts
But as the rain began to fall
Making the whole room sigh and sweat.
I could not find you anywhere.
Water is up to my armpits now,
And you would give these things away
Elephants and plough horses kick
So easily! The secrets all of us
The boards right out of the keel.
Had burned to see, you revealed as
Termites gnaw at the strakes.
Lightly as a perch can lay its eggs.
But why should I give a damnP
Even the band saw everything!
Wanda, where the hell were youP
Wanda, I went out into the night,
Still fondly,
My eyeballs rolled through ashes,
Cold air fired my teeth up, Rollo
My poor ass bled with the knowledge
That you aren't precious anymore.
Robert Lietz
So long,
Cecil
TRYING TO SECOND-GUESS THE GYPSY
When you descend the plank stairs,
A MONTH AGO
she is already seated, notations in front of her
in a fine hand. Leaves, prints of leaves,
Dear Wanda,
smoke in the room like a presence, adorn the upholstery
A month ago the sun disappeared, and on the warped shelves her cracked leathers
Clouds swelled up like giant fungi. seem to dance. You are drawn to each other: flint
I figured something big was up to rock in a closed space. Outside this address,
So I tore the old barn down outside the purlieus of your vision, what you have sought
And built myself a ponderous raft, assembles. She tells you about your children, describes
Hoisting the house to put on top. the Michaels and Allisons not born yet. You have heard
I laid in a hundred cases of Coors, all this beforehand. But the absence of arching cats
Then I gathered animals two-by-two: and star-charts suggests she's authentic. Call it reality.
The sweet swine and foul goats; Call it soap hollowed by hot water. Her oak table,
Cattle to breathe me some peace; ordered to one leg as predicted, jigs to a hornpipe.
I went a long way for rhinoceros; The closed circles she entertains in secret hum.
The lions ate the sheep before Figure as on film, you backtrack. You slow your retreat
I could get them in; two turtles; into taking stock. There may be no sense to breath,
Two hares in heat; two treefrogs;
NORTHWEST
16 POETRY