WORDWRIGHTS #9 • Winter 1997 Edition • $3.95 US • $4.95 Canada
POETRY by R.D. Baker • Michael J. Barney • Pat Bates • Joanna Biggar • Eugénie Bisulco • Gay Brewer • Jamie Brown • Blanche H. Camp • Blair Ewing • Paul Fisher • David Franks • Ron Goudreau • Brian C. Hamilton • Wendell Hawken • Elizabeth Hazen • John Helzer • Tim Hoppey • Kristen Jackson • Lisa Kosow • Mary Leary • Sara Levy •Eric S. Moffat • Sharon Negri • Jim Osborn • Michael Reinke • Lori Ann Ricci • Dennis Sipe • Patrick Smith • Dee Snyder • Nina Stotler • Libby Swope-Wiersema • Eileen Tabios • Ron Weber
PROSE by Jodi Bloom • Andrew Lewis Conn • Bruce A. Jacobs • Tim Lockette • Jeff Minerd • Judith Podell • Jim Pritchard • Patrick Smith • Rose Solari
SPECIAL FEATURE: Modern American Poets, 1929
GUEST EDITOR: R.D. Baker
FRONT COVER: Jodi Bloom
HOME
A poem by DENNIS SIPE
IN THE MUSEUM OF MORNING LIGHT
When she walks barefoot onto the deck
she knows her lover is peeking through hedgeline
but she never looks as he rises from behind it.
She sits and waits, with guilt perched
on her shoulder like a parrot,
for his fingers to slowdance with her shy thighs,
for him to whisper persistent currents of breath
that woo pale flesh apart,
work his warm tongue
quietly past her black guard fur,
like a sleepy ermine coiled about a spring,
to lap the seep and the coming flood.
Now gravity
who plays poker once a week with the sun,
turns his head to give them
what they do not really want.
She is relieved when the sun doesn’t slow
while he reaches through the window
to tickle her youngest child’s cheek
until his heavy little voice calls
and neither of them must face the truth
of holding on or holding down.
The sun is ashamed that for all his strength
he cannot harden himself enough
to pulse in her darkness.
It is a mystery, like night,
which he is too hard to see
or hold without destroying.
He cries but his tears are drops of light
only noticed by lovers’ eyes.
She whispers in his ear it is all right:
‘‘Komapsumnida,’’ she tells him,
‘‘Komapsumnida.’’
But the sun is sad
and covers his eyes with a cloud
as her children come out
with cereal and questions about kites.
Her dreams dissolve into trembling tea
cooling in ejaculated light.
A poem by SHARON NEGRI
IT IS 1996 AND I WANT MY HIPS
though this hasn’t
always been so,
college in ’75
I wanted Julie’s
body,
her boy-shape,
the way her Levis
fit,
and there were
concerts—
Keith Richards,
Patti Smith,
thin as the necks
of their guitars,
I was at
war
with my hips,
thought they were
only good
for carrying
babies
or grocery bags,
something extra,
when all I wanted
was a straight line
from the waist
straight
down
to that young boy
buried inside,
wild secrets
in his pockets.
Prose by JUDITH PODELL
BLUES FOR BEGINNERS
woke up this morning
cat threw a hairball on the bed.
said, i woke up this morning
cat puke all over the bed.
went to the kitchen
mr. coffee was dead.
‘‘Post-Graduate Blues,’’
(attrib. to Memphis Earlene Gray)
1. Most blues begin ‘‘woke up this morning.’’
2.‘‘I got a good woman’’ is a bad way to begin the blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line.
i got a good woman—
with the meanest dog in town.
3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes.
got a good woman
with the meanest dog in town.
he got teeth like Margaret Thatcher
and he weighs 500 pound.
4. The blues are not about limitless choice.
5. Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.
6. Teenagers can’t sing the blues.
Adults sing the blues. Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
7. You can have the blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the blues.
8. The following colors do not belong in the blues:
a. orange
b. beige
9. You can’t have the blues in an office or a honky-tonk. The lighting is wrong.
10. Good places for the Blues:
a. the highway
b. the jailhouse
c. the empty bed
11. No one will believe it’s the blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.
12. Do you have the right to sing the blues?
Yes, if:
a. your first name is a southern state.
b. you’re blind.
c. you shot a man in Memphis.
d. you can’t be satisfied.
No, if:
a. you once were blind but now can see.
b. you’re deaf.
13. Neither Frank Sinatra nor Meryl Streep can sing the blues.
14. If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline it’s the blues. Other blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. Irish whiskey
c. muddy water
15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack it’s blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, or being denied treatment in an emergency room.
16. Some Blues Names for Women
a. Sadie
b. Big Mamma
17. Some Blues names for Men
a. Willie
b. Joe
c. Little Willie
d. Lightning
Persons with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
NOTE: ‘‘BLUES FOR BEGINNERS’’ is Copyright © 1997-1998 by Judith Podell. World Rights Reserved. Permission to reprint must be obtained by writing to Judith Podell, c/o The Argonne Hotel Press.
