POETRY g+ NORTHWEST V OL U M E T E N • N U M B E R F O U R EDITOR David Wagoner WINTER 1969 —70
EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS Nelson Bentley, William H. Matchett EUGENE RUGGLES Seven Poems THOMAS JAMES COVER DESIGN Three Poems Ann Downs KEN SMITH Three Poems 10 Il ELIZABETH LIBBEY Cover from an original drawing by Bill Holm, Lecturer and Curator of Education 12 at the T h omas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum, Seattle. It is t i t le(1 Two Poems "Raven Bringing Light to the World," and about it Holm says: PETE WINSLOW Three Poems 13 In the midst of his transformation from the grandson of the owner of light to the bird Raven, Yehi, the T l i ngit culture hero, raises the moon to the J OHN HO L B R O O K sky with his hand while he grasps the lid of the chest containing the sun with his raven claw. A Clean Sweeping 15 DENNICE SCANLON Holm, a white man, has been called the best living Northwest Indian artist by Dream House 16 prominent authorities. WESLEY McNAIR Leaving the Country House to the Landlord 17 BOARD OF ADVISERS GIBBONS RUARK Two Poems 19 Leonie Adams, Louise Bogan, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert B. Heilman, Stanley Kunitz, Jackson Mathews, Arnold Stein MARILYN HACKER Exiles 21 ERNEST SANDEEN 22 POETRY NORTHWEST W IN TER 1969 — 70 V O LUME X, NUMBER 4 What To Do at the End JOHN MELLA 23 Published quarterly by the University of Washington. Subscriptions and matte. Two Poems scripts should b e sent t o P o etry No r t hwest, Parrington H a l l, U n i v ersity STEPHEN DUNN Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105. Not responsible for unsolicited matnt• Two Poems 24 scripts; all s ubmissions must be accompanied by a s t amped, self-addressetl envelope. Subscription rate, $8.50 per year; single copies, $1.00. JOAN STONE Two Poems 25 © 1970 by the University of Washington Distributed by B . D eBoer, 188 High Street, Nutley, N.J. 07110; and itt t h e JOHN JUDSON 26 West by L-S Distributors, 552 McAllister Street, San Francisco, Calif, 94ltt". The Lineage of Indian Ponies JOSEPH BEATTY A Prayer for the Living Room Furniture 27 P O E T R Y N O R T H W E S T DAVID ZAISS Child's Play WI N T E R 196 9 -7 0 M ORTO N M A R C U S From "The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems" 29 PAUL NELSON Eugene Ruggles Seven Poems Cargo . 30 V. H. ADAIR L INES FROt>I AN A L C O H O I .I C W A R D Notes from the Mental Hospital 31 PAUL HUNTER They lock us up when thc sun drops. Sabotage 32 I keep the senses of' five walls that begin to siveat. Across the yard DANIEL J. LANGTON they let the insane ivalk the «lark. A Poem About My Life 32 Any «lance of tlistract.ions ivill do f'or:i hand ivith not h ing h;ird to hold . MORTON D . P A LEY . Two Poems 34 GARY GILDNER I otitshoot thcI11;ill 'll. pool an(1 tlien shovel niy share of coal Harold Fogel Could Be Anywhere 35 into the television stove. I can eitlier JOHN H. STONE crown Inyself w ith clieckers ln the Bath 37 or I can be alone IRA SADOFF beneath the skii ts of a sliower. For Poets Grading Freshman Papers 38 A man comes this f'ar without courage TERRY REID until he opens himself' Two Poems 39 to find he's a tloor between tivo winds, KENNETH SALLS facing;i space that's in the corner of a barre«1 window Change of Address ;in«l my ban PO E'I' R y NORTHWEST H ITCH H I K I N G I N ' 1 0 A S P R IN G S T O R M G LIMPSE OF A N O L D i >IAN'S DEAT H I N TH E M I D D L E O F O H I O I see him reel near the cliff and fall through Near this gravel road a wind a hole in the ocean air• is opening the heads of trees. his rvhire face yanked from the night like a tooth. A branch of lightning breaks, clouds come together like boxcars. Glad the only ride in sight THE ROOM is a plow dug into the ground It's thirty below for me I lift my collar and walk, the sky packed around my face this January. The skin drifts thinking of Sherwood Anderson and the winter moves nearer. when he forgot who he was. I know the sun breeds in a Hake. To my right, cows with their calves are folding themselves together Just outside a street climbs upward like a herd of Rowers. sloping into buildings, They move as if the storm the Roor of this room is level except for shadorvs planted in the wood. were a barn above them. Their eyes cover me as t.he rain Tire warm quart of'wine is gone. begins nailing green against dirt. I pull the Roor up over me, as one wing of moonlight comes dorm to me — a fog in trousers. W A L K ING D O W N A N A LL E Y IN DE T R O I T ON TH E L O W ER E A ST SIDE There are never any tracks left beneath a lean-to of shadows the following morning Negroes hang over four checker players when I leave this room, and a rusted barrel lifting smoke the door opens like a vein. around a coffeepot. October circles easy in the alley, inhales, is lined with old heavy clothing. A HARNESS My mother is churning butter A few blocks down a Chevrolet between her knees factory shifts into its second gear on the porch of the farmhouse, of human bodies. The quart bottle there is no sound of the steps, climbing from hand to hand only a small boy dragging a harness leaps once more, and refills heaped around both shoulders as it sinks beneath the ashes. across the short grass. She wonders about her brothers, When an old man reaches out the ones still setting out his dark face packed with scars from the fishing village in Nova Scotia and clearsthe board in one move, pulling old nets, the boards, their lives, laughter opens against the brick tire holes shining in them. like a match, like iodine, The harness spreads open behind the boy. burning along the Detroit River. Small bits ol'darkness fall out of it. POETRY N O R 1 H W E S T Il. ll.;>s hung i>ll u rute» n the b'u'l> Thomas James Three Poems >(eighing;>s much;>s th(. boy, SNAKEBITE old(.v thtu> tl>c ho>'sc >vho u >ll pull t h>s sun>n>c> tl'n'oc>gh >t. Now I '>In gct t >ng 1>ght.;>s cot>or> ct>ndy• Hc listens to thc dust bc hind 1>in> Out of the two red holes in my heel tt>vning over on its b;>ck, Infinity pours, goodbye to all of me. its underside l>urr>s it> the Xlichig>n light. It was plea~ant to >catch my lcg begin to swell; His sho>tlder bh>des unf'old in the le;>>1>e>. An incredible heacliness >cashed over me, And he> h;>nds moving;>bove the cl>u> n I didn't feel a thit>g. The color of a bluebot tie, look to him like two pieces of u atev if' tl>ey could f'ccl p;>in;>g;>in, The sky hit my skin like water f'ron> a pitcher. gathering togetl>(.r I remember only a limber bvown stick >(hat is left of the morning's mill . Without any f'angs, then the cool white stretcher As f'av '>s it c: an con>c f'rom WI>cve I became part of an unamusingoke j the cn>pty >'oad erupt>cs >nto hc> lr>p. And the sun became a singular golcl adder, 1'he thick smell of' t l>e le;>ther begins Which gat.hered its constricted shape and struck. in the bones of' the 1>oy's n>ou>1>, as he lifts it ovev the knees First I dream of wool, and then of wat.er, of tl>c olcl hired man 1'he bridge gone out under my f'ootsolcs. who >(ill rul> oil into it. Sleep eddies under everything pure as a colt's star. These ladies in >vhite speak a mouthful ol bells. They let tl>e sleep rush out of me like ai>. LOVE'S >I IC'1 Ancl are upon me when I least expect it. Everything I leave behind is ubiquitous, Even the unclependable broad daylight Which grows thinner each time I raise my eyes To >vatch thc centuries stream from my foot And the whole world rock backward into place. P O E 1 R 'I' l s'ORT H W E ST T HE POINSETT I A S GANGRENE I have grown accustomed to the pallors of stone. All morning I have been turning into jade. The scalloped, tissuepaper sheath tlisclosed Ambushing the semiprecious bone, Brightness like an inflammation. It takes me in my swivel-bed They packed me off to blackness, sleep-crazed, Where I watch my toes go out one by one. Riding an armory of potent needles A Victorian lady changes the sheets every Sunday, I'oward adark I hardly recognized. The pigeon-colored nurses leave tne alone With clouds fingerprinting on the grapeskin sky. A clear balloon, t.he intravenous bottle I nestle in these white, icy hillocks Bobs on its rubber string, nursing As the nurses clip me clean as a boy. The sting under my skin. Death-rattle, I am inattentive to their deepest. looks. Whimper, sob, and whine vibrate along Now, I have whitewashed walls and a white pitcher, The corritlor walls. The poinsettia petals Hare, Armloads ol'white, virginity that speaks. Each a I'orked red tongue. Light. blunders in rich and gold as beer Hell is a blue light. The devil's granddaughter From a world where people wake and kiss, Turns me on the rotisserie, Images shaken free on tlark water. Broiling my juices to a vapor. I await the syringe, its needleful of brightness, Light returns, a punctual mist crowding the eye. As my leg yields to a century of stone. Inf'ection stews in a region behind my eyelids. I am a fossil, htigging its dry rose. My veins bloom blue as the sky. I wake slowly, just at the outskirts of pain. My belly stitched with a tough black thread, A light-winged lady rushes off into the dark, I am snug as a turkey. Love is a wound that will happen. I-ler beacon red as my garnet tiepin. Veteran ragdoll with split sides, Nobody minds me at all now as I suck A woman coughs her stitches open Greedily at darkness, its flaky soot Across the hall. I count the four brown prongs Blown in at the window crack, Of a crucifix. Bright petals deepen, A mouthf'ul of honey. Under my bedlight Collapsing on the bureau top. The dinnerbell rings, I am a park statue, I am all verdigris, All whiteness. I am the virgin bridegt oom, white, Tenable as an old penny. Tonight Chast.ened by these hot tongues. Nobody stops at the door. In the hospital garden The birch outside my window, in a snowy light., The moon rises like a white button out of a bed Stands in a waist.-high drift, austere, complete, Of brown chrysanthemums. Sickness Essential as the edge of sleet, Begins to mount me like a bright. counterpane, Intractable and ripe as a middleaged bride, An(l my head goes under. Dark is a sudden kiss. N 0 R 'f H W E S 'I' P OE' I R Y Ken Smith Three Poems Ilooding thc ears, thc paranoid sl. ull. Let it all go dorvn, blue rratcr of lakes A GOOD F O X like prayer in the rocl s, bracken, sticks, the woods and the shivering creatures The fox ran, everyone ran after. invading the threads, the warm cells, The fox's care: he drew out the pack, the bone canals rreepy rr ith blood. he ran so we ran with him Pain raises its monunicnts, the dead thick as porridge in Flanders go dorm, Glimpsed red on the field, he ran t.he villages make do rr ith an obelisk. to his wood, to his own cover, Let it all go dorian the voices the light trembled across him. He ran cry on under the helmet. The stone into holes, under leaves, across water, image presents arnis: it rvas there ran in the open, everyone ran it. rras real — motion of shoulder, too long in thc sleeve, the set jarv. Water never tires over the stones, He rvrites post:ards, sneaks through rvire, it is the stones are milled down. he crouches again in the inuck, he envies The fox never t.ired. He worked at running. the dead brother and the snails, Not for fox but I' or the running we rvent, he trails home like i lihick sulking w ing the fox knew it. Under the star fresh from nor(here, tlie dreams he lay down, he knew he was nothing we wanted ready their sights and their knives• nothing now l>ut this blood, this cry out We knew he was fox, running out on the sly fields, we knew he was red meat I.ct (i a I I go dorr ii and bone and nothing but. fox. let it all go down So we ran, we just ran, he with us t.ill the bone liood sh;it ters and the tootsbreak in And the fox runs alone, peers through bracken red against red, slinks to the house, appears bythe hedge, no one after him P ERSIS'I ENT N A R R A ' I ' I V E The speaker opens his mouth. We tired of the game, fox, we tired of your red slash The loverslie down t.ogether. on the skyline. We tired of your pause and turn The boy is sent to the rvar. and run on with ashake of the head. We tired of not.hing but fox, we learned bet.ter. Tlie last. irain leaves (lie city. We tired of nothing but fox, but a good fox I'he sky clouds over with ruin. I he animals step back into shadorv. The speaker opens his mouth. SKULL Tire fields are trampled by horses. Worms, moles, water and grasses Ghildren crouch dorvn in the ashes. have brought down the mountains• the landscape presses its messages. Survivors wait at. the frontier. The hurts come together, the eye Two armies meet in a I'orest. open ni gon I ight, a shri I I of i nsects The lovers take off their clothes. 10 POETRY N O R I' H rA' E S T The speaker opens his mouth. Who is the woman drawn in ink against An eartlul«ake topples the belltower. his mouth? She leans across my shoulder, The boy lies down in a cornfield. smears a river on her ocean etching, blacks the sky in cinder — makes me Soldiers patrol all the streets. in my eye, a gullwing blue, a hubble The grocer has run out of' Hour. on your dancing waterfire. The girl dreams of a wheatfield. The speaker opens his mouth. NEW YFAR Now the woman sweeps out her house. Outside your glass: daffotlils early ow there is a christening. by the warm stone ofyour porch, horses 'I'he ship enters the harbor. you don't own, nosing grass, winter hay uneaten. Is this another year for us, The girl waves her red scarf. a first plane in from the east The lovers cry out in their love. on ice? We hear engines hot over our mount.ain, wake the coals And at last it is still. to red. Flames thread our eyes And the speaker says I shall begin. together, hold the mountain back 1 he children are all asleep. to corners of this house. Flowers folded on a shelf will last. I dream that stems grow like spring to our bed. Elizabeth Libbey Two Poems POINT RECONCII.IATION Pete Winsloze Three Poems For Ki t This is the ocean we mention — iron steps, B ARRICADES OF W E L C O M E the beach, till its watcheyes tow you loose. The gullman will come Welcome from the Kiwanis and Rotary holding bones on his arm, a heavy tongue Said the sign by the road block to lick you clean, his seastar hag Welcome said the mayor to put. you in. What marks his mask Locking all doors with the key to the city amongthe turning rocks? He rolls Each motel had a sign that. said welcome a dark moon on its beam, his coat is like But the wind whistled through the rooms your breath — deat.h is on his f'eet And there was no furniture like stocking silk. You would sink The Chamber of Commerce gave you a map if your ship reeled off nine miles Showing the way out of town toward a street you didn't know, An angry mob carrying welcome signs You Yl see him on your wrist, nailing down Chased you across the city limits the pilings of the wharf — fish him in You could hear it f' or miles as you ran down the highway and wait for what tide could take An insane cry of welcome welcome welcome t.o the moon. I' ve seen him You were well onyour way to learning the language of sitting in the fire of the river. the place. l2 I'O E T R Y N O R T H W E S I ' WHEATIES AND B E ER Imagination goes into mass production Watch out. foreign countries, there are airplanes of imagination Wheaties are terrible with beer The suburbs are under siege But there isn' t. anything else to eat Tanks of the imagination are going ahead of the infantry And I'm hungry Beautiful spies of the imagination are crossing the lines They are slrowing their legs in the bars of the suburbs Two things I always seem to have It won't be long now Are Wheaties and beer Children are taking imagination home to their families It was inevitable they'd get together Imagination is knocking on the windows of'old I'olks' homes Women are running shrieking from the clothes of imagination So I am having Wheaties and beer they find in their closets And reading about. Bob Richards Imagination is gushing through huge holes in the c:ity limits Director of the Wheaties Sports Federation And in the acid hotel Amid celebrations of the triumph of imagination He says, "There's no limit A man nobody looks at checks in with a suitcase of tlespair. To what a man can do If he believes in himsell'and works hard" That's right, he can eat dry Wheaties without sugar Jobm Holbrook Washing them down with beer By the refrigerator light, nude in the cold. A CLEAN SWEEPING If not by chance then as luck ACID HO 1 EL would have it, area dogs I'm stretching the imagination in the acid hotel are showing well in residential The doorman has a piece of it districts. Even the farmer The chambermaid has tucked some into the beds who lovetl his cow as much The bellboy has suitcases of it everywhere as he loved to kick it There is imagination in the swimming pool, leering at the ladies lost a leg. A week ago a local There is imagination in the lobby, like a sleeping bum doctor spent t.he day off They' ll throw it out soon prescribing noise for curious tourists, And there will be imagination on the sidewalk, threatening to go though no one reallygave a good hoot. out into t.he city And on Main Street, two flights above Soon only the suburbs will be free of imagination it all, desk boys were doing it The doorman can't hold the imagination with fans again, this t.ime like Marines It's running out his pockets as he opens the door for people training for control. God's honor. Who are affected with imagination and open it themselves The imagination is getting out of bed Sat.urday, the Woman's Auxiliary painted Dressing and going about. its business the park rocks green and the hytlrants red. The swimmer imagination has irradiated the water with ideas High spots hit the sun and the wind The towels and bathmats are wet with imagination got the dickens. Sunday was another ball Imagination is getting into the food game, a real shocker. It. was the Hip The steam on the windows is imagination Sirs against the Title Seekers The flag on the roof is waving in the breeze of imagination and t.heir managers for a case l4 POETRY N OR I ' H W E ST of'cold beer and a couple of girls a plum." I'm still small at t.he dry bed of a streant. out on their first base picnic. Crockery and water. I bring this heebie-jeebie to make a creek and sail the cup until it breaks. If one stick Although news that Moscow admits it was left to pound where fountlation's dirt, what ritual and agencies better than blue chips would bring bricks back, a wet spot on Ihe sand> are questioning existence, wheat and corn are on the skids, hogs are sliding home, What. is a house? A claim to life you own? beef's at the end of the line, and goobers, All you can give to be tom down? Change. New frames a la Alabama, are fouling out, striking are strong. Marble. Scotch. Do you save the oldest for perspective experience. Across roc:ks for last. to see if staying was better? The blade the board, hand bags and hat pins is closer now and someone drives this hearse without. are in demand. In Hungry Horse, Coram, a f'ace. I don't knou why we go so fast until cheekbo»es and Ronan, featherbedding's exclusive. form or our eyes begin to tnatch. No sound of trucks In Poland, metals are mutual, on top like my heart against a hundred springs. once more in gleaming engineering. And so, after a good day's catch, t.he very latest up t.o date, Wesley McNair ends up wrapped up and fine in the crunch of cold fish cuts. LEAVING T H E C O U IUTR Y H O U S E T O T H E L A N D LO R D , F IVE YEARS LAT E R For D.M. Dennice Scanlon Outside, the landlord undertakes the landscape While he waits. He is ignoble In his t-shirt., jiggles DREAM H O U SE A little above the taut power I' ve read, in dreams a house is a symbol of yourself. Of his mow er. Vline are pieces of pipe railing, stairs settling under the porch mining trucks pass. A road is bad But he gets things done. for chasing dogs. Bigger shovels took the lawn, When he puts his chain saw once mother, her lilac to a different yard and father Into our shade tree, it twists and falls. not missingflowers. Its branches look up startled From the ground. Thirty years it was red against a closet. of empty barrels. Above our winewood, rugsthat weave people who creep Inside, I curse hit» for coming. and call through hollow teeth. "Are you the builder, It is in the dining room. hand on my shoulder, my hand the fortune? Will you trade>" Blank walls undo the voice of my anger; I tell on noises in the morning, the drone of gas You look up from naming boxes in a stove. Lie or games the same. Faces burn out. And shrug. I recall the woman, a pat.terned shopping bag with oranges, Behind you on the w all a hook has left talked of night. and ghosts are really trees that never y ew. A hole open like a mouth. "Can you case a spell?" "Such a nice girl. You Yl like I half see it, the way, taking out. I6 Ir O E 'I' R Y NORTHWEST Boxes, I notice your writing t.hin as tendril Jttdges in his baseball cap the calves And misspelled. Of thc boy, how ivell they know A motor. He is at liome His family drives in. YVith enterprise and things t liat go, The car is in love with size, An(1 ivhen he shouts Wanders into the front lawn by our truck And stops: its chrome grille tips and grins. Commands that drif't sleepy as hubbles, 1 here's the big wife Inau 1'he childven watched lier Hat voice hang NIGHT 1 A RES US In the air. It ivas as if'they were dreaming She ivas there, ihey werc so awed. Night takes us out of'cloors to a newsstanil Closing a door on upside-down dining chairs, Where I squint thvougli smoke I, too, am dreaming. At. the licadlincs: Peace Talks dt 3 Stan Waiting to be vvives, the mothers waiting . .. I'he daughter is pleased — her sane I feel your hand close Skin wavers in the light. 1 he tsife On mine and we are inthe cold and going Is too big: In a kinder dream She might lift. slowly upward Home, slanting up the street to walk bettieen Carrying her clear Dark dormitories. You are laughing and looking for unseen ttfodern win I '0 E T R Y NORTHWEST It comes up smoking through thc leaves of'ivater F or breath in the tunnel caving . . . "Datldy?" And smiles doivn at me I'rom my I'ather's gallery. 1'unnel collapsing I never saiv till now thc thing I nestled in my hand Like a blow n lung, trying ivithout any And pointed like a finger at the camera. I never knew beforewho took t.hephotograph, Luck to get clear Lo one of t.hem only Who lost a )icartbeat ivhen lic heavd Lhe hammer fall, 1 earing heat. from Isis As it >vill no morc than once or twice in out .. "What?" "Daddy, Face that clings like;«)cath-mask. Overlapping lives, on an empty chamber. Please, listen to this. I laugh;ind laugh tnd mv voice comes to me In the air." I tell you it's an echo. "You laugh anti your voice itzI ari lyrz Hacker Bounds off the wall and travels hack to you. It's like the noise EXILES Ol your laugh is a rubber ball you throw Her brown falcon perches on the sink Against. Lhe wall." I laugh to hear my own as steaming water forks over my hands. Below the ivrist they shrivel and turn pink. Echo, but we are ouL In the open airivheve you break and run I am in exile in my oivn land. Ahead of me shout• Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor Ing. I take a cold breath as you fly doivn trailing a slime of blood from where theI fe(l. I lock thc door. They claw under the door. The walk, leaving behind you in your track I am in exile in my own bed. Your single laughter Rising on your breatli, which in t.his black Her spotted mony el, bristling with ved mange, And endless weather sleeps on the threshold of tlie Third Street bar Will not come l>ack to you, though nothing I>olds it back. where I drink bvandy as the couples change. I am in exile where my neighbors are. F INDING T H E P I S T O L On the pavement., cans of ashes burn. Her green lizanls scuttle through the light Dvagging a vake through the layers of my sleep avound tom cardboard charred togloiving fern. Blown down like leaves in a dream of'weatlier, I am in exile in my own sight. I haul to light as tlirougli a developing water Somctliing the cliild I>as never seen bel'ore, Hcr blonde child sits on t.hc stoop when I 1'hougli she knovvs it clearly for a kind of weapon. come back at night. Cold hands, blue lids; we both It is a snub-nosed pistol, gray and scabbed with rust need sleep. She tells me she is going to die. Tlie color of blot>d or t.he leaves that covered it. I am in exile in my oivn youth. She fondles it and turns it over in her hand Until I sce it batten on lier knuckle I.ady of distances, this fire, this water, Like a damaged finger and she cannot let it go. this earth make sanct uary where I stantl. Shc aims it at me out of every bush Call off your animals and your blonde daughter. And I c in hear the h;immer clicking like a shutter. I am in exile in my own ban NORTHWEST 20 P O ET R Y Ernest Sandeen John Afella Two Poems W HAT T O D O AT T H E END DEFENSIVE There ought to be something quick Norv cars come out in the evening to make a life nearing dorre With LhClr lrghLS out appear. I'lanes skim close to the buildings Maybe a maul to crumble With pictures of pilots' faces glued in the rvinclorvs the slag away in one stroke "We are going to try and release I 0 rotlch one,rs hc goes L.hl orlgh Sh; and without my antique face on At thc. < n<1 of a street my daughter's eyes, can say Some cars gli Hurry, my son is talking Fielcls of' skeletons statements, statemer>ts, and I hear I-leap themselves higher nothing I o frame an ansrver but questions. Like doves they brush the window with leafing twigs SOLI'I'UDE pilfered "I rv;rsh my can you see me my girl. Arid Lhc 1 Llg — that Hor;11 dcsrgn: I h>rvc pl'cscr vccl rt All I say is quick quick for. you by walking over it. f' or 'rll these yc Lrs. It h;rs and like hccornc vours. "For you, cspeci;Lily now you are gone, I indent the any drowning child I can pillow Lvith some c Lre. The deep crease, w here the beati h;rs only tell quick means slumped <>ver into sleep, coulcl surely have been made by no alive. one else." 22 P OE I ' R Y N O R ' I H M' E S I ' SteIzhen Dunn Two Poems Joan Stowe Two Poems P OEM FOR A N O L D L O V E C ROSS-COUNTRY R U N N E R S A smooth sheet frames my face. Sir, we came to your forest dressed in white with our pure speed held back I settle a bent back along the long warm warp ofyour body: for the finish, came with only love of' the clock and t.he underf'ooting a common arc, a kept ritual. and the other feet. I order myself to your breathing held in bythe curve of your arm. Sir, like whirlwind tourists of London, Rome and Paris we came, Nothing stirs but your breath and outside the snow is falling. d id not tur n to follow the possum down a side path or our inclinations deeper I follow your feet in snow. You track stepping stones into the darkness. that take us a long way Forgive us, to wherever it is we' re going. I swear the dazzling sense of things more durable than ourselves Old poems sung to disorder didn't hit »s would celebrate muddled sheets, unsettled snow, the quick insistent till we rested against a tree near the gymnasium. heat that touch discovers. The familiar weight of your body AFFIRiMATION keeps me in whatever shape you make. I follow an ancient order to a beginning, The young boys roll dov n the hill, laughing bent like a rib to your breathing. like crickets. The grass submits to them. They take its color on their white backs. At. the bottom, enthralled with their bodies and their dizziness, A FTER VISITING A ST U FFED APE AT T H E JAMES B RINKLEY NA T U R A L H IST OR Y W I N G they look up at their mother who has imagined they have just tumbled If I stand just so, I can see myself from her womb growing out of a dead ape's skin. into a world less dark. She applauds. They play dead My head blooms a brightpeony as stones, then suddenly burst into boys where black hide pounds pink at the chest. once more, running up that long slope to where they began. This glass box plays odd tricks. Benearh a tree, stretched out wirh my dog, Grant's Gazelle, Coke's Harte Beeste; I spread apart the grass and kiss the earth. tacked on names spell out cut heads. Even the walls in this room are named for men. 24 P OE I ' R Y NORTHWEST From where I stand in this fur edged lace mounting;ii the Roy il Nonesuch, the trick seems simple: know what you' re called. I liave vi~ions of a prize carp, a pul'I'e<1-up raw lish made dandy on a pl;iie of dan I am linked with an ape who has a Rower for a brain, whose heartbeat is in the head of a woman. We stand waitirig for what we' re called. Joseph Beutty A PRAYL'R FOR I ' H E L I V I N C' R O O !ti F U R N I T U R E O F I'H E XI A N SIONS OF H E A V E N John Judson Let thci c bc deep a> rnchairs no one rememl>crs T HE L I N E AGE O F I N D I A N I ' O N I E S Ever buying. Lei. them collect objects Offhandedly,be;ids and bracelets, en>hers I l>ave fell. ihe nioss pulse in n>y left;irm, From last winre> 's i»cer>se, tl>e iinpolishcd bishop i.hc rw nods>llcl I cover's 1>ly illollgllis, I'rom g>"i>ndfathcr's cl>css sct — in tl>e holes ;ind in my I;iugh, tlic st;iin of bitters>rect Undci thc cushions — and, under the sagging bottonis, cairgI>t in b;irhed wire. At least one m;irl>le, a king exiled fn»» the Bicycle Brit >here are still the ponies. Playing deck, his corner marked hy a thun>b Into a crease. Aiid niore. All of' tlicse lost heirloonis, rhlo> nings, ivhcn thc wind I'C)E I ' R Y David Zaiss Toothless beast on top of breakfast. Rolling like coivboys I'ollowing cows CHILD'S PI.AY 1 o the smell of ivater, what have we done, Wordless in the air, dream-hungry, All the other girls wore sleep With the wildfire we put to heel? Over their heads, tlreams r;iining asterisks I intake you to mainland In blue water pastures. Yawning, And birds' nests, a touch Between your fingers,you can't remember Of child's play in your eye. Stuffing the furnaces with sheep and doll's Underthings, the walls holding in sharp Fist.-sparks like passels of nebulae. I am working tonight on rocks Mortors Marcus Dull as mintl trying to ivalk Past t.he sleeping lions. You have lost. Weight, a false dusk spooking surf. FROlvI "TH E SA NT A C R U Z X I OUN I'AI N P O E XIS" As I sculpt bet.ween ribs from "SOME CHANGES ' For the right eclipse, and Aquarius I Lassoes ship-thick mountains Today steps out of my life With ivebs of spit tie, as easily as it stepped in. Brightcap Bringer of Wood nods. I am a (loorway Tfie animals above are impossibly tluiet. between t.heabsence of one room The sky's cook skitters into the cot.tage and the lack of anotlier. But our ears against tlie wall Flash grins from an ogre's gut. 2 With every step The fire we begin to see I stream I'rom my botly. Is alive with people upon the wide grass By the t ime I reach Waving questions in the stems of pale the top of the hill, Daphne and sour lilac. We say I'm a brook We have gone around t.he day's island. Rowing the other way. They become stars. Then In short sibilants like stalactite 3 Your memory is created out of the cart.h. Betiveen the stone and the leaf I inch a boat there's an absence with my name. Of finespun I'ossil and crisp hair I fulfill the meaning of water Parts of whalebone and white head nierely by heing here. With a pink doll for bowsprit I oward the burning fields between your thighs, 4 Bragging, putting red where it belongs, If I am the earth Shuffling my feet through the broken glass. ivho is the water? Each of my t.eeth The clock counts itself and bells. says a different name. Rockets knife the morning, sweet Yet. I am the name POETRY NORTHWES'I not spoken. ghosts at least of a fine old city. A little rain, Like the last man you cruise a little wind. knowing it isn't Alexandria, You have not seen me, though you'd set out for there; yet I am here. no delicious odor of natives seeps into the streets. 5 It is merely Atlantis. I am beginning to be in several directions. But at night the zeal of these houses The wind sniffs me, ea.ts you. Austere in nightclothes the water nudges my fat. local hierophants wrap you A procession of corners in electric eels, call forth the Mantas appears at every turn. with Khala and fishes of Bosch I swarm into silence. to tremendously mouth vEs or No. The seahorse questions your eyes and by dawn all is settled but Paul Nelson the silt and your dour remains. CARGO You spoil for such average nights, don't your' But you keep to morning Sourmouthed with coffee, and the stern, civilized wake of desire you steer the road like that fouls your mouth as you run a disconsolate tanker on crusty gut to practical Egypt. off again to Alexandria with the same sullen cargo. At the crest of the hill V. H. Adair you are a skin-diver swaying over the village, N OTES FROM T H E M E N T A L H O S PIT A L drab and huddled as brain coral in a silt-storm swept up MANIC VALENTINE by the passing of great fish. What the heart was, we shall have to examine. All the red paint had been spilled by a landmine, Everyday you can almost see The violets gangrened and the roses ruptured. something you want from here, The lollipops and the lacepaper turned something to catch your breath 'I o a ballet of skeletons hanging up rags. and dive for. But instead 'I'hepair of doves, when you came close, you circle slowly, drift down Was something a dog left to bake in the sun. like a hesitant gull 'I'he ribbons pulled out of a corpse; the pretty to the town dump, find everything Inscriptions hardened on the outhouse Hoor. dreaming and damp. And now for the heart — was it potholder? coinpurse? ()r hydrogen gadget in a bomb-bay? Fasten Here are rooms like coral pockets, ' I'he Hap with a kiss of bubonic spittle; networks of living things, Sc»d it to the world with a sigh, unsigned. 30 POETRY NORTHWEST Paul Hunter "Pay for my time, the other things don't count, Materials and such. I have a hand SABOTAGE That all can read. I' ll show you if you want." I shout to keep my mouth open, So we would talk of price, my city fingers hinges working at. concrete Moving round the air, more strong than tough, foundations the Resh pours fast Making it seem to be right there already. asleep with the worst blueprint "We need it soon. This very day." in mind I' ve ever spotted, nothing I nod, to say I know, for he has sought me out, light as the night sky, nor even It was the name he heard, he says, rotten hearted like trees downed When he went into town and asked. in springtime, nor so lovely feeble We sip at coffee with the bargain struck. as a late leaf's skeleton, no They place a table near the well's green edge this is some war contractor's notion And I line up my pens, the way I do. I'm waking up to, how you make The children come and watch me work, a body last the run the human race Led by the boy who means to do it too. breaks down to a divine snail's pace I let them stay, and let them see it the moment hats are off and the air As it comes along, and hold it up all clears of dark smoke signals And, since they' re young, show them and llashes that meant well for With what care I joined the reason's edge shooting pictures and the hard sell And how it fit, just snug and fine enough, that boxed me and billed me later, And how it seemed one thing when first you looked But when you looked again it seemed another. here I go, voice cracking out of hatred, through cheap plywood and Finishing as the children fooled around, bone forms I just set afire, guards The parents back and walking toward the well, guards I call, come on in quick step Ready toread, and time enough to see. with me, shoot your scatterguns off I'd hand it over, and I'd watch his eyes. first in warning at the roof of this warehousing, let it leak some stars, And then he'd read it out charge the boss's den right past me, And they would ooooohh and aaaaahh, blast away my sockets' lit cigars. And then he'd pass it round And they would pick out best And next to best. and so, the boys all fine, The girls as grave as teachers, waiting Daniel J. Langton To see it grow inside them Or to be of no account. A POEM A B O U T M Y L I FE They'd fall to quiet, looking one to one, I would find the road, and then the house, I'd stand up then to go, and we'd shake hands, Trying to look neat. "Well, there you are; I'd start across the yard in yellow light. Before we start let's have some food." Turning to fix the gate, and not too shy, Blue water pot, red faces, and white arms. I'd call across the evening, "Tell your friends." 32 POETRY NORTHWEST Alorton D. Paley Two Poems We know that he adventured through churning gutters in HEARST CASTLE a paper boat, was swallowed by a fish in the Great Canal. The hills look like green visors from the squat terminus. You must not eat an apple Who is it that lurches or smoke in this strange principality into the dark toy shop, whose legionnaires, the bus drivers, protect dribbling a thin trail of rust, like blood? a daily ceremony that does not take place. It is the toy tin soldier, No one lives here. This is not a place but a condition. Only things are real: gimpy, one-eyed, back from harrowing the sewers the cushioned vestibules, the onyx plinths, and the water rats ingenious joists the previous occupant with his hairpin sword. built to hold the past like a reliquary. The moon turns everything to camphor: From his master bedroom over the cabildo, at her window, high, as in the Pacific history strained and spread, he sees a wax white dancer he saw his grand pools and menageries with little glass eyes. studding the hillside like accomplishments. He built no balustrade for ghosts to throng. Each morning, on the hard nether slope, Gary Gildner a few puffsof a donkey engine take ten thousand dollars' worth of mercury. H AR O L D F O G E L C O U L D B E A N Y W H E R E At Christmas time the corporation still comes to kill the succulent wild deer. The girls of St. Mary's school were given in puberty three all-embracing (legal, BALLAD OF TH E T O Y T IN SO LD IER religious) rules. In the casement window One, do not wear of a provincial shop patent leather shoes. stood a toy tin soldier They reflect erect upon his shelf. your underwear. He loved the dancer in the high window, Remember the xnan but she never looked down; who looked at his face drop by drop her image in the pool too long? formed in his heart's tin. Dead as a cat. Did somehow the goblin Next, never forget to take Jealousy unlatch a newspaper the casement so the soldier when later skirred out like a leaf? you go on a date. 34 POETRY N ORT H W E ST In case john H. Stone he should ask you t.o sit on his lap• I N THE BAT H there is his napkin! Question? Olu I believe what you are you understand; thank you. as you rise over Three, after filling the two-kneed camel, the t.ub the whale's belly, sprinkle the surface with talcum. and the five-toed sloth This will, believe us, drowns without a struggle. eliminate visions Treacherous, you lap when getting in. my nose like an island. Now, one more thing Deeper, there is before you go: God a double roar: the sea in the shell, in all His glory the red cells looping made the trees• in the brine my mother made. and they are good and even necessary. We are all swimmers, inside and out. But I'rom vast experience we know Water and salt that little boys sustain us till can climb them very fast the spit. of the last trumpet. — especially The sound you make when little girls leaving are walking down below. is the suck of animals So remember, please down a vortex keep fast a sound learned around the neck, in the long canal. not to mention elsewhere too. Now one-thousandth of my daily skin is gone, grown, gone again. I wtll leave a rtng where we last met.. POETRY N O R T H W E ST 37 1ra Sadoff Terry Refd Two Poems FOR I'OETS GRADIN G F R ESHMAN P A PERS POEM TO M Y SELF I sit. in front of my class, a Sergeant All day I waited Handing out the mail:" I h ave read and nothing came All your letters. There is nothing no one told me But bad news. No one has enclosed A naked Goddess; your mothers Now alone Are all dying, your brothers with far below And sisters have all been raped• the night swimmers shining You might as well burn them." You look in a splash of voices Through them anyway, fingering them the broken words Like last week's girl f'ricnds, knowing of my own voice All the while you learn nothing have carried me From strangers. "You have your orders, into rocks Men." My soldiers march out mumbling to the dark mountain In single file to die In Dorm Number Three, Medbury, Houghton House, over a bowl of'beef stew. FINAL SPEECH I let them go, look out the thinl Hoor we shall look away no longer Window. They are not quite ants: we shall be afraid, but not hide They move t.hrough the grass like summer we shall be the ancient children who will die in the black stones of the rain Brushfires in Kansas and Nebraska. and be born again over and over Let us call the role: Theodore we shall touch the grass Roethke from the gtave, Reed Whittemore, which grows anyway Poets of the Academic Community, whether loved or despised Repeat after me: "No we are not nothing and the trees, taller than arms or cities Without our soldiers, our uniforms." We only await cour(-martial, we shall each live the dream We wait for some naked God(fess planted deep in our flesh before birth To take off our stripes, our tin Hats, for all of them, for all of us I will remember you I o undress each other and dance as young and certain By the death ofour own cold fires. alive and endless in the myth woven only for you the patterns of your children dancing, crossing the night P O E T R Y N 0 RT H W E S T Kenneth Sails Digging in the wet sand where the boat is buried S CHICKLGI I musi. nod and gesture The streets of Boston to animate my charcoal body, which I know to be New York a sideshow barker's attraction: rre also hospital corridors a Nordic Golem carved from I can't firrd you twelve million kidney stones. I was late and you are gone My best friends are discovered I am bankrupt, I pawn io have been in town for months sacks of epaulets clipped from ;ind they never called me the shoulders of boy lovers, Why didn't you wait? lovers who once oiled my boots When I find you slowly slowly with slick death. i>our black ink on me I dance, my feei. smoulder, I am exhausted. I am wet lying here hot. My blood aches ofbenredrine. ,'iomething scratching at the window screen is in my chesi. I dream, standing on depot There are children in the other rooms platforms, waiting for thai I'hey dream of lions and desertion piano wire song, that quick, faces in the light fixture red refrain. I thought you laughed in your sleep The weight between my legs is intolerable I can't get comfortable no matter how I lie Robert Hershon Two Poems You' ll have those nightmares too T HIRD G E N ERAT IO N H O T N I GH T my father told me Fear and rage willmake you scream I can't get comfortable He was shaving I was watching no matter how I lie He said it casually Everything sticks just mentioning a birthright The dirty sheet loves me He remembered his own father's screams but I want to sleep His hard liule father 40 POETRY NORTHWEST At 5 o' clock this morning James DenBoer my hands werc on your throat I thought I was screaming THE QUAI L No you were screaming I was moaning you said For Herbert W. Cot you' re a very lucky I ittle girl you know that 'I'wo geldings gallop under the live oaks. why don't you give your father a great big kiss I'lte bitch slinks under barbed wire for what. he's done for you today and don't forget i<> chase the mule, who turns back suddenly, your mother and sayhoney have you got one for me too I POETRY ts! 0 R I H W E S 'I >Mulch of oui bones, stone ground, Are ihere many like me, worked by red >vorms, turned with humus, w hvant I put my boots lightly at angles io die? Who love with this grip on your skin. Our world is a stone. The truck bed is lined »ith quail and rabbits; M»nitou, manitou, god of stones, spots of blood god like a stone, shine on the stif'f tarpaulin. <>ne day I threw a stone The truck radio ;ind knocked a quail,warm gray plays loud ro<.'k: stone, to the cold ground. .'itunned, it lay in my hand 1 he Sunshine Company, ;ind prayed in its heating throat. "Wondering >vhy again." With a heart like a stone, Eric Burdon and the Animals. I broke its neck, and pushed The Stone Poneys: "I ain't sayin' my knife against its breastbone. you ain't pretty, I'm just Manitou, manitou, blood warm ;is sun-bright stones spread sayin' I'in not ready. ..." The Grateful Dead. over my hand — light as gray 1'eathers, light as gray ~tone, The quail, gray stones, I rose over the earth, bleed slowly from their beaks; over the orange grove, the stand the dogs whine at the tailgai.e. of live oaks, above the sycamore The cold of a beer can and ticking eucalyptus, noses up my arm, and we above the gray stone of myself, laugh under the stars, and broke against the air. the Spanish moon. Indian faces like gods with moustaches. The stones in the drive turn under my feet,going back in, and I lie in the dark — like a root, it tightens itself to stones. 45 44 POETRY NORTHWEST Johrc Taylor Four Poems That hovers over foulness. Brother, I say to it, A T T H E E D GES OF T H O U G H T Passing this pale column Of nothing or next to nothing. Slowly the branches lift and sink, The wind sighing, pressing, tirelessly moving Like a thought refusing to think itself, THE T R E AT Y B Y F O R CE "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took And the ivy stirs at the porch-edge, them wives of all which they chose." The steady wind pushing at the edges of thought, Angelic spasms, and the gravity with which Pushing at the window talking in its frame These daughters spread their thighs like lopped-off wings To let the weight of emptiness into their wombs Of all it is asked to endure. Pity the house, Are all in the story, I suppose, and yet the terror is unchronicled• Pity the trees, pity the unresting vvind How they must have flinched, more than from any man who That. heaves and holds the flat sail of the house At least was clay no matter how heavy he lay upon them, Not like the vast bright faces wrapped in calm Upright. Turning its backside to the wind, Nothing could darken, nothing diminish, Mule in a storm, ribs sticking out through And yet when the gods stoop down over the animal shapes, The stretched paint, The yielding clouds of the girls, the staring breasts and the bellies 1 he wall stands and creaks, Soft with the power of the helpless, they are afraid Of what they cannot become, the woman, the horse-leech Saying nothing, at least nothing very important, T'urning all blood to its own length until it stretches But saying it anyway once and for all. T'o the waters under the earth, swimming forever Round in a ring, a circuit on which the heavens float like a film• T HE G H OST A T T H E M AN H OI . E The angels betray themselves in their lust, in their terror, Thought. less and speechless breath, Stretching out the rainbow delusional wings The unbegot ten steam Over the great cow, cow-eyed. Is standing like a man Upon its sole of iron, And seems to watch the cold BARRAGE Encroaching on the street The long disorder of the guns As I do. Both of us Lifting and coughing at the sky Are temporary, both Says nothing but itself, until Of us are merely heat It t.elis a village it must die. Finding shape that holds Itself up for a while No sense to what it says, no sense Under the light that drains To what it does — only noise The blood from everything, That answers any question, builds Interrogat.ing all The universe that it destroys Existence v ith its cool And fierce dispassion. Sour Against the backdrop of a cloud, Ferments become our stuff, For it reduces everything And so I almost wave Like Plato to a form of smoke In passing at this ghost And in the smoke cold angels sing. 46 POETRY N O R T H W E ST 47 About Our Contributors EUGENE RUGGLEs of San Francisco won our Helen Bullis Prize last year. THoMAs JAMEs of Joliet, Illinois, won our Theodore Roethke Prize last year. KEN SMITH was born in Y o rkshire. His first book, Th e P it y, was published by Jonathan Cape in 1965. He now teaches at Slippery Rock State, Pennsylvania. ELizAIIETu LIDIIEv is a senior at the University of Montana. PETE WINsr.ow lives in S an F ra ncisco and read recently at s everal Northwest colleges. JQHN HoLBRooK recently received his MFA at the University of Montana. DENNICE ScwNLoru is a senior in t he Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana. POETRY NORTHWEST DONORS' FUND WEsLEY MCNAIR is a graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English. This is his first publication. GIBBoNs RUARK teaches at the University of Delaware. 1968-69 MARILYN HAcKER is a graduate of New York U n i v ersity now l i v i ng in S an Fran• cisco. ERNEsT SANDEEN has published two b o oks of p o ems —Antennas o f Silence and Children and O l der St rangers. He t e aches at t he U n i v ersity of N o t re D a m e. Mr. and Mrs. V. L. O. Chittick Mr. and Mrs. William Santi JQHN MELLA works in the Chicago post office. foanna Eckstein Frances E. Thompson STEPHEN DvNrv is in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse Univer• sityy. 13enjamin H. Kizer Anonymous donor JQAN STQNE is in the Graduate Creative Writing P rogram at t he U n i versity of National Council on the Arts and Humanities Washington. She was a recent co-winner of th e A cademy of A m erican Poets Prize. I HE DoNQRs FUND, generously subscribed to in the past, made possible JQHNJUDsoN lives in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. and the two annual DAvID ZAiss is a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. Ihe beautiful covers, chiefly by N o r t hwest artists, MORTON MARcvs's first book of poems, Origins, was published in 1969 by Kayak. lioetry prizes: the $100 Helen Bullis prize and the $50 Theodore Roethke PAUL NELsoN lives in Plainfield, Vermont. Prize. V. H. ADAIR teaches at California State Polytechnic College. If you would care to be a donor, in any amount beyond the price of a PAUL HUIITER is a graduate student at t he U n i v ersity of W a shington and w as a subscription, you will earn the gratitude of our numerous gifted contribu• recent co-winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize. DANIEL J. LANGTQNteaches at San Francisco State and h as p ublished widely. uirs, our editorial staff, and our growing national audience. All gifts to MQRTQN D. PALEY teaches at Berkeley and spent last year studying the history of Poetry Northwest are tax deductible. art in London. If anyone would care to establish, or help establish, a new prize, in any GAKv GII.DNKR'sfirst book of poems, First Practice, was published in 1969 by the amount or of any kind, the editor would be glad to discuss the possibilities University of Pittsburgh Press. by correspondence. JQHN H. SToNE is an M.D. in Atlanta. IRA SADoFF teaches at Hobart College in Geneva, New York. TERRYREm lives in San Diego and is a song writer. kENNETH SALLs was born in B o s ton and is a s tudent at t h e W r i t e rs' Workshop at the University of Iowa. RQBERT HERsHQN, a frequent contributor, lives in Brooklyn. JAMEs DENBoER is currently assistant director of t h e U n i c orn P ress in S anta Barbara and is completing a second book of poems. His first was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. JQHN TAYLQRlives and teaches in Washington, Pennsylvania. 48 POETRY