POET RY g + NORTHWEST VOLUME SEVENTEEN NUMBER QNE EDITOR SPRING 1976 David Wagoner JOHN S. FLAGG . Six Poems.. EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS GWEN HEAD Nelson Bentley, William H. Matchett Four Poems . JACK BUTLER Two Poems. 12 COVER DESIGN CAROLYN HINCKLEY Allen Auvil For the Journey . DAN IVHNOCK Four Poems. 14 FREDRICK ZYDEK Cover Pom a photo of Crescent Lake Stoamp near the Monroe T he Death of Plccostomus.. 17 (Washington) Reformatory's Honor Farm. BARBARA L. GREENBERG The She-Magician at thc Cistern . 18 EDWARD I IIRSCH Unspeakable Things. JOAN WEBBER Prime of Life . BOARD OF ADVISERS EDWARD LUEDERS Leonie Adams, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert B. Heilman, Every Year the River Floods — . 21 Stanley Kunitz,Jackson Mathews, Arnold Stein RICHARD DANKLEFF Two Poems . KATHRYN TERRILL Two Poems. POETRY NORTHWEST SP RING 1976 VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 1 MARY OLIVER Published quarterly by the University of Washington. Subscriptions and manu­ Two Poems . 26 scripts should be sent to Poetry Northteest, 4045 Brooklyn Avenue NE, Univer­ PAUL ZIMMER sity of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts; all submissions must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed Zimmer's Lament for Lester . 27 envelope. Subscription rate, $4.50 per year; single copies, $1.25. DAVID DAYTON Two Poems . 28 © 1976 by the University of Washington M ICHAEL MA G E E Five Poems . 31 Distributed by B. DeBoer, 188 High Street, Nutley, N.J. 07110; and in the West by L-S Distributors, 1161 Post Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94109. ADRIANNE MARCUS The Apprentice . JOSEPH DI PRISCO Alienated Poem .. DAVID McELROY For Kevin . 35 P O E T R Y N O R T H W E S T S. J. MARKS SPRIN G 1 9 7 6 Reading Charlie's Poems . PHYLLIS JANOWITZ Two Poems. 37 JIM PARLETT The Death of the Bomber . 40 THOMAS JOHNSON Two Poems 41 HAROLD WITT John S. Flagg Six Poems Two Poems 43 JOHN WOODS Three Poems 45 ENVY OF OTHER ARENAS The moment digs its spurs into me and I'm off, putting what I' ve got into a credible rampage, trying to buck time off my back, knowing it will climb back on again like a bad habit. 0 how much briefer the blood anger, the blurred hate, the victimization of the murderous, the suicidal charges of my mad brothers­ and how much fatter the comparative life of smashing the diminutive, the exquisitely fragile, and incontrovertible presence, unstoppably out of place. CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1975 In very little wind a minister atones for by a prolonged quote of Emerson unquote (still the only mind audible) flags sag, listless with early spring this time Change of Address last month having served breezier the march of costume, Notify us promptly when you change your mailing address. Send both the old address and the new — and the ZIP code numbers. cliche, and manure from Allow us at least six weeks for processing the change. Da-Glo red rain-slickered mounted cops' horses, all FORMALISTS, YOU ARE over which the football president presides, Yes-men of the letter, instant helicopter old wineskin collectors deposit not unlike teetotalling up, a plot solution lowered squaring accounts from a Greek tragic machine. with the circle, the dropped stone's widening wave Whew, the speech has died animating the still though the foursquare face pool the algae of which still seems pissed from the boos you figure forth. honor invoked to foist threats obscenely veiled (the aluminum fist TO A CAN OF SLICED CARROTS in the vinyl glove being wound up for the groin punch), 0 wonderful bright orange and yellow can got. that puts my eyes out Rapidly he heads of their supermarket trance for a moment the wedge of politicians with your cylindrical still life and protectors of politicians entitled "Sliced Carrots," prophetic stepping down an avenue fiery wheels of orange, coals of crowd to dark machines, for the tongue­ hearse-havens, limousines that pull out with ruling-class class. 0 honest politic can with your fine ciphers detailing preservatives­ And now the masquerade tramples and pollutes 0 tactile can that fits my grip with empty musketry with a pleasure like a pistol's!­ but enough noise to keep the infamous long-gone 0 can I choose over all other cans!!­ farmers this mimicry is predicated on Somewhere in a remote locale of my head underground, you dreamily sail through the largest pane Their comrades ever to tempt the mind into a supermarket in our distant present and a thousand jagged reflections stick struggle to unyoke your purveyors like backwards assembled porcupines. the remaining earth. We indistinctly hear the shots and shouts from here. POETRY N ORTHW E ST HALEAKALA, IDES the sun's house, where you stand, It's the season of no season: lies up the road through cumulus blinds shut sight of the wind out for the night; not out of mind, a two-hour drive. Eucalyptus, not out of hearing, however­ a fog ofcloud, then blue. And blue. and the chair under the window where You climb from the car. A high the child stood leaning wind takes your breath. You also into the window, the wind beyond the window, the chair gasp at the pacific pasturing recalls the child there hundreds of clouds you stand where daylight was framed, wind watched but not touched, in the sky looking down on, trees signalling, frantic, feet on the volcano, broken the wind is at your house cracking it, ghost shoulder fever of earth. the east leans into your kitchen, Where you are, Maui wind with a wish to once roped the sun to slow it harvest a house, whisk away window, child for man. (Think of the cane (part of the wind then, parcel smoldering in magmatic fields its errand would be never to deliver ) over which the rock you ride mad wind, witch wind, March wind. is breaking — sugar harvest smoke detectable for miles, sharp and delicious, but not there Gu en Head Four Poems in the heaven where you stand. ) THE WO M A N IN THE MIDDLE And down from the rubbish of rock Begin with the heroine standing on a staircase, partly man-piled, look at that other three yards of tapered rose point slung from her shoulders, world, the color of the living mars in mandatory pearls, stephanotis, and baby' s-breath, poised like a white bat. of fiction, its red-ochre cones washed by faded green, cupped Above her silken knees, the satin hem hangs like a blade. It's nineteen twenty-nine. in the palm of the great crater like a gift. In steamer trunks beneath the porte-cochere, POETRY NORTHWEST the trousseau purchased on her grand tour. AT THE PIANO Patou: a blue brocade with silver lace, its bugle beads like regimented rain. I Embroidered black and white Chinese pajamas Hunchback to wear in the evenings playing dominoes. minotaur Teddies and step-ins; ostrich fans; to read, squared off Tristram and Sonnets to a Red-Haired Lady. on black goat feet To flirt with, a long cigarette holder of tight-lipped, eyeless, mute the first green plastic made to look like jade. you are cornered. His gifts; by which we know across the years Now that the groom is poor, but has a good heart. I will fold you back like a quilt. You will grin Twenty-five years later his heart has given out. like a glad foolish hound. Their daughter (a menopausal accident) At my touch is old enough to count him up the stairs. your hollow flank In steel-rimmed glasses, braces on her teeth, will buzz like a great golden hive her busy cranium's wired like a champagne cork. and the stinging swarms rush out One, two, three. at ten, another step. singing their unknown language. Her scrawny shoulder blades protrude like wings. II The heroine listens, rises — no, it can't be! The keys rise to my fingers Hose at the knees, flesh at the waist, hair like diving boards at the nape all rolled and tied or netted down, like the pliant stems of flowers and all an anonymous, shabby package color, like necks bared to the axe all with the slack sway and thump of the sleeper berth. like the stairways of crumbling cities Can't be, but is. like masses of candelabra like the pits of ripe fruit. This is her dressing table: desk calendar with six weeks left unturned, They frohc hke mtnnows. rings of spilt powder, piles of unanswered letters, They lie down like mild lambs. and a sealed bottle of Je Reoiens. They arch their necks like zebras. Stabbing the pins into her hair, she goes They snap their beaks like macaws. to thread a needle for her dragon mother. They are ponderous as the elephant delicate as the garter snake What happens in the middleP Mother, tell me! furious as the black swan. I'm in the middle now. Why wasn't there a lover and a train to throw herself under, I rejoice in their many lives. in a last display of her pyrotechnic hairP We are one, well-knit as a barrel stave Or is this the train, this slow freight of years, the perfect, gravity-defying round and the sodden comforts of the hobo jungleP through which the sun leaps. POETRY NORTHWEST THE LINGUISTIC COMMISSION SLUG REPORTS FROM THE INTERIOR How can he dare to cross me, Unlike our country, where the words this oozing footless tube, are small, succulent and docile lifting his alert pronged head theirs, wiry and mean, in the cuckold's gestureP must be cornered and battered with rocks.