Urthkin 1 – Part 2
BLOODY BABS
(The Ballad of Barbara Graham)
cracking her hard cool surface
in the halls of the blind
she was just a tough frightened kid
with the devil in her
trailing in the auras, mandalas
imprinted on the ancient stone
where she sips the blood of her children
illegitimate daughter of a juvenile offender,
mama stuck her in reform school at thirteen;
according to San Francisco officers
she had been very promiscuous sexually
at the age of five, Walter was
paralyzed on the right side, wracked
by frequent seizures
practicing prostitution for several years -
pretty girl alone in a bar means just one thing
she confessed, ‘if i’d been an ugly duckling,
it wouldn’t have had to happen this way’
he showed severely disturbed speech
& was found on testing to have a mental
age of four
married a mechanic, then a sailor in ‘43
he shipped out while she made a perjury rap
covering for two buddies ina burglary case
she got paroled, worked as a dice girl in Reno
after medication failed to stop the seizures,
Walter’s doctors reluctantly carried out
a drastic operation
married a salesman, then a bartender (junkie)
who gave her his name – meanwhile got fed up on him
& went with a little sporty guy, face like a weasel;
steered clients by the rod to his gambling palace
the removal of the whole left hemisphere
of Walter’s brain – today, 21 days alter
he is an industrial executive & part-time student
she resembled Lana Turner, ran with John Santo
Californiqa hold-up man long enough to shakedown
the crippled ex-mother-in-law of a Vegas Gambler
suspected of holding his cash
the doctor could show that the adult right
hemisphere reads & follows directions which
the subject cannot then repeat
who on the night of March 3, 1953 being fascinated
by the Purple Pony Murders, answered the door
to a man who shoved her back while he shoveled
awful shapes into her hat & coat closet
the apartheid of St. Paul, the separation
of left & right hemispheres – innocence
as the avoiding of experience
detectives picked up safecracker, he chattered:
it was Shorter did the job with Santo,
John True, Emmet "Weasel" Perkins, and his girl
Barbara Graham
in a corridor of doors, nightmare of
gesturing disembodied leapers buried beneath
a thousand poisoned Colorado Rocky Mountain sheep
Shorter got called – first down to headquarters
& then for a short ride with Perkins; he allowed
as how he heard Barbara had pistol-whipped Mrs. Monahan
who was bound & helpless – he was only lookout
Freud pointed out that the dream still retained
the fantastic freedom of association known to us
before only from ancient art (1)
cuddly & cute, she ws bagged in suburban Linwood
a month later – she refused to answer any questions
or to take a lie detector test & while in the can
she became friendly with a young married woman
the eyes are the windows of the soul
& thru them the spirits may enter into & animate
the lifeless limbs of modern man
who was doing time for auto manslaughter,
she was only twenty – Barbara wanted her to get
a man who could fix an alibi but Donna tipped
the screws & avoided getting extra time for sodomy
ordinarily when questioned the eyes are turned
briefly to the side opposite their most activated
cerebral hemisphere
meanwhile True wanted to turn State’s evidence
& Santo hired an ex-con to enter the crowded courtroom
to spalsh him with napalm, roasting him alive
but Judge Fricke fixed him with troopers & detectives
the reptile brain is still intact in the head;
the limbic node, it is a horseshoe-shaped organ
located in the base of the skull
then Sirianni got on the stand & told that he
had been offered twenty-five grand to make
the alibi & introduced a note which showed
the defendant entertaining an abnormal affection
for her cell-mate
the cortex was simply wrapped around it
& functioned in two modes: sexual & ferocity -
the switch could be detected in the mobility
of the face
& even as it was going on the record,
Barbara’s voice, sharp with anger & hurt
lashed across the courtroom:
did they even have to read that?
the reptile brain has no ferocity:
it simiply fights coldly for survival
while the mammal brain engenders a sense
of community
"hi baby -your note was so sweet
i want you honey but we shouldn’t
start anything we couldn’t stop
or let ourselves fall in too deep"
an outer eight inches of new braind
covers the mammal bulk – the neo-cortex
is incredibly complicated
then she recalled that she had been home
with hubby Graham who said before
that he was with his mother
but subsequently found his memory refreshed
curiously the new brain seems to have been
created for problems more complicated than
those it is now being used for
she walked the last walk with
her shapely body stuffed in a skintight
beige dress, long earnings dangled,
her lips werer painted crimson
phote: 1955 – Barbara sobs
as she kisses hand of her third child
Tommy, in Los Angeles County jail
1. The use of this quotation as well as many of the ideas in this poem is by courtesy of Robert Bly.
Erin St. Mawr
Middlebury, Vermont
american dream
twist off
my rubber neck love
resealable, but not rehealable.
teflon tradegy
a new innovation in cleansing emotions
mine, yours.
scrape me into the trash masher
crying saran wrap tears
on a garbage can curb.
hurting, like a brillo pad dance
across a crusty vegetable
dinner dream.
by now
your ivory white dishes
have dripped dry
and the meal is forgotten.
what’s for dinner
tomorrow night?
Randy Schultz
Santa Monica, California
1964
I was in my treehouse
patching this or fixing that
or hammering down another board
using twenty-four nails
before I got one to go
all the way in without bending
Sometimes we would leaf through
the shagy remains of a Playboy
staring at the thighs and
stiff nipoples
And when the bigger kids came by
the place would smell like
stale tobacco
I could hear my mother singing
from inside the house
One time I heard her yell
my name. I rushed in to
the smoky kitchen after
a quick oil fire in a frying pan
was already out
But my mother
held me tight in her arms
I wanted to go back outside
but she held me tight in her arms
and repeated my name, softly
Her apron smelled like
fried chicken
Randy Schultz
Santa Monica, California
Shopping
She sits among the magazine covers
trying to look like the April issue
hoping he’ll mistake her for the Noxzema girl
He leans on the thin-worn soles of
Salvation Army tennis shoes wishing
he had a skinny mustache like Clark Gable
She tries hard not to look too interested
too ready, too lonely
He reaches for the latest Time
and wishes his life were more fiction than fact
She notices the way the corners of his eyes
watch her, stroke her
He sees her HOT STUFF t-shirt
and the way her bare nipples push
against the white cotton, gasping for air
She notices the lumps in his pants
are in the right places
He picks up Sports Illustrated, brushing
against her, softly
Theri eyes meet, lock in silence
She looks away quickly, then back
An embarrassed smile
rolls over both faces like a salty wave
They both stand, drenched
He asks her name
Randy Schultz
Santa Monica, California
BULLY
Now
with a cast-iron rage
forged
from fouler foundries
I could chew him up
and spit him out
but when we were kids
I’d walk around him
or he’d beat me
black and blue
that scarred battler
of rumbles
laughing at things
that made me want
to cry.
Nicky Selditz
Los Angeles, California
Justice
Ceasing for the moment,
his urgent business of grooming,
the monkey squints out through
the bars, finds his world
encircled by two-legged giants,
stuffing themselves with candies,
hot dogs, ice cream, tonics,
leering, pointing, jeering.
Angered, mortified, he swings
by his tail, clutches the bars,
steadies himself, spits out.
Spectators scatter, retreat,
abandoning hot dogs, ice creams,
candies, cold drinks.
The monkey, appeased, resumes his
urgent business, having equated
his own disdain
to his ego’s satisfaction.
Harry B. Sheftel
Washington, D.C.
Verisimiltude
As a mountain lion
crouches on a crag, intense,
silent, still, only a minute swish
of his tail stirs a bit of dust,
betrays his concentration.
I focus carefully, break no
stillness, for I would have
my film portray the primiitiveness
of his stance, the grief in his
unblinking eyes, etch in each
taut muscle, each unsheated claw.
I have a powerful regret
as I take my pictures,
for I must excise bars, and
superimpose a forested mountain
to give some verisimiltude.
Harry B. Sheftel
Washington, D.C.
Alice’s Cafe
this cafe
is run by a new breed of cat in the street
they serve hair
with the wheaties
you select in the corner:
drop a dime in,
get a wrold’s record–
the old man was telling me
just yesterday
you get serviced at this cafe
by a nice girl from town
with nothing more thriling
than to service
she slices her fingers for you
with the pie
wear Levi’s! come on out!
this cafe
has a fly-stunning fan
somebody lost the paint
somebody ran out on her husband
come on out!
we got rowboats in back!
the flooor of this cafe
was once used as a checker board
now there’s a farmer’s nose in the handkerchief
the menus ar published with stains
porterhouse steak: three ninety stain
outside this cafe
the highway runs into a city
killing the cook
we got picnic tbles!
swings for the kids!
make your own paper airplanes!
Joseph Somoza
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Where They Don’t Belong
Sudden gut hump
Ride road machine
Over bone.
Bump you squirm
Marrow thud.
I didn’t even
What was a
Goddam dog
Doing in the
Middle of.
Lurch
Crippling yelp
Flailling limb
Where
They don’t
Belong.
David Sterry
Portland, Orgeon
NEW YORK SUBWAY HAIKU (or Close to One)
Dark
bump-bump-ratt-le
to nowhere
Land of Nod Mongolia,
newsprint-glued bodies
steel eyelids
stock market’d
murderdeath-choked
closing
soporific,
till suddenly
doors opening
& walking
in:
a Chinese mother
holding the hand
of her 5 yr. old
boy…
his fullround
ivory moon face,
twin-jewel
black jade eyes
star-twinklewinking
flashing
* * * A sea horse
Peking
over the edge
of a
white cloud
Irving Stettner
New York, New York
WINTER FELL AROUND US
Winter fell around us in wide white flakes,
and we woke early,
alerted by the quiet
of the gray morning,
awoke before our fathers and grandfathers
took to the walks armed with shovels
and brooms and small thick sacks of salt,
before our mothers and grandmothers
took to the kitchen to cook snow breakfasts
of pancakes and eggs and sausage,
coffee and hot chocolate.
We sat watching the radio for signs,
listeningt to the smooth voices
reporting the closing of schools,
first in the rural areas, small towns,
circling us, words coiming closer,
until, all our senses tipped,
the day was announced ours,
and we dressed quickly.
Stiff at elbows and knees and neck from knitted things
we set out against a cold
only parents and other relatives were aware of.
The sink of the boot step,
the jump from the front steps,
and we followed the first packed tracks up 50th Street
to the corner,
circled back to the edge of the white lawn
where we paused in awe,
mounted our paints and piintos
and galloped ourselves
a corral.
And then we made small angels,
arms flapping at our sides,
and, rolling,
traced strange paths across the snow,
happy as it clung to our clothes.
Delighting in the secrets of camouflage,
we lay watching slow-moving cars.
Then up and mittens off,
we began foming the soul,
round and hard,
carefully packed,
and when we held it ready in our hands
we paused again
as God might have paused at the beginning,
wondering at the possibilities of creation.
And then we fell to our knees
to rall and pack,
roll and pack again
as the body grew under our stiff hands
until it was ready
to stand by the bare branches of the lilac bush,
and we stood it there
because we remembered the lavender,
remembered the lavender against the snow.
And then we began again,
a second ball to rest upon the first,
then, quickly, the third,
our eyes rushing ahead to coal
and carrot and Grandma’s apron
which, when we tied it into place,
pleased us,
and we stood back admiring
ourselves and her,
skirt flapping against imagined legs.
And sometimes passersby,
noses red and great gusts of breath on their lips,
stopped and admired, too,
before continuing their journey up Capitol Avenue.
And then our hands,
suddenly numb,
signaled lunch,
and there was a great stomping and shaking
as we entered, unwrapped ourselves,
pressed our hands against warm sides.
Steaming bowls stood waiting
beside hot toast and melted peanut butter,
and we ate with a passion
for taaste, for odor,
chunks of peanut butter as welcome
as the snow had been.
And then the afternoon was imminent.
Dry socks pulled out of drawers,
mittens from radiatiors,
boots pulled on and buckled,
and we seet out again,
this time with warnings of overdue.
Snow tracked by boots, lined with work paths,
pavement stung by salt,
we turned away to build forts
we never quite completed,
turned away from each other,
forning troops against cousins and friends,
and under the watchful eye of our snow Grandma,
and the eye of the too-soon sun,
we stockpiled snowballs,
unitl the first flew free from our fingers
signalling the start of battle,
our sure aim decreasing
as arms tired
and eyes tired
and we fell silent behind our forts
and lay against the warm snow
thinking of oranges and blackboards,
hopscotch and sawhorses,
moving from one to the other
like an old jeweler
touching daimond and sapphire,
only the touch important.
Then we wanted no more of snow
and cold things,
and we rose together.
Boots heavy,
we went inside
frogetting the day
as though we had been hurt by it.
And we were sent outside again
for Grandma’s apron
and we kicked our forts to rubble
and sometimes we kicked each other
or hit wildly until
crimson startled us from noses
as it hit like a warm heavy flake on the snow.
And sometimes there was wailing,
not because we were hurt
but because we were not hurt enough,
causing us to walk quite separately home
where it was safe,
nd we could sit by ourselves
and have no thoughts at all
until supper was ready.
We ate without tasting,
looking forward to evening sounds
of television, the rattling of the evening paper,
of dishes being stacked and put away.
Mary Kathryn Stillwell
New York, New York
FIT HEAVEN
I always walk at her pace, slow,
mouse-footed, my mother
dressed in the same black wool coat
summer and winter since the war:
mother who tends the goldfish,
turns oiut the last light at night
saying "son, son" like a father,
"your condition. . . condition."
and walks the mile to the grocery
like today– so hot that lizards heave
in the shade under stones, heat
tremblihng from the concrete in blue waves,
and all for a watermelon, one watermelon!
Always I walk at her pace, slow,
bending now almost to her shoulders,
carrying the watermelon like a dumb,
stuffed doll nestled awkwardly
between my arms, past the filling station
whjere the attendant gawks at us
behind sunglasses and baseball cap,
mother holding onto my arm– old midget
and ugly oaf pair shuffling past
the miniature golf course, Dairy Queen;
weird troupe of shadows smothering back there
inside that display window– and I smell
something burning as we walk
through the noon heat, cow bones
bleaching out on the prairie,
a loud buzzing through the highwires,
every throat tasting dust
when the melon explodes a million
rivers of pink flesh and birdseed,
and I fall headfirst, skull
smackiong concrete in a fit of dog-yelp
and scream, spinning round, kicking
like a frog staked to an ant bed,
each second a spasm of ice
and blast furnace until all the crows
in the world blackout the sky,
and I’m numb and needle-stuck,
crawling over cold stone, a voice
drifts through the forest in monotones
"home. . . home. . ." a heaven of worm-nerve
and wasp-jerk. . . blue. . . clouds–
her voice leaps in shock waves,
where the sky splits open she’s standing
in the middle of the sun, a cross,
a black-feathered body blowing in wind
and silence.
Rawson Tomlinson
Pine, Colorado
THE TORNADO
The tornado killed 27 people at the supermarket
When the walls blew out and part of the roof
Settled on top of them
I was in a cellar
With my grandmother who was praying
Though I was thinking mainly
Of caressing the girl who lived across the street
(only she was in that supermarket)
Robert Vander Molen
Grand Rapids, Michigan
I’M FIVE
I’m five. All day
I’ve wanted to be
with grandpa. He’s been
sleeping in the parlor.
His bed is big,
and he’s got powder
on his cheeks. Someone’s
dumped a lot of flowers
at his feet. Everyone
speaks in a whisper.
But not the aunt who wears
the floppy hat – she sighs
and eats. Her hankie is a wad
of toilet paper. The neighbors
bring more pies and cakes.
An uncle tells paps
that grandpa’s rich. I hope
everybody goes home
when grandpa wakes. I don’t
like my stiff shirt collar
and shoes that squeak.
I can’t go out today.
I’ve got to stand by the window
and wait. The aunt who smokes
a million cigarettes begins
to cry when a long black car
comes up the drive. Grandpa’s
not going away. Someone
wants his big bed
and the flowers. I’m five.
John Stevens Wade
Mt. Vernon, Maine
LETTERS
They skid into the mail slot with a dull thud.
I get enough of them every year to shingle a roof.
They are shaped like razor blades in Halloween apples,
and my name is accusingly fixed on everyone that comes.
I am always the demolition expert at my address –
each postmark is checked for traces of a terrorist.
I look for mucilage poisoning behind the stamps of presidents,
and all commemoratives are searched for signs of dynamite.
To think that I once foolishly expected them to announce
the lucky number in the sweepstakes of love,
the questionnaire that guaranteed the instant millionaire,
and that insurance payment for my busted imagination!
But the letters I hate most are those from old friends.
The long fuse of language is a booby trap of demands.
I could have a gaveyard if I stuck my letters int he ground.
I could plant them and watch my diaappointments grow thick as postage.
John Stevens Wade
Mt. Vernon, Maine
TOMATOES
This morning when I tried to remember
how my puppy-loving heart stumbled
crazily, and how the noon tilted
my racing pulses, I was interrupted
by the telephone. My next-door neighbor
wanted to know if hen manure would burn
his tomatoes. I told him that green hen manure kills.
He seeemed to understand the laws of potency,
and I wished him well. So I got back
to that dumpling girl and my hugged pillow
of yesteryear — her breasts rising like yeast
as I twisted and turned in the burning sheets.
But, once more the telephone shrieked. It was tomatoes
again. Should he sprinkle them with ashes
or chance the dangers of pesticides? I told him
to poison them. He was grateful, and so was I:
I got back to my skidding blood and caught breath.
My darling’s tongue ripened upon the cradled vine
of my arm, and I weeded buttons from her blouse.
She uprooted her skirt, and I shook down
my pants. But first there was that ringing telephone
to answer — another call from my apologetic neighbor.
This time it was sunshine and water. I told him
both were potent and beneficial to growing plants.
John Stevesn Wade
Mt. Vernon, Maine
INDIAN /IN D END
In d end
this man Jefferson
wrapped in the black aesthetic
arms of Sally
disremembered the Indian
beyond the range of his high mounted cello
and in d end
babbled in his burning blanket,
babbled in his gemlike flames.
In d end
Washington
undermined by a French disease
disremembered the Indian
and his Martha,
in d end, his Martha
who couldn’t come
on this wonderful morning
for all his kissing her.
Indian, in d ending
I arrange a rage
against the founding
godfathers and all their tribe
who will buy
dynamite and barter bullets
to genocide Indians in d end,
to genocide Indians in d end
and indeed to steal deeds
signatured in blood older than creation.
In d end
Wisconsin will sin
like Woodrow Wilson
and for the last Maine fool
hymning the bloody-brained Nixon blues
I, black Indian, in d ending
I arrange a fit revenge,
for tthe fire thiws time
will be the final ending
of disremembering
and I shall never
wound my knee
with kneeling in prayer,
for the fire this time
will be the ending of disremembering
the millions of disremembered Indians
in d end.
Jerry Ward
Tougaloo, Mississippi
Temporal Gulch
At Roundup we
pass the drunken tourists, at eight o’clock
still asleep on the picnic tables
beneath the silver live oaks,
the garbage pit, a storm at rest,
and disppearing into the trailhead
step out of our metaphors,
stretch up toward the horizon, a hand on the ridge,
past the girls thrown down from cliffs,
curled up in the mistletoe, abandoned
weeks ago by their toothy boyfreinds, and keep on going
right over the top where years ago
three Boy Scouts died bewildered in a blizzard.
beyond is the other side of the kiss:
all morning we keep going down, down,
legs and fingers growing light and thin
as violins burning back to their strings,
meeting only wooden Joshua coming up in his rags,
his vision the sun and moon standing still,
until at noon rejoicing we also
take our useless clothes off,
layer after layer of wrinkled silver wrap, see
our tattoos, fish escaping fromour flesh
as we stoop over the sandy spring, striding
through the slumping Mormon cabins, rotten corrals,
the abandoned art of porcelain washbasins,
the long-leaf pines, Apache maidens in the myth
singing to the sky, to emerge from the boulders
at the bottom, the key in our hand
a clean gun, the golden bone plucked from our legs
to pry out Chuck, that baby doctor
who drove for days to pick us up,
asleep in his smashed car.
Peter Wild
Tucson, Arizona
AUTUMN AT CAPE ANN
in the Seaside Cemetery
at PigeonCove
a band of boys
played football
beyond headstones
toward Atlantic waves
the far field they raced
cleared to take
new dead expected
in rows ranged
back from the road
old markers at the gate
growing newer
each furrow toward
white water
breaking on brown rocks
edging that lawn
shouts of get him
hold on
touchdown
in some space
waiting for each one
not thinking
it made any difference
Howard Winn
Poughkeepsie, New York
ECLECTIC COMPANY
at eighty-three my mother
said
she wished to read
Plato
or Ariostotle
at last
she had alweays meant to
she said
but she had
ben so very
busy
but I know St. Paul
well she
said
although
it would ne instructive
to know
something of the classics
too
but my eyes tire easily
and maybe
it isn’t
necessary
by now
or isn’t
something
I will
use
although
it appears
at eighty-three
Christianity
isn’t quit
enough
Howard Winn
Poughkeepsie, New York
DRAPE
Drape, she said, as she nudged me,
your arm around my shoulders
and keep me warm.
Soon, I’ll get as hot as
that Lucky Strike draping
from the side of your mouth,
the smoke rising rising
in rings like you see
in those Bogart flicks.
We were on her couch
watching The Grapes of Wrath
on the Late Show.
There was Henry Fonda,
draping a tarp
over a truckload of furniture,
spare tires, chicken wire, and dusty children.
And that tarp
draped and flapped
as they rolled across the plains,
a cloud of dust behind them
that from a distance seemed
to drape along the parched ground.
Lavender drapes draped over two picture windows
that faced a red brick wall.
She lived in Houston and I heard
liked to poke fun
at West Texas boys like me.
If one looked up,
draping his head outside the window and screwing
his neck to the limit, he could see
telephone lines draped against the night sky.
When the Late Show was over,
we moved together and finished
before the Star-Spangled Banner cut off.
Her eyebrows sort of draped
in half circles above her
long false eyelashes.
I dreaped my red bandanna
on the radio antenna.
It flapped all the way back to Abilene.
David Yates
New Braunfels, Texas
B
4
U
tri
2
run
the
whirl,
w(awe)k
thee
yoon
uv
urth.
Larry Ziman
Los Angeles, California