Walking Rain Review

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WALKING RAIN REVIEW IV (° '997) is published by the
Creative Writing Wo rkshop, Santa Rita Unit, Ari zona State Pri son Complex,
Tucson, Ari zona, directed by Richard Shelton. The Writing Workshop and thi s
issue of WALKING RAIN REVIEW have been funded by grants from the
Lannan Foundati on, Los Angel es, California .
All work in this issue was produced by inmates of the various Arizona State
Prison facilities , and this issue was printed by students in the Graphic Arts
Program of Pima Conununity College at the Rincon facility of the Arizona State
Prison, Tucson , under the directi on of Steve Romero .
EDITOR
Scott Tramposch
CONTRffiUTING EDITORS
Mitchell Bono
D. Doyal
Ralph Hager
Kenneth Lamberton
W. Occam
Thomas Powell
Scott K. Smith
Joseph Williams
Raymond E. Williams
D.F. Yancy
SPANISH LANGUAGE CONSULTANTS
Patricia Houston
Daniel Zamarr6n
Members of the Creative Writing Workshop at Santa Rita and the
Editors of Walking Rain Review IV wish to thank the following for
their significant help and support:
THE LANNAN FOUNDATION, Los Angeles
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA POETRY CENTER, Tucson
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA FOUNDATION, Tucson
THE LUCID STONE, Phoenix
MOBY DICKENS BOOKSTORE, Taos, NM
Ann Merrill, Taos, NM
Dorothy Lykes, Phoenix
Lois Shelton
Anne Reeder
Will Clipman
Olive Merchant
Gregory McNamee
Deidre Elliott
Lollie Butler
Patricia Houston
Alison Deming
Mark Wunderlich
Christine Krikliwy
.>
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Shelton
6
I.Coming Home
Through a Cardboard Window .... . . Scott Tramposch
Coming Home . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . Scott K. Smith
Broken Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ralph Hager
Neighbors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Ralph Hager
The Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Aberg
Parenthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Aberg
Grass Rocks, and Prison Rabbits . . Raymond E.Williams
Just Words . . . . . . . . . . . .. Malcolm Alexander King
Stay Aim My Other Haif . . . . . . .. Paul C. Van Noy
While I Was Sleeping .. . . . . . . . Lawrence R. McCuin
Dust ... .. . . . . . . . . .. ... . . Kenneth Lamberton
II.
Hello It's Me
Hello It's Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joseph Williams
Hola Soy Yo . trans. by Daniel Zamarr6n & Pat Houston
Drinking Black Coffee . . . . . . . . . . Alberto Camarena
Tomando Cafe Negro . . . . . trans. by Alberto Camarena
About the Moon . •. .... .... ... Alberto Camarena
Acerca de ta Luna . . . . . . . trans. by Alberto Camarena
III.
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12
15
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16
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23
24
25
26
28
29
30
31
32
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Impenitent Birds
Nothing Grows on the
Prison Baseball Field " Malcolm Alexander King
Sky Poems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Doyal
Change ... .. .... .. ... .... . . . Michael Small
In the Absence of the Moon . ... .. . .. Michael Small
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35
36
38
40
My Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lawrence R. McCuin
About Three Feet.
. • . . . . . . . . . . James Ruttan
Cellular Prisoners . . . . . • ... . . . . . . . . . W. Occam
Natural Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . .. .. William Aberg
Scenery . . . . . . . . . . . . ... Malcolm Alexander King
Of Swallows and Doing Time . . . .. Kenneth Lamberton
IV.
Poor Man's Money
Poor Man's Money . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . Tony Degges
Meeting in South Tucson . . . . . . . . . . . William Aberg
Stepping Away From My Father . . . . . . William Aberg
Thunderstonn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Michael Small
To the Left ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Tramposch
Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Tramposch
11le Edge of the Storm . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Tramposch
Mousetraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Scott Tramposch
V.
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46
55
56
58
59
60
61
62
63
The Groove of Days Past
Inside Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lisa Shannon
Children in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . S. T. Lewandowski
Visiting Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C.K. Ferguson
Misty Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D.F. Yancy
John T. and the Hobo Cat ... . . . . . . Bonnie McCurry
Oh Well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ... Bonnie McCurry
Western Mornings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Doyal
lee-Age Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ruben G. Martinez
Aspen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... ... Michael Small
Cover and interior art by Kenneth Lamberton
Word Processing and layout by Lois Shelton
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INTRODUCTION
When the Creative Writing Workshop at Arizona State
Prison, Santa Rita Unit, solicited creative writing for Walking Rain
Review IV from the inmates in all prison facilities in Arizona, we
received work from more than 200 incarcerated people. The fact
that Walking Rain Review IV contains the work of only 23 people
is a reflection of the high literary standard set by its editors rather
than of any scarcity of material. We can all say, perhaps with a
sigh, that the impulse toward creativity is very much alive in the
Arizona State Prison System,
Reading through the large amount of ultimately rejected
material was not always pleasant work, but it was a learning
experience I wish more people in the free world could have
shared. What so many of the writers had was a strong creative
impulse and very little else. Many of them demonstrated a basic
ignorance of the language they were attempting to use, in spite of
the fact it is their native language, Others showed little awareness
of contemporary literary practices or of the fact that before one
can write well, one must read well. If anyone still doubts that
there is a direct relationship between a lack of education and
criminal behavior, reading through this mass of creative material
from prison inmates would have dispelled that doubt.
The dreadful frustration of many of these people who have
strong creative impulses but lack the basic tools of the language
was evident in nearly every ]jne - the painfully twisted metaphors,
the confusion instead of clarity, and the constant reliance on a
worn out bag of tricks including sentimentality and cliche. But
often, in spite of all these results of a lack of education or a faulty
6
education, basic intelligence and admirable intentions showed
through . To read such work is painful, not only because it is
badly written, but because it displays a waste of human resources,
a waste of potential creativity, and the subversion of a wholesome
impulse.
I have no pat answer to this problem . Even to state the
problem is a cliche, a truism, but I cannot look at the burgeoning,
overcrowded prison where I work as a volunteer without seeing
our failure to educate our children, without seeing the result of our
common assumption that if we send our children to school we have
satisfied our responsibility in terms of their education. Our belief
that we can leave the education of our children in the hands of
specialists is one of the major reasons why so many of those
children, now grown, are sleeping in tents in a prison yard because
the state can ' t build prisons fast enough to accommodate their
increasing numbers. Those grown children are still in the hands
of specialists, but instead of school administrators and teachers it
is now wardens and correctional security officers. Many of these
specialists, both in the schools and in the prisons, are doing the
best they can, but they are beginning to realize they are trying to
hold back the ocean with a broom.
The picture is not all doom and gloom, however. One has
only to read through the work in this issue of Walking Rain Review
to see that there is a small group of inmates in the state prison
system who handle language with great precision, effectiveness,
and flair. There are inmates in the system who have read many
books and read them well, and their work is, in turn, well worth
reading . Some of it, in fact, is brilliant.
Several of these writers, like William Aberg and Kenneth
Lamberton, have already been widely published and recognized.
Aberg won the 1996 ARKANSAS PRIZE for his book of poetry,
The Listening Chamber, soon to be published by the University of
Arkansas Press. Lamberton, to whom the last issue of Sonora
Review (University of Arizona) was dedicated , has been publishing
7
his essays on the natural world in many of the best journals in the
country.
So what do they write about, this handful of talented people
whose work survived a critical screening process that sometimes
reminded me of the night sky over Iraq during Desert Storm?
They write, of course, about anything and everything, but certain
themes and shared preoccupations emerge, as well as certain
repeated images like that of the birds who fly with impunity into
and out of the prison yard. I have tried to group the work so as
to make the themes more apparent. One of them, not surprisingly,
is drug addiction and its consequences. Another is nostalgia for
the past, for lost youth, lost loves, lost freedom. Neither of these
is peculiar to writers in prison . They are, in fact, common themes
of writers everywhere.
But there is one important theme in these poems and prose
pieces that might be specific to writers in prison. It is the idea of
prison as home, and it is repeated again and again. After violating
his parole and being returned to prison, just as he enters, Scott
Smith says, "Hell, I'm home. "
These writers are perceptive and perhaps ahead of some of
the rest of us when it comes to recognizing social phenomena
involving prisons. As the American home disintegrates at an everincreasing rate, they are aware that an ever-increasing segment of
the population is finding an alternative home in prison . Grim as
prison is, and I guarantee you it is grim, it provides a grossly
perverted version of the things home is supposed to provide: food
and shelter, stability, a set routine, companionship, and sometimes
even love. In prison, meals are served on a regular schedule and
everyone sits down together. In fact, some men have told me that
pri son is the best home they have ever known .
When I asked the members of one of my writing workshops
a few years ago to list what they considered to be the most
important causes of crime, nearly all the causes they li sted including poverty, alcoholism, addiction, abuse - were problems
that had affected their families, problems of the home. The idea
8
is horrible, but we must face it. As the American family becomes
more and more a group of zombies mesmerized by a TV set, or a
dysfunctional unit wracked by addiction, alcoholism, and abuse,
the prison begins to take the place of home. These inmates are
telling us something and it is important. When we come to realize
it and accept it, we will know immediately where to apply our
time, money and effort in order to fix our broken social system.
We will see immediately that the way to avoid building larger and
larger prisons is to fix the famil y, for which the prison has become
a substitute.
Perhaps this too is a truism, and everybody realizes it, but
I didn't realize it fully until I read the work of these talented
writers who have important things to say on many levels, and can
say them so well. I continue to learn from them each year. This
year I am particularly pleased to see the work of some of the
women in the new Women's Creative Writing Workshop at the
Manzanita Unit. They add a new dimension and a new perspective
to Walking Rain Review.
Richard Shelton
Director
Creative Writing Workshops
9
I
Coming Home
Scott Tramposch
TIlROUGH A CARDBOARD WJNDOW
Can you see the stains
in the white winter sky?
I have all I need, friend.
I can see the park from here.
It's only shapes to me, just shapes.
The box of a house, square signs,
sometimes a circle of trees.
And God , I think, is a triangle
with lines hanging down.
Too many people to see.
This is why I share with you a city.
It burns bright as a phoenix
and holds its weakness dear to me.
And when I fall to the curb
red lights flash down
the marrowless row of poles.
Her light there
will have been walking the good life,
the heavy river always washing
and sad smoke behind our wonder.
Inside there is more to lose.
It slips away and I forget.
I think they are here for me.
11
Scott K. Smith
COMING HOME
The towers off Wilmot rose out of the desert floor and into
the horizon like disappointed saguaros. Grey buildings grew as we
sped closer. The driver edged the car a little faster. It was getting
close to the end of his shift. His partner took a last drag off her
cigarette and pushed it through the crack in the window. She
exhaled and the smoke drifted back through the steel mesh screen
and made me dizzy. I hadn't had a cigarette in ten days.
The driver took a right. I shifted in the seat. My wrists
protested as the cuffs bit deeper. When the gates appeared, I let
out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. A simple, unknown
sadness washed over me. I took it for relief.
"Smith. " It was the partner. She had picked up a
clipboard and was writing something down.
"Yeah," I answered.
"What's your D.O.C . number?"
"Seventy-fou r-fou r-eigh ty-one. "
"A little slower," she said. "Seven ... four. .. "
"Four. .. eight..:one," I finished.
"Thanks. "
"No sweat."
There was a line of vehicles waiting to get in the gate.
Two of them, including a tractor, were in front of us.
"Recognize this place?" the partner asked.
"Sure," I answered . "Spent some time here a long while
back."
"Says here you're a parole violator."
"That right?" I ask.
"Yeah," she answers. "How long were you out?"
"'Bout eight-and-a-half months."
12
IlLong time. II
"Yeah. II
She didn't know the half of it. Time in the war zone takes
on a new dimension. Hours hobble past like old men carrying
signs that read: Homeless will work for food. Look at those guys
and they don't even blink. As if the energy required is too much
for their beaten bodies.
"What'd you do out there?"
Talkative bitch, I thought. I didn't feel much like
answering but it could've been worse. She could have been goin'
on about how fucked up I was for blowin' the opportunity of
freedom so graciously afforded me by the State. I could've
answered that freedom is overrated. A whitewashed illusion. She
could've also bitched about how screwed it was that her taxes were
paying for my free ride and I could have pointed out to her that
without me, she'd be out a job.
But she didn ' t and neither did I.
"Worked," I answered. "Paid bills. Talked on the phone,
watched TV, looked at the stars." I stopped, tryin' to think of
something else I did. "Went to a baseball game."
I let it end there, realizing how pitiful it sounded .
What I didn't say was that after the first week on the
outside I was tired of the conversations going like: "Now that
you're out, I think you should ... " or "You've paid your debt now.
Don't you think you should ... " and on and on like that.
I didn ' t mention that my mind never left the joint. That the
role of convict was deeply embedded within my soul and I could
not perceive of any other character. I was typecast, trying out for
a role that I didn't understand. Where was my motivation? No
cues. No script.
I couldn't tell her that I looked forward to every other
Tuesday when I went to see my parole officer. That it was the
only place I could feel the institution that had raised me. Where
I could visit with guys who knew the value of a piece of
cardboard. Men who had seen yellowish splotches of vomit on the
13.
yard and recognized it--read it, for what it was. Junkie spoor.
Good dope on the yard.
I wouldn't mention that waking each day on the outside
held a certain terror -- the inability to predict the day . Nor did I
tell her that the closest thing to happiness is a fifty-cent-an-hour
job, three papers of heroin, and enough tobacco and coffee to last
'til store day.
When the gates opened and we drove inside, she turned and
looked at me. Her eyes were as grey as the buildings.
"How do you feel about coming back?"
I looked through her, past the gates. There were no yellow
ribbons. There was no fanfare. No hero's welcome. I had not
won the war.
I think I smiled then . The first in a long time.
"You kiddin' ?" I asked . "Hell, I'm home."
14
Ralph Hager
BROKEN WINDOW
I lie on my bed, wondering
why loneliness has so many compartments
and each has one door opening from love
I see the light crawling
beneath the doors
and I want to step on each ray
as if it were a worm
but I realize that it's not
how I see the light
but how I deal with the light
that matters
NEIGHBORS
the voices in the vent
don't know they are heard
they have no fear
of what they are saying
to each other, unaware
there are listeners
the voices tell a story of two men
unsure of themselves
each other
and the cell
they must share for the night
15
William Aberg
TIlE EXCHANGE
He tells me in broken English
As we stand in queue for the cellblock microwave
that he arrived yesterday from Mexico
on the treaty exchange over the Juarez bridge,
and is relieved to be in a place
they don't stab you for your jeans or shoes,
where one can rely on lights and clean water,
on eating more than rice and pinto beans .
He smiles without front teeth, holds up a bowl
where two fat, plucked pigeons lay side by side,
in his other hand the bootlaces he used for a snare.
16 .
William Aberg
PARENfHESIS
If it weren't for his voice - a husky
Spanish octave below my own - I could almost pretend
our bench sat in the musk of spring grass,
by slender, flowering cherry trees and dogwoods,
and instead of a dry prison field
in rifle range of Mexico, this was a park
surrounded by brownstone houses
whose walls are spidered with ivy,
and this fragile young man, his cheeks
faintly rouged by red pencil, eyebrows plucked
and darkened, could be the woman
in flesh his spirit longs to flower into ,
and it could be twilight, with dinner and a movie ahead,
and we could lock fingers with the easy grace of lovers
long together, for a change
two people delighted by what is
rather than what could be. So lost am I in this
for a moment I almost reach to clasp his hand.
17
Raymond E. Williams
GRASS, ROCKS, AND PRISON RABBITS
In fourteen hours J have consumed three hundred twenty
ounces of water, iced tea , and soda while working as a prison
landscaper. That' s ten quarts of liquid J drank while pushing a
mower, and still I have had no need to make my bladder flatter.
Two and a half gallons of anything in my stomach and I should
look like I have swallowed a basketball.
It was only ninety degrees when I started out this morning
to mow my half-acre of lawn. Not that it' s really mine, but it is
mine to take care of. The lawns are all restricted areas, and
inmates are not allowed to go on them, except when working.
Still, it is nice to sit and look at the grass, and the plants, and
remember what it was like when I had a real yard of my own .
Once a week I mow my grass. There's no motor on the
lawn mower, so if I don't push, it doesn't mow. I push, it mows,
I drink, I sweat, and then I sleep. It's a good way to make a day
18
go by fast, and it gives me a lot of time to think about why I am
in prison. Which I do sometimes, but sometimes I think about the
things I had on the outside. Which reminds me, I don't remember
the judge saying anything about hard labor. I would never have
believed that I could sweat so much. It was a hundred five at
noon, and there were times when there was sweat pouring off my
straw hat.
There are very few inmates here who take much notice of
the lawns or the plants. No doubt many of them grew up in a
housing project or ghetto where there was nothing but dirt and
concrete. They never had a chance to enjoy a Saturday morning
with their parents. I have this terrible feeling in my gut that they
had better enjoy the lawns here while they can. It seems that
every time I turn around either the Captain of Security or the
Deputy Warden is ordering another tree to be cut down, or another
grassy area to be dug up and covered with rocks.
Someone around here has a thing about rocks. Recently
they have had work crews raking up and removing all the rocks
larger than a pea. When I look at the ground around here, I see
that it is mostly rocks of various sizes in a hard caliche matrix.
Removing all the rocks is an impossible task. I guess someone
else figured that out, so now they are buying truckloads of pea
gravel for us to spread around. I wonder if they will paint it
green.
Rock lawns may look good in front of houses in Sun City,
but I would prefer for them to bring in some good soil and let us
plant more grass. This is supposed to be a working prison yard,
and more grass would mean more landscaper jobs. Of course,
landscapers get thirty-five cents per hour. But, it's not the money
that is important. It's the activity, the use of muscles, the
meaningfulness of taking care of and making an area look good.
The work promotes good health and self esteem.
My grassy area is not yet in danger of being covered over
with gravel, but it may be only a matter of time.
19
There are a lot of mean-spirited people in and around the
prison. Some of them are wearing prison-blue, but some are
wearing Department of Corrections brown. Take one of the
sergeants for example.
There are five or six cottontail rabbits of various sizes that
come in under the outside fence and munch on the grass in the
lawn that I take care of. Furry little weed eaters help to keep the
area free of dandelions. It is very peaceful, sitting up on the hill,
and watching them eat and play in the grass. Several men spend
their early morning and evening hours watching the rabbits.
Some of the watchers are not the type I would expect to
find sitting around peacefully. These guys look like they belong
in a bar drinking beer and breaking pool cues over each others
heads. No doubt that' s where some of them have spent half of
their lives.
I watched a convicted murderer with one of the baby
rabbits . I'm not sure how he caught the bunny, but what struck
me was the way in which he was holding it. Here was a man who
had brutally killed someone - and he looked like he could easily
kill again - yet he was petting a helpless baby rabbit. He looked,
at the moment , more like a child in a pet store than a murderer.
The inmates are not the only ones who want to catch the
rabbits. The sergeant I mentioned wants box traps made so that
he can catch the rabbits and take them out of the prison yard. He
has already caught one that was living under my tent. It's a
wonder he didn ' t charge us with keeping a pet. He might have if
he had known that we were feeding it with food from the chowhall. Instead, he took the rabbit outside the fence and turned it
loose.
Next day the rabbit was back in my grassy area, and he
brought some new friends. I have noticed that the rabbits don't
mind being in prison. Maybe they know that the fences that keep
us in also keep the coyotes out. Sometimes there are as many as
nine rabbits varying from babies to adults on my half-acre. They
20
come under the fence in a motion that is so quick and fluid that
they just seem to materialize on the inside.
The sergeant says the rabbits are causing some serious
problems for the guards who patrol the outside perimeter in their
new Dodge Ram pick-up trucks. Their job is to drive around and
around looking for tracks in the sand-pits which border both sides
of the fence. Tracks in the sand can mean an unauthorized exit,
or in the case of the rabbits, an unauthorized entry. The sergeant
claims the rabbits have to go because they are miling too many
tracks in the sand-pits, and it is confusing the guards.
Now, let me get this straight. The guards are confused
because they cannot tell the difference between rabbit tracks and
size twelve boot prints. Okay, so if I can manage to get on the
other side of the fence without cutting myself to ribbons on the
razor-wire, then I can put my feet side-by-side and hop off to
Tucson. The guards won't know the difference? Maybe they'll
think it was just Harvey come to visit his little bunny friends.
Maybe we should let the coyotes patrol the fences .
Of course, both the sergeant and I could be wrong. There
is a guard on the night shift who claims that there are no rabbits.
He says that inmates from the tents are using their fingers and
sticks to make marks in the sand-pits. I'm not sure how he thinks
the marks are being made on the outside of the fence, leading off
into the desert.
One day the sergeant will have his way, and the box-traps
will be set to catch the rabbits. He'll take them outside the fence,
but they'll be back. Some of them might even beat the sergeant
back onto the yard. I don't know how long this game can go on.
Maybe the rabbits will get tired of being caught and will give up
coming in to eat the fresh green plants. Maybe the guards will get
tired of it and will put the rabbits out near a coyote den, or maybe
they will shoot them with the wooden bullets meant for escapees,
also called rabbits.
I fear that in the long run , no one will be able to get rid of
the rabbits, and being unable to shoot them, another solution will
21
be found. That will leave only one solution; tear out the grass and
put in more rocks . (After all, the authorities aren't going to stand
for the inmates having anything as peaceful as a bunch of rabbits
eating grass.)
An inmate killed one of the rabbits while it was munching
on dandelions . The two hundred pound man showed how macho
he was by standing on the hill and throwing four ounce rocks at a
one pound rabbit. He hit the rabbit with a lucky throw, and then
ran off so no one would know who had done it. The rabbit
crawled off into the lilies and died, alone.
I found the rabbit while working in the afternoon, and
reported it to a guard. Others who had seen the incident also
reported it, but the guard didn't want to deal with the paperwork.
Some of the Native Americans wanted to bury the rabbit. They
have more respect for animal spirits than we do, but the guard said
no. He tossed the dead bunny into a trash can . When he wasn't
looking, the Native Americans and I put some lilies into the can .
No one el se cared.
22
Malcolm Alexander King
JUST WORDS
It is a battle,
tough,
painful,
to write a poem
.In
.
pnson
about prison.
One is never sure
what may go unsaid,
whether such absence will be understood
among those for whom prison
and prisoner
are just words.
23
Paul C. Van Noy
STAY ALERT MY OTIIER HALF
Imagine, Love, the tedium of this watch.
On almost every day, nothing happens
and isn't it wrong to yearn for a great storm,
just to feel important?
I'll let you go then.
Why shouldn't my house be my own
and my soul its keeper?
This work I need not take so seriously
since I have learned what pleases me,
the light of late afternoon through that window,
the intricate cobwebs I won't disturb.
24
Lawrence R. McCuin
WHILE I WAS SLEEPING
When did I awake
and begin to put
one fact in front
of the other
Whatever happened to logic and progression,
where one and one are two
Awake, I was sleeping,
sleeping, I was awake
and in-between, I was dreaming and thinking
25
Kenneth Lamberton
DUST
Walking is an escape that frees my mind. While I am
walking, the mass of fibrous roots that is my bra;n loosens and
draws a few nerve-bound ideas to the surface. Today, on a cold
December afternoon with Alaska sliding into the Southwest like a
glacier and the wind polishing my teeth with grit, I think about
elemental things. My body, like the planet, is mostly water,
ninety percent or so on a good day . But water is an ephemeral
thing in the desert, a gift with strings or, more precisely, a loan.
You can't keep it for long; soon it evaporates or transpires or you
excrete it as waste. When it's gone, when it's vapor, all that
remains are splintering, crumbling ti ssues. A residue. Dust.
Calcium du st. Phosphorous dust. Magnesiu m and iron and carbon
dust. I am a collective body of mineral du st that wind once lifted
and swept from dune to sky to dune, that once stu ng eyes and
coated lips. When the wind comes, I taste the bones of those who
were here before me.
I taste the bones of those who will follow me.
26
II
Hello It's Me
Three Poems and Translations
Joseph Williams
HELLO IT'S ME
I saw you the other day
smiling
what green teeth
I like them
are you smoking those funny cigarettes again
are you listening to me
tell me a story
send me an idea
I want a song to rock me to sleep
I am gone today like yesterday
I forgot about me and these false pretenses
but the eyes have meaning
the voice
knows about me
the hours are mean to me
I came from freedom to seek another world
r am still good looking
a world of no hope
the wonder years
the feeling
my eyes are like my face and my lips are like roses
28
HOLASOYYO
La otra dia yo te mires
sonreirse
que dientes verdes
me los gusto
otra vez fumando esos cigatios 'divertidos
estar escuchando que yo dice
hacer una historia
mandarme una idea
Yo deseo una can cion para dormirme
Hoy estoy perdido como ayer
se me olvide de estos pretensiones falsos
pero los ojos tienen significativo
el voz
me conocer
malo son las horas conmigo
Libre yo llego para buscar otro mundo
un mundo sin esperanza
todovia estoy hermoso
los aiios maravillia
el sientimento
mis ojos son comomi cara y mis labios son como rosas
translated by Daniel Zamarr6n
and Pat Houston
29
Alberto Camarena
DRINKING BLACK COF'FEE
Drinking black coffee without sugar
I am listening to a sad love song.
The bitter coffee sweetens my loneliness.
Those days.. . Do you remember?
I'm trying to forget you slowly
because forgetting you is also a way
to love you,
knowing you are free, independent,
and always happy.
I do not want the shadow of my memories
to darken the color in your present life.
30
TOMANDO CAFE NEGRO
Tomando cafe negro sin azucar
estoy escuchando una triste canci6n de amor.
E1 amargo cafe endulza me soledad.
Aquellos dias ... i,Te acuerdas de ellos?
Estoy intentando olvidarte lentamente
porque olvidandote es una forma
de amarte,
sabiendo que la sombra de mis recuerdos
y siempre feliz.
No quiero que la sombra de mis recuerdos
manchen el color de tu vida presente.
translated by Alberto Camareno
31
Alberto Camarena
ABOUT THE MOON
Last night
I was able to contemplate the moon
there is no doubt about it
how great is the moon
I feel deep respect and passion for the moon
the sun of night
the mirror of love
the witness of desire
I cannot conceive of the universe without the moon
I cannot imagine a romance with no moon
I cannot keep a secret of my passion for the moon
Moon
Moon
Moon
Moon
is
is
is
is
the contrast between black and white
the fountain of a magic light
the candle of a lonely night
a poem I would like to write
32
ACERCA DE LA LUNA
Anoche
yo pude contemplar la luna
no hay duda acerca de ello
cuan grande es la luna
Yo siento un profundo respeto y pasion por la luna
el sol de la noche
el espejo de amor
el testigo del deseo
no puedo concebir el universo sin la luna
no puedo imaginar un romance sin luna
no puedo manener en seereto mi pasion por la luna
La
La
La
La
luna
luna
luna
luna
es
es
es
es
el contraste entre blanco y negro
la fuente de una magica luz
la vela de una solitaria noche
un poema que me gustaria escribir
translated by Alberto Camareno
33
III
Impenitent Birds
Malcolm Alexander King
NOTHING GROWS ON THE PRISON BASEBALL FIELD
U's just dirt.
A uniform
institutional
brown.
For five hours,
on five sequential days,
I rake brown
uniform
institutional
lines.
Everything's iii order
in my field .
Except today,
an impenitent bird alighted
among my lines.
No one else noticed
it was a seagull
in the high desert.
I alone could see it
for what it was:
a symbol
for itself.
35
D. Doyal
SKY POEMS
the snow heart
of a strawberry
and the sky
•
the sky hears
confessions of the wind
•
advice I give rain
remember from where you are falling
•
outside
I die on a bench
looking up at an ocean
•
my black dog
watches clouds
•
the ground is hungry
mountains are eating the sky
•
the air is washed
here is a rainbow of smoke
•
my window
is a door for the sky
•
36
a blackbird crosses
the blue page
•
the sky blinks
and it's night
the sky cries
and - you know
•
a moment after sundown
shafts of light cast skyward
from the western horizon
•
twilight
the sky crawls
behind a mountain
•
full moon rising
in a glowing purple sky
37
Michael Small
CHANGE
Change is a subtle noose,
hands are tied behind the back
full of dark birds
and other possibilities.
Lightning and a nighthawk wind
are enough to spook the horse.
Submission,
submission,
the wet and foamy terms
of water on sand and rock.
Surrender,
surrender,
the blue and yellow edicts
of ftre on wood.
Moon of rope
calm the tremors between these knees.
Night of leather
sit the storm until these ftngers
loose the knots and slip the noose.
Relentless ,
relentless,
the climb of smoke
up cliffs to the top
where the wind raises orphans
and ftre and water are conceived,
38
to the top where the moon
loves the night for the chance to be seen
and the night loves the moon
for the same reason,
where ancient trails always come back
to the edge where dark birds
rise and fall , rise and fall
on swells of smoke
relentless,
relentless.
39
Michael Small
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE MOON
The wind is cold and barbed
and the moon is buttering dreams
in another land.
A day of snow greys the night.
My breathing clouds the air
with possibilities
the wind refuses quickly to consider.
In the absence of the moon,
decisions of the wind are absolute.
A campfIre burns perceptions
down to coals of truth the smoke is gone.
Beyond the edges of the ember light,
yellow pairs of eyes
stalk back and forth
testing the air for answers
to hunger and desire.
Tonight I choose to howl:
a song, a prayer
in the language of the lost.
40
Lawrence R. McCuin
MY QUESTIONS
I am counting the birds,
those who have left their
finger prints on the sky
I want to track them down
and ask them why
why beyond reason they
learned to fly
how much time do they save
going from here to there
and what do they wear on
rainy days
41
James Ruttan
ABour THREE FEET
The Shoe
Has
a tongue,
cannot speak.
A dozen eyes, cannoJ
see. A
sole,
cannot feel.
No nose,
sure can smell.
On the Other Foot
A bird, I saw, freely
hopping on the floor today
through the prison cell bars.
He paused to look in, to say
"So, how do you like it?"
then he turned and flew away.
Keeper
When I stand
on my head
I leave footprints
on my face.
42
W. Occam
CELLULAR PRISONERS
Siamese blue skies
razor-wire's embrace
adobe swallow nests
gray-dawn breast split tail
slow-motion glide sexy turns
aerial crescendos
wingtip intimacy
parents nurse as nestlings scream
pinfeather spirals
warm thermal windstream
bird brain's genetic tether
love's merry-go-round
43
William Aberg
NATURAL KNOWLEDGE
As an amputee remembers
the touch of a missing limb,
so the charred stumps of the field
remember their trees.
Where this forest once stood,
its trunks tall as a long rain,
the birds recall its branches
and sing as they weave between them.
Malcolm Alexander King
SCENERY
The Evening Star lies cradled
in the infant lunar cup.
Within the razored landscape
the prisoner looks up,
Escaping momentarily
his failures and regrets ,
The clash of will and iron gate,
the borrowed cigarettes.
44
Kenneth Lamberton
OF SWALLOWS AND DOING TIME
The wind always blows here. It gathers itself into a steady
pulse from the south and breaks across the prison yard with its
load of blonde talcum. I'd forgotten about the wind. I've been
back only a day and already it greets me with its forlorn touch .
The feeling wants to overwhelm me. The barn swallows welcome
me too, the graceful birds darting here and there in the wind like
dark hands throwing gang signs. They know how to take
advantage of the wind. The loneliness, the melancholy.
I find Bill in an empty classroom where he is waiting for
his next student. He teaches the men, mostly Mexican nationals,
how to read and write, English literacy being a requirement in the
Arizona correctional system regardless of where you're from. I
haven 't seen Bill in nearly two years, and he's pleased to tell me
about his barn swallow observations during my absence. Bill is
dying . Has been dying for twenty years, but he's getting closer
now. He' s in his sixties and can ' t squeeze much more time out of
this place, already outlasting cancer in his bowels, a colostomy,
and its necessary bag that his blue t-shirt could never hide.
Bill's moleskin face splits open and his eyes unglaze when
he talks about the birds. He's been watching a nest on the run
near his cell since the swallows daubed the mud-pellet cup to the
block wall four summers ago. "Three successful nests this time!"
he says, exposing several gray and black-rooted teeth . The dentist
will pull those soon, I think. "First time ever they' ve raised three
46
broods in one summer," he continues and laughs. There's
swallow-pleasure in his eyes, and I believe for a moment that the
birds allow him to forget about this place, his dying. Like the
man in my creative writing workshop who also watches the
swallows, and writes about them in haiku. If the guards even
suspected that there are men here who escape on those dark,
narrow wings, if only for a short time in their minds, they'd shoot
the birds.
***
"There are those birds you gauge your life by," says Terry
Tempest Williams. "Each year, they alert me to the regularities
of the land." For her, the birds are burrowing owls. For me,
they are the bam swallows. I was here, in prison at the Santa Rita
Unit, when the swallows arrived for the first time in the spring of
1990. Theirs was a tentative advent. Only three pairs came to
breed under the visitation ramada, hauling thousands of beak-sized
adobe bricks one at a time to construct their masonry nests. I
watched them with my wife and daughters as the dark crescents
rolled from the sky to streak through the vaulted structure, each
one spinning and weaving in an aerial dance as precise as if every
movement had been choreographed and practiced a thousand times.
We were familiar with the common birds on the yard, the greasyblack grackles and cowbirds, the beggar house sparrows. Even
my four-year-old girl Melissa could name them . But the swallows
were different, Jaguars by comparison. Our eyes were drawn to
their sleek bodies with their metallic, blue-black sheen and
pumpkin breasts, long tapering wings and deeply forked tails.
Such poetry from a pointed , seven-inch frame. And voices to
match: a cheerful, liquid twittering of notes on descending and
ascending scales. That summer, those transient pilots raised
twelve offspring, and by the end of September they were gone,
migrating south as the first Pacific cold fronts prodded the
Southwest. I remember hoping that they would return , wondering
if their experiment in nesting here at Santa Rita had been
successful enough to bring them back.
47
Meanwhile, I began to gather stuff on barn swallows. The
prison library offered some information but it was general,
encyclopedic. I wrote the Tucson Audubon Library and connected
with a kind and helpful woman named Joan Tweit who sent me
more material and never concerned herself about corresponding
with a criminal. (Joan proved an invaluable source for me over
the years. I finally met her after my temporary release from
prison at a book-signing for her daughter, Susan, a natural history
writer.) My wife also became a tremendous resource for me by
perusing the periodical stacks at the University of Arizona Science
Library and photocopying research articles from professional
journals like The Auk and Condor.
Soon, I was learning things about the swallows. And,
because of this knowledge, I started considering an idea about why
they had suddenly come to Santa Rita in the first place.
By the end of March the following year, I was watching for
them every day . I was a teacher' s aide in a classroom next to the
visitation ramada and every birdlike movement outside the picture
windows got my attention. During evening church services in the
same classroom I waited for that quick flash of wings and
sicklelike projectile, that phantom silhouette which could only
mean "swallow. " Then one Friday in mid-April as the sun
flattened on the western horizon and the sky turned cayenne,
something dipped under the ramada. I stared and a few seconds
later I saw it again . I was sure. They were back.
Over the next month the birds reclaimed two nests from the
previous year and refurbished them, packing fresh muddy pellets
onto the lip of the old nest cup and reinforcing the work with bits
of dried grass. The third nest, also left over from last season , was
in dispute. My family and I amused ourselves with the drama of
two flustered swallows who couldn't drive out some obstinate
squatters. A pair of house sparrows had built a grassy nest neatly
on the top of their nest and wouldn't budge. I was convinced that
bird vocabulary includes swear words ; their arguments lasted two
weeks before the swallows finally resigned to sticking a new nest
48
J
onto some other joist. A month or so after their arrival three pairs
of barn swallows were brooding clutches of four or five speckled
white eggs. By the end of June another two had joined them. It
was small, but it was a colony.
I had read that barn swallows often nest in large groups: as
many as 55 nests have been found in a single barn. They also
seem to prefer human-made structures--barns, bridges, boat docks-especially if they're near open fields, meadow, marshes, or ponds
where insects are abundant. The birds are voracious bug-netters,
one swallow scooping up hundreds in a day. At the prison,
swallows will work a large field in the morning and evening,
sailing low to the ground and weaving a block pattern, dipping to
intercept their prey, usually lacewings, flies, and moths. In fact,
it's these fields, I believe, that originally attracted barn swallows
to Santa Rita. The fields and their insect complement.
In 1989, before swallows nested at Santa Rita, the Arizona
Department of Corrections changed the way it dealt with its
wastewater at the Tucson Complex. Prisons were getting crowded,
tents had gone up, cells were being double-bunked. We were
taxing the sewage treatment plant and its settling ponds had begun
to flow. The reclaimed water needed somewhere to go; we didn't
have a golf course. So, what was once dust and creosote between
the complex's main units (there were three of them at the time:
Cimarron, Rincon, and Santa Rita) suddenly became an artificial
wetland of weeds and grasses, kept verdant and soggy by a new
effluent irrigation system. Twenty-one hundred men flushing their
toilets had turned the desert green.
I noticed the difference in bird life almost immediately.
Ravens still probed the trash dumpsters while sparrows, starlings,
and Brewer's blackbirds winnowed the dirt behind the dining areas
for crumbs. Cowbirds still roved the soccer and softball fields en
masse. But as the evening floodings fertilized the air and the new
wetlands, I started counting mallards, gadwalls, killdeer, and great
blue herons. When a flock of whimbrels flew over I was certain
the birds were lost. Mourning doves by the hundreds, all coming
49
from separate directions by twos and threes late in the afternoons,
would congregate in the grass before flying off together to their
roosts. My life list for birds seen in prison doubled, then tripled
as I added western meadowlark, lark bunting, Say's phoebe,
olivaceous and ash-throated flycatchers, yellow-headed blackbird,
cooper's hawk, and burrowing owl. And then once, for most of
the morning, a great egret, all legs and beak, stationed itself in the
center of the field. I'd never seen feathers so white; it was a
blank cutout from a green page. When it wandered into an area
of standing water I half expected it to spear a fish. As I write this
now, I find I'm not surprised that the wetland and its insect forage
created by the prison's water reclamation project drew the bam
swallows. I'm sure they're more common in the desert than
whimbrels and egrets.
FoT'the ramada colony 1991 was not a good year at Santa
Rita. Another breeding pair had constructed a fifth nest in August,
but not a single chick had fledged in the entire colony. It was
getting late; something was wrong. The only chicks I had seen
were scrawny and naked. My daughters had found two under a
nest on one of their visits. Both were dead. What confused me
was the apparent contradiction of a solitary nest I had found about
half a mile away at the Cimarron Unit. (I traveled there every
Sunday for a creative writing workshop.) By August, two
swallows at Cimarron had already raised six offspring and had
started a second brood. Why was this solitary pair of swallows
producing healthy birds while the ramada colony only dead chicks?
I believed there were two keys that unlocked this riddle: the
nature of bird colonies in general and the nature of our weather in
particular .
I didn't jump to this conclusion in a moment of inspiration;
the idea come slowly. As I read the work of scientists who had
studied barn swallows, one question kept surfacing: why colonies?
It seemed, according to ample field observations, that the cost of
nesting together should be too great, that competition for nesting
50
areas, food, mates, and a higher likelihood that predators such as
raccoons might discover and destroy a whole colony, would
conspire against colonial nesting. (The best argument I found/or
bam swallow colonies involved the bird's preference for nesting
places already established in ideal habitats with a history of
reproductive success. Talk about your chicken or the egg story!)
Colonies just didn't seem like much of an advantage for bam
swallows. On the other hand, solitary nesters had none of these
problems. No competition for resources, less chance of predation.
I knew this, but it still didn't mean anything to me. It was
the second key--the weather--that really helped me make sense out
of the riddle. In Southern Arizona the summer of 1991 turned out
to be one of the driest in recent years. · High temperatures
averaged around 105 degrees. The monsoon storms were late,
shrinking the normal amount of rainfall for that year by inches.
One result of this unusual weather, and a serious problem for the
brooding ramada colony, was a drought of flying insects. I had an
idea that limited food resources, due to the failed monsoons, were
working against the Santa Rita colony because there were too
many birds in the area. The solitary bam swallows at Cimarron,
however, because of less competition for food, were doing fine.
I sent a letter to Mary Bowers, then editor of Bird
Watcher's Digest, telling her about my conclusions and suggesting
that I write a feature about the bam swallows at Santa Rita. She
had already published one article of mine about Harris' hawks,
saying in her acceptance letter, "I get a lot of articles from
prisoners, most of them invariably bad. Yours is different,
however. . . " We were developing a good relationship and she
definitely wanted to see my barn swallow piece. She published it
in the Marchi April 1993 issue with a photograph of a single
swallow gripping a strand of barbed wire. Quite appropriate, I
thought, for an article from a writer "based in Arizona. "
When I wrote about the bam swallows for Bird Watcher's
Digest I didn't know where the ramada colony was headed. I
continued writing notes about its progress for the next four seasons
51
until my release in 1994, counting the number of nests and chicks.
The colony seemed to be just holding on. When I returned to
prison in 1996, it was gone. Perhaps I had been right: the prison
yard and its flex and flux of insects couldn't support it. I could
blame the weather. I could also blame the visitation guards who
began knocking down the nests (to keep the ramada free of the
"mess" the birds made) and thereby destroying the historical
attractiveness of the site. Once, I tried to explain to an officer the
necessity of leaving the nests alone even after the birds were gone.
He looked at me as if I were crazy and said nothing. I felt like a
fool.
But even though the colony has dissolved, the birds still
hang on. Solitary pairs have begun building nests under the eaves
of the runs at some of the cellblocks, spreading them out so that
there is only one, or at most two, nests on each of the four yards.
Like the swallows at Cimarron, the birds have found an alternative
to colony life. And now, out among the inmates, they're better
for it.
Those men whose houses happen to be near a swallow nest
continue to impress me with their sensitivity for the birds. This
was unexpected for me. I'm referring to men like Bill, who is
fiercely protective of his swallow family, who monitors its growth
year after year, counting eggs and chicks, marking off the days to
hatching and fledgling, watching for additional broods. "I counted
thirty this morning," he told me yesterday. "All of them singin'
and carryin' on. I'm gonna miss 'em when they're gone." It's
September now, and I've noticed it too. The swallows are
gathering in preparation for the migration south.
Today, Steve brings me a swallow he's found injured and
wants to know what he can do. 1 see one wing has a red bruise
underneath it and tell him it may survive if he can get it to eat.
Risking disciplinary action for an unlawful pet, he carries the tiny
bird to his cell and makes a simple perch for it under his
television. While the swallow sits quietly Steve stalks the run for
flies, fly swatter in hand. He offers the freshest morsels to his
52
charge but the bird ignores them. It refuses his nudges and
proddings: Steve won't force it. Tonight, the swallow slips from
its perch and flutters mothlike on Steve's bunk. Steve doesn't
know what to do except to hold it until the spasms stop, watching
as one foot extends to grasp at nothing and then grasp no more.
I find it ironic, thinking about it now, how overcrowding
in this prison and the solution to its consequent wastewater
problem has affected the inmates here, has affected me. Twentyone hundred men flushing their toilets has done more than settle
the dust under a mat of vegetation. It turned this bleak place into
a wildlife island, a rest stop and refuge for wings and beaks and
talons. And every spring, and for five or six months following,
it's given us the swallows, gifts of grace on narrow wings.
I gauge my life by the swallows. Their nature, like many
things in the world, is cyclic; they live inside the regular heartbeat
of the land. Ebb and flow, flex and flux, rise an,d fall. It's a
pattern I can live with, one that gives me hope. As long as the
swallows come in the spring and go in the fall, come and go and
come, I'll feel their rhythm, measuring it out as a change of
seasons. This is the source of my hope: the swallows cue me to
the passage of time. Where ancient peoples raised stones to track
equinoxes and solstices, the swallows are my Stonehenge. In a
place where clocks and calendars are meaningless, where hours
and days and months percolate into one homogenous, stagnant
pond, I mark the swallows.
53
IV
poor Man's Money
,
---
-,
. \.
....
'
\
/~-- \~
,,
\.
Tony Degges
POOR MAN'S MONEY
he has regrets, they have
no statute of limitations
he is damaged, which
he recognizes
as the distance
he has traveled
from innocence
naked he stands
understanding his
own story as lies
told, too many
for too long
euphoric recall is
what passes for joy
on days when the
constant truth is
not beating hi m down
he sold his memories
for heroin and cocai ne
the man returned them
saying it is just
poor man ' s money
and he could only
spend it in hell
55
William Aberg
MEETING IN SOUTH TUCSON
Because the squad car slows
to follow us down South Sixth Avenue,
she asks if I don't mind
taking her hand to pose
as her boyfriend. She slips
an arm around my waist, hooking
her fingers through a belt-loop
and pocket, even
after I know the police
have split and we've turned
down an alley fenced
by ocotillo shafts and oleander,
where shepherds and pit
bulls rage against their chains.
We stop at the milkcrate step
of an aluminum Airstream
where she knocks, meets the eyes
that check our faces
from behind the window blind . .
Inside we clear a patch
of rug among some dirty jackets
as he cuts our gram
of heroin in foil. After the rituals
of cotton and water, she faces the window,
opening her blouse to expose
a small, Latin breast, aSking
56
shyly, syringe in hand,
if I could find a vein there,
for no others are left.
Outside, eyelids
heavy, foreheads prickly with sweat
in the bright desert air,
she kisses my cheek,
and pursing her lips, writes
her name in black ink
on my wrist, so I don't forget
57
William Aberg
STEPPING AWAY FROM MY FATIIER
My father leans toward the green, electric
dials of the transceiver, clicking the Morse key
between thumb and forefinger, talking in dashes and dots
with a man in Magadan, far
eastern Siberia, about how they put fire pots
all night beneath running truck engines to keep the gas
and oil from freezing. How the Sea of Okhotsk,
even now, in late March, is a plateau
passable only in the wake of icebreakers.
My father tells him how an early Maryland spring
has teased the flowers and trees into a bloom
that could still be murdered by frost. This could be
the conversation of two men in a local
hardware store, arms folded across their chests
as they stand beside the snow shovels and salt sacks
and grouse about insurance, doctor's bills,
the motions of clouds and sun.
My father's face is warm, animate,
his lips silently forming the words
he taps out in code, the signals
flashing over the Atlantic, the skies of Europe,
over the snowy steppe and taiga of Holy Russia.
I, who have stood by the door
waiting to ask for a loan, back quietly
into the hall, not wanting to startle him
out of his easier intimacy with strangers, nor sense
the fear in his eyes when he sees his addict son.
58
Michael Small
TIIUNDERSTORM
The wind crawls hot and nameless
through the yellow flowered branches
of a palo verde.
Coyotes stalk the night.
A naked moon lights the killer's eyes.
Law and order are different things,
witnesses have nothing more to say.
The plan of water is to soothe,
stones bloom overnight.
The owl comes home,
comes home, comes home .
The smell of hope rai ns
delicious:
a wound that never heals .
59
Scott Tramposch
TOTIIELEFf
Cars on Miracle Mile get lost
at three fifteen beyond the cemetery.
A vagrant still limps
due to the loss of one shoe.
Smoke filtered neon through a cracked pane
flashes, "Motel... tel... tel... "
An acrid air rises from beneath the bed
upstaging her waft of Obsession.
Carla admits she was bored, and, "He was
washing his socks in the drinking fountain. "
Into the black hole of passion we writhe,
into the wild , insatiable night while
Charlie searches, limping and cursing,
in the quiet of lost cars and headstones.
60
Scott Tramposch
CHECKS
A time comes when you get tired
of cramming all your philosophies
into one box, hoping they will merge
into one great procedure for life,
at about the same time as the crackpot ego
gets bored and begins to scribble memos
that begin with "I'm not here to ... "
and without thinking, you're off.
You're traipsing off to conquer the world
with your best pair of sunglasses and a
pocketful of quarters. Your keys are in
the refrigerator, the only place you didn't look.
Your thumb pointed into the breeze
drags you through a rural scene.
The man in checks puts his hand on your knee
and infinity ricochets between your mirrored
shades and his, the car spins counter-clockwise
and flips . You see red gasoline and glass.
The nurse drives you to her home and washes
the smell of gasoline from your hair and hands
you a robe with checks, but it's not the same.
Nothing is ever the same again.
61
Scott Tramposch
THE EDGE OF THE STORM
I'm going to devote my life to sorrow,
cancel all my appointments
and travel the world poor.
Yesterday is a dead bird.
I will go to sleep starving
and wake up starving,
exploring India from within
as a Hindu would .
And if I have the strength
I will build a mountain
at the foot of a valley
inviting everyone to climb .
It will be a monument
to the dead and their ancestors.
I have great respect for the dead;
they have never mistreated me.
They teach endurance in peculiar ways.
This is the strategy I've chosen
to learn how evening light plays
with the smoky quartz of desperation.
62
Scott Tramposch
MOUSTRAPS
I could never tell the mice
how to escape the snap.
The little hieroglyphic tracks
they leave in the flour at night
tell me they are confused
and frantic. I want to say
hey, it's onl y a little piece
of cheese, nothing to lose
your sensibilities over, but
they take it seriously as if
they somehow know there is
more to it than that. You have to
empty them, you always have to carry
their tiny corpses by the tail
to the toilet and flush,
as unceremoniously as you
possibly can, explaining
to yourself how necessary it is
in the mouse world to kill
so the rest will have enough.
63
v
The Groove of Days Past
Lisa Shannon
INSIDE OUT
In this,
the seventh moment in time,
a blind visionary came to me
with broken vows,
literal bullshit.
She showed me the paths not taken by herself,
nor the jailhouse Jehovah
believed in before her.
She sighed and I followed,
me the arrogant aristocrat,
a direct descendant of that poetic muse,
Calliope, daughter of Zeus
inside out.
Chocolate chip cookie in hand,
I ponder her lengthy presentation;
Never would Cleo add this to her book
of hypocritical hi story.
So I fell into the groove of days past
and continued on my way;
an old beginning, the same unfortunate end.
Hey! There's Aphrodite all dressed in black,
travelling the bridal aisle.
66
I know her,
I wore her shoes once;
borrowed, not stolen.
Well there's that visionary again,
just as blind.
Surprised, no one's cut her tongue out yet.
What good is a blind, mute, visionary
in handcuffs?
Oh. Her name is Justice,
I think you've met.
Cleo grits her teeth and
scribbles something Latin in her journal.
I really don't think I'd want to interpret
exactly what she writes down
in that book.
I may be offended but I get the gist;
inside out.
As I approach the eighth moment in time,
I wonder what will come to pass,
the next leader waiting to be
borne to the air,
floating underground,
anticipating her birth.
A new beginning instead of the same
piece of the past,
whiskey under my breath;
inside out.
67
S. T. Lewandowski
CIllLDREN IN CHINA
Her fingers curl tight around the pen. She thinks to
herself, We just don't have anything in common anymore. Did we
ever, was there a time ? She knew it was more than that. She felt
used up, was used up. But how to explain it in a note, what
should she write, what could she write?
The image was clear: Her grandmother's hand riddled with
lines , callouses, snarled odd bits of bumps--Ioose flesh and taut;
wringing out an old threadbare grey once white washcloth. There
she was wrung out and hung up damp, limp over a rusted spigot
But what did he know of threadbare grey once white washcloth s?
"Babe," her husband calls to her from the kitchen.
"Muffins or raisin toast?" Sunday, she had forgotten that it was
Sunday. He always cooks breakfast on Sunday.
"Umm Raisin I guess" she calls back. Then softly to herself
she says, "You're a good man. If there was just something,
anything, however small that would reconnect us. It isn't you,
that's not why. It' s not your fault." Still committing nothing to
paper.
It wasn't him. It was her. Or maybe not. It wasn't her,
it was him . Or maybe if just was, was just.. .just something.
Something else. Something Different. Something
68
She whispers to herself, "something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue." But those somethings were
long ago.
She goes over the mental inventory of what she'll take: a
few changes of clothing, the hairbrush that belonged to her
mother, some photographs. Only a few things, she could send for
the rest later. Or perhaps not. If she needed anything she could
borrow it or buy it.
Something old, something new, something borrowed,
something blue. She felt the rhyme roll through her mind like a
marble down a drain pipe.
"Come downstairs and eat, Sweetheart, it's ready." His
voice breaking the spell of the rhyme.
Standing at the top of the stairs she remembers something
her mother said to her as a child, "Eat everything on your plate
dear, there are children starving in China."
Walking down the stairs she wonders aloud, "Where are
they starving now?"
"Somewhere, always somewhere," comes her soft reply.
Standing at the foot of the stairs her husband asks, "What
was that? I didn't quite hear you."
"Oh I was just remembering what my mom used to say
about kids in China."
"You mean, 'Eat everything on your plate, there are
children starving in China'? My mother said that same thing to
me over and over, especially when we had beets!"
Placing the pen in her pocket she takes his hand in hers and
walks towards the ki tchen.
69
C. K. Ferguson
VISn1NGDAY
It is very early. Daylight has not begun to streak the sky.
The front door opens. A slightly chubby man in"his fifties tiptoes
past my cot on his way to the crib against the opposite wall.
Grandpa Charley is carrying my sleeping brother. He puts Ronny
into the crib. He steps to the kitchen doorway to peek at my half
brother. Larry was put in the baby buggy last night so Ronny
could use the crib. Our little sister is two. She isn't allowed to
come on visiting day.
The room brightens. Ronny and I creep very quietly out
of bed. I dress. Ronny is already dressed. We go through the
kitchen, out the back door into the bare yard . Our father and
stepmother sleep on a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. There
are no toys here but we can make a little noise. We are very
careful not to get the least amount of dirt on our clothes.
It is later. Ronny and I walk to church. I am three.
Crossing the streets on the way is a little scary but Ronny holds
my hand. He is five and won ' t let any cars run over me. We
decide to stay after Sunday school to go to church services. We
walk up the aisle to get the little round cracker and grape juice
70
from the preacher. Grownups look at us, around us. They
wlrisper to each other but don't speak to us. The juice is bitter.
We don't like it much.
We walk back to enter an empty house. The silence scares
us a little. We dare not make even a tiny mess in the house. We
go to the backyard.
There is no place to hide here and Ring-around-the-Rosie
would dusty our clothes on the grassiess ground. There is a trellis
which reaches the roof. Nothing grows on the trellis. We play
monkey and climb to the roof.
We feel very big walking across the roof. I am three. I
am a little scared but Ronny takes my hand. He is five and won ' t
let me fall. We sit on the roof and watch the people on the block.
There are parents playing with their children . Some people are
sitting on porches, some under trees. A lot of cars are passing and
some kids on bicycles. Other kids skate up and down the
sidewalks. It is fun looking down on the people from our perch
on the roof.
We see our father staggering towards the house. We run
across the roof, scramble down the trellis, rush through the house
into the bathroom. Pulling the curtain across behind us, we climb
into the bathtub to hide. I am three. I am terrified. Ronny holds
my hand. He is only five and cannot protect me.
71
,.
D. F. Yancy
MISTY BLUE
I'd been trying to find it for a very long time. I hadn't
heard it in ages; they don't play it on the radio anymore. But by
chance I heard its soft melody as I walked into Ray Ray's cell. I
was so excited I begged him to tape it for me immediately, which
he did. Finally, I'll be able to fulfill my promise. I'm going to
learn to play that song note for note. 1'm going to learn to play
Misty Blue.
When I was about seven or eight, I vowed that someday I
would be a great mu sician. I would write and perform songs like
none other before me. I also promised myself that someday I
would bring tears to the world, by playing one song.
Back then , when I was just a kid whose greatest concern
was whether I would beat Glenn to the Circle K in time to snag
the next issue of Thor, Marvel Comics most valiant superhero, I
didn't get to spend much time with my father. What time we did
spend together was usually structured - Pop Warner football , Little
League, etc. Except for when we would vi sit my grandpa or work
in the garden or on the van, or complete one of my dad's many
projects around the house.
72
•
•
It may not sound like much fun, but I came to enjoy it.
Spending time with my dad for no special reason never seemed to
happen. So when we worked together, I took advantage of it as
much as possible. To work was how my father relaxed. And it
was during those times that my father revealed the personal side
of himself, something he couldn't do in any other way. Those
times spent with my dad were special.
On one particular Saturday afternoon, my father and I were
at home alone. He decided that it was ti me I learned to clean the
fireplace. As I did so, trying very hard to follow his instructions
to the letter, my father was in the process of hooking up more
speakers to his stereo so he could listen while out in the garage.
I tried my best to finish the fireplace as fast as I could so I could
help him with the stereo. I felt that if I could be of use, I would
become in some way important, and my dad would be proud of me
and smile an enduring smile of satisfaction. My father has a
wonderful smile. But it's rare.
That afternoon while testing his handiwork, I noticed my
father as he paused for a moment, listening to the song that had
just started playing on his eight track. He began to get a far-away
lock in his eyes, like someone who sees something they think they
recognize but can't quite figure it out. Then he slowly put down
his tools, sat down on the ledge of our fireplace , and just listened.
"Whatcha' doin', Daddy?" I asked as I sat down on the
rug at his feet. I was curious; my dad had never acted that way.
Something was wrong.
"Nothing, just listening to the song, Boy," he replied.
"Just listening to the song."
"It's a pretty song," I said.
"Yep," said my dad , "it sure is. When I die, I want you
to play this song at my funeral. Misty Blue by Dorothy Moore.
That's my favorite song. I want that played at my funeral. Do
you think you can remember that, Boy?" my father asked. I just
kinda shrugged my shoulders and nodded. When the song ended,
my father methodically went back to tinkering with his sound
73
system. And I was there, next to him, trying to help, getting in
the way. I was trying to see if my dad still had that look in his
eyes.
He didn't.
I didn't see that look again for years. Not until I was in
junior high. About two weeks had passed since my grandpa died.
Our family was eating dinner together when my father just stopped
cutting his meat, put down his utensils, and looked at us all in
turn. First my brother, then mama, my little sister, and finally
me. It was then that I saw that distant look flash into my father's
eyes for only a few seconds. Then, my father bowed his head and
started to cry.
I hope to see that look in my father's eyes again someday.
At that moment, I'll ask him what he's thinking of right then.
And hopefully, it will be many years before I fulfill my promise,
before I play Misty Blue for my dad. But what I really want to
do, is to see my father's smile. Perhaps someday soon.
74
Bonnie McCurry
JOHN T. AND THE HOBO CAT
It was hot that July morning. John T. sat at his breakfast
table drinking his morning coffee when he heard a thump at the
unscreened kitchen window. He could see the window from his
chair without getting up. John T. saw two front paws and the
head of what looked to be some kind of cat, hanging there on his
window frame . The two of them spotted each other at the same
time. The sailor and the Hobo both froze , staring, waiting.
Finally, John heard the cat's back feet pawing, clawing the wall
below the window. Clumsily, he raised his body up and over the
edge, landed on the floor with a thump; the cat hadn ' t taken his
eyes off John during his awkward entrance into his life.
75
John T. 's house sat high on a hill facing the Colorado
River. Parker Dam was twelve miles to the North; the bridge
crossing that takes you from California into Arizona, eight miles
to the South - hundreds of miles of desert surrounding him. A
stray cat or dog was something you just didn't expect to see in
those parts.
This was a cat, all right. He landed on what was left of his
tattered feet. Two toes, at the least, were missing . A toe hung off
to the side on one foot. For a long moment they studied each
other. John T. had learned not to move fast or act crazy and
usually these unplanned, uninvited visits took care of themselves.
Seeing John wasn't going to move, the cat slowly lowered himself
to the floor and flopped over on his side
This old cat was a sight to see. The bigger part of one ear
was gone. The eye that should have been below it, wasn't. A
long healed over scar was all there was. John figured he once was
orange. It was really hard to tell. Patches had been ripped or
chewed off here and there, leaving pinkish, grey skin where hair
had once been. His tail was broken in the middle and was now an
"L" shape; he slapped it up and down in slow, deliberate rhythm .
A piece of his upper lip was missing, leaving two sharp teeth
permanently exposed. Burrs, stickers, bits of tumble weed and
cactus were woven in fur all over his body. He was a big cat,
with a wide head.
His one eye watched as John T. slowly got up, taking his
cup, and walked to the counter to refill it, returned, placing his
cup on the table, walked to the desk to retrieve his whittling knife,
a block of wood he had been working on the day before, then
returned to his seat. The cat's one eye closed, opened, closed
again. He laid his head down to the floor and went to sleep.
John's whittling didn't bother his sleep, but when John T. spit his
chew into the empty can , the one whole ear would flitch, but he
didn't wake.
John T. watched the cat's sides rise and fall. He seemed
to sleep the sleep of an animal who knew he was safe.
76
.
•
In John T. 's sailing days , in the many bar rooms of many
ports, he had seen men very much like his hobo friend. Tired
men, merchant mariners, fishermen, truckers, bikers, and cowboys
would take their place at a bar. Like the cat, they hadn't come a
beggin' or making requests. They didn't wish to explain or
apologize for their appearance. Just needed a place to relax .
Old John T. wondered where the cat had come from, where
he was headed. How many times he had fought to stay alive. He
wondo::red how many miles the animaJ had traveled in this
unfriendly desert. What stories and adventures must be in that
beat-up but healthy head. John F. mused that if there was such
things as reincarnation, this old boy should come back an author.
How John T . would love to tip a beer with him and listen to his
stories when they all came pouring out.
The old cat slept for hours. John set down a bowl of milk
and food to refresh him when he woke. But when he did wake up,
he stretched a long stretch. Legs out, toes spread, and head back.
He lifted his head and yawned a wide-mouth yawn. He casually
stood up, looked at the milk and food, then gave John T. a look
that said John had insulted his integrity, waJked to the window,
turned his head back to say thanks for your hospitality, turned
away, leaped out the window and was gone.
77
Bonnie McCurry
OHWELL
Here lies Bonnie, all beat to hell.
She called the police but they said, "Oh well."
They said, "Listen lady we have a job to do.
We can '( spend our time just checking on you.
We had a call from the bar, one man hit another.
So clean up your blood.
I know, call your mother. ..
She tried to tell the neighbors who pretended they weren't home.
The bastard kept knocking and calling on the phone.
"I love you, " he shouted. "I love you," he said,
"If you don't let me love you, you'll wish you were dead."
She ran and she hid , she tried and she cried.
As a final result, in her own blood she died .
So watch out Ladies, he needs someone new.
If you're not very careful, his next love might be you.
,
78
D. Doyal
WESTERN MORNINGS
air of hushed crystal
blue mountains on a bed of fog
in morning shadows I am at peace
•
winter rivers with no stars
their pain is written on the sunrise
I spend the morning in self-loathing
•
you know it's time to get up
I've been waiting jor you a long time
my worshipping dog doesn't use words
•
moist spirals of orange peels
English muffins in the toaster
making our breakfast with a flower on your bra
79
Ruben G. Martinez
ICE-AGE WOMAN
molested
of all your timely
beauty lying in a blue
vase
of arctic's passion your flawed look
a constant
formula hard
and spiteful
water by the celestial
immoderate
sting of energy a former glacial
revolt over
living eyes wide open at last
over skin
yellow over jaded brown •
80
over bone beloved
sun-saturated
wholly shorn and this notion
you do not
retain any longer
curtails
your calling
mornmg yawn
song
under spruce sky over jaw-bone out of
sundry clouds high
and low manly reposed
In ICY mIsery
81
Michael Small
•
ASPEN
for Maria
Your favorite.
They shimmered your coming
and fluttered your going.
You always brought
more than you took.
It was their beauty
you worshipped, not your own.
You stood among them and a smile
grew deep in your roots,
they held you as you needed
to be held.
You are among them now: home,
part of them forever,
shimmering silver, fluttering red and gold,
holding us as we've never been held before.
82
Drawings
Fremont Cottonwood
Ocotillo
Yellow Columbine
Yucca
Netleaf Hackberry
Filaree
Catclaw Acacia
Century Plant
Arizona Thistl e
Skeleton Weed
Goldpoppy
Four-wing Saltbush
J
p. 2
p. 5
p. 10
p. 16
p.23
p.27
p.34
p.39
p.45
p.54
p.64
p.83
Walking Rain Review IV
is dedicated
with our thanks
to
Lois Shelton
•
Members of the Creative Writing Workshop, Santa Rita •