Piecework_Fall1986.pdf
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PIECEWC)RK
A Magazine of Poetry by Women
NUALA ARCHER
Fall 1986
PIECEWORK is published four times a year. Subscriptions are $12 per year for individuals, $16 for libraries
and institutions. A free copy of PIECEWORK will be
furnished, on request, to the libraries of prisons and/ or
mental institutions, etc. Single copy price is $4. Address all correspondence to PIECEWORK, Red Dirt
Press, Inc., P.O. Box 60693, Oklahoma City, OK 73146.
PIECEWORK
A MAGAZINE OF POETRY BY WOMEN
FALL 1986
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1
Editors: Ann Carlton, Abigail Keegan
Production: Elaine Barton, Martha Hayes, Marian Hulsey
Distribution: Eloise Dycus, Nancy Viviani
Business Manager: Loral Reeves
Special thanks to Verity Freeburn and Anna Koester
for their invaluable art contributions to this issue
in lettering and cover design, respectively.
Red Dirt Press, Inc., is the result of the vision of eight women who wanted to provide more publlcation opportunities for
women. We chose as our first project, the publication of this
magazine of women's poetry, aptly named PIECEWORK, to draw
on all the images of women's work that is done "by the piece":
namely, ironing, sewing, factory work, etc. Piecework is dedicated to all the women who write poetry, sometimes in spite
of their lives and families.
Published by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
°Copyright 1986 by Red Dirt Press, Inc.
No part of this publication may be copied
or reproduced without written permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poems by Featured Artist, Nuala Archer
"From a Mobile Home: Self Portrait at 31" ............................... 3
"No Shit? Approach to the Banquet of Life" ....................... 6
"Red Mud Music" .................................................................. 7
"Shower" ..................................................................................... 4
"Blossom" ................................................................................... 5
"Piecework Dreams" by Jean Stiles ............................................... 10
"Oklahoma Safari" by Marian Hulsey ............................................. 11
"Oklahoma" by Linda Knight Mayberry .......................................... 12
"Sunday Mornings" by Marcia Preston .......................................... 13
"For Ella, My Grandmother" by Margaret Hrencher ..................... .13
"The Hunted" by Margie Snowden North ...................................... .14
"The Wild West" by Abigail Keegan ............................................. .1 •
"Highway 66" by Marcia Preston .................................................. .14
"The Fragile Dream" by Mary Menges Myers ............................... 15
~ssolute Rhym~s" by Jill Holmes ................................................ 16
"Heartbrea1':<::rs" by Kellie Shoemaker ........................................... .16
"Encounters" by Linda C. Sherman ............................................... 16
"Uncertainty" by Kathryn Rojas .................................................... 17
"Wordplay" by Annette Van Dusen ............................................... .17
"Fruit" and "I Begin to Understand" by Margaret S. Ewing ........ 18
"Courage, for Want of a Better Word" by Kennette Wilkes ....... .19
"Lake Texoma Summer" by Mary Catron ...................................... 20
"The Rock and I" by Susan Montgomery Taylor .......................... 21
"The Rough-Edged Stone" by Rosa P. Lambeth ........................... 21
"Sacrament" by Karen Bentley ..................................................... 22
"Death of a Family Farm" by Delores McDaniel.. ........................ 23
"At Auction" by Marforie Brannon Skeen .................................... 23
"Untitled" by Mary Ann Schuster ................................................ 25
"Cordell, OK, 1950" by Kathryn Bell ........................ ................... 25
"Untitled" by Janet F. Reeder ..................................................... 26
"Ava Gina" by Cedar .................................................................... 26
"Fan Tan and Other Games" by Katherine Privett.. .................... 27
"letter to my newborn son" by Laura H. Smith ........................... 27
"Strip Search" by Brenda Catron-Grieves .................................... 28
"Rape" by Kennette Wilkes .......................................................... 28
"Soliloquy" by Lisa Amos ............................................................. 29
"Marriage" by Brenda Catron-Grieves .............. , ........................... 30
"Naked Ladies" by Robyn Perry ................................................... 31
"America's Biggest Race War" by Ruth Sigler Avery ................. 33
"Vacuum Packed" by Debbie Newman .......................................... 34
"Statistic" by Teresa Sanders ..................................................... 34
"Untitled" by Robin J. McRae ..................................................... 35
"The River" by Maggie Needham ................................................. 36
For ChiMren, "Ahhhhh!" and "Get Tough" by. Darla Lowrance .... 37
"Halloween" by Diana Stansburge ........................................... 38
,,er
....... .__..,u.:u
FEATURED ARTIST--NUALA ARCHER
In this first issue, we present five poems by Nuala Archer, as
a way of recognizing the vigor and excitement she is bringing
to poetry in our area. As an "outlander" who is fast becoming
an Oklahoman, she gives us fresh insight into the land and its
language.
Nuala, whose picture is on the cover, teaches creative writing
at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater, where she also
edits the MIDLAND REVIEW and the CIMARRON. She has a
new book, RED MUD MUSIC, that is being published in
Ireland, and Red Dirt Press, Inc., plans to publish it here in
early 1987.
Born of Irish parents in New York, Nuala has lived in Latin,
Central and North America and in Ireland. Her book of poetry,
WHALE ON THE LINE, was published in Ireland in 1981. She
has won several prizes, among them a First at Listowed
Writers Week and the Irish Distillers/Patrick Kavanagh Award.
Cover photo by Ann Carlton
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 2
FROM A MOBILE HOME:
SELF-PORTRAIT AT 31
Whatever about my share
of the Irish hut dissohrin'
from ear-shot for now,
causin' even these doors
to thicken an' thin,
(
my feet, shod in rubber scraps
of truck tire blow outs,
are nonetheless
windows ajar
an' I reckon what looks to you
like a furrin• country hick-driftin' down the road's shoulder
the way loosened teeth
twinkle toward star pools
in the planetarium
of Okie scrub-is me
unchafin' my shadow,
takin' swigs of air
an' sun, let tin' the shine
of it all return my face
to the far-spread edge of wings
bright as a home awake
an' stretchin'
with kilterin' savvy
from my feet's tearin' panes.
--Nuala Archer
•Furrin: foreign
3, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
SHOWER
Holy smokes, girl,
you sure do like your showers HOT.
Now what kind of complex is that?
You're gonna scald yourself.
And what if I do like my showers
hot as a desert, what's it to you?
What's it to you
if I like them hot as hoof-prints
galloping across the red
windshield of my breast?
a zodiac
of cinnamon you step out
from the cataract into blue surrounds
and as you do you notice
the migration of fungi up beyond
the shower curtain's magnets.
Ahhhh--that's better you say.
My cramps have stopped clawing
for the moment. Now if only I could
stop the hankering of my yanked
wisdom teeth. It sure's hell
to eat these days, especially
when, like last night, threads of zuchinni
and celery get snagged between teeth
here and teeth gone.
As you towel yourself dry
gray spirals of steam lift off the mirror
and from the misted glass
in front of the Grecian beach,
a miniature oil in blues.
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 4
Next you concentrate on distancing
your gum's white swans
from the clickety-clack of crowing dentures.
Foam falls from your mouth
and now the fogged picture is unveiled:
light
in the little square is atremble,
a lace edging of foam at the border
between sea and land gathers a woman, alone
on the beach, into revery. Her brown
shoulders relax in the tide's ribbing.
And now WE are visible in the mirror's
haze where you have spelled
our names with winking,
sweating facial vowels
and with consonants that drip like banyans
in tropical rain forests.
--Nuala Archer
BLOSSOM
sits at her window
in Milwaukee. Maples, birch & elms
are drunk: How many leavings
it takes to be a tree!
Beelzebub has already spit
on the blackberries. The vegetable
beds are asleep. Heavy frosts
brown the foliage but cannot stop the moon
from giving mouth-to-mouth resusitation
to Blossom's 80-year-old trenches
filled with Mary Washington
asparagus roots. Planted near
the kitchen, at the garden's edge,
the asparagus is perennial.
Mary Washington & Blossom
harvest each other.
--Nuala Archer
5, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
FROM A MOBILE HOME:
NO SHIT? APPROACH TO THE BANQUET OF LIFE?
Now that terror has stopped teething
at your doorstep
you are willing to let the topics
touch you. Its stillness is
a dizzying salsa; its chemical jaws
In such a blur,
of fungi recycle nutrients to trees
boundaries between "the quick" &
at rendezvous speed.
"the dead" dissolve: fuel
What's lost
extravagantly fruits from these patches
in rain from fallen fruits & leaves
of our hurtling planet. If you sit
becomes quickly quick again.
quietly & listen you can hear the hallabaloo.
Litter & debris are digested with
delight. Every corpse is
Or if you give a shit, stick around &
watch
the show-downs: your scat' s a hit!
a cornucopia, an instant reason
beetles
& ottitid flies zero in.
Dung
to feast. Here there's no deferred
pleasure, no procrastination,
They feed & fuck. Such plums of luck!
Dream honeymoons come true!
no stiffs stashed away in closets.
Not a single whiff of savings
Within a few hours the nuptial globes
& homespun grits have been dispersed.
or surplus: bones & boles alike
are broken down in a flash.
The miniature scene of such vast
spectacle--& all trace of your touch-Rot-inspired, everything
has disappeared into motion
is transmuted, returµed in a rapid
transport system to the worlds
beckoned
of the living.
by the lush & light-guided tangle
of tree-tops. How else can I tell you
why I live in a mobile h~me-even in this tornado alley? In these parts
it's the closest thing to a rain
forest: it's a still passage, a light, wheelaway lode, a connective tissue en route-It's my way of rambling, of homing in:
I can't say I've ever stopped looking
for you--alive & well.
--Nuala Archer
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 6
FROM A MOBILE HOME:
RED MUD MUSIC
And what she had to say,
What she had come 3000 miles to say,
she forgot.
The rattling air-conditioner
cacophonized her breathing.
Outside fat heat shimmered. I was
hoping to let her know that I liked
her though saying it this way
scudded the purple glitters.
She was tough and mean and her loss
of memory was like another kind of
memory. A kind of music.
She went for a drink. Clinking
poolballs tuned the fork of another
clickstone: arrowheads occurred to her
like mathematical correspondences,
stone-grain acoustics. The beer
was sweetly bitter and cool.
Her spectrum of hearing
was hair-raising. She ordered another.
Jukebox music flared and
slopped. Outside again the sun's
red arrows streaked her black-as~green
eight-ball eyes leaving amoeba
caves floating in front
of us both. There were moments
of such loneliness that she cursed
7, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
herself for coming. I found her presence
a relief. It was like watching
someone give zero a wilderness
of running room. In the vowels
of my dream she coagulated into laughter
cradling the calm
of her anguish with the black
viscous spit of her tobacco juice:
to foot, knee to knee, hip
foot
to hip, shoulder to shoulder, lip
to lip. Against itself
her music strained. Each note deceived
the next into existence: gathering
intensity like a tornado. Her music
carried me to my knees.
Her music beat me down to herself until I knew what she was saying,
until I begged for mercy
deep inside her lively brain.
And by then it was all night and rain
and neon light undefining as the
memory of her mother saying, --Don't
forget to pray. And by then red mud
was clutching our tired feet. And
by then red mud was wanting
to eat our heart beat. And by then
red mud was saying, --Just let me
touch your sweet soft cheek.
I was hoping to let her know that
I loved her and by then red mud
had us dicing with rattler bones.
Red-mud-music-had-us-worrying-downthis-road-of-rain.
PIECEWORK, Fall -1986, 8
And in the middle
of her mute missing and music
I wanted to whisper, --What the hell's
taken you so long to get here, where
the hell have you been? And by then
I wanted to kill these lines,
my last red Rahab-ribbons.
I wanted
to throw them out some window
of our lives. I wanted us
to slide down each worded knot toward
whatever joys so always and (iifficult
to express. I wanted to shut-up and cry
and without saying a thing I said,
--Yes, babes, I feel
like crying and I feel like lying
down.
Black-curded-clouds
are working themselves free in me
and that yellow weed of lightning is
tumbling like a lumbering
dung bug rolling a diamond tooth, and
your lightning's got me shot,
your lightning's a red arrow
in my eye holding my heart
to your red makeshift mud and music.
--Nuala Archer
9, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
PIECEWORK DREAMS
She did ironing by the piece:
No one made a sharper crease
Than my grandmother.
Those days of toil and heat are gone
But the memories linger on
Of the piecework of grandmothers.
Pa had left and not returned:
So she plied the trade she'd learned.
And there was work for Grandmother.
Some did ironing by the piece:
Some did quilting without cease;
Piecework of our grandmothers.
• Some did work in factory shifts
She had a daughter and a son:
With weary fingers moving swift;
And money?--There was none.
But there was work for Grandmother. All the work of our grandmothers.
She ironed ruffles by the mile:
Ruffles were the latest style
In the days of Grandmother.
She did ironing by the piece:
Shirts and collars, skirts with pleats,
All counted by Grandmother.
They planned and prayed beyond the toil
And pieced a dream on the red dirt soil;
Our pioneer Oklahoma grandmothers.
--Jean Stiles, Owasso
Scene of a commercial laundry, taken irons. (Photograph from the collection
about 1890. Lady ironing in foreground of Jean Stiles, great-granddaughter of
is Frances Reicheneker. Behind her, a Frances Reich,eneker.)
man is bringing a tray of heated sad
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 10
OKLAHOMA SAFARI
Oklahoma, "Land of the Red Man,"
And Woman?
"Land of the Red Dirt,"
The Woman, trying to wash the red dirt
out of kids' clothes.
Now the challenge,
to wash it out of my mind,
after driving 600 meandering miles,
seeing eroding, untilled red dirt,
the condition of the soil
reflecting peoples' apathy.
The small towns, becoming
store-front movie sets for
"The Very Last Picture Show."
They sleep in semi-comas.
What will happen to the
neat old houses when the
towns slip deeper into sleep
and die?
The earth will still be red
and the clothing of those who
work or play on it;
permanently hennaed.
The green of the trees and grass
belies the dryness
of the soil underneath.
The soil that resists our tent stakes
until pounded with a rock.
Using one of nature's elements
to force a plastic object
into the heart of earth
is easily justified-we aren't like other tourists-our mission, undercover park inspection
on this 4th of July weekend.
11, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
The water of the Neosho
is dark, murky green,
its abundant algae
provides a royal feast
for the fish at twilight.
The light green perch
easily seen in the murky water,
coming right up to our
perch on the rocks to feed.
With a green Okiebug lure
we could catch a dozen.
Instead, we choose to watch them,
to add our bodies t(? the masses
of swarming, swimming schools of fish,
as we seek to cool off after a day on the road,
to wash the red dirt from our bodies
in Oklahoma's Red and Green Country.
--Marian Hulsey, Oklahoma City
OKLAHOMA
Sunsets silhouette oil wells
Pumping the horizon
like dinosaurs doing obeisance-Worshipping the fruits of their death.
--Linda Knight Mayberry, Norman
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 12
SUNDAY MORNINGS
She bakes pies on Sunday morning-The tune she hums and smells of cinnamon
warm the early dark
floured hands roll the dough
thin and round
And she sees the hands that taught her
caress the dough
slice an olive branch
atop the crust
Humming a childhood song
she bakes pies on Sunday morninga private religion
--Marcia Preston. Edmond
FOR ELLA, MY GRANDMOTHER
The March sun played across the table at midday.
Pressing blue-veined hands to hollowed eyes
She saw the new mound that rose near
The mellowed grave of their soldier son.
"'Like a thief in the night' they say,"
her voice a thin croak.
At dusk the sun chilled the room with slanted light.
Stiffening, she stroked the once-auburn hair away from tired eyes.
Gripping the sides of the captain;s chair, she slowly stood
And looked around her in the darkened room,
And approached the evening that awaited her.
--Margaret Hrencher, Perkins
13, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
THE HUNTED
Bison grow fat
on grassy, wind-swept plains,
hunters on horses descend,
dispatch arrows.
death and slaughter reigns.
Butchering begins
bison meat stripped, forked,
pounded, dried.
Food for winter
for tipis, the hide.
While back on the plain
bison mill, restless.
stoicly re-band
Await that time later
when hunters come again.
--Margie Snowden North, Erick
HIGHWAY 66
red earth along the roadside
and one star
shadows of Okies and Arkies
follow west
at dusk
blackbirds perch along the wires
whistle toward
THE WILD WEST
My yellow truck whips and bumps
in the night, driving me across dark plains
where I hear the sucking, sucking sound
of the oil pumps pumping;
The wind winds round me
in whirling high pitched sound
blowing my brown locks red with dust
as if it had always known my lust
for a head covered with erotic red.
the last tail light
daybreak comes with
a new name
changing nothing
--Marcia Preston, Edmond
--Abigail Keegan, Oklahoma City
PIECEWORK. Fall 1986. 14
THE FRAGILE DREAM
It keeps coming back,
that dream in which I am a child,
wearing a dress of aqua lawn, light as air,
a bow on either side, one undone.
And I am eating ice cream from a paper cup,
a rare and lovely treat,
the cool cream melting on my tongue
in the sultry summer air.
And we are in an unlikely place
for such sensory delights-the convent grounds, where we visit once a year,
my aunt, the nun, in her black and billowy habit.
We visit, too, the grotto of Our Lady,
goddess of my youth, blessed of all women.
There is some connection here,
though broken long ago,
a piece in the puzzle of my life.
I will not delve too deeply though,
lest this fragile dream be shattered.
--Mary Menges Myers, Oklahoma City
15, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
DISSOLUTE RHYMES
Lightning bugs code the void
terra as stars spell out neon
acronyms and crawlers hump
soundless amid throaty croaks.
I touch you turning, annoyed.
It was only my percussion
section letching, rump, rump
rude symphonies, lost blokes.
ENCOUNTERS
Tentacles retracted and destroyed
We resume our endless verbalization
my heart, a swallowed lump,
the Morse of your blood, a hoax.
--Jill Holmes, Stillwater
Last night
was something wild, something crazy-Like the wind
Blowing through my head
Something lost
Now something dead-your smile lingers
Like your aftershave
On my pillow
By my bed.
--Linda C. Sherman, Alva
HEARTBREAKERS
So he broke your heart,
he broke it twice?
Oh my gosh, he broke it thrice?
What will we women ever do,
with the likes of men like you?
Loyal, loving, considerate we are,
when all you do is play the star.
We're sick and tired of games you play.
We want some love and without delay!
So to all heartbreakers who play the field,
Just leave us alone until our hearts are healed.
--Kellie Shoemaker, Tulsa
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 16
UNCERTAINTY
It weaves itself around me,
familiar as a lover's hand
which knows my soul's anatomy
and all the points of agony-smoothed over by love's practice
into a pulsing pain;
a current of long standing,
colb. sing gently through my veins.
--Kathryn Rojas, Midwest City
WORDPLAY
How does one catch
The nostalgia, the longing,
For things as they might have been
Might yet be or how does one
Capture the immensity of joy
For things as they are
In words?
The poet, like a little crazy person
Armed with a butterfly net,
Chases after the perfect word specimen.
And the words, millions of them,
Like so many monarchs in migration
Swirl and eddy around her head
In profusion.
The rich display confuses mind and eye
Each attempt fails to capture the hues
Of pleasure and pain inextricably tangled
Still she pursues with arms outstretched
Eager to try every possible combination
Probing the unfathomable mysteries
Of Emotion.
--Annette Van Dusen, Oklahoma City
17, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
FRUIT
You bring an orange, cool and sweet,
To quench my thirst,
A thousand gemmules
Meant to call a keen-eyed bird
Who would carry seeds to other ground.
What fruit, rough skinned and pungent,
Poignant, have we made?
Not the perfect sphere
Whose civil curve I once believed.
I did not know sectors closely bound
Sometimes think of flying off
To join the wind, the yellow sun.
Turning restlessly
They force the angularity that ruptures
Or brings an asymmetric ease.
Its seeds are not entirely known
For some ripen autumn brown and
Teal wings carry them through dusk
To germinate in distant dawn,
And others take some hidden shape
That swells dark locules
Whose symmetry does shelter
But cannot confine tomorrow.
--Margaret S. Ewing, Stillwater
I BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND
My mother saw vague
But dire threats
To my existence
But could not say
Exactly what she feared.
If I went to skate
On the reservoir,
She said,
"More children are killed
Bach year falling through the ice!"
Then, in summer,
"More children are killed
In swimming accidents!"
Our daughter wants a
Late night walk to Quik-Trip
So she can play Space Invaders.
Her father says,
"More children are killed each year
In Quik-Trip robberies."
--Margaret S. Ewing, Stillwater
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 18
COURAGE, FOR WANT OF A BETTER WORD
In the wait
eyes become the color of snails and algae
"What can you trust?"
becomes stenciled in your brain
twin breasts naked
in the mirror look no different
you had forgotten about them
like your wedding ring
connecting you to newborn mouths
with hidden teeth
and lovers' mouths
my teeth
until the threat knots hard
like a coiled snake in the path
and you do not
move
do not breathe
breathe
put on your blouse
wait for the report, read statistics
remind youself
a treasure is hidden
somewhere
at your root.
--Kennette Wilkes, Edmond
19, Fall 1986, PIBCEWORK
LAKE 'TEXOMA SUMMER
1.'fte ired dirt 1!11)8d\ nns between yellow grass banks
Where the sanflowen are all dusty.
Cicadas; scream. m the postoak: trees.
flte oak leaiwes are ltm-d. and shiny, cutting mitten patterns
out af h.ot blue sky.
The m smels of ckst. dry grass, horsemint,
tmmat:o vines m a garden by a bleached gray farmhouse.
l!f«1nefllies bmz amUJNfl the cattle tank.
Tillis i's the time of watermelon festivals, seed-spitting contests,
fiirecra.cken. catchmg catf"ish in the lake.
SundQ' ~ clmdren wade fully clothed into the lake
to receive hi.ptism
While the gnMD-1mps sing hymns in cottonwood shade.
Aftetrmmos the women. sit rocking on their porches,
snapping beans in nyt)mt.
~ s we walk a. mile to the postoffice.
BuefC!Milt in. the d11edy road. we stop to pick out stickers from our feet.
Smnecme finds an umwhead near a dry creekbed.
We return with popsicldes streaming down our arms in rivers
af ndl cf.teny and purple imitation grape.
Saad plam.s are growing hy an old well. We stop to pick some.
Semecme thnnn a. mur plma down the well. Long silence. Plunk.
flteo upward CODI.es a. whirr of beating wings
As dnnmey swifts cmne boiling out
tile ha.ts from. heft.
--Mary Catron, Oklahoma City
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 20
THE ROUGH-EDGED STONE
I cast a stone into the sea,
And watched a ripple flow.
The ripple shifted, moved, and spread
Until its center point was gone.
A greedy wave advancing, rising,
Retreating, falling--never calm,
Engulfed the rough-edged stone
And began a perilous voyage.
Through abrasive slurry the stone was forced,
Through coarse-grained sand and churning foam.
Through crushing rocks and murky water,
The moss-covered stone endured.
Tumbled about in savage storms,
In powdery silt, in swirls of time,
Round and SJl\ooth the rough-edged stone
Returned to shore a polished gem.
I cast a stone into a pond,
And watched a ripple form.
The ripple shifted, moved and spread,
But lacked the force to shape a gem.
--Rosa P. i..ambeth, Oklahoma City
THE ROCK AND I
The rock skipped silently
across the placid lake,
sinking with a plunk.
As I lay motionless on one elbow,
watching the widening circles
disappear into the solitude,
an army ant marched
with a tickle across my hand,
not pausing for a moment to wonder
what those five peninsulas were.
The dark pattern of the ancient hills
mirrored their timeless image
on the halcyon lake.
I am an intruder.
--Susan Montgomery Taylor, Stillwater
21, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
SACRAMENT
In the beginning was waiting for Phillip,
waiting at recess
and noon.
Pulling dirty branches
along barbed-wire fences, ·
tasting dusty sunlight
in an August burned all down to yellow fields,
bony roads,
reddened eyes.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Summer days, he'd brake the Ford,
light a Pall Mall.
I'd dust off my skirt, swing open the door,
look over the top at the half-fallen sun,
then we'd ride on the dirt to Coweta,
or we'd follow his map to the night.
Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Beginning was waiting for Phillip,
believing in one god, creator of all things,
ruler of heaven and earth,
scorched fields,
cracked roads,
baled hay,
seraphs,
and ninet een sixty-nine.
--Karen Bentle.Y, Norman
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 22
DBATH OF A FAMILY FARM
No more will the dusty pickup meander up the winding road
Laden with pumpkins for Jack-O-Lanterns.
No more will the wheat rise to the occasion and waft
Heavenly odors of fresh baked bread.
No more will the barn scintillate the toe-tapping
Songs and square dance calls.
No more will fantasies of winning blue ribbons at
State Fairs lighten the work load.
Gone are the days of the sorghum harvest,
With children vying for licks of goey syrup.
Bven the buzz-saw that once snarled and growled at
Bare trees lies muzzled and silent.
'fhe clapboard house, stripped naked of paint,
Now shivers with unanswered prayers.
The pageantry of autumn is over, dear friends,
And Winter's breath blows cold.
Icy whirlwinds snap angrily at your barn door.
Like giant marauding soldiers, silos, gorged
With the pillage of the land, survey the
Mutilated victims of an agrarian war.
Funeral mounds of hay darken and rot, while
Bundles of corn stalks etch the darkening sky.
Fall is disappearing, lovers of the soil.
Machinery, that rattled and hissed as it
Tilled the black loam, now hibernates as a serpent.
A scarecrow's lifeless form hangs grotesquely
On his wooden cross like a mocking symbol of despair.
Even the yellow oats, glittering like nuggets,
Assayed as fool's gold, and all your hopes have
Drowned in deep, murky ponds.
23, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
Autumn is extinct, tillers of the earth,
You have been fleeced like a lamb sheared clean!
Fluttering birds ransack the fields, plucking
The leavings; while banks like vultures,
Descend to pick the bones clean on the carcass of
What used to be.
Trusting fool, you blindly followed the Judas sheep!
The family farm is dying.
Can winter be far behind, with its white shroud of
Snow to carefully wrap the remains and
Bury your heritage?
--Delores McDaniel, Harrah
AT AUCTION
I bid for the stitches
Building blocks of her life
She, yesterday made,
And possessions, in weather
And smooth out the quilt
Unfit for field working.
that she once gently laid
But frugal with time
On the bed of a grandchild
That is no longer hers
As he childishly prayed.
I trace the neat seams
She has now left behind
And study the pattern.
An armful of treasures
I ponder her dreams
That an auction made mine.
By the light of her lantern
As she quilted and sewed
--Madorie Brannon Skeen, Carnegi
Small pieces together,
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 24
UNTITLED
I see the gleam
Of crystal clear skies
Against a deep blue
Bowl, while the
Yellow sunlight
Streams bands of
Lightbeams down--down
Through soft fluffy
White clouds
Down down
Toward the green rolling
Hills of prairie grass
And the bright red-orange
Earth of Oklahoma-A hawk circles high
In the sky, while the
Wind carries her
Sad pitched scream
Down to me --
And I feel the spirits
And ghosts of past lovers
Of this earth,
As the constant
Wind caresses me
Wrapping around my
Body, moving my hair
And playing across
My face into a soft
Breath -And I feel
A closeness and
Kinship with this
Good land - sweet
Land - land
of the Red Man Land of the
Pioneers!
--Mary Ann Schuster, Ponca City
CORDELL, OK, 1950
Gypsy and his spirits move silently
in the windless night
into the Circle
no protection at their backs,
the movement of the blind dog
carrying luck in white teeth flashing-Running free
i stalk the moving shadows
under the nightsky,
smelling the closeness of earth,
weaving me into memories
of jagged animals
lurking in stone shelters.
--Kathryn Bell, Beggs
25, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
UNTITLED
I was assigned this tree
I came here to stand
watch Tuesday late
here, on the cold stone steps
Have you ever
counted twenty-two
leaves
freed by the wind
One fell onto my chest
I'll wave it
never touched the earth
When it rests
Everything stands still again
I see the clouds change guard
in the sky
AVA GINA
Feathers caress Ava
You'd like it
here, I'm scared.
--Janet F. Reeder, Stillwater
Under a rising moon and
Cedar trees.
Kisses dance between us and
Her eyes are aflame with
Early evening's passion.
Rapture is my song.
Her lips are my oasis as
Again she offers me her
Rare summer wine-Daylight succumbs to dusk.
--Cedar, Tulsa
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 26
FAN TAN AND OTHER GAMES
On winter nights, we played Fan Tan
and, for the occasion, my oldest brother
made fudge and then oh-so-grudgingly
doled it out. My youngest brother
seldom kept us blocked for long--he
liked to win but was too kind. You could
coax a six or eight from him just by
looking sad. I fidgeted a lot or whined
and pouted. Now and then, had cause to
gloat and did, smirking and counting out
loud the number of pennies I'd won. My
middle brother grew annoyed by all
of this and, in the end, he'd go off
by himself and invent one of his
complicated games of solitaire.
He never would explain them;
to this day, I wonder if he could.
--Katherine Privett, Pawnee
letter to my newborn son
when writing a letter to my son I would stop,
mid-page. the less put down, the cleaner the taste.
let him find the rest, wherever he may,
friends, his first betrayals, fobs
and sex, and the good he will do, despite all else.
what I, alone, would have to tell you
(you, so new, with still the dust of woman, soft about your sleep)
is that I have sung songs for you
the oldest songs, words like waves,
and I will rem em er the words long after you forget them
and long after the light of my world fades from your eyes
and into your soul,
replaced by your own
stars, daughters and sons.
--Laura H. Smith, Bartlesville
27, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
STRIP SEARCH
When I told my mother I was a poet
She broke her body of silence
What
I know what you should tell
It's too hard
But if
I can't
I could write
it would be about
a mother who loses her children
Was taken away from them when they
were young
because you felt like a fire
drill and hot noise
your husband couldn't read
road signs and speech became sacred
then they think you're crazy
Write
and everything is an unusual ..response
a story about being locked up like animals
or old people
deloused & forced
to strip
no privacy
no belts
no perfume
no beauty on an open ward
50 beds in an asylum
--Brenda Catron-Grieves, Oklahoma City
RAPE
Little sister
the children know
the terror is not in the rape of atoms
splitting open in hot shame
and the terror is not in the potent missiles
paraded to John Philip Sousa
nor in the five-sided military madness,
the terror is in the poised finger
at the button
and the eyes cold as death
and the passionless watching of the face
as it melts.
--Kennette Wilkes, Edmond
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 28
SOLILOQUY
from the castles of our hearts
fly unfurled flags of independence
won from hours and days of honest effort
years of bloodied fingers
hanging on to the ends of their collective ropes
most women i know have strong grips
few have time
or faith enough
to let go
the moat has become too deep to cross
the sea too treacherous to chance
we need a boat
strong enough to hold us up
light enough to catch the wind
and sail us high
across the moon
landing lightly down
time caressing earth, mother-land ...
solid to walk on
standing ... at last.
--Lisa Amos. Oklahoma City
29, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
MARRIAGE
This is a song about nuns and whores
for all the women
who find men beautiful
who find the body of men
surrounds their day & work & perception
until in self defense
they open their bodies
to allow the law into their lives
to hold them in dependence
for their need like stone or sorrow
drenched by daily research in social security
& religious persuasions & money needed
Women do things first to stay alive
then for their children & then to be held
in hope and pleasure & sometimes for love
that they could forgo all the rest
that they won't
have too, when they open
their arms
sometimes they feel it's all right
sometimes they'll smother under
the burden of trying to be women
Just women in this time
Women who need it all
--Brenda Catron-Grieves, Oklahoma City
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 30
NAKED LADIES
1
Dark drips from girders onto the tracks,
gathers itself into heaviness,
shudders and falls diminishing
across the glass: the strata shifts
as station lights snap on against dusk
and the woman my mother would have been
had she chosen New York, the world city
instead of children, crosses the threshold,
sits down beside me;
without looking I see
the same chapped forehead clash
at the edge of brash hair,
the beaked British disdain, the sniff-her hand falls across her skirt,
same peeled color, same
wadded mitten shape in the cold car:
she blows her nose,
wipes the ledges of her cheekbones,
I know the insistent sniff, the fisted kleenex
as well as my own name, as well as
the smeared blue behind her hornrims
as in the photograph from 1963
where she sits in a rocking chair
a toddler locked in her striped arms
as to defy th? flash that stops time
in mockery: ~he child is no child,
is not yours alone.
The doors flash open; I am pressed out
and walk home;
Sixth Avenue overflows its outlines
and blurs into rain.
31, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
UCOWClll!Cll\ ...... ABGL'!Qt,C...
100 N. University Dr
J--dmond,01'.73034
2
She dropped down on the blithe grass
and bent her head, eye-level
with the cluster of Naked Ladies,
framed by a burlesque of squash leaves,
that spurred into flame, unhooding darkness;
and morning answering, poured like milk
into their cupped hands:
she who never believed in God
since her father died, prayed
into the trembling mouths of lilies.
3
Once more the ghosts of human absence
stiffen on the clothesline,
and your mother halts
in mid-glide on the porchswing,
her hands still in mid-snap
above the bowl of stringbeans in her flowered lap,
a word hung in her mouth as dust hangs
above the burned road to the cemetery.
Look up: freeze: at the trees bruised green
forever; as I, crouched singing to the dust,
one hand gloved in orange cones of blossom,
looked up and left time to dry on my lips,
to speak now in the white flash of its opposite.
4
Train howl echoes across train thunder,
wind chimes pitch
in the dizzy, humid, weed-like air
beyond the screendoor:
my mother's strong hand
that is movement not touch strokes my hair,
eddying behind my ear to flow
down the back of my neck:
she murmurs the legend of birth,
how I came from a dark island in a salt ocean,
after years of counting silence
and her blind prayer in her mother's garden.
She marvels at the whirlpool of my ear.
--Robyn Perry, Brooklyn, NY
Her voice breaks as the sea arches its neck
(originally, Bartlesville)
and lulls, looking back, to shape the sand:
I WILL BUILD YOU A BOAT OF MIMOSA WOOD.
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 32
AMERICA'S BIGGEST RACE WAR
Tulsa, Oklahoma, May 31-June 1, 1921
we scream against the all persistent lies
we lift our pens as though they be black bones
we will offend those Whites who turn their eyes
to read the empty pages of their tomes
we hear the dour, dulcet, Southern laughter
while touching sweaty lives of dusky souls
we taste the vacuum "Civil Rights" leaves after
idleness frustrates their untouched goals
five and sixty years the fiery crosses then
lit hills--gossip of Black/White lechery:
so hundreds died ... but now some speak again
to "inch" THE GOLDEN RULE
Our Century ...
--Ruth Sigler Avery, Tulsa
33, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
VACUUM PACKED
Premenstrual tension, burnt dinners, cold ashes
Cold, hard, blue eyes
Sterility reigns, the rabbit didn't die
The baby died
Didn't die, never lived
We're not living
The cats grow old and fat and stupid
The iVY rots
I didn't will it to live
But children say, "Take me home.
Take me with you."
Rain falls on the petunias
Wild animals grow old and wirey and smart
Black musicians look you in the eye
We ride the music
And fight the lack of oxygen in the styrofoam packaging
We'll claw through some day.
--Debbie Newman, Bartlesville
STATISTIC
Ten days, waiting for the stop
Of the blood. I wrote
Before I knew. Each night, drops
Pool and stain the morning,
Signal your indecision. Then
The bleeding begins in earnest:
I kneel on the kitchen floor
Betrayed, the contractions
Sweeping me clean of you.
I would catch you inside,
Make you well. I don't want
A number, I want a child.
I don't want to write poems,
But sing lullabies.
--Teresa Sanders, Glencoe
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 34
UNTITLED
It never fails to amaze me,
how I can be caught off guard
time and time again by her familiar face.
I glance up and there she is
rising large and luscious, the color of copper,
leaning casually against the blue-black sky.
She follows me with those sultry eyes.
Drawing me to her, my heart races
as she slips her golden arms around my neck.
Pulling me close, she lightly brushes my lips.
They say there is a man in the moon,
but you will never convince me of this.
The moon - she is a lady.
Silently she glides across the sky,
draped curvaceously in drifting clouds.
Now warming my heart with her
daylight brightness
now chilling me with her
thin, icy sliver.
I glance down at you, there
lying close up against me,
your hair spilling across my thigh.
She shines back at me, in the
reflection of your upturned eyes.
She whispers in my ear, even as you speak
promising me strength and assurances,
feeding me with her constant changes,
always faithful--ever-present womanchild.
From West to East, her heavenly body
winds its way around the earth's waist.
New, half, full and old
she weaves her timeless webb of mystery
And I can tell you I don't have the answers,
only questions can I offer.
"Reach inside yourself," I say
as she nods in silent assent, above us.
--Robin J. McRae, Oklahoma City
35, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
THE RIVER
Moonlight on the Mighty Meghna River:
peaceful, deceptive and soft--even romantic,
shields us from the cheap and raucous sounds of day,
when a one-armed baby beggar sits atop a bridge over the river
his tin begging-bowl set out before him.
Dazed, dishevelled, he sits between the limbless leper
and the destitute woman with ten children
with always the flies buzzing around for company.
The River in daytime: swift, cruel,
revealing the bodies of dead stinking animals,
tiny fishing boats with hopeful men, a million diseases.
Rotten brown swollen river, how you have changed!
Wretched coughing of thin children
with stick limbs and swollen bellies,
lack-luster eyes staring dully out at the mean river, mean world,
where there is no comfort, no clean soft bed,
and even their mothers steal their food!
The cries of rickshaw wallers yield fat and wealthy passengers
hauled by sweating sinewed limbs to the mean river,
creaking rickshaw wheels, trundling over dusty roads.
Big, beautiful brown eyes of Moslem women
gaze out from crowded cabins in isolation.
In hot black ugly burkas they look like crows,
but for their eyes.
The rains come and the river changes and swells,
thunders powerfully along;
now truly the Mighty Meghna,
six miles wide in places,
coursing swiftly to the delta
carrying melted snows from Himalayan hills,
feeding the hungry land,
crashing through riverbanks,
streaking the faces of the beggars on the bridge
and the hungry children
and the black burkas of the brown-eyed women
with mud.
--Maggie Needhan, Oklahoma City
PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 36
Poetry for Kids
AHHHHHHHH!
The creek is running
swift and sweet----Would feel so good
to cool your feet----But look ................. .,
see how the crawdad goes,
Try not let him
pinch your toes!
--Darla Lowrance, Altus
GET TOUGH
Did you see that crazy fly----tried to get
into my eye ..... .
Guess I showed him
a thing or two----1 hit him hard
with my left shoe!
--Darla Lowrance, Altus
37, Fall 1986, PIECEWORK
HALLOWEEN
Pumpkins glowing in the dark,
Creatures running 'cross the park,
Shouts and laughter in the night.
Kim is screaming--"Hold me tight!
Mom, it's really scaring me!"
Someone's banging on the door.
We quickly tip across the floor,
Slowly opening to take a peek;
Creatures yelling, "Trick or Treat."
"Mom, it's really scaring me!"
I see a clown, a cat, a bear,
A ghost is climbing up our stair.
"Let's give them candy, Kim," I said,
"I'm sure there's nothing here to dread."
"Mom, it's really scaring me."
I think I better ask them in.
"Take off your masks," I said to Tim.
"You, too, Danny, Mike and Sue."
They all laughed and hollered, "BOO!"
"Mom, they're really scaring me."
Off came the faces, one by one.
Kim's eyes lit up like the sun.
She clapped her hands and danced with glee.
"Oh, Mom, they were not fooling me!"
--Diana Stansburge, Skiatook ;--\
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PIECEWORK, Fall 1986, 38
Red Dirt Press, Inc., a women-owned and womenoperated publi~hing company, is seeking manuscripts by
women writers. Novels, volumes of poetry and books of
short stories will be accepted. Send your typed, doublespaced (except for poetry) manuscripts for consideration, along with a SASE, to Manuscripts, Red Dirt
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Watch for December Publication of~
THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTIONS
A Book of Poetry
by
Abigail Keegan
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SUBMISSION DEADLINES: November 1, 1986, for the winter issue;
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PIECEWORK
FALL 1986 .
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1
Part of Piecework : v.1:no.1(1986)