PHOENIX WINTER
~72
editor michael altizer managing editor k. alicia blaine art editor linda hensley sisman fiction ed itor bill sims photography ed itor harlan ham bright
CONTENTS
Page
2
drawing
jerry allen
3
lost
darrell crutcher
4
lithograph
edward montgomery
5
one
6
photogallery
poetry ed itor linda lyle
harlan hambright michael o'brien dav id stansbu ry
front cover photograph harlan hambright
10
centerfold drawing
kathy frank
12
drawing
linda hensley sisman
13
lithograph
michael altizer
14
poetry
rear cover photograph michael altizer
Sought reaction-from within, to project elements with which we seek your reaction, hoping that these elements do not sidetrack their own purposes... _--r'-
The material and conceptual content which follows is for you -ÂŁ0 absorb and hopefully to respond to, for in your response lies the justification for the art contained ,herein. We have achieved a balance in this issue between visual art and literary art; that half of this issue is visual reflects this balance. And in so doing, we invite your reaction, both positive and negative, to the Phoenix Winter '72. T.M.A., '72
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Phoenix 2
LOST "'Why didn't she say she was moving? She could have at least called. I guess that is the way it goes. "
by Darrell Crutcher Otis'mouth responded qu ickly to. what his nose smelled. Hi s mother could cook and he certainly could eat. His stomach growled as Otis' thoughts shifted from Joanne to his mother's cooking. Wasting no time, he ::vas at the table enjoying the things his hands fed to him. "Did you see your: girl?" "No, shes done moved and I don't know where." "Well you can always check the post office or get a new girL" she said with a sympathic grin. Get a new girl, the thought had never occurred to him. There were lots of prettier foxes, but it seem that Joanne was h is and his alone Maybe that's the best thing to do. I'll just get me another girl. But JoannA's no dog or object . She's me and how can I get ri d of me. I Love .... "Otis! What's bothering you? Does that little girl got your mind alreadv7 .. "No mother, Joanne ain't got my mind ana she never w ills I'm just worried about .... " "Well, ' quit worrying and eat. She's old enough to take ."are of herself." They ate their meals in silence, each contemplating t he other's thoughts. Otis finished first and left . He wanted to tell h is mother hovv :.]ood the meal was, but chose instead to remain silent. Reaching for the phone, Otis caretully dialed the numbers. "Operator, I would like to make a person-to-person call to Miss Joanne Scott and the number is .... " He repeated the number with machine-like percision. Althoug h Joanne did not have a phone, she still could be reached at this number Joanne lived with her grandmother in a one room apartment. This telephone number belonged to the lady that leased the apartment. Holding the telephone close, Otis could hear the computer ized voice on the phone. "This is a person-to-person call to Miss Joanne Scott." "Joanne ain't here." "Do you know where she can be reached?" "Mae, do you know where Joanne moved to?" "Somewhere near Taft, that's all I know! "No operator I don't." "Sir, the party to whom you wish to speak has moved. Do you wish ... ." "Thank you operator." Otis replied mechanically. Well, I don't care nohow. I can always get a new girl. "What you say boy," Otis' mother called out from the kitchen. "Nothing Ma, I was just talkin' to myself," Otis replied quickly. That girl's crazy and I don't need her nohow; besides she should have told me. I'll just forget she ever existed. "Where you goih' Otis?" "To bed, Ma." It's kind of early yet ain't it?" "Not that early." "You sick?" "Nah, I ain't sick." "Well, goodnight then." "Yeh, goodnight Joanne." "Huh!" Otis got into bed instinctively, oblivious to reality. It was as if he had forgotten that he ever ex isted.
Knock! Knock The rain was soaking Otis' 'fro as he waited for the door to open. "Is Joanne home?" Otis causally asked .. "No, and she don't live here no mo;e," replied the lady at the door. "Well, do you know where I might find her?" Again Otis received a negative reply. "Well, did she leave a ma il i ng address or someth ing?" "No! Listen man that girl is gone and she don't live here no more so why don't you try checking someplace else. 'Cause I'm getting wet talking to you and my arthritis been acting up and I just ain't got the time ... ." Her voice seem' to leak out of reality for Otis. Although he could hear her, she was no longer important. Where is she? Why didn't she say she was going to move? Ah, hell, I don't care nohow. Turning down 173rd Street, Otis remembered her vo ice. It was soft and kind, it seemed to be especially pleasing to his ear. "Excuse me," Otis was shaken back to the situatio'l. How do I get out of here, Otis asked himself. Oh ya gotta take the CC local to 125th Street and change to the D. Moving in and out of faces, pushing and being pushed Otis was again back on the surfacA. Why didn't she say she was moving? She could have at least called. I knew that I shou Id have called her. I guess that is the way it goes. ' "These rags are cleannnnn" I'm gonna get myself together one of these days, Otis thought. The rain was hitting hard, however; Otis walked as if he did not exist, maybe he didn't? What difference did it make! Ringing the bell, his mother answered the door. "Who is it?" "Me." "Me who?" "Open the door momma, I'm getting wet," he replied in an indifferent tone. "I told you to take that umbrealla boy, you just won't listen will you, but you'll learn sometimes your mamma just ... ." Maybe if I, called 'the operator and asked to speak to Joanne person to person, I might be able .to find out where she's gone, he thought. "What you want for dinner?" " Anyth i ng." "I done fried some ch icken, wi" tl-'1t be 0 K?" "I guess so." Otis watched his mother drift into the kitchen, then he went and turned on the TV. " ... Two killed and three were injured. on the cross-brox ... " the face spoke without emotion. How come everyone I don't know dies. I wonder when my turn is gonna come. Maybe tomorrow. I just hope it's quick. Why didn't she I.eave an address. Maybe she still lives there and the lady's Iyin' to me. If I called the ... "Dinner's ready." "Okay."
II
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Cold morning Early, and rain falling Wake up to a gray winter rainStand at the window wondering Watching and trying not to wonder Old tired winter and rain falling and falling on dry leaves and summer's dead grasses and old, whitened heather I'm ,so tired so very tired of
... AND I HA VEN 'T SEEN HIM
Room stone cold and ashes dead and ashes dead in the grate Light another cigarette Learn to forget Learn to forgetWhere has the sun gone? Not comi ng back either? Fascinating, this one beauty of a cigarette Smoke curling and delicate fragile and flowing unfurls in wisps and tendrils then disappears into the haze of the Flick the ashes out the window into the chill ra in Ashes, ashes, They all fall downI'll go for a walk Put on a coat, musty and old And cracked leather boots The cold whirls my hair, leaks through the seams
IN MONTHS.
Someone is there in the fog standing alone in the yard, like the bare winter trees It's Joel
by Margery Eugenia Weber
Come for a walk, Joel, I want to say funny Joel standing there tired, defeated, drenched in the rain No Shy is it that spring rains are for wal king and summer rains are for kissing and autumn rains are for playing and winter rains are so unwanted ,so cold Joel standing a silhouette before the stone wall gray wall in the gray fog and I haven't seen him in Joel months God how long In the autumn we would have ru n up to each other how tired I am thinking about it we would have run laughing into each other's arms laughing and laughing and never let go and stayed there tight together forever but how tiring it is thinking about the past and wou Id-be pasts it's winter And all I can do is stand there with the rain coming in my collar and my leather boots old and cracked and shake my hair back because it's Joel
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To My Grandfather As Iight blows through the Now dusty earth, Booming, Booming, Booming; , You lie there, life flowing from your ears. You were a man; Stood alone in grey winter, never fell in the red summer heat. When All the others had died, you sent your whip lashing out, caught your life in mouths of iron, Preserved and Protected them with your strength. You shall Die-----someday. when streams and forests are no more, then, like Mother Earth, you will not ex ist; for you are her husband.
Memory Movement I I Iive at ease: The bleached sand lies in its perennial cold, Nakedly exposed to winter eyes, Where lovers slept in love.
-Charles M. Bateman
1\ At dusk comes dusk: Stumbling pathways in the dark, Back against earth's crumbling core All alone-All alone.
The cold on my face, my ears, and my eyes is all that I am for the moment, then somehow, something remembers you for me, and I'm ashamed I'm so selfishly cold.
Avenues of dream, my feet of clay; A picture is one man Laid upon one page-or half a page.
--Andrew J. Felknor
Hold this time entire: Speak the perfect part, Sing your song, Chant the dogma soon, and rest; We are allowed One hellish afterthought-but one. A sound, The cold-burnt people feel Their prima I fear and speak In neon-shone ill itracy.
I'm Afraid Promise me I'll never be alone. Just thatonly that. Don't promise love or happiness, Or other dreams you might not make come true.
-David Powers
On Ecology Dragging down, Everything in his path, Like an avalanche, Absorbing in entirety, Man's death grip, Strangles this, Rock we live on.
Just say you'll stayat least until someone else comes along. Don't ever leave me only with myself.
-Craig Reed
-J udith Bakies
Phoenix 1,4 ..
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lAm I Cannot Just Sit And Write Down In Iron Bound Words What I Am, For I Do Not Do Today As I Did Yesterday, Nor Will I Do The Same Tomorrow; Rather I Am Free Flowing, Changing As A Seashore, Modifying, And Recoming, And Losing And Taking On. I Am Born Of Love And Sustained By Care And Understanding, I Need someone To Help, To Direct, And Sometimes to Follow. I Run Not After The Holy Grail Of What Was And Is, But I Do Not Destroy Only To Find Nothing: I Learn Only As I search, And I Search Often; For To Increase My Understanding \5 To Become A Little
To Lee It's been a year nowand I sti II love you, Ii ke yesterday like forever in my mindit seems , your a greater part of me. So I'll say happy anniverasryAnd give you more than rose? I'm yours and will be till all the anniversaries are gone.
Closer.
I Am Strong, If I Desire To Be, But I Find It Is Better To Be Gentle. I Cannot Tell You All That I Am, Not Even A Small Part, For You Will Not Understand When I Say I Want Peace Will You Know That I Mean Peace For All Men, Not Only From Their Enemies, But Also From Themselves; How Can I Tell You About Me Unless You Know Them, For They Are A Part Of Me.
Theyellow half-moon sits Caught in the half-woven web Of wooden silk: Half-born, Half of everything half-passed. The people breathe again tonight, I will go down to them, slowly, Terrified of their nakedness, Revolted at their lustfu I stench, And I wi II sleep among them In their tears and dreams, and bare souls. God will damn by extinct soul, And I will howl half-human To the half-jailed half-moon.
-David Powers
You Can Never Know What I Am Until You Become A Part Of Me, And I Can't Tell You How To Do That.
-Charles M. Bateman
Phoenix 1S
A Professor's Apology To An Unknown Coed I touched a young girl's breast this afternoon Not entirely by accident, not quite by design. Elevators were not made for a privacy of parts, And I, having caught her make it, Had made it too, Knowing she had trusted herself to rise With others (then me) without her bra. Getting off, my arm upraised instinctive To finger a nervous mouthAnd we touched.
Twilight It's the evening of the night, with the dead in their graves, all of my friends are there. Now that I am eighty each night brings fears that I man not see tomorrow for my tomb awaits its claim. Just sixty years ago I knew I was immortal, but now death wh ispers, lulling me into eternal sleep. Remembering our words then, I sti II have the cou rage to believe in reality. Then my poems are vibrant, pulsating with eternal life, to the death of the gods and the glory of man. I read your eulogy yesterday, now you're gone from me, living until eighty-seven you almost outlived me. Those words read yesterday, written in your hand on yellowed pages were from you r past. How my eyes were strained, how my vo ice did tremb Ie, reading your ancient words written in forgotten youth. My voice echoed in eternity, recall ing you r final words whispered from your deathbed~ moments before the shroud. How tho~ words were labored, obscured by approaching death, my name was on your lips. Earth falling on your casket made my future clear, as the spector of reality rose from your grave, telling me beware, for gods are coming to destroy my soul. What is left to sayeven twilight is gone. Death would have come easily if you were standing near. Now who will read my eulogy written in forgotten youth, hidden in a vault, pages yellowed by time.
Outside the doors a moment She stood and, Touching a maybe hurt, Our eyes caught, Mine in apology Hiding a sorry that wasn't, Except for herThen they closed She in her nakedness Me in my downraised thought A part, to learn What flush of surfaces May teach.
-Chet Rehok
Looking Back Let me see the sun before your softness slips away you've spent so many nights here I'd see your smile last till morning again. Your touch against mine grows coldfeeling the wind blow you away. Your body against mine grows old As summer finds its way to fall and our night to morning this one last time.
- Roger David Chambers
Phoenix 16
What's The Meaning Of This 'Story When it comes to the end Will it make any difference That I was anything in my life Except happy? It will have made no difference If I were thin or pretty After I'm gone, I've left So I must make the most of now. After it's over, no one will remember Where I came from or where I went. So I will ru n after what makes me happyOr tomorrow will be like today.
Antiphony For The Unknown They're searching for the unknown out there, I can hear them. For some sleep has stolen the will and offered stranger pursu it, while others lie catatonic beneath closed Iids. With the rising of the su n 'and people, and new day, to reach out and touch, perhaps, the unknown. Yet an instant of discovery and there is no unknown.
-K. Alicia Blaine
I hear them out there, I close my eyes and see them standing in line, waiting for the unknown. Drifting through the days, oceans of emotions bursting flowerIi ke through give-away gates. EI~tion, revelation, lips forming love. And you know, you know .... Soft rain glistening beyond rays of inner ,light, eyes unfocus on liqu id snow brill iance. Good and bad shake hands and come out dancing. The great rubber band void moves in and moves out, pausing occasionally to flip a near saint. Little hands reach up and big hands reach down, and the small hands move the wind.
Solioque From Abstract Thought From life's sea was borne a sea of life Eternally mix ing a colorfu I abstract of prejudicial art And winding its metaphoric webs from fate's anemic skeleton of chance a testemo nial of du ngeon breadth For once beautiful now wilting flowers of inspirational intention shed the surreptitious seeds of invention Profusely soiled by the ferti Ie crops ,of ambitious failures To be infused with the flagrant sapling leach of life A babe of pure incested thought
Drifting through the night, dreams and hidden streams, surrealistic lids closed tight. Passion flowers growing luxu riantly by the road, as magical midst exhaust fumes as in childhood wilderness. Ethereal mist reach ing beyond the great beyond, silent misty void calling, absolute truth flowing into passion people growing into the unknown.
-Sandy Fielden
this anarchy of the elemental essences Whose one sense of diminish ing truth contravenes these nascent instinctions While striving in rebellious conformity to be smothered by a mass of opin ionated ideals Hidden in a mounting corruption based on a ratioed trivia of rational negligence Each star a mi 1\ ion thoughts appart Ch isled between the ebb of end less ties Towards the highways of prelusive flights At times distorted Iy ticks its rhythmic patterns As each flu id second streams into the next To begin an ending and a beginning into A dynamic monomaniacal dimension journeyed from within A sounding wave of static brilliance flowing I n sulfurous flashes becomes another intumescence of transitory bel ief Falling short of succeeding to be tenaciously omnisient Yet without the sight to eye the ear to hear the dead is not disturbed Are but unmoved.
-Philip H. Antom
Phoenix 17
'Round Circled Spheres
'Round Circled Spheres Look down upon the table downly Many things are there and there and there Look down And see Ah yes, and see . Reflections maybe almost maybe But still reflection's many scenes Hardly different then for sure Same yet different different difference The same is that for sure
let me tell you about Big Burley. She had big brown eyes, and hair so curley. She was the Queen at Lhe loca I str ip show, And she danced to loud music while the liquor would flow. They shouted, "take it off,'; to her everynight, And they would cheer and shout and revel in delight. When finally she got down to the nude They stomped and chanted (nobody booed). She wanted to please them, so when they shouted "more, more," She slashed open her belly and her entrials fell on the floor.
Or melodies upon the wind and listening They sing singing and mystify the closely sounds within The wind Winded melodies upon the wind singing songs of sound So no one listens they only read And read no words to be t o read in words to be behind The lines Not much however but however maybe Comp rehension is the same for anyti me Maybe
And still they shouted, "-more, more."
-Judy B. Malone
And so the books have said In many words and many ways for many times It seems like spring today. And it takes my mind away . To another time, another spring. Spirits were high, and you would bring A tender word, a gentle smile to cheer. My first spring, I knew I wanted you near. It's over, that first and spring. Memories linger on. Long after now it's over and gone And in winter's cold and summer's heat It will always be spring; that spring bittersweet
and time again Then alas at last again Too many people too live only through their past More immorality that way In love is love for love in many ways is love for what is love for sure And love is is really love in many ways is love for what is love for sure And no one knows for sure how sure for sure is loving same for anyone Maybe
- Judy B. Malone
-Philip H. Antom
Once Upon A Drunkarc1 Rollicking Carlton, in tremu lous solo, Traversed the dry allyways north of East Lilac, Hailing the trash cans that jump out to greet him: Who lead his way into the night of sweet feelings Instead of the life he knew outside the man, And his drink. -Philip H. Antom
The dripping white flame, so silent and bright, that lives in the yellow wax candle, "Is foolish," annou nces the tallowish mind that thin ks, all too smuggly, "heat rises."
-J. Andrew Felknor
Phoenix 18
Ode To Uncle Danny And I scream for you But nobody hears me I beg the usurpers for you And there is no sound I rock from side to side (away and away) And I have n~t the ability to wish .... The ability to think, To live, Or to die: For Man shall not know Wh ich he experiences, And which he believes in
Upon sitting with his widow in his old room. The silence of man The hardsh ip and grace Of his lasting shadow In fields Where the wind and smell Of life Are all that reflect meaning The sacred ideal I shared With you, And I never saw you . The love I felt for you, And I never cared The times I saw you, And I couldn't see. The life that wavered, And I never knew . ...
The siren of pain in death can never be felt But the living must always live( and again) In what is the human pro-fundity of death's chimera Life -i s rebo rn : But is death Do you live in my mind And yet, Do I know that you lie beyond me Do I think no further Does not the channel of death that creates your image now Ever asp ire to life ... To you my friend
The shadow of drakness, The blades of dark men With shining sickles Against the eery horizon: I looked at you for a moment And I shuddered; The birds flew above me And I listened! I saw your name, And then your face As all at once , knew where you were And segments of thoughts Struggled to decern you r presence While my feelings rocked and bowed Like battleships in threatening waters All within a cyclorama of spiritual shadows Forming white-ciotted, mesmeric dancers On a stage of my mind. For you were alive as I knew you The only way I ever saw you, And yet you seemed so different As I plunged into your sleeping image, And death was about me So that I had to scream in terror I ran fifty feet And plunged myself into a carved wall As hard as I possibly knew how And when they picked me up I told them that you slapped me And your wife Threw herself upon your casket In t he swelter ing movements of disinclination When the rigo rism of fate held its t ighest grasp And there wasn't a movement from you But you're only sleep ing my friend, I thought You're only here now In this field of silence Wh ich faced my heart
Phoenix 19
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