from the archives of Ten Penny Players
Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream
Volume 31
1979 - 2017
2010-11 themes are lines excerpted from poetry by Ida Fasel.
Ida Fasel was professor emerita of English at the University of Colorado,
Denver,
and appeared in Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream
since 1986.
And I stare back,
one eye straight into clarity,
one transfixed on chaos.
Light breaks into a thousand thousand
pieces as sea lions slide in, splash,
come up almost standing, head slanting to sky.
Sea change for me
is the way down
past the bright odd fishes
that glide dark to dark,
below the roiling, to the calm.
The cluttered Rhine
moves machinery and wine
Lately the architect in me is emerging,
building up a tolerance for
the way the world is going, not my way
We live at peace in a house of war.
We get along not getting along.
He claimed to love all humankind,
but was a despot and a fraud.
Over snow and ice, storms, ledges, choked brooks, high winds
harmony holds its note till we hear,
yellow butterflies twang the strings of light.
He loved to listen to Sousa marches,
loved to watch the high school band
We never finished our conversation, my hand lightly
on yours not to add to pain, blood running down the sheet.
. . . I float my arms,
I take Pavlova’s attitude toward a flower,
fragrant to my outstretched fingertips.