Show 4 f i August 1962 Editor ROBERT PACK BROWNING Associate Editor LOWELL M. UDA j THE WICKED WORLD Doris Duncan wish I my great grandmother said to everyone and anyone who would listen to We all felt sorry and tried to cheer her up by bringing her special food to or little gifts to make her but no matter what we did she was always pay any her daughter would say to has always been that wait until she gets sick and thinks she is going to die and she'll call for the doctor straight Grandpa had always pampered her too much Aunt Joy ahe used to pick her up in his arms and carry her into even though she was perfectly able to She's outlived him forty years mark my words she'll outlive us way she takes care of The town people didn't think Aunt Joy appreciated Great such a sweet little old they always said when they came to They would laugh and talk for hours at a time and when they left Great Grandma would throw tantrums and demand this and that until poor Aunt Joy was fit to be Grandma liked to read a lot and stories that made her cry I brought her candy from the store to eat while she I sat beside her and patted her hand and said cry Great world is a horrible place you'll find that out when you get There is a lot to cry about in this wicked I kept my eyes open when I went to the story to buy candy for and wondered when I would be old enough to see the it gave me a funny feeling just thinking about One day I supposed I would just wake up and there it would be the wicked I wondered if the storekeeper knew how wicked it he patted my head and said Great Grandma I smiled and answered as thank and he went back to wrapping meat behind the Then came the day of her hundredth lots of folks kept coming to the house all day You've never seen the likes of it people bringing presents and smiling and And everybody kissing Grandma's cheek and telling her how sorry they were that Great Grandpa couldn't have been around to celebrate such a happy Aunt Joy took the presents and put them on the table and just kept running back and forth with punch and we're going to run out of she said to and we couldn't run to the store to buy anymore because it was Sunday and so she hurried and ran to her own kitchen which was just across the way from the little house where Grandma She looked the weather was very she stirred up another batch of lemon cookies and put them to After the party was over we went in to see all the There was a little radio from the town and there was enough candy to keep Grandma for a year or Somebody had brought a flower in a vase and it was already beginning to wilt from the While Aunt Joy picked up wrapping paper and cleared away the last of the cooky crumbs and punch cups Great Grandma screamed at Aunt Joy and said why couldn't she ever do anything the last batch of lemon cookies were Aunt Ada went back to her own house and I followed her and would have patted her hand and told her not to but she was too busy doing Great Grandma was listening to the new radio that the town people had all chipped in when I went back in to see if there was anything else I could do for much wickedness in the world she clucking her tongue every now and is safe and criminals running loose It made me feel all creepy inside to think of out to the ice-house and get me some more ice for the she said I looked outside and saw that it was already getting there were shadows moving over by the I took the pitcher and walked slowly I noticed the light coming from the open door across the way and I sprinted toward Joy was still washing She looked up and smiled at me when I walked did she want she more I told walk down to the icehouse with me I'm scared do you say that there's nothing to be scared of my It was kind of hard to explain about the wickedness in the world and all when I looked up into her pale I didn't want to tell her about the criminals and things when she had plenty to do just taking care of Great really I I took the pitcher in my hands and ran with rapidly beating heart toward the ice then chipping furiously from the chunk of ice in the I filled the pitcher and ran back to give it to Great Grandma TWO HAIKU I THE SUN 1 Monstrous broken Mum still never MAGPIES Three caged By wire hexagonal Caw and daw and PAGES FROM A FAMILY ALBUM Theron Butler GRANDMOTHER Pearl mother of Pearl enveloping every source of friction in a gelatinous sentimentality from which there is no numbing all pain and doubt and sorrow in a soft smothering cushion of pure impossible to shock into bitterness or losing identity so completely that her her very vanities have become dictated by those she lives to whatever the cost or Juicy soft plump arms encircling in hugs of old-fashioned or shaking flabbily as they beat fat lumps of dough and stir big bowls of batters in smells of apple and pumpkin the heavenly baked smells of magic Bustle and thou art careful and troubled about many but with all these sweet comforting arts for the hurts of her own great heart resist all solace and and one war-wrought wound refuses to heal son who was lost lost and never Where and what was GRANDFATHER There was a time when all of Beauty was there somehow in the once-grand gardens of a all the magic of new shapes and smells bachelor-buttons and black-eyed snapdragons and cups and flags and the wonder of canaries calling in the weeping of humming birds in the the tear-filled joy of robin song in the raspberry the cycles of apple-blossom in April ending in October with the tangy cider smells of old apples rotting in a muddy ditch beneath their and of hollyhock stocks reaching higher and higher until puppets could be made from toothpicks with knobby buds for heads and skirts of blooms of any the mellow peace of sunlight filtering through breeze-stirred leaves and the timeless hum of bugs and bees and countless little of palpitating clouds of cream-colored butterflies hovering over an emerald green field of alfalfa in the shimmering summer and the rippled mirrors of quiet water soaking over the lawns on irrigation reflecting sky and clouds and trees and wading black and after the hilarity of teetering to exhaustion in the two-wheeled trailer under the pear to lie back to contemplate Time in the tops of the great poplar round whose waist four of us were unable to reach and whose long loving arms and legs still protect the tiny white scratching at its shingles with bony fingers and sharpening his toe naUs on the cement bellies of the And now raises He seems satisfied with only a a glass of and the subtler retirement and which has dimmed the eyes of the once-white house and sealed it up like a premature Virginia-creeper covers the coal shed and dog golden-glow has gilded the tired old and the door to the earth shrouded in stands ajar reminder of dark horrors of rats and damp spider-webbed What is it a man learns about himself in the course of a lifetime that causes him to withdraw like a house shut up for with no more hint as to the lives and loves of summer occupants than the bitter-sweetness of moss on the of brittle wisps of old ivy and virginia-creeper clutching at the or bed of brown flowers lying dead and and fallen leaves rustled and scattered by the 1 T r i m Why else would I L a five-year sequence of classes at this Something must have tv of from high school to make me take happened S Not that love when int pus ve B years of your life if you survived you beg in to accept school as a c of lunch and work Then when the Board second h comPlete rith of Education world of with into symbol of the future as our hot rod you begin to feel unwanted and if on And thus you I thusly Nothing could nave prepared me for such lar because a parent had just graduated with Honors exactly fifty-two nightmare courses with i havin 1 managed to fumble through registration- 96 credit Wed discussions concerning Hints on How to Regis the of my Picking up class furrowed when one must-class was already stuffed liMn w 8 a rookies like me soon learn thai Mo around to help her poor over he fen tK fete always handy for extra fees an Uhe e reading unexpected unexpected out- It isn t the first day that's u when you learn how 1 It's the when all other faces carry a superior when professor sneers over his glasses an down a you he gives quizzes twig a proceeds to pages for assign college life is so By the end of the first week learned how to sleep through the six o'clock alarm I half-hour drive in twelve to make a to doze during the fi clas I eyes wide You've learned which short cuts timed yourself to comp into your eight-forty precisely we minutes thus accidentally missing those I I While Doing nus Yesterday f d s mastered the art of How To Take Notes After a while you know how late Sou can stay out week nights so you'll have your homework done More three a.m. You can slurp toast and butter bread and I pack a lunch in two minutes and forty-one seconds you know which I of the spiders the on lawn deserve your lunch and you know k t I dili pickles san can gobble before Sunshine shows his 6 I lowered eyebrows 5 I IU gf n sPlinter of wood in the every I every creak in the stairs and I m in doors- You know which chairs avoid and which I table has the deeply carved You know what person will eek-eek-l across the reference room floor at I So much of a rut it day day Same same hard eats same stolid same bald same jerking stops I me bumPs in the even home is a Same frowning same loud-mouthed and yelling same dishes to same merely Hut you get used to your summer-iree and sisters running loose around the spilling screams through the doors and pouncing all over your chair so your was don t get written the way you you get used ro me i stomach cramps acquired bv stampeding to the gulping flown and back to study I your friends are relaxing out the summer with nS nd two a.m. Since you don't have the I f any otner sufferer in any you have to perspire I yUr oy And of it's never a I yon night When Joe and Jim Marry inviting you to a can-I No You curse the professors and reluctantly say I and then listen with some amusement to echo in that Good-glory-I f bit tonu of But when they discover that you're not after ask sweetly do you like the I we h first week vou always answer but wait till I has h Ve Ur first the quarter is half the first test taken besides three or four more and when polite I question do you like the the only ey get is a hysterical of f your school friends are already married by the end through the long summer quarter come cases T more You duly present a set of pillow-ml al the door and snake hands down the wearing a proper offering the proper smile and offering the proper and when yu get to the bride and groom you exclaim My that know now lucky yu and really mean en you remember the mid-term term though quizzes are quizzes and mid-terms are mid-r ns and finals are look how far ahead of my colleagues yet rn n they Jin the wild scramble this fall they have all this Ji though regular school months will be in their Well I pass ss i the bf in my favor this when I come That u. 1918 Karen Rosenbaum They cornel cleats crashing down through the streets clad robots to the beats The druml I with lard-like bodies are furrow and the blood they beget I through two two gutters-and yet They Lowell M. Uda part of a Joe- brooded and she She could Ue AuS f ther did and 6 were myths my We wre neve c and l remember fact 1 had no physical comae In rh my Japanese 1 have had some with of They have The Hawaiian and Her memories ln my mother's suf-a child when adopted 1 f She was Mother had long b ve A f a f ner in a scrap OU Her shiny Su o with braid 38 braided that fell one thi over her back and Evas-She wore a wn father f and probably Wh The tale 18 verV I yielded to her them for what they the woman e things that me abUt is one of those s s awes a shallow M 5 on bag in U We our own bean sprouts With nf bal a rn S nat Was 00 the railing she dampened the Then hen she began to and she was telling me about Hina No Mother thought herself to be Hina suf Hina the Hina the Years la te V when fr the when But Mother had though how much more than most people L n She had two that her Hawaiian father gave her bhe tell off them many she and she the falls during Her Hawaiian father was a but a kind man when She had to drag him home over the dark forest road at herself in the wide under the Some times he was a madman when and she had to and crawl into bed beside him after he had fallen She said she had to protect herself and My imagination is deeply moved by the memories of my There were so many things that were a living part of that were real and so full of I do not believe in but so much was a living part of Mother was a Catholic when she was a she became a I think she was converted by one of my Hawaiian aunts Aunt as I Aunt Annie was a heavy whose power of prayer my mother She was one of the as the Mormons call the Her prayers could usurp any power or spell that a might have cast on us When we were sick she would tell Mother to make a wreath of soft ti shoots and hang it round our then offer prayer to the God in the Mormon She prescribed roots and leaves to crush and make juice out and it was a bitter though it made us When I was a I always felt safer in their hands than in the hands of a On the Mormon missionaries came to our house to talk to my He always listened to them still considering he told In this pleased I think she would have been happy if he considered and never decided for fifty or a thousand But one Uncle Joe barged in on Father and the He had thrust a whiskey bottle under his He and hung on to the hC The two missionaries stood The younger of the two had been startled and had dropped his Book of They wore blue summer bands made of peacock feath- and straw hats with rich ers said Uncle the older missionary Mv mother sat in her chair staring at Uncle She said not a word Her face had her lips had come loose from her teeth She was not were but partially she was offended and angry he said- and he took Uncle Joe out the door and she I'm Teddie Wood CAT Slowly whiskers by a stray grey cat skin and makes it That stalks a sausage grinds one furry day-dead nr When Ss art licked she nips at fleas and GAME Teddie Wood BALLOON MAN Teddie Wood Medford's alley meadow A murdered burglar's bushy boy Ran blast-dash with eight ugly You're tagged Tommy's I'm BAD UNS Theron Butler Goyo Cuestas and his kid had dropped everything and picked up and left for Honduras with the The old man carried the box tied on his the the bag of and the beveled whose form was that of a great a monstrous tin flower that perfumed say there's money in Tata n they don't have phonographs they up yer step n we'll be outa in a It's my belt keeps my up n don't be They stopped to rest under the fragrant hissing They heated coffee with In the rabbits were sitting up in a nervous They coming to the wild Twice they had seen the tracks of the narrow like the of a At a resting while chewing on tortillas and Santa Rosa it started to Three days they were walking in mud mired to the The boy cried and the tata cursed and laughed in The priest of Santa Rosa had counseled Goyo not to sleep in the wayside sheds because of the gangs of roving thieves always looking for For this at Goyo and his son hid in the they cleaned a little place at the foot of a tree and spent the night listening to the hum of the big as and without daring to shivering from cold and is there I looked the trunk over good before dark n there's no ya smoke under yer if they sec the they'll find be sleep all hunched out it's too the hogs with Lean on me And Goyo who had never in his life caressed his received him now against his stinking hard as a cane and encircling him with both warmed him until he went to sleep on while faced bowed in awaited the day at the first call of some faraway The first faint rays found them half groggy with with their ugly mouths agape and half turned up in their torn dirty and striped like a But Honduras |