I Could Turn and Live With Animals

Gawain, the cockatiel perched on a dowel, ready to fly out the opened cage door. Cockatiels, finches, nightingales, a morning dove, and three loud parrots intoned their matins in our Greenwich Village loft. On August, 1989 they left the unit to make the move to the big old house we bought on Staten Island.

My wife’s father was a book collector and we also had an extensive library. Most of the books were the rewards of our own browsing. We published and printed poetry anthologies, poetry magazines and chapbooks. Books that were printed on a letter press, offset or photocopied. On moving day all our books were packed in cartons; and the bookshelves that housed volumes for twenty years were emptied.

Snooka was a small snapping spectacled amazon. He had a red brow, squawked loudly. Albird, a blue crown amazon, perched on my shoulder, showered with me, spreading his wings, dancing while getting wet, beside me in the tub.

Gawain, a yellow cheeked grey cockatiel walked across a large pizza to prune the whiskers of Xanadu, a marmalade cat. Sugar, a morning dove, walked across red and yellow tiles on the floor.

Gray and white cockatiels perched on blue cross beams, wire cages, and book cases. Small, lovebirds, parakeets, and soft seed feeding finches, stayed in their cages safe from the four house cats.

Tiffany, a gray cat with white paws, was one year old at the time of the move. Born on a New Jersey flower farm, Tiffany was a curious, friendly kitten, who came willingly into the cat carrier.

Jenny, a petit blonde cat with short fur and short legs, was unhappily yowling in a carrier.

Tom chased the animals around the loft. “This is hard and it’s going to take a long time,” he said. With a net on the end of a pole, he climbed over book cases.

The west wall of the loft was lined with portholes instead of windows. The portholes dated back to the Nineteenth Century when the building was a manufacturing site and our unit was occupied by ship chandlers. The portholes looked out to the roof of the adjoining townhouse. Our loft was a family residence and home to a small press poetry publishing program. Windows looked south to the World Trade Towers.

In the loft, the west wall had 9 foot tall industrial window. Overlooking Greenwich Street.

Our Miss Brooks, a blonde terrier mix, slept with us on the captain’s bed beneath a porthole. She was a timid dog. We met her at an animal shelter in Port Washington. She threw up on the trip home to the Village. She liked to dance on her hind legs like a circus dog; turning and turning in a circle. She was a stay at home dog. A blonde fizzy terrier mix, her loud barking kept intruders away. She had a billy goat beard and long facial hair. Our Miss Brooks stood on her hind legs and turned in circles. The world was turning around and around.

She was paper trained, because she was nervous walking in the streets. She cried. She whimpered, when we left her to go to work. She whined. She had her family in the loft, dancing in circles. That kept her going. If she could she might have said, “Leave me in the Village.” The little dog came with us to Staten Island. She got car sick as she sat with Barbara, while I drove out to the Island in the truck.

When Long Island farmers at the Gansevoort Green Market offered us the second turtle, Barbara took her in as companion for our turtle. The two box turtles moved with us; living through the decades of their long lives in a glass terrarium, with a constant grow light. They have outlived all other pets; and were still with us more than twenty years later; in a glass terrarium; getting salads in oyster shell bowls. Their beaks and nails grew long. He humped her for years; and pissed whenever I picked him up, letting go a stream.

The guinea pig and the rabbit would have more open space for running around in the new house. The rabbit and the pig, Nosey and Pigolino, were housed in a hutch of chicken wire and woodchips. They were buddies.

The small economy truck we rented was parked on Greenwich Street in front of our building. We filled it with our menagerie in cages and cat carriers. All was ready for our migration. Nothing would be left behind. All the animals and their possessions were transferable. Their nests. The flock.

New York City pedestrians stopped. They looked in the back of our open truck as it filled with caged birds, yowling and meowing cats in carrying cases, turtles, a guinea pig, rabbit and a yellow dog on a leash. Albird sat on the driver’s shoulder.

“Weird menagerie.”

“Curious zoo.”

“Are they friendly?”

“Will they be safe?”

“Where did they come from?”

“How many animals do you have?”

Barbara was embarrassed by their comments. We were transporting more than a hundred loudly squawking birds.

Nosey, the rabbit, peered out of a cat carrier.

Across Greenwich Street at the sanitation garage, the men were sweeping litter and fabric samples tossed by the fashion industry they served.

We drove west, rattling along on top of Jane Street’s old cobblestones. The doors were latched. Barbara worried we’d lose an animal. She feared they would be too upset by the ride.

We passed the Washington Street parking lots and garages. Left behind Westbeth, the old Bell Lab that was turned into artists’ housing on Bank Street; for which our loft had been the prototype.

We drove south to West 11th Street. The West Village Committee bookstore was next door to The White Horse Tavern. The garage where we parked our Samurai had been on W. 11th street.

Heavy traffic on West Street, passed piers and trees planted by the West Village Committee. We headed in the direction of Travelers’ red umbrella logo and the World Trade Towers.

We turned east on Canal Street and drove through Chinatown.

We crossed the Manhattan Bridge and found the ramp onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway heading toward the Gowanus. Buses, cars, and trucks flowed past us. On a summer’s evening traffic, we crossed the Verazzano Narrows Bridge. Would our menagerie attract attention at the toll booth?

When we came upon the new house, a large Staten Island house built in 1903, we began the unpacking.

The pecking order changed in the new home. We had separate rooms; not spaces created by bookcases and drawers. The cockatiel flock had a room of its own. Their door was screened with chicken wire so air circulated. The door would keep the cats out. An occasional cat would sneak into the bird’s room, but it ran out once a squawk went up. The cats had more space to roam. They had been mousers in the loft and would have more opportunities in the house. We blocked open spaces in the basement, lest the little ones went exploring and got trapped.

The dog could exercise more. Now on her own Our Miss Brooks would climb the stairs.

Albert and Snooka’s cages were in separate rooms.

The rabbit ran around in the living room.

Feelings Were So Intense 4

In “Secret Dreams of Fantasy,” Donna wrote:

There’s things I want to happen
but only in my mind.
(p. 30)

And in “Education,” Moet wrote:

We need a book and a teacher to shine the light on us. Education is the key so all of us can be free. We’ve got to educate the mind and free the soul.
(p. 41)

Among the subjects addressed in Streams 6 were education, friendship, AIDS, substance abuse, and student reflections on the book itself. At Auxiliary Services for High Schools’ Saint George School, Christine was annoyed after reading aloud a correspondence in class. Her teacher and I encouraged her to write a critique. Her essay, “Critical Feelings About Streams Five” appeared in Streams.

I still can’t decipher all the reasons why my feelings were so intense. I’m sure it was a combination of many thoughts, feelings and experiences. I felt extremely impatient with the teacher. I suppose the subject matter made me look at my own life and my own experiences and mistakes. It brought up feelings of shame and stupidity. I was also very impatient with the other students in the class. They were so rude. I didn’t want to deal with any of this. These kids make so many mistakes. Things they will not be able to change. They will look back in fifteen or twenty years and see their mistakes. That look back can be very painful.

The letter from the young girl in the rehab to the teenage boy really upset me. I was thinking, “How stupid you are! How dumb you sound! What type of life are you going to have? You look up to a man who visits his son once in a while and who doesn’t emotionally or financially support this child or his mother. What’s worse, he does not even see the wrong in that. How you see this man as someone to admire, how you consider this a good parent, absolutely blows my mind. Don’t you understand? Children need so much! I guess I can’t blame you. I just hope that when you raise your own children, if you don’t think the way they speak, the way they dress, the education they have is important, please, I hope to God you have at least great maternal love for them and treat them with understanding and patience.
(p. 146)

This sixth annual anthology concluded with Shariff’s poem:

Streams is a book full of poems and rhymes,
People speak their minds and their brightness shines,
You can write about the future, present or past,
Or about your new girlfriend, or the one you had last.
It’s an expression of the mind, the thoughts that you’re thinking,
About your fun weekend or a love that you’re seeking.
Speaking of thoughts, this is mine about the Streams book,
I took one look through the pages and my brain shook.
So I said to myself, I’m a talented writer,
And this is a book that my work should be inside of.
So I gave Mr. Hejna a sample of my work and
He said, “This is great, you’re a talented man.
I’m gonna put you in the book ‘cause I think you deserve it,
A great poem artist and it’s time that people heard it.”

Streams is a book where you can write about yourself,
Your personality, reality or big dreams of wealth.
Things that you did and you now regret.
Let off steam in the Streams, that’s what it’s there for,
And if your work is good and score then write more.
One never knows you might start your fame there,
Then when you’re grown and rich in ten years,
While you’re sitting in your home thinking back you’ll say,
“If it wasn’t for Streams, where would I be today?”
Take my advice, read slow and take a long look,
Remember I said that Streams is a fly book!
(p. 147)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 3

“Crime and punishment” was the subject most frequently cited in the Streams 6 index. Adolescents, writing about their experiences in 1992, helped raise awareness and the desire in local neighborhoods to address the violence and the sufferings of victims and perpetrators. A student using the pen name Poppa wrote from prison, “Now I’m here and it looks like I’m going to stay for a while. I wish I realized what lay ahead for me when I was younger. I most certainly would have changed my path in life, but it’s not too late . . . for those from B’ville. I know life has been hectic, but try to represent in a quieter way.”
(p. 36)

Marado gave a vivid picture of life after sentencing in his piece, “The Big House”:

As we got off the bus, two C.O.’s grabbed to make sure I didn’t fall. My legs were still shackled. . . we were marched to the main building. As soon as we stepped into the ‘Big House,’ the captain came up to me and said, “Boy, this is Elmira. This is not Rikers Island. Rikers Island is a playground, boy. You’re in the ‘Big House’ now.” He cursed at me and he cursed my mother and said, “If you start any trouble or sh-t, you die.”
(p. 80)

In the final section, Coping With It All, Jose Respito’s piece “A Day in the Life” described twenty four hours in the life of an incarcerated student on Rikers Island. The author transcribed a phone conversation between an inmate and his mother:

“Hi, Ma. Yeah, I’m okay, how are you? Good. Well, Ma, I just called to see how you were doing. Are you coming up to see me tomorrow? Ma, put some money in my commissary. About fifty dollars, alright? Yeah, Ma, I know you need to pay the bills, but I need money too. Okay, then just put forty dollars.” Damn! “Oh and Ma, you didn’t forget the sneakers, right? No, I don’t want Reeboks. I wanted Nikes. Forget it! Just bring the sneakers. Ma, I gotta go, okay? Love you. Bye.”
(p. 137)

The line between victim and perpetrator was easily crossed, as Jeff, a small time drug dealer, wrote in his Personal History:

I had been shot on a street called Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. I was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. There they performed surgery on me for four hours; and had to stop because of loss of blood. They had to wait until my blood rebuilt. I had already lost four pints.
(pp. 40-41)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 2

Streams 6 was the first Streams with an index of authors and subjects. According to the subject index, “love” was the second most cited subject.

Un Pintor by Santa R.

Un pinto puede pintar
Una rosa y un clavel
Pero no puede pintar
El amor de una mujer.
(p.64)

(An artist can paint
a rose and a carnation
but no cannot paint
the love of a woman.)

Students wrote valentines to girlfriends, mothers, and grandmothers. They also wrote of their jealousies, betrayals, and the blues. Pedro, in his poem “Incarcerated Valentine” wrote:

“I’m afraid that when I come out you won’t be there.”
(p.72)

Streams 6

Feelings Were So Intense 1

The cover cartoon drawn by “GMan” showed a hip hop character against the graffiti background of Streams 6 in bubble letters and the phrase,“Stop. Check It Out. Word!!!” The anthology represented what young people were thinking in 1992.

It opened with the poem,“Laughter” by Tiffany Knight. She wrote of Billy who confided to the narrator that

“. . . parents kicked me out yesterday,
and now I’m going to be put up for
adoption.”
(p. 7)

Unwanted children who got into trouble are a universal problem. The poem addressed the underlying drama of a young boy whose behavior led to his arrest and alienation from his parents. He was forced to live in a group home, and school continues around him. It concluded with the lines:

The rest of the gym class is
laughing at one of the kids who is
throwing rocks at a sea gull,
but Billy and I sit,
and he’s not laughing any more.
(p. 8)

Yvette’s “A Day of Birth,” described a child entering a family. The six year old narrator was awoken at midnight by her mother to watch her aunt give birth.

“She had told us to go and wash our hands and faces. Before we knew what really was going on, she escorted us to the biggest room of the house. When we entered the room, my aunt was not there yet. My mother had told us not to worry, because my aunt was outside playing basketball. She said that it helps her to reliever her labor pains.”
(p.9)

After an explaining about labor pains, Yvette wrote, “my aunt appeared and all the adults that were there helped her position herself for the birth. The midwife was cleaning the utensils and lay the sheets and clothes for her and the baby. While she was doing so, she explained to us what was happening. At first, I was scared, because you see water coming from inside of her. Then it started opening a little, and it looked kind of bluish. My aunt was making noises as if it were very painful; for some women it is, and for others not that much.

“ Anyway, I started leaving, because I was crying and scared. At that moment, I thought that my aunt was being ripped apart. My mother took me aside and said to me, Don’t you want to see how you were born also?’ So I turned back.”
(p. 10)

That was followed by Linda’s Haiku, “Sleep Baby Sleep” --

The baby’s asleep
Wrapped in his blanket so snug
Isn’t he sweet? Shhh!
(p. 12)


Streams 6