Nous of the Kentuckian

Photographer - Tobi Brun

NOUS OF THE KENTUCKIAN

I. TRIAL VERSIONS

It became a bankrupt summer solstice, lost in
the cool mystical horticulture of
Antietam at night. He could no longer
remember the rush of the market climbing,
cash pouring in, or private equity firms
buying him beer. Caterpillars spilled from
his mouth. It was himself confirmed, just as
he’d always imagined; deodorant caked on,
hair needing cutting, badly injured and
bleeding from a return to physical activity.
He addressed the crowd with the
melancholy of a four-year-old. “All work is
subject to examination.”
This was a week after jury duty.

II. A STATUE TO CALAMINE LOTION ON A NIGHT STAND

A furlong, four rods, and an oxgang
away from a sports bar,
there, outside the walmart was
a statue to the great day traders of
our century
There was grissom, van fleef, and
Mcgillicuddy (ferlinger and podanski were
left out, and for good reason), high above
the dashboard ephemera of a chevy cruze.
Nautical in nature, the honorees careened
Towards the cart return in
high waisted trousers,
a brochure on the teapot dome scandal in their
back pockets.
Two boys were picking pockets when The Real
nightmare began. it was ugly tennis for the
unordained. there were cheesesteaks for
sale nearby. Detached retinas flapped

In the wind.
Van fleef was supposed to be an important
part of the ceremony but came down
with shingles the week before. Grissom
appeared in affordable menswear, that
particularly gut punching aphrodisiac of
the 1980s american middle class.

III. THE ALOYSIUS STATE FORESTRY COMPETITION

For the Aloysius State Forestry Competition
we raised beards, and
drank beer from cans
with fish on the label
in a, sort of,
way to honor our fathers
and brothers and
grandfathers.
I signed my name at the registration table
and it looked like the stitching
on the back of jeans.
Everything seemed possible with the acquisition of
a better chainsaw.
A boy from our lodge with shotgun brass hair stood,
and announced that his family
never owned a brand new car
or took a vacation.
I dabbed engine oil from the corners of my lips
and jangled the change in my pocket.
By the time our competition began
we were all wearing nu-skin and
huffing Christian rock from a canister
on a splintered bench.
Our chainsaw was tuned in to the hum
Of girls with fake I.D.s
and older brothers with drug paraphernalia.
We were victors in our leisure.
A governor gave a speech.

“Congratulations to the new district champions.
May the cheers of this moment help overcome
the noise of rattling plastic in the decade old
Ford Rangers of your future!”
My skin was still wet
while we shook hands
and took photographs with
rich men
who promised a bright future
in the concentration industry.

IV. SPIKES INSTEAD OF CLEATS

Picture this:
1998 is coming to a close
and we are all planning
vacations to Myrtle beach.
NAFTA is still in its honeymoon
phase. The country has fully
transitioned to using the word
spikes instead of cleats
Most of the boys have Chipper Jones
haircuts. The branding for the McDonalds
Arch Deluxe looks like the cover of an
Ayn Rand novel. Several post office dialects
develop under the dayglo eternity of a 7-11
at midnight. All I can pick up is a debate about
the Jeep YJ being the end of civilization.
There are specters yet to come.
Up on the bluff, baseball stadium floodlights
shine like diamonds in a divorce settlement.
Junk mail sweats in the dishwasher steam.
The grocery store is a museum of the food
we ate. Congress lets out soon.
Anyway, Myrtle Beach won’t book itself. It’s
winter and the fake palm trees are wrapped
in plastic. I call my travel agent from a pay phone
used in a regional bank heist. I ask her if there are
any specials. She says only if I’m a member of Triple-A.
Then she cries.

This isn’t unusual for her.
She’s a swimmer with trophies.

J. Peter Progar is a Central Pennsylvania bureaucrat. His work has been accepted to the Bare Hill Review and published in the Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture and Hyphen Architecture Journal.

The Rosary

Photographer - Tobi Brun

The Rosary

The holiness lies
On the repetition
On stating
I am willing to do what it takes
On daring, grounding yourself

A sacred ritual,
The purest of liturgies;
Our sacrifice on the altar

The blood flows deep on the knees
The arms dance for the cross
The mouth sings with the angels

Mary, allow me to do it justice.
Even if that means
Sacrificing myself on your presence

Creating a splash,
A banquet for the Saints
May the Grace of God shine on me.

Anna Correa is a Brazilian immigrant and a computer science student based in Orlando, FL. Anna is an editor for her local school literary magazine called Phoenix, in which she has been featured with the poem ‘The Snake’. She enjoys matcha lemonade late at night.

Periodically Annoying

“There are several species of periodical cicadas, which are cicadas that emerge from the soil every 13 or 17 years. Every 221 years, the cicada broods emerge at the same time in the Midwest and Southeast United States! These tiny-but-very-loud insects have been waiting a very looong time to make some noise together.”

Jasmine Kasper is a multimedia artist and writer who focuses on nature, environmental stewardship, and health. Her goal is to make learning about the world around us a fun, positive experience. You can often find her outdoors, creating art, or frantically researching something interesting to share with others. Visit her portfolio website jasminekasper.com or get in touch over email at officialjasminekasper@gmail.com!

THE ARTIST

Redbank Gorge, MacDonnell Ranges, Central Australia, c1936-37

Watercolour over pencil on paper
28.7 x 26.8 cm

Private collection, Melbourne

Image © Albert Namatjira / Licensed by Namatjira Legacy Trust, 2017

THE ARTIST

Some say that art speaks for itself. The truth of the matter is not that it speaks for itself, but that it speaks for the artist. It is the means by which the artist, consciously or unconsciously, strives to reveal something deep inside him that he can only express through his art. It is the symbolic expression of his inner self, of his perception of the world and how he relates to it.

Nevertheless, that does not prevent neophytes such as myself from appreciating art for its face value, whether it be music, dance, theatre, painting, sculpture, literature, poetry, architecture or some other form of expression. My lack of technical knowledge and practical experience of art does not alter the fact that nature has endowed me, like most people, with a fairly keen sense of aesthetics as well as a reasonable dose of curiosity, intelligence and sensibility.

I have done a lot of travelling during my lifetime, both professionally and for pleasure. My childhood friends and family somewhat disparagingly describe me as a rolling stone. I have visited many countries, beginning with my own, Australia, and become familiar with many other peoples’ customs and cultures. In my travels, I have visited some of the world’s major art galleries and museums, chateaux and cathedrals and assisted at numerous exhibitions, ballets, concerts and theatrical performances. But I must say that what I appreciate most is a small number of artists who accompany me in my daily life. While I do not pretend to understand them any more than many other artists whom I also esteem and respect, I feel a greater degree of empathy and humanity in their company.

Among these few artists are the painters Maurice Utrillo and Albert Namatjira. Both were landscape painters. Utrillo was an urban landscape painter and Namatjira a remote rural landscape painter. Both spent most of their lives within a very small area close to where they were born, an aspect of many artists’ lifestyles that has always intrigued me. I suppose it is because it is so diametrically opposed to my own.

I happen to live just a stone’s throw from the modest lodgings on the rue du Poteau at the bottom of the hill of Montmartre in Paris where Suzanne Valadon gave birth, at the age of eighteen, to her son, Maurice. She never told him who his father was. In fact, she never told anybody. Perhaps she did not know herself. Maurice’s birth certificate indicated that she was a seamstress, but as she was young and pretty, she also posed for a number of painters who, naturally, could not resist her charms. Some of the better known were Puvis de Chavannes, Steinlen, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and a certain Miguel Utrillo y Morlius, a Spanish engineer, journalist and part-time painter, who accepted to recognize Maurice Valadon as his son, all the other painters Suzanne contacted having refused.

Suzanne later had a short-lived affair with the French composer and pianist, Erik Satie who lived up the hill on the rue Cortot in Montmartre. She moved into lodgings with her son Maurice just a few doors down the street from Satie’s apartment, in a small building which has since become the Montmartre Museum. Satie fell madly in love with Suzanne and proposed marriage after their first night. During the five months they were together, he composed the Danses Gothiques and he was so shattered after she left him, he composed Vexations. He never fell in love again.

Satie found work as a bar pianist in the Montmartre cabarets and met Claude Debussy one night in Le Chat Noir. Debussy was fascinated by some of Satie’s weird compositions and they became good friends. He was living with his bohemian girlfriend, Gabrielle Dupont, at the time, just around the corner from Satie and the Valadons, in a shabby little apartment.

All these places have become very familiar to me as I go past them five days a week from Monday to Friday when I do my footing, weather permitting. I say footing because I walk all the way up the hill, climbing up the countless flights of stairs until I reach Place Dalida where I take a brief pause sitting on a wooden bench before continuing on up the rue de l’Abreuvoir past La Maison Rose, so often painted by Maurice Utrillo, and then on up rue Cortot past the Montmartre Museum where Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo lived, followed by Satie’s apartment a little further along.

La Maison Rose (photograph by Rodney Crisp)

I walk on past the Montmartre water tower and turn left, towards the Sacré Coeur, circling around the back of the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, another favourite subject of

Utrillo’s paintings. It was consecrated 877 years ago, in 1147, and is one of the oldest churches in France. It is the church of the Montmartrois, the people of Montmartre. They never adopted the Sacré Coeur, leaving it to the tourists who seem to ignore the existence of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. Most of them walk past it without even noticing it.

On 15 August 1534, Ignatius of Loyola, a Spaniard from the Basque city of Loyola, and six of his companions, mostly of Castilian origin, all students at the University of Paris, met in a crypt beneath Saint-Pierre de Montmartre to pronounce the religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. That was the foundation of the Jesuit Order of priests, which was given Papal approval through the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae in 1540.

Having circled around to the front of the church, I then turn left and walk around the Place du Tertre where the artists install their easels and paint portraits of the tourists. From there I stroll along rue Poulbot past the Salvador Dali Museum which is located in the building where I stayed briefly when I first arrived in Paris many years ago. The rue Poulbot is named after Francisque Poulbot, a painter, poster designer and illustrator, known for his humanitarian work with the poor children of Montmartre. He created illustrations representing the Parisian “titi”, a common term at the time for street children. One of his illustrations was of Gavroche, the popular character in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables.

From there, I turn left onto rue Norvins and usually pause for a few minutes in front of the Commanderie du Clos Montmartre, a small hexagonal-shaped, neo-renaissance style building that houses the wine brotherhood of the Clos Montmartre which produces about 500 litres of wine each year. It is one of the peculiarities of Montmartre.

Another peculiarity, not just of Montmartre, but of the whole of France, is that a glass of wine in a street café costs less than a glass of milk, even though the country produces five times more milk than wine. It is one of the world’s leading producers of wine and fifth producer of milk. But now that I think of it, it is true that I drank more milk than wine when I first arrived in France, whereas now, I drink more wine than milk. They say it is better for your health.

The present grape vines on the Butte Montmartre were planted in 1932, some years after the vineyard of a Benedictine Abbey on the Butte was devastated by phylloxera. The Abbey itself had been destroyed during the French Revolution. The new Gamay and Pinot Noir grape vines were planted by local residents and artists who were determined to preserve the area from rampant urban development. Each year, the October harvest, the Fête des Vendanges, draws thousands of visitors from the wine fraternity in the French provinces. Most of the wine is bottled and auctioned off for charity. I have a bottle of the 1993 cuvée réservée red, which I have not yet opened, sitting on the buffet in my living room.

The oldest wine brotherhood in France is the "Antico Confrarie Sant-Andiu de la Galineiro" formed in 1140 in Beziers, in the South of France. According to the International Federation of Wine Brotherhoods, there are several hundred in activity around the world today, mainly in countries with a long wine growing tradition but, increasingly in the new wine producing countries as well. They organise festive events, wine tasting and other promotional activities for their members. It seems that Australia is one of the rare wine producing countries in the world where the tradition has not yet taken root.

Rue Cortot (Photograph by Rodney Crisp)

We have over sixty wine-grape growing regions in Australia with official Geographical Indication status. Though they are relatively recent on the international market, some of our wines are of world-class quality. They are not easily found in France, but the better-known reds are the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Eden Valley, Coonawarra and Margaret River wines.

Having accomplished my ritual visit to the Commanderie du Clos Montmartre, I finally head for home. As it is downhill all the way, I now revert to jogging, though the long flight of narrow stone stairs drops fairly sharply and I have to go carefully. Most of the streets on the Butte Montmartre are paved with cobble stones which makes the surface uneven and the going rather treacherous. The cobble stones were laid to accommodate cart horses pulling heavy loads of solid oak wine barrels and other provisions in wet weather to avoid getting bogged down. It is easy to strain an ankle if you are not careful.

On leaving the Commanderie I turn back along the rue Norvins a few metres and then left into the rue des Saules. I glance over to the right as I go past the rue Saint-Rustique, and look along it, up to the dome of the Sacré Coeur towering high above the buildings in the distance. Suddenly, the image of another Utrillo masterpiece flashes before my eyes. Reality and artistic representation mingle in my mind and are confounded.

I continue on down the rue des Saules, past a long line of tourist billboards on the stone wall on my left that relate the two years that Vincent van Gogh spent in Montmartre with his brother, Theo, in 1886 and 1887, against a background of some of his distinctive landscape paintings. In those days, Van Gogh could overlook the natural rural scenery of trees, shrubs and green pastures from the village on the top of the hill, that the urban expansion of Paris had not yet overtaken and replaced with cheap housing for the working classes that were constantly pushed further out to the outskirts of the city. It was a good vantage point in those days for his rural landscape painting. Maurice Utrillo, who was to capture the spirit and atmosphere of Montmartre through his urban landscape paintings in his unique, inimitable style, was only three years old at the time.

On reaching the Maison Rose once again, I turn left into the rue de l’Abreuvoir and follow it back down to Place Dalida, then down the two flights of stairs until I reach the café Le Refuge which I enter in order to pick up a copy of my favourite sports paper, L’Equipe, from the rack on the wall near the entrance. On returning outside to a table on the terrace, Cindy, the waitress, automatically brings me my coffee without a word being spoken.

Having caught up with the latest sporting news, and reassured my wife on my mobile phone that I am still alive and well, I leave my €2.30 on the table, put the paper back in the rack near the door, descend the last long flight of stairs and jog the final kilometre back home.

The Butte Montmartre is the highest landmark in Paris. It served as a strategic point of defence for the city. In 1871, at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, when government troops attempted to recuperate the canons from the Montmartrois to stop them from continuing the war, despite the capitulation of the French government, they resisted violently, protesting that the canons belonged to them because they had been financed by public subscription. This immediately triggered an insurrection of the working-class population of Paris. It is known as the Commune. It only lasted two months but caused considerable loss of life and damage to public buildings and monuments.

A well-known folkloric association founded in 1921 that calls itself the Republic of Montmartre, proclaims in its charter that it continues to perpetuate the rebellious spirit and traditions of Montmartre, in addition to its humanitarian work. This is an allusion to the Commune. The organisation of the association mimics that of the French Republic with a president, prime minister and government, ambassadors, parliament and ordinary citizens. Current members include the mayor of Paris, an ex-president of France, as well as a number of other politicians and prominent personalities from various walks of life.

The square at the foot of the Sacré Coeur was named Square Willette at its inauguration in 1927, in honour of the first president of the Republic of Montmartre, the painter, caricaturist and illustrator, Adolph Willette. However, the socialist municipality of the 18th arrondissement of Paris, which includes Montmartre, decided, in 2004, to rename it Square Louise Michel in memory of the legendary figure, Louise Michel, who was a revolutionary, an anarchist and an active communarde during the insurrection of 1871. She spent a number of years in prison on various occasions during her lifetime and was deported to New Caledonia from 1873 to 1880 for her participation in the Commune.

Saint-Pierre de Montmartre (Photograph by Rodney Crisp)

The Sacré Coeur is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Its raison d’être was determined by social and political forces difficult to imagine today but which continue to remain vivid in the memory of the secularists and socialists of Paris, especially in and around Montmartre. There was an unexpected epilogue to the long history of its construction.

War had broken out in July 1870 between France and Germany, which was under Prussian rule at the time, in what came to be known as the Franco-Prussian War. It only lasted six months. France capitulated in January 1871, putting an end to the siege of Paris which had lasted 132 days. Casualties were heavy, particularly on the French side: 139,000 deaths, 138,000 wounded and almost 400,000 prisoners of war as well as 100,000 interned in neighbouring countries. The Catholic authorities attributed the defeat to divine punishment which they asserted was amply merited due to a century of moral decline since the demise of the monarchy during the French revolution and the deep schism that had developed between legitimate

Catholics and royalists on the one hand and illegitimate secularists and socialists, on the other. In addition, they considered that the redeployment of the French military garrison protecting the Vatican in Rome, to the battle front during the Franco-Prussian War, leaving the Holy See unprotected, was totally inadmissible. They also severely condemned the ruthless assassination by the communards of the Archbishop of Paris and a number of other ecclesiastics during the secular uprising that broke out less than two months after the end of the war.

Legislative elections were held in France in February 1871 for the National Assembly (France had a unicameral legislature at the time), followed by a presidential election in 1873. The monarchists defeated the republicans at both elections with a comfortable majority.

This paved the way for the restoration of the monarchy and the influence of its close ally, the Catholic church, in state affairs. Although the tentative to restore the monarchy failed in the autumn of 1873 due to internal dissensions among the conservatives, the influence of the Catholic church was fully restored and resulted in the decision to erect a basilica, declared of public utility, as an act of repentance, on the site where the Commune originated, on the top of the Butte Montmartre.

Poster of Utrillo’s Rue Saint-Rustique (Photograph by Rodney Crisp)

A decree of the French National Assembly of 24 July 1873, responding to a request by the Archbishop of Paris, specified that the construction of the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur is to "expiate the crimes of the Commune". Construction of the edifice commenced in 1875 and was completed in 1914. The Sacré Coeur was consecrated by the Archbishop of Paris in 1919.

However, public opinion had already moved back in favour of the republicans. A new constitution was approved by a majority of one vote in 1875, and the republicans won a triumphal victory in the legislative elections of 1877. In 1905, they passed a secular law that establishes the separation of church and state, excluding religion from the public sector and relegating all forms of religious expression to the private lives of those individuals who voluntarily adhere to it. The individual rights of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion were guaranteed by the state.

It is clear that the renaming of the square at the foot of the Sacré Coeur by the socialist municipal council of the 18th arrondissement of Paris in 2004, in honour of the revolutionary communarde, Louise Michel, was a barely disguised bras d’honneur to the anti-republican and anti-secular authorities who imposed the construction of the Sacré Coeur.

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold, so they say, and nobody could possibly serve it better than political and religious zealots. They have memories that transcend generations and are never lacking in imagination or guile when it comes to organising the feast.

The religious authorities had waited nearly half a century before taking their revenge on the Montmartrois and the Montmartre communal authorities waited nearly a century before retaliating. No sign of battle or open conflict, a subtle and silent war of insidious, offensive symbolism.

Hermannsburg, or Ntaria as it is now called, has little in common with Montmartre and despite the fact that the weather is fine most of the year, I doubt that I would want to go there to do my footing five days a week. It is located 125 km west of Alice Springs and was originally set up as an Aboriginal mission by two German missionaries. The town and surrounding land were handed back, in 1982, to the traditional owners who were granted freehold title.

Albert Namatjira was born there in 1902, when Maurice Utrillo was 19 years old. For the first thirty-three years of his life he did not have a family name. It was quite common for Aboriginal people to have just a first name or even just a nickname. His parents called him Elea and he was baptised Albert by the missionaries. He signed his paintings Albert and only adopted his father’s totemic name, Namatjira (“flying ant”), in time for his first solo exhibition which took place in Melbourne in 1938. Maurice Utrillo was eight years old when he received his family name from his mother’s chivalrous Spanish friend, Miguel Utrillo y Morlius.

Albert Namatjira was one of the first full-blooded Aboriginal peoples to obtain Australian citizenship. Six of them saw their names deleted from the Northern Territory’s register of wards of the state in 1957. Unfortunately, what was intended to be an exceptional privilege, created a series of situations and events that produced exactly the opposite effect. It was more of a handicap than a privilege. Albert and his wife, Ilkalita, baptised Rubina, discovered that as she and the children remained wards of the state they would not be able to live with Albert in the house they were planning to build in Alice Springs.

The following year, Albert was charged with supplying alcohol to a member of his tribe,

Henoch Raberaba, who was also a landscape painter, and sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour. He had been condemned under white man’s law for respecting Aboriginal tribal law of sharing resources. After a public outcry and two appeals, the sentence was reduced to three months, but he finally served only two months of open detention.

Lutheran Mission, Hermannsburg (Photograph by Ludo Kuipers, 1990)

Australian citizenship had brought Albert and Ilkalita Namatjira nothing but pain, grief and misfortune. Nevertheless, citizenship was granted ten years later, in 1967, to all our indigenous compatriots, many of whom continue to experience the same difficulties as the Namatjiras integrating European culture and conciliating it with their own traditional culture. Obviously, this is not something they brought upon themselves. They had no say in the matter. It was imposed on them by the British Crown and government who decided to colonise the country, without regard to the sovereign rights of the indigenous peoples who had occupied it for over 60,000 years. We, non-indigenous Australians, have inherited the problem. The onus is on us to solve it as intelligently and as humanely as possible. But, unfortunately, we do not appear to be any closer to succeeding today than we were in 1958 when Albert Namatjira was sentenced to prison. In fact, the problem seems to be getting worse.

According to the 2016 census, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples represented 25.5% of the population of the Northern Territory and 84% of the prisoners. Their prison rate was 13 times that of the non-indigenous population. In Queensland, they only represented 4% of the population, but 32% of the prisoners. Their prison rate was 11 times that of the non-indigenous population. The suicide rate, for the whole of Australia, of the 5 to 17-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, was 5 times that of non-indigenous youngsters of the same age bracket. This raises serious questions as to the effectiveness of the $33.4 billion the federal government spent directly or indirectly on Aboriginal affairs for the period 2015-2016. We have obviously got something wrong, somewhere along the line.

It is interesting to recall that in New South Wales, which has by far the highest Aboriginal population in Australia, a number of early decisions of the Supreme Court held that Aboriginal people were not subject to colonial criminal laws for crimes committed by themselves upon themselves. In 1829, in Rex v Ballard, Justice Dowling declared:

“Until the aboriginal natives of this Country shall consent, either actually or by implication, to the interposition of our laws in the administration of justice for acts committed by themselves upon themselves, I know of no reason human, or divine, which ought to justify us in interfering with their institutions even if such interference were practicable”.

Much to my regret, the wisdom of that judgement of Justice Dowling, nearly two hundred years ago, seems to have been lost in the sands of time.

Steinlen and Emilie (Photograph by Rodney Crisp)

On his release from prison, Albert Namatjira was in a severe state of depression. His spirit was broken and he had given up the struggle. He no longer wanted to paint and died of a heart attack three months later, on 8 August 1959, less than a fortnight after his 57th birthday and just four years after the death of Maurice Utrillo in 1955. He was buried the following day in Alice Springs (Mparntwe, in the local Arrernte Aboriginal language).

Maurice Utrillo was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent de Montmartre. The image of the tomb he shares with his wife, Lucy, flashes through my mind every time I go past the cemetery when I do my footing. I also glance across to the statue of Steinlen holding his wife Emilie affectionately under his arm in the little square just opposite the cemetery where they too are buried. Their tomb is easily recognizable because it has a tree growing on top of it, right at the back of the cemetery, a little further up the hill from the Utrillos’ tomb. I imagine the tree’s roots have been holding them both affectionately in its arms for some years now, all three, tree roots and couple, inextricably intertwined in a fond embrace.

I think of Albert Namatjira as a bicultural (Euro-Aboriginal), remote rural, watercolour landscape painter of the first half of the 20th century. Whereas I see Maurice Utrillo as a French monocultural, urban landscape painter of roughly the same period, even though he commenced painting a little earlier. Neither of them can be said to have had any formal training in their art, but both received encouragement and advice from more experienced artists: Rex Battarbee for Albert Namatjira, and Suzanne Valadon for her son Maurice Utrillo. Battarbee had studied commercial art in Melbourne and later became a self-taught landscape painter. Suzanne Valadon was an autodidactic portrait and landscape painter and quite a remarkable woman, having risen from poverty and social insignificance to fame and relative affluence during her lifetime through her painting. She was a close friend of Edgar Degas who bought some of her paintings and used his influence to help her become the first female painter to be admitted to the prestigious Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. André Derain, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were among the celebrities who attended her funeral, in 1938, at the Cimetière parisien de Saint-Ouen, a Paris cemetery extra muros, just north of Montmartre, not far from where I live in the 18th arrondissement.

Redbank Gorge, MacDonnell Ranges, Central Australia, c1936-37

Watercolour over pencil on paper
28.7 x 26.8 cm

Private collection, Melbourne

Image © Albert Namatjira / Licensed by Namatjira Legacy Trust, 2017

While Albert Namatjira and Maurice Utrillo were worlds apart, geographically, culturally, ethnically and socially, I feel that they also have much in common. I sense the harmony, the silence, the simplicity, the spirituality and the beauty fashioned by undisturbed nature that emanate from their paintings. Even though the decors are different, the landscapes of both artists are peaceful and reassuring, far from the demands, tensions and anxieties of daily life. They incarnate the calm serenity that time alone can produce and reveal the beauty that nature alone can create. The artists are no longer of this world, but their spirits live on in their paintings. Their presence is almost tangible. I have interiorised some of their landscapes and contemplate them at leisure in my mind.

Apart from his early period, there are no signs of people, animals, birds or any other living creatures in Albert Namatjira’s paintings. The streets are usually silent and empty in Maurice Utrillo’s urban landscapes too. It is, perhaps, for that very reason that they command my attention. They seem to have some important message to convey which they want me to apprehend and from which nothing should distract. I feel compelled to concentrate my mind and focus on their tableaux. But I sense that their landscapes are painted with a poetic vision of mystical significance which I do not understand. Still, I am happy to feel their presence and to enter into communion with them. Another distinctive feature of many of Namatjira’s paintings are the white ghost gum trees of his remote rural landscapes. A similar distinctive feature of Utrillo’s paintings is his white period.

Namatjira extracted soil from the hills of the landscapes he was painting and used it as pigment to paint them. Utrillo mixed plaster with zinc white to paint the old, ramshackle buildings in his urban landscapes. Namatjira often painted from memory. Utrillo often painted from postcards and also from memory. Namatjira was imprisoned for sharing alcohol with a member of his tribe. Utrillo became an alcoholic when he was 18 years old and was interned several times in psychiatric hospitals. Namatjira was born and raised in a Lutheran mission. Utrillo painted so many portraits of churches and cathedrals, he seemed to be obsessed by them. He became a fervent Catholic and was baptised at the age of 50. Both were prolific artists, often repeating the same landscapes over and over again.

Both lost the desire to paint before they died, Namatjira in a terrible state of despair and depression, Utrillo having finally found the appeasement that had been lacking all his life. His mother had taken the precaution of arranging for his marriage when he was 52 years old to Lucy Valore, the widow of a Belgian banker. Lucy successfully took over the relay from his mother, managing his affairs and maintaining stability in his life. Suzanne Valadon died peacefully three years later, in 1938, the year of Albert Namatjira’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne.

Maurice and Lucy lived in a comfortable home in Le Vesinet, one of the chic outer-suburbs on the western side of Paris, where Maurice learned to play the piano, wrote poetry and lived a quiet life. He died on 5 November 1955 at the age of 72 in the Splendid Hotel in Dax, a town in the south-west of France near the Spanish border, reputed for its feria and hot thermal springs. Lucy had taken him there for treatment of a lung disease he had contracted.

Mount Hermannsburg (Photograph by Ludo Kuipers, 1992)

Albert Namatjira and Maurice Utrillo were exceptional artists who managed to surpass the influences of their day and develop their own personal styles. Their landscapes were the product of their natural talents, the singularity of their childhoods, and the dramatic events that punctured their lives. Their vision and creativity remain a constant source of inspiration.

When I was living in my old family home in the bush on the Darling Downs, it only rained about once every five years and, when it did, the Myall creek broke its banks and we were flooded out. The same phenomenon now seems to be occurring with the winter snow in Paris. As far as I can recall, the last time there was any snow to speak of was in the winter of 2013. Perhaps it will snow again this year. I hope it does. I have been walking and jogging regularly through Utrillo’s coloured landscapes on the Butte Montmartre. I miss the melancholic landscapes of his white period in which he expressed the tristesse, despair and sentiment of alienation that oppressed him most of his life. It was during this period, from 1909 to 1914, that his art attained its apogee without ceding anything of its simplicity.

Every five years more or less corresponds to the rhythm of my trips back home to the Darling Downs where I still have an extended family, but no longer a close family. Time has taken its toll. At least I am free to go walkabout through some of Albert Namatjira’s iconic Central Australian landscapes when I visit my father’s grave in Tennant Creek, about 500 km north of Alice Springs on the Stuart Highway. Albert Namatjira is just as much a link to my homeland now as the members of my extended family.

Rodney Crisp is an Australian author and freethinker who lives and writes in Paris near Montmartre, the favorite haunt of the 19th-century impressionist painters, between the modest lodgings in which Suzanne Valadon gave birth to her son, Maurice Utrillo, and the elegant bourgeois apartment of Paul Cézanne.

AXL, THE DOG

Photographer - Tobi Brun

AXL, THE DOG

In one of my previous careers, I worked at an art gallery. Back then, there was a celebrity with whom almost everyone in the neighborhood was familiar. Named after the lead singer for Guns and Roses, Axl was an English bulldog. For whatever reason, he never developed beyond the
size of a large puppy, which kept him adorable, even when fully grown. Though owned by the woman I worked for, he was also the mascot for her business, Mimi Ferzt Gallery, which represented post-Stalinist, nonconformist Russian and Baltic States art.

There is no Mimi Ferzt. In between occupants for the gallery space, an independent movie production filmed at the location and put the name Mimi Ferzt on the doors. The name is a play on words: “Me Me First.” In the film, Mimi was a gallery owner. With the name still prominently displayed, it was decided that keeping the name Mimi Ferzt added an allure and mystery to the gallery’s biography. We got a kick out of artists who told us that Mimi had said she promised to give them an exhibition. The gallery was a spacious, square room with a ceiling that reached a height equaling three stories. Other perks included stark white walls, polished wood floors, a century-old decorative tin ceiling and a large, custom built reception desk that had been left by the previous tenant, a museum that relocated to Connecticut. Having been a non-profit venue subleased to Mimi Ferzt, the monthly rent remained well below market value. It was located in the very desirable neighborhood of SoHo.

When I first met Axl, it was love at first sight...at least for me. Still a puppy, he would sit between my legs under the reception desk, and gently chew and lick my fingers. Within about 30 seconds, tiny red spots spread up my arm. I soon faced the realization that I was allergic to
Axl, as I am to most cats and some long haired dogs, such as Shelties, who have a double layer of dog fur that produces a dander similar to that of cats.

But I was not allergic to Axl’s coat... just his saliva. I was able to scratch his belly and pet him, but I had to stop him from kissing or cleaning me with his tongue. Sometimes I couldn’t resist allowing the affectionate bonding he offered. After a few moments of being licked, I would have to excuse myself to one of the gallery bathrooms and flood my arm with cool water and soap. In time, the rash would vanish.

Thanks to the size of the room, Axl and I were able to run around inside the gallery. Sometimes I would gallop or skip. I’m sure I looked ridiculous. On or off his leather leash, Axl began to prance next to me, like a miniature, short-legged thoroughbred. With all four paws off the
ground, he would arch his back, extend his front legs forward and hind legs behind him in what practically appeared to be a graceful ballet jump, which I’m sure looked even more hilarious next to my animated movements. I believed I was a genius, having taught Axl to show off
these skills. At some point I was informed that English bulldogs had been trained to “prance” for centuries. It was part of his inherited lineage. In the European tradition, bulldogs had been sent out into bull-fighting rings prior to the battle between the matador and bull. I’m guessing
it had something to do with the small dogs taunting and angering the bull.

English bulldogs, an invented breed, are thought to have originally been a mix of Asiatic mastiff and pug. Now registered as purebred, they are expensive to acquire. Whatever the origins, they are not able to copulate naturally. That means someone has to extract the semen from a
male and insert it into a female English bulldog. Don’t ask me how all of this is performed. A turkey baster comes to mind.

English bulldogs aren’t known for their intelligence. They are fairly low on the totem pole for canine smarts. But they are usually very sweet. Axl was no exception. He was affectionate and cuddly and easy to love. When taking Axl for a walk on the streets of SoHo, inevitably we would be stopped multiple times by strangers who wanted to pet him. Axl’s master was generous in allowing me to take him out. Maybe walking a dog can become a chore day after day. His owner was happy to have others take him around the neighborhood during work hours. One of the funniest experiences I remember having was being stopped by Drew Barrymore. She asked his name and leaned down to pet him. I said, “Axl, you’re such a celebrity.” Immediately, Drew stiffened, stood erect and walked away. Even though I had said Axl’s name, she heard what I said as being about her.

A year down the line, I was offered a job at a competing gallery and accepted the position as Assistant Director. A few years later, I learned that the owner of Mimi Ferzt had gone to Russia to look for artwork to add to the gallery’s inventory. Apparently while there, she had also adopted a puppy and brought him back to New York. I don’t know what kind of dog it was, but something considered rare and exotic in America. He looked like a small, short haired grey wolf.

I hadn’t visited Mimi Ferzt Gallery in a long while. I stopped in to say hello to some of my former colleagues. One of these employees told me that the new dog was hostile and didn’t belong in a city apartment. He had constantly gone after Axl. Axl was now quarantined in the
basement of the gallery, cordoned off in a small space next to the staircase. He had one of those plastic cones around his head, which always looks funny to me. As if the dog was wearing a lamp shade or a large collar that belonged to Queen Victoria. But this was not amusing at all. Axl had been attacked by the Russian dog, and now had stitches in his ears and the back of his head. The cone was to protect Axl from disturbing the sutures while his wounds heeled.

I went down to the gallery basement to see Axl. He was sitting quietly in his little cubby hole, blocked from getting out by a wooden board. I leaned over and said, “Hello, Axl.”

He looked at me for a moment. Then he started growling and barking incessantly. Nonstop and angry. I believe he recognized me and was barking in fury. Why did I let this happen? Where had I been? Why didn’t I protect him? I walked upstairs, shaken and heartbroken. Then I found out that his owner wanted to give him away. Apparently, his novelty had worn off. I offered to take him. But it was not to be. He was
given to strangers. And from what I was told, Axl died within the year. I don’t hold the secondary owners responsible. But I do blame the gallerist for not letting me take him.

Bulldogs aren’t known for living long lives, but at the very least, Axl could have spent his final days safe and with someone who loved him and whom he had known since puppyhood.

Around that time, I became friendly with an artist from Rome, living and working in New York City. When applying for a financial grant to subsidize an artist’s studio, he asked me to write him a testimonial for the Approval Board. As a thank you, he gave me one of his paintings, which hangs outside of my bedroom. It’s of an English bulldog.

Andrew Sarewitz has published more than 60 short stories (website: www.andrewsarewitz.com) along with several scripts. Mr. Sarewitz is a recipient of the 2021 City Artists Corp Grant. His play, Alias Madame Andrèe, garnered First Prize from Stage to Screen New Playwrights in San Jose, CA.

Sweetheart

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Sweetheart

“Slit lengthwise, trim off the fat and silverskin, slice into one-inch cubes,” Valeria read off a creased recipe card as she worked her knife into the heart and pushed the scraps into a pile at the corner of the cutting board.

The smell wasn’t as strong as she thought it’d be, but the air was heavy with iron.

“Season with salt and pepper. Massage until salt dissolves into the flesh.” She followed her instructions, evenly coating the meat. “Transfer into a bowl. Add olive oil, minced garlic, thyme, parsley, and onion powder.”

She admired her mise en place as she tossed in each ingredient; the uniformity and organization of small glass bowls with her herbs reminded her of when she first started learning her craft at her grandmother’s hip. Now, unlike her cooking, she found it easy to make what she needed by following her intuition. Potion, poultice, poison—Valeria’s specialty was solution. The oil carried the blood between her fingers, under her nails, and into the gaps of her engagement ring, leaving stains in the creases of her skin. Fingers sticky and curled to the ceiling, Valeria slid the recipe card away from the sink before washing her hands and flicking her wet fingers over a hot copper pan. The oiled surface
sputtered, her sign to lower the flame and tip the bowl’s contents into the pan. She scraped the vermillion marinade off the glass with a rubber spatula and drizzled it in. The warm smell of browning meat covered the metallic scent and lifted wafts of crisp herbs and smoke. She added a few tablespoons of salted butter to the pan and stirred, eyes lingering on the pool of oxidized blood spreading across the cutting board.

While the heart cooked, Valeria punched holes into the film of a container of mashed potatoes, set them into the microwave, and emptied a salad kit into a large bowl. If she’d abandoned anything over the years, it was the need for pageantry. She’d found her shortcuts where she needed them: herbal tea bags had most of what she needed for tinctures, an ice tray of menstrual blood in the freezer removed the need to cut her hand over candlelight, and—as she discovered yesterday—enough Rohypnol in his whisky kept him asleep through anything.

The sound of Marc sitting at the dining room table called her attention back into the kitchen in time to stop the microwave before it beeped.

“Dinner almost ready?” he called from the other side of the wall.

“Just a minute!” Valeria responded, emptying the pan onto his plate alongside his potatoes and salad. She threw only a smattering of greens onto hers and rushed their dinner around the corner.

The table looked nearly the same as when she set it earlier—nice flatware, a glass of Maker’s Mark, a glass of Reisling—the only change was the presence of her too-soon-to-be leaning heavily onto the wooden arm of his dining chair and tapping his fork with his finger.

“Not like you to make me wait,” he chided as she placed their plates on either side of the six-seater table.

“I think I can make it up to you,” she said, turning to the record player he kept against the wall. She thumbed through his collection, then held up Frankie Valli’s “Solo” album—his favorite.

“Good choice,” he said, mid-drink.

She pulled the record from its sleeve, placed it onto the platter, and lowered the needle. The vinyl, after a moment of crackling, played “My Funny Valentine.”

By the time she took her seat, he was already chewing his first bite. She paused, napkin hovering over her lap, and watched closely for his reaction.

“Mm,” he grunted.

He sounded happy. Valeria stared at the line of buttons down his white shirt.

“Is this my mother’s pig heart recipe?”

“Mhm,” she answered, smoothing her napkin and reaching for her wine.

“The woman was dumb as hell, but she could cook.”

“That’s nice.”

“She would’ve liked you.”

She let Frankie’s voice wash over her fiance’s while she eyed his plate. He loaded a buttery dollop of potatoes onto a chunk of heart and scraped it off the fork with his teeth. It was the first of his habits he learned to ignore. She counted his bites, her only relief from his
ramblings.

“We’re gonna start selling girls now.”

It was the first business decision he had made without consulting her. “You told me.”

“I think it’s really gonna take the organization to the next level.”

“You told me.”

“It’s gonna be huge,” he said, exposing his half-chewed heart. Ever since she approached him at his favorite bar six years ago, he had big dreams of criminal enterprise. “You always have ladies here for your business. Know anybody who’d be worth anything?”

She stabbed her fork through the spine of a lettuce leaf.

“I’m joking, relax. We have some coming in a few weeks.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You told me.”

The flat of his hand struck the table. “All of a sudden you know everything?”

He may have changed his name from Marc to Marcello and called an arms-dealing ring his ‘organization’, but Valeria saw him without presumption: a small-time gangster who’d still be mid-shelf if it wasn’t for her.

“You told me all of this last night,” she circled her wine glass with her finger. “When we were celebrating.”

His dark eyes searched her face.

“That’s why I made this special dinner for you.” She sweetened her tone—it was artificial but effective.

He leaned back into his chair. “I did hit the drinks a little hard last night. I can’t remember a thing.”

“We both had too much.”

“Hm.” He lifted his glass to his lips, staring at her through his silence.

Her knee bounced under the table. “I worked so hard on your dinner, hon. Don’t let it get cold.”

He scanned her plate of salad. “Where’s yours?”

“You know I don’t like organ meat.”

“The chef should taste the food,” he stabbed a bite onto the prongs and pointed it at her. Her heels pressed into the laminate floor.

“Taste it.”

She rose to her feet. Her skirt brushed against the tablecloth as she walked to his chair and crouched at his arm. She took the bite in her mouth, staring at the scar across the bridge of his nose as the flavors settled into her tongue. It was tender to chew; easy to flatten and hide
between her cheek and top gums.

Even after swallowing, Marc didn’t hide his skepticism.

“See?” she said, opening her mouth and revealing her tongue.

His glare was cloudy, but he nodded in satisfaction. She tried not to look at his plate.

“Come here,” he said, wrapping his hand behind her head and pulling her lips to his. Her stomach lurched.

“Marcello!” she laughed and pushed on his chest. His wound still hadn’t surfaced. “After dinner!”

“Promise?” he asked.

She took her seat and placed her napkin back on her lap. “Cross my heart.”

He began shoveling food into his mouth. Here was the voracious, greedy eater she had counted on.

“I know you’re not much of a cook, babe, but you did great with this.” It was as close to forming a compliment as he could get outside of “nice ass.”

“It’s very tender, not chewy at all. Kinda sweet. You picked a good pig.”

“The biggest one I could find.”

The wound from last night was opening with every bite, something he didn’t seem to notice. Blood seeped through his white shirt the way red wine spreads on a tablecloth. It was slow and pretty—probably the prettiest he ever looked. A brass crescendo emanated from the speakers followed by a quiet, pulsating beat.

“Ahhhh, here we go!” A smile crossed his face as he threw back the last of his whisky.

“Here’s my song!”

His movements were delayed and languid, his breath more labored. Valeria wondered if this was her work or the alcohol’s.

“You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off of you,” he sang with an annoying amount of charm. “You'd be like Heaven to touch, I wanna hold you so much.”

Despite the food in his teeth and paling face, moments like this reminded her of a time when she tolerated him. Maybe even liked him—it still counts, even if it’s short-lived.

“At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive.” He raised his remaining bite of heart to her. “You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off you.”

She sucked the last of the juices out of the piece she cheeked, taking her time to swallow its rich, peppery flavor. He was right, his mom was a great cook. Her pulse swelled with the sounds of horns and trombones as he inhaled deeply, ready to belt out the chorus. Memories of him singing this part in the shower, in the car with the windows down, and the night they met at the bar flashed through her mind.

“I love you, bab—”

A fit of coughing—a deep, guttural one that sent sprays of blood over the table, across their plates, and onto her face and chest—cut him off. He gasped, trying to choke out the words and save his performance, stopping once he noticed the splatter. As his expression transitioned from confusion to panic, she watched the crimson droplets mix into her wine.

He motioned for her help with hands that became more frantic when she remained seated. His eyes, once clear, coursed with red. A sanguine string of saliva dripped from the corner of his lips.

“Val,” he wheezed. “Help me.”

Valeria tilted her head. Marc pressed his hand to his chest, letting out a shallow groan when he felt the raw, gaping cavity. Ripping the button-up shirt open, he revealed her handiwork from last night. She had sliced him lengthwise, and the edges of flesh curled open, giving way to
broken, unfurling ribs. Shock had set in. It was the first time he couldn’t find his words. She wanted to ask him how it felt when the blade cut him open, when her hand slid under and into his beating flesh, when the drip of black wax sealed and hid the laceration. She wanted
to know if he felt lighter, walking around without a heart all day. She wanted to fill the room with all the bitter, little truths she’d kept under her tongue, rancid and rotting.

Something that sounded like a cross between a sob and a wheeze spilled from his mouth. She let the song play through. His lips emitted faint, raspy words.

“What’s that, hon?”

“You—fucking—“ he choked on the air, heavy once again with iron, “—witch.”

She smiled and stood to walk to his side of the table before grabbing the sides of his jaw to pry it open.

“You... fucking...” She mocked him slowly.

He fought her weakly.

Her tongue swiped the bit of heart from inside her cheek and moved it into her mouth, spitting it down into his, “...Cannibal.”

His eyes were wide, wet, and bursting. One of her hands cupped his mouth shut while the other closed his nostrils, forcing him to swallow.

“Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray. Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay,” she sang over his muffled screams, tightening her grip.

“And let me love you, baby, let me love you...”

Jordan Nishkian is an Armenian-Portuguese writer based in California. Her prose and poetry explore themes of duality and have been featured in national and international publications. She has been awarded the Rollick Magazine Fiction Prize and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. Jordan is the Editor-in-Chief of Mythos literary magazine and the author of Kindred, a novella.

‘Who Is That Bird at the End of That Rope?’, ‘Crisis in the Lighthouse’, & ‘Jack-O'-Lantern’.

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Who Is That Bird at the End of That Rope?

I feel as if I am always in camouflage;
Last of my species? Damned to this, fakery collage.

Another time, or place...a cruel fantasy.
Unique—a blessing tainted with insanity.

Retrained? On the verge of extinction? Already
Gone like the fabled dodo—or mass dignity?

I tend to glide above, while most seem to slither.
Ostriches is as close as I have gotten hither.

Seem to be birds of the feather—of flight at first glance;
Do elect not to fly, given the delusive chance.

Some seem to be rats of sorts; I rear to fly—soon
The ones who tramp, drag me to the gallows at noon.

Crisis in the Lighthouse

Reach my hand outside the lighthouse window. The haze,
Thick. An albatross lands on my finger—so vague.

All I seem to receive is omens as of late;
I feel like a mackerel; no relent—teased with bait.

Always riddled viz. "You will wake and be deemed blind."
I'm left to wonder; blind of the eyes—or of the mind?

Lighthouse keeper; beloved, nurturer of the flame;
Has no light to guide him; his black horizon to tame.

The blind leading the blind; or the delusional,
Who forgo the cane. His peerless sight—fictional.

Are the other keepers up the shore just as lost;
Finding sole solace in the verse of Robert Frost?

"I have been one acquainted with the night." What it
Is to be a keeper? Light the way—mind, dimly lit.

Save poor souls, from a fate you crave in seclusion.

Tame the wild ocean—or at least give the illusion.

My weapon against the sea—a lowly, lone match;

I should be on the other end of the "help!" dispatch.

Jack- O’-Lantern

I see my sanity roll off my fingertips;
Do they know how slippery it is? It seems that
They never risk it. A Mental apocalypse—

The mind endures; flames ravage its crevices; My
Cerebral disaster. Soon enough those who prey—
Pillage will arrive; gutting the pumpkin—bone dry.

They leave my face perverted; eyes jagged; mouth hacked.
Set fire to my core; Soul arsonists—no remorse.
Outlet for emotional pyromaniacs.

Used for one chilly night; then violently tossed

Down, the juxtaposing, peaceful dell; I roll—squash!
Left to rot, in a state of decay. Will I frost—

Or will I have decomposed by winter? From now
Till next autumn, my kind will be seen as passé.
No longer useful for laughs—scares. Death under boughs.

They wash their hands of my seeded blood; wipe the knife.
"This stuff never comes off." Longer to dwell—regret.
Throw the remains in the oven; burn off the life.

William Olson is a young aspiring artist in multiple fields; such as writing, music, film, and poetry. He also most likely enjoys John Keats too much for his own good, in this poetic landscape. He currently resides in Birmingham, Alabama.

“Lucky Cargo”, “Exit Point”, & “My Girl, Athena.”

Photographer - Tobi Brun

lucky cargo

Bury me at sea in the mouth of a lion.
There I will squander the cargo for anchor.
Make me a list of their sisters and mothers,
and watch me return to the warm South to thank her.

Bless me with sand at the feet of Elijah.
Here I will make good the boundless prairie.
Build me a tall ship to sail California,
or carve me your phone number under the blue tree.

Break into a car where the flowers are burning.
There I will paint you a cold Dionysus.
Write me a Pope at your earliest convenience,
but make no apologies over the wireless.

Bring me the white whale who started creation.
Here I will peel you a red pomegranate.
Spell me your favourite hour in the waters,
as proof that it’s not such a dubious planet.

Book me a table for Boot Hill at sundown.
There I will make lunar landings a habit.
Pour me the Rolling Stones into fine china,
if ever you find a bar lucky to have it.

exit point

A brown spider crawled out of my dream,
full of hard threaded heart-strings.
Sleepy with Satie’s Gymnopedies.

Could have
sailed again.
that world
I travelled
from.

How
time slipped
every
screen
and,

taught dead
fish
to
jump
an empty

reel as my dream
reclined
in the arms
of some

lonely, adult
actress.

Or St. Cecelia in ecstasy, (is that the place?)
I never looked to find. All over
the city, blue flies ferry fever.

Takes time to cross, two years of traffic lights,
dealt underneath the bridge.

At the exit point
of memory, there is always,
this expectancy.

Like driftwood, Holy days
when I still wait for you.

My girl, Athena.

The Gods have abandoned you.
She’s not there, (but vengeance is)
some spray-paint joker cracks.

You are no Goddess
on a good day.
Not my girl, you say.

How your eyes
stay quiet like a house,
that will grow

into a garden.

Let us speak to each other,
a simple list of words
in no particular order.

Though my language be small as a wager.

Our first day in the park as the jet planes
roared above your dark, gold hair.

and you spoke
to me, slowly.

distant with conviction.

Jonathan Jones lives and works in Rome where he teaches English and American literature at John Cabot University.