Fragile Arts Quarterly / Spring 2009 by Moongaze Publishing

FRAGILE ARTS QUARTERLY

SPRING 2009

FRAGILE ARTS QUARTERLY Spring 2009 Moongaze Publishing Pittsburgh, PA

Editor: Raymond Sapienza Asst. Editor: Kristina Sapienza Contact us: moongazepub@myway.com Purchase print copies or obtain free PDF back issues at: http://stores.lulu.com/moongazepublishing

All works in this issue of Fragile Arts Quarterly are the copyrighted property of the creators of said works and are used by permission.

Cover Photo by Megan Marshall

The Mission of Fragile Arts Quarterly

The dictionary defines an artist as one who is able, by virtue of imagination and talent or skill, to create works of aesthetic value. The mission of Fragile Arts Quarterly is simple. We seek to give independent artists a venue to exhibit their talent, to display their art and to propel their imaginations into the minds of others. We do not seek to please everyone, which is not possible. Our selection process is not complicated. What you will find represented within these pages are the works of artists who have touched us with their visions of the world that surrounds us all. We sincerely hope they will touch you as well.

Georgia Grossman Los Angeles, California

my therapist works at home depot Spooning cantaloupe seeds into the trashcan at 1:58 am, I realized I miss garbage disposals.

The list stretched on. The sun rose.

And it occurred to me that all the misery I attribute to loneliness boredom and rejection

I paced the weathered hardwood floor, anxious about crown molding and broken windowpanes.

might actually be the direct result of an antiquated kitchen sink.

The cantaloupe sat on the kitchen counter (the white tile half to the right of the sink, not the ambiguous gray speckled vinyl half to the left of the sink) in a sticky, drying pool of pale orange juice, shiny in the sun shafts streaming through the far kitchen window (with an unbroken pane) and dotted with the unperceivable footprints of a small black fly.

I quite forgot the cantaloupe and took to wandering the house, listing its inadequacies with almost feverish excitement. - Air conditioning - Dishwasher - Closet doors - Ceiling fans - Recessed overhead lighting in every room complete with dimmers

I added window screens and shades to the list.

The Year the Dog Died The dog passed away and It seems my luck went with her. Really, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d rather she had it anyway. A small price to pay for Five quick years of happiness. A rat has died since then. A horse, my small plump flower, cantered by. The distant three beat resonance of her hoof steps Punctuating her shrinking silhouette With an ellipsis of false hope. The vacuum sits idle; The worn rugs, thrown out. Weekend getaways come easily. I shift the cedar ash box every so often, Attempting to achieve a sort of Pet cemetery feng shui So she might send my fortune back to me A leggy red dog With a curled tail and dark eyeliner Trotting back home.

Spring Cleaning Arrives Early He threw out the art. And the cigarettes. And the girl. And felt better, Just as sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d said he would.

Neuroses Of a Closet Exhibitionist I wonder who looks through my windows. I know it is no one really; I am too far for that, And in the day The light outside Keeps eyes from coming in. But there are none to see besides. Still, I watch, I wait to hide. And as the sun completes her arc, When light inside grows greater, I feel those eyes I cannot see. Yet, when I turn to catch them In their voyeuristic act, All outside is darkness And only mine stare back.

Only the Cats Sleep Well These Days Above necessity of alteration. (I am wrapped in the cool, smooth luxury of impossibility) Each one that lies beside me, I will forever compare to you.

we almost sound like grown ups Leaves fluttered absentmindedly And the air cooled As we sat on the front porch In a questionable neighborhood Talking about the old war And the new war And scientological lovers Although Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d stopped following the news (serious or otherwise) Months ago

The baby stared The squirrel migrated to a plumper bough She believes in Sylvia Brown, a psychic, It turns out, who sees the future And it ends in ninety-five years I am not overly concerned

So I watched a squirrel Negotiate a lean branch

I do not expect to live so long I do not expect to have children

While the vague sound of Debate played in the background Americans contorting foreign words So they sounded differently each time they were Spoken

For me, ninety-five years is never

The anger, like the weather, Grew mild and breezy He rocked to an undefinable rhythm, His new son balanced precariously on one knee

So this is the creature that has emerged from The muck My existence has become my main concern No place exists that I am not No time beyond my own moment Until anything I do not experience First hand Is simply another piece of Fiction

Opening Day I have exercised my darkest thoughts; Trained them to perfection black suited spectacles of menacing intellect. Muscular Agile Demons grown stronger than the lock box. Fingers on the Windowpane, Nails in the Glass. Hand around the Door Knob, Gloves against my Throat. It is only the air, thick and moist.

Underwhelmed So much can be gained In the upward tilt of the cranium. Open the sharp angle of jaw and Throat.

It is only my mind, manic and reckless.

ClichĂŠs can still be beautiful,

It is only a matter of time.

As this -

This too will end, By choice Or force Or circumstance.

The moon through drifting cloud cover.

Training time is over the gun's gone off, the flag's been dropped.

Stars were mere myths before this journey.

The finish line is in my sight; the pack is at my heels.

Abundant as the weeds in my lawn.

Ambient hoop glowing by degrees Through the traveling veil.

Now they litter my new sky,

maybe i am still just a kid

i've been waiting to breathe for a while now. nearly a year. i still hold my breath driving through tunnels, so i can make a wish that might come true when i reach the other end. this has been a long tunnel. scattered at random with lights, so you think you're nearly there, when you've really just begun. this last light was convincing. i saw it from miles away and held that much tighter, thinking, "i've almost done it. the sky is so close i can feel it." but all that opens up above me is more sectioned concrete, arcing like a pre-technicolor rainbow. so maybe i'm holding my breath for nothing. for the opporunity that will never come to make a wish that will never come true. but i keep the airways static and unused, just in case. knowing that the moment i surrender that last ember of belief will be the moment the arc breaks away and the sky opens up, only to reject the wish i was too weak to carry through the dark.

Megan Marshall Born in New York City and raised in Sayville, Long Island, New York, Megan has spent her entire life on the East Coast. Living within a wide variety of atmospheres during her years, urban, suburban, and rural, she has come to appreciate all of her surroundings. Presently living in the area of Pennsylvania where Andrew Wyeth once captured life's simplicity with a paint brush, her hopes are to capture the simple things in life, that one may take for granted, through the lense of her camera. Visit: www.meganmarshallphotography.com/home

Jillian Parker Northern California Jillian can be found online at www.myspace.com/flameinthesnow

White Crane Zina tilted her head and flashed her trademark smile, the same smile that in the days when her hair was peroxide blonde instead of snowy-white, had made her an indispensable asset to the Theater of Magadan. Watery, turquoise eyes squinted, and winked quizzically at Anna, who had been staring at the pile of navy blue jumpsuits jumbled in Zina's lap.

"Those are the costumes for our concert. I need to alter so many of them for our big round ladies to wear, you wouldn't believe how much work it is …" her fingers were sliding along a hem, armed with a seam-ripper. "Well, my little rabbit, I have your tickets—" and she held an envelope out to Anna. Anna took it and laid another white envelope, in turn, on Zina's dining table. "Thank you so much, darling…" gushed Zina, "Now it would make me REALLY happy if you would join my little choir, but I can't ever seem to convince you…" Anna stood, hesitating. It had been so long since the two separate channels of her life had intersected, since she had felt the freedom to commune with the spirit of international culture that so pleasantly permeated Zina's home. "Zina," she wondered, "Could you tell me—what is your favorite part of the concert, which song should I be listening for?" "Oh," bustled Zina, "You know, our purpose is to create a memorial concert for the veterans of all wars, to honor their service—we are having the usual spats and conflicts, and some of the pieces aren't turning out how I'd like them to, but DO listen to Leonia's song about white cranes. He's our new protégé, I just bought him a lovely black suit for his next concert at the Salvation Army for seven dollars, and I'm quite satisfied with how he looks. When you hear the song, you'll KNOW."

When Anna took her place in the audience, she was surprised to see that members of all armed forces, were scattered throughout the audience. Because of the chill in the air, she was glad of the wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders. A tiny, but formidably uniformed American woman announced that she was the emcee of the concert. The familiar faces of Zina's choir appeared on the stage, but in much drabber garb than that to which they were accustomed—the ill-fitting navy jumpsuits hinted at humility. They sang in English, Russian, French—pouring out their voices as gifts, to the boys who never came home, to the boys who had returned long ago but now sat in the audience, nodding

their silver heads, to the young men and women who sat stiffly in rows of folding chairs, and who would most likely return, quite soon, to a conflict zone …

After several songs, most of the singers filed off the stage, leaving one tall, gangly, darkhaired youth, who shrugged his shoulders as if to throw off an invisible weight, and lifted the microphone to his lips. With a voice that lilted and pled, whispered and conjured, he brought the audience into the forests of Byelorussia during the time of World War II. Behind his head, a slide show flickered, with images of fighter pilots, explosions, of burning cities and trees …

Anna's memory jolted her back in time eighteen years, to the day she first answered the door at the ABC television office in Moscow, and listened to a grey-haired man tell her stories about the Byelorussian forests. He held out sheaf after sheaf of documents, and showed her detailed maps of burial grounds. In vain, she attempted to get the attention of the journalists at the station; they were too busy covering the fall of the Soviet Union to be interested in a bunch of controversial mass graves, deep in the woods. The man returned again and again to the television studio, hoping to get an audience, and again and again he was told that no one was interested. The music and memories mixed in Anna's head; she was transfixed by Leonia's Semitic features, she wondered what the song might mean to him personally-"He can't read a single note of music, you know—" Tanya, at her left, elbowed Anna back to the present. Leonia's voice carried across the hall, with a quality that none of the other singers possessed—a clean and clear awareness of itself as an entity, an instrument— it became a partisan, a mother, a wife waiting for her beloved, it became any soldier on any side of any conflict, and in a final anguished vibration, his voice reached a seemingly impossible falsetto note which gave a final tug and pull, and—for a moment, the whole hall became buoyant, as if it were one soul, one white crane rising, in a single puff of incense.

Carol DeBusk relies deeply on Christian faith and Southern upbringing, believing love and forgiveness are the two key factors in happiness. She is a wife, mother, high school teacher, registered nurse, writer, and regular contributor to Fragile Arts Quarterly.

I sat and watched the baby birds from my window. They had tumbled out of the nest and were learning the art of flight. Still young and not yet ready to be on their own.

Mama

mockingbird had taken it upon herself to patrol my gardens. The display of motherly love was relaxing and entertaining. That is, until I saw the tabby easing closer to the little ones. She entered the garden from the side and was making her way between the flowers and shrubs. Mama bird did not have a clue what was approaching. So, when I darted out the door toward the tabby... Mama bird sensed danger and reacted. The only problem was that she did not know all the facts in the situation and she attacked the first target... my redhead. She was oblivious to the fact I was trying to protect her babies as well.

Funny thing, society can be the same way.

Christy Harrington Brave Revolver Studios www.cafepress.com/braverevolver

cactus - acrylic on pegboard

americus nebula - ink on drywall

currently - acrylic on canvas

flannel sleeve - acrylic on card stock

thirteen - ink on wood

words forming - acrylic on canvas

time warp - ink on drywall

present - clay and ink on canvas

stain glass - mixed media on wood

Vague Rant - acrylic on canvas

Shirley Lyn Thistlethwaite South Carolina

Wish: One If I got to be an angel for a day, I would like to lie on my stomach on a cloud and rest my chin in my hands, wings flapping lazily behind me just enough to make a pleasant breeze. I would gaze down at the earth and see what sort of shapes I could imagine being there and point them out to you while you lie on your back in the grass of a mountaintop meadow, telling me what shapes you see in the clouds.

Wish: Two If I had the chance for just one day to be two things at once, I would like to be two flowers grown up through the sidewalk cracks on the path to your front door. I would stand up straight and tall on my spindly stems and wait for you to choose. I hope you would pick both - one to give and one to keep because I'd like to be the flower that you picked to give to me and I'd also like to be the one that rests in a mason jar of water on the kitchen window sill, keeping you company while you wash the dishes.

Wish: Three Three candles on your birthday cake each representing a bunch of years so as not to start a fire. A present, wrapped even though you already know what it is because I told you because I keep telling you because I'm like that. My third and final wish having already been granted everything I could ever hope for (plus being an angel and growing in your path). So for my last wish, I hope they will bend the rules so that while you blow out three candles with your eyes squeezed shut, you won't notice me making the switch as I give my last wish to you.

A Decade, Momentarily

1976 It was the country's bicentennial, special quarters were issued and my Dad collected them in the belief that someday... We put on a patriotic play in the school gym, my Mom came with rollers in her hair and I was embarrassed. There was a Presidential election that year and afterwards, when Carter was inaugurated, they let us watch it on TV in class. TV in school. I may as well have been on Mars. But it made the intended impression of importance. 1978 We had a blizzard that winter and all I knew was that it was another snow day. Off to play in the snow with my Collie and what a thrill to find I was half buried in white. The dog helped create a path and together we made snow angels. Later, I would be made to give that dog away in the rain which hid my tears which I denied ever shedding. 1979 The year of years to stay up til midnight. I calculated in my head the next time the decade changed I would be 21 years old some kind of adult what sort of alien creature might I be? I thought ahead further to the decade after which would be a new century practically impossible to conceive of, and I who was 11 who was old before I was young would be 31 - which was totally unbelievable and I'd probably have died of old age before then anyway.

1981 Special Report breaking into my Mom's soap opera in the afternoon to tell us that Reagan had been shot. My Mother always groaned with concern when a Special Report came on and I adopted her stance. 1982 Another Special Report: a plane crashed in DC and survivors were being plucked one by one, before the television cameras from the icy Potomac that one guy who kept passing the rescue line on to others who never got rescued himself. Sometimes in my dreams, I go back for him. He is there, waiting. I bring him to shore and Red Cross volunteers wrap blankets around us and give us coffee in styrofoam cups. Amidst the chaos and tragedy, we linger for a moment on the banks of the Potomac our breath appearing and disappearing in the air and he looks at me and says, "Whew, that was close" before going home to his family. I wake up. 1986 The year I graduated high school, the year I didn't go to the prom because nobody asked me, which was not unexpected. Prom night was like most of my other Saturday nights paging through my Mom's 1968 set of World Book Encyclopedias, sipping tea at the kitchen table. That edition contained the Warren Report which I read many Saturday nights over the years. At that time, to me it was just another FACT, like everything else printed in the 1968 set of World Book Encyclopedias, I never doubted it. My mind had other troubles then and the questioning of FACTS would have to wait.

Woolly Bear Caterpillars, butterflies and toads living in old coffee jars with holes poked through the lids, grass clippings and dandelion leaves lovingly placed as a source of food and to make a soft bed in the new home. Each creature completely content and delighted to meet a human child perceptive enough to communicate in the native language. Each one given a special name and sharing in the day's adventures from the comfort of the jar. My Mother, completely ignorant of the magical qualities of human-animal discussions, telling me daily that each must be set free outside before I came in for the night. It was useless trying to explain that the particular caterpillar in question on this day wanted to spend the rest of his life in my coffee jar paradise, protected from the elements, supplied with food and friendship for eternity, and that he was very fond of his name - the sound of it making him wriggle with joy in the palm of my hand where he occasionally liked to be held and petted. There was never any point in trying to convey the harsh realities of a cruel world that awaited the caterpillar once he was removed from the safety of the jar. My Mother had no understanding of real life and would say the most ridiculous things about him being free, etc. She was too fixated upon such mundane activities as peeling potatoes for dinner to appreciate the caterpillar's loneliness, which he had revealed to me in a conversation on the back steps, and that it was hard for him to make friends because he found other caterpillars were mostly mean and not at all interested in the magic of words being found in a raindrop on the edge of a leaf. What value was freedom when the heart withered beneath? But I did understand what the Woolly Bear meant and tried to reassure him that everything would be all right as I removed the lid and turned the jar upside down under a twilight sky so vast. I did not like to linger as he made his solitary way toward the mysterious perils of this wild earth so I turned, replacing the lid on the coffee jar for tomorrow. ~

Saturn's Moons cheerlessly hanging like Christmas ornaments no one remembered to take down, eternal understudies to the rings which reap all the glowing reviews from the critics of the universe but at least they have each other which is more than can be said for Our Moon a celestial Oliver Twist, mute as the cow jumps over stealing all the glory again, slave to a job he can never clock out from pushing the seas back and forth over sand bars and rocky shores and the bare feet of tourists.

I've always been a slow reader although I just thought it was normal until my teachers explained you could devour books much more efficiently by having your eyes jump hastily from one group of words to the next and drawing from this practice the basic context. My eyes balked at this idea preferring instead to glance demurely at each word from across the room with the slightest hint of come-hither and wait patiently until one by one, each word approached and asked for a dance. ~

You can’t slide me into your wallet between a business card for some lawyer and a drycleaner’s ticket - I’ll fallout. You can’t rattle me with spare change in your pocket as you walk down the street I’ll nickel and dime the place until I burn a hole through it. Don’t try to press me between the pages of a book you never read because I won’t be there when you dust off the jacket to admire your work. But I wouldn’t mind your mind if you wanted to keep me in the back where I could swing in a hammock, dragging my toes in your sands and letting the juice from an orange run down my arm.

Amanda Gibson was raised on the west coast, but currently resides in Anchorage, Alaska. Additional poetry by Amanda can be found at: www.myspace.com/aepomeroy

evolution I've been here ten years. It's true, what they say..."the Last Frontier." I think people think igloos, but it's not really like that... There's a certain evolution that occurs to sustain life in a town this cold. The seasons stride by like strangers eyeing you, briefly, curiously, before passing by. Indifferent. Winter is family. Your freeloading cousin that parks his sloppy ass on your couch for eight months and eats the last of your Doritos. The guy that won't leave. The guy that leaves his messes on your front lawn, and in your entryway, and sometimes even in your favorite chair. He takes the fun out of all your plans Uses your car without permission, and carelessly wrecks it the day before your big trip. Because of him, you begrudgingly hide your favorite pairs of sandals and pumps. You send them into hibernation like bears, because Winter has mutt tendencies, and will most likely chew them up, or pee in them when you try to ignore him. So. Yes. I've been here ten years. I have changed. But, I am not a sheep, just because 37

I live in the mountains. I do not assimilate. I have evolved. In a state this cold, you lay aside your peacock feathers and don warm penguin suits. You layer on the carbs so you don't freeze and you waddle so you don't slip. You laugh at the cute twenty-something in four inch heels, and hold your breath as she tests fate and gravity half praying she makes it to her car okay. half hoping she falls on her pretty ass and learns her lesson. You learn to add an extra half hour to make time for the extensive bundling you must administer before each outing, to anywhere, even the mailbox. Your best friends become fur-lined anything. You make fashion statements with mittens and knitted hats. You toss aside fashion for function and self-preservation. You survive. You evolve.

my humblest apologies please excuse me while I wobble in my humblest apologies for bumping shins... stepped on toes... and knocking knees. excuse me, please. my grace does shake on stagnant limbs and if perchance I fear to dare, it's only in a moment's fear, then peaking eyes do reappear a year of shell and dark divide a year of missing more than eyes sever-cut, a traitor's lie stuck in my belly tucked under thigh. excuse me, please I missed your chin? it wasn't your side the dagger slipped in...? oh, please tell me I missed the mark and reassure me I was alone in the dark. there's no light in here you see, my dear? my conch shell cold my heart black sold to the jack-tar fellow whose motives unfold.

Razor

I'm afraid so I slip the razor under the door to see if it cuts the souls of your feet you have not yelped yet. I stay and wait with another razor.

(...social anxiety disorder.)

BĂŠlier

it's not my birthday it's not fireworks, or love at first sight it's not finding magic under my pillow or taking my first jump into something unseen it's floating it's thinking it's passive, but balanced with strength it gets me there without walking it finds me here, not struggling it's me, making cookies at night with no metronome of calories, tallying, but simply enjoying the sweet warmth on my lips and the dip of milk at midnight when all the kids are dreaming. Looking forward to their eyes light up in the morning when they find mommy's sweet treats.

when did the blaze turn to flame? when did I discover love for the little things? when did I pass the cusp from fire to fish? it doesn't matter. on days like this... I'm here.