Chante Ishte by The Linnet's Wings

DRESSING THE NUDES Spring Dressing

at The Linnet's Wings

CHANTE ISHTA

“Or maybe spring is the season of love and fall the season of mad lust. Spring for flirting but fall for the untamed delicious wild thing.” Elizabeth Cohen, The Hypothetical Girl, “It is a very beautiful day. The woman looks around and thinks: 'there cannot ever have been a spring more beautiful than this. I did not know until now that clouds could be like this. I did not know that the sky is the sea and that clouds are the souls of happy ships, sunk long ago. I did not know that the wind could be tender, like hands as they caress - what did I know - until now?” Unica Zürn “Always it’s Spring)and everyone’s in love and flowers pick themselves.” E.E. Cummings

Reading at 'The Linnet's Wings: The Guy Thing by Bruce Harris, Purple Kisses by Priya Prithviraj, Three Pounds of Cells by Oonah V Joslin

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” Pablo Neruda “Spring is the time of plans and projects.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina “What a strange thing!to be alive beneath cherry blossoms.” Kobayashi Issa “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg “Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"..."It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...” Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast “She turned to the sunlight, And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: "Winter is dead.” A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young “It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” Rainer Maria Rilke “If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." [Meditations Divine and Moral]” Anne Bradstreet, The Works of Anne Bradstreet “Because the birdsong might be pretty, But it's not for you they sing, And if you think my winter is too cold, You don't deserve my spring.” Erin Hanson “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind “So I am not a broken heart. I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete. I am not this year and I am not your fault. I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day, but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore. I am the way a life unfolds and bloom and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life. I am not your fault.” Charlotte Eriksson

When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be

POETRY

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats

LYRIC

CHANTE ISHTA The Eye in the Heart Prose, Poetry and More Fine Art from "The Linnet's Wings" contributors

CLASSIC HEARTS

CLASSIC ART

Dedicated To Annie Lynam: 1935-2018 To Mam with Love

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, mail the publisher at thelinnetswings@gmail.com

ISBN13:9781717200990

Spring 2018 FIRST EDITION 4 /2018 Printed by CS Amazon

Other Publications "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ISBN 13: 978-1480176423 "The House that Jack Built" ISBN-13: 978-1483977669 "One Day Tells Its Tale to Another" by Nonnie Augustine ISBN-13: 978-1480186354 "About the Weather-- Spring Trending" by Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick ISBN-13: 978-0993049330 "This Crazy Urge to Live" by Bobby Steve Baker ISBN-13: 978-099304909 "Disabled Monsters" by John C. Mannone ISBN-13:978-1522869504 "Three Pounds of Cells" by Oonah V Joslin ISBN-13: 978-0993049378 "The Guy Thing" by Bruce Harris ISBN-13: 978-1981116409 Poetry Series "Purple Kisses" by Priya Prithviraj ISBN-13: 978-1978203266

TABLE OF CONTENTS

L'église St. Desir by Louis Vivin 16

FRONT MATTER Epigraph: The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins,

SECTION ONE 'In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start' (W. H. Auden) LYRIC: Who's Got It Going On, Words, Marie Fitzpatrick, Music, Jon Harrington and Graeme Weston, 29 The Inoculation of Romance by Judith A. Lawrence, 31 SCARS by Jane Fuller, 42 Interview: Ten Questions for Bruce Harris, 48 The Dumpmaster's Boy by Tom Sheehan, 52

SECTION TWO Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills. (Miguel de Cervantes) The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde, 66 Spring Dressing: Dressing the Nudes, 76 Meditations on dear Petrov by Susan Tepper, 84 The Deer's Cry (Old Irish Classic), 90 Standing Between Two Bumpers by Akeith Walters, 96 SECTION THREE Cherry-Ripe by Thomas Campion, 96

SECTION THREE Drag your thoughts away from your 17

April Snow, Salem by Maurice Prendergast

troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. (Mark Twain) The Light Givers by Oonah Joslin, 101 Pack up Your Troubles by Jane Fuller, 104 Natural Selection by Anum Sattar, 106 The Courtship by Anum Sattar, 107 Parenthood by Anum Sattar, 108 Another Myth About The Garden by Anum Sattar, 110 Nocturne by Cindy King, 113 The Ant by Dolores Duggan, 117

Dear Teacher by David Roe, 119 Student Body by Jim Landwehr, 120 Suckling Heaven by Jennifer Lothrigel, 122 SAIGON SAM by Jim Hatfield, 123 The Craft of Coping by Wendy Howe, 124 Sunrise by ART Beate Sigriddaughter, 126 CLASSIC In Praise of Slugs by James Graham, 128 INHERITED CHARACTERISTICS by Patrick Theron Erickson, 130 Note Left for Her on a Cool Morning by James Owens, 132 18

CLASSIC ART L'église St. Desir by Louis Vivin, 16 April Snow, Salem by Maurice Prendergast, 18 The Kiss by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 28 Landscape under a Stormy Sky by Vincent van Gogh, 45 Irish Cottage by Robert Henri, 52 The Old Fiddler by James Campbell, 60 Snow Maiden by Nicholas Roerich, 69 The selfish giant artwork by Charles Robinson, 70 Female Nude by Amedeo Modigliani, 78 Paris Nude by Edvard Munch, 79 Seated Nude by Edward Degas, 80 Sleeping Nude with Arms Open (Red Nude) by Amedeo Modigliani, 81 Study of a Male Nude by Theodore, 82 Male Nude with a Glass and Snake (Asclepius) by Albrecht Durer, 83 Cherry Ripe by John Everett Millais The Virgin Mary in Prayer by Albrecht Durer, 88 At the summer house in twilight by Isaac Levitan, 94 Cherry Ripe by John Everett Millais, 97 Horse Frightened by Lightning by Eugène Delacroix, 100 At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her by Arthur Rackham, 105 PHOTOSHOP The Ducks, which he had once saved, dived and brought up the key from the depths Arthur Rackham, 106 White Birds in Snow by Ohara Koson, Style: Shinhanga, 109 Yerres, Camille Daurelle under an Oak Tree by Gustave Caillebotte, 110 The Nocturnal Travellers by Honore Daumier, 112 Funny War: Spionage by Raphael Kirchner, 115 19

The Concert in the Egg by Hieronymus Bosch, 116 Principles of a schoolmaster, teaching scene for children by Hans Holbein the Younger, 118 Girl with Long Hair, with a sketch for 'Nude Veritas' by Gustav Klimt, 121 Postcard Woman As Witch by Fritz Rehm, 122 Red Ocean Blue 1915 by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, 123 Mushroom by Ivan Bilibin, 125 Flower Sketch for The Enchanted Garden by John William Waterhouse, 129 The Magic of the Cobweb by Charles Robinson, 131 Morning by Edvard Munch, 133

PHOTOSHOP Spring Dressing, Dressing the Nudes Mog's Tulips, MLF, 2018, 78 Paris Nude Dressed PS, MLF, 2018, 79 Nude Dancer PS MLF 2018, 80 Celebrating the Senses PS MLF, 2018, 81 Lifting Spring PS, MLF, 2018, 8 New Life PS, MLF, 2018, 83 Best Friends Forever, Watercolour on Card, MLF, 123

Editors for the Issue Managing, Marie Fitzpatrick Senior Editor Bill West Poetry Editor Oonah Joslin Data and Web Peter Gilkes Print Design Marie Fitzpatrick Offices for the Issue Design: Carchuna, Andalucia, Espana Publishing: Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, ROI Online: The Linnet's Wings Submission Office

The Windhover (To Christ Our Lord) I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. Gerard Manley Hopkins

In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973 (In Memory of W. B. Yeats)

SECTION ONE

The Kiss

ICONIC ARTISTS Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

WHERE POETRY MEETS ART

PURPLE KISSES ISBN-13: 978-1978203266

LYRIC

WHO'S GOT IT GOING ON? Intro [ C Am Dm G ] C Who's got it going on Am The stars came out in day Dm G for some fool invented kissing Dm G on April fool's day FG Clear skies bright stars C Am lit up life in day Dm when a fool for love F Dm G got rid of words that got in his way

(Reprise) F G Dm G C and a man invented kissing on April fool's day Outro – chords [ C Am Dm G ] Someone's always doing it, screwing with it brewing it, renewing it Someone's always making it, taking it Shaking it, faking it Someone's always sowing it, growing it Knowing it, sometimes blowing it Someone's always dreaming it, scheming it Meaning it, screaming it Someone's always messing with it, guessing it Addressing it, obsessing over it Words: Marie Fitzpatrick Music: Jon Harrington and Graeme Weston

The Inoculation of Romance by Judith A. Lawrence

rion Bellefleur was admittedly a mama’s boy. He’d always been. He adored his mother, Viola Bellefleur, a stage actress since her thirties. Well known in the small mill village of Esmond, in the Smithfield town of Rhode Island where she was born, she was in all the local plays as one character or another over the years. Beginning from the age of four, Orion became her mascot sitting on a wood stool peeking at her from the side curtains during most of her performances. No one knew for sure who Orion’s father was, though the town gossipers spread plenty of

rumors. Some older inhabitants recalled that in the fall of 1962, Viola traveled to Greece to attend school and twelve months later returned with baby Orion. Over the years no one had been successful at prying Viola’s secret from her. When friends asked about her parents, Viola replied they died when she was four years old, and she was raised by her grandmother, but it seemed odd to Orion that she did not have even one photo of her parents or her grandmother. The only bit of information his mom provided about his dad was that she met him in Greece when she studied there. She described him as the most romantic handsomest man in the world with wavy black hair and dark eyes. Whenever she spoke of him, her eyes would light up, cloud over, and off she would go to her room, not returning for hours. *** Home-schooled by his mother, Orion escaped years of taunting by children in the local public school over his Elizabethan manners and pretty boy looks. 31

When Orion turned sixteen, a new girl moved into their neighborhood, two houses down from him. He fell in love the moment he met fifteen year old Joanie, with her strawberry blond hair, dimples and large brown eyes. She was from Ohio. Most of the time, they sat on his front porch talking or playing cards. She seemed to find everything he said amusing. He had no idea why, as often it was not intended to be. Six months later he asked to take her on a dinner date at a new Italian restaurant, by sending her a flowery invitation. She thought it was very cute, and agreed. Orion polished his dress shoes and went to pick her up in a dark blue suit and striped tie. He bought a box of chocolates, and picked a bouquet of flowers from a meadow down the road. His heart was pounding when he rang her doorbell. When Joanie opened the door, her face registered embarrassment. She was wearing short-shorts and a peasant blouse. “Oh, I didn’t know it was a fancy restaurant.” She said in alarm. Orion’s face turned bright pink. “It’s quite alright. I can go change.” “No, wait just a minute. I can change to a skirt.” Handing the flowers and candy to her startled mother, Joanie ran upstairs and quickly changed into a dress, exchanging her sandals for ballerinas. Orion stood awkwardly in the front door entry and waited. As they walked to the restaurant, Joanie kept turning around to look behind her. “Did you lose something?” Orion asked. “No, I just don’t want my friends to see me on a date,” she said. For the life of him, he did not understand why. When they were seated, and had placed their order, he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was pale orange and folded in the shape of an origami butterfly. He carefully unfolded it, and looked up at Joanie's flushed face. “I wrote this poem for you. May I read it? “ Joanie nodded, and scanned the tables around them hoping no one was within hearing distance or looking at them. The poem was exceptionally romantic, describing the rays of sunlight on her hair, the flecks of green in her brown eyes, and the sunlit kissed freckles across her nose. 32

At the end of the poem, Joanie could no longer contain herself, and broke out in laughter. “You are the corniest boy I’ve ever met.” Orion was crestfallen. He looked down on his plate of veal picante swimming in sauce that the waiter placed in front of him, and felt suddenly nauseous. Underneath the table his feet squirmed in his shoes. Trickles of underarm sweat leaked into his shirt. He prayed his deodorant covered it up. “Oh my goodness! I hope you’re not crying. I didn’t mean to laugh, but sometimes Orion, you talk so strange. What am I to do with you?” “It’s alright. I’m just learning to write poetry. I suppose I’m not that knowledgeable in the subject.” “It’s kind of icky.” Joanie agreed. After their ill-fated dinner, Joanie stopped coming around to sit on the porch. Orion would see her walk by with her new friends without even a wave of her hand. Often her chums would turn to look back at him and giggle at something Joanie was saying. He dated very little after Joanie. Each girl he met dropped him soon after their first date. Though he tried very hard to meet their expectations, to Orion it seemed impossible to please them. *** Orion grew up loving the romantic world his mom lived in. In her late fifties, Viola still wore pastel and lace dresses, her long hair in a loose coiled braid flowing down her back, and flowery sandals. She always wore a touch of rouge and lipstick on her face applied first thing in the morning after splashing her face with rosewater, and applying her own home made secret ingredient face cream. Jane Austen was her favorite author, and she often spoke as if she was a character in one of her books. In addition to inheriting his mom’s cultivated voice, Orion inherited a deeper sea green shade of her eyes, her alabaster skin and the darker hair of his absent father. His face was delicately carved, more boyish than handsome. Leanly built, there was a gentlemanly old world quality to his manner and in the way he moved. *** 33

In his mid-twenties, Orion went to the opening of Silk Stockings at the theater. Viola was chosen to play Janice Paige’s role. Though she usually played the lead, she was not the best dancer. As always, she was magical in her portrayal almost stealing it from the leading lady. Orion was mesmerized by the talented dancer who played Fred Astaire’s part. From that time on, he wanted to be a ballroom dancer. He immediately signed up for weekly classes at the Fred Astaire studio on Main Street. The studio was separated into four units. A, B, C, and the manager’s office. There were two male instructors and one female. Each room contained a mirrored wall, a polished floor sprinkled with baby powder, a couple benches, a coat rack, soft lighting, and a stereo. Orion was assigned Studio A with Katie, a petite older German woman as his dance instructor. Each Wednesday and Friday night, she patiently tried to teach him beginner dance steps for the Foxtrot, Sambo, Waltz, and Swing. Usually light on his feet, and a quick learner, Orion was having a difficult time learning each dance, often losing his step and balance. It was due to the cloyingly sweet perfume Katie consistently wore. It was so overpowering that it threw his concentration off. On the sixth Wednesday night of instruction, Katie stepped away from Orion in the middle of a tricky dance step, threw up her hands in exasperation, and walked away chiding him, “I’m afraid you’re wasting my time and your money young man. Right now, I need to use the powder room. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” He watched her walking away, nosily clicking her heels on the parquet floor. The bathrooms were near the back exit, so he had a few minutes to himself. He strolled to the corner of the room, sat on a bench, and took a deep breath of unperfumed air. He was thinking it’s probably best if I quit and try to find another studio. At that precise moment, a young woman entered the room. Orion couldn’t take his eyes off her. Dressed in a summery periwinkle blue dress that floated around her, she wore her long wavy auburn hair in a loose style tumbling down her back. Tendrils of hair framed her delicate face. Larry Epstein, the dance studio manager, walked alongside her chatting as they circled the room. Orion was immediately jealous, despite that the man was gay, and 34

considerably older. He would have been delirious if time stood still and no one else existed but himself and this amazing woman. As he watched the young woman and Larry head out of the room toward the next room, and the next, he followed from a short distance behind, stopping in each room as if he wanted to observe the dancers when it was only she he wanted to observe. There was a sweet Viennese waltz dance in room B with Mr. Benjamin teaching a spritely teenager who moved like an angel. Orion studied the face of the beautiful woman watching the young girl with such bemusement. He imagined her seeing herself as a teenager dancing her first waltz. When they reached Larry’s office, Orion waited until they stepped into Larry’s office, and partially closed the door. He stood leaning against the outside wall of the office within earshot. Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets, was playing in Room C next to the office. Enrico was teaching a middle age rather chunky woman the mambo. Straining to listen to Larry fade in and out about salary, work hours, and number of clients, Orion quietly rejoiced. This dreamy woman was being hired as the new dance instructor. Good thing, he thought, or he would have made a fool of himself following her out of the building and beyond like some kind of mad stalker. As she exited the office shaking hands with Larry, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Katie advancing down the hallway toward him. Orion quickly ducked into Larry’s office. “If you have a minute, Larry, I would like to discuss something with you.” “Sure, I can spare a couple minutes. I was heading out for dinner, and meeting a friend, so can’t talk long.” Orion understood that to mean meeting his life partner. He sat down and quickly explained in as few words as possible, “Katie is an excellent teacher, but I feel that we may be incompatible as dance partners. Perhaps it’s our difference in height. Although it is certainly not her fault, I’m afraid I exacerbate her patience. I realize that she is the only female instructor. Sadly, although I have a six month contract, I may have to ask to break the contract due to your lack of another female instructor.” Larry rubbed his bristly tapered beard. “I see. That could be a problem. Katie is considerably shorter. But I have some good news for you. I have just hired a new instructor. Her name is Francesca. She has excellent credentials. She was trained in England, and excels in International and American Ballroom styles. Would you like to try a new instructor?” 35

“That would be excellent.” Orion could barely contain himself from flinging his body across the desk and hugging the man. He spent that Friday night taking instructions from Katie, who couldn’t decide if she was relieved of losing her client or jealous of the new dance instructor he was assigned to. Three times she stepped on Orion’s feet, although his steps were unusually perfect. By the third time he was convinced it was intentional despite her insincere apology punctuated with a nervous giggle. *** The following Wednesday night, he showered, patted a dab of Vetiver, his favorite Guerlain cologne on his throat, and dressed for dance class as if he was meeting royalty. Katie was teaching the box step to her new hapless client, a farmer with thick soled shoes and feet of clay who must have arrived straight from the fields with his farm shoes still on. As he moved past them, the mixture of Katie’s perfume, and the odor of horse manure lingered. Orion was twenty minutes early, so sat down on a bench at the far end of the room. He watched the odd dance couple struggle. He wasn’t sure which one he felt more sympathetic to. “Pick up your feet, and bend your knees, Mr. Bauer. No, no, not that high. It’s not a march. It’s the foxtrot.” Francesca walked in exactly at 8:00 o’clock. She was dressed in a knee length flowery dress with flutter sleeves. Her hair was piled loosely on her head pinned by a jeweled comb. The room seemed to spin as Orion rose to walk towards her. The moonlight beaming through the window cast her in a surreal image, and for a moment he thought he might be dreaming. Francesca held out her hand. Orion shook it noting the absence of a ring. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bellefleur. My name is Francesca Amato.” “I’m delighted to meet you. Please call me Orion. I’m hoping you will have 36

considerable patience with me. I have to admit, thus far, I’ve been a terrible dancer.” “Don’t you worry, Orion. Soon I’ll have you entering competitions. It’s really about following the beat of the music, relaxing your muscles, and allowing your body to move.” Katie shot a rueful look toward then both as she exited the room with her farmer client who stumbled on the door jamb. Over the next hour Francesca asked Orion to go through each of the dances he learned thus far with Katie. She asked him to choose his favorite recording for each dance, and smiled approvingly at each selection. Holding her in his arms was the headiest feeling he ever experienced. Perhaps his feelings worked their way into his footing, as he never danced better. As they danced to Henry Mancini’s Stella by Starlight, Francesca softly stated, “Why, Orion, I really don’t see you have a problem dancing at all. Your timing is impeccable.” “I do think I am doing better tonight. I may be finally catching on, and can move on to the next steps,” he responded, leaning in to breathe in the hyacinth scent of her hair. Orion finished out his six months of dance instructions and signed up for six months more. By the end of his lessons, Francesca entered Orion into the Massachusetts amateur ballroom competition. She would be his dance partner. They would be dancing two rounds each of the foxtrot and waltz. Orion invited his mother to the competition. It was the first she learned of him taking lessons. “How wonderful,” she exclaimed. “You know your father was a wonderful dancer as well.” It was the first time she mentioned this about his father. He was used to his mother dropping hints about his father over the years, like leaving bread crumbs on an unconnected trail. When he would urge her to go on, she would quickly change the subject. At first it angered him, but as he got older, he thought there seemed to be a good deal she was hiding, perhaps he wondered out of shame. He occasionally thought his father might have been a married man when they met, and he was the product of their union. She need not have worried. It would not have mattered to him. He adored his mother and would have forgiven her anything. As time went on, Orion felt fairly certain she would go to her grave with her secrets intact. *** 37

At the competition, Orion wore a black tux, and pink bowtie. Francesca wore a filmy pale pink long gown with feathered trim. They made a stunning entrance, and went on to win first place in the waltz, and second place in the foxtrot. Though Orion was unnerved at the attendants shouting out the performers’ numbers as they danced, his alarm faded once he was in Francesca’s arms. He danced as smooth as a professional. They were easily the favorite of the audience, although one of the judges ruled that there was a tiny misstep in his foxtrot, putting them in second place in spite of the loud booing of the audience. As they walked back to the changing rooms, Francesca grabbed Orion’s hand and whispered in his ear, “Not to worry. It’s rumored that Judge Jim is enamored with the female dancer who took first place in the foxtrot.” Orion laughed. “I’m just incredulous that I was in the running.” *** Orion found the love of his life in Francesca. They married when he turned thirty. Over time the two of them became International dancers admired all over the world. In his late forties, while he and Francesca were in England, he received a call from a friend of Viola’s. She had passed out on stage, and was rushed to the hospital. He immediately flew back to the states, to learn his mother had a stroke. From her bed, she looked at him with so much love and pride, but was unable to talk. He stayed at her side day and night. Five days later she died. Orion was heartbroken. Francesca flew to the states to be by his side and help to arrange the funeral. Hundreds of people turned out for Viola’s funeral, and a grand party was held in her name. Videos of her in many plays ran non-stop for four hours during the celebration. A week after the funeral Orion felt up to visiting her apartment to sort through her papers. He found her will, a number of important papers, and some letters wrapped in cellophane. Tucked in the bottom of her lingerie drawer was an old frayed thick diary. Orion put everything in a carton and placed it in the backseat of his car. He kept thinking about that diary. Part of him wanted to read every word to unlock the mystery 38

of his mother, and another part of him could not help but believe she would not want him to. By the time he arrived home, he had made his decision. He put her unopened diary in a lockbox, and placed it in back of the top shelf of the closet. Five years later, Francesca gave birth to a beautiful little girl. They named her Isabelle Viola after each of their mothers. When Isabelle was five years old, she was playing in her father’s office. He had opened the lock box to take out some papers, and briefly stepped out of the room to turn off the shrilling tea kettle whistling in the kitchen. When he returned, Isabelle looked up at him with the diary in her hand. She said, “Daddy why is my book in here?” “Oh no, that’s not one of your books, Isabelle. It’s your grandmother’s. See how old it is.” He reached down to show her. “It’s mine,” she insisted. “I’ll show you. Here’s my picture, and there’s one of you too.” She opened it to the center and several pictures fell to the floor. Orion picked up the photos and saw several photos of him growing up, his Mom as a little girl in a studio portrait, the spitting image of Isabelle, and a photo of a smiling young Viola with her arm linked to a tall older man who looked remarkably like him at the age he was now. So this must be my father, he thought. There was also a glossy tinted photo of a woman perhaps in her sixties, and a faded black and white photo of a young woman. She looked to be in the trimester of her pregnancy. He explained to Isabelle that the photos were of family taken many years ago. Isabelle looked at the pictures closely, and in a subdued mature voice replied, “Oh yes, I remember now. That’s me and Marcos by the river where we used to meet.” Orion had read a few articles on reincarnation, never quite buying into the belief. It unnerved him to even think about it. He thought it best to change the subject. “Let’s go drink our tea and dip our crullers,” he coaxed her. It was their custom once a week, where Isabelle played she was a princess entertaining her guests. Her favorite bunny sat on another chair, and the three of them communed together. As Isabelle ran ahead of him, he tucked the photos back in the diary and placed them back in the lockbox. Late that night while Francesca and Isabelle were sleeping, he went to his office and retrieved the dairy. 39

He read it cover to cover. All of Viola’s secrets spilled out on the page, one by one. Viola wrote that she was a foundling left in a wicker basket on the back yard porch of an unmarried neonatal nurse in her late fifties. A newborn, she was wrapped in a rose pink blanket, tucked in with a pink teddy bear. There was an envelope pinned to the blanket containing a sparkly teardrop hanging from a thin silver chain necklace, and the photo of the smiling young pregnant mother leaning up against a fence. Viola learned of her sad beginning when she graduated high school. Not long after her adoptive mother died, she received a grant to study for six months in Greece where she met Marcos. There were pages and pages of sometimes intimate descriptions of romantic meetings with him that followed. In one passage she wrote, “One night we danced to the small record player on the roof of my dwelling, under a blanket of twinkling stars. How gracefully he moved and took me with him easily across that roof despite my being a beginning dancer. It was the night I fell hopelessly in love.” Fifty pages later, she wrote, “I was walking through the park one day, taking a shortcut to school. I sat down to read the last few paragraphs of my lesson in preparation for an English test. I looked up from my book just in time to see a pretty young woman watching her husband play ball with a small boy a short distance away.” Laughing, the woman sang out, “Marcos, look how much he takes after you.” “At that point Marcos turned, met my eyes, and locked. By the time his wife turned to see what he was staring at, I was up and running off. A month later I found I was pregnant. I finished school, found a tiny apartment, got a job in a local eatery, and had my baby at the hospital clinic. I never saw Marcos again. Despite my longing to meet someone new, I never did, and never fell out of love with Marcos.” She went on to note her love of the theatre, how she struggled in the beginning, and wrote of some amusing flirtations, and revealing accounts of people she met along the way. On the last page of the diary, she wrote, “Today I learned my son, my beautiful son, Orion, named after the constellation of the stars, has become a divine dancer just like his father. ****** 40

Amazon Paperback: 286 pages Publisher: Deeds Publishing (January 16, 2018) Language: English ISBN-10: 1947309218 ISBN-13: 978-1947309210 Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches

Written with crisp, precise prose, 3 Women, 4 Towns, and 5 Bodies is a stylish and modern take on noir fiction. These stories portray a world that is glamorous, mysterious, a bit seedy, and thoroughly compelling. Fans of Raymond Chandler and Elmore Leonard will love the sparkling dialogue and dry wit. Martha Conway, author of The Underground River

If you like your plots hard-boiled, your romances illicit, and your beautiful dames worldly, look no farther than this fast-paced collection of gleeful tales of trickery, murder and slow-simmered revenge. Set in lush locations as varied as 1960’s NYC, revival tents in 1928 Texas, and a mountain village in 1839 Hungary, these fascinating morally ambiguous stories will be just your cup of tea….or glass of fizzy champagne. Or claret. Or port…. . M. M. DeVoe, author of The Boy Who Loved Trees and founder of Pen Parentis

Townsend Walker’s collection of riveting stories reflects the imagination of a life well-

lived. The characters are well-drawn and as varied as the plots and places. I enjoyed these stories. They are exciting, fast paced reading. Jennifer Haupt, book reviewer for Psychology Today and Spirituality & Health 41

SCARS by Jane Fuller

Fisher folk’s ways.’

It was the being left for months on end that made her insides feel as if they were holding fast to a trapped dunlin. The wee bird longing to take its hollow bones and fly across the sea, soon developed into a reptilian thing; scrabbling and scratching, desperate to gasp at what oxygen it could get.

anine wondered what Robbie was doing tonight. Probably up to his arm-pits in slippery haddock or some bimbo with a trout pout he’d picked up from the docks. If She filled the kettle. It was perfectly it was hard being a fisherman, it was even round and shiny and she felt a kind of harder being a fisherman’s wife. She’d unexpected relief that comes from being able hesitated just a second too long before to fill your own space. It was about to hit saying ‘I do.’ They both knew it, even the whistle when a sudden squall battered though her mother had made sure to the front of the cottage. Nothing unusual straighten her course on the morning of the but as the insistent knocking continued she nuptials. realised she’d misunderstood the wind for someone chapping at the door and that she’d ‘Just doesn’t do for a lassie to keep in taken out two cups. at the schooling. That’s just the way of it. 42

His hair was as white as sand after the waves have taken the yellow soft top layer away with them during a storm. She wanted to reach out and stroke it, to test if it really was velvety like a seal pup's pelt. His smile was open and his handsome eyes were brown with green speckles making her think of the languid water left behind in a summer rock pool. He was clinging on to an old oak sea chest, the metal clasps tinged with seaweed and dotted with a few ancient barnacles.

‘You called me and I answered’ he said, making himself at home and settling in front of the plates heaving with crab sandwiches and the fruit loaf that Janine had cut, buttered and set out on her best crockery without even noticing. They talked for hours of the call of the sea and the power of the moon. He stroked her hair as he sang her old ballads and recited fisher-folk tales, almost forgotten. The dunlin was soothed and lay down, becalmed. Then they were lovers and it was as if it had always been. He placed his sea chest carefully at the foot of their bed and they held tight to each other bound round with great granny’s hand quilted counterpane. Gazing up through the skylight window at the night sky, as starlit and clear as the dome of a planetarium, 43

Janine felt a sense of release that danced to the rhythm of the breakers crashing onto the shore. Everyone knew who the stranger was, why he’d come and what he kept in his chest. It was just the way of it, fisher-folk’s ways and when Robbie came home he already knew, had always known, so he moved back in with his mother without complaint.

Seven happy years went by in a burst of sea spray, then Janine felt the wee sea bird sit up. She was walking along the strand line, picking up driftwood sticks, when it began itching and scratching away at her, trying to scramble away from its once cosy nest. She ran to the cottage, took the stairs two at a time, clattered across the floorboards but knew what she would find. He’d already slip-slopped away.

Robbie was back at her side like a rock. They decided to try again. Everyone said they should have a family. That might settle her and the bird agreed to it for a while. But the girls were gone now, off to the university. Things were so different these days. Fewer fish in the sea but wider horizons. Janine took to going out to set the creels saying she was hunting crab and lobster to dress for the tourists but they all knew she was looking for him out on the rocky outcrop inhabited only by seals and razorbills. On the map, they were marked ‘Skerries’ but everyone knew them as the Scars. She was unrecognisable now, forever out on the Scars. Her lips blistered and bitten, cracked on the turn of the tide and her hair knotted like the ropes of the dinghy that seemed to be trying its best to keep her soul afloat. She spoke little but when she was on land strode out to stand at the end of the pier and sing into the open sea.

So, they all knew, had always known, and when she was washed up onto the shore, her eyes as glassy as a fished-out haddock with her pockets brimming over with pebbles, everyone said it was a shame but it was just the way of it. Fisher folk’s ways. ****** 44

Landscape under a Stormy Sky by Vincent van Gogh

Table of Contents The Guy Thing The Telegram Boy Real Class Planet Past Terms and Conditions Philip’s Beaches Us and Them 81 Yearning to Breathe Free The Big Time The Daniel Album Thereabouts One More Morning Boy with a Gypsy Earring Jumping the Jacaranda A Lean and Hungry Look

www.thelinnetswings.org

The Guy Thing BRUCE HARRIS Paperback: 166 pages Publisher: The Linnet's Wings Platform: Create Space Independent Publishing Language: English ISBN-10: 1981116400 ISBN-13: 978-1981116409 Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches

Harris has provided a beautifully written and emotionally uplifting collection: John Holland 47

10 QUESTIONS FOR BRUCE HARRIS Author of the short story collection: "The Guy Thing"

Q. What's your top ten playlist? A. It would be impossible to put them in ranking order, because music is a lot about mood and circumstance. Songwise, it would include Chimes of Freedom, written and performed by Bob Dylan (though the Springsteen version is pretty good too); Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, also written by Bob Dylan, but sung by Joan Baez; The Boxer, by Simon and Gerfunkel; Baker Street, by Gerry Rafferty, in my opinion the best single of all time, and of course, the generational anthem, Hey Jude by the Beatles, which we’ll all be singing in our retirement villages, and some of us probably already are. Classical stuff would include Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (it was playing once when we were in a Metro station in Paris, and I wrote a poem about it); Finlandia by Sibelius, Beethoven’s Ninth, Mahler’s Fifth, and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. 48

Q. Did you know that Barbie is nearly 59 years old this year? She was a bit of an icon for many, what would you consider a icon for the same timeline? A.'I know it's not the most cheerful answer to give, but to me (and yes, I was alive and conscious at the time) it can only be 'the day the music died' man, Buddy Holly, whose music was iconic if anybody's ever was and whose death in February 1959 hit all of us kids hard, especially my poor sister. It was the first experience most of us had of the immediacy of death. The consolation was that it made his music live for ever afterwards; it influenced many who followed him, and it still does'. Q. Fashion as Art: We're both of an age that we've seen it all, seen more of the extremes than our own parents ever thought possible back in the day. Had you a preference for rockers, punks, mods, how many were there, did you even know or did these scenes bypass you? A. I’m not making myself out to be a being separate from the rest of the species, though I suppose we all are, to a greater or lesser extent, but I decided fairly early on not to idenitfy myself with anyone’s movement or suppress my identity with uniforms or code of beliefs. I don’t belong to any political party, or church, club, association etc. etc., nor will I. Q. Are you a Beatles fan? If so who is your favourite of the boys, if not, what band or bands did you like from the days? A. Of course. I was a teacher until the late eighties, and even then, the kids would name the Beatles as the greatest band of all time. John was my guy, and in particular the great humanist anthem ‘Imagine’. John gave them both the lyrics and the ‘edge’. I never bought the whole business of being either Beatles or Stones; there’s lots of Stones stuff I’ve always loved. Likewise the Who, the Moody Blues, Dire Straits (great Geordie band) and, naturally, the one and only Kinks. Q. Classical or Pop? A. I’ve never felt the need to make the choice; see Question 1.

Q. Have you been to the Ballet or Opera ? A. Never live. I’ve always loathed theatres; I hate the passivity of just sitting there and being acted at. If it’s going to happen, it happens in my own room on my own territory. Obviously, that attitude doesn’t make anything any easier, but I have dabbled with both on TV and film. I have a particular favourite in Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’, an iconic piece of music if ever there was one, and there are various arias which I find very moving, even if I can’t remember their names or where they came from! Q. What's your favourite film? A.‘The Lion in Winter’, starring Katherine Hepburn, Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton. Witty, edgy, cynical, the antidote to Shakespearian history. It’s about the relationship between Henry II and the incredible Eleanor of Aquitaine, played, of course, by Hepburn, who was already suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and even used it in her performace to get the rage right. Eleanor was the wife of both the King of France and the King of England (not at the same time, happily) and the mother of two English kings, Richard 1 and John. Henry was the king who had the set to with Thomas Becket – see also ‘Becket’, starring Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton. And, of course, I can’t let that question go without mentioning ‘Casablanca’. Q. What's your most memorable gallery visit? A.I’m not sure whether it counts as a gallery, but I will never forget my visit to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, an astinishingly poignant and evocative place which had me in a cubicle in the gents weeping. I grew up in the north-east of England, and there’s also the Lowry collection in Sunderland Museum. Lowry frequently went to the Sunderland coast to paint; in fact, I could have been one of his matchstick boys, because one of the spots where he habitually painted was on the cliffs above where I used to play football on the beach for hours on end in the spring and summer. Lowry’s paintings, however naïve they may look in reproductions and photos, are awesome at close quarters and in the originals. Q. What's your favourite short story of all time by another author? A. Annie Proulx’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was originally published as a short story in the New 50

Yorker. She is an extraordinary writer, and it wasn’t just the fact of a gay relationship happening deep in redneck country which makes it appeal to me (though it has a lot to do with it), it’s also her mastery of her material. With her native American connections and her deep knowledge of the people she’s writing about, her stories are fascinating on all sorts of levels. ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’, by one of my writing idols, Hilary Mantel, also rang many bells. Q. What's your favourite short story from your current collection: 'The Guy Thing?' A. No such thing; it’s like choosing a favourite child, something you shouldn’t do in case you upset the others. ‘The Daniel Album’, my only story with a gay theme which has won a prize in competition (are competition organisers homophobic? Discuss) says a lot not just about boys growing up gay, as I did, but also their straight friends. I’ve had people saying to me that it is very evocative of their own schooldays. ‘Yearning to Breathe Free’, with its immigration implications and its episodic structure, was also satisfying, because it developed from a simple idea of intercepting a cart on its way to the guillotine to a whole scenario with international and historical associations. ~~~

The Dumpmaster's Boy Tom Sheehan 52

Ears I had, and eyes, and I used them well. Before I walked by the group of men on the corner, bringing my grandfather’s lunch to the city dump where he worked, I knew they’d be talking about me. Even at six years of age, in 1934, there were certainties. It was the time of day, before the sun was up straight. The way they lounged. Who they were. How their clothes hung on them the way visitors come from out of town or right from ships. It was the clatter of their voices, snappy as a swung bag of clothespins. At times their teeth clicked a harmony. It could be measured. Ancient Irish men made noises that were music to my ears. My grandfather made music. He was Irish. One of them said one day, in a whisper I could hear, that my grandfather was sick. That’s when I got the worry. Even at six years of age, there were certainties, and uncertainties, and the unknown. I had become a worrier. “Oosh,” or “Ach,” they’d say as I walked by, or “Arrah” in the old tongue, their teeth clicking on briars, the old Irishmen gathered outside Clougherty’s bar in the west end of Malden, Massachusetts. It was 1934, the Depression a living taste about us, Prohibition afoot, the things that rose with us at breakfast, what there was of it, and set with the absence of a late snack. Clicking still, the men were as dark as the insides of that holy place behind them I hadn’t been inside of yet, with jackets and pants that were harsh to the touch, and their dark gray caps sitting jaunty on their heads. Squat pipes twirled smoke up under the brims, teeth-bitten, jaws set like anchors for those who were shaven, white-forested for those not. Any other place in the world they’d be sitting out front of a mine shaft or a gas works, far from home, “Ochone” keening from their lips, the grief. They’d be sitting on wooden boxes, milk crates, odd scrounged chairs, and Clougherty’s a temple of mystery behind them, behind a dark, dark door. Even short of my seventh birthday, I’d know the air around them even before I saw them. My nose would be up proper, testing. The coal-cut of gas slid over on its covering wing from the gas works back of Commercial Street. It is a smell lingering to this day, a smell that comes back, as though it’s on reminder visits. I know it whenever gasoline is being pumped at a station or being spouted into a lawn mower. I know it when I see an old and odd coal car now and then sitting like a fossil along little-used railroad tracks. I know it in the depths of an old cellar when coal dust, fine as crushed days telling of fieldstone and time, waits to be found by a nose like mine. 53

The smell was so strong it allowed the creation of games when I’d hold my breath, pretending the Kaiser’s freeking men were after me with their bags of green-awful gas. I’d puff my cheeks, waiting for G-8 or Nippy or Bull Martin, my pulp heroes, to come to my rescue. My face would get brick red and my chest would heave against itself and behind my eyes I’d see the rotters with their gas bags knocking down the way from Highland Avenue or The Fellsway, coming at me. There were times when I could let Hell break loose. The old Irishers’ voices would bring me back, voices that later I would stamp as high-pitched Yeatsian tongue in poetic treble, bringing me a new music, hearing The Man on record, hearing it “in the deep heart’s core,” knowing the haunt of it forever. “That’s for sure Johnny Igoe’s boy acarryin’ his lunch to the dump. Now that’s a good lad for his grandfather altogether, won’t you know.” Pipe smoke would rise, a hand held in half salute. They were not knocking the dump. For too many of us at that time it was hardware store and haberdashery, all-around supplier of used goods. It had endless yield and my grandfather, dumpmaster, city employee, was the head picker. Johnny Igoe had first call, first dibs. All he had to do was point at something and it was his, the chair with only one leg missing, a still-shiny pot, a book with its cover nearly gone asunder, an iron fire engine or tin plane, the kind to keep. As I passed the men, they’d be quiet a bit and let the smoke twirl up under their caps and their feet go still on the walkway. Amaze you they could, some of the older ones, who often played their shoes on the pavement like a soft shoe set, or a tambourine shushed and low. Some would nod their heads the way priests do when they look in your eye, heads cocked, or teachers my brother had at the school up on Pleasant Street; noses cocked, as if they knew everything there was to know on the face of the Earth. I watched their eyes, their hands, their feet, when I went by them on my errand. So many messages could be picked out of the air, so much understood about the long stretch of time. Gold chains across their vests, anchored to hidden watches, clutched inward a dazzle of daylight or sunlight. Occasionally one of them would work the shiny chain in his fingers, twirling it, cutting the air in little loops, catching light rays, spilling 54

seconds out of hours. Now and then a watch went into that small circle, in disdain of the flight or the compound of hours, but noiseless, a sun around a fist, and, like the sun, silent in journey. Someday I’d swing a watch or chain like that in small mechanics, the wrist pure and musical, time on the fly, sunlight all mine, or on its journey. But then, entrusted to my hands, was the great sandwich in a line of great sandwiches, my grandfather Johnny Igoe’s lunch of a day, two good fingers thick, and the bread crusty and thick, too. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied up in white string by my grandmother. Out of her oven that very morning the bread had come, six loaves so golden and gleaming a mouth’d water for an hour or more. Sometimes a whole day if she ever got cross with you for a poor deed, poor deed indeed. You could be begging for a block of butter to drop into the hot wrap of it. Her black stove flung itself across the kitchen back wall. It snapped noises only chimneys could catch hold of, mysterious crackling noises, and an ultimate power that drove every one of us out of that room but her on any July or August day. She had her colors; the stains under her arms turned as dark as lakes, her hair white, the blue eyes deep as the ovens themselves. Only the back of her wrist would touch her brow, the gesture of relief that only comes to women, especially those who warm by the oven, their eyes closed in tiny relief, a look off into the distance before going back about their business. Bake she was born for and bake she did, and having kids in her days, and giving off tarts and slabs of pies and tasty things thick and chewy with gobs of cinnamon in them. Sugar trailed in every corner of the house and a wonder the little things didn’t carry off the whole house of it. “Suck on your tooth when you’re done, Thomas. You might get another day out of it,” the laugh in her throat like the bells at Mass in the right hands. She was different from my father’s mother, Mary Elizabeth King Sheehan right out of Cork. There was an elegant thirty-year widow for you, tall and gracious, precise of language, with her little black widow’s hat on her head and the shiny glasses on her nose and a bread roll or two in her pocketbook whenever she supped outside her Somerville home. Her pocketbook was always black. It always shone the light around it. A touch of new leather at her hands as if a bargain had just been made. At Ginn and Co. in Cambridge, she was a bookbinder, for more than sixty years eventually, and never baked a pie in her life it seems. Or baked bread. But she could wash your feet and scrub your back on a visit with her slender fingers and make you feel new all over. And she knew history and got books with broken covers or those which were not yet bound, geographies and histories and once in a great while 55

there’d be poems of Amergin or Columcille or Donnchadh Mor O’Dala or Dallan MacMore or Saint Ita or Saint Colman, about Saint Patrick and Eileen Aroon and Fionn and Saint Brendan and Diarmaid and Grainne and a host of kings afoot on the very land itself. Much of it told to me, of course, though I was a reader, according to my grandfather, long before some of his own children brought the pages home to comfort. Grandma Igoe would stand beside that great stove or by the buffet in the front room where she stored her finished goods, the pies and tarts and cakes and cream puffs so elegant you could steal but for the threat of the Lord hanging in the air over you. Her jelly rolls were historic, mounded and rolled and sugared, the sweet red line twisting its marble pattern you could only see from the end view, gathering inward until it disappeared, the way it could disappear sure down that b’y’s t’roat. Buffet drawers were crammed with her baked goods, the big ones at the bottom and the small ones at the top, and the cubbyholes behind doors at each end. My grandfather said she baked every day of her last thirty years, the memory of hunger in the old country hanging its dark face at the head of the stairs, waiting to visit again. “Jayzuz, bless the memory,” he would say. And I could hear her say, “Hunger,” in that musical voice of hers, “’twill be a guest here if I ever once t’turn my back t’him.” Flour clung about her like weeds against a fence. It might have been atomized on her before the atomizer was thought of. Her arms were white with it, and her apron and the neck of her dress where her hands were always at work fixing herself as if something wasn’t set right or she had an itch waiting on her. White was her hair, too, like snow left over from late March and April in the back yard. Yet patches of sweat, dark as plaster in a leaky ceiling, were squeezed under her arms and moved perilously on her large breasts. Sometimes, though I dared never tell her, but especially when she wore her blue dress, I’d pretend the patches of sweat were maps of parts of the world I wanted to visit, maps I’d seen in the Atlas at the library with my grandfather. All of Russia came up, dark with its lakes and seas and strange names at the edges of oceans. The steamy Congo he told me about came also, plunked in the middle of Africa, with rivers and hidden lakes, and creatures that ate up little people in a single bite. 56

Once, from the first moment, a deep stain was Brazil, down there under my feet. The country kept growing and growing. It grew with the pies and the cakes and the six loaves of bread. All morning it grew and she never knew how big that country got, that it might grow so ponderous geography books would have to be done over and the globe itself would tip on its side and bring her down. In the lunch package I carried was also a pint whiskey bottle, filled with coffee, dark and shoecolored, crammed against the sandwich. The top of the bottle would be plugged with an old cork or a twist of paper grandma worked down in as she turned the bottle in her floury hands. Sometimes it was from an old Globe or Traveler or Transcript, or a page out of the Saturday Evening Post or from a copy of G-8 and His Battle Aces I’d already read, Nippy and Bull Martin done for that issue. She always left a loop in the package’s string so when my hand got tired of the lugging the package near all the way to the dump, I could slip a finger in the loop and swing it along with me, still safe for delivery. Off to the Malden City Dump was I, not yet seven years old, the little caterer my grandfather would say, carrying his lunch. “As long as the weather is dacent,” his only rule, and he’d raise one pointed finger over his head, taking the deep blessing of the Lord on its tip for all that were bound by such high appointment. That was as much anointment as ever I understood. And my reward would come, once I got there. Once I got past Commercial Street and Medford Street and the factories that could spill people out of them some hours the way Fenway Park did at game’s end. Once I got past Mulcahy’s Bar and my Uncle Johnny squinting out the back window at me with his burning eyes on the sandwich pack. Sticks they called him ever since he came back from France and The Big Stink as he called World War One. His legs still brought him a pain only the pint could cure. Crutches, more likely than not swiped from the Malden Hospital, were jammed up under his armpit. Foul air still held out in his chest from the freekin’ Kaiser’s gas. And his mouth always watering for one of grandma’s sandwiches she only made for those in the work. Once I got past the pub with no name out front but which I called Uncle Dermott’s Place because he could be found there of an evening. Or a morning. Or an afternoon, with the sun out over Medford and still in the trees or splashing like ducks in the Mystic River. Or when his last job was into its second or third day and his pain became too real to ignore. A pair of uncles I had in them! War heroes from The Big Stink, carrying the pain yet. France and 57

Germany never far away from them, their eyes dark, their cheeks high and thin, their wrists coming out of jacket sleeves thin as morning gruel. Once I got past Dinty Mulligan’s house with his white Chow bigger than his bark and mean as nails. Once past there, and all the other obstacles a boy had, I’d get my reward. I never thought that anyone would trouble me on my errand, like kidnapping or knocking me down and stealing the lunch, not Johnny Igoe’s boy, not the dumpmaster’s boy, not the boy with two uncles for heroes. Nobody would bother an Irish lad bringing lunch to the dumpmaster who never ate it, who gave it off to the drunks who crowded around him. They were the drunks who came every night to prop their cold feet up on the ring of his great monger’s stove. They were the drunks whose hands went fishing in that brown package like birds’ beaks did to suet in the backyard feeder, their skinny little hands with nails for fingers and wrists thin as death itself, and their eyes almost gone over. Some of them for sure also carried the pain of all of France as baggage. Nobody in the world would hurt Johnny Igoe’s boy. “A sharp eye, lad, a sharp eye is all you’ll need, and a brain to match the work of it.” At the last, I’d hurry to see if he was still there, waiting for me as I crossed the railroad tracks after looking and listening both ways; to see if he was still sitting on his bench, alive, his pipe lit and smoking up under his gray cap, his back against the little house he made out of scraps. It was an elegant little house that could have saved lives in the old country, with a lean tin chimney sprouting out of the top like a Jack o’ the Beanstalk thing. Now he leaned on it, waiting. I’d catch the rich, ripe smell of the dump, dense as a bag over my head. Foul old stuff. Damp. Liquid stuff. Food gone bad. Old wet blankets falling apart. Horses in there someplace, perhaps pieces of them, their shit anyway from the milk barns and the milk companies, the manure coming to life again from Hood’s and Whiting’s delivery barns. Cluttered newspapers came thicker with water, ink blobbing in clumps, words going downhill like sundown. Squashes rotted to the last seed of hope. Plaster dust drowned in puddles, houses going away. Wood going so sour it would melt in your hands. Once a week, it seemed, a cat or dog was caught on the wrong side of life. Proof of the senses were shared with my street comrades then, my friends who 58

roamed alleys with me, who blindfolded could tell where they were if they had been there before. We knew alleys that could run right out from under our feet and go down a drain, alleys that wore continuous walls of sweat, even in winter, alleys that taught us what veneer meant even before the word came into our vocabulary. We knew family backyards because of their discards, what they threw out, in what quantity, in what kind of container. What was one family’s poison, was the same to another family. And that was rot within the hour of being tossed out onto a pile of yesterday’s leavings. Smells, like those of the dump, were living things, were markers, were signposts. Paying attention was necessary, for we were survivors as well as scavengers. The dump smell itself was a livable smell. It was compost. Things could grow in it, get green again. Not like the coal gas smell that cut down into you sharp as a knife in the hands of a wacky doctor or a charlatan. Not at all like the gas works, the way its smell penetrated everything, wall and roof and window, the church even and you on your knees and trying to get away from it, so that you swore black dust was sprouting things on you, and growing its own little meanness. He’d be there, my grandfather, at last, not gone anywhere, not undone, waving across the dump. Here was the little man whose magical voice rang down the days, that leaped alleys and lanes and railroad tracks that came across the centuries from Italy and Greece and Denmark and other dark places. Those were the places he swore the horsemen of the Central Plains of Europe rode through on their long route to Ireland, to the last end of Europe itself. And even from England, for all of the stories. Whole poems came out of that man’s mouth. Whole poems! Whole poems without a stumbling pause and never repeated until I might ask for one. That so many poems fit in such a small man was the end of amazement. He must have filled his arms and legs and the whole of his chest besides his whitehaired head, with the poems. On he’d go, on and on, magic on top of magic, the Argo watery and winddriven, the waves crashing on rocks, perhaps Beowulf about in the land, or Grendel, or The Red King or Righ Seamus (King James), or, all of a Saturday afternoon he’d give off Brian Merriman’s The Midnight Court at the Feekle*, without a stop unless your eye began to blink and head nod and the fill coming on you sooner than counted on. (*Where fifty years later my mother and four of her daughters would stay over on their visit with Mrs. Smith). Oh, sometimes he was daft with a poem that took a long time to learn, and so easy with others that came with music right into them, like: 59

The Old Fiddler by James Campbell 60

The pale moon was rising above the green mountains, The sun was declining beneath the blue sea, When I stray’d with my love to the pure crystal fountain That stands in the beautiful vale of Tralee. She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer, Yet ’twas not her beauty alone that won me, Oh, no, ‘twas the truth in her eyes ever beaming That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee. About his eyes the crinkles would fair light up with Billy Mulchinock’s poem, and he’d push me with his roughed hand as though words were being pressed into place for ever, his pipe chomped in his teeth. But then, when his eyes darkened, when his lips set like steel as though a curse was about to set out from them, I’d know a change was coming, as when he started Lament for the Death of Owen Roe O’Neill: “Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O’Neill?” “Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel.” “May god wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow! May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!” “Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.” “From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords: But weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way, And he died at Cloch Uachtar, upon Saint Leonard’s day.” I never knew, of course, from one day to the next, who last had his ear, what sword struck him, what knife still at stab from Roscommon, with its grief calling, whose words he last sang. Or if the words, the weight of the words, had brought him down. It was not the same game that came with the sweaty maps of my grandmother’s blue dress. It was the worry of the little caterer. Nearing him across the dump, I’d wave to him my joy. His cap would signal back a joy. Before I ran the last yards I’d look for the day’s pickings, to pray for his little successes. And for the whole family. They’d be stacked at the near end of the dump where Goldberg’s junk wagon could come in 61

from the lane for the pick-up. Iron and tin and pipes of all classes in one pile, pieces of stoves and car parts and unknown black objects as much mystery as Russia and all its lakes and rivers. Pots and pans came another mound of salvage, silvery and coppery and throwing off pieces of the sun on good days. There’d be doubled-over and tripled-over sheets of lead from wrecks of houses and roofs and downed chimneys, roofing tar black as ever still clutching at edges old as scabs, thick now in their pressings as slabs from a pine. I’d think about grabbing off a few sheets and melting them and pouring the melt into the casting molds to make more lead soldiers. My lead soldiers stood as an army at home, by the hundreds, Kaiser’s men and Doughboys and Tommies and Washington’s sore troopers and some from a place called Balaclava in their giddy uniforms. The army of soldiers was in the cellar near the coal bin where Uncle Lew’s beer can hung on a nail because grandma wouldn’t let him drink upstairs in the house proper. My grandmother would say, “You’ll not drink up here, Lewis, the day of any day, and the b’y needs more sojers like I need a hole in me head,” but grandfather would smile and wink a soft wink she daren’t see even if she did, and we’d have more soldiers coming from clumps of lead he’d bring home another day. Sojers. But not Lewis drinking in the house proper. Or Uncle Johnny or Uncle Dermott or Uncle Tim or Uncle Tom. Alongside the pile of pots and things tin and iron, and brassy bits, shining like bits of gold, knockers and hinges and old bells with a dacent sound still lodged in them, would be a pile of rags he’d already have been through searching for sweaters and jackets and pants and towels and dresses and things worn whose names I didn’t know. The good things! The good things would be set aside again, and I’d get my choice of a pair of pants or a shirt or a sweater or a belt I’d have to cut down to my size and use a nail to drive new holes in. And now and then, like a family store, there’d be a pair of boots for me. Once I found a new jackknife still in the boot pocket, the little leather scabbard my right hand could drop to and touch, the laces of real rawhide and near to the knee. His eyes twinkled 62

and he nodded and said, “For me little caterer.” The good things would be brought home and doled out, the dole coming over on the ship I understood, sometimes to family and sometimes to neighbors, and not a sneer or a twisted head or a frown, and a proud boy or girl would look lovely in a new dress or a jacket or a pair of pants that Johnny Igoe had rescued from oblivion. A boy in an old worn green shirt forever would be one day in a blue or red one and which had come from the Malden City Dump at the hands of Johnny Igoe who’d not let the world go to waste or anything in it. The Dumpmaster. My grandfather. I wondered then, more often than not, how long would such a man live, carrying the weight of all his words. It wasn’t going to be forever, though you couldn’t tell me so. But that was my worry all the while. He hung on until he was ninety-five, through one of his wars and four of ours. I never knew until much later that the words were heavy, but the poems were not, except the one poem of his own, and the lines: Though adopted by Columbia I am Erin’s faithful child. ******

Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills. Miguel de Cervantes

SECTION TWO

Oscar Wilde

very afternoon, coming from school,the children would go and play in the Giant’s garden.It was a large and lovely space with soft, green, grass.Here and there stood beautiful flowers. like stars, And there were twelve peach-trees that in spring-time. Broke-out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit.

The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them.

“How happy we are here!” they cried to each other

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over when he had said all that he had to say, he determined to return home.

When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden. “What are you doing here?”He cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away. 67

“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED He was a very selfish Giant. The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones,and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over,and talk about the beautiful garden inside.

“How happy we were there,” they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were: 68

The Snow and the Frost

“Spring has forgotten this garden,” they crie d, “so we will live here all the year round. ”The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak,and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.”

So the Hail came.

Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.

Snow Maiden by Nicholas Roerich

“I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.” 69

But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, But to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too selfish,” Autumn said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awakein bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King’s musicians passing by. It was really only a little Linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. ___________Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, ______________________ and the North Wind ceased roaring, _________________________________and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. ___________“I believe the Spring has come at last,” ____________________________________________said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out. ___________What did he see? He saw a most wonderful sight. ___________Through a little hole in the wall the children ______________________ _________________had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. 71 71

___________In every tree there was a little child. ___________And the trees were so glad to have the children ___________back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, ___________and were waving their arms gently above ____________________________________________the children’s heads. ___________The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, ___________and the flowers were looking up through ___________the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, ___________only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner ___________of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it.

“Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant’s heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring would not come here.

I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children’s playground for ever and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done. 72

So he crept downstairs and, softly, opened the front door, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming.

And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his armsand flung them round the Giant’s neck, and kissed him.

And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o’clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen. All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye. “But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved himt he best because he had kissed him. “We don’t know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.”

“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad. 73

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he used to say.

Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said; “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.”

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child’s hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet. 74

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.”

“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms. ----------

Dressing the Nudes Spring Dressing

No matter where one goes to view style at the minute, there's another nude dress in a collection, a model or celebrity wearing their best smile and leaving little to the imagination as they lend an air to the catwalk or the red carpet: women and models who dare and who get away with wrapping their bodies around a vision, displaying for their viewers what is not there or what might be: I love that, I love to see the confidence and their assurance in action as they strut the wares. And the work is mostly beautiful. But before there were modelling and fashion empires there were artists who were painting the male and female figure for the amusement, education--self or other--and scandal of their timeline as they stirred the pot of perception and sexualisation, (no I don't mean sensationalism) particularly

in a time when the society had set class rules; a time when the upper classes owned the wealth; and the majority of women were considered to hold second class status or even none. And thank god for the boys and their brush strokes, and the sanctimonious auld biddies and joes who closed them down; for if it wasn't for them we might never have heard any more of the paintings of the 1800's, particularly as the German Queen Victoria has assented to the English throne It was an Englishman in Paris that kick-started the tsunami. Mr. Worth is to blame for the fashion 'house' labels that we throw our eye on today: to copy mostly, as few can afford the price tag. And it's art, it's beauty, and wonder too, as the best in the business, search out the fabric, paint and flounces to create their seasonal statement. Great style. But back to our seasonal nudes. They were all painted during winter scenes of poverty, restrictions and back-stabbings--in the years leading up to war years. We have had so many war years that one might ponder whether war was a means of controlling the population. So in a way, the nude might be considered as depicting an artist’s winter vision. As where else does one go in times of trouble if not into oneself to ride the waves of memory and stroke one's own emotional foundation for guidance and balance. But decades have washed shore lines since the paint dripped on the canvas and now other springs are pushing forth; ones that require careful handling: ones that need no titillation but surely need a focus to maintain and create beauty, to maintain and create our national worlds as harsh winters take more and more from the soil. We need to dress the nude with floral scents and coloured silks and satins. We need to beautify our soil with our souls, for good men died so that we might be successful. Marie Fitzpatrick 77

Female Nude Amedeo Modigliani Date: c. 1916; Paris, France Mog's Tulip PS, MLF, 2018

Paris Nude Edvard Munch Date: 1896; Paris, France

Paris Nude Dressed PS, MLF, 2018

Seated Nude by Edward Degas

Nude Dancer PS MLF 2018

Sleeping Nude with Arms Open (Red Nude) by Amedeo Modigliani Celebrating the Senses PS MLF, 2018

Study of a Male Nude by Theodore Gericault Lifting Spring PS, MLF, 2018

Male Nude with a Glass and Snake

(Asclepiu s) by Albrecht Durer New Life PS, MLF, 2018

Meditations on dear Petrov by Susan Tepper Set in 19th Century Russia during a time of war

Furred My heart is a small thing. Furred. An animal heart. If hungry enough, a man could chew it then swallow its bits. What color would his tongue turn. I suspect a terrible yellow from my bitterness. Rancid like fruit left to rot on the trees to fall to the ground.

A display of grandeur. For a tree to shed its most valued part. Then the inevitable loss. Crushing. What of mine is of value, dear Petrov. Any answer will of course be untrue. I have devalued in your eyes over time. I see it clear as the full moon. It’s not a question of morals or boundaries. Love cannot endure. Most especially when the lover is torn. How does a man kill only to return home. Sit at the fireside. Stroke his beard. Drink his whisky. I believe that is why you choose to stay away so long. You rebuke me for this knowledge you hide. I almost feel your hand reach out to strike me. Once it kills it’s always at the ready. I have shed my garment. Is this enough to calm your greatest fear. Meditations on dear Petrov by Susan Tepper

Star Crossed Petrov are we not star-crossed lovers. In the way the sky assembles and disarrays. Blue to black to gray to orange to cloud cover. In pleasure and pain I am always at your feet. Trying to dislodge like a blister from my boot heel rubbing. Picking until the pocket deflates its liquid. Only to dry up like old stars fallen to the earth. I no longer count the seasons but depend upon each to set my compass. It’s cracked and foul. Often points in the wrong direction. Not that it matters. My direction is dark. Brightening only those times you step across this threshold. Rotted. An old wooden boat about to sink. And what of my potatoes. They will surely rot from scarce meals cooked over the long winter. I ration carefully sharing with my horse. It breaks me, dear Petrov. Eating alone. The whole root cellar. Decayed. Decapitated roof from leaks. All will decompose and the waters will flood the way it was predicted.

Meditations on dear Petrov by Susan Tepper

Prayer You came to me in a prayer. Deeply sorry. My sins you whispered. Nothing more. Though I waited. Mist shrouding the room didn’t dampen my dress. I saw your eyes for the first time. Clear and purposeful. I wondered if it was for good purpose. One can never be certain. The sage that blooms plentifully once let me down an entire season. At that time you were here and said don’t blame the sage. It is the earth and its pulsating rhythms deciding life and death. I found it strange you would make such a comment. Casually. As if you were here from a long ago place. Somewhere with far more knowledge than is written in the great books. A place that knows how to accept and forgive. It is my weakness I whispered back in the prayer. But you were already in your chair by the fire. Whistling. Not a very pretty whistle. More one that would signal impending trouble. My weakness I began again. You would have no part of it. Telling me to stand before the fire and become warm.

Meditations on dear Petrov by Susan Tepper

The Virgin Mary in Prayer by Albrecht Durer 89

Chanta Istha ———— Classic Spring

The Deer's Cry A Reflection on a Timeline The prayer is part of the Liber Hymnorum, a collection of hymns found in two manuscripts kept in Dublin and published in 1903 in the Thesaurus Paleohibernicus. The document gives this account of how Saint Patrick used this

prayer: Saint Patrick sang or recited this poem when an ambush was laid against him and his band of followers by King Loegaire, to stop him going to Tara where the High King of Ireland was based to sow the faith. And as legend has it, the prayer called down a 'cloak' or mist and to those lying in ambush Saint Patrick and his monks appeared as wild deer with a fawn following them.

I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation. I arise today Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism, Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial, Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension, Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom. 90

Chanta Istha ———— Classic Spring

I arise today Through the strength of the love of cherubim, In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels, In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward, In the prayers of patriarchs, In the predictions of prophets, In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors, In the innocence of holy virgins, In the deeds of righteous men. I arise today, through The strength of heaven, The light of the sun, The radiance of the moon, The splendor of fire, The speed of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of the sea, The stability of the earth, The firmness of rock. I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me, God's might to uphold me,

Chanta Istha ———— Classic Spring God's wisdom to guide me, God's eye to look before me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to speak for me, God's hand to guard me, God's shield to protect me, God's host to save me From snares of devils, From temptation of vices, From everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near. I summon today All these powers between me and those evils, Against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, Against incantations of false prophets, Against black laws of pagandom, Against false laws of heretics, Against craft of idolatry, Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul; Christ to shield me today Against poison, against burning, Against drowning, against wounding, So that there may come to me an abundance of reward. 92 92

Chanta Istha ———— Classic Spring Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the Threeness, Through confession of the Oneness of the Creator of creation.

---

At the summer house in twilight by Isaac Levitan 94

Standing Between Two Bumpers

by Akeith Walters

I had wet my pants waiting in the long line at the port-a-potty. As with all important things in life, I did not have a spare pair. The sidewalk tried to blister my feet through thin sandals even as patched cement steamed in a misty drizzle. I walked over to the curb and stepped between the bumpers of two cars parked on the street, expecting to hide, hoping for a heavier downpour to soak my clothes. Such would be a disguise for my loss of control, once more an inconvenience to others. My own urgent need to be seen in another way, like most of my time spent in polite society, even here at a downtown festival where the selling of flowers and trinkets and all sorts of crafts and pottery, really distracted no one from seeing me. Usually at my age, I’m made frail and invisible by those who stand nearby. But no thunder clouds gathered and of course, one of the cars had to go. As it pulled away, moving back into the mainstream traffic and leaving me exposed, it waited in a long line for the stoplight to turn green, its ac beginning to drip, making an impolite puddle.

Cherry-Ripe

By Thomas Campion There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow: There cherries grow which none may buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry. Those cherries fairly do enclose Of orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rose-buds filled with snow; Yet them no peer nor prince can buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry. Her eyes like angels watch them still; Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill All that attempt with eye or hand Those sacred cherries to come nigh, Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do cry.

Cherry Ripe by John Everett Millais

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. Mark Twain

SECTION THREE

Horse Frightened by Lightning by Eugène Delacroix

100

The Light Givers editorial by Oonah V Joslin Stephen Hawking died. Those words carry some moment. We all feel it. A genius has left the world. A light source has gone. But perhaps the real light comes from the miracle that Stpehen Hawking lived. He lived half a century beyond his prognosis. He had a family, wrote, travelled, acted, laughed, spoke, floated free on the edge of space and discovered stuff most of us could never imagine. He left a legacy of thought and levity. Which of us will do that? All heroes are givers of light, despite, or maybe because the fact that they themselves have battled darkness Helen Keller, C S Lewis, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven are a few I admire. And I have been privileged to encounter personally people who exchange light with others, good friends, teachers, artists, poets, writers and mentors like James Graham and John Duncan Ritchie for whom I wrote ‘From Crazy Diamond to Borrowed Light.’ It is always good to see one’s light borrowed and reflected back. Today, as I write this, we have made our first quarter journey of the year around our sun and have reached the Equinox and so the sun shines directly over the equator and it is not Winter any more, anywhere on the globe today. We all have light. We are all in part shadow. There can be no light without shadow, no shadow without light. Photons have no mass. Having no mass they cannot really travel. They meet our eyes and we perceive them. But we travel all the time. All our lives we never stop. Time is travel! We are and we move on. That is our truth. The mind is capable of journeying far beyond us and our limitations are our own. In Stephen Payne’s poem ‘Translating the Proverb’ he says: 101

Some propositions can’t be proved: the better truths are intuition’s. And if I’ve somehow always known this, still I learned it again just now, escaping the glare of information to breathe some chilly March air, (The Poetry Review 2015 ISBN 978-1-900771-89-4) I do not pretend to understand much about mathematical models or Quantum Theory. It bamboozles me. But we all see the light differently and it is up to us to reflect what we see. Nor do I exclude myself in this poem. I leave it to you to decide which disability describes me – and you. To those who say, Now he is free (For Stephen Hawking) Those crippled by fear tied to grief stuck in a rut addicted angry at the world 102

needy for fame but indolent rich enough but not content hungry for power insatiable in appetite preoccupied by trivialities wrapped in self and selfies can never be free. There was no pity about his life. He lived inside his mind. He was never bound. Oonah V Joslin (first published online by Reuben Woolley in I am not a silent poet) Stephen Hawking died. Yet there is more to celebrate in his life than to mourn at his death and our admiration of him will remain undimmed. ..........

103

Pack up Your Troubles by Jane Fuller Mud melds and reforms to crumbly fertile land. Trenches knit together when barbed wire stitches are removed. Bones grind down to dust and air with every ploughing. Gas disperses into a haze of mustard coloured memory. When the monolithic memorials are fallen, covered in layer on layer of bone dust, will a pack of lucifers still be waiting to ignite the stupidity of mankind?

104

105

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her by Arthur Rackham

Natural Selection by Anum Sattar The ducklings shook their feathers as they clambered onto the shore of the lake. But the youngest of the ducklings did not swim back home with the others. A graceful heron stood nearby one leg lifted in the air. It had its own brood to feed, it's own opinions about the survival of the cutest.

The Ducks, which he had once saved, dived and brought up the key from the depths by Arthur Rackham

106

The Courtship by Anum Sattar

The bashful lady swan tucked her head underneath her wing as the cob glided with such grace on the rippling water that she thought he had descended from the heavens for he surpassed all the other oafs in their mating displays. She finally gathered up the courage to fly out to him and lowered herself for him to clamber onto her snowy back, but though he gripped her long neck with his knobby beak the clumsy girl lost her balance and toppled him over. And though she opened her throat to tempt him once again the swan realized that she could not hold his fleeting attention for he slowly drifted towards a more experienced neighbor, while she schemed against them from behind the shriveled rushes.

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Parenthood by Anum Sattar Ever wonder why The seven dwarves chose to shut Snow White in the small clock of their cottage? When they unbolted the door at twelve o’clock sharp After being dulled by their work in the mines The little girl could not help but coo “Welcome, my men! I have cleaned our humble home And cooked a scrumptious stew!” Can you imagine why The mischievous elves No taller than your thumb Stole an infant And replaced the baby with their changeling While the poor mother was sound asleep? Why would Rumpelstiltskin, Bent on his sausage knees Beg the miller’s daughter for her firstborn? The fiend was such an ugly thing, An imp whose cries would shatter you to pieces 108

If you did not spin the straw. But lying awake in their little beds, All fairy folk dream to possess a child. To be a Papa or a Mama. And when denied the gurgling infant When refused the chance to push the wailing pram No wonder such a creature will split into two Into a hairy, elongated root—like a carrot— A head of lettuce, unfurling—like Rapunzel’s hair— Growing in a garden upon unfertile soil Beside a house, Of multiplying rooms but with The crib of the nursery still bare…

ART: White Birds in Snow by Ohara Koson, Style: Shinhanga

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Another Myth About The Garden by Anum Sattar

Yerres, Camille Daurelle under an Oak Tree by Gustave Caillebotte

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Her husband thought of her a sturdy oak which would bear the mighty blow of his axe. Though she, a mere sapling, a toothpick stuck in his teeth, could not bear his reprimands. Abusive, he tried to pluck her blossoms to fill his empty vase with their fragrance. Thorny, she bloomed for her own happiness and struggled to avoid a flowerpot. Then tired at last she showed her thorns to him and teased him with rose hips beyond his reach. But with one swing she collapsed at his feet and then in his garden outstretched she lay. He tilled her yellowing leaves into mulch and prepared the soil for another bush.

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112 The Nocturnal Travellers by Honore Daumier Date: c.1842 - c.1847/Style: Realism/Genre: genre painting/Media: oil, wood/ Dimensions: 28 x 19 cm

Nocturne by Cindy King All sleep in the daytime. All sleep. Days whir together like fan blades, the illusion of something solid. And the smell of lilacs faint in the sheets. Amorous, immodest. Boudoir of odor. Sitting room of scent. Conservator of things best left unexamined. A pair of bronze elephants on the shelf, but they lend no strength to the book that leans between them. The soft gray book, like a compendium of loss, or the books we bring to bed, whose stories are read to erase other stories. A kind of forgetting. The dog bawls. All day. No sleep in his gosling suit. Up and down, up and down. A bright exile, dispossessed. Like the car idling in the garage. The door is shut but still the fumes no thicker. And the engine bleats in the night. No passengers here, but still the car sounds its horn, makes a merciless noise: a sound like a longheld threat freed at last from the throat, or the blast of a rifle fired on a flock of geese at dawn. Near the school the lilacs nod in narcotized consensus then drop like birds as traffic passes through them, blotting them out. Like an egg swallowed by a rat snake. The car in the garage, a shell in a chamber. There is no driver here. Though the noise of its engine is like the sound of a dog growling at his master. The school is an obsidian dream, an unknowable mountain of shale with bright spikes in it. Thorns of wakefulness, forest of teeth, consciousness gnawing at sleep, reshuffling the pages of the heart’s appendixes. A kind of forgiveness. All sleep. Muscles twitch. The body ignites 113

the hooded head. The dog bawls. Is it loss that does this? Yes, but still we may guess at it beneath the still shallows of reflection. The car stops. The lilacs tremble again in stop motion…feathers gray in the predawn light. Like something a dog buried then exhumed by the driveway. A short cement path. Singular. Crumbling like the book on the shelf, collapsed in the grand gesture of the future. and chainsaws. Night arrives hissing in a skillet, smelling of beer and catfish, has yet to meet the box fan since its argument with wind. Night comes when we least expect it, before crickets and sunsets, before clean plates, before wine. The lonely dining room table, night, heavy with a thought pressed into the mind. A basin flecked with rust, as if the stars gave out. Not yet June and the perennials have surrendered. The rosebush, unpruned, lowers its green fists. There’s still time to paint behind the stove, to disinfect the chandelier, still time to buff winter from the soles of our feet. 114

Time to grind grain—no, grow it. Pulverize, proof, punch down, rise. Still time to climb the roof, to raise a glass to the shingled twin of night.

Funny War: Spionage by Raphael Kirchner

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The Concert in the Egg by Hieronymus Bosch Date: 1475 - 1480, Style: Northern Renaissance, Genre: religious painting, Media: oil, panel 116

The Ant by Dolores Duggan Stepping over the dog shit in the abandoned building site A rancid smell lingers all around on the air. It’s hot, very hot. More than I can bear. Past the rubbish skip I hear a cockerel call. The hens will be satisfied tonight. The ground is solid and dusty as a treble line of ants Spread out underfoot. They swarm and march and Generally take no notice of me and my giant size six shoes. The line gets broken; a large worker ant stops traffic And the burden on his back is an overload of wood beetle. I felt bad for him. The ant. Not the beetle. His colleagues gather round like a manic crowd at a drug fuelled festival or Some who try to offer help to a cyclist that has fallen off his bike. They sniff the air around my chum. He ignores all help to walk the walk. I admire him. He is an ant martyr. His strength and his aloofness and the fact that he reminds me of: Robert Frost and his silent, eerie poem as he rides through the forest. Taking the road less travelled. Or was it the road most travelled. In any case. The Ant and the Poet still win the battle. 117

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Dear Teacher by David Roe That's four times today you shouted I'm searching hard for my way. Chalk dust clouds block my vision As your words swirl and sway. I try to learn your tricks and sounds i'n' flounder in the literal sea. I need a boat I struggle to swim It's all sea fret to me. Be my lighthouse not a sea wall Fancy words don't define us all. David Roe November 2016

Art: Principles of a schoolmaster, teaching scene for children by Hans Holbein the Younger

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Student Body by Jim Landwehr In an American history class sits a ten year old boy focused on the sheen of her brunette hair the girl the next desk over. It cascades down her neck falling like so much water and crashing on the rocks of her shoulders below. Combed in fine columns a hair thick, each one in exactly the right place. If he breathes deep enough he can smell her cologne her scent like lavender and velvet. If only she saw him. If only he were not so shy, they might become something the two of them and her hair. As the teacher drones on about the winter at Valley Forge the boy dreams about the valley of her neck knowing that these thoughts are not condoned and more likely deviant sparking his own revolutionary kind of war.

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Girl with Long Hair, with a sketch for 'Nude Veritas' by Gustav Klimt

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Suckling Heaven by Jennifer Lothrigel Last night I went wandering in purple lingerie through my galactic mindmaze. Lost and tired ̶ I lay down to drink from the Great Mother’s milky breasts, essential nutrients dripping into my mortal bones. Sorceress songs moved weightless wisdom, remembered like the weavers loom dancing a new tapestry from dusty threads. There is less to think about when suckling heaven, already loved, uninterrupted inclusiveness, light traveling through surrendered limbs. I fell asleep, a yin body sourced from molecular clouds aware of her future constellation. 122

Postcard Woman As Witch by Fritz Rehm

SAIGON SAM by Jim Hatfield Viewed working in the open kitchen of his celebrated takeaway; cash on collection only – no cards or delivery, Saigon Sam simultaneously juggles four huge and steaming woks above a fire breathing range, cooking ordered portions to perfection with a ladle shillelaghsized used also to despatch his creations with the practised twist of a muscled wrist into foil carryout cartons, exact and intact. Six evenings a week from 5 until 9, excluding prep and cleaning time, Mr Canh Van Nguyen, his given name, plies his trade, as he has for over three decades. Living above the shop, on clocking off he bathes, shaves and changes oilsoiled kitchen clothes for those more befitting the casino visit where, until four he goes to socialise with fellow Teesside caterers; Chinese, Malays and Thais.

Art: Red Ocean Blue 1915 by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso

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The Craft of Coping by Wendy Howe As a child, I heard the hidden people. They spoke in hedges, stonewalls and bull rushes. Soft words inserted along the margins of garden, field and water. They proposed what characters I might portray in madeup stories on a difficult day or when the rain shower (like a grayclothed governess) confined me indoors to lamplight and shadows. Even she was part of the cool fiction rustling in her straightpinned skirts from window to window, carrying the scent of pine, and the beleaguered grace of Jane Eyre. Now as a woman, I need a whisperer to wander in and let me hear their tellings once again. Not shaman or crone but the witchery of wind chimes and dream catcher. Things I have forgotten to hang. Ancient ways to become still, suspended between logic and lore. Bared and spellbound.

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Mushroom by Ivan Bilibin

Sunrise by Beate Sigriddaughter I never met this child and likely never will. Already she has haunted me with joy for days. I hear she wakes up, smiles and exclaims: "It's day." So much to come, to treasure, to despair, to forgive, to forget, to remember. I am hungry and my eyes are open. Over in the east the sun is rising. It is day.

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127 Best Friends Forever, Watercolour on Card, MLF

In Praise of Slugs by James Graham There are flowers in my garden. This and that variety. The usual colours. And there are radiant slugs. They glitter in the rain, least hectic of all moving lights, black comets with silver trails. Their silken perspiration smoothes rough earth and makes the foreign concrete easy under the single foot. Sun is a scourge: I have seen dry corpses in the wasteland of the cruel weedless pavement at my door: dull as a piece of dirt, the light gone out. But given the lovely rain, they venture, moving in lento rhythm, pulse after pulse of persevering tide, horns agile, delicate, seeking, mapping safe ways and pitfalls. I have seen too the odd snail with ostentatious shell. And always the flowers, calling attention, ‘Fluttering and dancing in the breeze’ as has been eloquently written, often enough. 128

Flower Sketch for The Enchanted Garden by John William Waterhouse

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INHERITED CHARACTERISTICS by Patrick Theron Erickson The spider webs in my attic like the cobwebs in your hayloft our twilight years heirlooms and whatnots that legacy of assets and deficits we must all negotiate these we can manage but spider veins and legs that read like roadmaps and no GPS to navigate the long way back or forge a way forward what we cannot overcome we’re destined to forgive and liable to forget. 130

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The Magic of the Cobweb by Charles Robinson

Note Left for Her on a Cool Morning by James Owens i have walked out alone into the world first light is a very old hammer and mist a very old bell that shimmers and rings above water on stones and through the branches of memory you and i are like young monks still naïve in the hard world feeling for the borders of things for the entry into memory i will turn back to you soon will pray the prayer of my mouth on your mouth 132

Morning by Edvard Munch

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