The Ballad of Joey Crown: A Poetic Tribute to the Twilight Zone’s “Passage of the Trumpet”

Joey plays the trumpet
Hoping that the alcohol he once used to drown his sorrows,
Under the fire escapes of dark alley way,
Will be left in the bar where it belongs
He still reaches for the bottle of bourbon
Hoping not only his thirst is quenched,
But his depression is soothed

He knows this isn’t the answer so he smashes the bottle
As the shattered shards of glass lay on the cold unforgiving ground
Remind him of the first time he saw his life shattered into pieces
The first set of friends he lost
The first girl he ever loved, but received none in return
The first venues to rejects his gigs
The first time his music failed to make someone cry, or laugh, or smile

Joey stumbles in the shadows, wishing the cool night air,
And brightening marquees
Will stimulate serotonin levels of happiness in the brain
Just something to mend the unfulfilled fragments of his soul,
Because playing his trumpet was all he had to give him purpose
Now it's morning, and Joey has given up
He’s given up on life, given up on his dreams

Joey waits until the pawn shop opens
He rushes inside and trades his priceless gift of talent,
For a cheap gift in the form of just a few extra bucks
He steps out of the store
All of sudden--
Eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!
A service van runs him down without any yield,
Waking to a world of ghosts
Questioning if he is dead or only dreaming

Joey walks throughout a world of spirits,
Masked in the guise of everyday life
The Movie Theater is there
The convenience store is here
As he walks this apparitional plain
He hears sultry yet gentle sounds,
Sounds only heard from such a brightening bugle

Joey searches and searches through the hallowed scenery of the dead,
And through the sound of music he meets a music maker
A man named Gabriel, who for all intents and purposes let's call him an "angel"
He tells joey the value of his song
How shortcuts through a bottle
Don't equate to the spread of joy from one's rhythm and melody
How life is too short to make it shorter by reaching for the whiskey flask
To bring himself and others sorrow
Instead of the trumpet that he knows will bring him joy and others as well

Joey is reminded of why he played his horn in the first place and his purpose is resurrected
I wish for those struggling with alcoholism,
And other facets of drug addiction,
Who traded in their ambition and talent
For a packet of pills and a melancholy round of drinks
Could find this second chance
I have no idea if angels exist,
But just think of we could be the Gabriel to all of the joey crowns of the world
We all would feel like kings and queens

​

                                            Embedded First, 2017, oil on wood, 20” x 16"


                     "Frequently I feel that I am a guest in my own world," Laura writes, "there is undoubtedly a distrust of what the artificial interface might mean for our environment, for humanity, for our relationships." Through explorations of her own virtual communication, Karetzky creates what she refers to as visual storytelling. Snapshots on our i-phones often lack the depth an image can usually convey, and yet when transposed onto these oil paintings a whole new life shows up in the image, altering the perception of that particular moment in time. The image itself is inherently a thing of time, it leaves place marks of where we were, the expressions that our faces wore, the ease or uncomfortability of our own bodies, but they don't always contain the whole truth, and if the focus of the image is us, it most certainly never does, although one should never say never so assuredly. In some ways art plays with truth to better understand it, questioning how the virtual houses us, how our form might be slightly different in that place, helps to add ground where it might at times feel more like air. "I do not think that Selfies as memory are accurate," Laura says. "In many ways they represent that cleavage in communication I am exploring. And as so, I am looking at all virtual communication as a kind of staged choreography. My work is venturing to acquiesce to the synthetic and affirm our idea of what is real." 


AHC: What has your own personal evolution towards a life in art been like, are there a series of moments you can recall where this path, this calling, began to become the one clearly marked for you?

Laura: My mind has always worked in a way that questions the visual. I notice patterns and graphic tensions in the world around me. Even as a toddler sorting Cheerios, my parents identified this and offered me immense support to pursue my interests. I am constitutionally a people-watcher and it is the formal relationship to how we configure with one another that interests me so much. In college when narrative art was discouraged and abstraction prevalent, I was, despite every attempt not to be, a story-teller—this is how I saw. Often observing the world from the outside, there was never a question of how I would manifest my preoccupation—I organize my thoughts visually—figurative art making was tandem with my way of thinking.
​

                                              Inception, 2017, oil on wood, 30” x 24”


AHC: Could you explore and expand on some of the motivating ideas at work in your art and the process behind the making of them? How does the idea for you begin and what does its evolution look like during the stages of its development? 

Laura: For as long as I can remember, my work has focused on my relationship with the greater human social structure and how to map these experiences of consciousness. Moving between video, installation and painting, I become attracted to an image while I’m not immediately sure exactly why it’s pulling at me. Often it’s through the exploratory activity of making art that my objective is elucidated. My work comprises a visual diary where the procedure is to grapple and find comfort with a certain event or experience that I couldn’t process completely the first time. It’s through engaging the image that I realize the nuance of our human relationship with it. One idea leads me directly into the next. Just as my perspectives unfold and advance so does the subject matter and crux of my work. Tiny steps that move through time and space: I am never at a loss for what to make art about, form and conversation is inherently expanding; time is my biggest challenge. 
​

                                                   Embedded FaceOnFace, 16” x 12”, oil on wood, 2017


AHC: Do you see technology as an impairment of our memory in any way, or more as an improvement, or a bit of both? Your oil paintings have a way of enlivening/enriching the digital screen in a way that our phones themselves lack the ability to do, do you see your paintings as a way to add or layer soul onto the digital remnant? 

Laura: Through my inevitable involvement with the computer interface as a means of communication, I became fascinated by the shift in point of view, where we are surreptitiously third party voyeurs to our own experience. Frequently I feel that I am a guest in my own world in a sense, so this perspective is acutely interesting to me. There is undoubtedly a distrust of what the artificial interface might mean for our environment, for humanity, for our relationships. If a pixilated message is always presented with the self-awareness of the constructor, can it never truly be clean handed? I do not think that Selfies as memory are accurate. In many ways they represent that cleavage in communication I am exploring. And as so, I am looking at all virtual communication as a kind of staged choreography. My work is venturing to acquiesce to the synthetic and affirm our idea of what is real.

Starting with genuine actual conversations on my Smartphone, and capturing a single frozen frame: the moving image is made still and then re-imbued with movement again as brush strokes on wood reveal a licit passing of time. For the last two years I have been using an indirect painting technique and a very limited palette. Structuring a subtle shift in tone that separates each day’s work, the layers remain obvious. For me, it is an attempt at communion; to explore the tensions in how we strive to stay connected over all kinds of distances. Yet it is the emotions embedded in an image that are illuminating, especially when found colliding with other tangential or unrelated events on a screen. This seemingly arbitrary intersection is what I currently find especially worth exploring.
​

Nectar, 2013, oil on linen, 50″ x 60″


AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on you and your work or who just generally inspire you on some level, writers, filmmakers, comedians, musicians etc?

Laura: I think of myself as a visual short story author. James Salter’s work, the imagery in his writing, the calculated editing and near remoteness of his approach appeal to me immensely. It is the scrutiny in another’s endeavor that resonates with me the most—and a sense of what’s withheld, what’s trying to be found. Wes Anderson’s movies have that, the Coen Brothers, Mamet, Beckett, Ibsen. I love the query in de Chirico’s early paintings, the confident graphic and divisive quality of light, set against the emotional uncertainty of what you are unable to see. The environment is sturdy and evasive at the same time. It makes us question how we navigate space. I love draftsmanship—of course this is exciting. But the search for human connection and exploration of its incongruities resonates greatly for me. There is DaVinci, Morandi, Goya, Balthus, Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, there are so many. I listen to music when I work, almost always music that tells stories—though not always through lyrics. I’ve been listening to a lot of Keith Jarrett these days. I love the way he keeps you suspended with each phrase. You don’t always know where he’s going and where he’s going to end up, but he is able to get you to trust him enough to want to take that journey with him. I like anything that asks us to reconsider our expectations. I think trust is essential to the inquiry, otherwise the viewer can’t open up enough to be taken in. This is the essence of the quest.
​

                                              Embedded Rainbow, 2016, oil on wood, 30″ x 24″


AHC: What do you consider, personally, to be the most sacred and enduring aspects of art? How does it enrich our world and our cultural memory? How has it enriched or altered your own life? In your opinion, what does art, at its finest moments, bring into the world that would otherwise leave us more impoverished without it?

Laura: At its most sacred, art should be a mirror. The most enduring thing that art can do is to evoke open-ended questions and guide us to see from multiple perspectives. Ideally it can help us see ourselves, and see ourselves differently.

Social Media invites us to accept cultural memory as narrative flux as we digest information that is constantly evolving and diverging. It may be now commonly understood that recall is simply an illusion that can be manipulated and edited outside of time and experience. If the narrative picture of the past is always in flux then our image and identity of ourselves is unstable, also in flux. I have a friend who recently reverted to calling me on the phone. I would send a text; she would pick up the phone. Radical. At first this was nearly unnerving, as I felt almost apologetic for being available. The conventional phone call, where a candid conversation can exist unpublished and untraceable, has become shockingly progressive and new.

Embedded Portal, 2017, oil on wood, 24” x 30”


AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away, that lit a fire in you?

Laura: I can’t recall a time before I was breathless by art. Art has always been present in my life, in our home, in my world. There is a wall mural by José Clemente Orozco in the town where I grew up that challenges culture, education, civic structure and government. It’s a celebrated work that questions the core fundamentals of the very people who commissioned the piece. I always knew that art was probing, and that that was responsible necessity from both sides. My family did a good job of presenting these possibilities to me partly because it was so important in their lives. We socialized and built vacations around visiting museums and working in foreign cities and cultures—this is what made days exciting.​
​

                                                PoorConnection, 2017, oil on wood, 14” x 11”


AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for young artists and other creatives who are experiencing self-doubt in their art, frustration or blocks? What are the types of things that have helped you to move past moments where you may have become stuck creatively?

Laura: One thing I have learned that is so comforting to me, is that if I hit a snare or feel I have ruined a painting—that if I keep going, with perseverance I can work through to the other side. With diligence and focus there is always another side. Work history means a lot in a piece. Sometimes it’s the effort of the struggle that can be felt, even if not seen, and this is powerful. I have also learned that if I become overly enamored with a passage, I usually become paralyzed for the other passages, and the work fails. Being able to trust the entire process, seeing the large and the minute simultaneously, this makes all the difference. Understanding how to embrace the discomfort of grappling through a rough spot—knowing that no mark can be sacred or isolated—That confidence is immensely freeing. 

                                              Embedded MeandM, 2017, oil on wood, 20” x 16”


AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Laura: I just closed a show, Embedded at Lora Schlesinger in Los Angeles. This exhibition was a culmination of two years exploration of the recursive double-portrait in our FaceTime experiences. One image installed in another. One life anchored in another. I was looking at how we search for alliance both formally and emotionally. I am now starting to think about the inevitable space between that association. How fraught communication is, and the rift that remains no matter how vigilantly we attempt to nestle ourselves in. What is presented versus what is perceived is only part of what I am talking about. It’s the intent of the image as it conflicts with another, and that is what I want to follow next. 
​

                       Embedded Laundress, 2016, oil on linen, 40″ x 40″


For more visit www.laurakaretzky.com/
All images © Laura Karetzky

The Lagoon

The dented suitcase shows its age,
and so does she.
Staccato and stoic is her step;
weary but yearning are her eyes;
she follows the curve of the lagoon,
black and still as the day when
she was evicted
from hard-earned, hard-loved contentment.
Like a Mondrian painting without its stripes,
she feels denuded of her normalcy.
She's returned to confront she doesn't know what,
to clutch at the kind of closure that doesn't come.
She exhales huskily,
checks her watch as if for wisdom,
and walks away yet again.





Inspection

A glance in the looking-glass
compels a confrontation with conflict,
What motivated the masquerade?
Fits of fear and shards of shame
slash and lacerate
like in a back-alley brawl
to the tipping point of frantic flight
from festering fantasies.
Games of closeness and chess
were tagged for transience,
having been carefully constructed
on cornerstones of fakery.
Washing away salty splotches of stage make-up
reveals skin I scarcely recognize.
Hearing a name ringing strange,
I face my eyes,
orbs of truth,
and envy the blind.





Initiation

Tonight the gap,
the vacant void
responsible for tears and turmoil
was filled
surrealistically and sensuously
by the fierce, wolf-eyed Belgian
who introduced me to myself
in a riot of rough tenderness.
amid a dazzling display
of chrome, pink, and ivory,
the aroma of bubble gum and bleach.
I’ve been exposed;
I’ve been violated;
I’ve been possessed,
as lingering childhood needs haunted me
in a haze of confusion and comfort.
like a virtuoso he played me,
absconding with a virginity I never knew I had,
and here I lounge in the loo of an ice cream parlor
alone and forever sidelined,
yet smiling in my afterglow.





11:00 p.m.

Encircled by the depth and blackness
of the ancient elms,
inspiring by day,
scary as hell at night,
we meet.
Those glittering eyes-as if feverish, but in a good way,
the food of my dreams! 
At once my senses are smothered
by your fingers, your presence,
witnessed only by a few furtive stars somewhere
And a relentlessly gurgling stream.
Wagnerian operas thunder through my mind,
replaced by the estival sounds of a carnival.
This shouldn't be,
but it is-
before the final wave of overwhelming wonder
yields to guilt,
to crushing guilt,
and an anticlimactic, awkward farewell,
until next time.





Trespasser


In the desolation of the desert-
My desert,
infused with blasts of flesh-roasting heat-
my cabin, my voluntary exile, my world,
populated with modcons like aircon,
the silent, ever-shifting dunes of sunburnt beige
revolving relentlessly around it.
 
You came marching
in military fatigues, swimming in your own filthy sweat,
bootprints marking a trail from nowhere to nowhere.
Angry, I felt invaded,
my eccentrically tidy calm ripped asunder
by a trespasser.
 
Yet I recognized you:
your searching eyes,
your persistent pursuit of the elusive.
I knew you, damn it.
 
I set fire to my own fences,
I invited you inside-
shading you in cool darkness,
bathing you in ice with my own fingers,
feeding your lips chilled fruits,
feeding your eyes swirling watercolors.
 
Somewhere between your solitude of bravery
and my solitude of fear,
a freaky trust was forged.
By the time you trekked off,
my mind had been broadened,
and yours had been blown.




My Grandpa Was a Mennonite

My grandpa was a Mennonite,
but I've never washed anyone's feet,
although I've sucked strangers' toes.
My grandpa had gray eyes like me,
but his, unlike mine, weren't ringed with
Rimmel Scandaleyes Retroglam mascara.
My grandpa, a son of Alsace, spoke French like me,
but the tongue with which he spoke it
wasn't used to French kiss meaty male mouths
the way I do.
My grandpa begot three kids-
all model Mennonites,
but I've nurtured ninety thousand neuroses-
all strictly secular.
My grandpa swilled wine (some Anabaptists tipple) with his brother,
but I quaff caffeine-free diet cola alone. ​

​

​
​Game-Set-Match

Love came to me, proof was on the bottle and that was all
I was 15 and got drunk for the first time in a tool shed
Now that I am in my 30s, it no longer serves as a fond memory
My first drink was a 40 oz Budweiser consumed without struggle
Saying deuces to sobriety, reality didn't matter
Drinking 5 shots of tequila in one sitting and no hangover incurred seemed like an advantage
A game of Kings once left me without footing, unloading urine underneath the university underpass
Set myself up for failure when I nearly met my match in front of a train

Lobbing back and forth between moods and asylums
Smashing through backhanded compliments and condescension
Acing the final exam of hiding my habit beforehand
Volleying any sense of responsibility or fault
Rage ensuing when I was out of booze
Caught in the net of inebriation
Until the racket ended in my brain
And the ball came back into my court
Appreciating the beauty of grass
The stability of asphalt
And the regression of pleasantries derived from burying hands in clay





​Broken (The World May Never Know)

Transitions through time have made hearts harder, darker, and frail. One may never know when circumstances are unbeknown to he whose heart has not budged toward a sense of compassion. He wants to share, but doesn't know how. He is broken. He is a man who never was in combat, but felt like an army of one (as a whole and not part of a unit). One may never know when the soul next to him on a train is one who has a damaged heart. The bystander may never understand that the pain they share is similar.

Areas can be congested sometimes. It is the type of congestion this man may only wish upon noses caring about his information without giving a shit about him. Some hear screams in the middle of an otherwise tranquil night. Sometimes they are screams only he senses: a lost relative, a lost friend, or a way back to security when a blanket is replaced by a gun. He may never know if it will ever be used or know the purpose of even owning one. He may never know if a bullet can replace a damaged valve and potentially attach itself to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sometimes blood lines need transfusions. He needs a sign that he is not alone. He needs a potential to let go of grief. He desires to cry on a shoulder that is not attached to a highway. Sometimes stories are morose. Sometimes stories are a morass. One may never give a damn about a temporary glance. A light needs to be borrowed, whether it burns a cigarette or brightens an outlook. He may never quit his addictions. He may never abandon the habits until the day he dies. He may never realize he metaphorically died years ago.

Some may never know if the person next to him attends mass and needs more than a handshake. He could see it as a superficial gesture and would never think to share his true nature when clammy skin encases mammoths of mediocrity. The desire for happiness in his world in some senses is a dream in which cracks are inflicted on the metal pipe rather than through the esophagus. Like the pipe, he is fragile. He is a loner who hates being alone. But truth be told, some streets need attention. Some avenues of conversation are valued more than gold. Some boulevards are difficult to maneuver and sometimes a fender feels like a fist.

He has hesitated to reach out under the guise of never knowing the sense of sadness he might convey. He fears his heart may get arrested, as sometimes we face a crime when the heart is neglected. Sometimes, the crime is punishable by death. He wants his heart to stay open without needing a scalpel or clamps. The exact same pain threshold is exceeded and proverbial morphine through veins is the only fix.

I may never know. You may never know. He may never know. She may never know. It may never know. We may never know. They may never know. Who the fuck knows? Knowing why is half of the battle. Knowing how a broken man can heal is different. He can be fixed, but the cracks in his soul are still visible. They will always remain and in this respect, he is not alone. Lonely people need to find one another. Perhaps they too experience excruciating anathemas and perhaps one of them is the person sitting next to him and perhaps the entire fucking population of a given train is like blood scattering within a cardiac membrane and perhaps the line between the aorta and the jugular has been derailed. We suffer in silence, only to realize sooner rather than later that the feeling of loneliness is something we will always know. When the world eventually ends, the documentation of loneliness will outlive the roaches. At least the roaches know how to form a community.

My Rainbow, Your Rainbow, _______, gesso, acrylic, color pencil, paint marker, crayon on Mylar


            "Art is another kind of door into peoples’ heads," says Izzy Nova, "and we best be learning what’s happening in there." Nova's paintings take on the dark and difficult tangle of subconscious impulses while making important visual statements about violence, loneliness, despair, the quirk in the false perfection of the everyday, all of those forms that take shape from some place else, as Izzy calls the almost unnameable place that first drew her into the power of art and its ability to unleash both the storm and the stillness, the explosion in the street and the quiet hour. "Making art for me is like meeting and bringing a complex stranger to life," Nova says. "Abandoning forethought and expectation recently both in art and in life has given me comfort in my inability to comprehend, control, or at worst, change what is larger than me." On the surface these paintings shore up a feeling of chaos, of things gone beyond one's control, but embedded deeper in, sometimes crawling out of the corners of the canvas, is a very real and solid sense of purpose, a tent pitched in the void mid-storm, lantern light to read the hieroglyphics of promise and possibility by, in a place where, what art can do, is only measured by what we are able to imagine, and if we've closed that door we best be prying it open again.


AHC: What has your own personal evolution towards a life in art been like, are there a series of moments you can recall where this path, this calling, began to become the one clearly marked for you?

Izzy: Happiness for me starts with a scribble that keeps up with how neurotic I’m feeling. I have always liked art making; I identified with it at an early age, and thank it for the security and escape it gave me all these years. Other activities don’t give me the continuous high or challenge that art continues to satisfy me with, also in consideration to the stress that comes along with the creative process.

Growing up, I was the kid that got in trouble for doodling on my notes and tests. I paid attention to my imagination more than I did real life and my interests were related mostly to fantasy and ‘some place else’. It’s safe to say it’s been a long time of weaning off of these pleasures, but at least I have expanded on my doodles.​
​

                                      X-x, 2016, 24 x 33" gesso, acrylic, crayon, and graphite on Mylar


AHC: Could you explore and expand on some of the motivating ideas at work in both the images that you make and the process behind the making of them? There is such anarchic fluidity at work in your pieces, almost as if they take place at the beginning of time when the void was still potent and open to interpretation. How does the idea for you begin and what does its evolution look like during the stages of its development?

Izzy: I allow organic moments to happen, such as when gravity comes to play with wet, dripping paint. Following, I allow some of these instances to lay out what I will do next, often taking two steps back to make room for even more growth. The final product is a foreigner, that’s been roughed up and coddled by me while I shaped it.

Making art for me is like meeting and bringing a complex stranger to life. Abandoning forethought and expectation recently both in art and in life has given me comfort in my inability to comprehend, control, or at worst, change what is larger than me. Instinct drives me to work quickly, chasing after a train of thought or feeling. Whilst, my other job is about connecting dots and enriching relationships in the composition’s space. It’s a balancing act that I have to walk away from sometimes and look at with fresh eyes.

​

Spectrum, 2016 - 2017, 84 x 60", gesso, acrylic, colored pencil, paint marker, and crayon on mylar


AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on you and your work or who just generally inspire you on some level, writers, filmmakers, comedians, musicians etc?

Izzy: I’m moved by the story of Chuck Palahniuk, who during a hard time in his life decided the pull over to the side of a road and lay face down in front of his car headlights. He’d hoped someone of authority would check on him and tell him everything was okay eventually. No one came and the creative idea for Choke was produced. That’s inspiring.

​

                           Ledge, 2016- 2017, 30 x 42" gesso, paint marker, crayon on Mylar


AHC: What do you consider, personally, to be the most sacred and enduring aspects of art? How does it enrich our world and our cultural memory? How has it enriched or altered your own life? In your opinion, what does art, at its finest moments, bring into the world that would otherwise leave us more impoverished without it?

Izzy: Art has given me a means to express myself in a way that isn’t punctuated and I continue to have the chance to investigate why I need that to be. We would be impoverished without art because we’d be impoverished of perspective and investigation. That kind of freedom to make and view art can’t be understated enough. The more perspectives available to us, the more we know what is out there and are better conditioned to think more openly. It's another kind of door into peoples’ heads and we best be learning what’s happening in there.

​

Target Split, Spring 2015 126 x 60" Mylar, crayon, dry and oil pastel, water color, color pencil, charcoal, and acrylic

​

AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away, that lit a fire in you?

Izzy: I can’t attest to having my breath taken away or having a fire lit in me, but on my first trip to NY when I was sixteen before I had really been exposed to fine art, I saw Woman Ironing by Picasso in the Guggenheim. The image of how this figure looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders and she'd been manipulated by it really stuck with me for a bit, and I have thought about the figure in art differently since then.

                          Intro, 2015-2016, 36 x 46", acrylic, gesso, paint marker, color pencil, and crayon on Mylar


AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for young artists and other creatives who are experiencing self-doubt in their art, frustration or blocks? What are the types of things that have helped you to move past moments where you may have become stuck creatively?

​Izzy: If you don’t know where you are, what exactly it is you are doing, but your intention is growth, you’re likely in the right position. It may be a matter of hitting up the roots from where you started from or deliberately rocking it out in the storm, till it’s clear.

When I am stuck and frustrated while making a piece, I may either need to dig back in the work and make room for new evolutions or try to take a look at the piece less personally, after having a break or working on something else.

Object I Worry About, 2017, 42 x 30", gesso, acrylic, paint marker, crayon on Mylar


AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about?

Izzy: Fall is a super exciting time for art. I’m working on new pieces and incubating about possibly putting up another community show, by the end of the year. 


For more visit www.izzynova.com
All images ​© Izzy Nova
​

Return To Manhood

Sunlight speckles the woods
The cat plays in the birdbath
One sock lost in the dryer
Appeared in the cupboard
Next to the coffee
 
Your heart
                                     loves me
Your makeup
                                     mocks me
Your long legs
                                     taunt me
 
I never dress to your satisfaction
 
If all the empty bottles broke into diamonds
I would ask for your hand
 
In my isolation
I pray for change
To emerge beautiful for you
 
Not a coward
                                       nor a death mask
 
Not an empty shell in the sand
Washed up
Filled with the echos of life
All but my own
 
So many are out there
 
I just want to play in the birdbath
Walk through a sun splattered forest
Know where my clothes are
Love life again
Love you again
And return to manhood
 




Beyond Polarity
 
She disappeared into her cigarette
 
returning only to say
she was leaving
 
her medication got mixed
her eyes were slits
she just wanted to drive and
listen to music
 
almost got into three accidents today
she said
 
feeling better now
 
the mixing was unintentional
she felt guilty
for enjoying the feeling
 
a beautiful young girl
at peace
behind the meds
 
slipping out of reach
like smoke through a keyhole
I couldn’t hold on to her
and finally stopped trying
 
her taillights dimmed
as she vanished
into another adventure
on a mountain road
 
beyond polarity
 




A Good Drunk

I could have been a good drunk
Sitting at home
in the middle of the afternoon
Rubbing my balls
 
Fantasizing about past loves
Not praying for forgiveness
And not making much sense
 
I could have been a good drunk
Sleeping through the bird calls
And mumbling and stumbling
over the railroad tracks to get more
 
I could have been a good drunk
To the prostitutes and lost dogs
A repeater to the cops
A nuisance to the neighbors
 
Empty bottles piled at the back door
Broken glass, vomit, and soiled shorts
 
I could have been a good drunk
Not caring and cursing the day
Not hearing the laughter
 
Or my doctor
 
Or the train
 




Jumping Away
 
He jumped away
from the moon
---
with the pigeons
and the tides
---
to rest like a flower
---
on the sidewalk
---
in the sun





There Was a Boy Laying

There was a boy laying
where no boy should lay,
a young girl stood by his side,
sobbing and wailing
feeling what no girl should feel
 
we all died a little that week,
but the young boy
sleeping in the box,
died more than the rest of us,
 
he was her first true love, she said
and she never left his side,
never stopped touching him,
talking to him, or mourning him
 
she stared at a photograph,
then placed it in the casket,
the casket was placed in a vault,
the vault was lowered slowly
into the earth,
the young girl wailed and cried,
 
in this unthinkable moment
of horrors and lies
 
this young girl’s love
was the most beautiful thing
I had ever seen





Broken Mirrors
(For Charles)

he was brilliant and
glamorous as a gutter
he read everything
drank and fought
in alleys
poetry oozed from him
as naturally as
blood seaping from a wound
 
he’s disgusting and violent
always thirsty
and stained with the tar
of his own breath
 
thriving in that place
where others fall to
in disgrace
 
I can depend on him
for broken mirrors and anger
and viscera and I cringe
 
compelled
to read and read and read
because of my similarity
to him

​

​First Goodbye 
　
The first time I said goodbye it was early morning. My family was gathered in the living room of my grandfather's house. Usually the TV was on (ostensibly another member of the family), but not on that day. On that day, as my mother held me on her lap, everyone sat in silence while my grandmother cried. My aunts, uncles and parents might have, as well, but it was hard to tell with my grandmother carrying on. Ever since receiving news of her mother's death, she had been crying nonstop. A self-destructive, self-sabotaging cry. Her eyes had already puffed up so badly they were nearly shut tight, like Rocky Balboa after fifteen rounds with Apollo Creed, and the funeral arrangements had not even been mentioned yet.

With the curtains drawn so that nosy neighbors could not witness our grieving, my grandmother tried to dial a phone number. I remember the way she squinted through her raccoon eyes in the dim light at her small phone book, trying to make out the number and spinning the rotary dial correctly with her shaky finger.

We all sat and listened to whatever she was saying to whoever she was saying it to. This was a regular practice even under normal conditions. There were no secrets amongst us. Everything was aired out, everything was free to be inspected. Or, at least that's what submitting to this communal eavesdropping seemed to say. In reality recreational drug use was fast becoming addictions, sibling rivalries led to infighting. Backbiting grew so personal and vicious that it was hard to believe the combatants actually shared blood.

Around five years old, I was supposed to be too young to notice any of this, but I heard the lowered voices when one left the room and became the subject of gossip, and I felt the tension when that family member returned.

But noticing these things did not make me smart. For, when my grandmother placed the telephone receiver back on the cradle, there was a lull, as if everyone was sort of growing used to the idea of my great-grandmother having passed on. Everyone, that is, except my grandmother. But, as if going out of my way to prove how dense I was, I got off my mother's lap and walked over to the sofa where my grandmother was crying.

I remember standing in front of her --- this woman that dearly loved her mother; who did not want to imagine a world without her living across town, a phone call away from having coffee together, to have someone to talk to, to share the struggles of motherhood with --- and I kept staring at her swollen eyes and tears, until she noticed me and leaned forward.

"What is it, honey?"

"Why are you crying?"

The look she gave me still causes my stomach to bottom out, still makes me wonder what I thought we had been doing all that morning.

I don't know, but I do know that I will never forget the way my grandmother said, "My mother is dead," and began crying harder than ever.

Instead of saying, "I'm sorry," all I could say was, "Oh," walking back to my mother's lap, face burning with guilt, not knowing if I had missed some vital clue as I slept in the car that morning or if I was just the dumbest kid in the world.



Bio: Ron Gibson, Jr. has previously appeared in Identity Theory, Midwestern Gothic, Cold Creek Review, L'Ephemere Review, Moonsick Magazine, Fiction Pool, Real Story UK, Easy Street Magazine, Rabble Lit, (b)oink, Mannequin Haus, Stockholm Review of Literature, Cheap Pop, New South Journal, Jellyfish Review, Whiskeypaper, Unbroken Journal, Crack the Spine, Gone Lawn, etc... forthcoming at Occulum, Lost Balloon & Ellipsis Zine. @sirabsurd

               From the opening shot of "Time" (Dir. Michael Hogan) Brenna Manzare crafts what feels and functions like a gorgeous musical short film about family, sense of place, the memories that accrue to the spaces we have passed through and perhaps left behind, how every encountered shape, sound and color of our lives informs us then and now, as if "we're alive in two dimensions" as Manzare sings. As if, in the taking, time also gives something back. It is a rich, multi-layered song, and where Manzare's strengths come to bear most are in her poetic approach to song structure, to lyricism and the depth, the utter aliveness of the picture being painted. Through a single track it feels as if a whole universe has been constructed. A photo album of memories lost and reclaimed. Although Manzare has yet to record a full length album, there can be no doubt, as "Time" itself is proof of, that when she does it will be an album to be reckoned with. After all, the most worthwhile labors, well, they take time. "The most important lesson I’ve learned" says Brenna, "is that you have to surrender yourself to the unpredictability of creating." But, when it does come, the songs that it leaves us are proof that both the surrender and the waiting were well worth it.


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? 
 
Brenna: My creative muse is like a sweet but skittish cat hiding under my house. Sometimes I’m able to coax her out with treats and she lets me pet her, but other times she just hisses and crawls deeper into the darkness. I’ve been writing songs for the better part of a decade and I’ve grappled with a lot of self-doubt. Often times I’ve had to just push forward and accept that everything isn’t going to be perfect.
 
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you have to surrender yourself to the unpredictability of creating. Music writes itself whenever you’re doing other things. I tend to find melodies in moments when my mind isn’t paying attention – while I’m driving, showering, folding the laundry. I think in a way, all of life is like that. We spend so much time mapping out how we want things to go, but reality always has other plans.

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?
 
Brenna: I always sang as a child, probably before I even started using words to communicate, I sang. When I was in elementary school, I had a friend who played the piano and I was just drawn to that. I asked my mom to sign me up for lessons, which she did. I started out on a casio keyboard, then later my dad bought me an upright piano. My piano teacher taught me how to read music and keep time and all the basics of music theory. Then later in middle school I joined choir. Both of those things gave me a good base from which to operate, but I wouldn’t say I really got into music until later.
 
I took dance lessons growing up as well, and I participated in a lot of talent shows. The first talent show I did in high school turned me on to the very active punk rock/garage band scene at my school. We had a pretty huge music scene with a lot of different bands and musical genres. There were these two brothers, Casey and Colin Colby, who both played in bands. Since we were all under 18 and couldn’t really play in bars, their parents would rent out the clubhouse in their neighborhood on weekend nights so that bands could play shows. This was in the late 90s/early 2000’s, so on Friday at school we’d get these handmade Xeroxed flyers for the clubhouse shows. A few bands would play and then afterward a few musicians would just jam, and it would turn into a huge dance party.
 
There was another songwriter named Joey Kendall who would host open mic nights at the local coffee shop. There was always a band playing at whatever house party was happening, and our school had a lot of battles of the bands. Suddenly I was surrounded by all these kids listening to and playing and writing music and it was like somebody turned the lights on for me. Music became a scene - something I could be viscerally involved in, as opposed to just something other people did that I could listen to on the radio or pay a bunch of money to go see at a big stadium.

I picked up the guitar during that time and started slowly teaching myself to play. It would be a few more years before I would start actually writing songs, but that environment and those people are I think what really lit the fire for music inside me.
 
I remember hearing Radiohead for the first time. A friend loaned me ‘Amnesiac’ and I was listening to it late at night in a hotel room on a school trip. Everyone else was asleep and I remember getting kind of freaked out, laying there in the dark thinking it sounded like aliens were talking to me in my headphones. It blew me away. I’d never heard anything like it before. I think I’d just been listening to whatever was on Top 40 radio at the time. To this day it’s still one of my favorite albums.

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? 
 
Brenna: I was in college. I lived alone at the time and I’d bought a cheap stand-up bass and was teaching myself to play. I was painting my apartment walls back to the standard white before I moved out the next day, and I started humming a melody. I put down the paint brush and picked up the bass and dove in. It just sort of happened. It’s amazing what you can create whenever you’re supposed to be working on something else. I was elated and didn’t sleep the rest of the night. It felt like I’d discovered I had a super power.

AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? What are the works you could not possibly live without?
 
Brenna: I played with a band for awhile whenever I was living in Fort Worth and I felt like that community really took me in and mentored me in a big way. My band-mates, Adrian Hulet, Jed Barnett, and Seth Brewton had been playing and touring for years. They lent a lot of wisdom and were patient with me while I was sort of learning to be a bandleader. Chris Johnson (who produced “Time”) had been playing with his band Telegraph Canyon for several years when we met. He taught me about the writing process, introduced me to Matt Pence and got me into the Echo Lab to record with him, rounded up band mates to flesh out recordings, advised me against things like wearing shorts and sandals on stage. He helped me level up in a lot of ways.
 
I don’t think I could live without most of Tom Waits’ back catalog. I’m a huge fan. I like how diverse he can be with his sound. He’s got all of these different voices and points of view that he writes from. Of course I’ve already mentioned Radiohead. Crosby, Stills & Nash’s ‘4 Way Street’ (I am a sucker for four-part harmonies), and Neil Young’s ‘Harvest,’ Elliott Smith’s “XO,” Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago,” Sufjan Stevens, “Illinois,” Iron & Wine “The Shephard’s Dog,” Outkast’s “Aquemini,” Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic 2001.”

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 
 
Brenna: Probably not. I could literally rearrange things forever. I work on it until I turn into a complete jerk to the people closest to me, and eventually I decide I can’t let this thing take hold of me like this anymore. Then I give up and that’s where it ends. It’s a terrible process. I’m trying to learn to be more intuitive about it. Somehow it’s always like birth for me though. Fraught and painful until finally I just pass out and hopefully the baby made it.

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, a slightly imperfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, states of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?
 
Brenna: It’s easiest for me to write whenever I’m a little sad and need a distraction. Someone has passed away. I’m heartbroken but starting to heal. It is a way of processing emotions and closing a chapter in that way.

​I think songs can mean different things for the listener and the writer. The song has it’s own life that I don’t entirely get to dictate. You’re really just channeling. It comes out however it wants to come out.
 
It definitely saves me. Creating things that didn’t exist before out of nothing. That’s powerful. You have to be able to trust yourself enough to call something into existence and then also get out of the way and let it be what it wants to be.
 
Even beyond writing, just singing and playing music has saved me. In this super logical culture we live in, music isn’t viewed as a commodity. There’s no practical reason to make music. We do it because we feel it. It makes us feel things. It’s one of the few ways humans can make magic in the modern world.

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?
 
Brenna: Some of the most memorable moments are when you’ve got a bunch of people gathered around quietly listening to people playing acoustic with no amplification. There is a kind of strange magic with that level of focused attention. The line starts to blur between player and listener and it can be a really powerful, shared experience.
 
And then of course there are those times when it’s late and everyone’s had too much to drink and people just break out into loud, mostly tone-deaf singing together. Those are like the yin and yang of my favorite musical moments.
 
AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?
 
Brenna: I can’t say I pay too much mind to what state the world is in when it comes to songwriting. Although lately it is politically and culturally uncomfortable enough as to drive me to write more. What else do I do with all of this pent up aggression and sadness I take on while watching the news? You have to make lemons from the lemonade. 

AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?
 
Brenna: Everybody has an inner critic that lives in their head. The closer you get to accomplishing your dreams, however small they are, the louder that critic’s voice gets. That is actually one way to be certain you’re on to something. The voice starts shouting. Don’t listen to the voice. When the voice tells you that you can’t write songs, write bad songs intentionally, just to mock the voice.
 
And while we’re on the subject, whenever people try to compliment you by suggesting you audition for ‘The Voice,’ just thank them enthusiastically and find a way to cleverly redirect the conversation without them noticing.
 
AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to tell people about?
 
Brenna: I just released a single called “Time,” which I recorded with a full band. You can check that out on my website www.brennamanzare.com, and the song is also up on Spotify, iTunes, bandcamp, etc. I’ve also got a second single coming out in the next few months as well, and I’m going to be playing some shows in and around Austin pretty soon. You can find me on Facebook under “Brenna Manzare Music” if you want to keep up with what’s happening!
​