Waiting Room My sister and I wait in the hospital waiting room for our father to get out of weekly group therapy with my mother who is a resident on the psychiatric ward. I watch a woman talk to a man with a hole in his throat. The man answers with a device. How weird his voice sounds in this sad place. I forget that I am staring. The woman gets up and angrily tells me to stop looking, what kind of terrible person am I? Shame floods me; I try to be a good girl. Part of me waits for my shell of a mother to run into the waiting room and scold me -- hold me. Bio: Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Look for her work in these diverse places (some forthcoming): Anti-Heroin Chic, Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Failed Haiku, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, The Bees are Dead, Wild Plum and elsewhere. She has two micro collections, THE SEA AND A RIVER and BOXBOROUGH POEMS, on the Origami Poems Project website. Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox and keeps a Poetry Box in her front yard.
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King of the Fair I quit drinking and just like that everything changes. This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been successful, but it is the first time I’ve made it this good. The stuff has barely aged a year and it’s already better than anything anyone can get around here. For all that California’s known for, it’s not known for making good liquor, other than wine of course. At least not till I came around. It’s a good thing I don’t drink any more. If folks around here are this hopped up over some hooch that hasn’t even begun to age, well I don’t want to think about what I’d been drinking those first years we were out here. It’s 1938 and Prohibition’s only been over with for five years. Already I got all the honky-tonks, saloons, dancehalls, whatever you want to call ‘em on the Peninsula buying from me. And after a car ride or two up North, now I’m selling whisky clear up to Santa Cruz. Seems the only thing me and the boy got to worry about now is how to make enough whisky and where the hell to put all the money. I solve the money problem by going out and buying a mattress. Cut a slit straight down the side and bit by bit pull out all that stuffing, fill it full of my money. You’ve got to be out of your mind to live through what we all just lived through in this country and still put your money in a bank. Not me, no sir, not after seeing what I saw - little girls with black gums, grown men hanging themselves from rafters in whorehouses because they’ve lost it all and can’t go home and face their families. Call me what you will, but my money’s not leaving my house. I pay my Uncle William back with interest he didn’t even ask for and now I got him sending me all types of letters and telegrams asking me if he can come over here. I put him off because I’m not interested in family any more. Know sure as anything once one of ‘em comes over here, the whole damn Ferguson clan will be pushing aside my barrels to sleep on my floor. Near the end of that summer, I think we are finally doing so well I can’t find a real problem to complain about and Lambert comes in with his head hanging down like he’s got the hardest of lives. I take a look at him, his is face all brown and his hair gone blonde from being outside so much. I know he’s got something he wants to ask that he don’t want to ask. “Cuddy, sir?” he says. I’m putting the seals on a case full of bottles that I’ve got to take over to Jim’s Liquors over in Salinas the next day. I nod. “Cuddy sir,” he says again. “I was wondering if I can go to school when summer’s over?” “How long till summer’s over,” I ask. “Another two weeks, I think,” he says. “How am I supposed to get all this whisky made and delivered if you’re off all day at school?” I ask him. “I’ll still help, Cuddy. I’ll come home at lunch and directly after school,” he says in that new funny way of talking he’s got now that he’s found his way into reading books. “What you got to go to school for?” I ask. “Seems like you’re doing just fine teaching yourself how to read and whatnot.” “It’s against the law,” he says. At that I have to laugh. “So’s brewing hooch in your kitchen. You think I’m worrying about them taking me in for keeping you out of school. Just keep out of sight until you turn sixteen. You’ll be fine.” “I don’t turn sixteen for another three years,” he says. “What are you talking about boy? You turn sixteen next summer.” “Cuddy, I’m only thirteen,” he says. I go back to sealing up the bottles and don’t answer him. I feel him all hopeful over there waiting on me to answer. I decide I better not to let it wait too long. I focus real hard on getting the seal on straight on a bottle and say, “Gonna have to wait another year. Maybe around Christmas if things slow down a little.” He turns and walks out of the room and out the back door. Sounds like once he gets outside, he gives that screen door an extra slam. I’ll be damned if that child isn’t lying to me. Could have sworn he had to be fifteen by now, but I can’t be sure of nothing seeing as how I don’t remember things these days. I thought time was supposed to speed up as you get older, but the world has taken on a right snail’s pace now that all I do all day is wait for grains to sprout. I listen to the radio at night since I can’t seem to sleep when it’s dark out. Guess I just about turned myself upside down with that drinking all night and sleeping all day I did for so long. Out my back window, the sun slips down behind those round Santa Cruz Mountains, the ones that if you look at them a certain way, look like a woman with just the right curves laying there on her side waiting for you. And just about when the sky turns those round golden hills deep indigo like it does, my mind just wakes right up. And when you’re not drinking, there’s not much you can do to pass the night by except listen to the radio programs until those go off. After that, all that’s left to do is wait until the dawn breaks. Soon as the sun comes up and that lady in the mountains rolls over, showing off her big wide hips and her long soft thighs, the sleep finally comes. That’s when I can just close my eyes and fall into her lap with thanks for sleep with no dreams in it. I’m deep inside one of those dreamless sleeps when the banging starts at the front door. It’s the kind of banging that makes you jump right up out of whatever you’re doing because it’s the banging that could only come from cops. I’m up from where I’d fallen the night before, wrapped up in a bunch of burlap barley sacks on top of my mattress that’s filled now from head to middle with money. The boy isn’t there and the sun is high enough that it’s got to be close to noontime. The whole damn operation’s so big that I can’t hide it now and up until that very moment I’d never even thought of how I would hide it if I could. I think about Tim Garrity and Johnny Moore down at the police station and try to remember the last time I’d hit them off with a bottle. Seems like it hasn’t been that long. Certainly not long enough for them to come knocking on the door like that. Whoever is out there bangs again, nearly bangs that screen door off its hinges. Tell you what; if I’d been drunk, that banging would have sobered me up quick. And damn it if I couldn’t use a drink at that moment, what with my nerves jumping and bouncing all around the place. I open the door slowly and where I expect to see a cop banging on the door of a bootlegger’s house there is a boy with sandy brown hair and beady little eyes. He’s got his left shoe in his hand. Seems he musta been using it to assist in making all that noise. He’s got a missing tooth in the front and I wonder if he lost it in a fight. If he did get into a fight, I feel sorry for the other guy. Though, as big and tough as he looks, he’s got a happy grin on his face and he’s wearing a bright orange shirt made of some kind of shiny satin or even silk. It’s torn on the elbow and he’s got dirt all over his dungarees. “Yes?” “We’re looking for Lambert. Have you seen him?” “Who?” I’m still trying to sort the whole thing out. “Lambert, Mr. Cuddy sir. Your son?” “Was that you banging on my door like that?” I ask. “I told you not to bang so loud!” says a voice from across the street behind the big sycamore in front of Mrs. Johnson’s place. The boy on my porch turns around and shouts back, “Well it got him out here didn’t it? He sure wasn’t coming out when I knocked all soft how you wanted me to.” He turns back to me. Smiles that missing tooth smile at me and says, “So, have you seen him?” “Seen who?” I ask still trying to figure out when the cops are going to show up. “Lambert,” he says again, and I think I hear a little sigh of frustration. “We’ve been waiting for him all morning. We’re supposed to go to the fair over in Marina Del Ray.” “Who is that behind the tree?” I ask. “That’s my brother Bobby Paul.” “Bobby Paul?” “Yes sir, and I’m John-John. John-John Duvernay. We live next door,” he says striking out a hefty boy hand at me. I shake his hand and look over at the tree again. “What’s he doing over there?” I ask. “He’s a little scared of you, I’m sorry to say. We wouldn’t have bothered you at all if it wasn’t for Lambert being so late and all.” “Where’s the cops?” I say. “Cops? There ain’t no cops here, Mr. Cuddy Sir.” He looks at me like I’m crazy and at that moment, I see myself through his eyes. I’m wearing my old robe open over an undershirt full of holes and some pajama pants that I’ve patched up so many times they look like some grandma’s quilt. I haven’t shaved in at least a week and I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t stink like one of May’s girls at the end of a good night. “There’s Lambert,” yells Bobby Paul, who pops out like a little chipmunk from behind the tree and starts running down the block towards the boy. Bobby Paul’s got on the exact same outfit as his brother. Holey elbows and dirty knees alike, but he’s a pretty one that boy is. Can see from all the way over here. When I see him, I know these really are the boys from next door. Know because that one over there behind the sycamore, Bobby Paul, looks just like his mama and you’d have to be blind, insane and drunk not to notice a broad like that living next door to you. I know she has boys and that them and Lambert is buddies that they’re out there playing together in the yard all the time but this is the first time I’ve ever got a real good look at em. Lambert is coming up the street with a big fat book in his hand, his index finger shoved deep into the pages to mark his spot and a look on his face I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. His eyes move from my face to John-John to Bobby Paul who’s no longer hiding behind the tree, but damn near on Lambert’s shoulders he’s so happy to see him. The look, it stops on the little one and smiles for a second, then goes back to me, to John-John on the porch and so on, all as he’s walking towards us, book in hand. It takes me a second to place that look. It’s not one of worry, or surprise, nor is it happy to see us all gathered there to greet him. It’s shame. It’s downright shame on that boy’s face when he sees me there in my old robe and my coarse face, standing close enough to his little buddy that he knows there’s no way that boy can’t smell my week old, maybe even two weeks old, stench. “Good afternoon Cuddy sir,” he says walking closer, but not so close as he can’t run if I decide to give him a good licking for looking at me all shameful like that. A boy like him should be grateful for the stench of my unwashed skin, because it’s that unwashed skin that’s carried these bones back and forth between still and bar and back to the mattress for him to go stick his face in between two sheets of paper like they was the legs of a high-priced whore. I know he can see it in my face. The licking he’s got coming. His eyes are locked in mine and I don’t see the shame there anymore. It’s hidden underneath the fear, but I know it’s there. Bobby Paul is still holding on to Lambert’s arm, he pulls on him and says, “Your papa was just talking to us about the fair. You didn’t forget about the fair did you Lambert?” Lambert looks away from me and down into the giant eyes of the boy. “No Bobby Paul, I didn’t forget about the fair. I just forgot what time it was is all,” he says and smiles. I don’t know if it’s that smile on his face, or the way Bobby Paul is looking up at him all admiring. Or if it’s the way that he called me Lambert’s “papa.” But something makes me smell my own stink, makes the whiskers on my face itch, the slime of my sweaty slippers stick between my toes. “You boys stay right there,” I say. “I’ll show you how to go to a fair.” “You all right Cuddy?” the boy asks. He’s not looking at me ashamed anymore, or scared. Now he looks down right stumped. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I’m all right. Going to go clean up a little, grab some money -- you need money for a fair, right?” “You sure do,” says John-John. For all his loud banging, he got quiet quick enough. The talk of money seemed to be just the thing he needs to get him going again. “We got enough to pay to get in and go on three rides a piece. Don’t got enough for food though, but that ain’t so tough. Maman fixed us some sandwiches and there’s that good stream over by the fairgrounds in Marina. Can’t ask for better drinking water than that stream.” Lambert and Bobby Paul nod along to what John-John is saying. Seems the three of them have had this whole thing planned out good for a while now. I hold up my hand to keep him from starting up again. “You boys wait right here. I’ll be back in a minute.” Takes damn longer than a minute or two to get myself together, but when I step out on that porch there’s not a thing in the world that the boy can be ashamed of. I’ve pressed my suit, washed and combed my hair, got a face damn near as smooth as you can bet the skin is behind them little boy’s mama’s knees. My shoes, well shined of course, don’t have nothing on the wad of money I roll up tight and put in my pocket. Even grab my hat off the top of the refrigerator, blow off the barley that’s got itself stuck in there. Come out there on that porch to those three looking like they’ve been waiting for a year never mind an hour. They all straighten up good when they see me stepping out. Especially the boy. Gets a big grin on his face, looks at one buddy, then the other. He meets my eyes for a second and looks away. Ashamed of himself now. Ashamed and proud all at once. I ruffle his hair a little, tweak him on the ear. “You boys want to ride in the back?” I ask, opening the front door of the Roadster and climbing in, pushing aside a few of the empty bottles that are on the seat. “We’re going to drive?” asks John-John. Bobby Paul stops short, lets his mouth fall open. Lambert stands on the sidewalk looking at all of us as if he can’t believe what’s about to happen, as if he doesn’t know if it should. He catches my eye and I wink at him. He gives me just a little nod of his head. “What’d you think, Cuddy was going to take the bus with us or something?” he says. “Good-O!” says Bobby Paul, climbing into the back with his brother right behind him. “C’mon, boy,” I yell, “or me, BP and Double J are leaving without you.” The boys smile at their new nicknames as they settle in on top of some scraps of old peat in the back. Damn if I’m not going to show them the time of their life. “Yeah, c’mon Lambert,” they say in unison. Lambert climbs in the back, catches my eye again through the rear window. I tip my hat to him as he sits down and let the tires burn out a little as we take off. The Marina Del Ray county fair is diesel fuel and hay; tinkling merry-go-round music and game-booth callers. It is corn on the cob covered in butter, giant hot dogs covered in ketchup. It is puffy pink swaths of cotton candy and that about does it for me. The boys can’t be stopped, though, and go for funnel cakes and ice cream cones, steak sandwiches and strawberry sodas. With every bite John-John wipes his mouth and says, “That hits the spot. Sure if that doesn’t hit the spot.” By the time they get the strawberry soda, Lambert says, “You keep on saying that.” “Well,” says John-John, “I got a lotta spots.” “He does,” Bobby Paul says to me. “I should know. I’m his brother.” I lose my hat on the Ferris wheel. Bobby Paul watches it fly out behind us and solemnly takes off the gold cardboard crown he won at the Dunk-the-Monkey booth and hands it to me. I put the crown on my head, cock-eyed so it’ll stay. “How does it look BP?” I ask. “Like the king that you are Cuddy, sir,” he says. After that, the boys get on some ride I can barely watch for all that they’re spinning around so fast. Spin so fast they stumble about like a bunch of drunks when they get off, holding their sides and laughing. Then John-John hurls his lunch across his shirt. We all look at him, silent. Lambert asks him which spot that hit and the laughter bursts out of all of us again till we’re all about to throw up. Deciding to take leave from the eating and spinning, we go into the exhibition tent. Every section of the county’s got their own booth showing off their best hens and eggs and strawberries and garlic. We walk slowly past the exhibits, and the girls from the 4-H club whisper and peek at the boys over their jams and needlepoint. Bobby Paul doesn’t notice, the older boys sure do. They look to be paying attention to the exhibit on advances in farm machinery technology three booths down, but John-John casts just one too many glances in the girls’ direction and sends them into a fit of giggles. I can see the red creep up the back of Lambert’s neck. A Kiddie’s Parade full of flying colors and little ones all dressed up brings us out of the tent and we stand on the sidelines just cheering and clapping. Bobby Paul grabs my hand and says, “Cuddy, I just heard them say over the loudspeaker that Lenis Lane is going to be on the Big Stage in fifteen minutes!” “Who?” I ask. “Lenis Lane,” he says, “Hollywood’s Famous Yodeling Lone Cowgirl.” “She comes on the radio sometimes, sings those crazy yoodle-ay-hee-hoo yuudle songs,” says John-John. “Bobby Paul’s nuts about her, he never misses her show.” There’s also some good horse racing about to jump off and I finger the wad of money in my pocket that’s still thick even after footing the bill for all that food and fun. I guess Bobby Paul just has a way of getting what he wants because I find myself sitting on my arse in the lawn in front of the stage listening to old Lenis yodeling away instead of looking to double my money at the ponies. When it starts to get dark we get up and go for Chinese from Goodall’s All American and Chinese Restaurant booth. The boys are smudged all over and the Duvernay boys’ orange silky shirts are a dirty muted brown. Lambert’s eyes look heavy and his hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat. “You all want to head out?” I ask. “If you want to Cuddy, sir,” says John-John who gets a kick under the table from his little brother. I look from one of them to the next, waiting for the request. I feel Bobby Paul continuing to urge John-John with his foot under the table, but John-John refuses to meet his eyes and instead pretends to work on using his chopsticks. “What is it, Double J?” I ask. Both of them eye Lambert, silently electing him the spokesman. “Well, speak up, boy,” I say. “It’s just that,” he says pushing his chop suey around on his plate. “It’s just that, well, Jimmy Walsh and his twelve-piece band are going to be playing at nine o’clock.” “And there’s going to be dancing!” shouts out Bobby Paul - to which he gets a harsh shush and an even harder kick under the table. “You all want to dance?” I say. They all look at each other. “Well,” says John-John, “none of us have ever seen people really dance. I mean, we’ve seen them in movies and all, but never in real life.” “And Lambert wants to see the band,” Bobby Paul says. I look at the boy and he nods at me over the straw of what has got to be his fifth soda pop of the day. “Jimmy Walsh it is,” I say and they cheer, raising their pop bottles to me. It’s damn near midnight when we get home and Mrs. Duvernay comes tearing out of her house and onto her yard in a flowery flowing silk kimono. She is yelling something I can’t understand as she grabs both boys by their ears and tows them inside. I know she’s throwing back curses at me as she goes because I see her head turn my way, hear her even after the back door slams behind them. Lambert, who’s asleep wrapped in some swaths of peat, sleeps right through Mrs. Duvernay’s raving, but he wakes when I try to carry him inside. “I guess you’re just not little enough for carrying anymore,” I say. “I guess not,” he says. “Their mom, was she sore?” “Sure sounded that way,” I say. We walk inside and both of us fall down on our mattresses, but not before I put my crown on top of the fridge where my hat used to be and put back the remainder of my wad of cash that’s still pretty sizeable. I guess it doesn’t take as much money as I thought to become king of the fair. I’m down to the bone tired and it’s dark as the devil outside. I smile thinking I might have just licked this nocturnal affliction. “Cuddy,” the boy says, shocking me a little because I was sure he was already back in the land of Nod, “thank you.” “You’re welcome,” I say. I lay there for a second thinking I can’t remember the last time I felt so good. My stomach is sore from the laughing and the sodas and that damned chop suey but I’m tired and happy. Think maybe there’s not much wrong with being the kind of father who takes his kid and his buddies to the fair and spoils em rotten for the day. Think about the boys and their laughing and carrying on and the way they teased each other. Think they’re pretty good kids, the lot of them. And the boy, that Lambert, he might just be all right after all. “Boy,” I say. “You still up?” “Yes sir,” he says. “When’d you say school starts?” “Next Monday,” he says. “You’ll be needing some new clothes and a school bag and all that, won’t you?” He’s silent on his mattress and I wonder if he didn’t fall asleep, but I should’ve known better. “You saying I can go to school?” he says. “Yes, boy,” I say. “But you still got to come home and help with the whisky. Got to come home on your lunch breaks and right after school.” “Oh, I will, Cuddy,” he says. I can see him sitting up on an elbow looking through the darkness at me. Since I’m busy being a good father and all, I say, “And I’m not interested in you getting bad marks or hearing from any teachers about you acting up in class or anything like that. You get your work done and keep your behavior in line. You hear me?” “Yes Cuddy, sir,” he says and I can almost hear the smile on his face. “All right now. Go on to sleep.” “Yes Cuddy, sir,” he says again and lies back down. I wait until I hear his breath slow before I close my eyes. I’m tired. Dog-tired. So tired I don’t even get up to turn off the hallway light. Bio: Mathea Morais was raised in St. Louis and earned a degree in Literature from NYU. She began her career writing about hip hop culture and music for “The Source” magazine and “Trace Urban Magazine.” She has studied writing with Bret Anthony Johnston, Jessica Treadway and John Hough, Jr. In 2007, she wrote a children’s book called I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo that was published by the Bonobo Conservation Initiative and features an afterword by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. Mathea lives on Martha’s Vineyard where she teaches English and founded the High School Creative Writing Collaborative with Alexander Weinstein. She contributes regularly to the “Martha’s Vineyard Times” and “Martha’s Vineyard Magazine.” Her literary work has been published in “Arts & Ideas” magazine and is forthcoming in “The New Engagement” literary journal. Is there beauty in the bite, something to learn inside each of the things we fear? What more than appearance might the spider contain? What color, what mysterious geometry, what inspiration? PD Packard's artwork explores the complex interweaving of entomology and the parallels with our more human selves, attempting to express the principles of unconditional love, as opposed to conditional romance. "One may find something quite hideous about bugs," PD says, "but I discovered through observation and the causal study of entomology that though there is horror, there is also beauty, even love in a world that parallels our own." Shed skin, shark teeth, sun-bleached fish bones, the pattern of a beetle's shell, ours is not the only world to think about here. What surrounds us, what do we see, what don't we see? What are the almost invisible relationships at work in the air or just beneath our feet, how different are they, how similar? "I am attracted to things that are very different from me and make me feel uncomfortable." PD says of primary influence, "Feeling uncomfortable is a significant part of creativity, causing a curiosity within me to look closer at the subject matter." Packard talks us through her life's work, and the multifaceted experiences she strives to create, reminding us that "the most sacred aspect of art is the artist’s hand upon their work" and the many worlds we stumble into, and out of, along the way. 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? PD Packard: I’ve always had a natural love of color. When growing up in Washington, D.C., and trying to determine how I would make an income with this love of color, I believed that going to a university would be the answer. I began studying fashion design at Parsons School of Design in NYC. Through an exchange program, I applied for and was awarded a full scholarship to Saint Martin’s School of Art (aka Central Saint Martin’s), in London. There I obtained a BFA in Fashion and Textile Design. At Saint Martin’s I was given a lot of creative freedom, something that had been missing at Parsons. Most of my days at Saint Martin’s were spent working in the textile department dyeing and printing fabrics, and then executing many self-indulgent, crazy-butt ideas for clothing and accessories that weren’t viewed as very commercial by my teachers. It was a wonderful foundation and even today experimenting without restraints is a very important part of developing any of my ideas, helping me discern and refine each step towards completion. In truth, I really must give due credit to my mother who definitely marked a clear path of art for me. She was an avid reader and was always interested in knowing about the life and work of the most popular architect, artist, writer, director, or whomever represented hip and happening at the moment. Much of what she claimed was worth knowing about, or insisted I know about, I found completely baffling or did not agree with. As a young teenager there was always the pressure from peers to be social. Although I liked going out with friends on Friday and Saturday night, I equally liked staying in just to redecorate my room. This act of reorganizing has always been incredibly therapeutic for me and another way of articulating my love of color. Once my room was completed, I would joyfully set myself up in front of the TV with a big bowl of popcorn and watch old black & white movies like Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford or anything by one of my favorite directors, Alfred Hitchcock. My mother was extremely social and thought it very odd that I would prefer to be at home, alone, even if it was creating, instead of out and about socializing with friends. It’s always been important for me to be able to spend time alone and separate from the world in order to hear inspirational thoughts. 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? How does the idea for you begin and what does its evolution look like during the stages of its development? PD Packard: Scientists use the word “discover” when talking about their work. For me, to discover, means that it’s already there, it just has to be revealed, or uncovered. Art isn’t a default for me because I don’t understand math or science. It is math and science. With this in mind, my work is focused on the discovery of the cause and effect of color. I also find inspiration to be something that is instantaneous, occurring without thought and when I am not actually trying to create. Many of my ideas come to me in the middle of the night when I am in deep sleep. The creative source within me, within each of us, actually calls my name, waking me from my sleep, and shoves the idea into my consciousness. After which I am desperate to remember the idea the next day when I awake. I am called a mixed-media artist combining printmaking techniques with watercolor painting. Before I actually commence work I do lots of sketches. Every time I get an idea I try to quickly put it down on paper, preferably in my sketchbook. I then select some of the ideas to take further through a period of experimentation with more drawings, making a boat load of prints, painting watercolors, and building small prototypes out of bookbinding board. Executing the final piece is an additional lengthy process spent working out how all the various pieces fit together harmoniously to express the principles of unconditional love, not conditional romance. AHC: You've written that your work is created to express the principles of unconditional love, not conditional romance. Could you talk some about what you mean by this and if it in any way connects up with the patterns of insects you document, which are indefinitely complex, as are we. Is unconditional love, as you see it, a recognition of our own indefinitely complex (as opposed to simplified romantic notions) messiness and modes of being with each other, that are perhaps more honest when we're in it for the long haul with each other, so to speak? PD Packard: When I was five years old. My new friend had a big playhouse in her backyard. As we entered her playhouse, the small, silk ball caught my eye and I reached out to grab it. To my horror a spider jumped onto my hand, wrapping around my middle finger. The more I tried to shake the spider off, the more it clung to my hand. It bit me and then fell into the grass. Being stung by bumblebees while running barefoot through the clover fields behind my house was nothing new to me, but the spider’s bite made my hand swell and throb in pain, later turning completely purple. I do not recall how the day ended, but I am sure my mother came to pick me up. I never did see my new friend again. This experience created within me fear, disgust, and even horror towards insect. Only many years later were I able to think anew about insects while gardening at my home in Brooklyn, NY. One may find something quite hideous about bugs, but I discovered through observation and the causal study of entomology that though there is horror, there is also beauty, even love in a world that parallels our own. Painting insects is really, me, just trying to release myself from conditional, human opinion that creates frustration. I try to listen within myself for ideas that are unforced, free and unconditional. 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.? PD Packard: I am attracted to things that are very different from me and make me feel uncomfortable. Feeling uncomfortable is a significant part of creativity, causing a curiosity within me to look closer at the subject matter. This uncomfortable object of interest is obvious in my watercolors of insects, or scanagrams of shark’s teeth, sun-bleached fish bones, and snake sheds. I’ve always loved bold graphics, with self-similar images and mathematical order. In the late 80s, a friend took me to hear a lecture on graphic design given at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), in NYC. I had no idea who the guest speaker was, and in my naive mind he looked like some regular, middle-aged man wearing a suit and heavy, black-rimmed glasses. He was introduced as Saul Bass, the American graphic designer and filmmaker. From the start, I was incredibly impressed with his work especially when he showed his title sequences that he had created for many well-known movies, like The Pink Panther and for films by Alfred Hitchcock. For Hitchcock’s movies, North by Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho, Bass invented this new type of kinetic typography in his title sequences that I love. Bass was also a prolific logo designer and many of his logos are still in use today, showing the longevity and strength of his work. Longevity and strength are traits that I greatly admire in anyone's work. 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? PD Packard: The most sacred aspect of art is the artist’s hand upon their work. Their soul, their mind, their everything is placed mentally and physically upon their work and it’s obvious. I am very compelled to express this concept in my own work as an artist. For many years I worked as a designer creating products, original textile and surface designs primarily for the cosmetic industry. What I very much enjoy about designing is that it’s about solving problems by developing products that are useful and functional for your client or customer. Simply put, you work as a team with designers, manufacturers, and distributors. It’s very natural to have many minds and hands evolved during the process. With my art, I am not trying to solve problems; I am trying to create an experience. AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away, that lit a fire in you? PD Packard: When I was 16 years old, my mother brought home the first book published by the German photographer, Helmut Newton, called White Women. I immediately loved his black-and-white and color photographs of women that were at the time considered very controversial and reflected the changing image of women in Western society. In the book, his images contained nudity and eroticism in the world of fashion that definitely made me uneasy yet intrigued to know more. Today anyone of any age can easily find booty shots or even more illicit images on social media, but I’d never seen images of women in the fashion world looking decadent yet elegant or masculine and beautiful at the same time. 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? PD Packard: Suffering is a natural process in any form of creativity. The initial inspirational idea I get for my next project is really the most exciting part of creating. The actual process of executing the idea causes me a lot of discomfort because I am trying to be as real and honest about my work as possible. I am very isolated, working alone in my studio and this can sometimes be challenging. It’s essential for me to be open to rethink, adapt, or change if something is not moving as planned. If things are not going well with a piece, I work hard to remain committed to completing the project. Completion creates the confidence to continue on, even if it appears there’s no outlet for my work. It’s important for artists, for anyone, to learn to talk about money. The thought that we just love our work so much that we are willing to do it for free is not necessarily true. Artists are as committed and hardworking as any other profession and must be paid fairly. Talking about money can’t rob you of your creativity. AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about? PD Packard: I strongly believe in the principle that Black + White = Color. To articulate that idea, I’ve been making scanagrams and black-and-white photos using a macro lens primarily of plants, insects and nature from the northern seashore. The series is strongly influenced by the works of Karl Blossfeldt, a German photographer, teacher and artist best known for his close-up photographs of plants that were first published in 1929. In his book, Art Forms In Nature, he wrote that the “plants could be described as an architectural structure.” In my work, I am trying to convey the architectural patterns of plants. I am always welcome to opportunities where I can demystify color and show how natural and approachable color is for all of us. This September 24th, I have been invited by the Artist and Craftsman Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, to hold an in-store demo on the Japanese decorative papermaking technique, Itajime Shibori. Free and open to the public, participants from 5 years – adults are welcome to a hands-on experience on how to create the 1000 years old decorative paper. In addition, on October 7, 2017, I will also be conducting the same workshop at 1241 Carpenter Studios in South Philadelphia during the Center For the Emerging Visual Artists program, The Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST). The POST event is also generously sponsored in part by heavy bubble portfolio websites for artists. For more visit PD Packard: http://www.pdpackard.com Artist and Craftsman Chestnut Hill: http://www.artistcraftsman.com Center For the Emerging Visual Artists program, The Philadelphia Open Studio Tours (POST): https://www.philaopenstudios.org Heavy Bubble Portfolio Websites for Artist: http://heavybubble.com All images © PD Packard (Provided courtesy of the artist.) 9/4/2017 0 Comments Poetry by Jade Homacliff vs girl It’s just that your dog doesn’t bark when I stumble in through your front door. She still looks at your father through eyes of uncertainty, but gives me a million free passes to your bedroom. I think she knows I am the only thing standing between you and the ledge most days. It’s just that sometimes, I swear you are going to lean in and kiss me, even though you are with him now. But he is more wind than parachute, and you are more bird than girl. The type that flies into windowpanes. Which leaves me the rope. So now we’re teetering on the edge. It’s just that you said I am your favorite human. If the whole world ended and you could save one person, it would be me. You borrow my jean shorts and wear them without any underwear. You make a habit of drinking from the same straw as me. Even when there’s a whole box of them sitting in a kitchen drawer. You suck on my fingers and play it off as a joke. But I never laugh. So you try stand up instead, but every punchline ends with you killing yourself. And now you are lying at the bottom of the cliff and it seems so stupid to care about who actually had you in the end – me or him – because we lost sight of you in the process. It’s just that I take five-minute showers and yours last an hour. I guess what I’m saying is we would even out the water bill. she is This is how I want to explain it to everyone right now. She is the only one who would get my coffee order right out of everyone I know. She is the light and the dark and the shadows flickering in a hallway. She is the taste of peach gummies from the local convenience store at 3:28 pm in her bedroom underneath the covers. She is that feeling when you go over a loop on a roller coaster and your stomach does a flip just because she smiled at you yesterday. She is two arms holding you tight and forehead kisses and warm sweatshirts and chocolate colored eyes. She is tangled up hair in a ponytail you want to run your fingers through. She is solid, real, an oak tree of solidarity. She is taller, her hands are bigger, her fingers longer. She wraps herself around you, and the world disappears. She is bruised knuckles and a sharp mouth and hickey marks and fireworks that look pretty just before they implode. She is Pop Rocks in your mouth every time you taste her, and most nights you can still smell the essence she left behind - woods and dirt and soot. She is the feeling when you’re kissing someone and they smile against your lips. She is a pair of Doc Martens. She is words stumbling over each other in excitement. She is the goddamn sun. She is the safest I have ever felt in my entire life. Once my favorite poet said, “She does not remind me of anything; everything reminds me of her.” She is you. mermaids and mountains “When in conversation, Do you listen, Or do you just wait to talk?” - Take my hand, come dance with me Let’s waltz our way through this wind-up Jewelry box, we’re both stuck in - We’re all tap dancing around our problems And putting pink camo on the elephant in the room A disgrace to our army - And I know that you are trying If you weren’t, you’d be dead But here’s what I think: - Maybe we’re all just mermaids, trying to climb mountains Getting high on dreams that will kill us Slow dancing to heavy metal in the night - And we live on ramen and Times New Roman Twelve point, double spaced Your fingers will change the world someday - I will stand nose to nose, no no’s for an answer So don’t try to tell me I should shut up and listen When my generation is the last hope that you’ve got - And the mountains don’t stand a chance Not with all the broken boys and broken girls Trudging on with shredded fish tales - We sold our lungs so we could speak And you still have the audacity to cover your ears It’s finally the children’s turn - Take my hand, come hide with me In the bomb shelter, supposed to kill each other Where are your silver tongued politicians now - Kiss me, hit me, punch me, breathe me Drag me to the ground You need me - Maybe we’re all just dragons, trying to ride the waves Breathing in, breathing out, quoting things we’d never say Jazz swinging like puppets whose hands don’t hold the strings - And I thrive on touch and pretentious poetry Write it, mail it, my name in fine print You want to change the world with me - And we will fight, wrist to wrist, hands held to the sky We tried to warn you, but the duct tape on our mouths Was your very own cruel irony - And the waters don’t stand a chance Not with all the salty tears from infant skin Of the kids who learned to swim too fast - They glorify it, romanticize it Anxiety, depression, suicide The works - And I am not here to tell you beautiful words This is the people screaming, the children crying And how nothing will ever be the same - For the kids with the red marks, passed out in the hallways And this is all your fault So wipe that stupid smile off your face - I am not a mermaid, and I am not a dragon But my skin and bones are made of steel And I am here to protect the broken the truth about Santa the truth about Santa is that I don’t believe in him I’m a cynic, a skeptic that girl sales people hate and I am usually right I like to sleep with facts and figures and the word “proof” because I’m not a sucker, some wide-eyed believer my mother tells me I see the worst in people; she says I need to be more positive I tell her I’m positive that people are assholes when I was seven, I always wondered why ads worked on so many adults I couldn’t understand how someone could keep falling for the same stupid shit eleven years later, and I’m just now grasping that it never makes sense until you’re the one being played crawling back to that same mouth, dreaming of my name on your tongue, getting lost in the total upheaval your absence carved out within me I finally get it now: some people never change but it can be hard to see that when they play your heart like a string instrument you never get told about how difficult it is to say, “no.” or warned about the feeling when you want to believe in someone with every fiber of your being, but you just can’t it’s always easier in concept, to yell at the tv screen, “leave them, leave them, leave them!” it seems so cut and dry it seems so basic it seems so easy to spot the bad guy until she is wearing your face and here is what I want you to know, my March girl, my piece of sunshine, my clash of teeth and skin, I don’t believe in most things: Diet Coke, Santa, or that you really cared but, oh God, did I believe in you flight risk we have so much baggage, our first date would have to take place in an airport terminal but I’m okay with that if you are letting you go feels like not showering. it feels like missing sleep. it feels too much like losing my balance until I don’t know who I am anymore. letting you go is just the easy way out of my screwed up, complicated maze of feelings. making you stay feels like nostalgia it feels like holding onto something so tight until I lose my circulation. it feels too much like not being what either of us needs. making you stay is just another outlet to punish myself with and I don’t deserve that. letting you go is saying goodbye to my happiness making you stay is clinging onto the bruises on my throat both result in having to convince you to love me Bio: Jade is a passionate dog lover, pasta enthusiast, and anxious poet. At age 18, she has already written over 50 poems and several short stories. Jade currently resides in Pennsylvania with her dog, Indie, and will be attending university in several months. Monstrum in Animo The bleary-eyed reporter felt truly monstrous waltzing in late with the dank bouquet of too many IPAs on his breath, a storm-tossed Oxford shirt that pined for the touch of an iron, and a grease-sheened bag of White Castle breakfast sliders. Julia strode out into the parking lot with an overflowing cardboard box. “She was probably laid off,” he laughed to himself, more with idle gallows humor than any actual conviction that was what happened. She was probably carting odds and ends back home after doing some spring cleaning. He swiped his key card, without realizing what horrors awaited in the office. In retrospect, he should have seen it coming. A maudlin photographer was telling everyone how much he’d miss them. An embittered copy editor forced into early retirement told the new copy chief he’d been fortunate to work 10 years there, and hoped others would have the same privilege. A digital producer cried in the corner. The guillotine of uncaring corporate downsizing lopped off 20 heads. Survivors questioned how they’d even get a paper out anymore when the newsroom was already less lean than skeletal. The place felt like Death Row, only the perky HR person was the executioner who’d summon unawares victims into a conference room with a seemingly innocuous “you got a minute?” As a dazed new father shambled out toward the unemployment line and an uncertain future, a politician on CNN bleated like a demonic goat on an overhead TV about how the press was the enemy of the people, all liars, the very worst people. The stunned reporter reflected on how he just wanted to let people in the community know when a new tapas restaurant came to town, about the latest art gallery exhibition, and of private-school kids who used 3D printers to forge prosthetic limbs for amputee veterans. As he stewed, the reporter got angry. The real monster was these politicians who demonized a ragtag group of liberal arts majors more interested in the lilt of the prose than the size of the paycheck. The monster was the Craigslist founder who gutted the whole classifieds business. The monster was the failing department stores who took out fewer full-page ads, the local grocery chains that got bought out and stopped placing ad inserts. The monster was corporate bosses who failed to steer the ship of media clear of the rocky financial shores. The monster was editors who neglected to provide readers with what they wanted, who were too hidebound to think about what news anyone wanted to consume. The monster was institutional inertia that stifled innovation, adaptation, keeping up with the times. The monster was the public who just didn’t care. The monster was everyone and no one. The mind sometimes conjures monsters where none exist, finds comfort in a snarling scapegoat, the reporter thought, looking out over the glistening water while on a contemplative stroll later that night. He was trying to make sense of everything, chart his next steps. The place was an abattoir—he'd eventually be next. It was no conjuring, no monstrum in animo. All this was monstrous, all this was a horror, the systemic way institutions chew you up and spit you out. The monster in your mind, that lurks in dark corners during the sepulchral pitch of sleepless nights, doesn't just emerge unbidden from the ether. Bio: Joseph S. Pete is an award-winning journalist, an Iraq War veteran, an Indiana University graduate, and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. He was named the poet laureate of Chicago BaconFest 2016, a feat that Geoffrey Chaucer chump never accomplished. His literary or photographic work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Pop Lit, The Grief Diaries, Gravel, Perch Magazine, Lit-Tapes, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Dogzplot, shufPoetry, Prairie Winds, Blue Collar Review, Work Literary Magazine, Lumpen, Stoneboat, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Jenny Magazine and elsewhere. Don’t tell anyone he wrote this bio, because that’s like a trade secret or whatever. subtle violation …slow…building…bliss growling hand prints on my cheeks/ humming…wet…on Sunday morning/ you lick at my smudged bruised hips/ they whisper, welcome, come in…/ sick fuck fantasies of bloodied sting/ three tongued snakes and open veins/ this love is holy/ this love is sick/ it pines and bites as Devil’s grunt your name/ scorched meat from the depths of my mouth cavity/ swollen violent tongue send your eyes to space/ I come from wars, I don't come coy, you’ll end up shrapnel, gored and scathed-- gentle and chaste-- I’m colossal… our mouths look for treasures while we share our endeavors… this is love incarnate… I want us alone/ stripped, stained and fragile… fever body starts to drip a slow, heavy drip opens up old wounds deep, echoing wounds prone to infection, where silence cuts the vocal chords in purgatory/ left to fend for themselves and, oh god, poor thing, it just grew within itself, and extended into calloused skin/ into gut-wrenching bouts of septicity poor little pomegranate babies, milking themselves sick while the rest writhed in black quarters and hot soup poor little things, protesting over me like some sort of bad dream ...wake up. maya existence feeds you lightning I kiss you hoping to turn you into ash/ fractal patterns on your tongue/ the rolling thunder is a pause of cavernous muscles relaxing cause cruelty comes self-inflicted/ don’t stray into the future where time sends shivers down spines/ be like beasts live for the kill Bio: Ingrid is a Salvi refugee residing in Historic Filipinotown. Her work has been featured in Leste Mag, Electric Cereal, Drunk Monkeys, velvet-tail, amongst others…Her third full-length poetry book 'Zenith' is out now through Editions Du Cygne. She writes through guided ethos or some fleeting alien-hand syndrome and tries to make the jumbled mess in her head, into verse. She hopes it resonates. Re-purposed When we met you were angry. You felt as if the universe had cheated you from a proper life. Of course, it had not. The dice were rolled the same for you as for everyone else. “Look, I already have thirty two years done with,” you say, “I am not starting over.” You pace up and down our surrounding nothingness. All that exists here is my desk and my chair. I pull your file from a drawer. “There’s nothing I can do about it. This is just how it works.” You contemplate this information quietly before responding. “I don’t want my next life to be assigned randomly. I want to make the choice,” you say, “and I want to be a falcon. Or an owl. I think I deserve that much.” I laugh. You frown. “Was that funny to you?” “It was.” “People always said that I was funny.” “I’d have to agree.” “I don’t want to lose myself. I don’t want to change.” “But you will.” “Where will I go? Who will I be?” I shrug, “what will you be?” I correct. Your eyes widen. “Who are you?” “An observer.” “You like observing people?” “You don’t?” “No,” you say, “They never stop thinking. It isn’t at all entertaining.” I laugh again, “You don’t approve?” “Can’t say that I do.” “You didn’t really do much with your thirty something years, did you?” “Thirty two years,” you say, “and I had a family. I had a career.” “Hm.” “What will happen to my family now that i’m gone? Will they be okay?” “Do you actually care?” “Of course.” “They’ll go on as they always have,” I say, “like nothing ever happened. As if you never died.” “Oh.” You don’t seem surprised. “Look . . .” I say, “it’s time for you to go.” “I’m scared,” you squeak, “I don’t want this.” “I’m sorry, I really am.” “What’s the point of it all?” “To live.” ⧫ ⧫ ⧫ There is water on all sides of you. Consume, your brain tells you, and so you do. You grow exponentially in a matter of a few weeks. Now inches long, you sprout tiny legs and creep hesitantly from your creek. Nothing motivates you spare innate urges to procreate and eat. You seek refuge in the crevice of some cracked limestone and name that place your home. From there, your weak eyes struggle to witness the metamorphosing twilight. Bats stir overhead. Your neighbors are composed of black beetles and mosquito larvae. In your past life, you had wondered if lesser creatures, who feasted on insects and such, felt that they had a fine taste. Now you know that they do not have any distinct flavor. They do, however, have a satisfying crunch. Your life is simple. You creep around with no true destination. You consume whatever you come across and mate without formalities. When a possible predator lurks nearby, you hide behind towering stalagmites. In the small moments of time in which you are not hunting, or being hunted, you are sleeping. All you know of the world is that the cave floor is wet, glossed by a fine mist, and that you’re always hungry. It’s much easier for you in a rotten grotto than it ever was in a three bedroom house stamped in the middle of the suburbs. Salamanders don’t have children that resent them, they don’t have debts, and they have no responsibility outside of protecting their lives. The nature of the salamander is isolated, easy going, therefore you belong perfectly to the algae and the darkness. We never got the chance to meet again. *Note This story first appeared in FadedOut. Bio: Provolone Sinatra is an emerging writer from central Florida. He is a man stuck to a rock that orbits a flaming ball of gas and that's really all there is to him. You can find his early work scribbled on the walls of gas station bathrooms and his later work floating listlessly around the internet. |
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