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Mad Love The SunPost Arts Journal October 2003 Edited by Tony Guzman Design & Layout by Simone Fong
“If you
take the time you can start to infer a disgruntlement beneath the prettiness, a
concern, a sadness and loneliness…” Thomas Campion
THE SYPRES CURTEN OF THE NIGHT IS SPREAD
The Sypres curten of the night is spread, And over all a silent dewe is cast. The weaker cares by sleepe are conquered; But I alone, with hidious griefe agast, In spite of Morpheus charmes a watch doe keepe Over mine eies to banish careless sleepe. Yet oft my trembling eyes through faintnes close, And then the Mappe of hell before me stands, Which Ghosts doe see, and I am one of those Ordain’d to pine in sorrowes endless bands, Since from my wretched soule all hopes are reft And now no cause of life to me is left. Griefe, ceaze my soule, for that will still endure When my cras’d bodie is consum’d and gone; Beare it to thy blacke denne, there keepe it sure, Where thou ten thousand soules doest tyre upon: Yet all doe not affoord such foode to thee As this poore one, the worser part of mee. Tony Guzman
I WON’T
CARE
Bonnie had brown hair Bonnie had no care the night was right for forgetting If I ever can feel the queer fear of surrender I will have answered the mellow cheer of ages that never answer or ask the fellow who pleases to seal the keg is awash in emery jungles of temple doom why do the angels avenge & send endless miasmas is a weird word why does everything tighten why is blocked in never saying if feeling were a way it would never fear itself but answer all comers with grace abandon all cares the answer is dear to my heart which can never erase Linda’s hurt yet I live I try to elevate my slave heart I try to stand under giants who are only friends unmasked Annie is a girl who has brown hair & does her job she is plain & pretty plain & pretty girls are nice but in mystery dreams beauty is exquisitely terrifying like eyes of the night where werewolves dance in blond wombs & tear their eyes with hatchets because we die even though we claim that’s what werewolves want a flower is another answer that also dies but is not having been a brave act of stature statues may speak to us of truth But they are there for us & we are there too How many false looks have I been I cannot look at the number of years I feared freedom I hope to fall under the face of the pace of light & laugh while everyone who is they are scandalized I won’t care I’ll rise to the surface of a plain girl’s heart & be at peace with death which has no hair but is plain & pretty HIGH COUPS
trying to be adventurous you never learned the lonesome roads * you appear using silken cords with your eyes Spring Festival mirroring Void * to float on the pearl’s skin – but I don’t see! * distant thunder twisting approach concubines eating tamarinds laden with moments * red mists mountain pass curious gauze catching on melodic bark * dusk in crannies sheltered courtyard moon lute outside the tangles unwind * stately drumgrasping unspeakable humor * tender waterfall brush against * little cabin anonymity achievement fanning out * finding balance in the clarity of shoots Sara Churchville
PROGRESSION OF THE NATURE OF
THE BEAST: A HAIKU IN 9 PARTS 1) Follow the leader. If he steps in it, you know just where to avoid. 2) If it weren’t for the sheep, I shudder to think what you might do at night. 3) To tell you the truth, I’d rather eat meat than fur, except on long flights. 4) Call me old-fashioned; for sensation, nothing comes close to a carrot. 5) Non-stick surface. Right.
Tell it to someone who still has a uvula. 6) How was I supposed to know it would wriggle like that when it thawed out? 7) The last time I saw St. Michel, pissing. 8) When I look in the mirror, I could swear my eyes were following me. 9) Could I borrow your axe? I’ll clean it before I return it. Honest.
Elizabeth Doud
THE QUEEN OF
CAR ACCIDENTS
I She has a will to wear out her skin in the high pitched curve of one way arterials. II There are several milky ways to see the problem. Endurance, the clipped thought of love’s souvenir – there are no second, third stories. A small cup of urine had escaped her during the crash. Shadows of ripe berries sitting in a dish of stained cream makes worries seem sweetened and repaired with ground glass and glue. Raw steaming doves cracked open with caramel filling call in sick. Fear stalks those kidney stones, gnarling his basmati teeth.
III Here there are no spare-changing bums boiling in the midsummer heat sweaty palms skyward to god at the traffic light for something to eat some malt liquor insult to the naughtiest liver on the road to Tefino we talk initiation ceremonies of the Makah a sea lion pulls you into the kelp sluice and your lungs explode so many fat mouths laughing babies playing in the wood shavings and white people hiding in the parking lot with cameras sealed in pitiful waterproofing if fifteen is too young to harpoon you deserve to have your balls served to the beavers for tea ha ha ha. IV She said: That was a close call. V Re-stitching the monocle onto her face was the hard part. My tempest was saved by a seat belt and kept bearing fruit. Her resolve was fumbling and I handed her rations to make her feel whole. I said: Stash these just in case. VI On the totem, I am the aardvark and she is the bear. She tells the eagles to take a hike up a mountain of power plays. Decades slide. My tired carving thumb pushes through soft bruises – all impacts are meaningful during recovery. VII She said: How can the elephant get promoted to manager? The beer foams in the grasp of the inexperienced bar maid. We drove further under that misty moon and it loafed above the remaining tree line. The mushrooms were fiddling with my peripheral vision, my feet bound by peat moss on a logging road exploding suddenly in clear cuts so big my whole generation fit in there waiting for China to discover toilet paper. VIII Promises stew in coolant and you’re spread along the median at rush hour. IX She said: Safety
loses its self-respect when you serve it out of a can.
UNLEASH THE FURY OF WOMEN AS A MIGHTY FORCE FOR
REVOLUTION was how the poster read. I contemplated
the hard-edged caricatures for hours. I was trying to decide which one was most
like me. Was it the busty Alfred SotoSECRETS
For a long time
it seemed like all we did in my house was wait for my grandmother to die; then,
at last, we got our wish. Thirteen months after being diagnosed with advanced
pancreatic cancer, Tati died, still displaying the
clenched-jaw willfulness that she’d developed over decades, first manifesting
itself after her first daughter was stillborn in 1948. Five years later her
family emigrated from None of this meant anything to me. I write it down because Tatiana Gomercinda Noalles deserves some kind of admiring reappraisal. Her death itself was almost an afterthought, the result of a deterioration to which we had all long grown accustomed. The day the ambulance rushed Tati to the hospital for what would be her final visit, I’d come home from work to pick up some clothes for my mother, who was spending the night with her. My movements were practiced and inflexible in honor of my grandmother’s wishes as I packed an overnight bag with a nightgown, slippers, and various toiletries. Outside I lit a cigarette and watched our gardener and his leaf blower scatter stems of grass with the same kind of rehearsed simplicity. He’d been mowing our lawn for nearly nine years, as much a part of the immediate landscape as the palm tree by my window and the abandoned shed in the backyard. With his crinkled, tobacco-stained flesh and the pale arms he kept wrapped in long-sleeved cotton shirts, he’d always reminded me of the leather seat in some old car. Since Tati used to make coffee for him, I thought about updating him; but then I remembered that he was already at work when the ambulance had pulled up in front of the house. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask what was up then, so I let him do his job, while I tried to enjoy my cigarette. My mother, amazingly composed for someone given to impulsive outbursts, had told me the details. Wondering why Tati hadn’t come out of her room yet for her café con leche, she’d opened the door around eight to find her lying face up, face blank and serene. She had stopped breathing. After dialing 911, my mother stared at Tati’s still body until rescue arrived. Tati had written the script and entrusted us to follow her directions. In her own head I suppose that she had every gesture and feeling outlined in advance like Hitchcock, and the flat weariness in my mother’s voice suggested both submission and the unspoken hope that she was giving a good performance. “How bad does it look?” I ventured to ask when she’d telephoned earlier. “She’s never leaving,” she said. “She’s going to die here.” I asked a couple of more questions, but my mother had apparently decided which ones she’d answer, and I got nothing more out of her; I would have to see Tati myself. Only I didn’t want to. That’s why I smoked two cigarettes and tap-tapped my foot on the pavement. I concentrated on the imminent rain, the roar of the leaf blower going up the street, the synthesizer pop floating out of my neighbor’s house. Weren’t these things more, well, interesting than Tati right now? The weather was a delight, my neighbor’s choice of music ridiculous – even our gardener’s devotion to his job represented an unwitting denial. What a relief, I thought, to revel in spontaneity, to improvise! Still, I experienced a pang of guilt, certain that Tati would disapprove from wherever she was.
“How’s it going?” My neighbor, clad in boxers and a T-shirt with a ripped sleeve, waved his newspaper from his trimmed lawn. I waved back. “Could be better.” “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” He padded over and we shook hands. Tati called Gus handsome, but I didn’t think so. He had the kind of surly, petulant look of the boy in class who was picked for an afternoon football game only because he’d kick your ass if you didn’t. The faintest hint of a belly poked through the shirt, and his mouth seemed to be forever forming and dissolving beneath the folds of his cheeks. A skull and crossbones tattoo stained his developed right bicep. It was his day off and he acted like it. Anyway, I updated him on Tati’s condition. His lower lip vanished as he frowned; he looked genuinely upset. “Well, I’m sorry, buddy. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I got nothing to do all day… was going to wash the car…” He gestured to his yellow Volkswagen bug with the newspaper. I reminded myself that Gus was at most three years older than me. “I don’t know.” “Thanks, Gus.” We shook hands again. He squeezed my arm at the wrist, apparently as a gesture of solidarity. Gus, a thirty-one year old divorcee with a little girl, was only now realizing he was gay. I’d maintained a polite but disinterested crush on him since he had moved in the previous year. Then one Sunday afternoon four months before Tati’s passing I went over to pick up my grandfather’s old machete, which he’d borrowed the previous week to trim the gummy, overgrown banana tree he’d inherited from our previous neighbor, a cantankerous North Carolina senior who owned a grotesquely stout macaw.
He answered the door dressed in soiled jeans and a cap; he was working in the backyard too. “That thing hasn’t been sharpened in years,” he said, as if I cared. “Lucky I got a grindstone. Just be careful with it.” Beckoning me to follow him out back, I noticed his tight ass and how he swung his arms as if they’d become loose at the socket. While he rummaged through the utility room, I realized too late that he’d caught me staring. It was only after I heard him ramble somewhat incoherently about how dangerous it was to go into an air-conditioned house after working in the heat that I realized he was embarrassed too. “My grandmother insisted I come get it,” I said, feeling sorry for him. “She’s very anal about lending things.” “Hey, I understand. I’m the same way. Look, if you need anything done around the house, tell me. My schedule’s really bad, but I can always find time. My hands, um…” He smiled, cracked his knuckles, and toyed with the brim of his Panama hat. “I’m really handy.” At that point in my life my sensors weren’t as fine-tuned as they are now, so I didn’t know whether Gus was helpfully trying to defuse the tension with banalities or talking in code. But I did make several trips back over the next two weeks, once to bring him a custard pie Tati had baked, twice to chat him with in the yard as he left to work his shift, dressed in his spiffy police uniform, collar starched and pants pressed. Nothing in his demeanor or conversation indicated to me that he was anything more than a genial, numbingly ordinary man trying to get his life back together; but somehow this had its charms. He would talk about how much he was looking forward to his week off in April, when the golden sands of Cancun and its hoards of drunken undergraduate girls visiting for spring break awaited him (his manner was tentative but inquisitive, as if he were trying to answer the question of my sexuality in his own mind). Occasionally he would mention his daughter in the distracted manner of a father who loved her but nevertheless loved her even more for only spending two weekends a month with him. One night I was coming home from a friend’s house when I saw him smoking on his porch. He called out my name. After making sure Tati or my mother weren’t posted like sentries at the windows (an impossibility; it was after ten), I trudged over. How we ended up in bed together an hour later I can’t seem to recall, but, still, I was surprised by his urgency. In no time at all he was naked, and I got to ogle with amusement at his stumpy, uncircumcised penis, the tangle of dark hair on his chest that reminded me of his own unruly garden by the garage, and smell the rusted-penny tang of his body odor. His moves lacked any sort of self-consciousness. He’d clearly done this sort of thing before; he was proficient but rather joyless, as if he’d been studying the right books all night or something. “You know, those
“Ha-ha. You’d be surprised what goes on over there. Some of those girls are really young.” “Really.” “When me and my buddy went last year, we met these three girls at a bar… Jesus Christ, we got trashed. The one my buddy hooked up with had, like, five tequila shots. When we played volleyball the next day I yakked twice and the chicks were like nothing had happened.” He shook his head in admiration. “Shit.” Our affair lasted five weeks. What distinguished it from other flings was how close it hit home – literally. We were often afraid. I always thought my mother or Tati would knock on the door. It got so bad that Gus decided that he could never talk to my folks if I was in the room. Since I was the joker, he thought I’d lick my lips behind their backs or make obscene motions with my fists.
But we still had fun times too whenever we relaxed. I liked to listen to him describe some of his ambitions: he wanted to go back to school and study criminal justice, visit his cousins in Spain, remarry – only this time he’d “do it right.” “That’s wonderful,” I said the afternoon he told me this. We were watching tennis on TV. Gus’ head rested on my lap, and every so often he’d pull my head down and kiss me.
“What about you? You never tell me anything about yourself. I’m bored with talking.” “I work at the city comptroller’s office. I’m twenty-eight years old. I live at home with my mom and grandmother.” “Boring, that’s what you are.” I couldn’t
argue with this. My life was dull. Or perhaps I lacked the ability to
make it compelling as a story; that’s why I’m trying now. Part of the reason I
hung out with Gus in those days was to get a sense of how a neighbor grappled
with the dull stuff I couldn’t seem to transcend. I don’t mean to sound
patronizing; I enjoyed Gus’ company. He’d given his life an idea of order that
worked. When he talked about wanting to get one of those colored plastic kiddy
pools for his little girl, I pictured his stocky form late in the evening
hunched over his checkbook, lips clenched and most definitely visible, deciding
what indulgence he’d forgo so that she might be able to splash around in
knee-high water. Certain indulgences anyway; he’d give up buying a DVD player
for now, but never his A couple of days before Gus and I stopped seeing each other I was throwing out the trash when the delighted cry of a child, then the sound of clapping, made me wander over to the fence separating our yards. Gus’ daughter Mimi was lolling in a mermaid-shaped kidney pool as Gus whipped her head and back with driblets of water from the garden hose. She was crowing with delight. Gus himself was all smiles. I waved hello. Accidents seemed to run in our family, according to Tati. God seemed to have chosen us as examples of how to survive disaster, except that we never learned how to profit from our mistakes. Most families would have gone on TV talk shows or sold their stories to tabloids if they’d been in our position. A distant, superstitious aunt suffered a brain hemorrhage when, trying to avoid walking underneath a ladder, a metal bucket fell on her head. Cousin Albert was struck by lightning fifteen years ago while fishing in the Keys; he suffered only first-degree burns on his left leg. However it didn’t change his habit of fishing in a thunderstorm, because he was struck again a year later. This time I honestly think his brains got scrambled. At family gatherings he would sit in a corner and laugh to himself for no reason; his inside jokes didn’t look very funny either. In the end he did a very poor job of winning sympathy, becoming instead one more family eccentric patronized once a year at the Christmas Eve dinner table. When she first found out about the cancer, Tati didn’t make a scene. I got home from work to find her and my mother talking quietly in the living room, as they used to do when we were younger. I knew they’d gone to the hospital for tests a week before, so they must have gotten the results back that morning.
“It’s “Why don’t we order pizza, mami? The last thing I need now is a mess in the kitchen.” “I can fry them,” I said. “I’ve tried your eggs, dear.” Tati patted my knee and smiled. “An A for effort.” “How about Chinese food?” Mom said. “I don’t mind frying some eggs.” “I don’t want eggs. We had eggs Sunday morning.” There was a note of rising desperation in Mom’s voice. “Is there a problem with Chinese food? Henry, call your sister and ask her if she’s eating with us tonight.” Tati stood. “I’m having eggs. I’m in the mood for eggs.” That was that. Mom mumbled something about her cholesterol, but we knew she was going to eventually eat the damn eggs. There was no meanness in Tati’s attempts to get her way. She spoke with such simple, declarative authority that she made dissenters seem shrill. No one had mentioned the test results yet, at least while I was in the room, but it was the subtext of the conversation, eggs or no eggs. I watched Tati open the living room blinds and stare blankly out the window for a few moments; I looked at my mother’s kind, overwrought face, whose eyes never left Tati as if awaiting instructions. “Roberto’s car’s tire is flat,” she said, back turned, referring to our neighbor across the street. “How can you drive and not notice those things? Henry, how often do you check the air of your tires?” “Once a month.” “It’s not enough. In this heat your tires wear out faster. Your grandfather used to say, ‘Keep an eye on the oil, transmission, radiator, and tires. You don’t need to be a mechanic, but you should know the basics of car maintenance.’” I heard my mother weeping in her bedroom later that night. Tati was asleep; I was coming out of the bathroom. She was sitting at the edge of the bed, head bowed and hands pressed in front of her face as if in prayer. “Mom.” I put my hand on her shoulder. Her shoulders trembled. My mother was an attractive woman: at that point she was forty-six years old and had a petite, pale-skinned daintiness that still bore faint traces of a delicate and untroubled girlhood. Reading her emotions was easy; at times I half-expected her bones to be transparent. I never knew what to do when I saw her upset, and it was happening more often the older we got. Maybe because my mother, even while my dad was still around, seemed uncomfortable getting her nails dirty, so to speak. It wasn’t just the usual complaint of being unable to picture her having sex or drinking; she just lacked the vocabulary to start the discussion.
“She’s going to die,” she said, in a voice as dry and cracked as her eyes. I think Tati knew something weird was going on in my life. In those days I was so terrified the three women would find out about the unseemly things I was hiding that I took to addressing them in monosyllables, avoiding their eyes, and acting as if I were Henry’s proxy rather than Henry himself. When I went out at night I didn’t tell them where I went or with whom I hung out, even though my mother and Tati had met most of my best friends. This was in sharp contrast with my sister, the sort of person who complained about everything from a coworker’s leopard-skin purse or how cramps made her feel “so lazy,” while slicing peppers in the kitchen. I confined my opinions to politics and the quality of my mother’s vinaigrette. In most cases mystery inspires curiosity; for me however the veil of secrecy had obscured any view into my heart.
On one of Tati’s last trips before she was confined to bed I took her to the local fabric store. I’d been going there since I was six, reluctantly. At that age there was considerable pleasure in chasing my sister around the spindles and curtains of multicolored fabric, darting between sheets of indigo and gold and turquoise that evoked a world of storybook colors and hues; then we’d stop and catch our breath and realize we were in a shabby fabric store populated by old women with pins sticking out of their mouths like quills measuring and re-measuring skirt hems and pant legs. Anyway, Tati needed fabric for cushion covers. She could make two a day, she boasted. The illness hadn’t slowed her down. My first hint that she might have listened to a few phone conversations happened a couple of months after I came out, and it involved her damn cushion covers. My pillowcase was looking a bit ratty, but I’m a guy – I could’ve been laying my head on dog crap every night and I wouldn’t have noticed.
“I don’t need one,” I said gently. “There are boogers on it!” she said, voice trembling with outrage. “Pillow covers are gay! I’m telling you, I’m fine without one.” Then she fixed me with a really queer, searching kind of look. It was indescribable, and it disturbed me. She must have sensed this, because she mumbled, “Well, you’re getting one anyway, even if it’s a plain white one” and avoided my eyes. Was fabric a suppressed archetype in our family? Well, here I was again at the store, hands in pockets, waiting for Tati to finish. She held a piece of yellow satin up to the light. “Lovely, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted a satin dress. Then again, where would I have worn it?” “To dinner, obviously,” I said. “Hey, let’s have dinner one of these nights.” “Oh, stop it.” “I’m serious. How about this Friday?” The ceiling fan stirred the wisps of white hair on her head. She let go of the fabric. She was ready to laugh dismissively, like a college kid balking at a love affair with real possibilities. She looked frail and old. “So I’m your date then. Why, don’t you have anything else to do that night? You don’t have any regular dates?” “No, let’s go out. It’s a change.” Doing her best to hide how touched she was by the invitation, Tati kept moving from aisle to aisle, while I struggled to catch up. I was in her domain now, and she knew it. “Well, okay,” she said. “But will you have time to do whatever you do at night? None of your mysterious friends is going to be looking for you? The last thing I want is to inconvenience you in any way.” I watched her turn over pincushions shaped like apples and peaches. “None of my friends are mysterious. You know them all.” “Now, you and I both know that’s not true.” She fixed one purple eye on me. “Right?” There was nothing to say to this, so she went on. “You have secrets. Fine. So do I. When I die, I’m taking a trunkful of secrets no one will ever know.” The reference to her imminent death startled me as much as her references to secrets. I looked Tati full in the face and saw an expression of hateful triumph, as if I’d dared her into doing something outrageous and she’d called my bluff. She was daring me to question further, to coddle her, and I refused. She wouldn’t look triumphant for much longer, I reasoned. Let her win. “I won’t have time to make that dress before Friday,” she said. “If it goes well enough maybe you’ll ask me out again. Then I can make it.”
Silvia Raquel Guzman
EXILIADOS, PERDIDOS
They searched the cemeteries, The waters, the mountains; Asked the sharks if they had seen The blood, the meat, the floating skins; The brains bashing on the rocks. The truths and mysteries Washing ashore. If they know, had they seen them Liberated from madness In exile underground, On the corner under shadows. Someone must know, Had they searched? Nobody knew, nobody dared For those who lived in The biting nightmare. They lack power, Scared Away, sad, far, anonymous, Mad. Someone knows. They might live In exile, Fears scratching at their heels. They run and hide, They hide and bleed With sharp rocks encrusted in their feet. La patria. Motherland. Painfully harmed roots; Her soul on raw meat, Tortured, sad, obscured, Still awaits for those who flew. They know who they are. They know, they knew The truth they knew The truth: They… knew. Shamele Jenkins
MY WILL
I
never asked for this I
was just laying in the cut where it was warm with a breeze of cool air in
blowing about me Then
they willed me They
pushed me They
poked and prodded me They
moved me They
called me out of my space They
willed me into this existence A
place I’d never known yet it was a journey taken by me many times before They
manufactured my vessel Arousing
my conscious and unconscious thoughts And
they penetrated my thoughts creating my mind Slapping,
molding and shaking me into existence This
man – he worked his mojo While
the woman – she spoke in an old tongue recanting tales and brewing her spells He
and she – this man and woman Together
they rant the dog race with hearts racing, bodies bumping hands clapping They
scared me up, they moved me up, they willed me up She
became my universe where I counted an endless universe for she was my God And
I was the center of her universe Now
growing up I was daddy’s little girl And
I did whatever daddy wanted me to do I
was the proper princess, the perfect princess I
was daddy’s little girl While
mamma dressed me up and tore me down and built me up again I
became whatever she wanted me to be and whatever she was never able to be I
was a good girl I
was mama’s little girl But
they took my will And
I did whatever they wanted me to do My
best friend Sally and all my other friends thought that Big JimBob
was the cool one He
was the one for me And
Big JimBob fell in love with me He
made he his girlfriend He
made me go wherever he was and let the world know that I was his He
made me marry him and do things that a woman should never do He
took my will He
got me pregnant and that darned baby That
cute little innocent child cried like hell It
made me get up in the middle of the night and it too took my will Changing
its diapers, and it grew up making me to go PTA
meetings Fighting
with teachers and almost going to jail That
child took my will as did the others I bore Then
I find that Sally and Big JimBob were making out They
had an affair and he left me for her Almost
breaking down I frowned thought I was going to drown in the lifecycle Went
to the doctor and the pharmacy Now
this little pill can give me back my will This
little pill can give me back my will I
want to go back from whence I came And
this little pill will give me back my will So
I take it Now
I’m back in the clouds without a care in the world And
Oh God Not
again They
are calling out my name And
I begin to take a journey again to a place I’ve not been before But it’s all the same Andrio ChavarroICARUS
IN CHAINS
Here, near the sun, Somewhere far from
home, Sitting chained to a
lie, A stone knows more
flight than I do. I recall Icarus, Mythological prosthetically winged boy, Son of man, Flew
higher than forewarned. Yet here I am with
no oracle, Nor godly watchers, Floating over a fire
Burning
close enough to blister skin. Remembering stories
of past gods, Divinity, and lies. Here near cold blue
flesh, Somewhere near my
warmed heart, Breaking free from a
spherical vacuum, I hear my dreams
crackling in flames, Rising fumes of an Descending into a
black hole Of
our own design. Could I design a
better dive Into a newer World Of
the divine? Why not? I was told
I couldn’t fly. Yet here I am with
all clouds’, All birds’ eyes on
me, Flying
under a dying star. If Zeus is watching, If Jesus is
watching, If Ghengis Khan is watching, If Hitler is
watching, Let them shave their
legs With
my sharp retort to lies. Armed with a dream
in my hands, I cannot burn, I
cannot sink. I now see the sun, Hold it with my
irises squeezing it tight Into me, fiery
pupils knowing no end, Nor
depth. If Icarus had been chained, Would he have ever
fallen? If I’d never been
lied to, Could I have ever flown? Disregarded –
Dissipated – Disappointed – Discharged – Hear me in the sun, Feel me in the hot
blasts, See me in red
clouds, I am new, I am old, I am dead and alive As toward the sun I
chase, Because I know I can
fly, Even in chains.
Nicholas the Storyteller
ALBERTUS THE MAGE
Albertus was the greatest Western magician of the Fifteenth Century. He could foretell the future and they said he could make gold out of lead. However as the turn of the century was approaching he had many reminders of growing old. There were physical stiffness’ and wrinkles on his spotting skin. He did not like aging and the thought of dying was anathema. One day he looked deep into his magic mirror to see the future. But as he looked further ahead it suddenly cracked then broke in pieces. He understood the meaning. He knew what this foretold. It meant that he would die and it would not be long before his days would end. Albertus vowed that he would battle this fate with the magical means at his command. He set about preparing an elixir to reverse the process of aging. He obtained the stone of a ridgeling goat and boiled then simmered it in pure olive oil for fourteen days. He powdered the skins of five salamanders and set them aside on his altar. After fourteen days of simmering there was little in the broth but an oily paste. This he strained and clarified to a thick amber liquid which he cooled with pure aqua vitae. He stood at his altar stirring the mixture in his golden cup. Then he sprinkled in the dry powder, continued to stir and repeated this incantation: SATOR AREPO TENET
OPERA ROTAS Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas
sator arepo tenet opera rotas As he whispered the last line an eerie glow came from the cup. He raised it above his head. Then he lowered it to his lips and drank it to the dregs. At once he could feel the strength of youth coursing through his veins. There was a scintillation up and down his back and when he placed the cup on the altar he could see his arms and hands were strong-muscled and free of wrinkles or the marks of age. But then something strange began to happen. His hands seemed smaller and his arms were too short for the sleeves of his cloak. His gown was weighing down on his shoulders and he realized that he was becoming a boy. The elixir had gone too far. Then Albertus was seized with panic as he became a child and smaller still. In moments he was a crying baby crawling naked on the rich robes that had been his fine garments. Then there was nothing. Take heed! May this tale
be a warning for all who seek to bend nature to personal whims by magic and the
sciences of man. Mad Love Interview Head: Meg Pukel: Nude in the City I first became aware of Meg Pukel
when I saw some e-mailed images from her Something ephemeral on our streets show running
at Born in We met on Meg focuses an
unusual clarity of awareness on you, but you trust that she’s not going to pull
any sneaky female stuff on you (as much as you trust about that sort of thing).
Her thinking is often non-linear and hard to reproduce from notes. Did growing up as a pastor’s kid influence
how you see things?
Definitely. In the small town in See it’s hard … the nude is a complex thing. There’s a fine line with nudity where the woman is herself rather than the object that everybody’s looking at. I photograph one or two girls a week, create slides in my studio. I tell them try to be themselves… but they’re so conditioned to always be so sexy. They’re my friends, but it’s still hard to get them to be natural. Even myself: I’m 26 and dealing with the whole thing of being an entrepreneur and sex. It’s so subtle, but it’s always there. Performance, a lot of performance is going on. For your Something
ephemeral… show, rather than just superimposing images from photographs,
you went out on location and projected slides onto urban scenes – so there’s a
performance element there too. How did you arrive at that way of working? I started out using an overhead projector in the studio. I started projecting images onto the female body. I went to projecting grass, landscapes onto the female body, creating sort of a landscape within, because the female is placed within the landscape. It looks like she’s there in the landscape but it’s inside the studio and totally fictitious. Then I decided I wanted to place the women in a deeper concept by going outside. We project ourselves into the world, situations. Obviously everybody does, but I’m focusing on the female. It’s really about the idea of the woman being projected onto various environments and her skin becomes just a feature of those environments. I feel that’s what women are made to do – if they don’t become really conscious of what’s going on. So I probe the female in the environment … on metaphorical level, but also on tangible levels, for me. How do you make the metaphorical tangible? Okay, there’s a piece in my show that shows a woman projected onto a dangling phone book. I don’t mean to seem trite, but for so many girls the phone is such a big part of their lives… waiting for a call from a man. So many things in life are associated with it… hearing about bad news. So there she is dangling on the phone book waiting. I mean we’re coming up to 2004 and there’s still that mentality that the girl is passive… she waits for the phone, the call. That’s the big thing in my work, to explore those cultural norms: what women think they’re supposed to do. Do you see any contradictions in what you’re doing? It’s
feminist and yet eroticized in a way that has a decidedly soft porn sort of
energy and look – not to take that in a pejorative way necessarily – but how do
you respond to that whole anti-elitist polemic nowadays that women shouldn’t
have to be attractive… that dancers shouldn’t even have to be able to dance
well, even – they can be “everyday people,” awkward and out of shape, whatever.
Your models are hot babes, frankly – and posed provocatively to boot. Well, first… there’s a fine line between being naked and being naked. Which one has quotation marks? There’s being naked where you’re nude. It’s a natural state, but you’re still a mystery. You’re not showing anything. I want the female to be naked, but you’re still curious and she’s still pure. I always use females for my models that are strong and that I see struggling in that realm we’ve been talking about. Sometimes they’re my best friends. They want to be taken seriously but still be sexy. Everyone always wants to be sexy, to look good. I tell them over and over: Be yourself, be natural. They want to show their breasts because they think that’s what is expected. That is “natural” to them. Woman in my work is still glorified, still sexual. I’m definitely not trying to be perverse, to “catch you,” but people only pay attention to sex. I guess I’m trying to make a statement about that. What is that statement? It’s hard to put into words. Sometimes I don’t know what it means until in the middle… or it changes, which is interesting. It’s like there’s this never-ending search to find this perfect balance… Between what? It’s so intertwined… being quintessential female on the one side and addressing all females so that the work is accessible and I’m speaking to issues of body and soul and how we feel about ourselves…. At the end of the day, it’s all about how I feel about us being women. There’s so much imagery from movies, TV… at 26 I’m over-stimulated. There’s so much I’ve taken in. But, through your work, you yourself are adding even more
images … and in an intense way, I would say. But from the woman’s perspective. If you take the time you can start to infer a disgruntlement beneath the prettiness, a concern, a sadness and loneliness… this female that is all alone and exposed, amid all the confusion of experience. Hopefully it resonates with the viewer. What it’s focusing on. Using the body for cash. A sexy girl used to sell… But obviously the sexy girl is one of the
selling points of your work…
It’s all borderline. I want to push that envelope. Why can’t they be nude? In the Renaissance the nude was beautiful. Now everything has to be so sexual… I guess I’d say it’s better to have those problems, contradictions… so that you can keep on making pictures. Everyone is so obsessed with being as sexy as possible… Did you ever read Marcuse? No. Should I? Maybe. Meg passed me a slip of paper and I wrote “Herbert Marcuse.” The rap about “repressive de-sublimation” is worth a
look. Somehow we segued to: I want it to be okay to be playful with the nude. I think
this series refers to the Renaissance era. There was such a difference in
attitude. I’m very conscious of that. Art theory is so political nowadays, like everything’s
just an excuse for some form of agenda. Does art as art really matter to
you? Come on, of course the art aspect really matters, the aesthetic dimension, composition. However, I want the viewer to look at it on several levels. I also do black & white remakes of the classic nude. The body has been a source of inspiration, throughout history. They’re tasteful and nice, not porn quality for a magazine. So, I’m always expressing: This is art, not sex. This is beauty. I’m very aware of composition. Color plays a huge role in my work. Light plays a huge role. In each piece, composition plays a huge role. Where do you want to go with your art, to
take it – or let it take you?
I plan on… to keep making pictures. There’s a lot I have to say. My pieces are my communications to the world. Keep informing people with pictures… to make art that intrigues, that addresses the heart of what I’m trying to get at with being naked, being yourself. I’d like for the woman to be viewed as less sexual. Why?
Because it’s less distracting if there’s not sex: to get at the real issues involved. Some people – ideologues with agendas, political, sexual,
whatever – say if there was no art to get in the way it would be less
distracting from what’s really important. Social engineering
of one form or another. Why bring art into it? they
say. For you, what is the unique factor that art brings to the table? Why do
art? Because art is more than politics. We can look at a piece of art that is beautiful and be liberated. Art is the most freeing form of expression. With art you don’t have to say anything, it speaks for itself. You can see a piece ten different times and each is a different experience. Art evolves… art is a continuous learning experience for me. People can learn the most from art, but subtly, in more than words. Images stay in your mind forever. The rain had let up and we went out into the gray light
to snap some portrait shots on ok here goes nothing... I think that at the
end of the day, my work directly represents and even portrays my constant
conflict that i have ongoing within myself… i want my art, my photographs to be beautiful and
sexy and yet i want it to be smart and to be taken
seriously at the same time. As I further journey into myself I see the
problems that lie within my work and I realize they are problems that lie
within me... I’m always looking
outside, trying to look inside. Trying to say something
that is true. But maybe nothing is really true. Except what’s
out there. And what’s out there is always changing. thanks tony... peace… meg PHOTOS
OF MEG PUKEL: TONY GUZMAN Contributors
THOMAS CAMPION
A contemporary of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson, Thomas Campion (1567 –
1620) attended ANDRIO
CHAVARO
A self-proclaimed vagabond poet, actor, bartender and
anarchist artist, Andrio can be found on any given
night acting and/or reciting his works on stages, street corners, or, on
occasion, atop bars. He describes himself as “recently paroled from SARA CHURCHVILLE
Sara is a freelance writer for numerous local and national
publications. She holds an M.A. in English Literature/Creative Writing from ELIZABETH DOUD
Best known for her performance work with Giovanni Luquini & Dancers and Akropolis
Acting Co., Elizabeth has been writing pieces of short fiction and
poetry for the stage since arriving in SILVIA RAQUEL GUZMAN
A senior pursuing a B.S. in Print Journalism
and English Literature at the TONY GUZMAN
Tony is the
Associate Editor of the Miami SunPost and its Critic at Large. A
graduate of SHAMELE JENKINS
An internationally
known poet/spoken word artist, Shamele is the
Artistic Director of Lip, Tongue & Ear Poetry Productions, a Miami spoken
word guild. She is also a youth advocate working with DCF on behalf of
children in foster care. Shamele is a graduate of NICHOLAS THE STORYTELLER
Unable to glean any specifics about from whence Nicholas
comes, we’ll let ALFRED SOTO
Alfred is a
freelance journalist and an instructor at
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