Seasonable Desires

White Cotton Shirt

She picks a peasant shirt from the rack and looks for her size. There are 2 smalls, 3 larges, and 1 medium. Her fingertips pass over black paisley embroidered borders. The hanger dangles over her arm like a compass pointing southeast in the direction of its country of origin. She slides her bra straps off her shoulders, unties and reties the ebony satin ribbon into a bow. Spring ahead, longer daylight hours, summer not far off.

Did you find what you were looking for? Russian or Eastern European accent, to her ear both sound similar. Only the shirt, for now.

She gets into the Japanese hybrid redolent with cumin, cardamom, turmeric, and sumac. The driver’s lunch, half-eaten, in a foil puddle on the front seat beside him. Her destination given (forty-fourth and second) she repeats it in single digits, 4-4—and 2.

Argentinean Malbec bought at the liquor store a block from her apartment. She buys Italian Gorgonzola (dolce), Greek olives, and sundried tomatoes in Tuscan olive oil from the gourmet grocer next door, and stops at the Korean market on the corner for baby lettuce, and blueberries imported from Chile, a container of milk. A north wind off the Hudson; winter still hangs on.

She puts the bags on the glass top table. Uncorks the wine, shakes the baby lettuce into the salad spinner, the blueberries in a bowl. She lays the white cotton shirt embroidered with black paisley borders and ebony satin bow wrapped in tissue across her bed.

Washington Square Park

The cloud hovers in a space between treetops. The cloud hovers on top of a building with a red tile roof. The cloud drifts lazily in the breeze touching her arm. A cloud between treetops, over a building with a red tile roof, leaves lush after a rainy spring—verdant at the start of a new season. Bird song, traffic slush, and children chirping—a breeze on her skin. Two women in black and white—the space between two strangers—almost astride, skirts dance around bare legs. One in a black dress beneath a white pinafore, thick straps crisscross at her back tie in a bow at her waist, a second behind, in a white sleeveless blouse over a black trumpet skirt, gussets fan open with her leg’s movement.

A red brick circle— in spots yellow tipped grass breaks through the cement mortar. A chick, a babe, and a girl sunbathe, lounge around the circle, roasting their flesh to a perfect hue, sits on blue jean legs eats crumbs from the bottom of the brown paper bag and reads—sits up, reties her bathing suit, tote bag on peach towel spread over red brick, rearranges the tote pillow, reclines—a straight leg flat to the ground, a leg bent at the knee, (stems), coral jean skirt, frayed hemline, black rubber sole flip-flops point north and south, head east, and body west, her fingertips travel her firm belly. Two leave. Tanning is tedious work.

The trees lush after a rainy spring—verdant in their infancy at the start of a new season before the onslaught of July and August heat. Bird song, traffic, voices of chirping children carried on the breeze. Dope dealers, chess players, and rats in the vegetation around the brick housed public bathrooms. Aware of my surrounding—never let my guard down—I am a New Yorker.

Six Floor Walk-Up

She sits at the open window. A rind hangs from her hand. Pulp—red and fleshy—slips from her chin onto the front of her white t-shirt. Black seeds (watermelon) drop to the street below. Kids in bathing suits splash in hydrant surf on asphalt sand. 

A Fish Story 

Day slips into dusk. The air turns cool. She walks along the shore, her face damp with fog. A dark shape huddles close to the dunes. Driftwood dragged off the beach, chained behind a pickup truck and set on a deck. Buff skin like chamois. Tree trunks churned in ocean waves and sun bleached, wind silenced in absent branches.

Wind through the hollow trunk—nothing more. Day after, Labor Day, sea glare blind windows squint into the thickening mist. You know how she responds. So much had happened, if not to her then to other women. A gust lifts party streamers like Isadora’s chiffon scarf tangled in spokes. She moves without hesitation.

Deborah Di Bari is pursuing a MFA in Creative Writing at CCNY. Her narratives have appeared in Ozone Park, and Guideword. She is a not so recent transplant from the design and fashion worlds. In her search to merge tense, she is pursuing an investigation of hypertext through the artist book.

How the Days Go

(like a sad song or psalm)

 I was a hunter.
 My days were gazelles.

A long time ago, in the winter,
They would come down from a hill,
down from a hill to my open field.

I saw them spring in the winter,
and watched them gambol in their heat.
I came near to the ceremonies of their coupling.

In the spring they came down from a hill.
They came down from a hill with their young.

The open field is now a house and garage.
It is a house and garage, a driveway and a lawn.
I cannot shovel, push or rake any longer.

I use a Deere to mulch the leaves, fling the snow.
To cut the lawn, clear the snow, I use the Deere.

I am a tired hunter.
My days were gazelles.

Myron Ernst was co-owner with his wife Shirley of a Montessori School in Vestal, New York. Retired, he is a frequent contributor to ragazine.cc. His work has appeared in many other publications.

Mark Levy

I Like My Present Age the Most

            Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes walked down a street when he was 90 years old or so and reputedly saw an attractive young woman. Holmes turned to his companion and muttered, wistfully, “Ah, to be eighty again.”

            I wonder if I will have the same wish when I get as old as Holmes was. I know a few, much younger people who already are pining for their even younger selves. That helps explain the reason many people are obsessed with looking younger. They wear fashionable clothing and hair styles and they get face lifts and tummy tucks. They listen or try to listen to rap and hip-hop music and use teenage expressions, like “omigod” and “fly girl” and “cheese” and “phat,” spelled with a PH. Now if they have that sort of never-young-enough temperament, they might also wish for younger years when they hit the advanced age of 30.

            If they regret reaching, say, the 40-year milestone, how will they feel when they reach each succeeding year or decade? Life must become more and more disappointing to those folks as they age. That’s really too bad. It means they have less to look forward to every day. Where’s the fun in that?

            I, on the other hand, enjoy my present age more than I did my age last year. And last year was better than the year before. Now I’m not saying that each of my faculties is better than ever, or that there aren’t more insidious signs of failing health; but I have a better adjusted attitude with each year. I have a better appreciation for how the universe works and how and why people act as they do. Now I also know better how to urge some people to react the way I would prefer, from the cashier at the supermarket to my boss. I still haven’t figured out my wife, but I’m optimistic even about that, as foolish as that sounds.

            I’m increasingly empowered with knowledge, and that feeling of self-sufficiency should continue to increase as I live through more events, meet more people and gain more experiences. It’s a shame it will end, but I try not to think about that.

            I am free not to have to prepare for events that I now know will never happen. I don’t feel the urgency to rehearse with an air guitar, for example, since the prospect of rock stardom has already passed me by. And I’m not writing and rewriting my acceptance speech anymore for the Oscars or the Nobel Prize ceremony. What a relief. That saves me a great deal of time and, of course, anxiety. Nowadays, the only thing I rewrite is my last will and testament.

            I don’t have to practice catching fly balls to right field or get nervous about meeting my teen-aged girl friend’s parents or explain to my own parents why my 8^th grade report card in Spanish isn’t as high as they had hoped. I don’t have to stay up half the night trying to remember the capital cities of 50 states or the names of the explorers who discovered each little dinky Latin American country — information that I was pretty sure I would not need in the next 50 years… and I was right.

           I spend little time thinking about what I’ll be when I grow up, although I have to admit fleeting thoughts of that still cross my mind on certain Monday mornings.

            Besides the obvious advantages of qualifying for senior discounts at the movies, at restaurants and at sporting events, and the deference youngsters pay me occasionally, when all of the seats are taken on the bus, here’s another benefit of being older. Recently, I completed a Master Degree in creative writing. (You might not realize that from these little essays, because they are essentially non-fiction. Let’s face it: you can’t make some of this stuff up.) Anyway, my writing class of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings spent time learning how to think of subjects to write about. I could have skipped those classes, because coming up with new ideas is no problem for me. By now, I’ve experienced all sorts of things that I can write about. I felt sorry for the younger students in my class, who could just imagine events that I had already experienced. It seemed like an unfair advantage for me, in fact.

            No, compared to my earlier years, I am completely satisfied with my present age. I just wish I could somehow remember those early years better.

the American weigh … 

Penny Scale detail

With Charlie Einhorn

My eccentric friend Chris Steele is an artist, designer, model maker, inventor of of odd contraptions, spin-art virtuoso, founder of Citizens for a Better Skyline (pioneering the first murals to appear in the Short North), photographer, ceramist, and accumulator of assorted weird stuff. I first met him in 1972 when we opened Benchworks, a fine crafts collective in German Village. He brought an enormous old penny scale he had rescued from the then recent demolition of old Central Station. I agreed to let him place it at the entrance of our store and he came around regularly to collect his coins. The many scales he has kept on collecting throughout these past 4 decades now make part of the largest private collections of these once ubiquitous marvelous objects, sought by museums, history buffs and collectors all over the world. Find out how you can see that amazing collection by reading below.  

The American Weigh: Christopher Steele Collection
The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space
50 W. Town St., Columbus, Ohio 43215
Phone:    614-292-8861   614-292-8861
Show opens February 2 – closes March 7, 2010
Reception: Friday February 26, 2010 5-7pm
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday: 11 am to 6 pm
Thursday: 11 am to 8pm
Free Admission 

Snapshots

Welcome to the show ...

Scaling up an exhibition

How much do you weigh?

Chris & guest, neon artist Candice Watkins

______________________________________

DAVE POWERS

Dave and partner Annette started a series of house concerts on Sundays this past summer, and the word spread. The house is now packed for these informal gatherings, and local musicians frequently sit in to jam, some of which has been recorded.

Dave Powers, is a friend, a piano player who played at my wedding, a monster talent, musical genius, with a photographic memory full of encyclopedic knowledge and facts, and the largest collection of recorded music in his possession, primarily jazz, but just as exensive in classical and more. Since there is no tune or riff that he has heard that he can’t remember, his improvisations are amazing and often fun in the wry way he incorporates that into his playing. So, yes, I love listening to Dave play and hope many others get to enjoy it.  — Charlie

Annette & Dave

Welcome

Another New Beginning

The end of one year and the beginning of another … the end of one decade and the beginning of another.  Looking back, it’s kind of hard to believe we’ve learned anything about ourselves we didn’t already know, and many times tried to change. We’ve seen greed unbridled from Wall Street to Dubai, sports figures and politicians  revealed for the human beings that they are, common people with uncommon talents taking center stage, a victorious political party unable to deliver on its promises, and a world still waiting for its next real heroes to surface. Thank god for the arts. When all else fails, they still deliver.  
We’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue ofWe’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue of ragazine.cc , the on-line magazine of arts, information and entertainment, continues into its 6^th season with the usual eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, photography, art, politics, the law, and more – all of which has helped keep us afloat these last five years. If you haven’t taken the time to read through the Creative Non-Fiction pieces selected by CNF editor Leslie Heywood, take twenty minutes or a half hour and do yourself the favor.  You won’t regret it. Need a laugh? Find out why everyone should go to law school in the Casual Observer piece by Mark Levy. Wondering how to protect your intellectual property? Check out our Feeding the Starving Artist column by Mark and his associate Ryan Miosek.  Poetry editor Joe Weil has harvested the poetry of Raymond Hammond, and poetry in translation from Mario Moroni. See a world deconstructed by artist Roger Williams, and a long view of Iceland by photographer Chuck Haupt. Step into the fiction of Elizabeth Spencer and Alex Straaik; sneak a peak at Art Basel Miami, and hear Jeff Katz’s take on music, starting with the complex issue of vinyl packaging. Leave us your comments. Your feedback means a lot to us.

Thanks for reading! And don’t forget to tell your friends — we need all the help we can get. But then, who doesn’t?

Happy holidays, and a healthy and peaceful New Year!

 – MRF

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