Online Edition 07.14.06

Love Letter to New York | by Andrea Avery

Snapshot of Christ | by Joe Esser

The Beginnings of an Animal Rescuer | by Randy Grim

From Way Down Here to Way Up There | by Chris King

The Gift | by Christian Saller

High on Jesus | by Rob Thurman

Cemeteries | photos by Jane Linders, Katherine Bish, and Andrea Averyry

Print Edition   

POETRY & PROSE

Love Letter to New York | by Andrea Avery

Robert Keyes | by Aaron Belz

In Appreciation: The Pruitt-Igoe Nature Preserve | by Thomas Crone

As Grandmother Neared Death | by Lindsey Durway

Say Hello to Papa Legba | by Franklin Jennings

Jackrabbit Stew | by Patrick Landewe

From Out of Nowhere | by K. Curtis Lyle

Oh Ye Of Little Faith | by Andrea Noble

Variations on a Rag for William S. Burroughs | by Randall Roberts

Torn Map Home | by Stefene Russell

As a Means to Love Him More Dearly | by Eric Erfan Vickers

Thank Christ for Easier to Argue | by James Weber

Southern Spine | by James Weber

PHOTOS & ILLUSTRATIONS

Andrea Avery, Jenna Bauer, Andrea Day, Thomas Crone, Caroline Huth, Jane Linders, Carmelita Nuñez,   Kerry Zimmerman


 


Love Letter to New York | by Andrea Avery

"More than ever I am convinced that there is no such thing as exaggerated art. And I even believe that there is salvation only in extremes."
--Painter Paul Gauguin, in a letter to the fellow painter and friend, Camille Pissarro


Orange drapes,
goldfish and poppies,
for only a moment
we sit like muted birds,
taking it all in.
I sip my tea only when I remember to blink.
I breathe only when someone is quiet.
Japanese girls wearing vinyl and paper-doily aprons
re-fill my perfectly tiny cup with Jade Green Oolong.
We move on.

Red scarves are the only accents to your black coats and hair
flapping in the dirty cold New York air.
You two are bookends to my silver jacket and blond waves.
Our cheeks are pink and plump as pincushions
as we weave through streets and galleries like naïve ghosts,
passing in between what we were when we arrived
and who we have become in just seven days.

In the middle of the night,
on the seventeenth floor of a strange hotel
in an even stranger city,
I am wide awake with thoughts of all that I have failed to do.
My brain is heavy with
noise and joy and ideas and crying.
Cars honk.
I try to remember
why I was ever afraid.

How can I go back to my office tomorrow
when just today I walked right into Matisse's red studio
and found myself oh, so at home?
I could scrub the subtle seams of those walls with a golden brush forever
and never once question my reason for being.

Dear New York,
I am painting.
Lemons buried in the ground and turning blue.
There is hope.
 

BIO

Andrea Avery likes to paint more than almost anything else.