THE ART OF WOMAN
      Michael Virga
      (The Atlantic)

Winter Wednesdays in a museum studio
I sit stand and strike poses in full attire
for “drawing from a live model”
an art class composed of women
instructed by a woman artist At first
the view lacked perspective but our
humors were as clay balanced & shaped in time
the space soon becoming focused as a closer rapport
took form they all agreed I was a suitable subject

By the second week I discovered the cafe upstairs
I met the lady manager & we too made a working acquaintance
She allowed me ice water at break times
and once on a Saturday when I was short on change
her cashier Lulu lent me the fifty cents
I needed for a neopolitan pastry Back in the studio
Rollina presented a colorful comparison
to illustrate a 3D drawing technique: Imagine
while drawing Michael’s image
being carved in the round of an apple pulp
We all found the viable analogy in good humor I responded
by adding the figure was pleasing to my poetic energies
perhaps it would appear in one of my writings
and as they were drafting I was drifting
back to a younger time
sitting at the kitchen table of a kind grey-hair’d
mediterranean woman Her gently wrinkled hand
caressing my brown curly head making me stronger
by blessing me with sistine memories
to keep us secured as we travel
in different realms but never really apart when even smaller
I would rest on the living room carpet at her feet
She dozes in her crescent chair while I watch television

The variation on the third turned
into communal reward as I sat in calm repose
watching too as students attentively observed the master-artist
spend the first twenty minutes rendering
in charcoal on blue-grey quality paper
the face of a man-child the pensive aspect of a poet
At the close of our midterm meeting
she offered signed and dated the fine portrait
after I expressed how it would make a great gift
for my father’s birthday tomorrow The next week I brought in
a concrete-poem a picture painted with words signed & dated
about a cathedral-castle constructed in honor of a legendary lady
I recited it for her & her students
wearing the chap cap she placed on my head
sitting in a reading position
while they were drawing
the planes of the face
the lengths of arms & legs
the contours of torso & shoulders

Slightly surreal describes the fifth
a warm winter day and beneath
a blue hooded lightweight jacket
I wore my black Matisse t-shirt
with the red sphere in the chest
of a dark silhouette floating
through a yellow starry midnight-blue sky
then midway through
one blond lady in love with learning
(and so with living)
told us she had a vision of Michael
in her dream the week before I waited a polite pause
before inquiring She responded
she just remembered when she woke
my image from the night before and in the morning after
her husband explained how artists often see
in their sleep their models She had missed that week
I told them the way pre-Raphaelites 19thC painter-poets
held close ties with their models
From the chair on the platform I continued on
about Rodin & his model ruby muse & mistress Camille Claudel
leading me to mention the Jungian idea
about how the silver-touch of a good woman
molds bronze & empowers a man
like when love gave the old man Rodin new wings

At their request
I read my latest lyric
about inspiration from new experiences
found while engaged in a concurrent workshop
where I was a visting poet And on the sixth Wednesday
while they are putting on the finishing touches
I will recite this one for them
along with “La Pieta”
dedicated to my father’s mother
(she asked them for their love and nothing more)
an art poem
giving color to marble
justified to the left
since recently studied
and revised again
mostly by women

postlude

After announcing the finale selection
as the poetic-documentation
(a reading between the lines)
of our on-going collaboration
we decided I would deliver the overview
as a serial during our 3 pauses
They would step back to inspect their progress
and listened with interest
to a wordsmith’s voice
recollecting in phases
the creation from our lines
The recitation including the cameo piece
was well-received
with respect to us all
we all agreed
we were an inspiration to each other
As a memoir
I made a visit to
and took a farewell look at each easel
to compliment their compositions
to remember their styles
a young mother and graphic artist
presented me her drawing
with my profile bowed to the left
We noticed a resemblance to Sting
I asked if they had seen him on television
performing live at the music awards
the night before and did they know
he used to be an English professor
before he became
a successful songwriter

EXISTENTIALISM
      Katey Nicosia
      (Enter the Muse)

         “In a certain sense all of us are running.”
            -- Kierkegaard

I watch her every morning at breakfast.
Her back against the bark, she sits in the Oak’s shade,
her mouth open as if she’s singing or speaking
to a mockingbird who hobbles in a spray of leaves.
Her cheeks are smudged pink like a rash or sunburn.
The morning never changes: this table, this coffee,
this spoon circling stirs. The painting.

Today I get up to take a closer look.
Her hand covers a yawn the size of a pill,
a small pebble. She props to her knees
and looks at me. I pinch her off the canvas,
perch her on the lip of my coffee cup. Her legs
flop over the edge like the strings of two tea bags.

She’s barefoot and beautiful but her features
are smeared and leaky. We don’t say anything
like we’re long-time friends that lack
the arrival of news, but I can tell she’s bored
or expects something from me. She crosses her arms.
They bleed into the pink of her sweater.

She looks away in a pout, her bottom lip poking out
in a bristle’s stroke. I look up to the wall
where she usually is. The canvas drips
like an awning after rain. The Oak tree
yolks in a blob of tempura to the floor.
“Why is it running?” I ask her, but she’s gone.
Footprints path from the table to a puddle of paint.

I lifted her from the wall. Now the painting is gone.
Is this what happens when you stare at art for too long?
Outside it’s raining, and I can’t remember
if I’m the woman an artist once loved
or the woman trailing footprints down the sidewalk,
whose face is bleeding black.

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