Beauty — a poem by Marc Carver

"the grass is getting long."

"Sure is

but you can't kill something

to make it beautiful."

___

The Poet: Marc Carver has published six books of poetry and works as an editor for a site in New York. He has had about three hundred poems published around the world but most of all he hopes people enjoy his work and it inspires them to pick up the pen and turn the tv off.

The Artist: Myles Katherine is a fine art photographer and painter based in Portland, Oregon. She specializes in medium format black and white film photography using a Holga GCFN. Her work includes double exposures and graphic layering that creates a surreal and ghostly atmosphere.Her work is mostly influenced by dreams, psychological conflict and personal attachment. By emphasizing the power of concepts such as social isolation, death, and memories she hopes to unravel a vulnerability in each viewer and force them to recognize and overcome their own psychological struggles. You can see more of her work at MylesKatherine.com

One Step, Then Another— an essay by Mike Murray

It’s five-thirty and the sky is a stretch of long blue cotton, the air like ice water with a taste of dust. From my tent I can hear the clanking of plates as the Peruvian family we’re traveling with sets up breakfast. I can also hear the two girls one tent over spitting out irritated french expletives. My tent smells like timber, but there’s no timber here.


I stumble to the mess tent bleary eyed. Breakfast consists of powdered coffee, tea, pita bread, jam, and an egg pancake that tastes gourmet considering we’re at the base of a mountain, at least ten miles away from the nearest town. We meet as a group to go over the plan. It’s 3.2 kilometers straight up to the top, Raul explains, we break, snack, and take pictures. Then we go down and have lunch. It’ll be reaalll warm, so put on your bug spray and sunscreen. He tells us this will be our longest day, about ten hours from the base to the campsite. He then explains it in Spanish. The young, portly face of a Spaniard, visiting Peru on his week off from university, drops like a pile of fire wood. Diez ahora? I see him mouth to his younger brother, taking off his wide brimmed hat to wipe his brow. His brother is an eager sixteen year old with a narrow head of short brown hair and something to prove. A smile spreads across his face.


Each hiker wants to get to the top of Mt. Salcantay for a different reason. The two French girls, Cloe and Anais, are intrepid; they’ve already hiked Lake Titicaca in the south and are seven steps ahead of most of us in bike shorts and bouncing pony tails. There’s an older woman from Madrid and her daughter, a bank manager with smooth red nails and fresh, three-hundred dollar hiking boots. The daughter, Marianna, wants the picture from the top so she can use her new telephoto lens. Her mother, Senora Juarez, tells me she wants to do as much as she can before she dies. The prospect of dying, she tells me, compels her to live.

Hiking is not about physical prowess. The force that drives a person up a mountain, that drives them to the top, is not sheer muscle. If this were the case mountains would be flooded with slim, well-trimmed gym goers. Most people that hike are not perfect physical specimens. I’ve never been a beach front model; my midsection is short, a series of slight curves and odd muscular bulges; my legs are stocky, feet too wide for most shoes, and I have a slight slouch, but hiking has been a part of my life since I could strap on Velcro shoes. Hiking for me has never been about getting to the top, necessarily, it’s about getting around the next bend, over the next hill, beyond the precipice up ahead. Every long distance hiker knows that thinking about the top doesn’t get you there.

The first hour we begin our rise in elevation from the base. Tall, rock strewn hills grow around us, and we can begin to see the trail that leads to the top. The group clusters together in twos and threes; I hike with a little bit of everyone. When it comes to hiking partners I’m over-particular. There are times when talking fills the lull of rocks--hills with rocks, hills with rocks, hills with rocks-- but there are other times when only silence suffices. These are the wide views, the monumental look outs onto great tracks of country where I can see full cities and towns unfold like creased sheets. I look back every twenty minutes or so. This is a habit I picked up when my dad and I hiked the Appalachian Trail. Retrospect in hiking is important. It is satisfying, a relief even, to see that my legs have taken me somewhere, that all my work was for some purpose, that my feet are not just making imprints in the dirt.


The ascent’s difficulty increases as the hill begins a strict vertical rise. Groups unravel or become quiet, and breathing becomes important. The air in this part of Peru is thin because of the elevation. I’m a runner, so breathing is not a problem I often encounter, but on Salcantay I have to stop every ten to fifteen minutes just to catch my breath. It’s not that I’m speed trekking--my pace is steady and sluggish--there simply is not enough air. This is what I think as I make my momentary pit stops. It’s strategic, what a good, well-seasoned hiker would do. I think of my dad, and how he would probably agree. Half an hour later three middle aged Peruvian men with donkeys loaded with cooking equipment and backpacks more than half their size scoot pass me with snickering ease. Excuse me amigo, they say. These are the people who woke up two hours prior to my shaking off sleep in order to cook me breakfast. They also started half an hour later than we did.

So much for well-seasoned.

My guide suggests coca leaves. He tells me that all the guides chew it to avoid elevation sickness, hunger, and dehydration. Coca is not a drug. It has less narcotics in it than tobacco and coffee, and more nutrients than most fruits. This has earned it the name “Inca Gold” because the Inca used coca leaves the way Westerners use Ibuprofen. Coca grows naturally in Peru and it costs less than a pack of Trident gum. Having read about this, I picked some up before I went on the trip. Raul shows me how to fold the leaves into squares like a blanket, packing it tight, applying a little saliva, and then fitting it into the bottom lip like chewing tobacco. You don’t chew, he says, you suck. Getting all of the juices out is the point. This gives me a little boost of energy, before reaching the real climb.

The landscape has changed. We are in the belly of the mountain, surrounded by steep crags that cast shadows on our path. The trail is clear cut now, weaving over and between large boulders, across stretches of patchy field grass surrounded by canyonesque sides. The sun is high in the sky now and I have to peel off my zip up jacket from this morning. My shirt sticks to my back and sunscreen runs down my temples in white drops. A dull ache infects my quads, the kind of pain a hiker loves, because it means you’ve made tracks. It’s pain that proves itself. The air has become thick and filled with the smell of dirt and fresh cut trees, though there is an undercurrent of cold that periodically sweeps in and skims my bare arms. It’s around the fifth time I feel this that I look up from the jagged ground. Looking back at me is a snow capped mountain that feels close enough to touch, but at the same time surreal, as if I’d woken up from a dream and found myself in a different world. The snow looks clean and crisp and dotted with bits of black rock. As I continue my walk I can’t peel my eyes away--I almost trip and fall because of it. It hovers by my side, like a partner accompanying me on my trek to the top. It’s a welcomed friend, who knows how to speak in its own way, but at the same time can hold fast to silence.

Meanwhile, Marianna has become unsalvageable. Raul has to stop and wait for one of the Peruvians with a donkey to manage her to the top. By the time they pass me, the plump young Spaniard has joined her too. Both create echoes with their raucous spanish laughter. I wave at them as they clip-clop by, their Peruvian guide scowling at the ground and sucking viciously on his coca. I squeeze the sweet, grassy juice from my clump and swallow it with pride. Anais and Chloe are far ahead and out of sight at this point. It’s just me, my fifteen pound pack, and the snow capped mountain.


It’s hard not to judge them. All of us feel the burn of lactic acid in our legs, the sting of sunscreen in our eyes, and the slow burn of the sun. Who are they to quit and take the easy way? What do they think they signed up for, a joy ride to the peak? For a moment their lazy ease takes something away from me; the sense that they will accomplish the same feat with half the work, a quarter the pain, and in a fraction of time. We, the hikers, are laboring for our view, while they get to cruise. Then I remember the number one rule of hiking: it’s not about getting to the top. It feels like an empty aphorism as I stare up at the last part of my daunting climb, but then I stop and sit. I look around at the patch of wild flowers growing to my side, at my friend the snowcap, at the all-too big sky that goes on past the campsite and over Cusco, where I began my trip. I breathe in the cool mountain air like a gulp of water. Then I remember what they’re missing, and why it’s important to hike, rather than take the donkey.

My legs are stiff now and I look up at my last thirty minutes of climbing. Nothing but rock, nothing but uphill, but I can see Chloe and Anais and the two Spaniards at the top. I can see a blurry wood sign and vague movement. It gives me hope. I begin where all hiking begins: one step, then another, then another. On top of being steep, the hill is planted with large rocks that require wide steps and hard pushes. I rely completely on my legs now, and I place in them the kind of faith some reserve for a God. These legs will get me through, and if I make it, if I am saved, they will be there to thank. The pressure from the rocks and the ground is stupefying, and it seems as if the mountain is working against me. My muscles begin to shake, and the dull ache has become a piercing pain that starts at the knee and spreads. Hunger and thirst compel me to stop, and I know I can’t, that if I do I will never complete my journey.

Now I hear their voices. They cheer me on: “C’mon Mike. Almost there. You got it. It’s yours.” It’s my group. I wasn’t even sure they remembered my name, and though they are not what drive me their voices, kind and welcoming, help me forward like a promise. They say, you can join us, just keep trying. I let the burn settle in my legs, and there’s the sign “Abra Salcantay 4600 m.s.n.m.” Anais is waving too, her curly oak colored hair flying up like a curtain. When I get to the top, I bathe in that miraculous cooling breeze.

We wait for the rest of the group to join us at the top. People meander and sip water. The view is astounding. We are surrounded by a ring of mountains: snowcapped, craggy, with small patches of grass, and close enough that we could walk. Moving on to the next peak is tempting, though I know it isn’t a possibility. As long as there’s a further precipice the temptation will always linger, like an itch waiting to be scratched.

The group sits around Raul, and we talk and snack. The air is grand, and enough to warrant our jackets and sweaters again. He tells us about our next destination. Certain faces twist into tired expressions. Others, mine among them, brighten. We’ll be entering a new climate zone, he tells us, a tropical forest. He says to load up on bug spray, and rest. We have another six hours ahead of us, before we reach the campsite.

I lay out in the sun, and smile.

___

Mike Murray is currently taking classes at Grub Street, an independent writing center in Boston, where he attends fiction workshops. He teaches English as a Second Language and Literature in Boston. He lives and writes in Cambridge, MA.

  

The California Crab— fiction by Alessandro Cusimano

Wendy's obsession with Hollywood was born in a motley bungalow, where all the plans begin to jell. In the still of the night, Wendy get up with a jerk, dreaming of a trip to Temptation, odds and ends, jeopardies, jests, strait jackets and phony excuses! Wendy took off a little time this summer, but her vacays didn’t exactly resemble the exotic escapes of Hollywood films: because she never managed to get perfectly tousled beach hair.  

Obsessive thoughts make Wendy feel nervous and afraid. She tries to get rid of these feelings by performing certain behaviors. Due to these thoughts, Wendy may, for example, wash her hair repeatedly. Performing these behaviors usually only makes her nervous feelings go away for a short time. When the fear and nervousness return, she repeats the routine all over again. Her recurrent and persistent obsessions cause marked anxiety and distress. Wendy attempts to ignore or suppress such impulses, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action. Watching her favorite Hollywood stars in films and on television also gives her the mistaken impression that she knows what a person is like. Wendy feels a sort of camaraderie to certain actors. However, in reality, movie stars have private lives as well as she really doesn't know what they could be like on a personal level, no matter how many interviews of them she has seen.  

We all have habits and routines in our daily lives, such as brushing our teeth before bed. However, for Wendy, patterns of behavior get in the way of her daily life. She knows that her obsessions make no sense, but she can't ignore or stop them. Ideas, images and impulses run, uninterrupted, through the Wendy's mind. While they are disturbing, she  can't control them. Sometimes these thoughts come just once in a while and are only mildly annoying. Other times, Wendy has her obsessions all the time! 

She lives in Queer Street, dressed in a persuasive crocodile kimono. Wendy is photogenic! Wendy is pyromaniac! Wendy has the nerve of a squeezed orange! 

Hitting big time in Hollywood is based on good luck and pure timing. As a Hollywood actress to get herself meaty roles she has to know the right people and be in the right place at the right time. Dazzling good looks will also go far in getting her noticed!  

Next to the rose gardens, Wendy is the lover of the betrayals! With the intent to entertain radio stars, movie makers, fumy outlines, Rams and Raiders! Speaking into a wonky microphone, chasing a nine days' wonder, the crucial romance. Confusional states of America! 

As a possible Hollywood star, Wendy loves the attention she get from her fans and from the press. However, there is a downside to all this publicity. Star stalking is rather common and can be very dangerous.  Drunk, Wendy is the perfect woman of straw, along with a braggart in a jammy loft, or the rakehell of the day!

Because of her mental disabilities, Wendy often fixates on Hollywood stars and creates fantasy lives where she thinks she knows the star personally. Much of this has to do with looks and public relations skills. Wendy is prepped and preened before any public appearances. She looks flawless. Everything, from her hair styles to the makeup she wears. It all makes many people feel inferior and in awe of the rich and famous. Wendy has things that they could never dream of owning! 

And yet, she is unable to recognize that the obsessional images are not only a product of her own mind, but also imposed from without, as in thought insertion. Repetitive behaviors such as hair washing, ordering, checking or mental acts like praying, repeating words silently, are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviors or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent or are clearly excessive. Moreover the obsessions significantly interfere with the Wendy's normal routine, occupational, functioning, or usual social activities or relationships. Wendy buys all the popular fashion magazines featuring movie stars on the cover: she sees movie stars and celebrities everywhere. 

Unfortunately, Wendy continues to be bothered by thoughts or images that repeatedly enter her mind, such as concerns with gaining weight, choosing the wrong lipstick or keeping shoes in perfect order or arranged exactly. Images of porno movies or horrible events. She worries a lot about terrible things happening, such as being on the set and forget her lines. Senseless urge or impulse, such as pushing a competitor, for the part in a movie, in front of a bus, steering her car into oncoming traffic or poisoning dinner guests. She feels driven to perform certain acts over and over again, such as excessive or ritualized laughing, jogging, or sleeping. Repeating routine actions: in/out of chair, going through doorway, re-lighting cigarette. Unnecessary re-reading or re-writing. Avoiding colors: red means blood! Numbers: 13 is unlucky. Or names: those that start with F signify flop! That are associated with dreaded events or unpleasant thoughts. Needing to confess or repeatedly asking for reassurance that she said or did something correctly! 

To make matters worse, Wendy suffers from another strange mental disorder. She has a strong need to count her actions or objects in her surroundings. Wendy may for instance feel compelled to count the steps while ascending or descending a flight of stairs or to count the number of letters in words. She often feels it is necessary to perform an action a certain number of times to prevent alleged calamities. All of this develops into a complex system in which Wendy assigns values or numbers to people, objects and events in order to deduce their coherence. At times she counts aloud, at times silently. She is still unsure if it is a blessing or a curse. She always thought it was just the way her brain works. Surely, nobody else would really be able to comprehend what her brain does on it’s free time.  

She doesn’t actually count the number of objects. She counts the angles, sides, corners of each star. Not the sum. Here’s a highly simplified example of what her brain does: picture a pink painted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is flat, so it has no dimension to it. There are ten sides and five corners. Each side has two terminals, where the line ends at the corner. She tends to count those terminals on each corner. So in this example, each corner would have a value of “2″. So she would go around the painted star, counting 2, 4, 6, 8. Not too difficult. Now, picture doing that to every single painted star on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street while driving at 50 mph! Now imagine applying that habit to a three-dimensional star! Now, put yourself into a room that has stars of all different shapes, sizes and thicknesses! Hollywood rules everything around her! 

The other day Wendy thought about one thing: a few years ago, before leaving Illinois, to go to live in Los Angeles, she decided to install an aquarium in her home. She got everything you need, and after creating the ideal habitat put some fishes in the aquarium. Very nice to watch the fishes and plants that grew and multiplied. Wendy noticed that the fishes did not like her too much, so she had to observe them covertly. After an initial period, where Wendy had to intervene frequently to maintain the ideal habitat stable, she let it all live on their own. Everything worked perfectly until she introduced a particular species within the aquarium. The California crab! At first all is well. It grew quiet and seemed to adapt to the environment. Then it started to destroy everything and everyone. Eat the plants and kill other fish. The possibilities were two. Step in and remove the intruder destroyer or let nature take its course. For a split second Wendy felt God! Intervened! She removed the crab from the aquarium and everything slowly returned to normal.

___

The Writer: Alessandro Cusimano was born in Palermo in 1967. Son of a painter and a teacher, he moved to Rome where he attends classical studies. He also attended an art school and an institute of gemology, becoming, later, jewelry designer. Since the age of 21, his life has been marked by recurrent and painful bouts of depression and by the use of alcohol and drugs. None of this, however, distracted him from the research and the study of his expression ideals, his narrative technique, his poetic style. He nevertheless had to pay for periods of forced inactivity associated with complex rehabilitation programs. Expressivist poet, he freely refers to the peripheral and irregular languages, drawing on the dialects, the slangs, the various sectorial and technical form of expressions, recreated with personal inventions and varying intensity, in every moment of his literary production. Along with a special focus on visual arts, from painting to cinema, from photography to theatre. Today, thanks to a regular lifestyle and the progress made in terms of his overall health status, he leads a normal life, just a few hundred yards from the sea and the beach to which Pier Paolo Pasolini gave, in 1975, an unexpected spiritual dignity while spending the last day of his life.

The Artist: Mark Zlomislic's art resides in the tension between the eternal and the temporal. It explores the human need for security and the inevitability of an impermanence he has difficulty accepting. He paints to capture moments of time that reveal frailty and vitality, joy and sorrow, decline and glory. Born in Rakitno, Hercegovina, he has lived and studied in Vienna, Paris, Munich and Zagreb. His influences include Bacon, Balthus and Tom Thompson. His work is included in numerous private collections throughout North America and Europe. His gallery and studio are located in Cambridge, Canada.