by Georgia E. Warren
This is not a piece of fiction. It is an account of an experience I had in which I met knowledgable, interesting people as well as seeing most wondrous buildings and pieces of art.
When I was in college I often over-extended myself. One semester I maxed out the number of classes I was allowed to take, plus I was rehearsing the play: "The American Dream." I played Mrs. Barker, a volunteer from the Bye-Bye Adoption Service. I was so wrapped up in the rehearsal I forgot I had an early morning class the next day in Renaissance Art History, with a test.
As soon as I got back to my dorm room I remembered. There was no textbook, we were supposed to research the famous artwork of Milan. The test was to identify and discuss the Italian Renaissance art was located in Milan. It was late. The library was closed. I decided I should go to bed and try to get to the library before class.
But I was exhausted: I sat on my bed ready to take my shoes off and fell asleep in my clothes.
Within a minute a very nice Catholic Nun shook my shoulder and told me I should not sleep in the pews of the sanctuary. I told her the problem about my class. I did not tell her it was thousands of miles away. She was much more sympathetic than she needed to be. She made me put on a transparent plastic jacket with a hood on it. They gave them to people who weren't dressed properly at her convent. Then she gave me a cup of the strongest coffee I had ever tasted and handed me a map of the art highlights of Milan. She wrote out a note explaining that I only had a few hours in the city and would they please allow me access to the places on the map without paying a fee for each one. I kept the pencil she had.
I walked, I looked, I saw more wonderful drawings and paintings than I could have imagined.
I was so overwhelmed with all the artwork the city had to offer that I spent well over the three hours that the map indicated as the approximated time of the walking tour. There were original drawings in one of the buildings by Leonardo da Vinci. I could have spent all my time right there. But I had to keep going in order see everything I needed for my test back in Oswego, NY.
It was difficult to believe that one city could contain so many pieces from so many artists.
All of the buildings let me in for free because of the note the Nun had given me. I was impressed that they all knew who she was.
My walking tour took me in a ranging circle that brought me back to the spot where I started. My Nun was still there and happy I had such a wonderful time.
The Nun had one more picture to show me that happened to be in her convent. She took me to a room now crowded with tourists. We went right up to the front so I could sit with her to look at her special painting. I was sitting in front of the original Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. It sure looked awful, nothing like the prints you see in stores. The Nun was very sad about its condition, the Vatican had plans for the Last Supper restoration, but right then it was on hold because of some work in the Vatican on the Sistene Chapel ceiling.She told me to look at if like she often did stare at the picture and then imagine what it originally looked like. Then close my eyes and see it as da Vinci had finished it. I did just what she said and the colors and the missing pieces were right there before my closed eyes.
Just then my professor shook my shoulder and asked me if I was going to take the test or just sleep through class. I apologized for my behavior. Then I took out y map with all the scribbles on it (we were allowed to bring our research notes to the test) and went to work on the test.
When I went back to the dorm I changed my clothes, threw what I had been wearing in my laundry bag and took a very long nap.
Yes, I aced the test.
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IN THIS ISSUE–––
EDITORIAL
• David S. Warren -
OOO Editor's Notes
• Georgia E. Warren -
The Test
ARTICLES
• Sue Ryn -
I Never Imagined This
• Mary Gilliland -
Sky Dancer
• David S. Warren -
Poem to Archie
• Don Brennan -
Take Me To the River
• Peter Fortunato -
Surreal Really
• Peter Wetherbee -
Sinister Ballad of a
Middle-Aged Man
FICTION
David S.Warren -
We are Nuts
• Rhian Ellis -
Furuncle
• Garriel Orgrease -
Evening Out
• Daniel Lovell -
One for Miriam
• Nancy Viera Couto -
Margarida, Jose,
and the Queen
• David Rollow -
Your Stuff
• Franklin Crawford -
When I Have Thoughts
That I May Cease to Pee
REVIEW
• David Rollow -
Review: A. R. Ammons
Complete Poems
POETRY
• Chris MacCormack -
Packages (an excerpt)
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The running joke had become that I was being passed off as Billy Gibbons from Zee Zee Top. I wandered the streets of the French Quarter with family and friends of family. Whenever anyone of the group shouted, “Billy Gibbons, everyone, Billy Gibbons!” I was to go “Har har har.” (go to story)
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When I Have Thoughts That I May Cease to Pee
by Franklin Crawford
My brain, which I am very attached to even though we’ve never met, is doomed to liquefy and bubble out of my ears, nose and mouth, shortly after I am as dead as the DNC.
It’s not the most pleasant thought my mind ever conjured, given that I suspect my brain doesn’t like to imagine its post-mortem condition any more than whatever this self – this symbiont with whom I share my weathered hide – wishes to dwell upon. (go to story)
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The Test
by Georgia E. Warren
As soon as I got back to my dorm room I remembered. There was no textbook, we were supposed to research the famous artwork of Milan. The test was to identify and discuss the Italian Renaissance art was located in Milan. It was late. The library was closed. I decided I should go to bed and try to get to the library before class.
But I was exhausted: I sat on my bed ready to take my shoes off and fell asleep in my clothes.
Within a minute a very nice Catholic Nun shook my shoulder and told me I should not sleep in the pews of the sanctuary. I told her the problem about my class. I did not tell her it was thousands of miles away
(go to article)________________________
Reiki: Just The Facts
"Take Me To The River"
by Don Brennan
“Whoa! Where did you come from?’’ I set it down on the picnic table as fragments of memories washed over me. It was an old friend that I had found as a child, on a family vacation, somewhere one summer. Even though it was still covered with bits of soil, it was easy to see that it was loaded with interesting minerals. “I’m going to have to hose you off.”
The next two mornings, I spent more time staring at the stone than reading my book. The words were creating images not from The Celestine Prophecy, but from the day this stone first came into my life.
I had glimpses of it sparkling
in a shallow pool of water at
the bottom of a riverbed.
(go to article)
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Chris MacCormack
excerpt from
Packages (visit)
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by David Rollow
The Muse came knocking at the writer’s window on a night of wild weather. Her skin seen through the windowpanes was luminous and pale, except for her flushed cheeks. Her green eyes glistened. Never had she looked more beautiful. Gladdened by this unexpected visit--for the page lay empty on his table and the pen lay untouched by the page--the writer stood and unlocked the window, his heart surging against his ribs as if they, too, somehow, were to be unlocked and his heart set free. (go to story)
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by Mary Gilliland
Myth is longing. I lose myself in myth. When I would re-read the texts, or re-imagine them, myth led me out of family problems I could do nothing about. It contextualized the martyred strivings of Roman Catholic indoctrination. (excerpt, go to full story)
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Margarida, José, and the Queen
by by Nancy Vieira Couto
Margarida saw the Queen in that summer of 1901 when all the days were damp and filled with the smell of salt. She couldn’t see the future through the fog, but she imagined machines, money, and motion, a city crammed with tenement houses and streetcars. She was fourteen years old. She and her mother, Maria Julia, had just arrived in Ponta Delgada, having said good-bye forever to aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, the living and the dead.
(go to story)
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The focus of our next Metaphysical Times will be "Memory." (see full size)
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