Pre-Raphaelite Painter
Inside his coat pocket is a wooden box,
inside this hand-carved box a pig’s bladder
sealed with string; inside the pig’s bladder:
powdered pigments of colour, his paints,
kept safe when not mixed with an oily matter
(crushed and cut with a sharp-edged instrument).
He carries a black bottle of laudanum
to loosen his imagination, the flick of his wrist.
A model with thick auburn hair and blue lips
posed this morning, in a copper bathtub,
among white magnolia and rank geraniums,
as Ophelia (she caught a vicious chill).
Every Sunday
In the front room of my Italian
grandparent’s council home
my brothers, cousins and I
drank vino, with a splash
of cheap lemonade,
from the age of eight. We drooled
in anticipation of Nonna’s
divine pasta (drenched
in salty rivers of red sauce).
We entertained ourselves
(while the adults gassed
in the cramped kitchen-diner)
by studying the framed photographs
hung on garish wallpapered walls:
the Madonna, crowned in light;
my father (aged five) dressed as a monk
on a donkey; St Francis taming
a wolf in a wood; Nonno and Nonna
beaming, arm in arm, outside a chapel.
Pork joints and rosemary
potato wedges followed
the pasta dish on plates,
with a salad entirely sourced
from the slim garden
Nonna adored and cultivated
as if it were a slice of Italia.
A block of Neapolitan ice-cream
and fruit dessert, soaked in sambuca,
served before percolated coffee.
In the mid-1950s my grandparents
boarded a boat from Naples to Dover
in the hope of a greener life.
Neither ever fully grasped the lingo.
Us grandchildren half-understood
their Italian. Their passionate
cursing and hand gestures
translated our Anglo-Italian
love language.
We played cards alfresco,
under moonlight, shouting scopa!
The Beach by Alex Garland
The novel’s plot: a twenty-something Brit travels Thailand in search of paradise. Trite yet relatable. Espionage, violence and substance abuse ensues. Pulpy yet page-turning. I read it on Bang Tao beach, facing the Andaman Sea.
The sun set and soon enough I saw boats on the horizon ablaze in green light. They were fishing for squid with nets and spinning rods. The sea swept plastic up the shore and the waves were stained with ink.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Aaron Lembo‘s poetry has been published widely online and in print. His debut poetry pamphlet It’s All Gone Don Juan (erbacce) was published in 2020. Currently, he lives in Thailand.
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