s w i f t s  &  s l o w s: a quarterly of crisscrossings

For those who walk by water 
Anna May & Catherine Henke

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Pinturas, Catherine Henke

i wonder why people go to water
Some may be breaking or mending
May find themselves there, too hollow or too full
Some free falling into depths or swimming in shallows
Some wondering, some knowing, some never knowing
perpetually craned necks.

They all have the identical instinct to let the mind wander
Here we are, naked, distracted from what could probably make us something

the very bony skeletal system of existence

I breathe air and sense that it is tainted by many things
Bending back the wrinkles of the moments,
You’ll find that a little toxicity is swirling through clean air
|Needle, hotel, north beach, beach town, stomachs grumble, stuffy nose, pretty dresses, all dressed up and nobody’s around to see the effort that you put into your Friday night attire

Entering into a booming night shortly

Some are alright and some are not
All temporary smiles give way to some future sadness that is inescapable.
Some egos ablaze and some hidden like aged turtles under rocks, old and still diffident
You can tell by the averted glance, slight grin, borrowed recollections of rhythm sometimes bouncing on their faces

time is suspended as we inhabit this little space quietly together

There is quest for truth in these ancient boardwalk meanderings that we find our part in
truth is difficult to identify .. parallel to truth, there is a quest towards an aimless, artificial truth The only truth I think I’ve ever seen is in silent, full bodied branches.

Here we are together, with the word community written on a bulletin board above our heads, all imagining and remembering similar pasts..The twists and turns of a perfect lover’s body, the knotted smiles that dance across these pillows, practiced arts of distraction in between, before inevitably falling into full engagementAll that is beyond description and all that seems unclear
All that everyone ever imagined
Brief perfection of sex

the unexpected uncertainties of forces believed to be so infallible
our minds wander through a time that seems to be forever narrowing
on the boardwalk that i used to frequent.
The soft, knowing touches that were the embodiment of love in a moment that has long since passed

The poems we’ve all read, the paintings we’ve all seen; the transient fluidity of beauty which we strive recover, ultimately, to realize that ideals cannot be possessed.
ideals eventually feel like poorly rendered facsimiles;  creatures of curtains and stage doors. Ideals are what appears plain by day, and are nighttime chameleons.

Take a breath, you must come back down sometime
There are “real things” to tend to in the interims of living fantasy
We are left with flimsy spring wind after severed hearts have finished their healing.

All the various scents in the air make me remember the cool release that I haven’t found since I found you; the conciliatory smiles on sweaty white pillows and the April breeze outside.
We found a window of space between the volley of hellos and goodbyes, and in between distances and time

now we are parallel lines each climbing a separate mountain – each mountain is the same height, and we are respectful of the other’s journey
I invent distractions in the forms of details, to avoid the monstrous problem of a bigger picture

If one is not careful, during the course of contemplation
an agony long ago put away may demand a resurrection.
Stuffed in a shell, feeling neglected..slightly emerging and begging for a pair of wings again because it so deeply misses flying.
you know it well, you love it even, but must deny it’s presence as a living entity in order to protect yourself
All is moving forward, repressed but eagerly.

Delve into the worlds of the passersby but do not linger in those worlds for too long
Look down, change the song
Railroad tracks, sunset, cliche, blends into nighttime so effortlessly
Thinking about truth, selfishness, grace or filth,
& about how many times we kill little insights that could change the
world

what do people relinquish of themselves for love?
.. Whole pieces of themselves forever gone.
I want to love, but I’ve gotten too good at walking hurriedly past
strange to me, the matters that most people discuss
All forced to succumb to the whims of earthly hunger just as they find themselves teetering with growing confidence upon the precipices of contemplation

I’m thinking about getting an ice cream cone
Low battery signal on the phone
supine, after hours, midnight sky glaze
There is depth in the emptiness

it is time to go home sometime.

We know what’s down there,
and we are reluctant to recover it.

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Anna May is a writer and musician based in connecticut. alt tragi Americana snapshots, artistic invokations for peace and rebirth & judgment bending, and bleeding heart stream of consciousness poems.

Catherine Henke, a visual artist originally from Geneva, Switzerland chose to live and work in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal.This radical change in her living conditions encouraged her to learn about rural life and the practice of organic agriculture. She has developed knowledge related to the rhythms of nature and to an ecological consciousness. Her art practice comprises varying uses of numerous techniques, such as painting, sculpture, ceramic and mixed media installation.