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

Clouds three miles high
Josh Rosencranz & Gerardo Bervera Villasen

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After the inebriated hamster powered mythic
Delivery truck ran over my ideas

And then backed up to crush

The memories of my grandfather on my fathers’ side
And my grandmother on my mothers side
In that order
The gods shook their heads
Cataclysmic identity crisis, big time
Still, the roses began to sprout buds again

I imagined future lovers in my next lifetime
While contemplating cleaning the tool shed
What to find there?  What makes me now think of frogs?

The rain couldn’t make up its bloody mind
Not when it mattered
The drops as we imagine them falling
All the way from a cloud three miles high

Moving swiftly to end up as but nothing hours later

Breath deep my little porcupine
Fix your gaze upon the giant marshmallow

And think hard, try to understand

Okay?

Or dig a hole and place your favorite toy in there
And dig another hole
And stop for a moment before putting anything in there
A small part of you might be swallowed up and never come out

If only the rain would continue a little longer
Until I can see my fathers’ father sitting with the Indians
At a pow-wow, which he never did
Only ’til his sins could be washed down a river bed
In a desert somewhere on a moonlit night

Could the cloud from where the rain comes
Take my mothers’ mothers’ salty uncried tears away
And could they turn to nothing also?

The hole in the earth I dig is a hole in a living being
But she lets me think it doesn’t hurt
It’s not even happening she tells me
But I know it isn’t true

Reincarnation of a salesman
The life of inanimate objects
Nix on da ceremonies in da cemetery
I’m making up your mind for you sweetheart

Hot dog on a stick, ten broken records
Revolving inside my whole wide life
I keep inventing more and more not for sure memories
Which may or may not have ever happened

Angels hovering where feathers have floated down
And landed on my eyelashes
Jealousy tarnishing my voice, my intentions

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Sculpture: Gerardo Bervera Villasen. Poetry: Josh Rosencranz.

Gerardo Bervera Villasen studied at “La Esmeralda,” the national school of painting, sculpture and etching. Expositions in various places in Mexico and the United States. Currently and for the last 9 years teaching the bachelors degree program of sculpture in stone at the Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico

Josh Rosencranz is still 5 feet 10 inches tall, though he’s been told he’s been shrinking somewhat. Missing only a few teeth, and a piece of my thumb from a carpentry accident. Walks with a slight tilt to the right. Wounded (but recovering) from life’s trials and tribulations, he shares his struggles and victories with loved ones and friends, especially his wife Ursula and three children Ove, Ivan, and Kelly.