Purple Noise by Andrea Damic
On Aspen Tree
“The pain was what it was. Beyond it there was nothing to say… If someone wanted to impart physical pain,
he would be forced to inflict and thereby become a torturer himself.”—Jean Améry
I feel crippled reading Celan in English,
needing Joris as an Okie does a hoe.
Something is lost in my digging. In hushed
scrubs, hawksbeards strangle dandelions. Oh,
how unlike the green Ukraine is my russet
West! A rain cloud hovers above and shades
the Great Plains with an ominous air, as if
it will pour ash or, worse, dust. Shreds
of light seep through, falling weakly
like singed hair-follicles. At first glance,
they shine yellow, but I turn back
to find darkness. My eyes don’t wince.
They adjust, and I forget about the scars
from leaden bullets and tattoo tickets
numbered on forearms. I wind ’round the wires
that corral my coops and wheat thickets.
Many gentle mothers died in 1942,
overworked during a winter’s frost.
I try to hide my eyes of lighter hue,
but crying eludes me at all cost.
A Kindling
My great-grandmother believed in omens
and prophesized one to me like a sage.
She muttered something about warrens
and rabbits, the stolen hay they foraged
hidden below the barn with their trinkets.
I found a burrow in the longer-eave’s
shadow, attuned to my great-grandmother’s myth.
They peeped out like rustlers and thieves
afraid of the farmer and his worn scythe,
but I had only gardening widgets
and some barley, which I made sure the rabbits glimpsed.
Scattered, the grains fell among local flora.
The next morning, I solemnly skinned
all the carcasses but one: a doe in a bed of angora
and hay and seven kits.
About the author:
Alejandro Aguirre is an MFA candidate at Boston University. He was twice a finalist for the Atlanta Review’s Dan Veach Prize, and his poems are published in Rattle, I-70 Review, Louisiana Literature, Hawai’i Pacific Review, JMWW, and elsewhere. www.alejandromaguirre.com
In the artist’s words:
Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She’s an amateur photographer and author of prose and poetry. She’s a big fan of the abstract. Sometimes while in the process of capturing a certain moment, Andrea knows exactly what outcome to expect. However, more often than not, that end result is utterly unexpected. This is the main reason she loves digital photography so much. The possibilities are endless.
Her photographs can be found in Fusion Art and Light Space & Time Online Art Exhibitions or in online and print publications such as Rejection Letters (The Piker Press), Mad Swirl, Arkana (University of Central Arkansas), Welter (University of Baltimore), Invisible City (University of San Francisco), etc. Andrea’s especially proud of having her photographs published on the covers of Door Is A Jar, Rat’s Ass Review and Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag.
She spends many an hour fiddling around with her website https://damicandrea.wordpress.