The Painter Tamayo and All-Inclusives

by Richard Swanson

 

The Painter Tamayo

Here’s a probably true story
about Ruffino Tamayo, the Mexican painter
after the titans Rivera, Orozco, and Sigueiros,
world famous Tamayo, the painter of tragic tableaux,
rich vistas and youthful faces innocent as tangerines,
except that sometimes there’s mischief in that innocence.
A wealthy Mexican man approaches Tamayo
to capture the tropical landscapes of his mountainside house.
Young, his ego’s as big as the house, and the house
is half as big as the mountain.
Old Ruffino, in age that is, visits the place and agrees
to paint the hills. But first he has to absorb it, he says,
all this green, so he walks the terrain.

The wealthy man smiles, seeing this.
He owns it all now, house, mountain and a famous painter.

Then, three times, the following happens.
From the city Ruffino calls, telling the man
to hire a helicopter and pick him up.

What?
Yes, I need a helicopter, Tamayo is adamant.
I need to see the mountainside greens from the air.

Well, sure, maestro, but . . .
These whirligigs don’t come cheap, and—
Rich Guy’s not as wealthy as he lets on.
Besides, he wonders, does my painter
like helicopter rides like kids like chocolate.

Tamayo’s waving up there, waving.
Wave back. He’s your painter, rich man.

The great unveiling day!
Mister Mountainous Ego anticipates.
One whole floor of his house has been redone
for Tamayo’s verdant vision.

So off with the canvass’s cover, and here it is—
red? Red here, more red there, in all the quadrants,
hot red, sly red, off-color joke red, mocking, bordello red,
not a spit of green in any part of the landscape.

Tamayo! Maestro! the wealthy man gapes,
you loved all the greens, where are my greens?

Ah, those, Ruffino says, his finger tapping his skull,
they’re up here.

 

All-Inclusives

They love the arrangements, airport transport to here,
luggage processed right to their rooms, which were
bleached-white clean, with towels on beds
shaped into rabbits and swans, cute swans,
and all their meals provided.

Plus, right before dinner, poolside, after a hard day’s tanning,
a happy hour trolley comes ‘round ( ding-ding, ding-ding)
with pitchers of margaritas. Oh, those margaritas.

Some of the help try to speak English, funny kind of,
but, hey, give them credit for trying: You like? Treeps?
Two-LOOM? CHEECH-‘n-EAT-cha?

You couldn’t get care like this back home, they repeat
to one another: palápa lunches, nighttime shows
in the Mayan outdoor theater, the small incidentals—
chocolate nibbles next to the day’s shampoo.

Last night the hotel shuttle bussed them to town
for Texas burghers, a place with Spanish flamenco.

It was good to go there, they agree, to see the real Mexico.

 

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Richard Swanson, a retired teacher of English from Madison, Wisconsin, spends three weeks in Valladolid and Akumal every February. He was first attracted to Quintana Roo and the Yucatan on a visit to Playa del Carmen, decades ago, when the place was a a series of four or five unpaved streets.

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photo by Angela M Campbell

Advertisement

qi and high: two poems

by Peter Bracking

 

qi
if it wasn’t so hard
to have and to hold
so intangible and so necessary
breath/air/breath
could be superfluous
to listening to
haunting honking alto
outside the atrium
in the moist air
used twice
first for life
second for music
or
are they equal

 

high
high above the Pearl River
close to the laughing
afternoon moon
you watch a single boat
ply the thick black water

and sip
you sip bai zho and it burns
each sip burns
equally

distant tinkles and musical crushes and crashes
in the aural and ocular depths
indicate local industry
glass re-transformed
dust to dust
close the window quickly

and sip
and hope for another boat
and sip
to gauge the burn

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Peter Bracking tells tall tales. Earth point: Vancouver, Canada. Words have been published by more than a dozen presses in four countries on two continents including: Maisonneuve; Ascent Aspirations; streetcake magazine; thrice fiction; Existere. The only occupation he regrets leaving is beach bum. Peter is the artistic director of Utter Stories. Self aggrandizement: http://utterstories.wordpress.com

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art by Kreso Cavlovic

4 photos by Angela M Campbell

 

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Angela M. Campbell — full time writer, grew up in Ohio and lived in the Philadelphia area and the Washington DC area before moving to Salem, Mass. She has been named as a finalist in the essay category and a semi-finalist in the Novel -In -Progress category in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition (Faulkner House, New Orleans).  Obviously, she also is a photographer.

Hunger

by Conor Smyth

 

Hunger
In the middle of summer
He still shivered
Quaking from guttural tremors
Body condensed to a ball
A boned cage once,
Heartily round, contented
Now vulnerable, prey for the elements
Sustenance not forthcoming
Cold sweat and restless limbs
Eyes heavy but alert, the waking coma
He is exhausted by the absence of hope
Dishevelled, disowned by relief
6am, dawn on blackened eyes
A Muted television
Curling, cramped hot/cold
Sleep, only a kind memory

 

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Conor Smyth is from Bangor, Northern Ireland. He studied Film at DeMontfort University, Leicester, and has written articles for Culture NI; http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/ He started concentration on his own poetry in the last 12 months with a view to getting work published.

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photo by Kristi Harms