INDECENCY

            I see – recalling Fitzgerald’s Gatsby’s recaller and
        Heyman's Love Letters:   You love me – because you told me so.
        – Are we sure, i now asked, we’re talking about the same Stew
        Galenza i knew in Albertory?    Graphic artist?
        The very same, I do assure, was the rapid reply.
         – He be once in my employ, in this very eatery.

           

            As a waiter then?  i asked, but the owner of the place
        Shook his head, as though indulging a child, and waved an arm
        From front to back to indicate the broad abstract contours
        And strong earth-tones spread across the walls of the restaurant
        And interrupted only by three wide brass-framed mirrors
        That amplified the spatial reality of the place.

                                                    *

           You're saying Stew did all that?     There wasn’t a single hint
        Of the female figures which had been Galenza’s forte
       (As far as i had gauged from the sketchbooks he had shown me)
        But perhaps those had been reduced to the ovals and arcs
        That softened the otherwise masculine verticalist
        Thrust of the lines and angles cutting through the walls’ earth-hues.

        Old-world bonhomme Halabi nodded proudly, his eyes closed,
        His closed lips turned down in an almost sentimental smile.
        When he re-opened his eyes, were there tears welled up in them?
        The man seemed to be chameleonically sliding
        Right before my eyes, between colours of temperament.

       
          (from “fatima solagua arterra’s nudes” by Brian Chan)