APRICITY

2020 VOLUME IV

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” - Pablo Picasso

As we grow, we are expected to mature and overcome the whimsies of childhood. Great art defies such expectation – great art reveals the human spirit in its entirety and embraces the wisdom of adulthood, the discovery that accompanies adolescence, and the wonder embodied in childhood. Join us as we grow out of adulthood and into childhood through this volume.

PU E

PP

T

Author | Malvika Manoj

My face is laced with pen, green
Marked lines sweet-talking my nose and eyelids.
Pudgy not paper crisp, they itch for precision.
I pass by goddesses placed on
Subway booths, their lunar skin absent of craters captured in one operatic shot
Indulged by comments. Pudgy not paper crisp, my flesh won’t
Find its place on a pedestal, moony-eyed glances and
Relatives singing odes to me. I will later catch fool’s gold, marveling
At my heavenly blithe flesh but all the glimmer will
Darken when I see flesh pooling out of my waistline and
Rotting into shades that don’t resemble pearls. I crave to be an
Envy. A muse. A comment from a passerby’s mouth — astonished.
And I will be twist and turn, lifted by strings
Far above me.

You're So Funny

Artist | R. Fitzgerald

Oil on Canvas

WARRIOR WITH A

CROWN

by JMP, Francesco Cuizza,

Azziuc, and Ugo Cacciatori

MAZUKU

Author | Tim Bridwell

hey were 20-meters down when the lake exploded around them. It began with a rumble—an earthquake, maybe the

volcano—then huge bubbles rolled up from the depths like a bloom of monstrous jellyfish, tumbling them end to

end as it turned the clear waters brown with sediment. Dave swam towards the boat’s shadow. He surfaced in a sizzle of effervescence, dazzling crystals of sunlight rendering him blind, squinting face to face with the dive master Étienne hanging over the side of the 18-foot Zodiac with mouth agape and eyes bulging blood red. The dive master dragged the edge of a flat hand across his throat, repeating cutting gestures, signaling “out of air.” Behind Étienne, two assistants clenched yellow plastic regulators in their teeth, discs tethered by dark hoses to the chrome valves they spun onto air tanks.

Fingers slowed. Spinning stopped.

The chunks of bright plastic dropped from their teeth to dance at the end of hoses. They released their grip on the steel tank rack and fell in unison, like marionettes. At whose hands?

No wounds. No smoke. An otherwise beautiful day in Rwanda.

Head above water, but with mask and regulator, Dave searched topside for Sylvia. No sign of her. When he craned his neck over the side of the boat, Étienne lunged to grab his mouthpiece, prying it from his teeth as Dave thrashed his head from side to side. There was nothing he could do for this man—for anyone aboard. If he stayed to buddy-breathe with one, Dave might lose Sylvia. After twenty years, he feared that he might lose her. That was what brought them to this day. As life left Étienne, his grip loosened on the regulator. He flopped over the side of the boat, his arm hitting the water with a familiar sound—like the warning slap of a beaver’s tail. Canada. Dave had to find Sylvia.

T

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L’Étranger

Composer | Hsiu-Ping (Patrick) Wu

In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.

“

–Albert Camus, 1955.

”

Butterfly Bowtie

Artist | AM DeBrincat

Mixed Media Painting

restrospect

Author | JP Mayer

Orpheus woke pensive cigarettes
burning holes in his bedsheets.
Might as well be dead whispers
his landlord when he sees Orpheus
leave for work each morning but then
again who'd feed his dog? Orpheus
has a black dog named Nestor never barks
too much. When the train rolls by Orpeus's
apartment rattles his old (Calls them useless)

fucking fingers trace Her
useless fingers all askew
old guitars can't like poppystalks bend to
tune them to anything the sun Always checks
anymore his shoulder for her.