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Jarhead by Amy Bouse
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Three Venetian
Sequences
by Avik Chanda
I
At first, there’s nothing but the breaking
of his song through the fog. Then, expectant,
you allow first light into this scene – and
the gondolier appears, arms spread out
in mock drama, rehearsing a part to his fare
of Japanese tourists. The gondola passes
in slow motion. The quay, quiet once more,
postcard-like. Now call up the fog again.
II
Recycled souls of men who faded in dungeons.
Now pigeons haunt the chessboard piazza,
drawing shallow shadows in a pattern
that mirrors the water’s lace.
Churchbells and wingbeat create their
own music, mingled with voices real
and imagined, as the four horses look on;
then the light swells, whites out everything.
III
Close-up. A man, middling, comfortable at
his writing desk, shirt open at the throat,
sea in his glasses. Paper & pen. Stillshot.
Distracted, he looks up, away from the camera.
Cut. Then, what he was looking at.
As I write this, over an indifferent coffee,
seated amidst music and a teenage crowd,
the real city, far away, breaks into verse.
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