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Cynthia Good
Letter from Summer in LA
With focusing art from Featured Artist Gery Kempczynski.
You were alive, ageless and painting,
or wandering in LA’s afternoon citrine,
air glittery on the harbor, boats barely moving
like a body breathing, like it was when we lived
on a bluff. Seasons blur. It’s summer here
every day after the fog lifts. Muraled walls
in Venice have wings. Tattooed bikers
have taken over Front Walk. One year
since I saw you. Decades since we moved
out of LA. Remember the Hwy 10 tunnel
opening to the ocean, palm trees, hills draped
in brown, toupeed in green mops, that cliff
we’d hike near Chautauqua, the Santa Monica
Pier, sun setting at Gladstone’s, the roses
and bottle brush trees that bloom all year,
your smock smelling like turpentine.
About the writer:
Cynthia Good is an award-winning poet, journalist, former TV news anchor, and author of the new chapbook, What We Do with Our Hands from Finishing Line Press. She has written seven books and launched two magazines. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Tupelo Quarterly, Pedestal, and Terminus Magazine.
Image: In City Dreams (Canvas 1) by Gery Kempczynski (contemporary). Oil on canvas. 60 x 48 inches. By 2023. By permission. Gery Kempczynski is an O:JA&L Featured Artist for June 2023.
About the Featured Artist:
With paintings being displayed in homes, city community centers and hospitals across the United States, Gery Kempczynski, a returning artist to OJAL (Lagniappe, July 2, 2018) is a seasoned professional artist focusing on color, texture, nonfigurative landscapes, and abstract art. Exhibitions include Beverly Art Alliance venues, Arlington Heights Northwest Community Hospital, and The Village of Evergreen Park Center. “When I come to my canvas, I feel free to place brush on canvas and color is set to my mood. As I paint, the production begins to uncover which direction this work will take. Abstracted landscapes allow viewers to find much more in my work other than a simple mountain or a tree, but rather, allow them continually to find within my work special tokens and emblems to enjoy for a lifetime.”
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.
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