July 2022 - Featured Artist - Paul Marion

Bio -

Paul Marion (b. 1954) is the author of several collections of poetry, including the recent Lockdown Letters and Union River. He edited the early writing of Jack Kerouac, Atop an Underwood, which also has been translated for French and Italian editions. His book Mill Power tells the story of the modern revival of Lowell, Mass., a model for revitalization of small industrial cities. His work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. With Dick Howe Jr., he co-edits The Lowell Review, an annual publication. He lives in Amesbury, Mass., with his wife Rosemary Noon, who is a partner with Paul in the small publishing company Loom Press.

Featured Piece #1- Memory Bank

I’M WAITING IN THE CAR for my wife to come out of the bank. For the next fifteen minutes, from

every direction people crisscross the parking lot, waving at the white-haired cop who keeps traffic

moving and cars from bumping one another. On the roof there’s an electronic sign with the time

and temperature alternating. If I didn’t know this place is about money and saw the mix of women

and men of different ages, as well as some kids, I might wonder what’s happening. Nobody appears

to take anything into the building; nobody looks as if he or she is carrying anything substantial out of

the building. A few persons exit with paper in their hands, putting slips in their pockets. Several of

them are eating pastry.

With my car window down, I hear what is being said in Greek, Khmer, Portuguese, French, and

Spanish by people walking past me. I’m pretty sure they speak English, too. If I didn’t know better,

this could be a language school, citizenship office, or a ticket counter for ethnic events. Maybe these

folks are trying to keep their native tongues, every Saturday going inside to say a few sentences to

language teachers who reply, “Good work” or “Practice more.”

It could be they are having their memories recorded or perhaps their dreams documented. Inside,

they report what they recall about the old country and their journey to America. I might be all

wrong. Maybe instead they describe a repeating nightmare, even reveal an explicit fantasy. A few of

them show notebooks with scribbles kept on the bedside table. A clerk in the building catalogs the

information and files it in a personal folder for future reference and later academic research.

It’s some kind of local Cultural Depository here at the corner of Central and Middlesex streets.

Inside, security cameras record them talking to the staff in low voices before helping themselves to

jelly donuts and coffee.

Featured Piece #2 - New Boston Cemetery

Weathered squares of slate tilted in the ground—

Shoved by drifts, or maybe mourners hammered dirt

Until the stones budged. My crew and I visited

The settlers buried by war, birthdays, colonial flu.

They were away, at the end of a slim path

Ringed by a gray rock wall and bent iron fence.

The cemetery was a peripheral place,

Like the miracle shrine with its plaster saint

Filling a glass-covered case at my school.

Bus after bus of Catholics had come to pray.

The pastor hung cast-off crutches at a side altar.

By our first grade, the polio scare had faded,

But my classmates and I drank the oral vaccine.

One limping redheaded older pal ran over us

In games of tackle-no-equipment football

At a leftover farmer’s field on Crosby Road,

And that visible evidence told much of

What we knew regarding pain and magic.