Love, Your Artsy Girl

Eileen Tabios, my long time poet/writer friend, wrote about my art I had given to her a while back in her blog:   Eileen Lives with Art

Could never use those coupons up before they expire. Forget where I put them. How am I able to keep track of all the things I could have saved? Must have emptied more than  a million trash cans  in my lifetime. Hauling off heaps of my heart in rusty shipping containers overseas, giving it away in suburbs. In megapixels of my youth--no one has given me proof of its gold, its creditworthiness. Old Sunday circulars' clippings crammed in crusty corners of my purse. Maybe there's a purpose for buying overpriced souvenirs. To come full-circle at your frugality. Free yet fraught with  old film reels.

This flash fiction by Cristina Querrer was originally published in The Milo Review. ****************** Mount Pinatubo jutted its colossal body above the jungle, vacantly looking down and snorting at the mortals in hedonistic Angeles City, Philippines. Passengers in a jeepney witnessed a bar girl running topless down the street, chasing after some overweight foreigner. “Hoy, pogi, halika dito!” she shouted. The Australian looked back at her smiling as he trotted along flattered by her pursuit. Still, even in the ‘80s, strings of them lined up and down prostitute alley, these exotic gems of South China Sea, as the men liked to call them. Some leaned in the door frames of their establishments in their stacked heels and hot pants, some smoking a cigarette, some not. A Filipina teenager—a bar girl—sat on a GI‘s lap at a table outside one of the cabarets. Silhouettes of naked women danced in front of windows; discos’ bright neon lights flashed above street vendors sel

My chapbook, " The Art of Exporting ", published by  dancing girl press in 2011 has finally gotten a chance to be beautifully reviewed by Eileen R. Tabios, who curates and edits "The Halo-Halo Review" . What I also love is that she mentioned  my daughter's photography that is featured on the front cover and inside my poetry collection.  Click on the link below: http://halohaloreview.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-art-of-exporting-by-cristina-querrer.html

It's no wonder I am hollowed out. Apple's bitten clean through its core. Even seeds' gone, swallowed whole, but they are sprouting in cavernous abdomens to fruitless, ulcerous crab trees. This is what the void plants: the so much need & yearning for so much in poor soil. For something more majestic than this even when I close my eyes & dream it all in color, repeating, remembering. All the thankless routines of praising false harvests has me wishing for blank, soundless waves, hill-less horizons. That's what it means to be wise I've been told: forgive vulgar volcanoes for acting out their discontent.

http://shopvida.com/collections/voices/cristina-querrer Here is your chance to wear my art! I was approached by Vida's artist representative to feature my art. As you know, my work is not digital art. These are my paintings and drawings. They'll be more to come. Enjoy!

I know it so well The connotations of crisp Linen shirt before it wrinkles The vowels of vibrant Oaks against a bleak sky It moans melancholy mists Among the moss I can sign in the language To the deaf -blind-mute Darkened dank pit Cold, endless  My love has lost his life In the quicksand He chose to step  Into the hole as I grasped So desperately on to the  Last palm tree standing With my arm outstretched Not being able To reach him I hurt myself To watch him die I cannot understand His words anymore It's become muddled It echoes eternal Deception of depth How can you love Something so frightful So terminal, so quickly  Yet it drags on for  Many lifetimes Many, many days Of such grief

Find my short fiction, "Ex-pats" in this issue of The Transnational: A Literary Magazine USA :  https://www.amazon.com/Transnational-Vol-4-Weam-Namou/dp/3844810412?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 Germany : Hugendubel:  http://www.hugendubel.de/de/ Amazon Deutchland:  https://www.amazon.de/Transnational-Vol-bilin It is available at Amazon UK , too. The Transnational is a bilingual literary magazine which publishes authors from all around the world who offer a new approach to the political and social landscape of the 21st century. Worldwide. In English & German. Texts which are published in the Transnational can dissolve existing boundaries or suggest new ones. They can make us question our beliefs, champion social justice and human rights, war and psychological violence, giving rise to provocative or soothing thoughts. We believe that all great literature is revolutionary and necessary. Great writers are honest. They call upon us as read

Is the wasted time pining over you  while you chased Pohnpeian skirts under palm trees Is the Wisconsin & Chicago winter wishing you'd finally bring me warmth Is the Connecticut apartment as I worked that part-time job long enough for you to convalesce from arm surgery Is the Florida sunshine that turned to shouts & screams among your sickening souvenirs  from your romps in paradise Is the moment I fled again in disarray & confusion & the many months coming back when you can only half love me Is when you stopped receiving my calls & texts altogether even while you lived only less  than a mile from me Is now you are in my house laying on the same intermittent bed & all I can smell is the smallness of you

Woman in Front of Abraham Rattner's "Lott's Wife" - 2009 photo by Cristina Querrer I am going to do something a little unusual in this blog post and take a short break from my poetry to focus on a topic that has been on my mind and that is collecting fine art. Why do some of us do it and how does one start off collecting? Well, collecting anything starts off with a passion whether it is to collect the rarest of finds or of a particular thing.  I know I have a penchant for anything dragonflies, owls and now my latest and greatest, elephants!  I collect these things with many representations and varieties because it makes me happy.   My daughter, Mia, at Leepa Rattner Museum - 2009 photo taken by Cristina Querrer The same thing can apply to collecting fine art.  You have to choose what speaks to you, I suppose, and depends at what level you want to take this passion to. One of Pablo Picasso's famous quote goes "The purpose of art is washing th

He comes from huddled huts, from  mountainsides, center of the world. Smokes, drinks, abstains. Freeform yet closes onto himself  like nightshade. Rolls into my path. My hardened armadillo. His armament protects me from  cutting winds when I climb with him, fly to him. I have a feeling of free falling--  no edging, skirting. No margins. No borders. Assured, always. Beautiful & blind.