can’t play pictures out here

by Mike Foldes

jorge focused on taking the same photographs over and over. different people who all looked the same. mangold said “we can't keep writing the same poem, painting the same picture, shooting the same photo…. you must get out and away and come back with fresh flowers and wet sand. i think there’s some down that alley.”   jorge went to search for wet sand and fresh flowers. mangold never saw him again. when he returned, jorge was a different person, unrecognizable. his work was different, too. he’d taken up guitar and composed music for it that turned rivers green, the sky red and mountains mauve. when he put away his instrument, the world he played in went dark.  mangold said, “let’s go inside. you can’t play pictures out here.”