Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Anaïs climbed the solid masonry placed to countertract the lateral thrust of the vault. In the distance she thought she could see the citadel of a Greek city built at its highest point and containing the chief temples and public buildings, as at Athens. ‘But I’m in Los Angeles,’ thought Anaïs. At first the rich smell of unburnt brick drying in the sun, the other wordly sanctuary of this Greek temple, the condo apartments below, and the thickness and silence of the surrounding structures on which sacrifical offerings are placed were all she could grasp of the environment she was entering.

     ‘I must remember to record this in my diary.’

     Alvar Aalto, among the most important living architects (and certainly pre-eminent in his native Finland), led Anaïs to a platform in the center of a range of arches carried on piers and plastered with advertising posters. He directed her to sit down where there would normally have been a raised panel below the window-sill, but there was no window. ‘Henry,’ she thought, ‘up to his old tricks again.’ She leaned back against a short pillar that supported a coping and thus formed a balustrade. She could see nothing beyond the platform’s walls and the intricate and fanciful decorations that appeared in a vaporous neon glow-cloud that drifted through the gloomy shadows of palm trees. It made no difference to her, as she was exhausted from the climb and preoccupied with the next entry in her little black book. Indeed, Alvar was quite an architectural wonder in his own Wright.

     Presently, Benedetto Antelami, a sculptor and most probably an architect, too, joined Anaïs on the platform, having just come from a seedy little cinema on Sepulveda where The House of Usher had played to a packed house of building inspectors. He reached up to inspect the continuous architrave moulding above her head. His fingers gently caressed the surface, as if it were the body of a statue he himself had sculpted. ‘He grabbed me in his arms…’ mused Anaïs, her heart all aflutter in the poetry of the moment. Then, as Antelami leaned closer, she tried to think of something intelligent to ask that would please him. Maybe she should show an interest in his work. But before she could speak, two architects from her past Diogo Arruda and Charles Robert Ashbee - pushed aside the imitation- velvet curtains that separated Anais from the steaming streets of L.A. She noted at a glance the graceless, conventional clothes that stamped them immediately as architects while they sedately planted themselves down on a fixed wooden seat in the aisle. At the same time, Alvar Aalto entered and stood beside the balustrade. He had read of these creatures in Anaïs Nin’s diary. “I despise you both,” hissed Aalto, “and everthing you represent.”

     Anaïs turned to him now, admiring his amber-colored suit. She judged Aalto to be elegant and well-bred (possibly loaded), qualities that are not usually associated with natives of Finland. She tried to guess his age as he wrestled with Arruda and Ashbee on the ledge. Eighty? Ninety? Perhaps even older. The poor fellow didn’t have a chance. He was hurled to his death in the smog below.

     “The traffic is heavy tonight,” smiled Ashbee.

     ‘I must remember that line,’ thought Anaïs.