Birds of Malaiseville

Spiritual Discontentment Enters Late Middle Age

An artistic collaboration between Vic Ardelle & Alice Moore, Birds of Malaiseville is, at its simplest, a collection of meditations asking after God while stuck in the Bible Belt. We've placed each essay inside the feathered deck below, shuffled and ruffled just to our liking.

This is, perhaps, the best way to experience the work, but if you prefer a more structured view, feel free to click the nest, where we've laid out the pieces as a sort of book.

However you choose to experience the words and images here, we urge you to take your time, to tread lightly as not to scare the birds into flight.

A birds nest, complete with three eggs. Painting by Alice Alexandra Moore.
Tap the cards to turn them.
A goldfinch sitting on a branch, quite pleased with himself.

I closed my eyes like blind Isaac and patted my goaty cheeks. “Esau? Is it you, Esau?”

A small brown bird, looking up, embedded in pink flowers.

Of the underwear band with the inside-out dashes. Of the stress-fracture walking boot and the mother outside the classroom.

A hummingbird about to take a drink from a flower.

Feast of Cocked Hats. Holy Smell of Train Yard. Bread of Abandonment. Bread of Troubled Gums.

An American Crow screeching.

God held my father’s face in His hands. This was it. “Earvin?” He said. "Earvin asked."

A Killdeer faking a broken wing.

You and Jesus sit at a picnic bench, waiting for your name to be called: Gunther? James?

A grackle, stopping for but a moment in a wintered forest.

Neither married nor given in marriage. That’s rich, tell her, coming from the world’s most desirable bachelor.

An Eastern Screech Owl closeup. Eerie.

Eternity lengthens by the infinite energy of imperfection. My father-in-law will work forever and be content with God.

A mother robin tending her nest of squawking, hungry chicks.

Will they learn to clear tables? Be led expressionless by expressionless service dogs? Stare when a gift store visitor makes nervous conversation?

Eight starlings sitting on telephone wires, largely arguing. Label: The 23rd Siege Platoon.

I’ve gone to church for 50 years and have liked it best only when it’s over.

A mockingbird taking off into the sun on a stormy day.

Orange mercurochrome stains from skateboarding in culottes in those abandoned apartment complexes in Santa Clarita.

A mallard contemplating flight near a lake.

Sweet gum maples. Blossoms like muscadine grapes on the locust tree I planted in our backyard so she could see it from our kitchen.

A tomcat and bird on the same branch, starting at each other.

The grackle is a walker. The robin too. Songbirds? Hoppers. Pheasants and partridge?

The devil: an ominous bird, spread-winged in the distance, creeping tendrils below.

The Devil is no help to my marriage. He makes nicknames for the clothes my wife wears that he knows I don’t like.

Two chickens, staring at the world "American Gothic"-style.

It's no relief to be done with physical beauty. Some men can let go. Certain others, you and I, never stop measuring.

A Red-Bellied Woodpecker resting on a fence post.

The last days of Great Bent Arrow. Old, lost Charlie Hustle. Hair as white as cocaine.

A Carolina Wren sitting on a birdhouse.

"He's taking what Mr. Trump is taking!" my mother-in-law told my wife. "Don't even," I said.

A small brown bird, looking up, embedded in pink flowers.

I began the eulogy with a literal truth: she was the tallest cousin in the family. Ended it with an apocryphal one.

A turkey vulture preying on a dead rabbit.

Nothing much left to peck. Pelt. A saw-toothed spinal column. It’s a primitive heap. It looks like the invention of the bagpipe.

A sparrow drinking from an old pipe.

This long in heaven my grandfather sees limits to perfection. When the weather turns, his scars itch.

Painting of a peacock, tail filling the whole screen.

“Thank you, please, but no,” I say when offered the soup. Dead people can’t eat in dreams, so it seems best that I don’t either.

Canada Geese in the middle of a street.

This is mostly how I remember the group and me in 1984: we talk about Jesus as brightly as we talk about Magnum P.I.

An Eastern Screech Owl closeup. Eerie.

Recent feats of strength: I am carrying, one by one, six railroad ties across my yard. I am hoisting them into the bed of a dump truck.

A grackle, stopping for but a moment in a wintered forest.

Older still, I lit them off my zipper, as I'd read Jim Morrison did.

The devil: an ominous bird, spread-winged in the distance, creeping tendrils below.

A bugler will play “Taps” but not “Hail to the Victors” because I lost the nerve to ask.

A hummingbird about to take a drink from a flower.

“Sometimes you just have to get it out,” He’ll say, louder because of the wind and the passing traffic...

About
Vic Ardelle is the pen name of a writer and professor who lives in the rural Midwest.
A crow screeching. Painting by Alice Alexandra Moore.
Alice Alexandra Moore is a web designer and artist who hails from the backwoods of Ohio. You can find more of her work at her personal website.
A sparrow perched in a thin branch. Painting by Alice Alexandra Moore.