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Fingerprints on an Ashtray

Porcelain

Vol. VII Issue I Fall 2011

De Go ia ol A

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Holocaust

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Dock
ONE

Nina Ondona Digital Photography

In the Tub
Erna Woyee
Inspired by In the Well by Andrew Hudgins My sister guarded the door, a sentinel at the exit and gave the okay to engage in battle. I could smell its fear. It smelt of mud, then soap, then lemons. I reached out and was clawed and before I could retreat another smell: blood, which filled my nostrils with copper. Step by step, my sister came to my side at no-mans-land. Water, then soap, then wet fur which stuck, plastered its body. I grasped. My sister poured more warm water. I cringed and lifted her dripping cat out of the tub. I held his body and wrapped him in warmth First in a towel. Then in arms. Then in sleep.

two

A Beach in Jordan Harrison California

A petroleum slave with shattered shackles Escapes the imprisonment of great-grandfather carbon, A fugitive briefly to be returned to a fiery reincarnation While, breaking our promises, we choke his children With the smoke of his own cremation. And while grains of sand mingle with long-lost beer bottle shards We sweep them all under rugs and call ourselves benevolent masters To have returned the plantation to such a virgin state. Cover your tracks And mask your distilled perfumes With resin and musk So that the last man on earth might hide from his despair And believe he is the first.

three

Holly Modlin Digital Photography

Passageway Into the Sea

four

On the Road Home

Jessica Gao
Autumn is coming. Soon. Soon. Its the way of the world. After autumn, winter arrives. Let the seasons spin. You called to me many times before, but never bearing the perfect orthogonal of a blade over your chest. I cannot see past the haze of years, but your words crawl past distance and time and comfort and I have never heard anything more beautiful. But beauty is not the most glorious cry your heart vibrates to. Its you, its you, and I cant help but to think of winters and frozen crystalline blue, the exact color of shivering lips, splayed thinly over your lawn as we engraved footprints into the ice that would not last forever. And I envision: snow is falling over the city of New York, sparing nothing but the steam like silk, blooming like the last white gardenias over our coffee shop. Memories like that are the worldthose that havent been made yet. The days of our future have been pressed upon my bones so much so that they bleed into my past, as my ribcage aches to breathe against the delicate flutter of memories that do not exist but in timelessness. So let me take that blade from your hand. Let me lead the way back and melt the frozen plains of your fingers. When summer comes, well caress the dunes of each of your fingertips that evince your existence. Well watch the seasons spin.

five

Desert Flower

Selena Hamilton Digital Photography

Berries

Selena Hamilton

Digital Photography

Thoughts to the Power of Two Svend Larsen

(Sometimes, I wonder. I wonder what youre thinking, where your mind visits while we talk. I try to figure it out sometimes mostly by looking at your face. I never come up with anything sensible. After a while, I realize that it might be better just to ask,) How do you feel?

eight

Fingerprints on an Ashtray
Emily Boaz
I sit. I sat. I am sitting in the waterfall Coming from the shower Head pounding my scalp Trying without success to wash Your fingerprints From myself That smile That bright white Row in your perfect Mouth the one that spilled Lies, broken promises I should have listened To the voice in My heart That said In a boy Who smokes You should take No part But the smoke Left me in a haze My clothes were permeated I washed them Three times You were not Who you said you were And I will never Forgive you For sprinkling your ashes Onto our time I was not your ashtray You owed me A goodbye

nine

Wilting Reflection

Jennifer Antoniono Film Photography

8 Minutes

Mia de los Reyes Wire & Paper

Jaehyeong Lee

This past summer, I lost What I had once called Home. It was Sad, ironic, cold, beautiful. The dew still clinging to the cacti as we walked with linked arms, Hands intertwined, Feet pacing awkwardly, I walked her Home. It wasnt Any surprise. The sun clung to the lip of the calm, expansive, pacific ocean, Rays ablaze And shoreline to define what was The boundary between Earth and Heaven. Time was moving not too slow, Nor fast. For once in my life, I could feel Happy, going Home. She rips away at the frayed ropes, with Gestures disturbed and rough, as if to hold back the angry torment boiling Inside And I begin to count to 10. 1; Whats the matter? 2; Nothing 3; You are never like this. What are you thinking? 4, 5, 6; Aboutyou know. 7, 8; Yes. You can say it. 9; How did you know? 10; Ive known since then. And I ask her for two favors; To let me carry her and to turn around and walk back the way she came until she returned home. We hug tightly. She abides by my rules. I do not. I lose composure. I run Home. Then I kiss my abode farewell. And the sun falls into its magenta slumber.

Home

De Amicitia
Ian Maynor
Handing me sweets which Burst onto my open palms, You smile, I didnt have a container. Your blunt apology infects me with a grin -Dont you know that the food is the packaging?

eleven

Iridescent Pavo
Jamie Dickson Digital Photography
twelve

Untitled

Tyler Kissinger Digital Photography

thirteen

Rebellious Power Struggle

Emma Dedmond
Shave your legs, though it can make you bleed, And pluck your eyes to tears, because you need To look the way that theyd expect; Trust me; its a sign of your respect, Though you show none for what I believe And that is what is my pet peeve Cause theres an easy way, and a right way And I think Ive a right to say That right now Id like not to conform When I see a problem with the norm Please give me time to figure out What I think my life should be about I know Im wrong I know Im mean But keep in mind Im just sixteen And in my mind I cant amount Why grades and work, why they should count Much more than the way that I do dress While what I think, why is that less? And I know, mom, Ill lose the bet To never wear this new corset Its just Id like to be the one to choose cause mom, its not about the shoes Im just afraid that if I lose The girl Ill be Will have lost the right to be called me.

fourteen

The windowpane I had been resting against vibrated sharply in sync with the purring of the storm. I lifted my head just enough to see over the windowsill. Lightning flashed across my eyes in an instant, and I figured that to anyone watching at that moment, it must have been beautiful: to see white streaks across a sea of deep brown. The thick glass fogged from the humidity, but I did my best to make my way through the thick droplets to watch that ongoing war called nature. The rain fell with tenacity, as if it intended to punch straight through the anthills below my window. The ground rose up with each drop, as small clumps of dirt exploded upward. To an ant, Im sure it must have been tremendous. To me, it meant a day inside. Funny how an apocalypse for one is a lazy day for another.

Holocaust

Zack Fowler

I did my best to calm the storm with my mind; to stop the apocalypse, but to no avail. The Earth would roar on without me. But, who am I to stop a storm? Then again, who am I to save an ant? I had no right to interfere. If the rain was so determined to destroy those hills, perhaps I should have let it. Perhaps, the ants were meant to die that day. They had never done anything for me. After all, it wasnt me that was dying; Im not an ant. I suppose I could have run outside and saved them. I could have sheltered them; been a pillar of love and support. I could have stepped in and been the calm in the storm that they had prayed for. But, Im feeling lazy. Funny how an apocalypse for one is a lazy day for another. sixteen

Was it all a Dream?

Grace Lamblin Digital Photography

Virginity

Jennifer Kronmiller

Its all in the name. If we didnt have a word for it it would lose the weight that hangs heavy on each letter and all the gasps and whispers and rumors would fade into backdrop just another fact to be stocked away. Nameless, we would ignore it: theres no poetry written over your first cup of coffee or the first time you paint your toe nails blue or that one day in second grade when you used the left swing instead of the short one on the right and afterwards you never went back. Its all in the title. They call it losing your innocence, but Ive seen plenty of naive girls with wide eyes fall prey to the lures of their bodies, and Ive seen cynics turned rebels with vows of celibacy (not that theres anyone worth doing anyway, they say) since a definition doesnt create meaning it just explains it. We can find the difference between 4 letter words -love and lust and you know them, kids, the ones you cant speak and we can say you lose it, but honestly, one moment doesnt rewrite a history. I am whatever I want to be called.

Lego Love

Navina Venugopal Digital Photography

Navina Venugopal Digital Photography

Following in His Footsteps

nineteen

Assimilation
Tina Zheng
Words drop like Stones (stones) (stones) Through the weightless ether. A hush of the melody, jangling softly on Broken notes, fading imperceptibly in the distance A perpetually decreasing Shepard Tone. No meaning, and no end to the meaning. One thousand ways to survive, but Only one way to live. Blazing pulses of superficial delight Glaze over our eyes The light turned off just enough, indiscernibly, To startle when turned back on. We perceived a hopeful world, an eager road Disappearing in the near misty distance But that was only the light playing tricks On our eyes. Two chopsticks diverged in a yellow wood And II chose both because I could. Bent over, picking up splinter by splinter Off the brown and red and whitened road Where the sand lay in swirling eddies of dreary purpose I dusted off the pieces. Hazy patches of shade Reached into the road And shaded me from the glare. twenty

Magnolia Gods
Abigail Gruchacz
When I was young I was young, the magnolia trees were gods. Their branches spread wide, inviting my sister and I to play. We were heroes and adventurers. We were Tarzan and the branches were all the jungles in Africa. We didnt think of Gravity, only of the wind and the white flowers. I came back when I was older. The magnolia trees seemed less. Not smaller or thinner, but no longer gods, and not so different from a nearby fir. The branches look weak, and I dare not test their strength. I know better than to climb, lest Gravity remind me that I am hers, and not the winds. But, I can still remember the Magnolia Gods. Perhaps dreams of adventures in jungles arent lost.

twenty-one

Egress
Tyler Hayes Digital Photography

Jennifer Kronmiller Graphite Pencil on Paper

twenty-three

Porcelain
Erna Woyee
Tall and regal With a pompous air Long neck poised; roses in her hair Face to the sun; she smiles in the light Relatives gawk; shes my mothers delight But a gentle touch or a slight caress Sends her to the floorfate does the rest And then she weeps; broken; distressed Once, a work of art Now, a mess

twenty-four

Everything to Learn from the Clams

Rachel Shore
Do you know how a pearl is made? Ill tell you There must be a sharp grain of sand, a pain In the soft body of a clam And the sand, it hurts, it burns, and so the clam Secretes digestive fluids To soothe the pain, coating that grain Until the pain is healed, and the clam cannot feel it There, is a shining bright, beautifully white Pearl And that, my friend, is how a pearl is made

twenty-five

Horse

Nina Ondona

Digital Photography

twenty-six

Pavement

Matt Summers Disposable Camera

twenty-seven

Grave Freedom
Evan Scarborough
I have something for you my friend. Some people live their entire lives searching for it, But you, old pal, get the easy way. Just give me your all and we have a deal. Deal? If you are hesitant, look around, The rocks will tell you what theyve found, With my help. You see what I offer is something simple, But very hard to get. It is commonly called acceptance, And well, sweetie, I have plenty. For I do not judge the person I see, For the person before me is rotten. We maggots dont judge, We just eat And we are accepting of all fresh meat.

twenty-eight