fortnight literary press issue viii.iii
CONTENTS Cover 2 4 5 6 9 10 12 14 15 16
bun Like Grey Snow........................................................................................ I love what the night does to me............................................................. Birth of an Illness..................................................................................... Blue and Green Love............................................................................... Ink with Twig........................................................................................... Ten of Pentacles (Reversed): Unhappy Home, Broken Circle................ VIII STRENGTH (Upright).................................................................... On Opinions............................................................................................. Meteor Shower.......................................................................................... Placeholders..............................................................................................
Max Doyle Melina Glusac Melina Glusac Marilyn Schotland Janicton Frame Sarah Dougherty Kelly Sprouse Kelly Sprouse Claire Denson Marilyn Schotland Melina Glusac
Editors Danielle Colburn, Sarah Dougherty Design Editor Giuliana Eggleston Copy Editors Daniel Evans, Meghan Brody, Skylar Chen Communications Ashley Zhang Social Media Derek Gan Editorial Staff Ashley Zhang, Daniel Evans, Derek Gan, Giuliana Eggleston, Josh Flink, Meghan Brody, Mia Licciardi, Michelle Hoban, Natalie Steers, Shannon Maag, Skylar Chen, Will Hearn, Zoya Gurm
Brought to you by the Undergraduate English Association
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Like Grey Snow Melina Glusac Like grey snow When you told me you loved me in the light. When I assaulted your grey eyes— They aren’t brown or green, fully. The whole room was grey With love, with worries, with I-think-it’s-love, And two grey beings Content in their greyness Wrestled around grey-ked In broad grey-light. I could see your grey cheeks, Your black glasses breaking them up, And your grey hands on my thighs My hips, my breasts, my arms— They’re all grey, too. With you. And sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, When your grey mouth breathes mine, Which mouth is which Which grey tongue is my grey tongue In our cold town of chemical grey mush.
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Sleet comes When you tell me your grey thoughts: To grey be, or not to grey be? And I whisper that I’ve felt this too, and it’s Still grey outside, thank God, But warmer in here. Getting blacker here, and soon I won’t be able to see your grey face— I’ll only feel your grey oxygen Trickling down my neck (and I’ll know) Like grey snow.
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I love what the night does to me Melina Glusac I love what the night does to me When I’m stark alone Dead with my thoughts. I think I know what I can do, But do I? Night knows— Only her, and her velvet ambition Blue and expansive and I feel My throat closing in, I don’t know, Because I want little lights and big buildings Violating that violet blanket More than I want what you do to me under it.
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Birth of an Illness Marilyn Schotland I see a girl swinging her arms and her knees are covered in grass stains and lime juice, for she has just uncovered the greatest secret. her face is semi solid and split in confusion-the upper hemisphere of her brows are held up by muscles that shouldn’t be called into use just yet, while the Tropic of Cancer that is her lower lip is all scabbed up and held slack against her face. her spiritus Mundi is not interested in bargains or cooperation. her hands begin to scramble to her tectonic legs, ablaze with intransigent pockmarks in varying states of healing. for the first time her fingers feel the urge to do something other than catch a ball or turn the pages of a book. instead, the nails become anvil-sharpened edges. (Not swords or daggers: they are too short to bear those titles). she digs Jupiter into one positioned right by the ankle and brings edge to edge and pulls. the little Etna bursts and the girl finds that this is a new feeling. it’s almost comfortable -like when a baby tooth finally decides to cast itself from within and you know that it is the last one to leave and there is a slight anxiety left as it makes its final journey from homely mouth to outstretched Palm. the rumblings will not cease and she becomes horrified as she watches the red fount mark itself on her skin in a thick line. she needs to find a way to make it stop, without anyone growing alarmed. she grabs a fallen leaf and presses it harshly to the wound and watches the verdant change into something far more disconcerting. she checks every few moments to see if it has stopped.
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Blue and Green Love Janicton Frame Runs through the book is a dark poem The black foot that throttle Drinking Grumbling Brawling Troubled brother who lived At more intimately full rivers Trout and flying fish But more tragic death The story brutal beating His body left in a dark alley About the family who loved him But couldn’t save him Haunted man being Found the book published When he was 73 Drawn from personal experience In my family flying fish Are spiritual dimensions Communicating in disasters He talks About going to the river Because he couldn’t stay anywhere else Do you remember the last time you went fishing with your father? Tears in his eyes Drove up a road that spirals high above the river
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We stopped The Black Foot runs straight Erupts Rifles Then slams into the mountain After crawling to a deep hole Repeats its cadence Away in time The book is written To this rhythm Finished my question About Father’s last fishing trip He sat down Tired I could get you something To drink for him A drink I fixed it Didn’t taste good for him Old fisherman Silent in movement He’ll never land He was silent Trout fishing Learn To Read The Water Cruising fish makes soft kiss
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A rise Beneath the surface Rings mark The soft kiss Rise
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Ink with Twig Sarah Dougherty
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Ten of Pentacles (Reversed): Unhappy Home, Broken Circle Kelly Sprouse getting over it is like eating pennies off the floor: chapped lips sucking at the grime cold blood-taste on my teeth ten useless cents all that’s left all blind heads pressed down, away like my ear turned from the wall through which I hear you, mumbling out domestic bliss ‘monogamous’ diverts, an unobvious excuse as ‘later’ waits for ‘never’ and ‘night’ eclipses ‘always’ above my sleeping head and words now somehow less than echoes still float in bottles in my dreams but it’s not silence if you can hear me crying while you brush your teeth. it’s not kissing if you spit so I can swallow.
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sin eating I am good at; part selfless part practice part time but sin feeding? that’s bad magic that’s some curse to put on someone who came bare-tongued from the start but that is what I get for opening my mouth: the liquid cold of coins, choking your burdens down my throat.
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VIII STRENGTH (Upright) Kelly Sprouse she stands in the doorway, one hand raised to her lips in benediction (for you, for you, for herself) the other lowered, grasping for the lion’s fur and you get the sense she is waiting for a storm or something else to weather and give her suffering meaning but how does she make meaning out of sadness? out of songs sung to herself in tears and crushed cigarettes and the only drinks she’s ever had alone in anticipation of a visitor with no intention of appearing (a good metaphor for the whole fiasco, someone laughs) i do not see myself as naive, even now when it is my best defense and, i assume, your assumption
instead i prefer earnest i prefer warm i prefer anything other than your redirected shame.
i am what i am not to spite you, but because i am nothing else
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bite
and that is (i am) not a crime or a burden or naive. that is (i am) strong like a guiding hand, running through your hair, waiting for your
but you turn away afraid (of what? of whom? where towards?) and are gone from the door, from the bed, from her mouth and hands and heart and, bloody-fingered, she is finished pulling out her teeth for your amusement. she’s spent so long dressed as the girl (in sheets like gowns and hands like silk, in lighted skin like robes) that she’s forgotten: she’s the lion.
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On Opinions Claire Denson I always think my answer will be, you know, “I don’t want to talk about it.” But really, that’s not true. I’m just afraid of misrepresenting my honesty. What I mean is, we’re in this constant motion; as we grow, we change our minds, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay – it means we’re learning, we’re experiencing, thinking, living. But I always say stuff and then look back later, cringing, and I think, “Wow, that was well-stated or well-written, but I disagree.” And it could be something I published last week! I’ve always been hesitant to share my opinion. There’s this widespread – albeit unconscious – belief that opinion is permanent, that once someone says something, it becomes her. But tomorrow it may not be so!
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Meteor Shower Marilyn Schotland i’m in a [glass box] they say there is supposed to be a gathering of seven (7) brothers tonight. i cannot see anything. there is a conference of night clouds obstructing --my vision. (tortoiseshell. rapturous.)
the clouds are like s p i r i t s, their gentle gliding virtually meaningless. ‘where is our main man?’ they crow. in the windows of my /cage// i can see visions of far-off places: HA lf worlds – partial illuminations – jade-on-fire, a lamppost – the VOID. the parliament is bickering“why come all this way for nothing?” ‘you know, transportation isn’t all that cheap these days.’ Syntax, vowels, plural, formal, nothing. “the music was terrible!” ‘why do we pay all this money to see nothing, when they who do nothing see everything.’ (Blue And Brown And Conical.) “we should blame her. she’s running us out of the sky.”
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Placeholders Melina Glusac You tell me how you feel Constantly, moaning, But still you hold me in place. You went there with her, And now me, so is it new? I think I am filling her place. You breathe about my eyes, But is that a black spotlight? Eyes can be places, you know. Maybe you like your eyes Better with me in them— “She� is also a place. But I have a name, doll. I am a proper proper noun; I am a person, a place, and a thing To be adored and held From the first to the last, More than that word in between. You like colored places; You take me to them. But did you take her to that place, too?
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Is it the same, or is it new? What is a roller skate to A skated-on heart-place like you? Don’t worry; I’ve skated, too. You’ve got a few years on me And enough “she”s and places To choke a blind pig. But I’ve got scars, doll, And a racing heart held still In my own chest That is filling its irrational paces, Its not-yet-visited places With you.
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