Chrysalis: 1998

CHRYSALIS the literary/art magazine of ferrum college 1998

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PoeTRJ Freda Nichols

Karen Hvidding The History of It Sway Kitchen Conversion, Attempted

6 20 27

Eric Crocker The China Shop In Belfast Drowning in Your Light

Photographs

24

David Mcclintic Out Came the Poem

9 19 29

ART

11

Charles Wissinger

Heather Schulz

30

cover, 28

Angie Sigmon Laughter's Soft Touch To Have Never Lived

8

23 Torrie Carter

10

J. L. Stewart The Red Wedding Dress

12

Andre Williams Sight Again

13, 32

Freda Nichols

17, 21, 22,31

Chris Hobe

18, back cover

14

25

Kevin Chenosky The Addiction

Andrea Vita

16

Carole Goodman

26

They spoke of what they learned in school.

So many gods in this one pool.

But then my sight-it came to me.

You really were right there for me.

Sight All this time I walked away.

I lived this life, I had my way.

I thought my way was best for me.

I once was blind but now I see.

A leap of faith I thought I'd try.

My life like land that's barren, dry.

Down comes your rain that falls on me.

Look, grass and bushes, a cedar tree.

Sight I took a chance. I'm glad I did.

I felt a call, I felt a bid.

My life was bought by One Man's Blood.

Now that's a gift of true found love.

..

I'm so glad you died for me I once was blind but now I see.

You always were right there for me.

-andre williams

1998

15

J

The History of It You are thin still and your voice rattles her back to the suburb to the high school of the Most Fortunate Most Successful most understandably bland in the nation.

To wade untriumphant through lockerlines she felt your ashes drop down her collar and would not shriek but made herself unpopular, further still, By asking nothing, keeping silent. You asked, Hey did you want a hit or not? and she couldn't say, her tongue puffed to excess by pride by self-flagellation.

Those days she dreamed the true evil was money every status symbol, the skinny rich cars the polish of death glossed over and too much TV not enough TV she curled around it like pup to mother after quitting dope the second habit the first of which was you.

The third, her hair. She took it off one night in hopes of curing herself 6

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but faded.

Bald and thin, she kept drinking.

You said,

Let's pretend we're poor.

What could be more real then poverty? Hey, let's buy a lot Qf beer with our parent's money.

They can afford it.

They can afford anything.

She said, Okay. She said,

Let's go.

It went for a while the drip dry of last longings. She was out of it less than this her who has been restored and renewed and drawn back the pupils of her once rotted out blinded burned eyes.

You said,

Jesus Christ is ajairy tale.

But He did this, I mean, put her back together I mean, the way she was meant to be.

1998

-karen d. hvidding

7

charles wissinger

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The China Shop "Look at them all, like idiots," she says, Accusing everyone else (maybe me) in The 20 x 20 fluorescent cell.

Well, if ignorance truly is bliss, Then she must be deceptively happy.

All I see is a classroom Full of stained-glass windows.

-eric crocker

1998

9

torrie carter 10

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Laughter's Soft Touch Laughter's soft touch Awakening dreams better left Buried in the red clay Of Virginia tobacco fields Work-roughened hands caressing My face and shoulders Sighing softly and exclaiming Over my smooth white skin A woman shouldn't have calluses So he says-gentle man Fighting to protect my virtue In a time when virtue is nonexistent Wanting to curl my Head on his broad brown chest Trace my fingers over-veinedforearms Like a road map to heaven.

Coincidence of tattoos-breakfast Laughing at his sense of humor Simplistic ideals-seeing himself And his world-awed By the whole man.

-angie sigmon

1998

11

The Red Wedding Dress In white without a choice.

Can it be true?

Behind the lacy fac;ade, They haven't a clue.

She hears the music play.

She quickens with the dread.

She hugs the steely blade.

Her dress is seeping red.

The time has come to march.

Parents so proud.

Inside she sits alone.

No joyous sound.

She sits before the mirror, The smile frozen there.

Her face a ghostly white, She probes the fleshy tear.

Her father made the promise, It seems without a care, To give away his daughter, His precious treasure rare.

They'd never know her heart.

They wouldn't understand.

How could she ever wed The stranger in that man.

--j. l. stewart

12

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andrea vita 1998

13

Sight I once was blind but now I see.

You really were right there for me.

Away away away I went, Further and further for whence I'm sent.

My body leads and there I follow.

Greed and lust is where I wallow.

But for me there was no danger, For God to me was but a stranger.

Sight Outside I may seem so clean, Inside the soot of moldy green.

Outside I laugh a smile like joy, Inside a broken cringing boy.

Inside was death a stench so rotten, Filled the pit without a bottom.

Inside was hurt, anger, and rage, But I was the best actor on stage.

Sight Oh, one day while out of my mind, Doing the thing in college one finds.

One day, one cfay, one day for me, Two friends and I, a fallen tree ...

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They spoke of what they learned in school.

So many gods in this one pool.

But then my sight-it came to me.

You really were right there for me.

Sight All this time I walked away.

I lived this life, I had my way.

I thought my way was best for me.

I once was blind but now I see.

A leap of faith I thought I'd try.

My life like land that's barren, dry.

Down comes your rain that falls on me.

Look, grass and bushes, a cedar tree.

Sight I took a chance. I'm glad I did.

I felt a call, I felt a bid.

My life was bought by One Man's Blood.

Now that's a gift of true found love.

I'm so glad you died for me I once was blind but now I see.

You always were right there for me.

-andre williams

1998

15

The Addiction Alcohol.

An addiction.

To live on that feeling Pain.

It is like thinking suicide.

Homo Sapiens tend to act normal and if it does not make sense Automatically It is discontinued from thought.

Can one quit this passion?

Or survive the grief?

Lack of thinking causes so much anguish.

Be strong.

And soon it will be clear.

What?

The act that chooses the way Seems right, But the path is one way.

So enjoy it.

-kevin chenosky 16

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freda nichols

1998

17

chris hobe

18

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In Belfast In Belfast, where War's infernal blossom blasts the dark to midnight dawn in an instant of superheated fury: The Children sleep.

In Belfast, where the reports of automatic rifles harmonize with either Protestant hymns or a Requiem Mass, but never both: The Children play.

In Belfast, where Donovan's corner store is a smoldering heap of rubble because a customer was Catholic, or Protestant,

1998

or neither: The Children laugh within their high­ fenced schoolyards.

In Belfast, where by their actions the Christian men and women at war are walking contradictions: The Children grow In Belfast, where Children sleep, and play, and laugh, and grow, confused parents kill each other for the same God: And Children weep.

-eric crocker

19

..

Sway yes and this once broken I was simply nothing my heart creation yells back the echo of Your Name young and thin my knees skinned sway with me My Lord.

-karen d. hvidding

20

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Jreda nichols

1998

21

Jreda nichols

22

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To Have Never Lived Soft smile graces his rugged face­ Dimpled white-teethed joker-bright Sea-foam eyes twinkle with joy Shiny new nickels catch sunlight Soft sugarcoated kisses Flutter of butterfly wings Brush of steel-wool whiskers Scrub my lips and cheeks bloody Bathed in the soft glow of evergreen eyes Captured in his softly constructed web I wonder if this is the life that I need, Will this too become a cell-oppressive Settling foundations of my life-cutting my losses Having tasted life's magic-being happy Selling out to the establishment-worse to Have never lived than to settle Questions to confound myself -angie sigmon

1998

23

Photographs After the last petal fell from the beautiful pale rose That bloomed so long in my grandmother's garden, I was given a handful of old photographs Taken in an era of time before mine.

As I looked through these pictures, I thought of them as pictures from a story book, Until I came upon the photograph of my grandfather in his youth.

My eyes fell upon his piercing stare and thick black hair.

He was a handsome man.

This was not the grandfather I had known as a child.

This picture had frozen time.

He actually sat his foot in this chair, Put his hand in his long tailed coat and posed for this photograph.

I tried to imagine what he was like at that young age.

Was he a gentle man?

It was said he was a rugged man, but the portrait did not portray him that way.

Was he soft spoken or did one tremble at the sound of his voice?

My mind did wonder.

After having a brief encounter with the past,

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I carefully placed each picture in a picture album to be handed down to my children and theirs.

As I closed the album cover I hoped in my heart that my children would think upon these photographs as I had And realize this is time captured in stillness, A time and people that reality had left behind.

-Jreda nichols

Again Again I come, again I seek The face of Jesus with whom I speak.

Again I seek, again I find When I ask He cleanses my mind.

Again I find, again I receive I open my heart for I do believe.

Again I accept, again I give thanks That I know the truth, I'm within His ranks.

1998

Again I give thanks, again I give praise to Jesus Christ through all of my days.

Again I give thanks, again I give praise to Jesus Christ through all of my days.

- andre williams

25

..

carole goodman

26

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Kitchen Conversion, Attempted In the back door of Through the door of The kitchen step by quick step You are singing songs of disease. And you come out, Lettuce dangling from your fingers, confetti Saying Hey, man, if I'm going to hell then I'm going but don't you ever

Judge the way that gets me there, the way I am, the way I was, the way I would be if.

I was And know The way you drink The way you drive The way you shudder low down when I try to tell you I have wondered about you long and thin With half a smile or a while grin I have thought about you with your swastika With your glue And hope, dear Jesus I hope he doesn't paste it You wouldn't paste it.

I was And sang the songs of disease, the very same My own rotten fruit hanging off dead arm limbs I have sat in your seat and even, yes, Shined your shoes With my very own spit.

Your hands keep popping up veins.

The work is hard The lungs defeat.

You shift your eyes Your hand with the knife.

You hack.

You make large angry sweeps.

1998

-1caren d. hvidding

27

heather schulz

28

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Drowning in Your Light (One of those long, lovelorn poems that no one really reads anyway.)

When I open my window, I can see the Sunset.

So, naturally, like so many things it makes me think of you.

As the sun sets here, casting the world around me into a myriad waterfall of color, I think that right now this very moment, you are enjoying its heated caress.

I see you smiling up to the sun letting your skin drink it in like wine-no, coffee.

I ask him to watch you closely, to protect you while I am so very far.

At times it seems as though even that pyretic form is nearer to you than I, and the miles are like decades between us.

So naturally, like so many things, it makes me think of us.

1998

The sunset reveals my fears.

It tracks slowly westward, vanishing in a sudden spectacular burst of flame, as though within itself it realizes its dying moment, and shoots forth a final, desperate explosion of life, and then is swallowed by the darkness.

Do you see the metaphor?

Even though it saddens me, in itself it is an incomplete message.

For even with its eclipse, the sun is not yet defeated, and with an explosion to rival the last, it bursts forth from the night's bonds to re­ gain an even greater splendor in the skies than before.

When I open my window, I can see the Sunset; but when I open my eyes, I see only the beginning, the Sunrise, of a truly beautiful life.

-eric crocker 29

Out Came the Poem Out came the poem in a spasm of words like a beast ready to roam or a flying flock of birds.

They came out in stanzas from the depths of the mind peeled like bananas like words in a bind.

Words became sound that flew from the lips.

No place were they bound but making some trips.

These poems would flee with the wealth of others into the sea.

--david mcclintic

30

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freda nichols 1998

31

Chrysalis Staff : Editor-In-Chief

Karen Hvidding

Art Coordinators

Carole Goodman Heather Schulz

Literary Editors

Eric Crocker Angie Sigmon

Staff Assistant

Tiffany Gillend

Advisor

Dan Gribbin

Special Thanks to: Rachel K. Denham Tina Hanlon John s.- Hardt

l·

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