The Plume the literary magazine of
Keystone College La Plume, Pennsylvania
April 2008 Editorial Board Jeff Baron Nicole Barrasse Casey Carden Darrin Chesner John Craunakis Jessie Feeney Shelby Fisk Melissa Geary Mary Rapaciewicz Jennifer Tewksbury
Faculty Advisor Dr. David Elliott
All works used with permission. Authors and artists retain all rights to individual works. Submissions to The Plume are welcomed from students, alumni, and employees of Keystone College. Please send your poetry, prose, articles, and artwork to:
The Plume, Box 1105, Keystone College, One College Green, LaPlume, PA 18440
Contents Front Cover: Photograph by Shelby Fisk Your Car Dies John Craunakis Poem About Color Nicole Barrasse Mr. “Right� Mary Rapaciewicz Grandpa Melissa Geary Released Patricia Rokos Henneforth That Song Kimberly M. Dale Photograph Patricia Rokos Henneforth Down Nathan Urie Game Poem Melissa Geary A Letter to My Best Friend in Heaven Whitney Smith In the attic Shelby Fisk Untitled Nicole Barrasse Untitled Jennifer Tewksbury Connection Darrin Chesner Atonement John Craunakis I Said Farewell Alexis Anderson Photograph Shelby Fisk Tuesday Was Promising Kory Nicholi Kwasow Untitled Jennifer Tewksbury Patchwork Nathan Urie The World Never Blinks Jeff Baron
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One Deep Breath Casey Carden Sleeping Beauty Jessie Feeney Photograph Patricia Rokos Henneforth The Old Couple Mary Rapaciewicz Not Alone Jessie Feeney For Edward Schumann Casey Carden Flea Market Patricia Rokos Henneforth Back the Breaker Jeff Baron Tribute to Ya Ya John Craunakis Just a Dream Darrin Chesner My life; my hands, my fingers Shelby Fisk Looking Down Kory Nicholi Kwasow
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Your Car Dies it veers off the road and plows over an exit sign. despair sets in, but numbness overpowers. had you more than two hours sleep, regret would have crushed you like the headlight and the bumper on the passenger’s side. you may have survived the accident, not a scratch on your body, but your car horn squeals its terminal injury. stranded on the littered patch of grass five miles away from your house, you must call the police and you must call your father: two people who value you more than your twenty-five inch high charcoal self-portrait, and who will save you from the midnight wreckage. --John Craunakis
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Poem about Color It was the movement way back when your grand-dad may have been hiding something that draped over his face, like a shroud remark he still makes today. Such a pure sucker to follow a false god fallen to the underground crowd. The suggestion of being the opposite of the lesser, but he’s still covering himself with some sort of hood, hiding his head. A scarred past of burning crosses, pointed linens, the marks of rope burn. Impossible to eat or take anything in, this cloak of choice perfected without a mouth hole. Where did it come from, that piercing white, like doves floating against black top. Drifting processions of ghosts, covering up the remains of what used to be a soul. Over and above all, that was the consensus, leaving behind elongated crosses on high hills and washed out landscapes as a backdrop. White has never been so unholy. --Nicole Barrasse
Mr.”Right” I sent you a letter today, my Mr. Right, in a twirling, scribbling rage. I envy the way you can grasp things beyond my ability and reach with your steadiness and accuracy. In this letter I wrote to you today, my Mr. Right, I thought of the days when we were together. We used to join together to cheer in good times, my Mr. Right, clenching closely in frustration when angered. And, when we felt pain and sorrow we pressed together to ask for blessings. Now those days of aloneness are over, Mr. “Right” …only one more day to go until your cast will be broken, just as you were, and I can finally be just your sidekick, as you resume your duties. -- Mary Rapaciewicz
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Grandpa You sat in that blue metal chair bits of paint flaking off the armrest, the gosling I found half dead in the mud now fully grown pecking at the strange blue haze from your cigarette. In your white tee shirt and plain pants like a cartoon you seemed to own ten copies of the same clothes, the only change made in winter that blue cap I bought you for Christmas. You were still tough as I imagine you were back in the war. “Never answer anything in the armed forces with a yes” you once told me and then told the story, of the sergeant asking “who likes chicken?” Then went on to explain the three hundred chickens you had to clean and cook. You never spoke of the war much. I see you there in a blue suit. A tie around your neck seems to cut off your air. You must be uncomfortable. I sit there and listen to the nice words people say. Still I wonder what you’re saying unheard. Probably complaining the collar’s itchy. When wandering around I bump into Gabby. she hugs me both crying and whispers she slipped a pack of Camels, the only thing you would ever smoke, into your pocket. At least you’ll have that comfort while you attempt to loosen your tie. --Melissa Geary
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Released I banned my hatred of the class from my consciousness, at least until it was over. After the last painful, interminable moment, as I stepped over the threshold of the cinderblock classroom cell and traversed the hallway to newfound hours of freedom, my still-numb mind began to thaw. Two fellow parolees and I unshackled our sanity with deep sighs over food at a greasy diner, savoring every morsel. The food was mediocrethe freedom, delicious. When we were sated, I drove my way to relief, CD player blasting “We are the Champions,” forty-seven-degree spring breeze ruffling my hair through car windows cracked just an inch. The world was reinventing itself and I, mired in the muddy droning of an overheated, stale classroom, had almost missed it. I wiped away the wet release of tension from my face with my coat sleeve, habit of childhood flooding over me. Two hours and ninety miles later, I gathered all remnants of the torture -- textbook, computer disks, class syllabus, and endless papers -- from my bedroom. I cleansed the garbage from the disks, then gleefully freed the untouched clean white pages of the book from their binding one by one, some ripped incomplete by my unrestrained hands. With an urgency to purge the experience, to lift any traces of it from my straightening shoulders, I took the instruments of torment to the cinder-block burning pit in my neighbor’s yard along with a Bic lighter. I ceremonially lit page after page, hundreds of them, one for each moment I had endured.
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Blue and orange flames crawled over unread words, obliterated them brown. The smell of smoke sweetened the spring air. The next morning I awoke smiling at the gray spring skies slivered by the sky blue of the venetian blinds that line my bedroom window. My mind, liberated from four months of muck, networks reconnecting, sprang forth, ideas overgrowing each other, inseparable like grass roots intertwined. --Patricia Rokos Henneforth
That Song That song was on and I was crying Your wings enveloped me close Chills come when I hear it You're a beautifully bittersweet pursuit Nothing exists now but you, that room, that song These flow to the core of my heart Feeling your hands, your body, your guilt You'll never reciprocate If I reach you'll fly away Nothing can change Behind my walls I'll always hold One moment, one hope, and that song --Kimberly M. Dale
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Down I was looking at a pool of water in the dark pavement at night with nothing inside of it but a reflection of a clock filling it and blurring as the raindrops fell. We are always looking down, down into it, where the cliffs descend into fog, where the gravestones tell the stories of ones who came before us, the ones who died by the same reasoning, smashed and carved into granite and green moss. They are tipped over the edge, off the side of the earth. In it’s silver streaks I think of Gatsby, and the silver bullet blownstraight through the bone, the smooth skin of the inner tube, and the jelly of the red, red meat. Shot straight to the bottom of that pool. Ah, yes, this is how the dead men die. --Nathan Urie
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Game Poem Running from the law his four feet faster then my two. I climb up into the hideout. There in den of goodies I hide from the sheriff. “DRAT!” He followed me here. We wait it out. My supplies run low. Deciding giving up to not be an option I sneak out the back. His cry alerts me to the fact he knows I left. Again I run. Trying to reach the safety He catches me in the middle of the yard. We have a shoot out I fall to my knees then topple over. I lost the shoot out. The good guy won. A wet tongue licks my cheek. I can’t hold in the laughter At his actions. Okay, Charlie, we’ll play a new game. --Melissa Geary
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A Letter to My Best Friend in Heaven: The wind blows strong as I sit atop a mountain. It's funny now, how I feel like the wind blowing isn’t just the wind, but that it is little pieces of you whispering in my ears. My hand finds the dirt where you once lay, and my mind floats back to our last meeting, our last smiles, and our last goodbyes. Our last meeting, when you handed me a necklace with a silver angel wing hanging from a silver chain, your excuse for the gift being simple: "You are my angel". Our last smiles, through a cell phone conversation of you explaining to me that your legs might be broken and you may never again walk, but not to worry because you would be fine. Your solemn voice even in times of distress still stays in my head, helping me through the tough times without you. And our last goodbyes, when you whispered not to worry, not to cry, not to be sad because I was you angel and now you would become mine. Though your emphasis on my life’s progression, without sorrow or sadness, was a request I felt obligated to meet, I still find myself sitting on this mountain, jeans feathered with the soil of the ground in which I sit, my hands dry and cold, yet still capable of moving from my shirt sleeves to correct a tilted rosary hanging from a white wooden cross that has been placed along a tree in your memory. I am reminded in these quite times of every ounce of you. I remember the perfect way your hair smelled of Pantene Pro-V shampoo and stale cigarette smoke. The way your blue eyes were always gorgeous to me, but even more gorgeous in the eyes of your daughter, who carries the face of her father everywhere she goes. Your words, "You are my angel, and now I am yours". This is when my hand slides to my neck and clutches the angel wing that hangs from it, tears hot as they roll down my cheek until suddenly. The leaves begin to stir and the wind throws my bangs from my wet and weary eyes and my heart smiles knowing it is just pieces of you, still whispering in my ears. --Whitney Smith
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In the attic we were hiding from your rules seeking our own answers In the attic we lit the room by looking into each other’s eyes In the attic we feel through the boards all the way to the basement broke every bone In the attic moths called us back up spiders nursed us to health In the attic you never knew they never knew In the attic you never will they never will --Shelby Fisk
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Untitled I used to be skinny, but now I’m not. Modeled after media and their strict definitions, I’ve got curves coming out where my left hip was embarrassed to exist. Here is my belly And here is a muffin top… That term where your guts stick out to where they are supposed to not. It’s the intermission of my younger years, Where your body’s at its best, as so your grandma says. And I find myself looking in the mirror at the woman I’ve become, Full figure in my underwear Feeling lumpier when I’m naked. I used to be care, but now I don’t. I’m living large and if you say I’m fat with no PH, I’ll balance you out to notice how the woman should be. Every curvature line, every fold and bend, all the shapes of hourglasses on limbs. This is who I now am, I’ve traveled those fine-lined road maps of where the skin once was feeling more like how woman, full circle, comes. --Nicole Barrasse
Untitled Gray isn’t even a real color is it? just a combination of black and white with a name that can be spelled 2 ways I associate it with many things such as boredom having a headache all the stress that probably caused that headache The way the sky looks most days because there is no sun, only rain, getting old and hair turning to grey, being depressed because of all of these things -- Jennifer Tewksbury
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Connection He sees her in the distance sitting on the wooden bench that has cement shoes. She is surrounded by oaks great protectors, with leaves dancing to the beat of the breeze. She pulls her sweater tighter trying to mask the chill from the disappearing sun. He advances slowly towards her following the path illuminated by fireflies. His heart hammers away at his chest, His heart hammers away at his chest, His heart hammers away at his chest. He stands in front of her motioning to the empty seat nervously awaiting her response. Her eyes, sparkling in the dying daylight say to him have a seat; he complies, and the moon rises behind, smiling. --Darrin Chesner
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Atonement “Thanks for dropping by,” says Tara. “I haven’t seen you for two weeks. Well, at least more lively.” Ryan replies with some astonishment, “I guess I was just in the area. I came to pick up my belongings.” “Do your parents know where you are?” “You’re the only one who knows that I’m here.” Tara and Ryan start packing Ryan’s belongings in cardboard boxes in the living room of their apartment. “It seems like you’ve recovered well from your nasty car accident,” says Tara. “I mean, you’re off the respirator and your cuts and bruises are healed. When did the doctors release you?” “Just yesterday,” Ryan answers. “That drunk driver caught me by surprise. I was driving on one of those winding roads, and he was going twice my speed in front of me in the same lane. He really crunched my car like a can opener. It sucks that I missed the commencement last week.” Tara frowns. “Well, there’s not much that you could do in a coma. Besides, you’ve earned your credits and graduated from college, something others only dream of. A simple ceremony, reverberating band music, misty-eyed relatives: all just fodder for your already iced cake.” “Still would have been fun. We deserved at least one more happy memory before we went our separate ways.” “I wish you did not have to leave. Now I won’t have anyone to talk to. You were the only one who understood me; you would actually listen to me without going off on a tangent, getting annoyed, or just saying that I was complaining.” “I’m sure that you could find another roommate: a new friend. Has anyone tried to contact you for job offers in photography?” “None yet. I’m stranded her with the usual waitressing until some firm hires me.” Tara folds the last article of clothing and puts it in a filled cardboard box. She spots some memorabilia. “Remember Poopa-Scoopa, the stuffed monkey you won for me at the carnival last July?” “Sure,” responds Ryan. “Our clown was the first to guzzle too much and get a splitting headache. Do you still snuggle with it every night?” “Now more than ever.” “At least there’s one good thing about college ending: no more all-nighters.” “Hooray to the end of all-nighters.” “So what would you have done if I did not return to get my items?” “I don’t know. Maybe give them to the Salvation Army.” Tara finishes packing. “Your room seems too desolate, too somber.” “Just fill it with some of your items for the time being. You have some photos of us that you could hang up. Now you could have your personal studio room.” “I don’t want a studio room. I want some company.” “It was not my idea to leave in this manner.” Ryan opens the door, uncovering an incredibly sunny outside, brighter than the all of the sunny days they have known. The outdoors is so luminous that the grass and the
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trees are barely visible. Ryan takes two steps forward and then turns around. He says, “Do you think we may have eventually hooked up, got married, and had a few children?” Tara pauses, baffled. “I don’t know. So you never told me where you were moving.” “Upstate.” Tara walks to him and hugs him one last time. A tear runs down her cheek. She crosses to the couch and lies down. Ryan steps out of the house. At the same time, Tara sits up and cries “Wait. When will I see you…?” Before she finishes her sentence, she sees that it is dark outside, the door is closed, and no packed cardboard boxes are around. She squeezes Poopa-Scoopa in her left arm and grips an obituary page from yesterday’s newspaper in her right hand. “Rest in peace, Ryan Doyle, wherever you are.” --John Craunakis
I Said Farewell I said farewell Much like a person sending out a letter To a receiver long gone Gone like the circus that was in town for just the summer Yes they may return But then it may already be too late I hesitated with my farewell Holding onto it like a prized possession Almost loving it too much to give away Even to one I love Much like a young child playing busily all day Objecting to sleep even though truly that’s what they need Finally I gave in Gave away my farewell Like an artist unsure of their work Cringing at the thought of critique There it was thrown in the vast openness Soon to be between me and you --Alexis Anderson
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Tuesday Was Promising And the man went to the hospital, For he had a broken heart, And the systematic surgeon Said I don’t know where to start. Ventricles with descending roles Serving a cancerous counterpart. Capillaries consenting With the breaking and bending Of the pump with the automatic start. The man then asked the doctor What he wanted him to do. The surgeon didn’t falter, Said that depends on your point of view. Take these pills and still fall ill With loneliness and grief The side effects are hell But your body gets relief. Or you can pick up all your bread crumbs, Collect all of your thoughts, Capture happy moments, Put them in a box. And when you die, Hope that your friends will find That box upon a shelf. And maybe they’ll find laughter, Perhaps they’ll find themselves. The man got off the table, Thanked the surgeon for what he said, And he traveled down the hallway Where a patient lay in bed. He said I know it hurts But you all flirt With danger, love and death, Danger is my hobby And love requires breath.
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The only breathing I do Is to take it all away From the ones who need it most, The ones who welcome each new day. But my day is getting better And yours will do the same And then he left the man behind And he left behind is pain. --Kory Nicholi Kwasow
Untitled I don't know why I never see you you avoid the outside world you don't want them seeing you even the people close to you are very distant and the others might know your name or your face but nothing else that doesn't bother you you don't like anyone getting close invading your personal space constantly questioning your ways so you just hide somewhere where no one will find you hide everything about you you don't want the others to see what you are you've been hiding so long that you forgot who you are you don't know who you are anymore -- Jennifer Tewksbury
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Patchwork Tonight toward the naked hills you’ll lift my head or bow it like a scarecrow on the cross. I’ve left my vaporing footprints in the frozen mud and let the brown stalks fall with the crow’s feather. I may walk off the deep end in tiresome nightmares where the elm tree once shaded our home. But your heart will lift like a swing, high above the panic. You’ll come closer to me and smile. For sobriety has drunk my bones dry as your mind chattered to pieces. It was always in the spring, when your blue jeans wore their colors raw. I am buried in the night, under blankets, under books, under ancient myths of fallen gods. Mistakes have been made which no iron cell can punish, no sledgehammer can pound away. We are but static lumps that leave our crumbs. Trees form a dark tunnel along the road towards home. Telephone poles stand out against the purple sky. Two souls eat in a roadside café, under the glass lampshades, the answer between them, the secret among me. Your face is smashed behind my eyelids. And it’s a good day when I see it, see you, and realize I have no more poems left. --Nathan Urie
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The World Never Blinks What time is our world in? When the sun rises over the trees, It is your dawn, the tree’s dawn, But the world never sleeps. How do we see our path? When we are spinning along through space, Our destiny rides a balance, not a line, But the world never fears. Where will we be when the world ends? Staring at the show or hiding ourselves away? Our triumphs ad consequences erased, But the world never blinks. --Jeff Baron
One Deep Breath One deep breath and countdown from three, we grasp sweaty palms and jump, eyes closed. The river is warm this time of year. The sun makes it lazy and languid, just like us, mellowed by the heat. It took forty minutes and 2 bottles of lemonade to get here, pushing aside thick brush and snapping twigs, past thorn bushes that raked long scratches down our skinny arms. I can sense we’re close when the smell of damp earth fills my nose. We shimmy sideways onto the old railroad bridge, rusted orange and full of holes big enough for little bodies. A ghost town becomes our playground, and our voices weave through the silence and whispering water. -- Casey Carden
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Sleeping Beauty In a foreboding castle high up in the mountains, a young woman, with hair as dark as night and pale white skin, lay in a death-like sleep. Only a kiss from her true love would wake her. Two years had passed since she fell into her everlasting sleep, when one day, a young man with dark hair, piercing blue eyes and a warming smile knocked on the castle door. He inquired about the young lady who lay asleep, said his kiss would be the one that would wake her. As he climbed the candle-lit stone steps, he was confident that she would wake when their lips touched. When he entered sleeping beauty’s bedroom, he made his way towards her bed. She lay there so peaceful. He bent over and gently kissed her lips. To his shock, nothing happened. She didn’t move or open her eyes. She didn’t wake up! The young man left angry and embarrassed. So there sleeping beauty lay, awaiting the next gentleman who would try to wake her from her eternal sleep. -- Jessie Feeney
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The Old Couple The backyard had that look that backyards have after they have been freshly mowed and raked. The small dog was running after the grandchildren who arrived early with their smiling faces, new outfits pick out with care. The old couple smiled at each other, watching the newest generation, remembering the old days and how tumultuous those days sometimes were and how happy and wonderful and terrible they were. The remainder of the guests arrived, admiring the beauty of the huge yard with the flower gardens and marble statues and the pond that were renovated last week, built by hand by the couple in years gone by It was time‌ She was in the same dress she wore 55 years ago. It still fit, even more loosely than before and he thought she looked just as beautiful. She smiled up at him as the minister read the vows, and she repeated them, and he repeated them. And the words meant more this time because they were tested and true. -- Mary Rapaciewicz
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Not Alone As I wander down this dark hallway, I wonder if I’m alone. As I pass the portraits on the walls, the eyes appear to follow me. The rooms are littered with decaying furniture, and the paint on the walls is chipped. Sadness seems to fill the house, as if haunted by memories. The smell of mothballs surrounds me, as I walk from room to room. Dirt clings to the windows obscuring the light. There are holes scattered throughout the rotting carpet. As I pass the portraits on the walls, the eyes appear to follow me. And I can’t help but think I’m not alone.
--Jessie Feeney
For Edward Schumann Sitting in his soft green chair, prickly stubble topping his six foot frame. Running my fingers over the fuzz, I tell him my thirteen year old worries. Grave business in cruel boys, the world’s woes solved with caramels and cozy hugs. When he is gone I think of him, my grandpa, under willows, keeping guard in a tattered green uniform. A small hole under the gravestone, I slip my hand underneath, grasping at the empty earth. Remnants of medals and bronze stars, bitter loneliness, and a cold carved stone. --Casey Carden
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Flea Market Clean out the attic, cellar, and garage. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Special. Anything in the box twenty-five cents. Crystal salt shaker with dented metal top has lost its pepper. Rickety wooden rocker with holey cane seat. Hail Mary Full of Grace beads poured into a Budweiser mug with two clay marbles, a wooden nickel, and a purple heart earned in Vietnam. Vacuum cleaners, transistor radios, record players, tube TVs. “Work good” the sign reads. Pretty to look at, delightful to hold. Incomplete sets of depression glass – if you break it, consider it sold. Fat clothes, skinny clothes, obsolete fashions. Wait long enough – they’ll be back in. Remembrances of childhood. Grandpa’s spittoon, grandma’s wedding china, heavy-with-words black Remington typewriter, wool hand-crocheted afghan scratching your back. Life and Look pictures, Saturday Evening Posts covered with Normal Rockwell fantasies. Tomes of knowledge, 1969 World Book Encyclopedias, missing volume “S.” Grandpa lost his marbles. We found them in the attic in old mason jars that smell faintly of canned tomatoes and memories of life on the farm and grandma’s cooking in the kitchen.
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Annuals. One flat for five dollars, perennials three for ten. Pansies, hot peppers, Brussels sprouts on stalks, broccoli floret crowns, spicy marigolds. Toys, not quite played out, jumbled in a torn cardboard box – GI Joe minus his gun, tank intact, naked Barbie, head on backwards, hair a tangled disgrace. Scratched gold pocket watches no longer keeping time springs sprung grayed and pitted with age. Fill up the attic, cellar and garage. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. --Patricia Rokos Henneforth
Back the Breaker The aliens have landed back the breaker, a big puddle, in the coal hills behind Russell Park, next to the softball field, through the hole in the fence. They say the UFO is still down there. No, the military came, real secret, hush, hush. But the news reported it, they say it was a weather balloon. Why is the water so dark? Because the ground is made of coal! Don’t swim in there. Kids don’t listen, some just fear the aliens that they say grab at your feet. --Jeff Baron
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Tribute to Ya Ya You stand between my brother And me in a portrait on my Windowsill. Your face expresses Neither joy nor sorrow. The house you would visit from Weekend ferry rides remains A buried memory like you. Rolling past neon-lit Passageways and gigantic Apartments to embrace your Welcome and to devour your Greek meals at Christmastime ended Nine years ago. You seldom visit me In my slumber, nor do I Want you to. Grand aunt keeps your Telephone routine, And uncle keeps your Surprise visits, but Nobody cooks your Spanakopitas nor translates What you have said. We have lost contact Like the rivers you used To travel across. --John Craunakis
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Just A Dream Just a dream sitting on a sandy beach hearing the waves breaking. Gazing at the sunset-the colors gracing the sky like strokes from a paintbrush on a clean canvas. Just a dream standing in the middle of the forest giving attention to the silence but for the rustle of trees. Looking at leaves swirling down like giant snowflakes. Just a dream lying in the middle of a meadow smelling the fragrance of wildflowers. Listening to the buzzing of the honeybees.
NOT a dream waking to the screeching of the alarm shaking the cobwebs loose wishing‌ to be on the beach, in the forest, or lying in the meadow. --Darrin Chesner
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My life; my hands, my fingers My fingers – they point in different directions, guiding my choices determining the paths I take Each nail – a loved one, never do I let them grow too far from me, never are they without constant attention Each scar – brings a memory, a smile, and a sigh Each pen mark – a reminder of what I have written and what I still have to finish writing Each tiny wrinkle – let’s me know I still and always will have time, on my hands --Shelby Fisk
Looking Down Who was looking through the looking glass When our childhoods ran away? And who was hooking all the hooks and clasps To our safety nets that day? We were falling, we were falling fast And the ground was in our way. So we landed on the land at last, But it was different than yesterday. --Kory Nicholi Kwasow
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