Bellerive, Issue 10: archipelago

Notes on Drowning

A Scale of Inf luence

Two Surfers

Downcast

Untitled

Ring(ing)

Untitled

Or ts II

An Ant’s Perspective

Faith

Wall Street

What It’s Like

Oblig ator y Nature Poem

Par rot Flying

Drive It till the Wheels Fall Off

Ref lections after Sudden Consciousness

Barbed Wire Divide

A Night with No Slee p

Mab

Descendants of T hunder

Edith Keeler Must Die!

Dinah

Me, Myself, and I

37 Fountains (To Marcel Duchamp)

Love and Death: Sophisticated

Dreck?

Marshland

Visions

A Conversation with my Father

For tuitous Disaster

Beauty in Expected Places

Dejectedly

Staff Acknowledgements

Editing Committee

Ar t Committee

Layout Committee

Communications Committee

Bobby Meile, Co-chair

David Kear ns, Co-chair

Joe Har rington

Ashley Pereira

Ena Selimovic

Erika Stasiak

Elizabeth Swoboda

Kyle Mueller, Chair

Derick Allison

Emily Fuchs

Jessica Keil

Daniel Diecker, Chair

Kelly Rohlf

Chris Stewar t

Tom Dixon, Chair

Kristy Cobillas

Chelsey Maylee

Pink y Yan

Faculty Advisor s

Nancy Gleason

Geri Friedline

All members of the staff par ticipated in the selection process.

Notes on Drowning

Jessica Luther

I w onder how it all got star ted, this business about seeing your lif e flash befor e your eyes while you dr own, as if panic, or the act of submer gence, could star tle time into such compr ession, cr ushing decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds . . .

fr om Billy Collins’ “The Ar t of Dr owning”

Three years ag o I pulled a boy named Jack out of a countr y club swimming pool on a cooler than usual June mor ning. It was a typical save a few barefoot, calloused strides across the concrete deck, a whistle blow, a splash, and a fearless, yellow-haired 1st g rader plucked out of the water and retur ned to g rateful parents. I was by then a seasoned lifeguard, manag er of the facility, and had shaken the shake that accompanies saves attempted by a novice. T he sounds, movements, and protocol I exer ted were almost instinctual. To be honest, it looked g ood; the members leaned back once more in their chaise loung es, slid their sunglasses back over their eyes, and retur ned to the laissez-faire style of child super vision so popular at this par ticular establishment, cer tain that the kids, for now, were safe ag ain.

Jack’s eyes were wide and excited as he explained to his parents, “I drowned and she saved me ” His mother seemed mildly g rateful but unr uff led. “No, honey, you just g ot tired. It was nice of her to help you, though, wasn’t it?” He was disappointed. Being saved would mean a minor adventure on this otherwise uneventful summer day. In his mind, drowning meant that he could g o back to school in the fall and tell his tale, maybe add some embellishments to make it wor thwhile. Jack could be a character in a childhood e pic if he had drowned rather than simply g otten tired. I didn’t mention to him that drowning was not a physical condition or an aff liction, but rather a state of being. A person first is drowning, and then has either nearly drowned or drowned. It’s a subtle lingual difference but in reality a strict dichotomy exists a light switched on or off, nearly drowned or

drowned, dead or alive. As he was leaving for the day, being tug g ed out the g ate by his mother, Jack craned his neck as he walked past and said to me, “I drowned,” beaming and believing.

. . . Sur vi vors w ould ha ve us belie ve in a brilliance her e, some bolt of tr uth forking acr oss the water, an ultimate Light befor e all the lights go out, dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage . . .

Four years before Jack, I know that my feet went in first. But what I r emember, however, is ever y par t of me being simultaneously engulfed in water when just a moment before I was dr y. Par ts of my skin shoulders, torso, toes had even been f lushed red and scaly with the daily dehydration that is a result of re peated exposure to sun and chlorine. I had spr ung from the stand and crashed into the cr ystal clear water clumsily, momentarily abandoning the seemingly unshakable self-consciousness of adolescence. My leap had increased the size and speed of the still small waves; they crashed into years-old pool tile, creating mir ror imag es of each other which moved in opposite directions.

T here was nothing g raceful about what I was attempting, prog ressing awkwardly through the water with a hefty, red rescue tube tucked beneath my ar ms, legs thrashing wildly, ignoring or forg etting all training I had received three months prior. But he was drowning, and for $5.75 an hour and a work per mit on file, I was responsible for saving him.

T he distance between us was about twenty feet and felt like two hundred (for him, I imagine, more so than me). And he was reaching up instinctually, g rasping for the air, and this frantic motion was propelling him cr uelly and ironically downward. He didn’t know it, but he was fighting himself, shor t legs kicking at nothing and g aining nothing, eyes bulg ed and desperate. And I, endowed with the awareness that swimming is not only possible but considered enjoyable for most, still clawed and crawled my way toward him without any semblance of g race Of all the thoughts to think just then, it came to me that earlier in the after noon I had seen him sitting over my shoulder. He was eating Cheetos with chubby, eag er fing ers covered in

neon orang e, his blond hair wavy and half-dr y from the heat. But now those fing ers were the shallowest par t of a monochrome, distor ted imag e, all in shades of clear blue.

And somehow I was there, yanking him toward me, a mother pulling a child by the hand out of the street and onto the sidewalk. My hands were shaking so badly for the half hour or so that followed, I could hardly recognize my writing on the rescue re por t. I walked it over to his father for a signature; water from my hair had dripped onto the paper and smudg ed the ink. And there he was, the boy who was my first save, whose name I’ve long forg otten, cloaked in a beach towel and cross-leg g ed, smiling the squinty smile of childhood and summer, barely acknowledging that he had cheated death.

.

. . After falling of f a steamship or being sw e pt away in a r ush of floodwaters, w ouldn’t you hope for a mor e leisur ely r e view, an invisible hand tur ning the pages of an album of photographsyou up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.

How about a shor t animated film, a slide pr esentation?

Your lif e expr essed in an essay, or in one model photograph? Wouldn’t any for m be better than this sudden flash? Your whole existence going of f in your face in an eyebr ow-singeing explosion of biographynothing like the thr ee lar ge volumes you envisioned . . . .

Ten years before my first save, the three of us my mother, my ste pfather, and I were at Wappapello, a lake not far from the bootheel of Missouri. It was 30 or so miles down south on I-55 and 90 south on 67 from our home in St. Louis. Most of those early childhood weekends were spent in tr ucks and on boats, where I lear ned, in order to be rescued from friendless boredom, to shift a car, bait a hook, catch and clean a fish, and do all the other things that for med me into a string y-haired, g ap-toothed, dress- and skir t-free tomboy.

“Be careful,” she had said that day, and it was probably the thousandth time she had said it in the past five years, and it was only one time in the innumerable times any other mother anywhere in the world had said it

“Soyez pr udent ”

“Be careful.”

It tumbled out of her mouth as I ste pped onto the dock, and she tur ned away to watch mor ning fog on the lake dissipate, barely realizing she had said it.

My habit as a child was to do two things at once, or more accurately, to be talking while doing anything else. T his time I was telling her a stor y, about a friend or enemy at school, or a fish that I thought I had seen. All the while I was weaving from stall to stall, nearly ever y one of which was occupied by a fishing boat.

Now, I remember that the boats stuck out as something uniquely, and recently, manmade f lashes of fiberglass and glitter covered with a shiny coating, interiors covered with thin car peting, and bearing two bucket seats. T he dock, on the other hand, might have been as old as the lake or might be considered a par t of the lake itself, as the metal suppor ts and hug e foam buoys were covered with mossy g rowth and the weathered wood g ave g ently downward towards the surface of the water with the weight of even a human as small as my five-year-old self

I ste pped backward in mid-sentence and dropped squarely into the water, sliding sur prisingly softly into the minimal space between the dock and a boat. Today my mother tells me that it wasn’t the plop into the water that was audible relative to other sounds around us that mor ning, but it was that she had g otten so used to my inexhaustible voice, either talking, singing, or yelling, in those five years since my bir th that the silence that suddenly came over our little piece of universe was the giveaway T he water was g reen and cold, and the metal suppor ts of the dock were wrapped in life-giving alg ae which the bluegill and crappie fed on daily, thereby inadver tently making themselves easy targ ets for unskilled young fisher men such as me.

T hat’s what sticks with me now as an adult the vision of being face-to-face with blur red alg ae, its matte, almost black-colored darkness contrasting the liquid, translucent g reen which enveloped me.

I didn’t think of death or life, my mother or father, ste pmother or ste pfather, or any other people or things at the core of my being My mother was there first, her ar ms were too shor t, and she called my ste pfather to lie on his stomach and pull me out from beneath the

“Ten cuidado.”

boat. His ar ms broke through the surface of the water which didn’t exist to me anymore (looking back, I know now I had decided in those moments that the rest of my life would be underwater, however long or shor t that life would prove to be), and he yanked me upward, a violent jolting. T hey had completed their first save.

. . . But if something does flash befor e your eyes as you go under, it will pr obably be a fish,

a quick blur of cur ved silver dar ting away, ha ving nothing to do with your lif e or your death. The tide will take you, or the lake will acce pt it all as you sink toward the w eedy disar ray of the bottom, lea ving behind what you ha ve alr eady for gotten, the surface, now over r un with the high tra vel of clouds.

My mother said I looked sur prised to see her.

A Scale of Influence

Derek Rife

T he sea washes softly over my feet

Assuring me that I will drown

Should I remain at the mercy of the moon

Downcast

Derek Rife

Tele phone wires wrapped in f lesh

Electricity bleeds into the atmosphere

Lightning strikes weathered veins

Bur ning wind whips paper leaves

Clouds spit rain onto iron lungs

Hail falls like teeth chewing glass

Memories of sun haunt the pale city

Held beneath the shadow of the stor m

Untitled

Daniel Hasemann

Gentle supple bodies, Grind ag ainst jag g ed rock. Quiet moans and stinging pains ensue, Quick then suddenly slow from the shar pness. T he water y wet, T he oily syr up of her sex, Lull the vicious crash of the waves, Letting the rock wither silent yet ever more. For the edg ed ache, Forever coated in pleasures, Do they break their pallid bodies, Docile and slavish ag ainst stone cliffs.

Ring(ing)

Caleb Miller

a siren is singing

hummingbird wings are beating

Doppler swinging

a microphone

a song we’re forg etting

har mony plunging

hammers and anvils and strings

ref lecting on trees

with long pause of tor nado war ning

hor ns monotone blasting

shouting

shouting

pointing at something

as clouds begin circling

as vast wrists rotating

as fing ers on a wine glass spinning

vibrating the rim

accelerating wind with your eardr um

on a ride cymbal’s crash in r ubber mallets

something softer than drops in drains

air on bottle pursed lip

muff ling

a purer echo

our nar row ears

can never fully hear or begin to hush

a strong voice that is always exhaling

Untitled Julianne Wise

Orts II

Peter Fuss

London, 1953. –Just for fun, I asked the guard at Westminster Abbey whether Georg e Ber nard Shaw was buried there His re ply: “If Shaw had suspected that anyone was g oing to bur y him in a church, he would not have died!”

T he Gor ton Fish Factor y at Gloucester –On one side of the building, a conveyor belt takes stripped fish out of an indoor chute and drops them into a larg e bin where they are g round into meal for cat food and fer tilizer If fish were more human-looking, or even more animallooking, this sight would ling er like a nightmare. T he belt scoops up maimed cor pses, their mouths bloodied, their eyes crazed, their sides cut open, and jerks them forward in g rotesque positions. A scene Dante or Bosch or Jonathan Edwards might have conjured if only the victims weren’t being drag g ed up

Cambridg e. –Out in a hefty snowstor m. T he muff led whine of freespinning tires is lovely to my ears: nature’s victor y. Buicks stuck in four-foot snowdrifts, with their toothy g rills g ritted into the wind, look like g reat polar walr uses. In Har vard Square stout elderly women waddle backwards ag ainst the driving snow, bumping helplessly into lamp posts, mailboxes, other people. Ever y stationar y object has a white top hat. T he parking meters, their hooded red dials visible, stand like rows of children singing Christmas carols

Cambridg e, June 14, 1960. –Har vard’s Memorial Tower caught fire today. Stationed right next door, the firemen were prompt but couldn’t g et their hoses to spray high enough. When the f lames reached the big clock its hands beg an to spin an eerily biological kind of death ag ony

It is received opinion that time and motion are inse parably connected: Aristotle long ag o had defined time as the measure of motion. But time as we conventionally experience it work time, mealtime, appointment time, leisure time, bedtime measures motions that most often have no natural frequencies, no real rhythm. Whereas motions that do have the f low of a river, the canter of a horse, the yawning and stretching of a cat in the sun cannot be measured by time at all.

T hese motions, especially when we discover them afresh after long involvement with the conventional ones, release us from time, allow us to feel timelessness in what can on occasion be a profound way. T his is probably because when we give ourselves over to nature we do not ag e with care and fret, we become unhur ried, we enter a different time stream.

But if there are several different kinds of motion, each with its own time to measure it, then “Time is the measure of motion” has the same splendid g enerality and vagueness (a mark of so-called philosophical tr uth) that Aristotle’s other maxim, “Man is a rational animal,” has. And de pending on context, Aristotle’s proposition about time can even be inver ted. In music, for example, motion may well be the measure of time. Witness someone writing down a tune and tr ying to decide how to bar it

1960. –My g ood friend Bob was in Rhode Island and I was in Michig an. We missed each other, and that October we decided to meet halfway for a g ame or two of chess Halfway tur ned out to be Buffalo (about 400 miles in one day for each of us). Saturday at dusk we ar rived ten minutes apar t at the first Volkswag en dealer listed in the Yellow Pag es. On Rte. 20 southeast of the city we found a restaurant that looked right. It was. T he chef, incredulous but capable, made us

pork chops smothered in apples and onions, just as Bob directed. We located a room, opened a fifth of Scotch, and talked half of the night.

Around noon the next day, close by our restaurant, we discovered a magnificent double row of poplars on a stately hundred-acre far m

T he family, all slicked up for church, was accommodating, so that after noon we played two g ames of chess under the shade of the yellowing poplars (the rows had been planted to for m a bridal path).

I’ve never forg otten those trees and will probably never be able to describe them; in another ag e I might have said fing ers to God When we par ted I drove into, Bob away from, a f laming red sunset.

Tucson, 1962. –I watched a Little League g ame here. It was won by a ver y stout lad who cleared the bases with a blast that car ried almost out of sight between a pair of outfielders. When at last, at the pace of an ocean liner docking, he eased into third, he overshot his mooring by a ste p and was picked off by the opposition’s aler t and wir y little catcher. As he lumbered back to the bench the catcher hooted at him.

T he big one tur ned slowly and said, in a voice laden with dignity: “You had your moment of glor y, I had mine. I’m satisfied; why aren’t you?”

An Ant’s Perspective

Kendra Wright

Faith

Caleb Miller

Faith is being sur e of what w e hope for lifting our souls to the ceiling, our feet for a marathon It is the string str ung between styrofoam cups, half-full of scratches. It is the blindfold, the eye patch, the glasses, the opium, the oxyg en, the invisible masses.

Faith is a laughing shadow, a roaring echo, an imaginar y friend, a live f lash-bang g renade. Listen, it is putting our thoughts to music, shouting riddles and in answer stacks words upon words on the tongue of an unseen mouth

Wall Street

Joe Betz

Where is the crowd, you think on this slow Tuesday mor ning. On busses, seats sit empty and the bus driver eats a sandwich.

But I want a sandwich you whisper to no one, and the driver, baseball in his cheek, stares into your face, shaking his head No.

What It’s Like

Brittany D. Dean

I wonder what it’s like to be that girl. T he one whose tranquil perfume slee pwalks through the chaos, ignoring tumbling towers and dwelling peacefully inside her bubble of butterf lies.

Maybe even her, the one who prances in her petite skir t and bold top. Walking in stilettos of the erotic persuasion and inf luencing blue balls and wet dreams. Tur ning tricks within the pag es of her super model mag azine.

Or even her, the one who’s dr y and stiff. Confor ming to her 9 to 5, never crossing the boundaries of her vanilla-f lavored world. Slee ping soundly in-between her white sheets and f lat walls.

And definitely her, the one whose affection is possessed by one man. Never fearing the infidelities lying beyond her picket white fence, nor the car nal knowledg e mixer in his prestig e dot-com world.

Obligatory Nature Poem

Scott Morg an

T he wind is fucking cold in Michig an. It rattles the frozen fir trees and moans, the ghost of an ancient g od anxious to reclaim his chunk of world. Snow makes a white body bag for the trees. Small animals are vandals, stealing what food they can eat then hiding out between the toes of wooden cor pses. T he sun is afraid to reach all the way down to war m the g round, unsure that it would even thaw

Summer might have been nice here, when the trees are rebor n, the animals are citizens and the sun reunites with the ear th, but we came in winter, opened a window and let the wind blow back what nature g ave us, slee ping alone Tog ether.

Parrot Flying

Diana Long

Drive It till the Wheels Fall Off

Kendra Wright

Reflections after Sudden Consciousness

Maria T. Balogh

Idon’t know how long I’ve been standing here conscious. As I look at the lighted, shadowy mansion, I wonder who lives there. Perhaps the man closing the bar n door right now owns it, his family sitting inside and he, out here, pre paring for the imminent stor m. I realize that the light comes not only from the nine windows of the house and the door of the bar n, but also from dr y lightning in the distance. T he man must know the stor m is approaching and not only sending empty threats. T he windmill’s wings star t to spin slowly. Stor m wind must’ve awakened Maybe it woke me too

Ever y lighted object ref lects on the pond I’ve just discovered to my right. Ever ything seems dor mant. Other than the house, the bar n, and the lightning ref lecting in the water, ever ything is dark. Trees sur round me, tall, triangular, and g reen. T hey are much taller than I am I must not be one of them T hey don’t appear to be aware of my presence or their own.

T here’s a shack behind the windmill, completely dark perhaps I live there I don’t know what I look like, so I attempt to move closer to the pond to catch my ref lection in it and find that I can’t move, my ar ms outstretched horizontally ending in dr y, useless hands, my feet attached to something that defies g ravity. I discover that I don’t stand on solid g round.

I continue to examine and re-examine my sur roundings

T here’s something dr y and dead on the g round around what I think are my feet, if I have them, a crop perhaps. However, the crop must have already been picked and has dried out Maybe one season ends and another begins. I look about me once ag ain to the places I have already examined, and discover that ever ything is paralyzed in time and space. I must have imagined the movement of the windmill, or else it

did move and then it stopped. Even the man at the bar n door has not chang ed his position I also realize that a person stands by one of the windows inside the house in per petual closing of the cur tains.

T here is one place I haven’t looked yet. I wonder if I can tur n my head around to see behind me. I can and I do. Now I see you staring at me from behind the cor ner store’s counter, g etting your cash out of your wallet, broad daylight where you are on the other side of this canvas. You blink and move your mouth as if to ask or to tell the cashier something with your eyes still fixed on me. You shut your mouth quickly, shake your head, and pay for your purchase T hen you shr ug, receive your chang e, glance at me one more time, and leave the store.

A Night with No Sleep

Mark East

Billy the Kid has been living under my bed for about two weeks

Right when I g et ready to fall aslee p he star ts drinking whisk y

By the time I have reached REM he is g ood and dr unk

He shoots up through my mattress but the bullets

Always g et mad at him and stop right before they bur n and rip My back f lesh

Last week, Pat Gar ret walked into my bedroom

He was stroking his mustache with his thumb and index fing er His spur’s tinsel shaking made my brain fall forward I felt like I might throw up

I am not on the g ood side of the law

Pat Gar ret read my war rant out loud

Right before Underbed Billy shot the Sonofabitch

Pat Gar ret has a little chunk of metal in his head

And it’s in a bad spot for T he Sheriff

It’s in his Parietal Lobe and has no intention of breaking the lease

Pat didn’t bleed to death; nope, he just walks around in circles

And kee ps bumping into my g oddamn wall

I’m not g etting any slee p

It’s hard to put your socks on When there is an orbiting lawman in your bedroom

His stupid center of g ravity kee ps shifting

I need to g o to the store and buy

Me a little sun so my Circling Sheriff will at least be predictable

Pat’s eyes don’t look at anything and they are star ting to g o opaque

His skin has tur ned jar red-tamale white with about

T he same consistency and he’s star ting to stink

One of his teeth fell out on my car pet last night

T he dog ate it

Teeth can be eaten too, you know

Mab

Lyndsay M. Johnson

Mab, collector of men and bones, g ave the fing er to the fey life for a f lat in Webster Groves She sucks back pints at Foley’s while we smoke her County air, her scent is continental, a mix of clover, blood and fear. T he trinity of smut we make, slick bacon-clad morsels of literar y steak, licking dust from spines of moderate mor tal myths. My Mab, Midori sour minded, distinctive in distaste of love, of bondag e, and of this human race.

Edith Keeler Must Die!

Scott Morg an

I was looking at your cheek blue-glowing ag ainst the screen and our feet stroking under the pur ple afghan your pudg y cat nestled on our joined shoulders pur red violently.

Joan Collins on the TV reminded me of your eleg ant lips though not as full and I have no idea how hers taste but there it is: Joan Collins on the TV looking quizzically into camera just as you tur n your g aze on me your ghost blue eye whites moist, and we both know. Your feet leave mine.

Nights with popcor n and Schlaf lys and your fat cat and Classic Trek will never happen ag ain because Joan Collins had to die If not,

your lips would g row slowly thin, cracked, dr y, my belly would distend, your cat would die on the pur ple afghan and I would throw it out because of the smell and you would punch me because your aunt knitted it by hand and all of our lives would be measured by the things we g ave up for the things we could not give up,

so we killed her, drove over her ag ain and ag ain and we are living well on her death, se parate apar tments in the city on the edg e of forever.

Dinah

Lyndsay M. Johnson

She went underg round for tea, leaving me, hackles up, claws out, looking after petticoats while she carelessly f lings another into her well-bred lap. Do they bring bodies to your feet, make shapes around your legs? She, popping petite-fours, plays risque croquet with Queens, still I’ll war m her bed when she comes up to breathe.

Me, Myself, and I

Heather Poss

I ran into Myself the other day while shopping at the store.

“T his is nonsense!” I proclaimed and walked away just to r un into Myself once more

T here Myself was ahead of Me in line car r ying on with My friend.

“How can I be in two places at once?!” thought I as I failed to comprehend

“Because You’re a lunatic,” Myself said to Me as I r ushed past.

“What a jerk Myself was!” thought I. “What gumption! What crass!”

I pre pared to g o home and leave Myself there for g ood when My conscience took hold of Me and told Me what I should, “Myself has nowhere to g o, as You Yourself know, g o home! Make haste!

Pre pare Myself a place!” With a brotherly love for Myself come anew I had a fresh outlook on life and a new attitude. Retur n to My home did I with much haste only to find Myself already, there settled into place With a sickening ang er that I had never known I unleashed My hatred that had steadily g rown.

“Why does Myself come here when not invited?”

“Because this is My home too and, believe-You-Me, this hatred is requited!”

“Do not respond to My sentences with words I have first thought!”

“T hen stop thinking them,” Myself said to Me, “for it is by You that I am taught!”

What Freudian mishap did My childhood do that would cause I and Myself to argue as if in a feud?

In the end nothing has chang ed and I and Myself are still two. Exce pt now Our home is padded and Our visitors are few.

37 Fountains (To Marcel Duchamp)

Louis M. Nahlik

Love and Death: Sophisticated Dreck?

Joe Har rington

The prevailing attitudes concer ning Woody Allen’s 1975 film, Love and Death, have been diametrically opposed in their evaluations. Some claim the movie lacks substance and is more in line with the set of films g enerally classified as Allen’s “early comedies” (Take the Money and R un (1969), Bananas (1971), Slee per (1973), et cetera) than his later, more mature work Celestino Deleyto, for example, sees Love and Death as a thinly-veiled excuse for insignificant jokes (Deleyto 24) while Maurice Yacowar casually dismisses the film as a mere precursor to Annie Hall (1977) (Yacowar 78) Ber t Cardullo similarly disparag es the film, pointing to its “inability to reconcile” its funny g ags with its solemn under tones (Cardullo 142). However, others insist the film offers a g reat deal of de pth, citing the multitude of references made to philosophy, Russian literature, and the films of Ingmar Bergman as evidence Vittorio Hösle argues that the elevated nature of these allusions proves an intrinsic astuteness exists in the film, eclipsing that of earlier effor ts (Hösle 34), and Gar y Commins insists the seemingly superficial humor lends to dee p insight (Commins 39) David Friend g oes so far as to question whether references to materials so profound can even be considered mere comedy or if some new, more respectable moniker is required (Friend 61). While some critics, namely Rober t LeBlanc and Ellen Chances, acknowledg e, in passing, the ir reverent deliver y of these references (LeBlanc 107; Chances), there has been an alar ming lack of investig ation into the implications this mode of reference holds for the film.

T his essay expands on the overlooked quality of ir reverence in Love and Death. Rather than sug g esting the references soberly eng ag e the film in a meaningful dialogue about the moral, philosophical and psychological dilemmas faced by the protag onist, I aim to demonstrate

the ing enious and subtle way the references under mine, playfully, the pretensions established by their sources My intention is to champion the merits of the comedy by indicating the subversive designs of the referential humor, thereby silencing the claims that the film lacks a consequential pur pose in its jokes and cor recting the misconce ption that the sophisticated essence of the materials referenced automatically imbues the movie with an intellectual refinement. In other words, I will prove why Love and Death is light without being frivolous and referential without being subordinate. T his inter pretation refutes the aforementioned, polarized dispute between other critics by offering not a compromise, that the movie is sophisticated dreck, but by illuminating a wholly unconsidered and cr ucial aspect of the film.

Love and Death tells the stor y of Boris Gr ushenko, a man condemned to death for a crime he did not commit. LeBlanc offers insight into the under tones of Russian literature prevalent throughout the film:

Set in tsarist Russia during the time of the Napoleonic wars and centered upon a bespectacled hero who plans to murder the French emperor, Love and Death prompts immediate associations, of course, with Tolstoy’s classic War and Peace (1869) T here are distinctively Dostoyevskian echoes, on the other hand, in the film’s theme of a man sentenced to death and then re prieved at the last moment (The Idiot [1868]), in the trio of brothers who make up the Gr ushenko family (The Br others Karamaz ov [1880]), and in the moral dilemma that confronts the hero when, a la Raskolnikov, he contemplates the act of murder (Crime and Punishment [1866]) (LeBlanc 100)

LeBlanc’s point is that, even at a cursor y glance, Love and Death is brimming with references to Russian literature. But what of them?

Is the pur pose of these relations to heighten, by simple association, the caliber of the film? LeBlanc seems to think so when he writes: “If the film’s ar tistic and philosophic ambitions are to pay homag e to the two towering figures of nineteenth-centur y Russian literature, Dostoyevsk y and Tolstoy, then the bathos at work in Love and Death calls to mind yet another g reat nineteenth-centur y writer . . . ” (LeBlanc 101). Yes. Emphasis on the word “if.” I will not discuss here this other writer LeBlanc is introducing, because the significance

of this quotation lies in the first clause. T he remainder of his point is conting ent upon the supposition that the pur pose of the Russian literature backdrop is to pay deferential tribute to Dostoyevsk y and Tolstoy. T hat’s not tr ue at all. First of all, such homag es are not, and nor should they ever be considered, “ar tistic and philosophic ambitions.” I believe this notion unfairly paints Allen as a sniveling sycophant LeBlanc is implying that the loftiest ambition Allen could hope to achieve is to reference something he had no hand in creating. Secondly and more impor tantly, the meaning of such references is comedic; the bathos lies in the homag e itself

One way in which this bathos, or comical descent from the lofty, is achieved is the way Love and Death considers how its references hold up when divorced from context, when circumstances are slightly altered. As critic Ellen Chances astutely notes: “[Love and Death] contains a scene in which the question is asked, ‘What’ll you do when the French rape your sister?’ In the typical style of early Woody Allen films, [Boris’s] re ply is comic (‘I don’t have a sister’) rather than sober and tragic, as in Dostoevsk y ’ s novels” (Chances) Chances is saying that, when confronted by a moral quandar y, Love and Death advocates a simple, pragmatic solution. In this case, Boris not having a sister means, to him, he needn’t examine his cowardice in the face of the enemy at all. T his pokes fun at the brooding quality of Dostoyevsk y rather than embracing it. In light of this, I believe that Boris’s response indicates ir reverence in reg ard to Russian literature, not hushed obeisance.

Not only Russian literature, but the films of Ingmar Bergman are a strong inspiration in Love and Death. The Se venth Seal, in par ticular, is ref lective in Boris’s search for the existence of God. Noted critic Hösle sug g ests that the de pth of Bergman’s film r ubs off on Allen’s Hösle states:

Allen, whose knowledg e of film histor y inspires awe, is a master of parody and travesty. Sometimes he simply transposes cer tain ‘lower’ film g enres in a different mood . . . science fiction movies in Slee per with the clear intent to make fun of them. But by quoting Ingmar Bergman’s The Se venth Seal in Love and Death

exhor ts us to look for a dee per meaning behind the funny e pisodes. (Hösle 34)

What Hösle is saying is that Love and Death differs from earlier movies

of Allen’s in that, while it is also a parody, it references far more respectable works of ar t and it therefore must be considered more impor tant. I believe that there is something wrong about Hösle’s assertion that the intrinsic quality of ar t can be elevated simply by imitating reverenced canon. I think that it would be a mistake to consider the references to profound works of ar t profound themselves simply because their sources are. I say that there is a hollow resonance to ear nestness in referential humor that does not comment upon ideas, only quotes them. But is that what Allen does with the referential humor in Love and Death? I do not believe so

Instead of simply “quoting” The Se venth Seal, Allen offers a fresh perspective on Antonius Block’s search for the existence of God, by mir roring it, with less conviction, in Boris When Boris postulates all humankind might be a bunch of absurd people r unning around with no rhyme or reason, he is asked why he does not, then, just commit suicide. He responds by saying, “Well, let’s not g et hysterical. I could be wrong. I’d hate to blow my brains out, then see they found something [pointing up] ” T his is what is known as humorous travesty, wherein a dignified subject (The Se venth Seal, for the pur poses of this example) is ridiculed for a comic effect. Boris possesses the same desire to find proof of the existence of God as Antonius, but Boris’s laid-back and cowardly approach illustrates a hug e gulf between his and Antonius’s convictions. Implicit in Boris’s comment is that God’s silence does not necessarily prove God does not exist. While on one level, what makes this funny is the fact that Boris is gutlessly “hedging his bets” (as Blaise Pascal would) rather than holding tr ue to his philosophical ponderings, there is another humorous dimension in the comparison that can be made to The Se venth Seal. T he exchang e indicates that the despair that might be inspired as result of God’s silence (as it is in Bergman’s film) might be overcome by challenging the despondent on the validity of their conclusions. Indeed, it might be said from analyzing this bit of dialogue that the integ rity of conclusions drawn from philosophical rhetoric is f limsy at best. T hrough this example, it is clear that Hösle’s sug g estion that the exhor tation to look for dee per meaning is coming from Bergman and not Allen is not entirely the case.

T he g rowing concer n, at this point, then, might be that Allen’s distor tion of the vision of acclaimed ar tists is too ir reverent, verging on contempt. Some might sug g est that my inter pretation is proof of

harsh invective on Allen’s par t, but I still contend that the ir reverence is playful, not downright vitriolic I say that Love and Death manag es to maintain a lighthear ted Horatian satire rather than descend into Juvenalian bitter ness. Commins, I feel, would ag ree with me on this point, evidenced when he writes: “Allen delights in pairing ultimate concer ns with silly ones ” (Commins 35). Commins’s obser vation can be applied to much of the humor utilized in the film. When a young Boris encounters Death for the first time, he, like Antonius Block, seeks answers to monumental questions. He asks Death what happens after we die, if there is a hell, if there is a God, if we live ag ain After a moment of concentration, Boris then says, “All right. Let me ask one key question. Are there girls?” T his dialogue ref lects Commins’s statement by juxtaposing the search for divine tr uth with the search for sex With this question, Allen manag es to trivialize one of the key themes of The Se venth Seal, but in a lighthear ted manner devoid of spite. T here is no ang er in the ir reverence; nothing about the scene sug g ests Allen is operating on a personal vendetta ag ainst Bergman. Even Death, a character that appeared in Bergman’s film, appears here clothed in white rather than black, sug g esting a g ood-natured, comic twist on The Se venth Seal. Had Allen intended to wound Bergman’s vision, he would have dispelled any ambiguity by ensuring Death appeared in Love and Death exactly as in The Se venth Seal, thus facilitating a sober, no-nonsense approach to the attack.

Par ticular considerations, such as the g arb of Death in the previous example, need to be examined to accurately assess the intention of humorists. What might seem the most minor of oversights could dramatically affect the inter pretation of a joke. LeBlanc, for instance, analyzes an exchang e in Love and Death and concludes Allen’s objective with the dialogue is to reveal a cer tain characteristic of the people in the film. LeBlanc deter mines:

[T he] life-affir ming role of food is humorously noted in the deathbed scene where Voskovec has no sooner passed away than his widow is encourag ed to foreg o bereavement and continue with the process of living.

‘T he dead pass on and life is for the living,’ the bedside doctor tells Sonja. ‘I guess you’re right,’ she responds ‘Where do you want to eat?’ T his exchang e reveals that for the characters in Love and Death, eating and living are nearly synonymous activities. (LeBlanc 104)

LeBlanc considers the phrase “Where do you want to eat?” and deduces it is meant to draw a parallel with the word “living” that the conce pt of living prompts immediate associations with eating. It should be noted that LeBlanc’s focus throughout his essay is on food, which explains why he came to this conclusion. However, I believe that there is more to be read from the scene than the analog y LeBlanc identifies. I say that the primar y aim of the humor in the exchang e is to under mine philosophical platitudes. While the mere asking of “Where do you want to eat?” is indeed a funny way to def late the heaviness of the line directly preceding it, what really needs to be taken into account is the manner in which the men react to Sonja’s question. “Let’s g o to Rykoffs,” one of them sug g ests. “No, no, no, not Rykoffs,” re plies another “Why?” “I feel like meat, not a cheese sandwich,” he declares. “It’s not g ood for your health,” the other insists. T he way they squabble over where they should eat implies that they place a g reater premium on mundane concer ns than they do on g rand dilemmas such as life and death. Essential in understanding this is noting that the man who delivered the powerful statement of, “ you must not allow yourself to be consumed with g rief; the dead pass on, and life is for the living” is the same man who objected to the prospect of a cheese sandwich T his abr upt shifting of his concer ns renders the impor tance of his philosophical declaration questionable. T his mechanism of humor is prevalent in Love and Death; it is the ver y same type that is employed in young Boris’s conversation with Death discussed earlier.

Sometimes, though, the aim of g ags is less clear. When Boris is contemplating murder at one point in the film, he utilizes Kiesewetter’s Logic just as Ivan Ilych does when considering his own mor tality in Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych Whereas in Tolstoy’s novella, Ivan Ilych reasons that, “‘Caius is a man, men are mor tal, therefore Caius is mor tal’” (Tolstoy 49), Boris ref lects, “What would Socrates say? . . . A.) Socrates is a man. B.) All men are mor tal. C.) All men are Socrates.” T his f lawed syllogism is a prime example of verbal irony, and it cer tainly is funny, but is there a point to the Tolstoy under tone? What, if anything, is Allen attempting to achieve beyond the laugh?

Critic Deleyto is one of the harsher detractors of Love and Death, and she would indicate lines such as the reference to Kiesewetter’s Logic to prove the film’s immaterial composition. She

remains unimpressed by the humor in the film, insisting: “Love and Death presents itself as one more parody this time the object of the parody is nineteenth-centur y realist fiction. T he plot . . . seems, in this respect, similar to that of Slee per, one more excuse for the jokes” (Deleyto 24). Deleyto’s argument is that because the comedy does not advance a coherent nar rative, it is ultimately inconsequential. She seems cor rect in judging some of the jokes as superf luous.

Cer tainly some of the humor in the film is not in line with an ir reverent commentar y on ar tists and thinkers and is reminiscent more of Woody Allen’s early stand-up act For example, in one scene, Boris becomes an accidental hero of war by falling aslee p in a cannon and being shot at a g roup of French g enerals, trig g ering their immediate sur render As he relates: “My brother Ivan was not so luck y He was a fatality of war. He had been bayoneted to death by a Polish conscientious objector.” T his absurd conce pt is humorous, but, as Deleyto would say, “merely [an excuse] for the comedian to tell his jokes”

(Deleyto 22). T he audience cannot constr ue anything from the line in reg ard to Dostoyevsk y, Bergman, or anything else

Perhaps Deleyto is cor rect. Perhaps Love and Death, despite a valiant attempt, is only another commonplace, lowly comedy, not worthy of the consideration of tr ue fans of cinema Sure, it has moments that offer a glimpse of a keen, ar tistic vision, but they appear to be drowned out by the blare of an inexperienced voice. Yacowar recognizes this when he notes: “Allen achieved a new level of sophistication when he ventured into philosophic parody in Love and Death (1975). But his mature period beg an with Annie Hall (1977)” (Yacowar 78). Allen was still in a developmental stag e when he filmed Love and Death. Deleyto and Yacowar ag ree, there’s little of value in this silly movie.

Of course, they’re both wrong

It is so easy to dismiss the merits of comedy in ar t, especially when there are so many other facets of life to explore. Laughter seems insignificant in the face of beauty, love and tr uth. But what could be more beautiful than the sound of people laughing, what could better convey the love each human being holds for the next? As Bill Hicks once said, real comedy is laughter in recognition of tr uth.

I do not think that, simply because ever y single bit of dialogue in Love and Death does not fur ther a concentrated discourse, the film is inferior. I would be hard-pressed to name one film that can make such a claim. No, as is the case with any film containing as much dialogue as

Love and Death, the whole is g reater than the sum of its par ts. As Commins elaborates: “Some of this is merely superficial; the comedian ’ s g oal is laughter, sometimes for its own sake. But even what seems superficial often leaves a serious after taste” (Commins 39). Commins makes a g ood point, although the ter m “serious after taste” is not quite cor rect. T he after taste can sometimes be per tinent without being sober. Retur ning to the example of Kiesewetter’s Logic, consider the soliloquy in its entirety:

Look at him. If I don’t kill him, he’ll make war all through Europe But murder? What would Socrates say? All those Greeks were homosexuals. Boy, they must have had some wild par ties. I bet they all took a house tog ether on Crete for the summer A ) Socrates is a man. B.) All men are mor tal. C.) All men are Socrates. T hat means all men are homosexuals. I’m not a homosexual. Once, some Cossacks whistled at me. I happen to have the kind of body that excites both persuasions But, you know, some men are heterosexual, and some men are bisexual, and some men don’t think about sex at all. T hey become lawyers. My problem is that I see both sides of ever y issue I’m too logical. You know, the world is not logical. If it was logical, how would Old Nehamkin be young er than Young Nehamkin? I knew there was something crazy about that when I was a kid, but ever y time I said something, they’d smack me, so, you know. I’m just racked with guilt and I’m consumed with remorse and stricken with suffering for the human race. And not only that, but I’m developing a her pes on my lip here that is really killing me. Oh, what to do?

T here are many, many deft comedic moves in this monologue. Cer tainly some of the jokes seem ir relevant. However, when one takes a ste p back and examines the speech as a whole, it should become clear that their ir relevance is precisely the point. T he fact that those jokes about homosexual Greeks and passionless lawyers occupy positions in a soliloquy that is ostensibly about the moral dimensions of murder absolutely tr umpets ir reverence To expound: Neg ative utilitarianism dictates Boris should kill Napoleon. But the prospect of eng aging in such an act seems more than a little daunting, and Boris finds

himself in a situation not unlike Raskolnikov’s. So he tur ns to Socrates, the father of moral and political philosophy, for answers T his proves fr uitless, sug g esting, perhaps, that people should think for themselves rather than de pend on others for answers (humorously, Socrates would approve). Boris tur ns to Kiesewetter’s Logic next, as Ivan Ilych did. He g ets it wrong, concluding he is the same person as Socrates, causing him to collapse into a barely subdued panic about his sexuality. Ivan Ilych seems a tad foolish by proxy, when one considers the foolish Boris decided to employ the same principle as him, and Raskolnikov suffers by the comparison as well Boris then makes a point to state he’s too logical, having just proven his g rasp on traditional logic is, at best, fundamentally f lawed. When Boris states that the world is not logical, those words should resonate T hey can be applied to all of the philosophical discussions in the film as the reason they break down into nonsense phrases and circular logic (e.g.: “subjectivity is objective”). As a par ting blow, he intimates his g rief about humanity, as so much of Russian literature and Ingmar Bergman does, and likens its significance to the her pes on his lip, perhaps the most ir reverent line in the entire film.

What to make of all of this? While I could now quote the entire script and then analyze it as I did that soliloquy, I think that might be a bit much. Instead, consider the words of David Friend. Attempting to encapsulate the movie’s essence, Friend states: [Allen] becomes obsessed . . . in Love and Death . . . with mor tality and the silence of God . . . Is this comedy? . . . Allen has pushed black comedy to an absurd precipice . . . He diver ts us from despair by the cushions and canopies of some crazy comic irony . . . in the absence of God, we might as well laugh at the nothingness. If not black comedy, the comedy of . . . Love and Death is ‘ g rey matter’ comedy, the ar tfully delivered gibberish of a cerebral jester at the door of purg ator y, defying God and most of humanity, reveling in the queer laughter. (Friend 61)

T he thr ust of Friend’s argument is that this film transcends simple comedy. Drawing inspiration from minds like Ingmar Bergman, Allen channels their ideas into new ideas of his own With these words, Friend has clearly established himself as a g reat defender of Love and Death. Or has he?

I say that Friend’s analysis is precisely not the way to look at the film Not once did Allen treat any of the questions raised with sincerity. T he silence of God? Hey, let’s not g et hysterical. Mor tality? Why, all men are Socrates. Allen does make sincere points, as the soliloquy proves, but they are not bor n from these questions.

If we were to acce pt Friend’s assessment of Love and Death, a slew of problems would emerg e. Chief among them is what Cardullo discusses when he writes: . . . to say that [Allen] has resolved his ar tistic dilemma by striking a balance between the solemn and the funny in movies . . . is to miss the extent to which such pictures fail as g enuine . . . tragicomedy. Rather than combining the serious and comic into a unique new for m, they just ir resolutely lay the two elements side by side, or overemphasize one at the expense of the other. (Cardullo 142)

In making this comment, Cardullo reasons that comedies with tragic ambitions are treacherous to neg otiate

His point, however, is moot where Love and Death is concer ned. T his film did not have tragic ambitions. In fact, the movie openly mocks the ver y notion, abr uptly defusing ever y f lir tation with the somber and the self-serious. LeBlanc sums up this dynamic when he writes: “ . . . Woody Allen seeks in his film to convey a serious messag e about the human condition, while poking fun not only at the messag e itself but also at some of the ar tistic vehicles traditionally used to convey it” (LeBlanc 107). While LeBlanc is probably wrong when he claims that the film ear nestly tries to convey a serious messag e about the human condition, he is absolutely dead on in saying that Allen is poking fun at that which might be taken as a legitimate messag e T his is the essence of what makes the comedy in this film so outstanding.

T he stigma on the word “comedy” needs to be lifted. As I said before, Love and Death is both ing enious and subtle, and it is a comedy. T hose who claim it lacks substance are the ones in need of g reater vision. T hose who contend that it defers to its inspirations should take a closer look. T his movie is a comedy through and through, and no more distinguished or complimentar y a ter m could an ar tist ever request

Works Cited

Allen, Woody, dir. Love and Death. Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions, 1975. Film.

Cardullo, Ber t “Autumn Interiors, or the Ladies Eve: Woody Allen’s Ingmar Bergman Complex ” The Films of Woody Allen Ed Charles L P Silet Lanham, MD: T he Scarecrow Press, 2006 133-144. Print.

Chances, Ellen. “Moscow meets Manhattan: T he Russian Soul of Woody Allen’s Films.” American Studies Inter national 30.1 (1992): 65-77. MLA Inter national Bibliography. Web. 18 Aug. 2008.

Commins, Gar y. “Woody Allen’s T heological Imagination.” The Films of Woody Allen. Ed. Charles L.P. Silet. Lanham, MD: T he Scarecrow Press, 2006. 34-49. Print.

Deleyto, Celestino. “T he Nar rator and the Nar rative: T he Evolution of Woody Allen’s Film Comedies.” The Films of Woody Allen. Ed. Charles L P Silet Lanham, MD: T he Scarecrow Press, 2006 21-33 Print

Friend, David M. “Woody Allen’s Jewish American Gothic.” Midstr eam Jun. (1979): 59-65. Print.

Hösle, Vittorio. Woody Allen: An Essay on the Natur e of the Comical. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Print.

LeBlanc, Ronald D. “Love and Death and Food: Woody Allen’s Use of Gastronomy.” The Films of Woody Allen. Ed. Charles L.P. Silet. Lanham, MD: T he Scarecrow Press, 2006. 100-108. Print.

Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilych. United States: Waking Lion Press, 2006. Print.

Yacowar, Maurice “Beyond Parody: Woody Allen in the 1980s ” The Films of Woody Allen Ed Charles L P Silet Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006 78-88 Print

Visions

Lauren Wilding

My eyes are full of archways, of blackened stone chipped and fallen, sur rounded by living g reen rising, g rowing from the innards of a char red skeleton

He called architects to design a dream but he died before it was complete. Others sought to fulfill his vision, only to see it bur n from the inside, and left to cr umble

T he stone now scorched still stands upon the bluff, presiding over the spring blue as the kingfisher’s crest. It reaches cold fing ers into the lake.

A Conversation with my Father

Scott Morg an

We sit tog ether under a frightening, expansive sk y. You light a smoke, g ripping it with your g rin. T here has never been a time like this Cracking my beer I tr y to remember you not so thin

with chemo and resolve Clouds g race over us like God’s Beard. I tr y talking about the Cardinals but your eyes g o distant reminding me of the distr ust you felt for heroes after Whitey f led like a criminal

and even Ozzie g ave up. An Idea strikes and I put my feet on the cooler and slump in my chair and hook my lower lip and pull it down, with teeth shut ag ainst breath I g o, “T his, this is how you looked

the day we found you. ” It was a Sunday, I sped upstream ag ainst the church-bent to find your stillness mocked by the g raceful fray of dust par ticles suspended in a wedg e of light.

Mom perched by your feet, g rasping at your ar m believed that you could still hear me if I wanted to say anything, like what? Speak a char m to bring you back, put beetles in your eyes,

ashes on your forehead, cr y to Jesus, to Re-Atum, who? T here was nothing for it, time only to be brave, leave the magic to Jesus and focus on the practical matters, donate

the clothes, sell the pickup. Eight years g one we ’ ve been par ting you out, fast as we could bear, plucking you from my chest like bird shot, one blood-glazed globe at a time. You shift in your chair;

I have made you uncomfor table. Ag ainst the cold blue, swallows dance above us, g enius wings and ter rible beaks, closing but never touching. I didn’t know what to do with your death, so I dropped it in an iron box,

and lashed it to my back and lug g ed it around, and belched my breath out on the stones in the river between you and I. We sit tog ether, two chairs, one g round, 37 years we haven’t said a Goddamned thing to each other. Dad, the ang el’s off the Christmas tree, there’s nobody left between the awful white expanse and me.

Fortuitous Disaster

Bobby Meile

Gas leak explosion uncovered pirate treasure.

Rotten tooth removal meant more room for candy.

Gang rened left ar m doubled right ar m ’ s reach Foul, oily discharg e stopped neighbor’s rabid dog.

Baseball bat brain surg er y cured my autism.

One-night stand g ave me baby?

Beauty in Expected Places

Kendra Wright

Dejectedly

Rober t M. Bliss

is a hard-cor nered word, not smoothly lyric like morosely or mour nfully If left on a line it hunkers down, sits alone, sullenly snubs advances, declares inde pendence, shuns sympathy, rhythm and rhyme.

If you think not, please say to me when last you saw it.

In a poem? Or on a park bench?

Lauren Wilding

ut Mair, I saw it,” the girl insisted in a low, quavering voice.

Marion scowled at her friend, positive that the other girl was teasing her in some way she didn’t understand. “Maybe if it was the whole thing, but legs aren’t alive T hey just aren’t!”

“Mar-ie-on, I’m not playing!” she pleaded. “I saw it. I’d pink yswear you I saw it. I’ve seen it at least three times!” She thr ust out her hand and extended her little fing er to Marion

“You did not, Corin,” Marion said with slight hesitation as she obser ved her friend’s eag er ness to swear on it. Pink y-swears weren’t done lightly, not where Corin and Marion were concer ned. Marion’s older sister had told her stories about what happened to kids’ pinkies if they broke a pink y-swear, and Marion, of course, told Corin who took such stories ver y seriously.

“Honest, Marion, the first time I thought my eyes were making it up, but it happened ag ain and then ag ain You know my head’s not funny?”

“No, your head’s not, but maybe your eyes are,” Marion said frowning a little.

Corin chewed on her lip for a moment. “I don’t think they are. I’ve never seen anything else funny Have I ever told you I saw anything else like that?”

“No,” Marion admitted.

“Well?”

Marion twisted a piece of coffee-colored hair around her fing er. “I just don’t know!” she huffed, pulling on her hair.

T hey sat on either side of it and stared, waiting. “I don’t think it will do it if it knows we are looking at it,” Corin mur mured

“But how would it know we are looking at it? It doesn’t have any eyes, not even painted-on ones. ”

“I don’t know, Mair . . . it might have eyes, it moves after all.”

“I still think your eyes are just funny.”

“Oh shut it, Marion.” Corin scooted back a few feet and tur ned slightly to the side to look at it out of the cor ner of her eye.

Marion rolled her eyes and imitated Corin.

“It must still know we’re looking at it,” said Corin, after what Marion felt had to be at least an hour. “Maybe it can hear what we are saying . . . it might know that we know.”

“I don’t think it knows anything T his is stupid It can’t hear anything. T he ears would be on the head and it’s not connected to the head anymore. And it can’t know that we know because I don’t know anything for it to know,” Marion muttered sullenly.

Corin squinted up her eyes and stuck out her lower lip. “I thought you believed me, at least a little You don’t do you? You think I’m coo-coo. ” She stood up, strode across the room, picked up the tele phone, and star ted to dial.

“What are you doing?”

Her friend just g ave her a wide g rin. “Hello Dr. Wilbrett, this is Corin.” T here was a shor t pause, “Oh no, nothing’s wrong. We’re both fine. I was just wondering if it would be alright with you if Marion spent the night.” Another pause, “Yeah, I talked to my dad about it earlier, so it’s fine.” Corin g rinned at Marion ag ain as she listened to the girl’s mother. “T hanks Dr. Wilbrett, bye-bye.” She hung up the phone. “So, your mother will be picking you up tomor row mor ning at 11:15 ”

Marion’s mouth opened and shut a few times, finally saying, “But you didn’t even ask me if I wanted to.”

“I know,” Corin said, coming back to sit on the f loor next to her, “I’m sor r y about that. I just really need you to see it. How do you think I feel, being the only one to have seen it and all? It’s scar y, so I didn’t think you would want to.”

“Did you really ask your dad already?”

“Yeah, I asked him this mor ning while he was driving me to school. Why else do you think I told you to bring Strichy?” Strichy was Marion’s stuffed ostrich, which she sle pt with at night, although she

wouldn’t readily admit it to anyone but Corin.

“I don’t know; I thought you might have thought up some new g ame and we would need her for it. I know you don’t have an ostrich.”

Corin’s face suddenly brightened, “Well no, but we could pretend that our space ship landed on a planet that only had birds.” She g ave Marion an exag g erated wink and g estured with her eyes toward the leg as it lay, unmoving on the beig e car pet. It was clear to Marion that they were supposed to continue to watch it as they played their g ame, which was probably just a cover for their mission in the first place.

Marion g ave a little sigh but acquiesced with a nod. “I’ll g et Strichy out of my backpack ”

“Nice, I’ll g et some stuffed animals from my room.”

“Corin, don’t ” but Corin had already bounded out of the playroom, and Marion, much to her chag rin, was left alone with it. She found herself staring at it as she unzipped her backpack, the leg in its hyper real plasticity with that unnaturally pointed foot She hoped Corin was wrong about it; Marion did not want it to move. Rescuing Strichy from the darkness of her blue backpack, she held the bird tightly hoping the other girl would come back soon

Marion was still staring at the leg when Corin dumped two ar mfuls of stuffed birds around her. “T hese are all I could car r y, but I thought they would be enough for now. ” Corin collected stuffed birds, and was rather par ticular about them, which was why she had not yet found an ostrich that was quite right. “You can be whichever ones you want exce pt for Guiny and Wisenthor p.” Guiny the rockhopper penguin and Wisenthor p the snowy owl were Corin’s favorites, the most real looking she claimed, but penguins and owls also happened to be her favorite animals. Corin cleared her throat and asked, “Did you see anything?”

“No,” Marion answered, slightly ir ritated, “and don’t leave me alone with it ag ain.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind, seeing as how you think my eyes are funny and all.”

Marion glowered at her, “Well, I do mind, whether or not I believe you ”

Corin’s mother came to the top of the basement stairs, “Girls, supper is ready ”

Marion and Corin came to the doorway tog ether. “What did Dad make?” Corin asked.

“He g rilled a turkey breast for the two of us and your brother, but he made fish for you two. T here is also salad and rolls.” Neither Corin nor Marion ate poultr y. Corin absolutely refused to eat birds, and Marion felt it would be wrong for her to eat them when her best friend was so adamantly ag ainst it.

Corin asked, “Just the breast right? Not the whole ”

“No honey, we never buy whole birds anymore.”

“Okay, come on, Mair.” Corin took her friend’s hand and they went up the stairs tog ether

James, Corin’s older brother, was just coming out of the office down the hall. “Oh hi, Marion, I didn’t know you were here.” He came up to them to r uff le Corin’s hair, “Hey kid.”

“Hi,” she re plied. Marion didn’t know James ver y well as he was often not around, being older than Corin by seven years

T he four of them walked into the kitchen tog ether and sat at the table just as Corin’s father put down the rolls.

“T hanks for dinner,” Marion said, “it looks really nice ”

Corin’s father waved a hand dismissively and smiled. “So kids, how was school?”

Marion and Corin looked at each other, and Corin g ave a tiny shake of her head. T he leg was not to be spoken about. “We had lunch and recess tog ether today because of the fire drills,” Corin said, g rinning. Marion was in third g rade and Corin was in four th, so it was not often they g ot to spend time tog ether during the school day, although they car pooled

James had barely gulped down his last mouthful when he said, “Marion, you’re g oing with my sister to the band concer t Monday night, right?”

“Yeah, my mom said it was okay. What do you play?”

He pointed at his mouth and shook his head. T here was a spinach stem protr uding from between his lips.

Corin gig gled, “T he black hole tries ver y hard not to inhale his clarinet ”

Corin’s mother snor ted and quickly gulped from her water glass.

James nodded vig orously, still chewing.

Marion smiled, but was rather too preoccupied with what waited for her in the basement to feel much like laughing. She looked over at Corin who was bouncing one leg up and down as she ate.

“Corin, you are shaking the table,” her father said.

“Oh, sor r y, ” she said and stopped.

Marion came out of the bathroom to find that Corin had placed their slee ping bags on either side of it. “I don’t want to slee p next to that Barbie leg,” she whispered warily, looking at it as if it were a par ticularly disgusting insect.

A frowning Corin mur mured, “We won’t really be slee ping. How else do you expect to find out if the you-know-what does anything?” She was sure it would know if she talked about it directly, and in her attempts to convince Marion of its reality it had only become more real to her.

“What if . . . what if we fall aslee p and it does something?”

Marion asked shakily

Corin’s eyes g ot big and dar ted to the leg lying on the f loor between them. “Do you think it could really do anything, you know, bad? It hasn’t ever done much, just enough that I noticed, enough that I could see. ”

“I don’t know, Corin, it’s your leg. You know more about it than I do.” But she sat down on her unzipped slee ping bag and pulled half of it over herself.

“You might want to zip it,” Corin said, already settled into her own.

Marion looked at the leg. “Do you think it might crawl in here if I don’t?”

“Well, I don’t think it would crawl. It might scoot,” she said, “like a wor m. ”

T hat made Marion shiver, and she was sure to pull the zipper up as high as it would g o. T hey had lain there silently for a few minutes kee ping watch, when Marion whispered, “Corin, don’t fall aslee p, okay?”

“I don’t think I could if I wanted to,” she re plied. “But that doesn’t mean you g et to fall aslee p either If you do I’m g onna poke you. ”

“And if you do I’ll pinch you. ”

“If it hur ts I’m pinching you back.” Corin unzipped par t of her slee ping bag and g ot up to walk across the room

“Where are you g oing?” It came out almost like a whine.

“I have to tur n the light off.”

“Tur n the What? Why?”

“I have to or my mom or dad will see that it’s on and will know we aren’t slee ping. T here’s a nightlight by your head; I g ot the really bright one I used when I was really little.” Marion fumbled with the switch and manag ed to tur n it on before Corin switched off the light

“See, it’s plenty bright,” Corin said from inside her slee ping bag.

“Yeah, I guess so ” Neither of them spoke for a few minutes T hen, “Do you think it does more at night?” T here was no answer at first and Marion thought her friend had fallen aslee p already. “Corin?”

T here was a sniff, “Maybe.”

Marion hit her with Strichy, “You’re not supposed to tell me that!”

Corin snor ted and threw a bird at her. It was a stuffed blue jay. Wisenthor p and Guiny were on either side of her in her slee ping bag with their heads poking out “Quit putting ostriches in my face, I’m busy. You’re supposed to be looking too.”

“Well, fine.” Strichy retreated to Marion’s ar ms where she held her extra tight.

Corin tur ned over onto Wisenthor p and woke up. She pulled the owl out from under her and sat up. Glancing at the leg, she saw that it wasn’t moving and took a moment to r ub at her eyes. After a sizable yawn she looked at it ag ain It wasn’t where it had been before she had fallen aslee p. T he leg had been carefully placed in the center of the space between their slee ping bags. Now, it seemed to Corin, that it was rather a bit closer to Marion than it had been before. “Marion,” she half whispered and jabbed the other girl with her fing er.

“Ow!” Marion yelped, r ubbing her shoulder. “What’d you want?”

“Marion, it moved.”

“What? How?” She sat up and looked at it “Did you see it? What did it do?”

“Where was it before we fell aslee p?”

Marion looked at it for a moment, “I’m not really sure.”

Corin whispered, “I made sure I put it right in the middle Now look at it. Is it in the middle?”

“Maybe ” Marion’s eyes nar rowed. “No, I don’t think so, ” she amended.

“Where is it?”

“It’s closer to to me. ”

Corin nodded.

“You saw it do that?” Marion said, pointing at it and locking Strichy into a chokehold

“Well, no. I woke up and saw it was over there.”

Marion squealed, “You fell aslee p!”

“Ssh! So did you ”

Frowning, Marion asked, “So you didn’t actually see it do anything?”

“No, but it wasn’t over there before. I put it right in the middle so it wouldn’t be next to either of us. ”

“Are you sure it was right in the middle?”

“Oh, I’m positive,” Corin assured her.

“Maybe one of us hit it while we were aslee p, and that’s how it g ot there ” Marion had to tr y to think of some other reason why it might have moved closer to her. She really, really didn’t want it to have done so on its own. Why did it have to be her anyway? Why couldn’t it have been closer to Corin?

“Well, when I woke up I was laying on Wisenthor p, so maybe I hit it or something,” she said thoughtfully, hoping it was so.

Marion said, “We weren’t aslee p for that long, so it couldn’t have moved that far on its own. And I could have hit it too, you know, pulled it far ther toward me ” She made a face at the thought

“And maybe it wasn’t exactly in the middle. I could have bumped it when I was g etting up to tur n off the light,” Silence fell between them and it was so quiet that Marion could hear the clock ticking. “Could you tur n on the music box, I can hear the clock.”

“Yeah, okay,” Corin said. She scooted halfway out of her slee ping bag to reach where it sat on a low table that Marion thought she remembered seeing in her friend’s living room at one time Corin wound up the music box that had some sor t of porcelain bird atop it,

and it beg an to tinkle out a string of notes to some song that Marion couldn’t place T he ticking of the clock did not seem so loud

“You’re not g oing to fall aslee p ag ain are you?” she asked Corin.

T he other girl tried to hold back a yawn, “Nope.”

“Good.” Marion felt her eyes g etting heavier ever y time she blinked and they remained closed for long er and long er each time she shut them. At one point she thought she heard Corin snoring softly. After one par ticularly long str ug gle to open her eyes, she stretched them open wide to stare at the leg It didn’t move It probably had never moved at all.

Marion jerked awake, having suddenly felt like she was falling T he leg was right next to her face, and she froze with her hear t racing loudly in her ears. It hadn’t been this close to her before. As she stared at it, the small toes se parated and twitched about of their own accord, and Marion stif led a shriek. Her eyes dar ted over to Corin, hoping for rescue, only to find that the other girl had fallen aslee p, her r uddy hair falling over her closed eyes.

Parrot

Veronica M. Vollmer

Inner Child

Elizabeth Swoboda

As a young child I walked barefoot in the mud Relishing the squish of wet ear th beneath my toes Delving my fing ers into the g oo Delight seized me with the snakes and string that oozed out my clenching fists

T he mud would slither far ther up my ar ms and cree p Discreetly through my clothing

T he cool smooth texture fascinated me, Lulling the strict censures placed by mother, father, Aunt or other

Time passed without acknowledg ement Mud pies were made, Mini moats with stick drawbridg es emerg ed Cr edo this: Nir vana was brief ly achieved

T hen, my Peter Pan days waning, Bacteria is lear ned about, with its festering capabilities I g ain a g rowing vocabular y of harshly accented words: “Filth”

“Muck”

“Slime”

And worst of all, With its syllables echoing off white halls smelling of bleach: “Unsanitar y ”

Society washes, shapes and channels the Bespattered me into a respectable citizen Who tiptoes cautiously

Holding my hem with dainty fing ers Pink y raised

It is only ever y once in a while Perhaps it is the moon

Or the smell in the air

Sun-drenched mor nings after stor ms

I wish to dance

A spasmodic frenzy, Off my wor n path to my car

Out of my familiar indent on the couch

Away from the near letterless keys of my laptop and Into a mud puddle

endgame

Sarah E. Aber y

In a countr y just South of here, A dark girl bor n under the sun looks at me With her starless eyes and smiles Jenga.

Her g ame does not always follow the r ules. She stands her bamboo blocks ver tically In rows.

Six blocks standing tall create the base of her sk yscraper. Six is significant what a small number To balance so much Upon.

My eyes dizzy after counting twenty-six. ¡Jenga!

As ever ythin

She knows the ear th moves. She is accustomed

To the plates shifting beneath her feet

Her house, her city, her countr ywomen (and men), the Endang ered birds, frogs, plants and Insects ironically trapped

Under the shattered sanctuaries

Just below Volcán Poás where the water

No long er f lows . . .

T he children in the pover ty

Stricken daycare thir ty

Minutes away

All know

What we on the San Andreas Fault do not I g o from Jenga to air to g round

To air to g round ag ain And home.

My slee py house with slee ping cats and dog. I slee p

I hear no strang e birds. Or frogs. Or howler monkeys. Or car alar ms.

In my slee p, and on top of over passes I see T hose starless eyes, And I hear ¡Jenga!

“Three Children Dead in Science Experiment Gone Wrong”

—Parents claim to be distraught

Bobby Meile

We are off, dear parents, to the moon! You will not see us ag ain ver y soon. We wish to be rid of you.

For you see, oh parents dear, Our lives are not for you to steer. So stand back! Get clear!

It’s time to blast off ! We’ll g o all the way And then we’ll stay away.

T his rocket of glue and wood Cannot fail To make us free for g ood.

Sesame Street Roll

Elizabeth Swoboda

Ten Minutes ’Til the End of the World

Matthew Maniaci

The digital clock on the dresser read 8:36. It was a perfect June mor ning. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, the sk y was blue and cloud-free, and the world was g etting ready to g o to work.

T he weather man had predicted clear skies for the day, with the temperature in the mid 70s JD Smith stood on a chair in his closet, oblivious to the perfect day. He had located a rafter there, and had spent the past fifteen minutes breaking away at the ceiling plaster with a hammer. T he dust covered his head and shir t as though he had the worst dandr uff in the world. He counted himself luck y that he hadn’t hit any electrical work, ste pped down, and examined his work.

T he exposed wooden beam still had blue paint on it, marking the lot number it had been a par t of. T he underside bore a number of round dents from missed swings T he beam itself was hug e; JD guessed maybe 4x4 or big g er. T he hole was about a foot in diameter, sur rounded by the jag g ed edg es of the white plaster that made up the ceiling of the closet T he hole was dark, as the closet had no light inside and thus relied on the room lights for illumination.

8:37

JD dusted himself off, shook out his hair, and ste pped over to the dresser. Now that the hole had been made, his next concer n was his hair. His thick blonde hair was one of his g reatest physical assets. When he had g rown it long, all the girls wanted to br ush it Now, it was only about four inches long and par ted in the middle. He r ubbed his head furiously with his hands to remove any excess plaster dust, then picked up his br ush and cleaned it up as best he could. He looked

in the mir

ror, examining himself. He was striking in appearance, with a pronounced jaw line and cheekbones His nose fit his face perfectly, not too big, not too small, and perfectly straight. He had a clear complexion and no facial hair. Overall, ver y handsome. He smiled and stripped off his dusty shir t, changing into a fresh t-shir t. Red, his favorite color.

8:38

Having cleaned up, he ste pped over to the twin bed in the corner and picked up the white nylon rope that was laying on it. It had been tied with a special knot that he hadn’t known how to tie until yesterday T hank you, Google He hoped it would suppor t the weight

He walked back to the closet, ste pped back onto the chair, and secured the rope to the now-exposed rafter in the ceiling. He paused for a moment, ste pping down to make sure ever ything was right. He pulled out the list he had made in g reen pen on the back of an envelope from yesterday’s mail Looking at the front, he saw a hug e g old seal exclaiming that he may already be a winner. He g rinned and f lipped it over.

8:39

Get r ope. Check. JD had to bor row a nice heavy rope from a friend, but a ten-foot length of heavy nylon cord hadn’t been hard to come by.

Write note. Check. He had done that last night, spending hours making sure he included ever yone that needed to be there.

Lea ve note on counter Check He had placed it next to the phone with his roommate’s name on top. His roommate wouldn’t be home until 1:15, after he g ot out of class. Hopefully, he’d find it.

Lea ve a message on the machine. Check. JD had left a brief messag e on the answering machine that he and his roommate shared. It said simply, “I left a note for you on the counter. Make sure to read it.” His roommate always checked messag es when he g ot home. T his was to ensure that the note would be found.

Feed the cat Check He had already put extra food and water out for his roommate’s cat, which he hated. Damn feline always threw up on the couch and attacked JD’s shoelaces. However, as much as he

hated that cat, he was never mean to it and saw no need to be cr uel to it today

Clean up. Check. He had taken a long shower and shaved that mor ning, making sure to be presentable. He hadn’t thought of all the plaster dust though. Oh well. He wasn’t about to g o take another shower.

JD looked down at his list, reviewing it one last time. T here was one unchecked item, the last line on the envelope that he hadn’t crossed out. It was simple, really, just two little words emblazoned in g reen f lames on a dressy envelope

Kill self .

He sighed, cracked his neck, and tur ned back to the noose hanging in his closet

8:40

T he white nylon almost glistened in the sunlight coming in through the window T he rope was unfrayed, unstained, unused, and utterly perfect. It hung with just enough between it and the f loor to suspend a six-foot-tall man four inches above the g round. T he ver tical shadow it cast seemed to draw the distinction between this life and the end of the world. All around the room, the contents of the closet lay strewn about on the f loor in utter chaos. T he rope, however, hung perfectly still, the only order in the insanity that is the world. JD ste pped onto the chair ag ain, maybe for the last time, and tightened the noose around his neck. T he nylon was smooth and cool ag ainst his skin, and the long knot felt like an extension of his spine. T his was it.

T hinking for a second, he decided to ste p off the chair on the count of three He closed his eyes and beg an his count One T he sweat was beading on his forehead, r unning over his eyebrows and down his face in streaks. Two. His hear t was pounding, the timpani accelerating its roll before the climactic crash of cymbals.

His count was inter r upted by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket.

8:41

JD snapped his eyes open. He wondered who was calling him this early in the mor ning. He reached for the phone in his pocket and

checked the caller ID. Jess. T he girl from g rade school who had been his friend through ever ything She had set him up with his first date, listened to him talk about his first kiss, let him cr y on her shoulder after his first breakup. T hey talked about ever ything, from concer ns about the future to who was g oing to win the Super Bowl. He stared at the phone in awe, wondering why she was calling him at this time of mor ning. He f lipped open the phone and put it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“JD! I’m sur prised you answered! You’re usually aslee p right now What’s g oing on?”

Still shocked from the inter r upted count, JD had to process for a moment. “Oh, uh, not much, just felt like waking up early, that’s all ” He heard her gig gle

“Well, it’s about time you tur ned yourself into a mor ning person, ya big night owl! Staying up ’til three in the mor ning is bad for you!” She gig gled ag ain. “Oh, JD, you’ll never guess what happened to me this mor ning!”

JD swallowed ner vously He didn’t have time for this As much as he enjoyed Jess, he didn’t want to think about her now. “What happened, Jess?”

“I g ot a letter in the mail from Har vard Law! T hey acce pted me to g rad school! Isn’t that g reat!”

8:42

“T hat’s . . . awesome, I guess. Awesome.” While he was sincere, he sounded less than enthused. He hoped she would be too excited to pick up on it, though. T here was a pause from the other end Her voice suddenly became ster n

“JD, is something wrong?” He had been dreading that question since he picked up the phone.

“No, nothing’s wrong. Ever ything’s fine.” Exce pt for the noose.

“Jesse Dean Smith, don’t lie to me. Have you been taking your medication?”

JD had been on medication since middle school, when he was diagnosed with major de pression He had taken it ever y day for the past ten years, all the way up until three months ag o. He decided that he didn’t like how it numbed his thoughts, and would tr y without it.

He had been outwardly de pressed for a month and a half after the medication left his system, but had suddenly cheered up in the past few days. He knew it wouldn’t last.

“Yes ma ’ am, ” he said sarcastically. He had always hated those pills.

“JD, this is serious. Have you or haven’t you?”

JD put on a serious tone. “I promise I have.”

T here was another pause. “Solemnly Swear?”

JD winced. Between the two of them, “Solemnly Swearing” was an absolute promise of tr uth He had never lied when Solemnly Swearing, and as far as he could tell, neither had she. It was their oath. His mind was racing.

8:43

“I Solemnly Swear.”

“Good.” She sounded relieved. “You know you can talk to me if you have any problems, right?”

“We’ve only been doing it for what, four teen years?”

“Fifteen.”

“God, we might as well be mar ried ” JD suddenly felt g ood Talking to Jess always made him feel better when he was sad. He had been avoiding her since he stopped taking his pills. Since they lived 400 miles apar t, it wasn’t hard.

“Silly, you know it’d never work out between us. We’d bicker and fight over the dumbest stuff.”

JD laughed. “Honey, you forg ot to water the tomato plants ag ain! T hey’re g oing to die!” He heard her snicker.

“Aw, shut up, ya old coot! It was your tur n to water them yesterday anyway. ” She laughed. “Leave it to us to g o from serious to hilariously dumb in less than a minute.”

8:44

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. ” JD stared out of the open closet door, out the window, into the tree branches just outside. T he feel of the rope on his neck, the wobble of the chair he was standing on, the plaster dust that was visible in the air it was all g one, re placed

by his best friend, his childhood confidant, the one thing he still loved in this world He smiled and sighed

“What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t we g o through this already? Nothing’s wrong.”

“T hen why did you sigh just now?”

He chuckled. “You can sigh for other reasons than displeasure. I’m content.”

“Good.” T here was a pause from the other end of the line. “I hate to see you feeling bad. It always r ubs off on me, then I have a shitty day too ”

8:45

“Nothing’s wrong. Ever ything’s fine. Relax.” He tried to think up a decent excuse that would kee p her from asking ag ain. “I’m just waking up, that’s all.”

“You always were g r umpy in the mor nings. You old coot.”

“Hey, I’m not old yet ” Yet

“Yeah, well you can seem old sometimes.”

“T hanks.” JD paused for a moment. “Listen, I have to g o. I have something I have to do ”

“Well, don’t let me kee p you. ”

“Cong ratulations on your letter.”

“T hanks. And JD?”

“Yes?”

“Take care.”

“You too.”

8:46

JD hung up the phone. Outside, the sun shone, the birds chir ped, people went about their business, and the world went on. Lovers kissed, couples mar ried, babies were bor n, and people were happy. He knew that life was g ood, and he knew that there was someone out there who loved and appreciated him. He knew he didn’t have to do this. T here was hope.

JD Smith closed his eyes, smiled, and ste pped off the chair

Blues Scott Morg an

T hey say the talkin’ blues was made to be played by a black man, smoke-smellin’ an ’ whiskey-stained eyes.

His Ear th is real, his blues comes up from the air o ’ despair. His castle is a poolroom and his empire is a guitar.

T hey say the talkin’ blues is no domain for a white kid, colleg e pre pped and daddy’s car coke bur nt nose, eyes wide

with speed and a new case of her pes, a case of beer bottles with candles and incense to chant Grateful Dead tunes

money come, money g o down to the whorehouse or dr unk at the lake or finally busted on DWI, maybe his girl

left him or chang ed her g ender switched majors, dumped courses, visions of a bleak white line. Naw, that ain’t no blues to me, daddy.

Living out of Potential

Rebecca Laurel Wilson

I shed those sulfur boys

Like se ptic tanks spilling Over

Wor thless they were to me

Now my love isn’t on the lamb

Nor the chopping altar

We needn’t over-baptize ourselves

In compliments of how well beheaded we are

Just to be unconscious and free

Typed up from the free base

T he positively acce pted ion

Crouching on straight-backed chairs

In allowance of cold moons.

For Me

Derek Rife

Pressure in my ears as I f loat on the tips of redshifting stars

And g etting pulled down by voices accented by distance

Down I’m drawn into a dream disguised by caresses

Waking with the seasons passing faster with ag e

Forg etting to set aside time to breathe dee ply

Old fears catch me like dripping amber

Remembering the dang ers of desire

I let myself be held in a falsity

Inconsequential but war m

Dr unken scents soothe

Tastes in darkness

Are sweeter so

I close my

Eyes

A Phone Call

Mark East

All I can do Is sit here

Bleeding my brain of soul’s sor t and operatic org asm

Dogma-infused clerg y used lighting candles over ashes and dust

Such a delicate touch

Such a beautiful face

You were car ved from porcelain

With a blow torch

Hot-crazed climb threatening to jump

God, you should have seen the way her fing ers lay

It should have been me, bloated and blue with meningitis

Bathe in lukewar m water

Just an infection of the Dura Mater

T hey wipe the dead down with antise ptic cold

Silver dollars for the fer r y

Silver dollars for the fer r y

Dulcet beauty, my oval necklace frame, don’t you ever smile

Sweet, g org eous, e piphany of f lesh

Tr ying to smell your hair in the thin air

How I Stopped the War

Derek Rife

I tapped the glass despite the animal inside Smoke was heavy, and bells heavier Piercing peripheral sundials stopped dead By the hear t woven into my kevlar vest

I had never dreamed and couldn’t stop Hid out in the place that home hinted at I couldn’t take it in, so I took myself out Faster than a slug crawling through a cag e T he dust in my mouth was at once refreshing But suddenly an unfor tunate moment of clarity Str uck me through the scattering haze of my body And I sur rendered

Lighthouse

Veronica M. Vollmer

Indeterminacy

Jon Lampe

Cag e continued to play while Attila rocked back and for th on the piano bench, his hands pinched between his knees. It was something he picked up coping with amphetamines.

“Before, it was two dimensional.” His voice shook with his body. “T his is more than that. It’s a new mode of understanding.”

Cag e wasn’t listening. His eyes were half-lidded, and they f luttered like bed sheets. He followed the sheet music through a rigid chromatic staircase.

Attila froze, blue veins twisted up his forear ms, bulging from the pressure. When the music resolved the tension it created, he swayed back and for th ag ain. He explained fur ther, “T hesis, antithesis, synthesis.” He g estured an example: his right hand, T hesis, his left hand, Antithesis, and he folded them tog ether in supplication to Synthesis.

It was a twelve-tone composition Cag e stopped and sighed into his hands. He took the notebook down and closed it. T he blue cover was wrinkled with wear

“Is this an apolog y for stealing my shoes last week?” He went to the bookshelf and lifted the notebook to the top shelf His fing ers felt as empty as reeds.

“No ” T he rocking star ted ag ain

“Alright, then give me an example.”

“Of what?”

“What you’re g oing to do.”

“I’m thinking no-holds-bar red on substance abuse,” he smiled

“I thought that was already your policy.” Cag e came forward and leaned into the mouth of the piano. He caught a breath of metal and unfinished wood. He could just make out the copper-wound wires inside, fir m with tension.

“So I’m g oing to g o two weeks, and I’m g oing to document it.”

“And then,” Cag e said, “ you’ll g o sober for two weeks?”

“Yes. But now, I’ve g ot to g et my paycheck.”

Even with the windows open, the air in the room felt like an extra layer of clothing. An ambulance howled above the dull roar. He could see the sound wave like a ribbon, moving sinuously through the window.

“John?” T he ambulance passed them, and the pitch dropped as the wavelength sprawled.

“Yeah?” Cag e asked, distractedly.

“Will you drive?” Attila asked. “Your shoes are in my car.”

T he Lincoln banked slowly into each tur n. T he speedometer was broken, and Cag e tried to match the speed of nearby cars T he driver-side tire was nearly f lat, and it f lapped a 5/4 time signature in the wheel well

T he clouds cobbled tog ether a matte ceiling low overhead. T he trees popped under neath like a television with too much tint and contrast. T hey stopped once before Cag e took them outside of the city, stopping at a g as station for a fifth of whiskey and a bathroom break.

T hey nipped from the bottle, Attila conducting with his fing er and the occasional monosyllable. Cag e drifted through the ar terial roadwork. T he eighteen-wheelers and family sedans tapered away, and without a reference, the Lincoln hovered seemingly in stasis.

It only took them an hour and a half to g et to Fulton Once off the highway, Attila leaned out the window, squinting above the tree line. He pointed to a g roup of smokestacks overhead. He looked f lushed and prognathic in the pale light

Cag e used the smokestacks as a compass rose. Attila shrank away from the light and remained quiet as the Lincoln beelined to where he’d pointed.

Shuddering to a stop in front of the hospital, they both stretched out of the low seats with stiff legs. Attila shr ug g ed off his ar my sur plus jacket, slipping what was left of the fifth into the sleeve.

Cag e tur ned to face the vast lawn, and sunspots broke into his vision. T he whiskey oscillated up and down before settling in his knees, and he leaned ag ainst the car as his vision retur ned. He hur ried

toward the shade of the foyer, Attila already disappearing inside.

Nurses drifted across the black and white linoleum like leaves on a pond. T he white unifor ms radiated off the glossy tile as they went between doctors and visitors, patients and pills. Attila cut through the fog of white frocks. T he nurses tur ned away, and the doctors didn’t notice.

Cag e tailed behind him, watching the empty sleeve of the jacket. It slid across the linoleum, past the feet of a parlor g rand piano. Even far ther, it bumped the car peted staircase. T he sun pushed through the tall windows, driving him back, but he was pulled onward in some kind of riptide.

Attila fumbled for the railing, blinded. He tur ned back to Cag e who was still at the foot of the stairs, next to the piano.

“I’ll be right up,” Cag e said, thumbing along the wood g rain. Attila crossed the plateau under neath the window, his shadow lumbering beneath Cag e ’ s feet. He disappeared, following the stairs as they tur ned in on themselves

Cag e sat on the bench, wiping his clammy hands on the thighs of his jeans Two keys in the highest octave were chipped Smudg ed with play, they hadn’t yellowed a bit. He rested his hands on the soiled keys and knew by the weight that it was g enuine ivor y

T he f lapping tire had ke pt the timing of Tchaikovsk y ’ s Allegr o con Graz ia, and Cag e had meant to play it He strayed from the composition after only a few notes, the whiskey f luttering in his chest.

Fing er-crossing, he climbed through the octaves Near the high end, the hammer str uck something other than string. A metallic bite pealed from under the hood.

Hands clenched, he stooped forward. With his head under the hood, he waited for his eyes to adjust. Wrapped around one of the hammers was a Fanta can.

He left the piano, his ar ms stiff at his sides. Scaling the stairs, his footfalls were hushed by the padded car pet. T he sun was hot in his ears beneath the window, and he looked to the inside of the piano ag ain. His shadow eclipsed the mouth, and ever ything beneath was g one.

T he top of the staircase opened into a hallway. A few men loung ed around. T heir slippers scuffed along the linoleum as they shifted from window to window, the light almost f luorescent as it came through the clouds. Wor n door mats and mismatched fur niture sprawled out of each doorway.

A patient towered over Attila down the hall. His plaid robe draped down into a puddle at his ankles. He bent his ar ms at the elbows as if he were holding the handles of a bicycle.

“Clement, are you sure you haven’t seen Samuel?” Attila asked, adjusting the jacket in his ar ms. “I’ve g ot something I need to give him.”

“Samuel?” he said, wig gling his jaw and adjusting his chew. “Haven’t seen Samuel in a while.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean just how I mean, ” he said, gumming some more. “He’s g one. ”

Clement’s ar ms were apparitions, otherworldly. T hey disappeared into the folds of the robe.

“What’s he doing?” Cag e asked, nodding.

Attila tur ned to him, his face whitewashed and blank. T he question went away dee p inside him and came back. He asked, “What are you doing, Clement?”

“Plowin’ the field, Dave Just plowin’ the field ”

Lawn mowers fired to life outside as they made their way back downstairs Outside the shadow of the foyer, the sun chased the whiskey through Cag e ’ s veins. He fumbled for the railing, yielding to a budding headache

He waited beside the Lincoln. Attila hadn’t followed him out. He looked down the throat of the hallway, the piano sat quietly in the sun.

Back in the foyer, he could smell the Fanta T here weren’t any nurses to push through as he stumbled toward the bench.

A filing cabinet pitched through the office window T he pane of glass burst, f looding around the legs of the piano. Light broke out in small spindles from the small cr ystals. Gutted, the cabinet spattered papers onto the f loor.

Cold sweat cre pt out of his hot hands. He lumbered forward, looking in through the broken window. Attila stood with his back to the door. Motionless, the nurse stood like a piece of fur niture at the center of the room. Two orderlies poured in from the back office, barely fitting through the doorway.

Cag e could only hear him with his eyes now. Attila’s shoulders bulg ed under his thin jersey. T he orderlies held their ar ms out in an identical fashion. T heir hands braced the air around them. Attila shook, his skin red ag ainst the white walls, nurses, palms, and papers. He slipped on the broken glass as he came out the door, catching himself with his open hand before he went down. T he orderlies tailed behind him. He pitched into Cag e, and they scrambled down the stairs to the street. An envelope f lapped between Attila’s fing ers, blue with the tone of the sun.

T he orderlies stood motionless in the doorway. Attila gnashed

his teeth, and it still came from him in barks. Cag e couldn’t understand what he was saying. T he orderlies didn’t make a move. Before he tucked himself behind the wheel, he looked back for a last look at the piano, but it was blocked by the men in white.

Cag e punched the Lincoln forward, ignoring stop signs and catching the curb on shar p tur ns. T hey rolled down the windows, and the wind r ushed in at them. Attila slouched, his face dr ying out.

Cag e ’ s ears popped, and he closed his eyes as the adrenaline g ave way to the whiskey ag ain. He felt like he’d been buried dee p underg round. T houghts fell away like pieces of stone.

“Just pull up here,” Attila said, pointing at the park nearby.

T he Lincoln jumped the curb, g rinding for a moment Cag e pulled under the shade of a thick sug ar maple. Too close, the door wouldn’t open, and he had to climb out the window

T hey sat on the hood of the car, Attila reclining ag ainst the windshield He teased the mouth of the bottle out of the sleeve and took a small tug. T he wind picked up, r unning across the high g rass into the trees

“I worked there by mistake. I was tr ying to g et to St. Louis.”

Cag e looked for the smokestacks, but he could only find the crest of a few slated roofs.

“I’d had a handful of pills from someone I met at a g as station, he said he could give me a lift. I still can’t believe I left. I didn’t drink much in his car, but I threw up on his f loorboards.

“I didn’t hear much of what he’d said, only that he’d drop me at the next exit. I waited with my head between my legs, strings of snot r unning into my pants.”

He dug into his pockets, his hands. Cag e pulled a knee up and picked absently at the seam of the leg.

“From the exit ramp, I made it to this park.” He set two keys near his foot, squinting at a line of nearby trees. “I think it was somewhere on the other side over there.”

His fist closed on something else in his pocket, and he str ug gled to tur n it loose. An ear of the envelope spilled out between his fing ers, it unfolded on the hood of the car. Something fell from the fur row.

“I lay face down, and the cool g round at night made my stomach feel better. I thought of the wife I’d left.”

He picked under the envelope, and he held it between his fing er and thumb. He put it on the back of his tongue with a motion

that looked like he’d whistle at any moment. Instead, he pulled his hand out and wiped his fing ers dr y on his socks.

“I g ot a job back there. At night, I sle pt in the mattress closet or an empty bed. Most of the orderlies did.”

Printed on the front of the envelope was the name David Hunsaker. T he envelope rocked on its elbow in the wind.

“I met Samuel there. I found him stuck between his bed and the wall with boot prints on his back. He had to have his ar m set in a cast for the rest of the time I knew him.”

His voice waxed, and he fished loose another pill. Pocket lint wrapped around the veneer, he br ushed it free and sent it after the other.

“You saw the door mats. Well, Samuel had a screen door on his room. T he next shift, I saw him outside his room. I didn’t say anything, and he only made a joke He asked if I’d known a black man could g et a black eye. ”

Cag e ’ s fing ers rested on the seams Something blossomed, and he ke pt mute. Attila was building something, and listening was just as implicit in its creation as talking

“T he doctors said he’d lost his wife, and that’s why he was there He couldn’t live in the same house anymore ”

A parade of cr umpled shooters came out of his pockets now. He picked through the pills, different colors and sizes He f licked some into a pile with his fing er tips, the nail stained with oil and dir t. Others he threw into the weeds beside the car

Cag e pulled off the bottle, watching the careful calculation of Attila’s hands. He set the bottle quietly on the hood.

After sifting through the pills, he split them into two shooters. He held one out to Cag e, the palm caked in dr y blood. Uptur ned, it sparkled in the daylight. Cag e pinched the shooter between his fing ers, the capsules pitched around at the bottom.

Attila held his up, and the sun crawled into his dark eyes.

“Samuel,” he said.

Cag e put his head back, and the pills rolled down his tongue. Attila g rabbed the bottle in one hand, and the other trembled open. He upset the bottle, washing away some of the blood. T he brown f luid ran through his fing ers, and his breath escaped like steam through his bared teeth.

T he fifth was about g one, and they took a few more minutes to finish it. T he trees shook their ar ms, and Cag e could see the rooftops puncture the sk y. Attila pinched glass out his wet palm, f licking them into the weeds.

Cag e twisted off the hood. He held on to the tree, climbing

in the window. “Ready to g o?” he said, sitting on the door.

T he trees continued to shift their weight, and the leaves shook a violent cymbal r ush.

“I don’t know.” He dropped the bottle, and it rolled into the hem of the weeds.

Cag e was g rateful he’d g otten uppers. His hear t was loud and er ratic in his ears like shoes in a dr yer. He overcame waves of nausea by closing his eyes.

Attila had stopped talking once they reached the highway. His head lolled to his shoulder, and he drooled thick stalactites down the front of his jersey. Cag e wasn’t sure if he was slee ping, but he closed Attila’s eyes with his fing ers

Outside the apar tment, Cag e tried to nudg e him awake. Attila slid into the door Restless, Cag e went around and pulled him out onto the sidewalk. He could see one of his shoes on the backseat, but he couldn’t find the other one

Someone coming out held the door for them. He wrapped his ar m around Attila’s back and hoisted him up the stairs Occasionally, Attila’s knees would lock as if he was tr ying to help, and Cag e would rest

Once inside, he abandoned Attila to the couch. He stood at the window, clenching his jaw It had rained through the window while they were g one, and the window sill was still wet.

T he sun was g oing down. Cag e took down the notebook. He stood it above the keys, the blue cover faded and creased. He jerked his leg up and down, looking around the room.

It was a little after four-thir ty. T he dr um of exhaust outside washed through the window. Attila dribbled into the cushion with something wetter than snoring. He shivered in his slee p, and his eyes rolled in his head.

Cag e ’ s shoes scuffed the wooden f loor beneath the piano, and he pinched his hands between his knees. Tendons inside his ar m pulsed ar rhythmically. He listened to the sounds of the room. Insulated by the crackling air, the hum of their bodies was somehow all around them.

T he keys looked like ivor y in the passing light. He didn’t issue a sound. He could hear his chest moving beneath his clothes. Latent, but complicit, he sat unmoving.

T he room abstracted, and there was only the sound of listening.

Repetition

Kendra Wright

Biog raphies and Editors’ Notes

Biographies

Sarah E. Aber y is cur rently pursuing underg raduate deg rees in Spanish and English at UM-St. Louis. Her life was forever chang ed after taking a trip to Costa Rica through the school’s travel abroad prog ram in 2008–2009. T hough Sarah has no par ticular career plans, she knows she loves speaking Spanish and reading literature. She hopes to combine both interests in future g raduate studies. Sarah also loves nature. She writes poetr y when the wind plucks her strings.

Maria T. Balogh is an assistant teaching professor in the De par tment of Anthropolog y & Languag es at UM-St. Louis. Maria created an Introduction to Creative Writing in Spanish course for Spanish majors and Spanish high school teachers. She writes in both Spanish and English, but mostly in English, and her poetr y has been published in various jour nals and anthologies. One source of inspiration for Maria is the endless supply of stories, anecdotes, and myths around her native land, Columbia, South America Maria car ries a little notebook with her, but she rarely uses it because most of the time she can remember her ideas and thoughts.

Joe Betz is a student in the M.F.A. prog ram with a focus in poetr y. He works in the UM-St. Louis writing lab fifteen hours per week and wants to see your poems. Joe teaches creative writing as an adjunct faculty member at Saint Louis Community Colleg e at Florissant Valley, when the job is available. Joe's future career g oal is to teach creative writing and composition at the university level full time.

Rober t M. Bliss, as only avid readers of Bellerive back issues will know, was bor n two years (to the day) before Adolf Hitler belatedly took his pills Since then, Bob’s main distinction is that he has been fir mly and almost symbiotically attached to the public purse, absorbing (inter alia) a free public school education from the state of Iowa, a heavily discounted g raduate education from the state of Wisconsin, and a couple of years at Oxford University as the guest (first year) of a U.S. tax break to a rat poison inventor and as an

unintended beneficiar y (second year) of Mag gie T hatcher’s effor ts to curb British public spending. He has thus become a g reat believer in throwing tax money at public problems in a two-prong ed effor t to understand and then solve those problems, and he periodically calls upon the Missouri legislature to help him continue to act on these beliefs. Since they periodically answer, he writes poetr y. T hankfully.

Brittany D. Dean is an underg raduate working towards her B A in English. She has a Writing Cer tificate, and she is cur rently org anizing her por tfolio in hopes of being acce pted into the M F A prog ram at UM-St. Louis. Brittany is also working on self-publishing a chapbook series of wolf poems through Author House Publishing. Brittany tends to write about erotic and raw subjects, but most recently she has become inspired by the natural world, her native heritag e, and especially wolves. Gina Farag o ’ s writing provided the inspiration Brittany needed to tap into that natural and wolf realm. Brittany’s g oal is to inspire others the way other poets and writers have inspired her.

Mark DeBar r, a Ph.D. student of Criminolog y at UM-St. Louis, hopes to develop as a researcher and university professor. Mark is considering focusing his future research on the ways that the org anizational behavior of law enforcement ag encies affects crime, neighborhoods, and the perce ptions of residents. Mark’s photog raph, “Two Surfers,” is indicative of the natural beauty that he and his wife Erica seek out and tr y to capture on film. Mark has also photog raphed the mouth of the Russian River in Califor nia where it empties into the Pacific Ocean.

Mark East is a g raduate student at UM-St. Louis. He is studying for an English M.A. and plans to pursue a doctorate someday. Mark writes when he can’t slee p, and he can’t slee p when he doesn’t write. He thinks that inspiration is something none of us can put our hands around, and it’s a g ood thing we can’t, because we would choke it to death if we could.

Peter Fuss was bor n in Berlin, Ger many, where at the ag e of three he became a rabid Nazi. Four years later he re pented this, emig rated to the United States, and immediately became a baseball junkie. Even though Peter spent his time at Har vard skiing and playing touch football, he did receive a Ph.D. in Philosophy and then went on to teach. He retired in 1999 but has continued to teach at Pier re Laclede Honors Colleg e because he can teach things that are close to his hear t, such as Dante, Melville, and Freud. He enjoys teaching there because most of his students aren’t wiseasses. He and his most recent wife hope to trade in their overly mor tg ag ed home in the Central West End for an abandoned bar n somewhere in r ural Missouri. In reference to his piece, Peter noted that “or ts” are the bits of rock discarded either when mining g old and silver, or later during the smelting process.

Julie M. Gram, an East Coast-er by bir th, came to the Dean’s Office as a staff member in the Colleg e of Optometr y in 1990 by way of South Carolina, Oreg on, and Arkansas She revels in “playing” with photog raphy and reading the latest literar y jour nals from her cur rent and for mer campus affiliations. T he unexpected outcomes of adventures with non-traditional photog raphy, such as swinging or shaking the camera with long exposures, remain a passion of Julie’s. But she also says that sometimes, with luck, a head-on traditional shot captures the real, and can be as heady as dabbling in the sur real.

Joe Har rington is a jerk. A complete kneebiter. Despite a sneaking suspicion that he might be illiterate, he likes to write. Specifically, he likes to type he finds that it’s a lot easier to pretend he knows how to read and write when he types because, that way, he can just slam his hands ag ainst the keyboard and hope for the best. Joe doesn’t often submit writings for publication, but his work may be found in such esteemed locations as the top drawer of his desk.

Daniel Hasemann is an underg raduate with a major in Biolog y and a minor in Classical Studies at UM- St. Louis. He dreams of

becoming an evolutionar y biologist, a fiction writer, a translator, or an assistant manag er at Dunkin’ Donuts after g raduating. Daniel enjoys classical literature, sci-fi and fantasy, ping pong, camping, music, foreign films, and g ardening with native plants

Lyndsay M. Johnson is a g raduate student of English Literature at UM-St. Louis. She resides in Maplewood with her husband, her cat, and her chinchilla. She plans to continue her education in hopes of becoming a documentarian of cr yptozoological creatures around the world. Lyndsay draws much of her creative inspiration from dive bars, r ural towns, and global mytholog y, and she is often fondly refer red to by her family as a “ ne ’er-do-well.”

Jon Lampe g raduated in December 2009 with a B.A. in English and a Writing Cer tificate. Jon won the Excellence in Writing Award for Fiction in 2008 and 2009, and he has also had works published in Litmag and previous issues of Bellerive. As he embarks on adventures beyond the B A , Jon hopes to continue writing and publishing.

Diana Long is a Fine Ar ts major at UM-St. Louis. She hopes one day to become an ar t teacher or an illustrator. Since Diana was a young child, she knew she was meant to be an ar tist. She feels that God put her on this ear th to bring beauty into the world through ar t Diana is inspired by many things, and she loves color, especially on dancers’ costumes and exotic birds.

Jessica Luther is a g raduate student in the Colleg e of Education at UM-St. Louis. She completed her underg raduate deg ree in English at Tr uman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. She works in commercial loans at a local private bank, but Jessica daydreams of becoming a writer or folk sing er She claims to have little aptitude for either but passion to spare. In her free time Jessica explores her Soulard neighborhood, attends local concer ts, listens to NPR, or scribbles ideas for stories and mixed tapes. Although officially retired for m lifeguarding, Jessica often wakes up with sunbur ned skin and the smell of chlorine in her hair. She still rarely wears skir ts, but she no long er has a g ap in her teeth.

Matthew Maniaci, when not writing submissions for literar y mag azines, enjoys playing the piano, surfing the web, and making a fool of himself on his local Dance Dance Revolution machine. He majored in Technical Writing it’s actually more complicated than that and he hopes to write g rant proposals for nonprofit org anizations. If forced to pick, he would choose technical documents over creative pieces. Sor r y, prose writers.

Bobby Meile is a g raduate student in the Biolog y prog ram at UMSt. Louis. He enjoys reading, writing, and arithmetic, in about that order. Bobby has worked on four previous issues of Bellerive and is happy to continue contributing to its success, however he can.

Caleb Miller is a recent g raduate of UM-St. Louis. He majored in Philosophy and minored in Ger man Studies Cur rently, Caleb is studying for a master’s deg ree at Covenant Seminar y. In his free time he enjoys playing Call of Duty and watching old e pisodes of House and Red Dwarf.

Scott Morgan is an English M A student at UM-St Louis, where he also received his B.A. in English. He g raduated from Parkway West High, loves toasted ravioli, and prefers Herzog to La Russa Scott lives in Fenton, Missouri with his wife Patricia (a g raduate student at Webster University) and their two children, James and Meag an. W hen Scott is not busy with research papers or his full time job, he likes to listen to Zappa, hang out with his kids, cook with his wife, or roughhouse with his Australian She pherd, Cinnamon. Scott’s favorite writers include Bradbur y, Sexton, Donne, Heinlein, Lovecraft, Ster n, and our ever-living poet, Mr. W.S., “all happinesse and that eter nitie promised.”

Louis M. Nahlik is majoring in Graphic Design with a minor in Ar t Histor y. Louis plans to continue his education and attain a deg ree in either Ar t Histor y or Mag azine Jour nalism. Most of his outside interests revolve around ar t and music. He loves reading, and g oing to concer ts, museums, and lectures. Louis has written his entire life and has been especially focused on writing for the past

four years. He is inspired by books, nature, human interaction, ar t, and music.

Faisel Per vaiz is five-feet, ten inches of pure Pakistani ecstasy. As a Finance major, Faisel has the mind of a businessman. But he also has the hear t of an ar tist. Photog raphy is a passion that allows him to show others what he sees, even if they think they’ve already seen it. In addition to his year-round tan, Faisel enjoys words, music, and meeting people. He believes that the pursuit of knowledg e is absolute and that a g ood friend is wor th more than one ’ s weight in g old Faisel sincerely hopes for more chances to share his ar t Until then, salaam (peace).

Heather Poss is an underg raduate student pursuing a deg ree in English with a concentration in Communication Ar ts. After g raduating in May of 2011, she plans to teach in the Hazelwood School District or in the Pattonville School District as an elementar y school instr uctor g rades five or six Her favorite author is Edg ar Allen Poe, and she loves to create pieces that are a little out of the ordinar y and that prompt self-assessment. T he poem “Me, Myself, and I” was created obsessively, in the sense that it woke her up in the middle of the night and gnawed at her to write. T he poem is published here in its most recent version.

Derek Rife, a sophomore in the Honors Colleg e at UM-St. Louis, majors in Mechanical Engineering. In addition to writing his poems, Derek plays the bass and collects music. His inspiration comes from Tetris-induced hallucinations, T he Kids in the Hall, the backs of cereal boxes, and his dee p concer n for the human condition. Derek is a self-proclaimed “cynical, sycophantic iconoclast, traversing tumultuous literar y ter rain with an inherent perce ption of happenstance ascer tained through deduction and metabolic subtext . . . paradigm.” Uncompromising in his ar t, unwavering in his vision, bewildering in his motivation, long-winded in his facetiousness, cognitive in his dissonance, the man, the myth: Derek Rife

Elizabeth Swoboda is working toward a B.A. in English at UMSt. Louis. She hopes one day to be a published novelist and enjoys kee ping her thumb on the pulse of the literar y world through literar y editing. She is also pursuing a Music minor and enjoys writing her own music. Her submitted work is the fr uit of much labor. However, she would like to give special recognition to Geri Friedline and Michael Nye for encourag ement and constr uctive criticism within their seminars.

Jaclyn Trieb is an underg raduate Media Communications major and Biblical Studies minor. She recently transfer red from UM-St. Louis to Nor th Central University in Minneapolis. T here she is involved with Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, choir, and Students in Free Enter prise. Photog raphy has always been a favorite pastime for Jaclyn, and she is happy to be a par t of the Bellerive publication this year.

Veronica M. Vollmer is a senior in the Fine Ar ts De par tment of UM-St. Louis working toward her Bachelor’s deg ree in Photog raphy, with a minor in Ar t Histor y. She is also in the Teacher Cer tification Prog ram and hopes to become an ar t educator.

Veronica was raised most of her life in St. Louis City. Her passion is photog raphing architecture and her sur roundings. Veronica looks forward to sharing her love and knowledg e of photog raphy with her own students when she begins teaching

Lauren Wilding is cur rently a full-time student in the English M.A. prog ram at UM-St. Louis. She g raduated from Fontbonne University with a B.A. in English in 2008. As an underg raduate, Lauren was a co-editor for the campus literar y publication, Chiasma. Some of her poems have been published in Chiasma. Lauren’s prose and poetr y responds to re presentations of the mind/body dichotomy presented by other female poets. Her stor y, “Par ts,” was sparked by memories of incor porating the disconnected appendag es of Barbie dolls into g ames of makebelieve with her young er sister. She volunteers for Laumeier Sculpture Park and her future hopes include working in a museum as she continues her writing.

Rebecca Laurel Wilson is an underg raduate Nursing major at UM-St. Louis. She has not yet selected a specific branch of nursing, but Rebecca hopes that she will be able to help others as a traveling nurse, and that she will be able to live and work throughout the United States. She has worked in Yellowstone National Park and she has future plans to work in Denali, Alaska. Rebecca caught the “travel bug” during a series of adventures that included hitchhiking home from Alaska. Rebecca is also a beekee per, and she loves bicycles, ar t and ar t-making, urban exploring, science, and speaking Spanish.

Julianne Wise, a senior in the Fine Ar ts De par tment at UM-St. Louis, is working on her Bachelor’s deg ree in Photog raphy. She plans to pursue a Master’s deg ree in Ar t T herapy at SIUE. Julianne has been ice skating for twelve years and teaches children and adults how to skate in her spare time.

K endra Wright is a Media Studies major at UM-St. Louis. After g raduating she plans to attend the Musicians Institute in Hollywood for the Music Business Prog ram. Kendra is a hug e optimist and tries to find new experiences and adventures on a daily basis. She fell into photog raphy by mere accident, and though she shoots freelance regularly, her favorite photos have been captured in unplanned moments. Kendra is thankful for all the suppor t of her two big g est fans, her mother and g randmother, as well as the others that relentlessly suppor t her creative endeavors, reg ardless of how ridiculous they may be.

Editors’ Notes

Faculty Advisor s’ Note of Thanks

With this issue of Belleri ve we celebrate the l0th year of our publication at the Pier re Laclede Honors Colleg e. Interestingly enough, this year also marks the 20th anniversar y of our colleg e and the 30th anniversar y of our honors prog ram. So as we introduce ar chipelago and celebrate the milestones, we thought it appropriate to ref lect, just a little, on the histor y of the publication and the seminar that produces it.

Ten years ag o our Dean, Bob Bliss, and the Director of Writing, Nancy Gleason, came up with the idea and the money to star t a creative writing publication. After a note inviting students to a planning meeting, three students joined Nancy and tog ether they wrote a mission statement and submission policy. Working in their free time, the students collected hard copy submissions, selected pieces, edited them and created the first issue, Alter ed States.

T hree years and three issues later, the Belleri ve honors seminar took shape, and since that time, students g ather on Friday after noons each fall semester and create a new issue. T hen, on a Friday after noon each spring, these students g ather with submitters, faculty, staff, and guests to celebrate their issue, their g rowth and experience, and their place in an evolving tradition that contributes to a campus-wide writing community.

Over the past decade, 130 students have par ticipated in the publication process. Approximately 800 students, staff, and faculty from across the entire campus have tr usted us with their literar y and ar tistic submissions And 4,250 total copies of the ten issues have been printed. An idea has become a reality, and volunteers are now considered staff.

Please join us in celebrating this Pier re Laclede Honors Colleg e tradition and in thanking each person who has contributed to the creation of each issue of Belleri ve, as well as all who have purchased our publication. As we look forward to creating our next issue, we would also like to pause and thank the members of this year’s Belleri ve seminar for their hard work and dedication. We hope you enjoy your new copy!

Our sincere thanks,

Geri Friedline and Nancy Gleason Faculty Advisors

Bobby Meile and David K ear ns Editing Committee chairs

Weeding through many perfidious periods, calamitous commas, and salacious spelling er ros, the Editing committee is happy to bring you this year’s edition of Belleri ve, completely er ror-free or your money back.* We want to thank our Editing underlings Joe, Ashley, Ena, Erika, and Elizabeth for all the work and care they put into this issue

*War ning: any attempts at finding er rors are taken at the reader’s own risk Extreme cases of insomnia have been re por ted in some subjects

If any er rors are found, we ask that you simply pretend that they do not exist, after which you may submit any imagined er rors at a time and place of your choosing so long as it is nowhere near the aforementioned Bellerive staff or their affiliates “Money back” is considered to be a hyperbolic device and in no way g rants or gifts the finder g ain, monetar y or otherwise.

Dan Diecker Layout Committee Chair

After three years of working on Belleri ve, my tenure as a parag raph wrangler is coming to a close. In that time, I’ve put in an inordinately larg e amount of effor t to g et each issue of Belleri ve finished I’ve chang ed dashes to hyphens and hyphens to dashes. I’ve obsessed over bleed space and margins. I’ve even in the wildest, craziest of times chang ed commas to semi-colons and right-justified text

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the monumental collaborative effor t put for th by the entire class. In my three years, I’ve had the privileg e of working with some wonderful people. Each year is different; the staff of Belleri ve takes on students of all disciplines, and with the various backg rounds re presented in the class come different tastes and preferences. T hose differences are what make this book exce ptional

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other two members of this year’s layout team, Kelly Rohlf and Chris Stewar t. Without their

help, the process of assembling this book wouldn’t have g one as smoothly T hey also put up with me obsessively guarding the digital copy of the book. T hat’s quite a feat.

Tom Dixon Communications Committee Chair

What do you g et when you take four super awesome people, a list of e-mail addresses, a bunch of Friday after noons and put it all tog ether? T he 2009 Bellerive Communications Committee. T his class has been a g reat lear ning experience and made for a fun semester We were given the difficult job of sor ting through pag es upon pag es of biog raphical infor mation after of course tracking down the authors to provide details and fitting the interesting infor mation we received into the space available in the book While this task proved challenging and time consuming, we joined tog ether and did something that we couldn’t have accomplished as individuals. We hope that Belleri ve 2009 will illustrate commitment to the ar ts at UM-St Louis

Kyle Mueller Ar t Committee Chair

T he Ar t Committee is responsible for the presentation of submitted ar twork to Belleri ve. As a committee we present ar twork to the class with the ar tist’s original intent in mind. Color, however, must be considered in the context of the limitations of Belleri ve; only one piece, the cover ar t, shows up in color once the book is printed. T herefore, in the aspect of fair ness, we show the class each piece of ar t as it was submitted and then in its black and white for m. As a committee we have no more say over what pieces are selected to appear in the book than the rest of the class. We merely infor m the g roup of select ar tistic merits of each piece using fancy words like “composition,” “hierarchy,” or even “size.” It is enjoyable to speak as though we are pretentious ar t critics, but the most fun we have is in creating the cover and in seeing the class’s hard work culminated in a physical, finished book.

Staff Photograph

Back

Geri Friedline, Kristy Cobillas, Daniel Diecker, Tom Dixon, Ashley Pereira, Chelsey Maylee, Kelly Rohlf, Elizabeth Swoboda, David Kear ns, Joe Har rington, Bobby Meile, Ena Selimovic, Nancy Gleason.

Not

Kyle Mueller, Jessica Keil

Front Row from Left: Derick Alison, Erika Stasiak, Pink y Yan

Row from Left:

Pictured:

Pierre Laclede Excellence in Writing Contest

2008–2009 Winner s

1000–level Honor s Class

Charles Diehl

“T he Histor y of the American Dream”

Honors 1201, Cultural Traditions II, taught by Dan Ger th

2000–level Honor s Class

Alex Detmering

“Church Words: T he Etymolog y of Damnation and Salvation”

Honors 2010, Introduction to Etymolog y, taught by Dr. Peter Fuss

3000–level Honor s Class

Joe Har rington

“Love and Death: Sophisticated Dreck”*

Honors 3010, Woody Allen and his Inf luences, taught by Dan Ger th

4000–level Fiction

Jon Lampe

“Indeter minacy”*

Honors 4900/English 4892, taught by Michael Nye

* T hese pieces are featured earlier in this book.

Louis M. Nahlik

Interested in becoming par t of Bellerive? Submit your work! Submission boxes and for ms are located in the Millenium Center Bookstore, English De par tment Office, and just inside the door to the Provincial House on South Campus. Not on campus that often, or are the boxes out of your way? Submit electronically to:

bellerivesubmit@umsl .edu

Please attach all files individually, and include a se parate sheet with a list of your submissions and their titles.