Cover: Orange and Blues, chalk pastel by Jesse Heater
Inside Front Cover: Four Forms, chalk pastel by Joe Talleur
Masthead: photograph by Lucas Hayden
Inside Back Cover: Gaucho Poster, digital by Leo Hahn
Back Cover: Unforgettable Journey, photograph by Andrew Hunt
3 Paper Crane, poetry by Andrew Hunt
4 Self-Portrait, pencil by Dominic Benoist
5 A Step into the Night, prose by Gideon Taylor
7 Shade of Light, photograph by Andrew Hunt
8 Chuck Close, charcoal by Max Besmer
9 The Potato Eaters, poetry by Otto Reitenbach
9 The Potato Eaters, by Vincent Van Gogh
10 The Colors of a New Perspective, print by Peter McGroarty
11 Ferguson, poetry by Gavin Simon
12 Light Pollution, poetry by Warnicke Beatty
13 Self-Portrait, print by Dormene Naasah
14 Gravity, digital by Leo Hahn
15 Song of Extinction, fiction by Charles Dougherty
16 chalk pastel by Mark Schoemehl
17 A Tribute to Tony, poetry by Gabe Altier
18 Catēna (360), poetry by Jens Istvan
19 Junior Ring, colored pencil by Rudy Reitenbach
20 Colors and Ink, print by Warnicke Beatty
21 Delmar, poetry by Monroe Terry
22 Notes My Dad Has Taken, poetry by Andrew Hunt
23 If, poetry by Jack Williamson
23 Dogwood Flower, photograph by Guhan Anbukumar
24 Street Scene - Puerto Plata, photograph by Patrick Zarrick
25 like a kiss from dad, poetry by Jay Carroll
26 Dawn, poetry by Peter Knapp
26 Blue Line, photograph by Lucas Hayden
27 print by Owen Van Deven
28 October 12, 2024, poetry by Madhavan Anbukumar
28 Stone Crop, photograph by Guhan Anbukumar
29 Lanterns Open in Search of Wisdom, by Paul Thibodeau
30 God’s Plan, pencil by Guhan Anbukumar
31 January, poetry by Adrian Samaniego
32 Montserrat, photograph by Luke Schall
33 Fire in Rome, by Hubert Robert, poetry by Noah Butler
34 Fire in Rome, by Hubert Robert
35 print on cut paper by Jack Puckett
36 a tree’s mental life, poetry by Jaden Yarbrough
37 Cherry Tree, digital by Leo Hahn
38 Dissonance, pencil by Henry Diemler
39 Burning Rubber, poetry by Gus Talleur
39 Woodland Toys, carvings by Rudy Reitenbach
40 FROM: ASTRID, poetry by Brendin Keutzer
41 Hairy Eyebrow, pencil by Matty Kleinberg
42 In One Year, poetry by Edmund Reske
42 Rock and Roll, pencil by Warnicke Beatty
43 Miss Cherry Blossom Pie, poetry by Andrew Hunt
43 Old Railroad Town, pencil by Michael Ewersmann
44 Terror Bird, digital by Leo Hahn
45 the tribulations of trying to pee when you’re queer, poetry by Cooper Capdeboscq
46 It’s Really Not That Deep, poetry by Franklin Buckeridge
46 Nike Blazer, ceramic by Brady Vogt
47 The Wedding Day, fiction by Patrick Byrne
48 Snow Day, digital by Jesse Heater
49 photograph by Madhavan Anbukumar
50 Sea Breeze, photograph by Luke Schall
51 Where You Found It, lyrics by Frank Kovarik
52 The Stories We Don’t Know, poetry by Jens Istvan
52 Lone Bison, photograph by Luke Schall
53 Soapbox, poetry by Monroe Terry
54 Paraceratherium, digital by Leo Hahn
55 Marthasville, photograph by Jens Istvan
56 Thriptated, fiction by Madhavan Anbukumar
57 Mastodon, digital by Leo Hahn
58 The Old Gardener, poetry by Joe Talleur
58 Azaleas, photograph by Jacob Grijalva
59 The Oculus, photograph by Wilson Scher
59 1+√5/2, poetry by Brendin Keutzer
60 Nature, poetry by Ronan Smith
61 Snow, poetry by Warnicke Beatty
61 Self-Portrait, print by Alexander Skillman
62 Heartbeat, poetry by William J. Miller
63 Geographic Forms, chalk pastel by Jackson Seeber
64 Le Seize Septembre, 1956, by Rene Magritte
65 God I Cannot Obstruct, poetry by Andrew Hunt
66 Jesus on Good Friday, pencil, paint marker by Gabe Khazen
67 Dachau, poetry by Franklin Buckeridge
68 [untitled], poetry by Patrick Byrne
68 Mandala, digital by Madhavan Anbukumar
69 World Trade Center, photograph by Wilson Scher
70 Fern Foot, carving by Rudy Reitenbach
71 The Lantern’s Lament, poetry by Chase Hatch
72 Wildflower, poetry by Aidan Pike
Paper Crane
Andrew Hunt
I’m so knotted and creased, I miss unfolding.
Unfolding her letters and their brittle pressed flowers. Unfolding paper airplanes again and again, perfecting my design.
Unfolding sheet music, the fluttering hammers resounding through this ballroom. Unfolding his stories, deep and delirious.
I used to unfold into character after character on stage, Or into a blubbering mess on the floor of my kaleidoscope room. My life all strewn out like crushed crayons to those in front of me— I miss unfolding.
One day I decided folding was only for Proteins and poker and college ad mail, And I was just Folded tissue, a folding player, and a recycler of said mail. One of Sasaki’s thousand paper cranes.
I folded up in all these walls, but still I can’t stop The slow law Of time Prying me open.
Dominic Benoist Pencil
Self-Portrait
A Step into the Night
Gideon Taylor
Jack sat on the hard stone step, leaning against the rough door frame of the makeshift barracks. His thick boots crunched on the gravel outside the stoop when he shifted his weight from one side to the other—a pendulum marking the time spent on watch. The humid Vietnamese jungle air lay heavy on his back while geckos and birds and who-knows-what called out into the night. They kept him company, mingling with the sounds of gunfire from the distance, jolting Jack upright when he started to slump. Only the stiff doorway and stone floor offered him support. His orders were simple: keep watch and man the Gatling gun on the barracks wall, with boxes of bullets waiting for Charlie if he tried to advance. As the hours went by, he did more praying than thinking. His pleas in prayer grew coarser as he imagined the men at the neighboring barracks, overrun with Viet Cong, peppered with bullets and lacerated with knives.
“Please, don’t let them overrun us. Lord, please don’t leave me to die.”
He sat in the doorway that night, a boy outfitted in a man’s uniform, M16 rifle in his lap. His poplin jacket hung against his chest, collar drooping in the humidity. Three months ago, he had sat by the fire at home with Dad as they sorted through papers and ledgers of the family business. Dad had taught him the ins and outs of every crane that they operated. Every piece of machinery made sense to him; he thought he could take a crane apart and put it back together in the dark. Every day,
he would step off the bus from school and pass the kids playing ball on his way to the family business in the neighboring lot. He never rolled around in a fancy sports car in the evenings or hung out at the Steak ’n Shake. He preferred spending time with Dad, anyway: playing, learning, and flying. Jack hitched along everywhere with Dad, whether it be a last-minute hunting trip or an errand across the country, sitting in the pilot’s seat of the old Piper Cub while Dad’s friends chatted in the back.
Jack’s brother, Bill, was taller, with the long lanky build of an academic. Three and a half years older than Jack, he stayed to himself, content with his books and chess set. When Bill stood next to Dad, Jack searched their faces and could find no similar line; Jack, the second son, favored his father, with his square face and set build. Yet Bill was the eldest, the prized scion of the family, sent to Harvard for the MBA that would prepare him to take over the family business.
I’ve heard my Grandpa Jack swear that Bill could fall out of an outhouse smelling like a rose. It takes an abundantly blessed and profusely lucky person to stumble out of an outhouse smelling like anything other than feces. This is who Bill was to my grandfather—the pampered recipient of golden opportunity, the heir apparent. My own hands are soft, clutching the thin wood of a pencil rather than the steel of Jack’s rifle; Bill’s must’ve been the same. He set off for the Ivy Leagues; Jack was left in the dust,
shipped to the jungle, a draft notice in hand instead of an acceptance letter.
I wonder if Grandpa Jack thought of Uncle Bill that night on watch. Did he imagine his brother pulling an all-nighter to finish an economics paper due the next morning? Did he imagine Bill’s slippers tapping on the chill hardwood floor of the dormitory? Did he think of the nor’easter rattling the window casing, or the crinkling of beer cans opened in the hall as the frat boys returned from their dates? He might’ve wondered why he had to face a man’s challenge that night in the jungle while his brother escaped adulthood in his ivory tower. Jack’s reward that night was a stiff back, while Bill would undoubtedly receive a gold star for his night of mental turmoil.
Jack stayed there in the doorway, brown hair matted along his forehead with sweat, staring off into the darkness, imagining Charlie’s rifle in every shadow, every corner, barrel pointed towards his chest. The shadows cast along the dirt and gravel roads were pierced only by the rising sun.
The morning’s reveille brought new orders. The mission was a break from the usual deforestation of the surrounding areas with Agent Orange, which would disintegrate the dense vegetation. His chopper, armed with a 50-caliber machine gun in the left door and a grenade launcher in the right, would leave the base and patrol the canals of the Mekong Delta, trailed by two gunships with searchlights out. The gunships would stand by and wait for the enemy battery to fire on Jack’s helicopter, then follow the line of fire to engage the grounded enemy. Jack was the bait.
Jack sat at the helm of the chopper, descending into the delta’s forked canals and streams, anxious for the first tracer round to appear. The tracer wouldn’t take his aircraft down, but the four shells following
each illuminated streak could rip through the blades, the engine, or one of the eight men in the hull manning the chopper’s guns. Hovering over the dark brown water, Jack scanned the dark shores for any signs of the enemy. Dense mangrove trees sprawled out of the water, spindly roots interlocking in a web of wood. Charlie’s cannon poked through the dense foliage, silently following the whirring blades of Jack’s chopper, waiting for the aircraft to drift plainly overhead. The crack of the first volley of fire rang through the canal, bright orange ellipses punctuating the sky. Jack yanked the controls to the left, banking away from the volley. Rounds shot through the floor, ripping out the top of the chopper, peppering the metal from front to back. He turned around to look down at the hull. His hands felt the integrity of the controls, and he knew that those first bullets hadn’t taken him down. His gunners sat stunned, looking at the holes in the fuselage around them where the deep green of the trees shone through. Jack turned back to the river ahead as he yelled,
“What are you waiting for? Shoot the sonofabitch!”
His men scrambled for the mounted artillery as the gunships roared from behind, swooping in like hawks on the Viet Cong battery. Jack whipped around the nose of the chopper to pass closer to his gunman’s target as he prayed.
“Lord, don’t leave me here to die.”
If Grandpa Jack stood watch that night a boy in a man’s uniform, was he still a boy, uncertain and fearful, that day in the air? What was shed as he seized the cyclic control of his pierced helicopter? It wasn’t a boy’s voice that awakened the dazed gunmen. It wasn’t a boy who turned his chopper broadside to the enemy battery.
Warrant Officer John G. Taylor stepped down from the cockpit after the limp back to base. He lay down on the burning gravel, scanning the underside of his fuselage, counting the constellation of holes. Thirty-eight of Charlie’s bullets had tried to take him down. Thirty-eight had whizzed through metal, not flesh. All eight of his crew were on their way to drunkenness in the canteen. Only a man could have accomplished the mission that day.
Maybe Uncle Bill shed his boyhood passing through dozens of exams and finals. Maybe he whispered, “God, help me” as he drowned in assignments. Maybe he carried the weight of his parents’ expecta -
tions as a book-laden knapsack strapped to his back. He might not have shed his boyhood in an instant, seizing control over his hostile environment. Yet he returned from university a married man, made from the sum of small instances of maturity, William R. Taylor, BA, MBA.
Sixty years later, when Grandpa Jack searches my face, what does he see? My lanky frame is more suited for a library than a barracks. My hands find their rest on the ivory keys of a piano, not the blinking controls of a helicopter. Neither Bill’s face nor mine bear the mark of war. I can’t imagine that he doesn’t look at my face and see Bill, the boy who could fall out of an outhouse smelling like a rose. Shade
Andrew Hunt
Photograph
Max Besmer
Charcoal ChuCk CloSe
The Potato Eaters
Otto Reitenbach
I wonder what color of paint
Van Gogh begged his patron brother Theo To scrounge from his artist friends, What shade of putrid pungent green to mimic French peasants basking in single-flame glory. Did he share in their solemn Eucharist?
Did he, as Vincent rapidly obsessed over the Arles Proletariat, long to join their gaunt cheekbones and Lamp-kissed jowl? Yes, the windows lead only to a sewage-tinted horizon. Yes, the right-most woman glares loathingly at the sodden tea she streams.
Yes, my first intention is to pity.
Van Gogh must have wanted to be them.
(Long before the fame, long before accolades, long before any semblance of debt Fulfillment could reach his generous brother, Vincent died.) He must have longed to partake in their daily sacrament, their feast of ground and peat, Their spoils of cataracts and cracked hands.
A revelation of decrepit communion springs forth from The canvas his woefully brilliant hands painted.
For all the talent in the world, Vincent simply couldn’t escape The loneliness and the revolver bullet piercing his chest.
Vincent Van Gogh
The Potato Eaters
Ferguson
Gavin Simon
The same blue sky that I see from my childhood window is different tonight.
The sky is burning, burning a bright orange.
“Mom, why does the sky look like that?”
“Because orange skies mean the next day will be a better one, silly.”
Isn’t that the hope?
Tonight, I’m not allowed to watch TV like I usually am. Tonight, my mom said I can’t play in the street.
Tonight, the orange sky looks back at me and asks me which side I am on. But I couldn’t tell you.
I play four-square at school with the cousin of a dead man. I rollerblade with the son of the man who made the dead man dead.
But I don’t know all of that yet.
All I know is that the sky looks different tonight and I can’t play in the street.
Light Pollution
Warnicke Beatty
When I look up in the sky, I see a blank, melancholy moon, like a child alone at the lunch table, no one to shine with. Stars are artifacts from a simpler time. The moon is our only survivor. Streetlights are our new stars, car exhausts are our new crickets, billboards are our new constellations. Stars, now relics, from a time we’ve lost. Take me back to that time, back to a sky full of stars, back to that smiling moon, back to a beautiful night sky.
Now each night I dream of a sky full of stars, but all I see is a man-made substitute, filling in for the stars that once whispered wisdom, a silent guide. I miss the stars.
Dormene Naasah Print
Self-Portrait
Song of Extinction
Charles Dougherty
Mission Log
They would never have reached our level. Hundreds of simulations had already proven it. Still, we had seen what they could do. We watched, solemnly, when they first split the atom. We watched as they vaporized each other by the thousands. They were a danger, plain and simple. A backward, uncivilized species, prone to violence. Some wanted simply to leave them alone. However, to the majority, the truth was clear. Allowing them to exist was simply too big a risk.
We thought it would end with a whimper. A cry. A scream. We had watched their warstricken world and thought that, surely, when the fires of apocalypse descended upon them, their only legacy would be one of rage and violence. And yet, as the shadow of extinction loomed above, they did something strange. All across the world, these strange, primitive peoples dropped their weapons and went home. Borders and threats of war dissolved. Factories, which just days before processed human labor into pollution and consumerism, now were abandoned. The trenches, dug into contested soil which once held people ready to kill each other over small patches of land, were empty. They simply went home.
As I watched, I saw something I had never before seen. In the final hours before annihilation, they began to sing. Slowly at first, like a doomed band playing aboard a sinking
ship. Then others began to join. They stood up from the floor where they had lain, once pleading with the void, now emerging from their homes and congregating in the streets. They climbed rooftops and played their instruments, and the people below danced. Children sang, and couples embraced one another for one final slow dance. A rallying, beautiful cry filled the air as the sound of music permeated every home on the planet, every last one of them holding their loved ones close and singing. The sky erupted with fireworks as their final song grew louder still until, for the first time in this planet’s history, there was true peace.
Then there was nothing.
In the end, we were wrong. They didn’t scream, cry, or beg. Their final note was not one of violence but one of beauty and love, an entire world poured out into one song, in one moment, then gone forever. As we leave the ruins of their world, I wonder if it truly had to be like this. For all of their hate and violence, the humans had shown, in their final moments, an unbound potential for love. That was their legacy. I wonder if, in that way, they were actually beyond us. Perhaps in our arrogance, our distant judgement, we had made a mistake. Maybe they didn’t have to die.
Species: Homo Sapiens Termination Status: Complete
Mark Schoemehl
Chalk Pastel
A Tribute to Tony
Gabe Altier
I watch his every move. His hands worked like machines. His feet beat like a heart. Every fill, Groove, Move he made Changed the tentative way All drummers played.
Doubles, Singles, Dynamics, Articulation, Never a beat would he miss. Every idea was a choice, Every choice was a decision, Every decision became tradition.
I wish I could’ve seen His flawless effort, His feel-filled playing, That gives Us, Every Musician. All of Music. The ability to Fly— Invent, And Inspire.
Catēna (630)
Jens Istvan
Standing tall hangs a chain on the riverbank. It hangs skyward, six hundred and thirty feet in the air
Doing little more than standing
But for those with ears to hear its song I’ll reflect you a story in the metal’s shimmer
In all four cardinals the monument catches the eye
Making contact, it catches the heart, Binding it as a link and drawing it home
From the North, South, East, and West It hooks each time
From its base I could take you East, To Venice, not Italy but Illinois, A decaying rural town that never left the 1960s But its life has.
Venice barbecues outside the rotting church walls each Sunday And you can smell it all the way from the tractor missing Its front wheel by the barn with one third of a roof.
Live music shakes its grass and gravel foundation
Like fading leaves, flying as they fall Each one leaves their house down creaky stairs (one is missing the second to bottom step)
To hear the music that makes a town come alive.
Mud caked on duct tape shoes They stomp their feet to an organic sound I notice each calloused and potholed road
Until the chain catches me and brings me home.
From its links I could take you west to a place
As unrecognizable as an Arch would be to Christopher Columbus: Country Oak Estates and Glendale and Melshire Court Houses so prosperous they’d make you add a syllable
To each word just by looking at them And chandeliers that you need to squint to look at, The American Dream hangs in the driveway above a Honda Odyssey
(Good luck getting anywhere without a car). It’s no Venice, and certainly no Venice But it links each piece together Into its own 630 laid flat on the ground where I can reach it. The same smell of barbecue hits me And I feel more at home than at my home.
I notice every pair of gardener’s gloves and every electric vehicle
Until the chain catches me and brings me home. Anchored and rooted for longer than any chain could rust for.
Rudy Reitenbach pencil JuNior
Warnicke Beatty Print ColorS aNd iNk
Two realities: North and South
Delmar
Monroe Terry
Up there the river runs deep, Westlanders only talk ’bout the brutality.
We got Pop pushin’ down the fruit cart, our Whole Foods; Barbershops that be hummin’ with hairdryers and clippers, no Great Clips. Two realities: North and South
We don’t got spiraling towers or 5 star restaurants, chalky white buildings, filled with stories that cut out the root: Us. Westlanders only talk ’bout the brutality.
We got wishing wells in the streets, y’all can’t wish for us to go away. Someone’s black and white sneakers fell from the power line this morning, Two realities: North and South
We don’t got tennis courts or royal golf carts, but our greens are darker on this side A friend I knew used to putt, but he saw blue lights and yellow tape. Westlanders only talk ’bout the brutality:
Long ago they painted a red line, right there on the light at Delmar. Can you feel my crumbling house, behind your white picket fence
Two realities: North and South Westlanders only talk ’bout the brutality.
Notes My Dad Has Taken
Andrew Hunt
Before you think of notes, imagine songs Like those my father played so soft at night, Which bound upstairs to pierce my heart that longs: “The Tempest” was a dream I let take flight.
I knew his voice, not notes or a bookshelf. My dad inscribed a world of art in me, But I so thought I made it for myself— And so my art, behold: it ran afree.
He played no more and grew an older man. I a poet and he an engineer. I croon so clear the songs that he began, His tempest boom severed to notes, austere.
So please please me and sing your tales absurd Too late do I know what I wish I’d heard.
If...
Jack Williamson
If from a shade of night can the remedy of day be made If from a gruesome fight there can be formed a great crusade
If from Isaac’s son of little worth can come the twelve great nations If from a man of humble birth the Lord can bring salvation
Then from the union of two foes can peace not be obtained? Can from the notes that love composed a song of kindness be ordained?
And if to dust we all shall return and from dust we all truly came, are we not all children of God? Are we not all the same?
Guhan Anbukumar
Patrick Zarrick
Photograph
Street SCeNe - Puerto Plata
like a kiss from dad Jay Carroll
the second hand counting every moment possible endless hours on carnival rides the funnel cake was essential the dark park nights all was fine it was in the name of fun the drunken car rides stubbornness overrides paternity and creates fear the minute hand culture and creation the craft of clothing, music, and humor like no other along with some others relaxedness even in the worst times the yells of video game failure necessary gas station runs fat and flesh to skin and bone the hour hand consumes me as time is such a thing we share and each day is a memory we long to bear a glimpse of my childhood spoke to me when i was reminded that a kiss from dad was what the yesteryears must’ve seen
Dawn
Peter Knapp
I ask myself, “What is grace?” Maybe it’s the crashing seas. Whispering frightful melodies. The blooming flowers in spring Stand tall, forever praising. The swaying branches, the dark clouds. Magnificent thunder cries out loud.
But when I try to find grace, I find the dawn of a new day, A fresh start, a beginning. A gift bestowed unto me. “Surely,” I say, “this is Grace.”
Lucas Hayden
Photograph Blue liNe
Owen Van Deven Print
Self-Portrait
October 12, 2024
Madhavan
Anbukumar
Crestwood: off of General Grant Lane. Slightly cool in the morning. Around 65°F. Few clouds in the sky. Relatively windy.
Breathe in.
Falling, the acorns and oak leaves hit the ground as a squirrel scurries up the branch it was on. Running, the squirrel hides away as the resident hawks circle above. Flying, the hawks corkscrew in the sky as sprightly Mrs. Loehnig rakes. Sweeping, Mrs. Loehnig gathers the leaves and acorns. Breathe out.
Photograph Guhan Anbukumar StoNe CroP
Lanterns Open in Search of Wisdom
Paul Thibodeau
Speak of the past in present tense, Rinse off in the river of time, Carve on the posts of your white-picket fence, Recede into water and wine.
Everything’s hazy and further from view In the deserts that they used to roam, But sift through the sand till it’s covering you, And soon you’ll be wandering home. The person they promised would purify us Is here and is now on all fours, And the voice crying out in the wilderness Might just be an echo of yours.
If the land’s seeming sullen and sick with the night, You know what to do—you dig up your arrow. You sing with the sparrow, you suck out the marrow, You turn to the rearview and look for the light.
Guhan Anbukumar
Pencil god’S PlaN
January Adrian Samaniego
A large field of tall grass
Overseen by a convent of unfriendly nuns. Coyotes and deer left the same mark as we did, Traversing the virgin snow.
Tall trees leaning in all directions Yearning for the sun.
All but one. Manufactured, right-angled,
Engineered, but not by nature.
I stood and gazed, wind biting my dry skin. Puzzled, confused, entertained.
“All but a telephone tower,” she said As she powered ahead of me.
Hidden between the trees, serving its purpose, Networking, calls and texts: life, death, breakups.
Unnoticed.
Not unlike the tower, we serve silently, Friends, family, the unfamiliar and unknown while unknown.
Unrecognized.
We disappeared into the blizzard As the pole blended back into the brush.
Luke Schall Photograph MoNtSerrat
Fire in Rome, by Hubert Robert
Noah Butler
A flame rises from Nero’s oven; with his senate building, the Circus Maximus, and his common plebeian bridge engulfed by a billowing inferno.
Maybe if Nero had been born a few years, two thousand or so, later, he would have been a line cook at Steak ’n Shake. Flipping and charbroiling burgers, in beef tallow. Churning a milkshake. Maybe Nero wouldn’t have been the bad guy, burning his own city for a new palace. Maybe his midnight shift would have been burger flips and a conversation about Kate Winslet.
That common folk’s bridge. My eyes are fixed to it; it’s in the middle of the canvas after all. A staircase that leads to the senate, or maybe to nowhere. Someone still trying to climb those steps, thinking they’ll fly away. Or maybe they’ll wake up before they ever know if they reached the second step.
Somewhere out there, in a random commercial office space (yes, you know the one), there’s me. No, that’s you. Or a version of what our lives could look like. Sitting at a cubicle, eyes transfixed on that laptop that he has to look at from nine to five. Waiting for the alarm to ring, even though it already has. Counting down the minutes, but not knowing to what. In a struggling marriage, with kids he hardly knows. He thinks his cubicle is the staircase, the one burning in the canvas before me. But it’s the fire; his eyes have gotten so used to the light that he is blind to it.
There’s that man atop the bridge again. Flanked by two children, hands outstretched towards the fire. Maybe it reminds them of a campfire, like the one they could have had thousands of years from now. Maybe their father or mother was still at home making dinner, a nice tortellini, with mushrooms, peas, just enough guilt to manage the carbs—a Weight Watcher recipe. Or is that now? In their eyes the fire could be a map, to Neverland.
It was on Peter Pan’s Flight, yeah, the one at Disney World, flying over the alligator licking its chops, trying to swallow Hook like that fire in Rome swallowed the Curia. That’s where I found out how cruel this world can be. Taking away the things, the people, the love that we thought we needed. Or deserved. Maybe Hook and Nero could have been friends. The old man walked home from work, found the snake, took it in, and got bit. The snake didn’t care. It was like the alligator. That alligator thought Hook was food. The snake thought the old man was food. The fire thought that the mother, or the father, was food, too. All for a swirl of meat covered in pasta.
Notice how I saved the peasants for last. Huddled down in the corner, trying to stay away from the fingers of smoke and ash reaching out. Like a driver, hunkered down under an overpass during a twister. The fire forgot about them, too. Like I did. Like the government does. You aren’t innocent, either, my friend. That wheel of flame, it reminds me of Ghost Runner the more that I think about it, it’s coming for them, too. It’s just going to get to them last, like they’re used to. Like that morsel of cheese that Remy’s fat cousin ate off of right outside Gusteau’s. The canvas evokes that same aroma, of the cheese. Rotted by time.
At the Lindbergh exit on the Sunset Hills-Kirkwood border, a man stands there, holding a cardboard sign (you’ve seen one like it), and pleading for a dollar. Maybe you looked at the man and paid his dues for an evening. You probably looked at your phone. Don’t be sorry, he said, you gave. Maybe that Fire in Rome, on that fateful day back in the summer of 64, gave something, too.
You can’t see it on the canvas, but somewhere that day in Rome, there was a couple sitting across their lofted living room. A young couple who had never been in love, didn’t even know what that meant. Their love wouldn’t be known to the world, but to those two, in that moment, smoke and ash pouring through an open window as they lay on a blanket, smelling death and seeing each other fade deeper into the dust, their love was all that they needed. Their souls awakened, arms smothering each other like ash gripping their lungs, and holding on for dear life, enjoying the decadence of that moment.
fire iN roMe
Hubert Robert
The Steak ’n Shake line cook, punching that clock and making Bobby’s beef tallow fries. The man at the laptop, counting down the minutes until five so he can sit across from the wife who hasn’t loved him since her second pregnancy. The Disney adult version of myself riding Peter Pan’s Flight, hollowed out just like the desk worker, thinking that the children’s ride could pay off the mortgage. And the homeless man, sitting at a booth in the Outback Steakhouse, treating himself to a warm meal after a day out in the harsh, loveless February cold. They’d all kill to be one of the people in that lofted Roman living room, living for just one more moment before dying.
That fire in Rome didn’t just happen in the summer of 64. It happens every day, a story and a painting that repeats itself like a broken alarm clock. It won’t stop going off, no matter how hard I throw it against the wall.
If you look hard enough, there’s a Persian trader packing a boat, in his own personal serenity, setting sail for the honeymoon that should have been for our lovers. There’s one spot at the back. I push you in, lift the anchor, and let you drift….
The alarm clock rings again.
You crawl out of bed, gripping the Roman stairs, searching for a way out. Only in time will you know if you ever made it to the second step—or if you were already burning.
Print on Cut Paper
Jack Puckett
Tree of Life
Jaden Yarbrough
My favorite oak tree is a fiery canvas of fall colors, painting rapidly dimming skies with starlight. Through the dense canopy of a summer-stricken willow I once spotted long crinkled brown leaves, a nest of gnarled limbs, and shattered shells—reminders of what could’ve been or perhaps what already are. Corinthians speaks of believers being “born again,” something trees do instinctively, without a doubt that they can rise again. In what feels like days, blazing red tapestries become finger-numbing, winter-washed ice. I see the restructured nest through the tree’s intricate weaving miles away, blood now drained from its delicate veins, as wintry wind smears the life off its limbs. Yet the shattered shells have turned into shelter, a mother shielding a small chickadee, her lifeblood, underneath her frozen feathers. Shivering steadfast, eyes gazing toward the sun poking through thick white clouds, she’s hopeful of better days to come. Though bountiful in life, the tree itself knows no life. White powder coats its limbs, yet it knows not what it means to be “cold” to be “warm,” to be “loved.” Still the radiance of a spring afternoon sun seems to prove me wrong. Vibrant green bursts of chlorophyll regenerated from nothing, or everything, protrude from its wooden periphery, inviting me with open arms into life.
Quiet brown oak tree, Who knows the joy of redemption, Can I know it, too?
Luke Schall Photograph MoNtSerrat
Leo Hahn
Paint Marker
Cherry tree
Henry Diemler
Pencil diSSoNaNCe
Burning Rubber
Gus Talleur
I’ve been shifting gears since the age of three In lanes existing only in my mind. There’s not a soul as far as eye can see, For I alone drive down long roads that wind Through the tangle of fibers on the ground. I never lose focus; not even calls From my mother could create enough sound To drown out my brain saying, “Climb the walls.” The rugs with roads that are printed on top Have limitations like crosswalks and signs That make it hopeless to drive and not stop. But I needn’t worry, for I don’t see lines. The world is my track, and I, as the driver, Must swerve from failure and stay a survivor.
Rudy Reitenbach
FROM:ASTRID, Brendin Keutzer
I arrived to Berlin sixty years ago, for you, When the Four Horsemen governed the death strip. Shot by ebbs of light, I died
From the provocative nature of your very name: “Peace”
Peace is not the pinnacle of a mountain If it takes Everest to climb. Nor is it division If it means fear from behind the Iron Curtain.
We were told, put on masks, So they could vandalize our empty faces. They ordered us to draw a smile And re-arranged our places.
I cried within the chariot, Awaiting your dainty call. But then, for you, I took the chance, Between the walls, I fell.
Now, charioteering the throne, Victoria restores the strip The day the Autumn walls fall. I hope someday you see my words —on the post board of hope— For when the church bells call:
TO: ASTRID, MAYBE SOMEDAY! WE WILL BE TOGETHER
Matty Kleinberg Pencil hairy eyeBrow
In One Year
Edmund Reske
10th Grade
The racers’ eyes were blinded by the sun. Though lacking sight, they still knew they had won. Their sprawling, achy legs stretched in the grass, Their faces soaked in sweat, they grinned as one.
His friends and he were crammed in Jack’s backseat, (They couldn’t drive, so seniors gave them rides.) They laughed, they shoved and teased, but never scorned— On glorious rides were greater friendships born.
When he got home he dreamed of Gatorade— The sweet, cold nectar of the runner gods. He’d raked for crumpled ones, all kept in wads, Then biked to Walgreens, picked out red, and paid.
17 years old, almost 18 Through summer and the fall he worked a job That took up all his time. And so he lost Cross country. Soon he used his pay to buy a car And from his friends and loves it took him much too far
He drove into the west, his legs bunched up Against the pedal: not thick grass but steel. A bottle rattled half-full by the wheel— He’d left it there so long the label’d peeled.
Warnicke Beatty
Pencil
roCk aNd roll
Miss Cherry Blossom Pie
Andrew Hunt
after Don McLean
As I lie under a cherry tree, I wonder why we say the Poets dream. We write to beget what’s already here. Three Birds flutter around in a goldlight air and behind me, mightful men Soar down the asphalt crease. I Don’t look—I never wished to admire The vehicle squander, that dire innovation most Flock towards. Better to bike, so to ride these hills like the Swinging chariot—that lesson I learned from my father. I bike for fun or write poems… I’m not his marathon heir or Iron Man son. Like all the other poets I ran through the open field, arms flung wide, and desperately reached back… for my Aunt Kelly from the Florida Keys, or something holy. In Missouri, on every street corner someone’s whimpering ghost Withers: downtown a disheveled man lies prostrate, head against the concrete. Blues fans took A route around. But we’re laughing and painting with our brown and gray (or the pink of cherry blossoms if we’re lucky). If we’re smart, then the last Painting was 5th grade with Ms. Shea, and if we’re dumb the last laugh was on that train We hopped, the last one at the last whistle, rolling like a chariot for Wherever we may lose our way. Every July, sparkles and fireflies grapple for meaning in the Warm, rum night air we once learned to hold dear. We’re not so far from that holy coast.
old railroad towN
Pencil
Michael Ewersmann
Leo Hahn
Digital terror Bird
the tribulations of trying to pee when you’re queer (a
political piece for just being)
Cooper Capdeboscq
glitter and blush blinding the boys cracked mirror—someone told me there was a stash of booze beneath here, below the right sink in the white cupboard. lip liner, too expensive, sits in my pocket, its cap trying to escape down the cut fabric—but i catch it before losing another.
looks agaze, spritz spritz spritz—YOUR TURN, by billie eilish. eyes roll, giggles travel down the salmon walls. just ignore, keep applying, hit and jab, press and pull, curl and swirl, the sunlight hits perfectly on the dust-covered floor.
i don’t go yet, because when I’m facing a urinal with boys inside, i feel my femininity flailing—searching to fly.
i’ve heard stories—“homosexuals,” “faggots” being pushed onto their knees and heads smothered in sewer water gasping for air while the ones behind them enjoy the act. there’s a pact here—AMDG—for the greater glory of god in brotherhood. people say they feel it, see it. is everyone in that brotherhood?
the boys leave. i enter the stall, the one that has “toñito” scratched into the wall—just one of many racist remarks scratched onto these pink stalls. i don’t know how long i stayed but when i look back at the cracked mirror, my mascara has melted into a blackened waterfall, a quiet protest running down my face.
It’s Really Not That Deep
Franklin Buckeridge
A poem really doesn’t have to be that deep. Blood isn’t a necessary image to come up in most poems. Don’t worry about the thick blackened cloud that looms over every poem you try to write. Only follow the light. Write what you can see. Guessing is useless. Hold onto what’s true. It doesn’t have to be very hard. Just focus on what comes to mind. K is a hard letter to start a line with. Isn’t it? Love is even harder to write about. Many have tried. Many have failed, me included. Not because they were stupid, bad poets, or not truly in love only because they overcomplicated things. In this poem for instance, I haven’t questioned myself once. I am only allowing my thoughts to Roam around and graze. It’s really quite a natural process. Stick to what you know. Even if you don’t know it. This is just my opinion. Maybe I’m under that black cloud right now. Very likely not. I know what has led me to find meaning in my poetry: x-rays are like poems. They pierce through, finding one truth, yet they speak to a person’s life, past, and future. Zero assumptions are made until the x-ray is already finished.
Brady Vogt Ceramic Nike Blazer
The Wedding Day
Patrick Byrne
The church bells chime as the clocks strike three. They reverberate around the small town and fill anyone who hears them with immense compassion.
“The wedding was today,” they think. “What a beautiful ceremony!”
And beautiful it was. With the pews and standing area packed with friends and strangers alike, they watched a well-mannered groom waiting at the altar with his brothers beside him. Then, through the grand double doors, they saw a glimmer of white, and in walked the young bride. Her long, spotless dress reminded everyone of a sweeping marble statue given life. Her long chestnut-brown hair rested easily on the fabric, and she turned her blue eyes towards the man she was destined to love forever. Her aging father limped her down the aisle, the spectators admiring his determination, and gave her to the awaiting groom. He wiped his eyes and lifted the veil to reveal the true beauty underneath, and the audience gasped. Never before had any of them seen a ceremony so unspoiled. It was pure love in its most concentrated form, like a natural and powerful fragrance that completely enveloped all present. With that, the priest, a good man recently returning from missionary work in the Congo, performed the ceremony. Their answers were immediate, and when he asked for any objections to this union, no one heard even a whisper. They kissed with dignified and reserved passion, and the crowd cheered feverishly. Petals and rice were thrown from every aisle and rained down like snowflakes as they walked out hand-in-hand. People wondered what awaited them at the party. It would be a feast if the ceremony was this exciting. But before that, there were the photos.
The bride and groom chose a scenic park near their recently purchased house. It was small and perfectly square but wellmaintained and featured everything someone could reasonably want in a park. There were tall, centuries-old oaks and beeches that’d been imported into the city. A shallow pond filled with sunfish for fishing and yellow-billed ducklings for the children to feed. The grass was finely shaven to be long enough to run your fingers through but not long enough to be overgrown. It seemed like even the squirrels were well-mannered since the couple had never seen one come down for anything more than an acorn. Yes, it was a perfect little Eden for the young couple. What better place could they have chosen to photograph?
The limousine stopped just outside the entrance, and the entire wedding party filed out following the couple. The light shining off their rings briefly blinded people, but they still stared in amazement at the spectacle. Old couples laughed from their benches as they remembered their own photo shoots with unspoiled nostalgia.
The party laughed and giggled like children as they walk to their first location: an old battleground that held onto a trio of archaic cannons. The site had hosted a small battle in the Civil War. There were no casualties, and supposedly a bloodless Union victory. The party posed in front of the cannons like aristocrats on the hills of Bull Run. The groom felt the grooves and elegance of the cannon’s craft and wondered how something like this could’ve been created for war. No, it indeed couldn’t have.
The next stop was the shallow pond. A pair of men were fishing there, and the
party politely asked them to leave, and they obliged. The bride looked at the ducklings following the mother duck and thought happily about her future. What children would she have? Secretly, she prayed for a girl.
The final location was the best of all: a gazebo where local bands would often host concerts. It held special significance for the couple because it was there where they’d first met. A favorite band played that night, and their friend groups had gone independently. Either on a dare or some impulse, the groom had seen his future bride dancing alone. He waited there for a while, thinking a beautiful girl was undoubtedly waiting for someone. But when he realized it was him whom she awaited, he walked up without reservations and asked her to dance. It was sloppy and childish, but they danced no matter what people thought deep into the night. The world faded away, and for a moment the universe aligned only for them. This gazebo was where it all happened, and they couldn’t think of a better place to end the photoshoot.
They excitedly walked up, but something wasn’t right when they finally reached the gazebo. A dark mark was present that hadn’t been there before. It was usually spotless and pure, just like the night they’d first danced, so why was there a dirty old man sleeping against one of the pillars? He wore brownish clothes and shoes with holes in both ends. His head rested at an obtuse angle, and beside his body was a bottle concealed in a paper bag spilled on the polished wood. He was snoring grotesquely and looked so thin and mangy that the party thought for a moment that he might be dead. But he wasn’t. Nervously, the groom approached the man.
“E-excuse me, sir,” he paused, awaiting a response.
The man snored in reply.
“Ex-excuse me, sir!”
Once again, there was no reply.
The groom grew irritated. “Not today,” he muttered, shaking the man’s shoulder vigorously. The man slurred and regained consciousness.
“Huh, yeah, what?” he asked, spitting drooling from his mouth.
“Excuse me, sir!” the groom yelled. “Can you please move? We’re trying to take a photo!”
The man clutched his head with both hands.
“God, will you shut the fuck up!” he said. “I can’t understand when you yell like that.”
The groom took a deep breath.
“Sir, would you please move, because we’re trying to take a photo for our wedding?”
The man thought for a moment, looked at the party, and smiled.
“What a beautiful bunch of people you are,” he said. “Reminds me of my own.”
“Sir, can you please move?” the groom urged him. At this point, the rest of the men had come to back him up. “We really would like to take a photo at this gazebo.”
“I never really believed in heaven; I thought it was just some bullshit pastors told us to keep us in line. But…now I see that perfect moments are possible. Even if it’s just for a moment.”
“Okay, come on, let’s get this drunk up,” the best man said to the other men.
The best man grabbed one shoulder, and another man grabbed the other. They hoisted the man up like a floppy fish and
tried to move him off the gazebo. The groom grabbed the bottle off the ground and walked over to throw it away.
Maybe they wouldn’t be able to tell, he thought.
When the man saw him, he started squirming and trying to reach for the bottle.
“Hey, there’s still some left!”
The groom ignored him.
“Oh, I thought heaven was in virtue! In love! But now I know it’s just in that bottle!”
The men tried to hold him back, but he nearly broke out of their hold. He pulled his entire body towards the bottle.
“Just one more s—”
Then, without warning, the man vomited all over the groom’s shoes. He fell weakly back into the men’s arms.
The groom looked down at his shoes. He had gone with his father to pick them out. His father had shed tears when he saw him fit and looking nice. This was supposed to be his day, but now it didn’t matter.
“You motherfucker!” he screamed and hit the man square in the face with his ring hand. His nose gushed blood, and the man gagged as he tried not to swallow it. The men didn’t let go of the man. But the man rose with energy and broke free from their grip. He threw himself towards the groom and punched him sloppily in the face. The groom fell to his knees and felt his nose drip blood.
“You piece of horse shit you!” the groom screamed.
At this point, the two others began wailing away at the drunk too. They pushed him to the ground and kicked him in the side. The groom ran towards him and with his puke-stained shoe kicked him straight in the jaw. He fell over and landed on a declining hill next to the gazebo. The men huffed and breathed with their hands on their knees. But the groom wasn’t done.
He looked down the hill and saw a pile of trash that seemed to have collected there
Madhavan Anbukumar
Photograph
for some time. It was wet and smelled like spoiled food. He wondered how he’d never seen it there until now.
He grabbed the man by the hair, and the other men tried to stop him.
“Go back to where you belong!” He screamed and punched the man so hard that his ring left an impression on his battered and bloodied face.
The man tumbled down and landed facefirst in the pile. He was laboriously breathing
laboriously but didn’t move to get up.
The groom sat down in exhaustion, unable to look away from the man in the garbage pile. His bride was sobbing so heavily that she hardly noticed the bridesmaid consoling her.
As her tears fell onto her once spotless dress, there was only one thing she could muster the strength to say.
“It’s ruined!” she said. “The day is ruined!”
Luke Schall
Photograph Sea Breeze
Where You Found It
Frank Kovarik
You can take my heart out for a spin
As long as you don’t mind the shape it’s in. You can take my heart out for a drive; That might make me feel like I’m alive. Drive into the city, spend the day cruising around it. Just don’t put it back right where you found it.
You can borrow my heart anytime. It’ll be there hanging on the line. You can use it any way you want If it helps you get your project done. Keep it in your toolbelt with some nails in need of pounding. Just don’t put it back right where you found it.
When you’re waiting on a train, When you’re standing in the rain, When we’re apart, Take my heart, Think about what I’ve been saying.
My heart’s been a little out of tune
Sitting in the case waiting for you
To hold it in your arms and sing a song. That’s where my heart always will belong. When you’re strumming on my heart, I like the way it’s sounding. Just don’t put it back right where you found it.
The Stories We Don’t Know
Jens Istvan
The Library of Alexandria burned long before the internet could soak up its vast wealth of knowledge. The greatest pool of human understanding, in the ancient world or maybe ever, now exists only as the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that are somewhere held in the atmosphere. Imagine standing at the foot of the bookshelf, looking up at something so tall it appears to be crashing down on you. Imagine all the last words we never got to hear. A great-great-grandmother, huddled in quilts she knit herself on a chair older than she is, taking off her glasses to set them on the fireside table and collect her entire human experience into one sentence. If only someone were there to hold her glasses for a moment, listen to her seven-syllable odyssey, and then extinguish the fire afterwards, making sure the ashes had all come to a cool. What is it like for an oak tree to lose its last leaf in the fall, knowing it will never flow with green vigor the next spring? What is it like for that slow leaf’s drop to feel like a bolt of lightning crashing into the very first thing it meets? How would you tell that tree what its seeds will carry once they break through the soggy earth?
How much longer must We wait for the snow to thaw And the spring to come?
Luke Schall
Soapbox Monroe Terry
Standing now, on the soapbox that belonged to my mother and her mother, and her mother’s mother. It belonged to my ancestors, they stood: headstrong, fist balled in the air. A straight and unbent arrow: upward, to the dark dense sky. To pierce the hate and prejudice, No more pain. No more shame. No more misery.
On the tip of my toes trying to follow the arrow; Brillant; Burn your flame ablaze, the world on fire.
Let your torch, a dancing flame, wisp through that hurricane of change.
Let your voice pierce the ears of your enemy; they won’t forget its sharp and formidable sound.
The soapbox, Its voice speaks, Of blood. Of iron chains. Of recording Studios. Of courthouses. Of classrooms. Its voice speaks, of mountains that were climbed how beautiful the white pure clouds looked from up there.
My mama’s orchids: their violent tranquility, Its stubbornness and wisdom. Shared amongst the people, A diamond. Their dark red glow filled with the blood of our people, tainted by its alluring glow; Trapping those in its trends of violence and revenge.
The soapbox, borne by My friends. My brothers. My sisters. Me.
On the tip of my toes I see the flame ablaze I can burn the world, Poison the diamonds. Now I see my ancestor’s quiver Their breath, a faint voice, as they draw the bow back. An arrow that never drops to the sounds of chants: Sirens.
Gunshots. I want to hold on but I can’t.
Leo Hahn
Jens Istvan
Photograph
MarthaSville
Thriptated
Madhavan Anbukumar
Sweat running down his face, Jacob sprinted towards an opening in the woods. His shoulders brushed the rough needles of the pine trees, leaving small cuts on his upper arms. A small baby-blue cabin appeared in the distance as a buzzing noise approached from behind. Zipping to the cabin entrance, then yanking the door knob to no avail, Jacob turned to his imminent doom.
He had angered the killer thrips.
The three-quarter-inch long murderers bred by the Government to hound deserters, those who left the “safety” of the Government for the hope of living the old life. The thrips were attracted to bright colors, so the Government had painted any shelter that deserters might take in iridescent oranges and coruscating pink. The Government had gotten rid of any bodies of water, or had made them unavailable to the Citizens. Deserters, from what Jacob had read, had to purify the rain, acidic from biological warfare during the Trans-Continental War in the 2170s.
Jacob cowered against the splintered wood of the door clawing at it as if trying to dig himself out of a hole. The thrips descended upon him like iron filings attracted to a magnet, biting, sinking their stingers into his flesh and injecting their venom into his translucent skin. Pustules started forming on his skin, green as to attract more thrips to the sight of their prey.
Dark.
Jacob opened his eyes, still groggy from the poison of the thrips. His body was bound to an acacia tree, one of the only species of deciduous trees that survived and thrived after the Hadamnava Bombings by the Asian Star Alliance. Pus oozing from his carbuncles,
Jacob looked around, eyes slowly adjusting to the blurry vision. He was in a clearing of an acacia forest, some kind of anthropomorphic meat rotisserizing over a blazing bonfire. To his right a big stone, seemingly stained red by blood. He could hear the buzz of the thrips in the distance, deep voiced shouts alongside them. Jacob wiggled trying to loosen the jute ropes which bound his body, slicing open some of the carbuncles by means of the acacia thorns along the way.
“I wouldn’t get out of those ropes if I were you,” whispered a voice from nearby. Jacob squinted. A young boy was bound, just a tree over from him.
“The last guy who tried that’s over the fire now.”
Vomit splurged out of Jacob’s mouth, his stomach acid chartreuse from the thrip poison.
“They’re cannibals, the three of ’em. Deserters, too, I think,” said the boy, tears now clearly running down his face. “They’re out there right now. They control a colony of thrips somehow and use them to lure people like us to their cabin. It doesn’t look like they get affected by the thrips’ poison”
Vomit was still dribbling from his mouth as Jacob raised his eyes to the boy. “What do they look like?”
They’re all bald, but the biggest one, he’s the one with the machete. There’s one with glasses; he’s got a scar down his face, and then the other one has a swirl branded on forehead; he’s the one in charge.” said the boy, now sobbing. “I think that they’re fattening me up for later. They make me eat the parts they don’t like.”
Twigs started cracking in the distance,
the acacia trees creaked and out of the forest came the three men, exactly as described by the boy.
“Ahh, the fresh meat is awake and wriggling,” rumbled the swirl-branded man, licking his lips. “Perfect for frying.”
“I’ll go chop him up,” said the biggest one. He swung his machete, snapping the
jute rope. Tossing Jacob over his shoulder, he walked over to the blood stained stone. He drew the machete from the sheath on his back, the sun glinting off of the bald head and the machete. Jacob stared into the world, one last time. Clunk.
Leo Hahn
The Old Gardener Joe Talleur
The sweet, striking pungent aroma of soil Comforts the grizzled old man. His stiff callused hands free the hose from its coil
Then he refills his watering can.
The opulent, rich song of birds fills the air
As the sun drums the man’s stooping frame. His great golden squashes he handles with care, His tomatoes put rubies to shame.
A cool bead of sweat trickles down to his nose. As he straightens, his wheezing subsides. He smiles to himself, peering down at his work, his riches, his treasure, his pride.
Jacob Grijalva
Photograph azaleaS
Brendin Keutzer
For numbers that are on a higher plane Are blooming next to summer’s wholesome gate. Your views are vines that all can entertain Within the roots of spectacle debate. Imagining the bark as integrals While swinging tree to tree takes energy. To climb from roots to reach the pinnacle Is something branded elementary. One day the trees will fall into a line, Or does my gaze divert from what is true? I need to take the X’s and assign What both my eyes perceive from different views. So cheers to all the trees that math has grown Now ripened in the heads of sharpened tones. 1+√5/2
Wilson Scher
Photograph the oCuluS
Nature
Ronan Smith
A great yellow thunderbolt. Heavy rain. Dew on green grass. Bright red fire with no more logs I wish I could eat something tastier Than a bowl full of flies. They say it’s still edible, but I do not agree.
A great yellow thunderbolt
The sun is setting, making way for the dark. A small hive of honeybees. They can tell when weather changes. A storm catches me off guard. The winds whirl me out of my bed. I am afraid.
A great yellow thunderbolt. Pray it doesn’t strike my tent. The walls are soggy and the water is rising. City folk in the cedar forest, thinking: Nature is entitled to me. We no longer think this way. Dirt does not care if you’re dirty, Water does not care if you’re wet, Only my tentmate cares He shares the roof above our heads.
I shout at the winds to obey me. Obey me winds! Obey me rain! The winds don’t have to listen, And you don’t have to remember. The ground doesn’t remember every foot stepped upon it So you obey. Even if it means, Eating a bowl full of flies.
Snow Warnicke Beatty
Snow is like a soft kiss on dry lips covers the ground and swaddles it new born baby like innocent and soft
Snow is like a moody teenager mysterious and cold with a soft spot protected underneath layers of frost
And then it’s gone like a newborn it grew up like a moody teenager it matured but it will come back unlike a newborn or a teenager, so cherish these moments before they melt, with a memory as its sole survivor so take the moment, and taste it
Skillman
Alex
Self-Portrait
Heartbeat
William J. Miller
Feel the beat within, Wonder at its steady pace And know God’s gift.
A sign of life with steady rhythm, The heartbeat heralds the breath of God, With each pump another chance of Life, Further showing His divine glory.
When we first enter this broken world Next to breathing the rhythm walks, Guiding us to open eyes and arms, Our mother’s face and eternal love.
We, God’s children, share this belov’d gift Of days in and out of creation. Some are not perfect, a cross to bear, Regardless, it mustn’t be squandered.
The heartbeat, the count of mankind, Is of perfect origin and grace. But if ripped from us, spared of Life’s chance, How are we to know love, fading away?
If rich mountains were to flatline, Certainly they’d lose their majesty; So too when silenced, that metronome, The faint heart, would surely die alone.
The child of splendor is rejected And the hope of Life is now extinguished. Why must selfish thoughts hinder the mind, And put out the beat of Life with it?
Twisted and cruel, this world will cast them, That which also bears a lively count, Sending them to eternal darkness, Deprived of humanity held dear.
Embrace your mother, Thank her for glorious Life And share in God’s gift.
Jackson Seeber
chalk pastel
le Seize SePteMBre, 1956
Rene Magritte
God I Cannot Obstruct
Andrew Hunt
A big bushy tree waits out the field’s long night, But the moon shines through this tree In this eerie way: unabashed, urgent, and awake. It looks like something I dreamed once, One of those dreams that keeps you fitfully asleep— Or, perhaps, awake… I was never sure which. The moon like the mind’s tireless eye.
The tree with its holes and gaps And shades and random spines Makes me mad: What does it deserve?
But I too am the tree, The tree who chose to grow alone, Make itself more prominent than the rest, The tree who doesn’t smile or wave in the wind And feels nothing but its thousand little tentacles and the water coursing up it.
I feel neurons firing, signals from my toes to my brain
To adjust to the rocky unsteady ground.
Homeostasis and GPA and a boxed-out crossed-out planner, My brain chugging like the slow buffering iPad and its megabytes. I am steady and unwavering. And I grow in front of the moon, damning it Because I and my mysterious shadows and shades take foreground. For the ground I did not live, nor for the sky, but I took its stars.
Or is the tree but a shrine to that undying moon?
A soft prayer: God, make me a temple
To your eternity.
JeSuS oN good friday
Pencil, Paint Marker
Gabe Khazen
Dachau
Franklin Buckeridge
Through the giant steel arched gate looms a field of gravel. Crying as it crunches beneath my feet, I can't hear it. Not yet.
Through cells of women perished, strangled in the brothels they were forced into. all for “productivity.”
I wonder if their souls could fit through the lead-barred window on the door?
I stop to gaze at the ditch of purple flowers dug to catch the blood. The blood from the line of those unnamed, cowering from the firing squad.
A room with all white walls. Signs point me forward to a shower. I know the lie. But I enter anyway. Do my lungs deserve to be this hollow? What color does a lung turn when raped by Zyklon B?
Giant red brick furnaces, smirking at me, ashes on their tongue. They are no longer fed. Not because of Americans. They were too late. The Nazis just ran out of coal.
Skeletons, a layer of paper skin remaining, I hear cracks as they crush each other. Not humans. I see the crying now in the bones pointing at me through a pile of meat. A crown of thorns, not Jesus’. Jesus has nothing to do with this.
[Untitled]
Patrick Byrne
Screaming, burning color thrown onto a Roman pillar.
The trilingual, Brooklyn-born boy mislabeled “the noble savage” will shock the world. From their high-rise, adorned in Olympian robes, the artistic elites watch with anticipation. In a world in the midst of a Flower Power hangover, he’s a breath of fresh air. Renaissance graffiti and sophisticated strokes of crayon are his modus operandi. Subway lines embedded in his skull and a firefighter who whips like a Southern gentleman. Socrates read from a travel catalogue in an abstract city which refuses to sleep.
The aristocrats gasp with astonishment. “It’s not the Same Old Shit,” they say. “Truly an alternative to God, you might say.”
Yes, this was something new.
And although he may be gone the way of all artistic martyrs unfortunately, he proved the old thesis that a urinal can be a fountain. Art is vandalism as the ancient axiom goes.
And you will know a revolution is at hand when you can look to the sky and shout, “Samo is Back!”
Wilson Scher
Photograph
Rudy Reitenbach Carving ferN foot
The Latern’s Lament
Chase Hatch
The lantern hums a hollow tune, Its flame a dancer, waning soon. The night inhales, a velvet tide, That pulls the stars to slip and hide.
A whisper curls within the air, A secret sewn, yet laid threadbare. The wind, a hand upon my cheek, Speaks truths too restless now to seek.
Oh, time—how slyly does it lean, A seamstress stitching worlds unseen. Its fingers pluck the fabric thin, Yet never show where threads begin.
Still, shadows bow in silent grace, Their echoes stitched in endless lace. The lantern wavers—one last breath— And sighs into the arms of death.
Wildflower
Aidan Pike
I want you to think of a wildflower.
Do you have it? You bloom in midsummer’s spring, fruit pomegranate, and bend to the will of your mother’s tongue. Now I want you to forget it, all of it, but forget me not.
Poking out from the curtain of snow, my petals, revolving like stars—outstretching fivefold fingers into the amethyst hour stratosphere, where constellations radiate with charm. Climbing up, into the treetop evergreen pine, you topple the giants on whose shoulders you stand. You’re the tallest thing around, and for a minute, you couldn’t be more introverted. Now forget it. Despite your needles and bark and trunk, you will never grasp, with your limbs, how small i feel.
From now on, I am under your shade, there are bluegrasses (my friends) and fungi (those ugly things) but the ground is shifting, my roots lie spread open for you, to pick through like a boy’s flowery lavender plate. These wildflowers will wilt, but their scent stays on the hands that picked them.
