ROBERT WILSON COLL.
THESHAWNEE SILHOUETTE
The Shawnee Silhouette is published quarterly by the editorial staff at Shawnee State Univeisity in l>oitsmouth, Ohio. Subscriptions are available for $200 a copy or $5.00 a year. The three issues will be published during Fall, Winter, and Spring Quarters. Submissions are invited in the areas of prose, poetry,~ and photography.
Staff
Charles Whitt, Editor-in-Chief
Herny C. Mason, Poetry Editor
Matthew J. Bush, Fiction Editor
Janet Nesler, Photography Editor
Julie Johnson, Art Editor
With special thanks to Rebecca Isaac whose knowledge and patience helped make this publication possible.
Printed by Shawnee State Print Shop Director. Kenneth Powell
Copyright September 1987
All rights reven back to the authors upon publication.
Table of Contents
Guest Editorial-2/ Calliope-4/ Apple-Tree Lane-5/ Cheers to the Little Ones-6/ The Taste of Honey-6/ Blackboard of the Mind-7/ Ripples-7/ Young Woman-8/ Soul-8/ perfections-9/ The Window-9/ artistic drama-10/ Cliff-10/ Them Appples-12/ Roach-14/ The Spider Machine-15/ Song of Moming-17/ Storm Break:-17/ Me and Them and Will-18/ Overexposure-20/ The Way of Love-21/ Quiet Contrast-21/ Reclaiming Vision-22/ Look at Me Closely23/ laughter-23/ Dream of Beijing-24/ On the Garden's Edge-26/ Reality-27/ The Off-Beat Health Vision-29/ A Dream of Love-31/ Rebirth-31/ Teaching the Sophists in Florence, South Carolina-32/ Arena Lutece-34/ lmagination-36/ lliuminated-36/ joy-37/ Pariah-37/ A Note to Thoreau-38/
Guest Editorial
Appalachia is a broken mirror and. as such, a place of many contrasts--a land of mystery and obvious, a land of song and sorrow, a land of warmth and chill, a land of living and dying, a land of richness and worthlessness, a land of truth and lies, a land of motion and standing still. It is a land America once forgot and now one she's forgetting to remember.
One cannot hear the name without turning aside, pausing, wondering, for there is hardly a person alive who has not in some way been touched by this land and these peo:ple. Appalachia has literally fed all the great cities with bodies her own--and any land's greatest gift, her people-and now even these, generations removed, return sometimes in spirit to search for what was lost in the passing, what perhaps never was anyway except in false memory.
Many -colored quilts cover the searchers, guitars and banjos bathe songs in music remembered, and deep in the trees a stillness hangs--this beyond the screaming pain of noisy crowds and the familiar wail of sirens.
Even so, even to want to know is to realize loneliness is the hearse we ride in. To retrieve such music, coverings and all else, is an attempt to grasp the forgotten of perhaps what never was, is no more than holding a tiny piece of the mirror where we see ooly half a face, our own, and then realize the seven years have just begun.
Appalachia's people, although mostly British Isles stock, came from everywbc:re and went likewise. They came to this land of promise. lhermclves giving promises-both the gift and giver. Inbemit in ii all they lived by nourishment of the land and likewise nourished it in dying. They cleared the land, plowed and planm and grew first crops abundanL Later they stripped me timber and even later dug the coal Wuh each new season the land grew old and. often burdened beyond hope. eventually died silently. Now many old friends tum back ID timber where leaves go down making the ground. s left of it, again new.
Whatever she is, wherever she touches, Appalachia symbolizes America's dream, and if we wake m nightmare she is a night we all must sleep through and morning come must go our waking way beyond the dreaming.
Within Appalachia's myth is a metaphor for us all. We must ask and wonder where she's been, where she is, and where she is going. We must answer with fire whether it warm or burn us.
I am Appalachia's son, born of her, raised by her to manhood. I am also stranger to her. Still I search in her for the dream, our dream, the American dream--hidden somewhere, I believe, between the clearing and fields now trees again.
Lee Pennington Poet Laureate of Kentucky
Calliope
fora moment into my cabin you whirred and dropped to the window stilled.
so small,and your heart beating faster than a leaf flutters in stormy winds. my hands
full of timber splinters and pygmy earth softly engulfed you and 1 prayed to a thousand gods that my hugeness would give you life again. in the cup of my palms hard leather i lifted you outside above my head to a break in the clouds and the tears that fell like caked maple sap in my beard pulled my face down. i never saw you fly away but i remember looking at my empty hands and smiling then laughing and the chips of stones within me alchemized and turned to gold
-William James Kovanda
Apple Tree Lane that it is plastered like wet pastels-the sky, cloud smudged, increases the longing for tall evergreens, and cabins steeped in neighbor's histories.
-William James Kovanda
Cheers To The Little Ones
Bandits of fortune creatures of comfort wild and wooly, they lust to be angels; they settle for a pagan nite.
-John J. Szubinski
The Taste Of Honey
The taste of honey is bitter When niggardly given By the lily white hand that beats you.
-Tom Nakano
Blackboard Of The Mind
My face is my slate, I wipe emotions Off it at will. Only to scrawl other chalk thoughts on this blackboard ofmy mind.
-Gary A. Scheinoha
Ripples
Like a human stone dropped into the pond, I've made a splash on those around me. Swallowed up by the waters, the ripples continue--
Spread out in an ever-widening circle of friends and associates, lives touched by my dive into life.
-Gery A. Scheinoha
Young Woman
The young woman displays her virginity, outstretched on tongs like a white snake squirming above her childhood. It is frightening to her; she refuses to touch it with her hands. The snake must shed its white scales for the limp tube of a man, to love her empty and safe like all the men she knew in college, running their thick fingers over her flesh like a fine leather.
-Paul Adkins
Soul
I am a wild soul Captured in limbo With no way out And no way home.
Help this wild soul Help it live Release its love Its passion , its energy For a caged soul Is a broken soul A dead soul A haunting ghost.
Release me please For I am passion True love and forgivness And I must survive.
-Julie Whitt
perfections
white as an angel's anns is my lady's conscience, rose absorbing light, strained through colored glass buttermilk rich, translucent forest of hued shadows absorbing ungreyed, so much of all else thatimustbelieve (whatever splendor both window and woman have to my eyes.)
eternity exists for the discovery of new perfections endlessly.
-Charles Ramp
The
Window distance, like lon~ vacant sounds, whispenng, insistent memories of falling rain in a forest of cold wet leaves and pine needles, being touched privately by the soft drops from above amidst the loud noises of passionate splashings into clear puddles growing larger, stirring the earth.
the beautiful shades and hues of the woods -a portrait framed in chipped panes.
-William James Kovanda
Sometimes, I create apoem of hypersensitive beauty. It pleases me for awhile and then the rage takes over and I wake up with bloody bands.
"artistic
drama"
-Ray Gofonh 3rd
Cliff
He shruggged me o ff that cliff Again but a pile of soft lost lovcs Like white sand broke my fall.
I sat cross-legged at the bottom Sifting grains through my fingers And knew that I would c limb back up To dance again on the mesa pizzicalo pirouette With some unknown dancer too close ID the edge.
-Liza Johnson
Them Apples
The kitchen door slammed as the little boy came out onto the back porch of the hilltop farmhouse. He stretched then kneeled down and petted the three tiger-colored cats who waited for their breakfast He took an apple from the crate on the steps and stuck it in his jacket pocket. When he came down the steps, he saw the old white goose eating snails in the geraniums and tried to catch him, but, as usual, the goose took off toward the orchard behind the house.
So, the boy lost interest, ate his apple, threw the core to the chickens, and ran down the hill to the empty fields. He pushed down a strand of barbed wire and crossed through the fence, walked through the eucalyptus trees and ran throufh the weeds. He filled his pockets with stones at the grave pile and headed out deep into the fields.
"Hello, Frost, " said the little boy.
Frost said nothing and settled OD the leaning trunk of an old crooked willow. The boy just stood there for a few minutes scuffing his feet in the sandy soil.
After a time, he took some stones from his pocket and started tossing them at an old Model Tobacco can that sat in a rut of the long, unused road in the over-grown field. The abandoned road that led to nowhere must once have led somewhere. But the boy did not wonder where the road had wandered as it had been that way f<r as long as he'd known it.
A rock, finding its target, clunked loudly against the Model can in the silent morning air. And the boy lost interest and brushed through the narrow P{> between the wild blackberry bushes. He paused at the nckety corral fence that hadn't served to keep anything in <r out since the time the rutted road had led to somewbele.
"Hello, Frost," said the boy to Frost OD the fence.
Frost, as usual, said nothing and just rested on the tumbledown fence. A few wild cabbages grew under the fence's protection. They dripped with mcning dew.
The morning was cool but not cold and the sun was rising over the telephone lines by now. 1bc mornin g dampness was already drying away and lhc morning chill was gone. The boy looked up the bill toward the house and saw his father walking from the house to the equipment shed.
Theboyfishedtheremainingstonesfromhis pocketsandtossedthemhighintotheairovertheberry bushestryingtohitthetobaccocanonthefarside. They missed. Andtheboysaid."Solong, Frost Timetopick apples." Hedidn'twaitforananswerandstartedrunning backalongthepathhe'dcome,backtowardtheapple orchardbeyondthehouse.
Mostoftheappleswereinbynowaswinterwas hangingpatientlyoverthehorizon. Frostsaidnothingand wasdownoffthefencebynow.
Theboyjoinedhisfather, sistersandbigbrotherin theorchard. Theywerealreadypicking. Thetreeswhere theypickedwereonthelowendoftheorchardandwere stillinthefullshade. Thetreesandfruitsweredampand drippy.
"Hello, Frost,"saidtheboy.
And Frost, asusual,saidnothing.
Father,dumpingapplesintoacardboardcarton, paused,stretchedandlookedathisyoungestboy. "Who youtalkin'to,boy?" him.
Theboypointedafingertowardthetreeinfrontof
"Talkin'totheapples?"
"Frost,"saidtheboy.
"That'scraziness,boy. Liketalkin'throughyour hat Anyhow, Frost'sbeengonehalfayearan'llprobably notbebacktillnextmonth.
"But,Pa,"saidtheboy. "Who'sthat?" He pointedtothedrippydewontheappleleaves.
That'sDew,son. Tisn'tnearcoldenoughfor Frost" Fatherclimbedbackuphisthree-leggedladderand resumedpicking.
"Hello,Dew,"saidthelittleboy.
"How'sitgoin',kid,"saidtheDew.
-StephnA.Hess
Roach
Death came in as from foam From a shiny piston.
Depress the button And blindness flew and wound Around like flames , The last thought Was RUN Before The pain ever became what it is now.
Now
There is only now And a sharp stagger for each step And a white burning agony for each night of stalked garbage And a sickened gurgle from spiracles waiting like doorways for air,
And a spiraling, flutt ering fall from the ceiling When spiky legs give way and cmi Under.
Stephen G. Rud
The Spider Machine
In its blackened glory even the bright sun is in its way. And the web it spins hangs down from the moon netting the land, into parkin~ spaces with Loud inky radios and fast food joints with their spidery food and tarantula beer and cobwebbed metal, cutting the vast iron land into a shrieking void; even the crickets know our shame.
-Richa.rd Paul Schmonsees
Song Of Morning
It comes with early spring, The tang of pine, the whisper of the wind. The mind remembers the glint of sun from forested hills, Soft trill of song echoing through dawn's hush;
The soft tread of the early riser, Careful to maintain the aura of time. Eyes closed, you hold to the images, Afraid to open the lids and face the harsh reality Of four bare walls, and the roar of machines outside That has replaced the song of morning.
-Janice E. Johnson
Storm Break
Rumbles flash roomed walls Their emptiness is held frozen For an instant
Now memory.....
The heat of flesh cries sweat And God applauds the curtained act Then silence came.
So did the rain ....
-Dexter Wolfe
Me and Them and Will
I broke up with Dr. Suess for Shakespeare but My friends say he's to old for me. They just don't like Will because They know we laugh at them. I should try to hide it.
They try to get me to leave him and Finger paint with them because after all Finger paint is in.
And now I won't paint with them But rm still too young to marry Wtll
-Iiza Johnson
Overexposure
A body becomes cold
While sleeping by an open window Like a heart exposed too many times To the chilling breeze of treason.
Sounds in our soul's endless night Make us fearful that we might be uncovered And subjected once again To the freezing reign of a cruel mistress.
Craving light and warmth
We bask in another's fire Long enough to once again feel the breeze And flee in terror of what could follow.
-H.C.Mason
The Way of Love
I once believed with longing, Born of old hurts, The way of love was strewn with roses. But now rve found the way of love.
I know now, , Love grows from pain exposed to pain, Fear exposed to fear, And standing naked Before the shrine of my love's love, With old hurts and scars exposed.
Fools who have never known Of you and love Told me they were deformities. But your love has helped me know All of me is me, And if I give you less, I must kill a part of you and me.
-Tom Nakano
Quiet Contrast ·
Thin fingers of light touch the shadows of night and conquer the exchange. When the moon leaves behind darkened trees it drags ebbing seas...
And those thin fingers of light quietly exert their right to revel in the new day.
-Terry Noel
Reclaiming Vision
Clearing the ground tossing rocks instigators of chipped plow blades nicked disks and broken hoes. Something intolerable about barns with no hay, Gardens not plowed under, Hillsides with briar thickets allowed to grow that condemn a spot to burrowing and thick skinned creatures Made him never walk swiftly But cover much land in an easy step. Cautiously combing Mother Earth with his eyes Seeing jewelry pieces lost twenty years before..... Once a doll emerged With spring plowing came the head second plowing came the arms. Disking birthed the legs and laying aside the rows He sought brown soil for the body. Instead he unearthed some lonesome brown elixir bottles once holding cures to maladies common many seasons before. She would scrub and scour each find, memorizing detail and wonder what mother and child had searched an afternoon in hot summer sun to recover a lost treasure--plowed over or grown over keepsake--seeing a knife or spoon lost as small hands busied themselves making mud pies and delicacies ideal for tin roof baking in orange haze summer waves. No need to walk swiftly and miss these.... Strangely unique reclaimed moments and things given up to earth. They find and keep them all.
-Deborah Hale Spears
Look at Me Closely
Sit still and listen to what I say. Make note of what I don't say. Take heed to what I should have said Dismiss what you thought you heard me say. Consider what you would have said instead. Ask me to repeat what I actually said And, oh yes, watch my eyes for meaning.
-Carla Simmons
Laughter comes from tiny efflorescent bubbles in my soul. Out they come, to change the world or at least brighten it.
"laughter'
-Kimberlea Richards
Dream of Beijing
She works hard in her coat too big. Behind the ox as the plow digs peeling open mother earth to receive the seed of next years hunger, she sings a happy song.
Tonight, in her grass thatched, mud walled home, She will comfort the pains and soothe the fears of old mother, put to bed brothers, sisters, cousins and the orphan boy and dream of Beijing and dancing with the Emperor's son.
-Gary A. Andrews
£).,l ~Liu4 . .;/u/s-5
On The Garden's Edge
We lie belly-joined by April where the doves glide in to the nest On pine-lined carpet, we taste of tongues grown ripe with spring. No tomorrows can erase the taste of ripened fruit we share out of season as it bursts in ripeness on the garden's edge
-Harding Stedler
Reality
I gaz.e through the windows of people's souls, and I tremble at the sight I see the walls of uniqueness crumbling.
An overwhelming society Craving domination. They claim to be individualists, but if you look deeper (into their souls)
y OU will find not only are they not individualists; they are in reality copying what they conceive as individualism.
-Mona Winstead
The Off-Beat Health Vision
Violations vibrate in veins. They are violin viruses and enter like hammer blows vibrating into fevers, night sweats, and rashes. It is they who have immunity. Their way is clear, clear and sinister. My body is a world of dangers. It is a Trojan horse of midnight questions. But I am not fooled. I am frightened. I wish to conserve my own rude ways. I am a Plantagenet rose thorn. I have rusty roots, am untickled by the comforts of an early eternal destination, yet am tempted by dark No more the charming nitwit, the son, the charging youth, and surging stud: I begin to hear an old person's sounds inside myself, giggling with a plan. Still, it's far-fetched I'd live forever. Death can mean relief, and often does; yet, I have plans today, perhaps tomorrow.
-Edward Mycue
A Dream of Love
If only I could pour All the love I feel Into the heart of someone Who needs it more Than I, Surely God would give me more.
-TomNakano
Rebirth
Sometimes a face.a look,a smile.a word... Seems to knock at doors of might have beens, Of feelings lost in some dim yesterday of youth When the face, the look, the smile,the word... Might have been ...for me.
Let me be with yesterdays and might have beens.
-Tom Nakano
Teaching the Sophists in Florence, South Carolina
There were no obvious signs. Families in the upper-middle class development perceived no reason why Clinton Spraggins would change the events of the annual May Day carnival in the backyard of his sprawling ranchstyle house. Later on some of the neighbors would comment that Clinton seemed to spend a lot of time with a supposed hooker named Lorraine, but that should be expected of a vital man who looked more to be forty than his sixty years of age.
Eleven months ago Clinton's wife committed suicide, leaving a note that she could no longer continue a life in Florence, South Carolina. She longed for a real theatre and a Mediterranean restaurant There were too many house trailers and all-night dental clinics for one town. She despised malls. It was no longer a rich, full life. There were no children involved, and that probably added to her decision.
On the first weekend in May, just as had been done for the past twenty-seven years, Clinton Spraggins set up his carnival. But there were changes. Clinton ordered a big screen television, placed it on the back porch, and showed old movies featuring the president Somehow, though, he dubbed the voice of William Burroughs whenever the president spoke his lines. This didn't really bother the townfolk. They thought it was an intellectual movie maybe from PBS and the president was in perfect character.
Clinton set up pinatas filled with religious tracts, condoms, and Gocxly's headache powders. He blindfolded all the boys out in the backyard. Stools were in a row as if for musical chairs. Instead, they played a game called Sniff Lorraine's Seat Inside the house, which in previous years had been turned into a srectacular haunted mansion, Clinton taped 8"-by-10 s of Wayne Newton on all available wall space. The petting zoo consisted of a dog, a cat, and a tarantula Ointon bought at a pet store in Columbia.
Still, the neighbors saw no need to worry. Clinton loved children and it was a shame he and his wife never
had one or two of their own. Later, they would realiz.e that in the past eleven months, Clinton's eyebrows had grown long and wild, moving across his forehead like silent Morse code.
The police arrived late in the afternoon. One of the little girls went home and told on Clinton, evidently. Or her mother asked her why she smelled of vinegar. Clinton's usual Bobbing for Apples concession had been transformed this year into Bobbing for Pig's Feet None of the neighbors could handle a game that could jeopardiz.e their kids' future. Slight eccentricities were one thing, but showing how another ethnic group lived was a totally different matter. What would happen if some of third or fourth graders took a liking to pig's feet? Then it would turn to turnip greens and hog's head cheese. Cries for chitlins would be heard at every backyard barbecue. Family :picnics and reunions would turn into disastrous, demoralizing, embarrassing events. Clinton stood before the magistrate, an old friend of his from back when Clinton toyed with local politics. The magistrate was all smiles, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief, Clinton-you-old-practical-joker, you.
'What's going on with you, Clint? You can't do things like this and get away with it," said the magistrate.
Clinton Spraggins, straight-faced and serious, said, "One should judge the progress of a community- or its lack of progress -- by the number of wheat pennies one finds in one's weekly pocket change. Last week I collected eighteen pennies. None of them were dated after 1957." His eyebrows were smoothed down, relaxed, for the first time since his wife drank the Drain0. "I am the teacher, now."
-George Singleton
Arena Lutece
Nine o'clock lovers disturbed on a bench,perhaps where nobles once sat, watch the eight of us walking down on the dirt of the ring. our kids can't
keep quiet. they yell and the lovers rise glaring and leave. Pigeons burst in a wave passing the ancient tiers circling, rising over the trees first
then over the buildings surrounding this park. Tenements form the coliseum's rims. One child begins swinging in bliss. The other two beat at the slide like a drum.
We're alone except for the thousands of windows. They blink watching us.
At 9:30 a guard clears the grounds. I think it's still the city of lust.
-William J. Vernon
Imagination
Imagination opens the mind to picture what sight cannot display;opens the ears to create sounds never heard; places time in the hands of dreamers; life in the hands of mourners.
Imagination gives heartfelt hopes and delectable dreams to those gathering strength to attain.
Illuminated
Dreaming, -Va/Nesler waiting in the dark,I see his hands, strength and gentleness,working Wishing, walking in the rain, I see his eyes gunmetal gray, glistening Running, spinning in the sun! I nothing, blinding blaze of feeling Loving!
-Delman
radiating grace in a field of dry gold a daisy sways. filling the expanse with beauty that only the proud mind of nature can produce . ·, the snow-white petals shimmer in the sun, glowing; a breez.e is set free. the daisy dances, singing, laughing: joy.
"joy"
-Kimber/ea Richards
Pariah
I'm a dreamer trying to make it, In a world I don't know. Outside of any clan, It is cold and m the midst of winter, My tears tum to snow.
-Edward Garcia
A Note to Thoreau
Dear Henry David Thoreau, I thank you a thousand times for sharing your ideas, your sentiments, your wisdom, your inner self.
Until I met your mind I did not know how to truly walk in woods and fields to amble through nature.
Your thoughts from Walden Pond, they taught me to: "simplify, simplify," my daily life and tasks, and at the same time to seek the enticing complexity of the life of the mind.
Your thoughts on civil disobedience, and on individual conscience have fortified numerous others, have affected whole nations from America to India.
The world is a better place, Henry David, and civilization is richer because you loved to think and write, because you put yourself on paper.
-Rod Farmer
Contributors--New Voices
DELMAN, from Prescott, AZ, is contributing to TIIE SILHOUETTE for the first time.
ROD FARMER, professor of Education and History at the University of Maine, is a first-time contributor. GARY GOFORTH contributes from Anaheim, CA. STEPHEN A. HESS writes from Wolford Heights, CA. JANICE E. JOHNSON is a Lucasville, OH poet. LIZA JOHNSON, a Portsmouth High School senior, is a recent recipient of a writing award from Marshall University. WILLIAM JAMES KOV ANDA contributes from Mendocino, CA. EDWARD MYCUE is a San Francisco poet. TOM NAKANO, another Californian, is a life-long student of Zen. TERRY NOEL, an SSU alumnus, was previously a member of the SSU Student Senate.CHARLES RAMPP contributes from Baltimore, MD. STEPHEN G. REED, from Tampa, FL is a first-time contributor. KIMBERLEA RICHARDS is another California contributor.RICHARD SCHMONSEES is a first time contributor from Brooklyn. CARLA SIMMONS is a Culver City, CA contributor. JOHN J. SZUBINSKI is a Connecticut poet. WILLIAM J. VERNON is a poet from Dayton, OH. JULIE WHITT, a native Scioto Countian, is a first-time contributor. MONA WINSTEAD writes from Columbia, SC.
Contributors-Familiar Voices
PAUL ADKINS contributes again from Atlanta, GA. . GARY ANDREWS --poet, guitarist, and songwriter, employed by Community Acti.on--lives in Portsmouth, OH. EDWARD GARCIA is a New York City poet. HENRY MASON, poet and bandsman from Portsmouth, OH, has contributed previously. JANET NESLER, former SSU student, is both poet and photographer. VAL NESLER , a member of the Phoenix Writers, lives in Sciotoville, OH. GARY SCHEINOHA from Eden, WI is a previous contributor of poetry. DEBORAH HALE SPEARS, author of Almost Mountains. resides in Ironton, OH. HARDING STEDLER teaches English at Shawnee State University. DEXTER WOLFE, a Columbus poet, is a native of Scioto County, OH.