

The 8ha.wnee 8LLhouette
The Shawnee Silhouette is published quarterly by the editorial staff at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio. Subscriptions are available for $2.00 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, art, and photography.
Staff
Henry C. Mason, Poetry Editor
Tamela Carmichael, Fiction Editor
Janet Nesler, Photography Editor
Jan Stein, Art Editor
Ozela Journey, Staff Assistant
Kim Lehn, Staff Assistant

Printed by Shawnee State Print Shop, Kenneth Powell, Director
All submissions should be mailed to
The Shawnee Silhouette
940 Second Street
Shawnee State University Portsmouth, OH 45662
COPYRIGHT, January 1989
All rights revert back to authors upon publication.

- Reasons for My Silence
- Winter Nears
- And Even You May Not Be Real
- A Canadian Hears the Call of the Mouth
- Mourning War Victims
- 24 Hours of Rangoon 23 - Beautiful Scarecrow
- Tarnished Patience
- At the Ruins of the Villa 28 - Dream Theatre
- On the Way Up
- Poetic License
- Unseasonable Flowering
- White Walls
- Open Drapes
- The Quilt
-I Paint for You New Green
- Ms. Laura Noble
- Crime and Punishment
- Can't Hold on to It Forever
- Moonscape

WHY WRITE?
One of those questions asked repeatedly at writers ' workshops, and one, I maintain, that should continue to be asked throughout a writer's career, is: why do I write? A colleague of mine has refrained from submitting his poetry to little journals for years. Why? I asked. "Because there is so much of poor quality being published." Though I don't necessarily agree, I found his literary restraint admirable. Because for many who manage to get something published early in their careers, publishing can become the only reason to write. I'd like to question that notion, and I hope that you will, too.
Writing only to publish is a temptation I know firsthand, but first I'll discuss my "friends." Some members of my own small writing community who have influenced me most seem to write mainly for publication; I say "seem" because the reason why any writer writes is ultimately personal and, I think, a matter of individual conscience. What makes me think they write primarily for publication? Because they tend to get extremely depressed when their work is rejected by journals and editors they admire. One good friend won't read any of my work (and won't ask me to read any of his) until it's published, considering, I suppose, anything else merely a "manuscript," not a completed poem or story at all. I won't kid you; I too, have been deeply hurt by rejection, not by Atlantic or Antaeus-those were expected--but by editors who I hoped would, or felt should, be open to me or my type of writing. But I think that I, like my friends, over-reacted, since acceptance for publication depends on so many factors besides quality politics, space limitations, personal tastes, etc. Editors are human; being one helps me to remember this on bad days. Thus, if respected friends confirm my tentative joy

over a poem I just wrote, that sharing is or should be a very good reason to write.
But maybe you should never show your work to anyone, that the kind of writing you do is extremely self-revealing and personal and you only submit it to magazines because you'll never have to meet the editor or readers. That doesn't seem to me a good enough reason to submit one's work for publication. Rather, your reason for writing is selfexpression; therefore, your works should probably be recorded in your journal, for your eyes only. If you wouldn't share your work with a friend, don't submit it to an editor, either. I've received work I'd place in this category (though the writer may not): too blatantly autobiographical to transcend the merely personal. Don't get me wrong; most fine work comes from one's own life, but it's either a unique experience,..w: the everyday experience and I'd include death, divorce, marriage, love, etc., the stuff all of our lives are made of has been transformed by the imagination into something special, a reading experience that converys concretely, not in the generalities of a greeting card, but in language guaranteed to knock the readers' socks off. That's art, at least in the public sense.
Other reasns to write occur to me. Maybe you could care less about any artistic evaluation of your work as long as it sells; that's fine: many good craftsmen are publishing like crazy these days and making a bundle, even appearing on the cover of Time, though they deny they're anything but hacks. You can write for your family, for your heirs, creating a Roots -like legacy for your loved ones. Beware: your audience is limited and probably no one outside the family group will be interested. Some writers, especially highly-educated, well-read poets, hope to "add to the language," use words and forms in such a way as to pioneer, take us into new understandings of what

language can do, to be the T. S. Eliot of the "80s. Great -do it, but you may encounter a lot of resistance from the establishment -- editors, teachers, other writers, your best friends, anyone whose concept of art is firmly rooted in tradition. To be a revolutionary is to be misunderstood, so again your writing might be consigned to your journal. Surely, you say, I've left out good reasons to write. As a matter of fact, I've arrived at the best one I can think of: writing as discovery (for lack of a better term): writing as therapy, exorcism, as a quasi-religious act. Anyone who writes seriously and honestly enough to get beyond the banality, sentimentality and over-politeness that shield each of us from a real, direct experience of life will eventually experience true discovery. Some writers say things like "I don't choose my subjects; my subjects choose me," or, like Faulkner, "I listen to my voices," stuff that sound pretty hocus-pocus, especially to a novice. However, all they're really saying is: with practice comes the ability to get below the conscious mind with all its distracting superficialities, and get to the real thing: genuine subjects and genuine language in which to convey them. Thus, after a session spent in the writer's trance (call it a dream, whatever), you don't know exactly where the work came from, but you know it's good; or rather you..ma_ in the deepest part of you it's good. Though you might've begun with some vague idea of a story about your childhood, say, it got away from you, digging in an adjacent mineshaft, and struck truth. And beauty. Told you something about yourself and everyone else, without preachiness or sentimentality, in the most correct voice. How do you do this? Simply make yourself available: show up at your desk day after day, face disappointment and frustration, waiting for those infrequent "inspired times." I drink a lot of coffee, too.
To me, discovery is the best reason to write. After a session like the one I've just described -- not all that
frequent_m: lengthy, unfortunately -- I leave the house feeling like the just-baptized believer, a patient who's just had a breakthrough with his shrink, the possessed newly relieved of his demons . The world smells, looks and feels fresh and fine. There are all kinds of psychological theories on how this happens, but they don't matter: with desire and practice, a writer should be increasingly capable of communing with his demons . Or gods. Or God. Now that's a reason to write .

-Ed Davis Editor, Flights

Reasons for My Silence
There are reasons for my silence
Reasons for the shielding of my soul. ..
Memories ... Too painful to recall, Things I'd rather not consider, at all.
Painful times, Broken dreams, Shattered hopes.
Physical pain ... Cannot compare, to the memories, I dare not share.

- C. Lamb
Winter Nears
Silos bulging at the seams. Animals in the barn protected from the cold.
Logs cut to size await their tum to feed hungry fires.
Within the house jars of preserves are placed on closet shelves . Woolen blankets and garments are given final attention.
Many a pipe will be smoked as winter tales are told.

-Richard F. Hay, Sr.


And Even You May Not Be Real
In that unrefined moment of madness, when I take you whole inside me, an eternity of Buddha stretches out. Through the slatted blinds, light comes scross the grayed walls, like a startled god who's here to pray at our altar of insanity. This may be some religious vision we've intercepted-- or created. You and I, with only our delusion, have redefined the boundaries of reason.



- Deborah Adams






A Canadian Hears the Call of the Mouth
I would return to Portsmouth, Ohio, But only to cloister on its highest hill
With fellow nuns, reading Donne by candle Weeding basil by day, and eating simple Meals of trappist bread and cheese, To overlook a green valley to Kentucky.
Is this global village so different? My Ontario wilderness mines nickel. Mcdonalds fries, the Cosby show repeats, And burritos cram the dairy case.
Still, when I see old Roy Rogers, Or hear Earl Thomas Conley sing I shelter in that hill-fold. With the broad Ohio sweeping Crumbled levees and ageless clay, Where I once walked with a deaf cat, Begging a shy rain to beat the heat

- Louise Allin






Tranquil Wilderness





Dexter Wolfe
Mourning War Victims: Verdun, Gettysburg
I keep coming to this: I can touch no hands. Not even memories. To soothe a single soldier's name from the grass is impossible. Here the earth sucked men up like water nourished fields.
There are no explosions now, not even voices. Instead, a single space behind my heart cries empty to these strange men who fought in their own strange century.

-Paul Adkins







Iron Heroes






Janet Nesler


24 Hours of Rangoon
Rangoon Airport welcomes you, unless you are claustrophobic or faint of heart. Sweating Australian businessmen in their dark blue suits, French tourists, Belgian United Nations officials, and backpackers are crushed together in a sweaty clump of tangled humanity shuffling towards the oblivious customs officials.
The reward for making it to the front of the crowd was getting a hold of one multiple page form. Three inspections, and at least an hour later, you are almost ready to see the outside.
This airport has redefined the meaning of chaos, and the perspiring catatonic faces surrounding me showed that I am not alone in my bewilderment. One of the men was a cigarette rolling machine salesman who had come all the way from London in person because the government cigarette factory in Rangoon had not responded to numerous letters about his offer to sell them his machines. (Later that evening, when we met at dinner, he informed me that the factory had closed down six months earlier.)
With reservations difficult to confirm from the outside world, I found myself standing in the well scrubbed lobby of the Strand Hotel. While signing the oversized dog-eared registration book, I was told "Only one day confirmed, sir, room with air conditioner. Tomorrow, may have room, only fan".
By 5:00 a.m. the next morning, people were filtering out into the streets. The quiet morning air was punctuated by the jangling handlebar bells on bicycle rickshaws. The riders' faces were wrapped Arabian style to protect them from the windchill factor of the 60 degree cool morning air.

As the streets came more alive, the rats began taking cover. As the rats left the streets, the cats came out. Why not sooner? It was obvious that these scrawny little white Rangoon cats had long ago learned not to tangle with their razor-toothed adversaries, as many of the latter outweighed them.
By dawn the city had a bewitching air to it. The morning light showed a foggy mist hanging low over the streets. Charcoal-cooking fire embers lit the street level, and exuded a smell of burning hickory chips mixed with autumn leaves.
In the vegetable marketplace, orange-robed monks wove their way through the squatting masses of women, occasionally stopping as their favorite devotees put rice into their begging bowls. At least half of the ladies, regardless of their age, have their cheeks powdered with the white residue of thanaka bark.
By 6:30 a.m.the street sweepers were out in force with their three-foot-long straw brooms. The smoldering coals now combined with diesel fumes from ancient buses and trucks to create a smoky incense. These sights, sounds, and smells added up to an exotic show. All around, through the darkened mist, smiling faces seemed to convey the message "Welcome to this strange, exotic, friendly land."
Just north of central Rangoon, the cemetery, overgrown with scrubby shrubs and thorn bushes, evoked memories of a bygone era. Although vandals had decapitated most of the saints' statues, the tombstones were left intact. One read, In loving memory of Charles Berry, Rangoon Pilot Service, born 28th July, 1832, died 3rd of 16

Used wine bottles lined up on the pavement seemed to be the sole product of one entrepreneur. More prevalent were the photo studios, with their 1950isq looking black and white prints hanging on the pain-cracked wooded walls.The market stalls were stocked with noodles, eggs, oranges, dried beef strips, and sundry unrecognizable edibles. Also hanging around were carcasses of animals, some fresh and bloodied, others having spent what looked to be two weeks drying out in the Burmese sun.
Cooking stalls lined the streets. Improvision was the theme: one third of a 50 gallon drum looking as if it had been cut open with a chainsaw, with anchor beer cans being used as ladles.
One smiling, starved looking entrepreneur sold small birds outside of a temple. For 5 kiats customer/ worshippers buy two birds which are taken out of the cage and immediately released into the air. Apparently Buddha is watching from above, and smiling at the release of two of his feathered friends, marking down Buddha points in his book for you. "The Road to Enlightment" is one made more express by multiple altruistic acts such as freeing the birds and pounding golf leaf onto the roof of a Pagoda.
Don't look for Pierre Cardin gold pens here. Shopping is something best saved for a country that has something to sell. If you llll!fil buy, however, here are some things you might consider:
One Color Television set: 15,000 kiats. 1960 Mazda, very used condition: 100,000 kiats. One tire, for 1960 used Mazda: 2,000 kiats. Dinner for two at a pleasant Burmese restaurant is 100 kiats. If drinks are included, the bill is about 200 kiats

The value of these objects ranges according to what standards the purchaser follows. The government of Burma's money-changing rate is 6 kiats per dollar. At this rate, that color television set is $2,500. On the other hand, the black market money-changing rate of 30 kiats per dollar brings the television in at $500.
The government is not blind to the fact that, when given the chance, every wise person, whether he be Burmese or tourist, will change his money at the black market rate. This will get a person five times as much local currency for the same dollar amount.
It is, therefore, not surprising that they monitor the more important currency transactions to make certain that they are maximizing their input of foreign currency. For instance, the procedure to purchase a ticket on Biman Bangladesh Airways went as follows. After reserving a seat on the plane, the agent at the downtown ticket office stated that I would have to bring 900 kiats for the ticket. When I reached into my pocket for the money, I was told that this money was not acceptable. I would have to go to the bank and tum in foreign currency at the rate of 6 kiats per dollar and bring back those kiats to purchase the ticket
Going to the bank, I made the transaction with a $100 traveler's check and $90 in American cash. After going to a teller to fill out the forms, the lady directed me to one window to change the traveler's check, and the other to change in the cash. I turned in a variety of $10 and $20 dollar bills. Each of the bills was separately recorded on the sheet of paper with the individual serial number. I was then given token number 5 and told to sit over on the worn bench. An hour groaned by; I was told to wait awhile longer.



When making any currency transactions you must present your currency control sheet. "This is the government's official way of monitoring the moneychanging of the tourists.
The wait was so long that I found that I had to go back to the hotel to check out even before I got my money changed. Unfortunately, when I went to check out, the clerk at the Strand Hotel stated that he needed my currency control sheet in order to complete the transaction, even though I was using my American Express Card. The bankers still had my sheet. When I told him the papers were at the bank, he was horrified that a tourist would even think of making a transaction without this government document.
Back at the bank I turned in my token number 5. After receiving a six-inch-high stack of filthy looking money, I ran over to the ticket office. Although the Biman agent was courteous, he told me that I had only half the needed money.
Running back to the bank, I went to each person responsible for my transaction, and each, in tum, scratched his head, bewildered at my return. On the second visit to one of the cages, an ancient looking money changer handed me another large stack of bills, telling me that this was the one for my traveler's checks. I had complicated their lives by splitting my money-changing between traveler's checks and cash.
At each stop, my currency control forms were officiously examined and stamped with a government seal. I was beginning to crack from the currency yo-yo game when the smiling, large-toothed Indian-looking agent finally handed me my ticket.






The currency black market seemed so much more simple and profitable. However, the thoughts of languishing in a Burmese jail, festering sores covering my body, quickly dispelled any notions of violating their currency laws.

Rangoon city is made up of shimmering pagodas and weathered buildings, discolored and blackened Colonialstyle mansions. Their overgrown lawns are leftover relics from the heyday of the British Empire.
World War II jeeps, 1950's Ford Fairlanes, battered Studebakers, prehistoric Mazda minicars, and dilapidated cargo trucks comprised the mainstream of city transportation. They were suitable props in this timewarped city. If it were not for a handful of new black Mazda 929 high government official cars, as well as a fleet of olive-colored Russian-looking jeeps, this city could pass itself off as a 1940's theme park.




Take away the new black government official Mazdas as well as the few new army vehicles and you have a glimpse of the way this city looked forty years ago. In fact, the country has been closed off from the outside world for a quarter of a century, since general Ne win sealed it up and imposed a custom-made xenophobic socialist government. This is one reason why it is not checkered with fastfood restaurants and massage parlors. The Burmese xenophobia continues to protect the country against wholesale invasion from the modem world. Visas are limited to seven days; access to Burma is by air only (Rangoon) and confined to a few choice carriers such as Union Burma, Biman Airways, and Air Vietnam.







With the unlocking of the country, one might see more businessmen exposing themselves to the perils of the Rangoon airport. Three quarters of the world's teak grows here, and there are extensive oil reserves as well as uncountable tons of rubies. But, there is little to indicate that Rangoon, in the near future, either has the inclination or the ability to conform to anything remotely resembling western standards of living. Not that it should even care. This antique uniqueness is, in itself, the attraction that will lure adventurous travellers for years to come.








- Bill Kizorek




Leo Jarrell









'13eautifu{ Scarecrow
:You foof(so aifferent in tfie {igntj even tfie mot/is are snoo 'a away 6y tne intensity of your pain.



• !Jf. C. Mason



Tarnished Patience

She: What is his gift? What gesture will he use to defuse our tense situation, to deny our unconventional relationship?
He: What song will we play
that will allow us to dance our favorite tango?
He: Oblivious to any voyeurs we stumble toward our goal, but we never seem able to agree what our goal is, can we ever?
He: As any soldier knows, when you've seen the bodies being put in body - bags, you understand what war is about.
She: What feature of ours is showing at the local cinema; will we give away dishes to prompt attendance?
She: We watch the lightning of our embrace reflected in the fun - house mirrors, wishing that just once a storm would come and cool us down.

He: Do we cheat at cards to gain our ends or are we simply fooling ourselves into dealing from the bottom of the deck to maintain honor?
She: Watch us intimidate our tenderness each trying to be victim to the insults posed by our love.
He: Our common fears compound the bifurcated behavior we call logical reflection on our expressed desire to be one.
She: The power of love is the power to destroy - or if we wish, the power to create.
She: Do we strive in our poetry to destroy each facet of the other by using our words' power to curse, rather than bless our lover?
He: Is our capacity to love equal that of the desire to rage at our ringed - twin, or do we shape a conscience dead to passion?



He: We now travel those backroads steeped in hate and dark loathings which history teaches us are deadends and moral box - canyons.
She: Love is fragile and will sink in the dark waters of abandoned mines when the ore has played out.
She: Let us share our memories as heritage to our future, gifts to bestow on our children, dreams now real, baptized with loving care.



They: If we care, what force can separate us from the warmth and openness of our enduring union--
- leen Stme



At the Ruins of the Vil la
Toe day folded in upon itself like an idea pondered too long
The birds were their own echo and the trails of sunlight bounded back to the sky
The valley was an implosion imminent where the shepherds and sheep strolled from hill foot to foothill then back again with no thought past the sweet taste of air sucked into the lungs and exhaled to the waiting trees





'Dream 'ITieater
Slie was very oU anaone aay
slie tda me tliat
lier dreams at nignt
natl become more beautiful natl become more e;rr,iting tlian lier everyday G.fe
?{pw, !(now wlien I wok.into
lier sad eyes
lier gray eyes
witli. tlieir faraway ga.r,e
?{pw, I (now tliat slie nas cfwsen
tlie tia~t nours and s{up .. .sweet escape
Slie only waits for tlie tfarK.s~UJVU{ nanas of 9-(tgnt to open tlie
bfac.(curtains on lier dream fi[kd stage a stage
wliere catuffu gfow anti younger fioures oU rememberedfaces from years wng gone £,y dressed in britJnt cowrs gossip sing faugn and dance
~gina !Jlefen Jacobitz








Going
to the Top














Ozela Journey

On the Way Up
The sun was a red wink in the larger eye of the sky. crossed the street, the chill of morning urging me on. Plunging into the warmth of the lobby of Tandy House, I nodded to Ralph, the bouncer-cum-doorman, before launching myseH like some misguided arrow into the elevator.
The sun was up, full blaze now, transforming the glass cage edging along the side of the skyscraper into a crystalline coffin. Three floors passed, the doors eased open and in stepped a brunette of maybe five-three or four , turning her shapely shoulders to me to study the parade of numbers across the panel over the door. I stared at her hair, a dark waterfall plummeting about her shoulders in a silent splash
"About last night..."
"You've no need to explain," she breathed
"Oh, but I do."
"What could you say? That I'd want to hear?"
She spun to face me , the sun glinted off a tear in her eye.
"You got drunk, the obscene poet..."
"I promise ."
"What? It won't happen again? Can you live up to that kind of deal?"
"'-•• H
"No, please, just this once let me finish.
I can't take anymore. No more of the bottle-waving, foulmouthed bard. No more of the groupies "
"They're not groupies!"
"Whatever poets call th~ir fans. No more of the misunderstood author."
"Can we talk --"
"That's all we do is talk. And no more of YOU ."
"If it's about our affair?"
"Our affair? It was more than that to me."
"I'm sorry old man Tandy fired you."
"That isn't it, you fool."
"You were his personal . .. "
"I'm no one's property."
"I "
"No, stupid, I thought you loved me."





"I did do."


The pause between us was an ugly, inexorable thing.
"You see, you're not even sure yourself ."
Silence again.
"I can change."

"Can you? I don't think you want to."

She waved off my objections.

"Look at yourself; you're burned out."

"I suppose old man Tandy will have no more of me around his private sanctums."
"Old m ... Mr. Tandy doesn't know it was you. You can always find another publisher. But does it matter, do you care?"
"I think I do."
"I know you don't. You're a poet on the way down; I'm an editor on the way up. I need someone who wants to climb up, not tag along for the ride."
A low blow, but when the doors excused her again, I rode that glass chicken coop all the way up. Trying to convince myself she was wrong. I nearly accomplished the task on the return ride down. Exiting into the lobby, I stumbled against the doorframe, heard the muffled clink of glass breaking in my pocket, and the spreading wetness of a fifth emptying itself down my shirt front proved she had been right all along.




--Gary Schelnoha





Soaring Free
Valerie Nesler

Poetic License words come dripping downtheinkedtubage slowly ball out across yellow sheets into an obtuse blue funk that no body fathoms
- Sheryl L. Nelms

















Leo Jarrell
Unseasonable Flowering
We are falling softly backward into love. In the aftermath of dogwood winter, buttercups are blooming for the first time, raw innocents declaring spring in spite of frost. They've chosen poorly the time and place, here where the old hound means to live. Too late now for transplanting bulbs that should have been moved autumns ago. Now their only hope lies in the picking of occasional bouquets, kept a day or two in Mason jars but always dying.
- Deborah Adams

White Walls
I was taken by surprise when I entered your room to find a colossal picture of your soul moving across the walls.
You said you've given color to your blankness. And now it's easier to face the room when the moon appears, awakening the walls.
- Michael Spring




Open Drapes
The incense burned. Shadows beamed long lines through the smokey air. The light tilted purple through the dawning trees.
When you opened the drapes I felt exposed, yet extended. You freed my sight, which had only crawled on the drapes buzzing for distance.
Poems that were dreamed about no longer sat there without shape.
My mind unraveled the web From the center of the page.
-Michael Spring









Helen Scott

Small Town USA
Janet Nesler
the quilt

tatters and rags of cloth were saved in wicker baskets, stacked in narrow cedar closet until late autumn when preschool boy cut quilt pieces, matching cardboard shapes and the women's hands made patterns, sewing colored squares. dark winter days and evenings saw - horses were set with long frame bars to make quilts -and now i wonder how grandma saw in grey twilight.
then i liked rough, bought blankets best woven all in one piece, later appreciating skills of quilt - commitment. unimportant bright - colored scraps were part of gift warmth; so patched each act of human love for grace is often cheap, but never worthless.
- Charles Rampp

Helen Scott

1, PCJ.i.nt for you. New Clreen
N i.ght com.es ea.rl.y when the sun m.oves south. i-n Earth's rota.ti-on.
And the suddenness of i-ts shi-ft ca.n ta.~e one by sur-pr-i-se .
...l9i-n9 i-s no ea.sy ta.s~
a.nd a.s 'l see you sha.~en by i-ts sudden shi-fts, 'l 9r-ope for- words to cushi-on hurt.
Wi-nter- com.es unwanted i-n defi-a.nce of our- tfrea.m.s.
Sur-render- i,s not wi-thout a. f i.ght.
We br-eCJ.th.e the hope of sum.m.er- 's r-a.di-a.nce
i-nto vi-si-bC.y f a.di-n9 fC.Ower-s
a.nd ta.y our- hea.tls on m.oonC.i.ght diluted by the wi-nd.
Toni-9ht we cannot steep for- di-sta.nt hounds
th.at ~eep the ni.ght a.C.i-ve. We cC.utch the f ea.r- of om.ens borne by cC.Ouds
th.at brush a.9a.i-nst the m.oon.
'l pa.i-nt for- you new 9r-een on ta.r-ni-shed tea.ves those m.or-ni-n9s when 'l f eeC. the rust i,s too i-ntense
a.nd the 9r-ound too r-oc~-[.i,~e under- foot.
-Harding Sted/er





Ms. Laura Noble

Meet Ms. Laura Noble

Her life is dominated By her desire to be rich
To be accepted by the the rich, Ms. Laura Noble the seeker Seeks meaning in life
Through conspicuous consumption Of clothes, of jewlry
Of all to which class status
Can be attached,
For Ms. Laura Noble the coed Her conspicuous consumption habit Determined her choice of college
For she sought a school With the class-status label,
For Ms. Laura Noble the lover Love means being attracted to A man of the appropriate class
For it is through other people
That she seeks to acquire Her leisure-class status,
As Ms. Laura Noble the she-wolf Stalks for her appropriate mate I am overjoyed that I am safe That I do not belong
To the appropriate class.





- Rod Farmer





Jennifer Justice

Gentle Ruler











Janet Nesler
Crime and Punishment
Too late we realize these children of divorce make grand inquisitors, having trained themselves in our crucibles of shattered faith. We tremble before their right to know corollaries of love, that they matter now as they did back when all things mattered; refusing to confess to angry offspring that our gift of parenthood was vandalized by youth who'll one day conceive their own replacements.

-Glenn Mckee






Can't Hold on to It Forever

How to open a door without disturbing anyone: pass through it like the brother who left his white fire in Vietnam; or the father who settled into a coma easily, as if this was what his life had been leading up to; a mother whose bout with cancer stretched years of my life through her diseased belly; a sister pulled from the wreckage so we could identify her non - moving parts; a friend shot to death in a back street bar because beer needs room to breathe.
Don't tell your lover you've come in. Let her wonder, in her dreams, about what can be held onto, what passes like a shiver in the night







Moonscape
Two dollars at a yard sale
Would have bought the painting
That graced the artificial
Gas-log fireplace
But the art need not be great
To return a child through his Jungian memory
To that place of the full moon
Behind the one dead tree
Where the cold northern river
Is flowing down a shivering beam
He will see them again
Falling into that sleep of age
Beginning the eternal dream
Of eternal place,
That cold light that is Neither dawn nor sunset, but The inner glow of glacial headwaters
Where the race returns to be reborn
With the memory of beavers
Swimming the moonlight
Melting winter woods.

-Robert L. Jones

PERFORMERS IN TIDS DRAMA
DEBORAH ADAMS, from Waverly, 1N, is one of the mainstays of the Green River Writers. PAUL ADKINS, an Atlanta, GA contributor, has been previously published among these pages. LOUISE ALLIN, a Roman Catholic nun, formerly resided in Portsmouth, OH. BOBBY CARLTON writes from Dallas, TX. ROD FARMER, a fonner Fulbright Scholar, is currently a professor of education and history at the University of Maine at Fannington. JOHN GREY is a Providence, RI contributor. RICHARD F. HAY, SR., from West Newton, MA, is a first-time contributor. REGINA HELEN JACOBITZ is a San Antonio, TX contributor. ROBERT L. JONES writes from neighboring West Virginia. An employee of InPhoto Surveillance in Illinois, BILL KIZOREK makes his first appearance in The Silhouette. C. LAMB writes from Dunkirk, OH. GLENN McKEE, from Waterville, ME, is a recent prize-winner in the Phoenix Writers' "Dogwood Winter" poetry contest. The poet H. C. MASON is responsible for getting onto computer the copy for each issue of The Silhouette. From Tucson, AZ, SHERYLL. NELMS writes. CHARLES RAMPP is an inner-city poet-pastor who writes from Baltimore. GARY A. SCHEINOHA, from Eden, WI, is a previous contributor to these pages. MICHAEL SPRING, who writes from Sacramento, CA, previously appeared in The Silhouette. HARDING STEDLER is a local poet who enjoys spending time being inspired by the magic in the French Quarter of New Orleans. From Portlandville, NY, KEN STONE has a new book entitled Twins Woven on the Same Loom.
Photography Contributors: Ozela Journey, Janet Nesler, Valerie Nesler, and Dexter Wolfe.
Art Contributors: Leo Jarrell, Jennifer Justice, S. W. Ozgen, Helen Scott, Kent Sloes, and Jan Stein.

POETRY CONTEST
The theme for the annual Shawnee Hills Spring Poetry Contest is "The Other Side of the Mountain." Two poems for $3.00. Deadline, March 31, 1989. No names on poems please. Put your name, address, titles of poems and their first lines on an index card and enclose with your submissions.
Send submissions with entry fee to:
D. H. Spears, Contest Chair
403 South Sixth Street Ironton, OH 45638
Prizes: 1st - $50 / 2nd - $30 / 3rd - $20. Three HM's Awards will be presented at the Shawnee Hills Spring Poetry Workshop at Greenbo Lake State Park, Greenup, Kentucky, during the April 28 - 30 weekend.
The Plowman, Box 297, Brooklin, Ontario, Canada, LOB lCO is requesting poetry submissions from all walks of life. Full-size saddle stitched magazine of quality... an international journal. Send SASE or $2.00 and we will cover the postage to any country. Also monthly poetry contest with feature poet, cash prizes, and twelve winners.