2015 Blue Ash Review

BLUE ASH

REVIEW Volume 22 | the literary magazine of UC Blue Ash College

2014 UCBA Poetry & Song Contest Winners The Tao of Photography

Student Photography and Poems

Featured Poet Richard Hague

Volume 22 | Page 1

The Blue Ash Review, a publication of University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, edited

by Rhonda Pettit with graphic design by Rob Carper, is made possible by the UCBA Dean’s Office, the Department of English and Communication, and the UCBA Communications Department. Cover photograph by Marcus Evans, “Curves in Air” (2014) from Tao of Photography Seminar.

We welcome comments and contributions all year round. For more information, contact the editor at UC Blue Ash College, Department of English and Communication, 9555 Plainfield Road, Blue Ash, Ohio, 45236. Or email: Rhonda.Pettit@uc.edu.

Rights to the work herein revert to the authors, and may not be reproduced without their permission. Previous issues are on file at the UC Blue Ash College Library.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface

7

Jane Larkins, Steps of Intimacy

8

UCBA Food Writing Contest 2014-15 Hayley Day, The Universe’s Best Food Aurora Patag, Cincinnati ~ Kitchen Heart

10 15

UCBA Poetry Contest: College Students Gracie DiGennaro, Fireflies Hayley Day, Waste Mickey Walters, Paris is Burning

19 20 21

Emily Burch, This Way Has Gone Too Far

22

UCBA Feature Poet: Richard Hague Irrecoverable, or “The Long War” “I’d Rather Be a Rich Hooker Than a Poor Poet” Self-Portrait in a Motorcycle’s Rearview

27 28 29

The Tao of Photography

30

Student Photography and Poems H. Michael Sanders, Special Section Editor

UCBA Poetry Contest: High School Students Joshua Posey, Poeticus Interruptus Dezi Lowry, Cave Finger Fluting Jordan Joiner, Tainted Words and Actions Regarding Justice: Students Respond to the Ideas of David A. Singleton Sydney Grace, The Skeleton Key Excerpts from Other Student Essays

42 43 44

45 48

Table of Contents

UCBA Creative Arts Faculty Learning Community Jamie Albert, Ad Series of Risk Factors Jody Ballah, It’s just a song Matt Bennett, Hair Club for Men Rita Kumar/Sunitha Narayanan, An Uneasy Alliance Robert Murdock, Excerpts from Memories of Pluto Kevin Oberlin, Prayer for the Devil to Restore Our Child Rhonda Pettit, Three Ships Mike Roos, Rich Man (Venus and Mars) Ship of Fools Claudia Skutar, Silence

50 52 53 54 57 59 62 64 65 66

UCBA Song Writing Contest Caylen Hays, Morning Dew

68

UCBA Scary Story Contest Katherine Wilhelm, The Longest Night Wesley Osler, Pinch Me Kyla Andrus, [untitled]

71 72 75

Christian Marion, [untitled] H. Michael Sanders, Five Lines of Inscription Three Stanzas from a Notebook

78 79 80

Contributors

82

Photo by Malachi Mason

Editor’s Preface Rhonda Pettit

This issue of the Blue Ash Review is a bit unusual in that it consists largely of special sections. Some of these, such as the featured poet of our National Poetry Month celebration, and our college and high school poetry and song writing contest winners, recur each year. Three poems by Richard Hague, whose Purcell Marian High School students swept our poetry contest, thus appear in this issue, as do his students’ poems. Our thanks go to all other participating teachers, students, and schools. Special thanks again go to Willis Music and Ric “Lightnin’ Hopkins (SoundWorkshop Recording Studio in Florence, KY), for co-sponsoring our song writing contest by providing generous contest prizes.

The Scary Story Contest, sponsored by the UCBA Writing and Study Skills Center, is becoming a regular feature also.

Work from the 2013-14 Creative Arts Faculty Learning Community, a group devoted to the production of collaborative, cross-disciplinary artistic and written works, and the reflection of how the principles behind such work can be applied to their teaching, appears for the second year.

Three new sections focus on student work. The Tao of Photography, a special section edited by H. Michael Sanders, chair of the Electronic Media Communications Department, presents a sampling of photography and poetry created by students in his Tao of Photography seminar over several years. This work culminated in an exhibition at the UCBA Art Gallery and

three gallery presentations in the fall of 2014. Portions of the exhibition appear in an online catalog, available through the UC Blue Ash College website: www.ucblueash.edu/about/community/ art-gallery/tao-photography.html.

Justice is the theme of the second section, as it was for the Common Reading project across UC’s campuses for 2014-15.

In support of this theme, the UCBA Community Conversations program presented a public lecture, “How Can You Defend Those People,” by David A. Singleton, director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center. Students attending the lecture from the English course, Women’s Literature: Prison Writing, offer their thoughts about Singleton’s presentation. We also present the first and second place winners of our 2013-14 Food Writing Contest conducted as part of the Food for Thought theme used in our First Year Experience courses. Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, was the featured speaker in our Community Conversations lecture series that year.

The Blue Ash Review is always looking for creative and innovative work – writing, photography, collage, design – from students, faculty, and staff. We also consider work from our off-campus communities as well. Send your queries or work any time of the year to me at rhonda.pettit@uc.edu.

Be sure to include all of your contact information.

Volume 22 | Page 7

Jane Larkins

Steps of Intimacy Touch, like the blowing wind upon the neck.

A sense of chill scintillating throughout.

Kiss, soft and gentle, eyes closed pull in closer feel life’s bass elevation.

Embrace, enclosed in love’s safest place.

Clear thoughts, no hurries gone are the worries.

Sex, fiery trust fueled by the longings of lust.

If this be wrong, sentence me to dust.

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FIRST PLACE Hayley Day

SECOND PLACE Aurora Patag

Volume 22 | Page 9

Hayley Day

1st Place

The Universe’s Best Food Trevormore is located 120 billion miles east of Josh Carter’s donut.

Five billion creatures populate the blue, spinning ball of water and foliage.

These creatures are known as Inyads.

Inyads are comprised of gray, disproportioned pouches and angular, thin legs.

They have crooked, flimsy mouths and dejected eyes with monocular vision. They are cold blooded, nocturnal and habitually boring. Inyads don’t swim in Trevormore’s vast, sparkling oceans, or climb the speckled stems of the Boran trees, or even eat the fruit that the Boran trees bear. Instead, Inyads eat moogal.

On Earth, you make moogal like you make a soufflé. Just replace egg whites with tar, and flour with dirt. Don’t use butter, as most Inyads are prone to high cholesterol; use gravel, instead. Bake for 30 minutes without opening the oven, as the moogal could fall. Let it cool for 10 minutes, drop on the floor and eat with your hands, as is custom.

Inyads are not good cooks. They have perfected space travel, invented time travel and memorized the numerical equivalent of pi. They provided hints to Earth-native Albert Einstein to theorize the mass-energy equation, and created a renewable energy source, patented it, and sold it to nearby galaxies. Inyads are always thinking of new

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ways to solve for x or find the derivative for y, but when it comes to pairing herbs and proteins, or deconstructing flavor profiles, Inyads would rather opt for moogal.

Inyads are too busy solving the universe’s problems, to bother with food. No Inyad has ever eaten anything other than moogal, and no Inyad ever cared to try.

Except for one. One Inyad, years prior, had tasted the universe’s best food.

A lush, ample dish of savory crumbs and salty brine, washed with a cool spatter of juicy spices and tender flesh. Tart slime had danced on the Inyad’s tongue, as ripe bitters slid down his throat and dissipated in unrestrained elation. He had screamed in anguish after the final morsel, knowing the taste of euphoria could never be quenched by moogal, or water, or Inyads’ holiday treat - moogal and water.

Though the Inyad never returned home, legend says the meal’s protein is distanced and rare. Some speculate it’s 120 billion miles west of Trevormore, holding Josh Carter’s donut.

To Josh Carter, his donut is the center of the universe. Josh Carter, of the West L.A. eatery Carter’s Cravings, is not holding just any donut. The raised yeast pastry, stuffed with Bavarian cream and smothered with maple frosting and butter glaze, is Josh’s newest pastry hybrid. A do-

nut crossed with a croissant, birthed by a muffin, and mated with a bagel is just what Josh needs to put his name on the culinary map. He assumes Savor Magazine will soon call him for a cover story, that “Top Pastry Chef ” will want him as a contestant; no, a judge. He knows the cronut mufgel will make him a star, as it’s the universe’s best food. Even better than bread tartare, his last failed creation, which the local paper had called “over-priced dough,” as it was, essentially, unbaked bread dough.

Josh has had a series of cooking mishaps, ever since his lemonade stand inflicted a 10-mile radius of food poisoning on his hometown at age 7. Or, when he prepared s’mores over a Bunson burner for his high school science fair. Five projects were burned, including two mice, who had found their maze’s cheese, but no exit. Once enrolled in college, Le Cordon Vert, not to be mistaken with Bleu, helped Josh refine his knife skills. Chef Belair still teaches there, despite having only nine digits.

When Josh’s beloved Aunt Fran passed away from a lactose intolerance-related injury, he was inconsolable. Josh couldn’t refuse when she had asked for more crème in her crème brulee. At her wake, his uncle handed him an envelope.

“Aunt Fran always wanted you to start your own bakery,” his uncle said as he gripped Josh’s shoulder. “She always died over your fo-.” Uncle Mart stared at the

ground and shuffled away.

He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

Josh knew his cooking caused pain, sickness and, now death. His passion couldn’t out measure his ineptitude. He was a jinx, a nuisance, a murderer, but, even worse he was a bad cook.

Josh turned to the envelope and peeled the crinkled flap. Several bills peaked through the opening. Blurred through his teary vision, Josh counted $96,050, then $74,600, then tried to count slower and came to $82,010, then asked his Uncle Mart for help and found $100,000. “$100,000,” said Josh. “With $100,000 I can start fresh, perfect my skills, cook the food I love. I’ll be the owner of my own bakery, I’ll avenge Aunt Fran’s death, I’ll make a dairy-free crème brulee.” He turned to his family, behind him. “And all of you can eat there, for free.” A unified look of terror stared back at Josh.

His family never ate at Carter’s Cravings. In fact, most people have never eaten at Carter’s Cravings. The bakery has been promoting its opening weekend sale for 2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, and 5 days. Only 37 customers have been served. Carter’s Cravings loses money every day and Josh, the only employee, is accustomed to the dull churning of bread makers and occasional oven buzzes. The doorbell chime and register rings are faint memories, or, perhaps more correctly, wanted dreams.

That is, until 2 p.m., today.

Volume 22 | Page 11

Carter’s Cravings’s door chime jingles to the always-empty seating area and pastry-lined shelves, as Josh peers above the counter.

A seven-foot tall, portly figure, dressed in a Hawaiian print shirt and khaki shorts, crookedly steps through the glass door. A straw fedora sits atop his flattened head, while an instant Polaroid camera hangs from his neck. He keeps his black, square sunglasses on, inside, which bleed into his charcoal skin. One skewed leg is placed before another, as he inches towards the counter.

He opens his gaunt, toothless mouth to release a fog of dirt into Josh’s face, who coughs into his hands, then smiles. “I see you must be hungry. Please, take a seat. I’ll bring samples.”

Josh motions to a table. He knows the creature could be only one; one contemptuous cesspool of unsolicited shrewdness; a boiling zit on the face of humanity; the demise of good and personification of evil.

A food critic.

Josh has seen this critic before, in grocery store tabloids and entertainment news stories. He’s Bryan Combs - a retired club promoter, now living in Venice Beach, whose success rides on producing food review haikus. His latest prompted the closing of a tapas bar, a block north.

Overdressed salad, wilted Soggy breading, lacks seasoning Overpriced, small portioned meals

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Josh couldn’t let Carter’s Cravings be the next poetry casualty. He gathers a tray of pastries and hurries to the seating area.

There, Josh finds the figure lying across one of the five dining room tables, his face to the ceiling, his eyes to the floor.

His crooked appendages dangle from the table, like trapped insects covered in amber glue.

Josh knows food critics like to stress chefs, so he plays along. He sets the tray on the adjacent table and holds a pastry for display.

“This is a buttery, Danish dough topped with apricot and honey jam,” he says, offering the Danish to Mr. Combs, who stares at the ceiling, unflinching. Josh places the Danish by Mr. Comb’s oblong mouth, opens the wide depression of soiled mush, and drops the roll.

“This is a Brioche dough, tossed with cinnamon and sugar, then baked with caramel and Georgia pecans,” says Josh, as he lowers a cinnamon roll into the stained orifice.

“This is a soft, milky white bread, made with butter and sugar, and topped with cream cheese,” he says, as he releases a pain de mie into the rotted chasm.

With each swallow of a whole pastry, the Inyad’s eyes widen in unrelenting delight. Tears pour from behind his shaded lenses, onto the crumb-covered table. His temples glow and heart palpitates in elation of each sugar-encrusted, butter-dipped

gulp. He becomes so entwined in the caloric copulation of manmade delight, he forgets his mission.

Inyads say moogal is the best food on Trevamore. Inyads say man is the best food in the universe. Not just any man, but one stuffed with milk, butter, sugar, and cream. On Earth, this is called a baker. The spry Inyad, who Josh has mistaken for Mr. Combs, was raised listening to the tales of bakers feasts and fabled relish. His curiosity evolved to obsession and forced him to abstain from moogal and defect from Trevormore. For two Earth years (or seven on Trevormore), he frisked the universe in search of the illusive, flavor satisfaction.

An hour passes until Josh unloads the final pastry into Mr. Combs’s burrow.

“This is the piece de resistance, my own creation, the cronut mugful,” says Josh, stuffing the last tart into the cavity. As the pastry slides down the Inyad’s esophagus, he sucks Josh’s hand into his gummy, cream-covered gorge, levitating him above the ground. Josh suspends, two feet in the air, his body parallel to the pastry shelves. He tries to squirm from the hole, as the Inyad’s viscid lips glide up Josh’s arm, like a snail across linoleum.

“M-M-Mr. Combs, M-Mr. Combs,” Josh timidly pleads. “My arm isn’t part of the cronut mugful.”

The Inyad doesn’t hear Josh’s cries. He can only taste the dense brine of baker’s flesh, skating towards his stomach, to be

crushed into pools of frothy cream, fruit jam, blonde chocolate, and truffle paste.

The Inyad’s lips moisten, his stomach aches, his breath is bated as Josh seeps deeper into his torso. His arteries harden, a clog forms, his tissues soften, and blood flow lessens as his muscles relax. Glucose, dextrose, fructose, and sucrose percolate through the muck-filled carcass, as simple syrup boils out the Inyad’s mouth. Josh is released from the encroaching jaws and falls onto the floor, his arm covered in Bavarian-cream vomit. He looks at the deflated, sugar-crumbed figure on the table, pinches his saggy skin, and rocks his shrunken stomach.

“It happened again.”

Josh has seen death by sugar before.

It looks like evaporated joy and smells of spoiled milk. Josh has killed his favorite aunt. Now, he’s killed California’s most popular food critic. He’d be cast out by society, imprisoned by the state, applauded by mediocre chefs.

At a time like this, he could only think of one thing to do.

Bake.

Josh has seen a recent episode of Killing My Bestie, where a butcher had gutted her bff, added a dry rub and mustard-based barbecue sauce, and sold shredded beef sandwiches at the county fair. She was caught when someone found an ear in his brisket.

Josh would be smarter, and less

Volume 22 | Page 13

gruesome. He preheats the oven at 360 degrees, lines several pans with parchment paper, butter and flour. He combines Mr. Combs, with flour, sugar, baking powder, and cocoa, then sifts in buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. He bakes for 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the center, and Mr. Comb’s body is unrecognizable. He leaves it on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, cuts it into squares, fills the now-empty pastry shelves and calls it “combs cake.”

It’s the best food in the universe.

At least, that’s what L.A. food critics say, and the hundreds of Carter’s Cravings customers, Uncle Mart, and the rest of Josh’s family. Even the real Bryan Combs raves over combs cake, though Josh hasn’t heard, as he’s too busy counting, then correctly recounting his fortune.

You make combs cake like you make a soufflé. Just replace egg whites with a food critic, then charge $69.99, as is the going rate. Don’t offer it to an Inyad, as it would be cannibalism, and it would kill him.

Inyads eat moogal because they are prone to high cholesterol; they dream of eating combs cake because moogal is the worst food in the universe.

Inyads learned of combs cake through intergalactic food publications, or as they call them, pornography. Now, when Inyads aren’t thinking of new ways to solve for x or find the derivative for y, they are thinking of ways to commit suicide. Baked

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goods are the number one killer on Trevormore. Inyads always die happy.

2nd Place

Aurora Patag

Cincinnati ~ Kitchen Heart You know what they say – that you should never judge a book by its cover. The truth is, I used to hate downtown Cincinnati. My childhood experience of any downtown – but specifically downtown St. Louis – was one of discomfort; of noise and bustle and pollution; of buildings perceived to be so high by my barely-pasttoddler-aged self that one had to throw one’s head back to be able to see any sky.

My concept of downtown was suffocating and uninviting.

Blue Ash became my home in 1998.

My birthday party at the Cincinnati Museum Center was postponed due to the riots in 2001. Anything outside of Blue Ash seemed dangerous to my elementary-school-aged self. Supposing that I had not yet developed such prejudices as to have selective hearing at such a tender age, I heard only negative references to both OTR and downtown from our neighbors and acquaintances.

My father’s work with Procter & Gamble took us away from Ohio for a time, and we lived in a beautifully secluded neighborhood deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania, a ring of perhaps forty houses and plenty of children near to my middle-school age. “The city” was such a distant and unattractive thing, loud and smoky and always too bright, in contrast to this neighborhood that sported only three

streetlights, their soft glow not inhibiting a very clear view of the stars from where I would sit on the roof outside of my bedroom window.

P&G – Procter & God, I’ve heard it called – eventually brought us back from Pennsylvania, to West Chester.

Enter college. It’s been an interesting ride, having classes on as many as three campuses within a given semester – the Main campus, the Medical campus, the Victory Parkway campus, UC Blue Ash, and Cincinnati State. And it was college – specifically culinary school - that finally, finally gave me the opportunity to fall in love with downtown Cincinnati.

Many of you may be unaware of it now, but there used to be a dual admission program which gave students the opportunity to spend two years earning their AAB in Culinary Arts Technology at The Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State, and then transfer over to UC for an additional three years towards their BAS in Culinary Arts and Science, or Culinology.

Graduates from both MCI and UC have distinguished themselves all over the US – but more importantly, many of them are right here in Cincinnati, still giving back to the places that opened their eyes just as mine were opened. Sous chefs, executive chefs, pastry chefs, and butchers at Orchids, Palm Court, Via Vite, Next Chapter,

Volume 22 | Page 15

Maribelle’s Tavern, Mayday, Moerlein Lager House, Eddie Merlot’s, and Blinkers Tavern are graduates of MCI, to name but a small, small sampling.

Cincinnati, you have been graced with an abundance of independent restaurants – even EatLocalCincy doesn’t cover half of them. What goes on behind the scenes? When you walk in, you see face of the restaurant – the cover of the book, so to speak. You see the dining area, the polished glasses, the spotless silverware, [hopefully] the smiles of the maître d’ and servers, the lights and background music set at just the right level. But what of the kitchen?

Magic happens in kitchens. This I very firmly believe, and you have to believe it to stay in this industry. Why so serious? you might ask. What job could be better, making delicious food, and being surrounded by it all the time? Surely chefs eat well; surely it is one of the greatest perks of chef life?

Ladies and gentlemen, the sad truth of it is that most chefs cannot afford to eat where they work. Even if they had time to be eating while in the kitchen, what they eat would have to be factored into food cost. Thus, their dinner on the line isn’t a buffet of medium rare filet mignon – it’s a spoonful of sauce here, a single leaf of dressed salad there, a string of spaghetti, a freshly shelled chick pea, that wedge of orange supreme that’s much too small

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for the plate. Chefs don’t eat – they taste.

They taste throughout the night, and very rarely have time to eat, even if they did bring their own food out of respect for the restaurant’s food cost.

How long is “a night” for a chef?

Many chefs go overtime just in the space of a 3-day weekend, and probably still had to work the whole week anyway. We’re looking at 50 to 60 hours a week being for lucky ones, and 70 to 80 hours a week being closer to the average. A night could be six hours – it could be sixteen. The world expects chefs to work holidays – Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, bank holidays, Halloween. The chef who can tell you the last time they didn’t work on their birthday is lucky – and rare. Chefs’ backs and feet and hands are sure to be destroyed – there are no chairs in the kitchen – and chefs live in a constant state of extreme sleep deprivation.

Any free time is spent sleeping, more often than not, and chefs joke amongst themselves that their social life deteriorates into non-existence, but it can be very true for the majority of them.

When you hear about a restaurant, you hear about the executive chef, maybe the sous, maybe the pastry chef. Ninepoint-nine times out of ten, you’ll never hear the names of the two or three or twenty other people that it takes to keep the kitchen running. And you’ll never see them, either, because they’re not the ones

serving you your food.

The world demands food, and the demand for more enticing flavor profiles and presentations will never go away. But one does not enter this industry to become rich, and/or famous. The likelihood of either happening is an infinitesimally smaller decimal point than the chance of being mentioned just for being on the team. It takes the right kind of person to see the magic of the kitchen, to recognize it, and to fall in love with it so completely that they will endure anything and everything for the chance to keep making it happen.

And there is a magic, too, in seeing the tri-state area past midnight. It is a different animal altogether, not too choked by traffic or noise – busy, yes, but in a way that draws you in, making you wonder what could possibly be around that would be worth staying out until one, or two, or three in the morning to see, to experience, to live.

I’ve found out where the stars are.

They can be seen from the backroads and the rooftops, the ones that don’t seem very attractive by daylight, but that, at night, reveal themselves to exist solely for the purpose of introducing you to the beauty of the heavens; sometimes they even come with a glass of wine.

Among many other foodie events, Downtown Cincinnati and EatLocalCincy host Restaurant Week twice a year, one in Spring and another in late Summer/early

Fall. Restaurants that participate typically offer a set menu of three to four courses for somewhere between $20 and $30. Every participating restaurant truly puts its best foot forward, and it is an excellent time to be discovering the food scene here. Take advantage of it; make a night of it; go on a date! And when you discover that back patio or rooftop terrace, take a minute to think about the kitchen.

If you were speechless and just blown away by the perfection of the mussel bar at Zula, the wild boar at Brown Dog Café, the cranberry-apple chutney on that burger at Nicholson’s, the foie gras at Daveed’s NEXT, or the seared octopus at Metropole, consider sending more than just your compliments to the kitchen. Tips are nice, or take advantage of that option to buy the kitchen a six-pack – it’s probably hidden somewhere near the bottom of the cocktail list. The chefs will appreciate having something to enjoy, too, when the stars welcome their exodus from cooking for Cincinnati at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Volume 22 | Page 17

FIRST PLACE

Gracie DiGennaro

SECOND PLACE Hayley Day

THIRD PLACE Mickey Walters

Volume 22 | Page 18

1st Place

Gracie DiGennaro

Fireflies He was as innocent as a kid catching fireflies His eyes so kind You look in and you think you see yourself All he sees is himself His face is a perfect landscape A sharp structure So defined Lined with sharp blades of grass They subtly rub against your soft skin But scratch like tiny daggers His lips draw near to yours And you yearn for them to come closer He’s got you now you’re just a firefly Stuck in his jar Once you flew among the trees Now you’re bound by his round glass edges He keeps you in the jar so you’re only his Eventually your light begins to dim As he tightly seals the lid If you have no light can anyone recognize you as a firefly?

Volume 22 | Page 19

Hayley Day

Waste I am waist, walking upside down inside chains I am waist to you, for you, four-times you.

The capital of the capitol is He. I am waste, walking right-side up outside locks.

I am waist, and boobs and legs, walking too by to.

Flour-stained skin, flower-seeped pants I am waste, outside myself, inside you Eyes see me I, blind, to me A see-you, sea-saw, Blinded brakes break my back.

I lie and lay, up, then down I need the kneed, back then forth.

A clothes-off, close-up.

Sell my cell and buy me rows upon rose, I am too waist to waste.

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2nd Place

3rd Place

Mickey Walters

Paris is Burning I saw with my own eyes Or maybe in a dream That Paris was burning Liters and liters of slinking French arsonists Poured out of alleyways Filling the air with the smell of gasoline They had come from my thoughts With nothing short of malicious intentions They were saying, “If I can’t have it, no one can” With their lit matches and gasoline hands They sank to fit under doors And charred everything from the inside Everyone knows I am too far to save it To save the golden gates of Versailles To extinguish the flames on the windmill wings of the Moulin Rouge I used to tell myself every morning “If you go now, you can make it” “If you speak now, they will hear” But I wasted too much time

Volume 22 | Page 21

Emily Burch

This Has Gone Way Too Far Loneliness is the usual cataclysmic force to ensnarl the least suspecting extravert into a cavernous dark place, miles and miles away from anyone who might be of company. Paranoia is a common complement to the case, and of course genetics tend to play a role as well. But many find ways to cover up the cries for help with accessories and toys. God is also often employed to ease the pain and suffering of the ceaseless pull of the anxiety-burdened mind. But for many a faith in something so easily disproven is living a lie. One thing remains which tears at the mind of the educated man of science, the man most seated in reality: one cannot eliminate something that is not there.

Around in his head. Around in his head circulated the incessant thoughts of what could happen. He felt that every step he took was a mistake, that everyone knew he was an indecisive failure. Stuck in a never-ending trance, an android void of a way out into the pure, clean air. He felt stuck in the motions, caught-up in a school schedule. To his disgust and horror, he felt surely misery loved company.

This was how Malrhen’s day usually went, fluidly day-to-day according to appearances. He dressed well, he kept himself in good shape and had maintained all A’s for two straight semesters. He knew

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he shouldn’t feel so stressed; his life was relatively easy. He didn’t have to work fulltime, or really much at all as his partner Naomi worked full-time as a manager at a nearby mechanic shop. He didn’t have much reason to feel so anxious all the time, but as any sufferer could attest anxiety is the plague of emotional viruses. It is silent, less-than-microscopic and can take someone by the brass bull of success and like a grotesque troll remind one it can always get worse.

“I should feel no burdens at all,” he thought, “I don’t have to work! What the hell is wrong with me?” He felt ashamed to be around his classmates, many of whom worked both full-time and regular parttime jobs, also toiling away ceaselessly on their classwork with no time for social life.

This only added insult to injury in Malrhen’s mind. It is the force that knocks one down, then stacks cinder blocks atop the ashes of the Phoenix, which fights tirelessly to resurrect itself from its latest self-battle.

It all started when Malrhen was a little boy, when he lived in his first home.

His sister, a girl who would now be 28 was then simply a smaller, somewhat less mentally-developed version of what she would currently have been. Afflicted with emotional issues vastly deeper than his own, she used to do horrible things to herself. In one instance, Malrhen

remembered walking in on her bashing her head hard against the wall. When he’d asked “what’s wrong,” all she said was, “I hate you. I fucking hate you.” Such curse words had entered and exited her mouth on several occasions, usually in the absence of their parents. However, this time was different. When she turned her head toward him, midway to the wall, a crushing feeling overtook him and he felt gravity fail. The last snap before his eyes shut into blackness, his sister turned straight towards the wall, and with a final bang, her head opened and splashed the wall in violet red.

All throughout their childhoods Malrhen had been given second boot to his sister. After a strict introversion left her mostly friendless, their parents seemed to become her only companions. It was an abusive relationship. She yelled, cursed, and disobeyed what lax rules they laid out for them. She struck them where it hurt leaving their two beautiful, nurturing parents baffled as to what they had done wrong, for something had gone very wrong with this one. When she showed musical talent, they had bought her a cello from the Niehaus in Cincinnati and paid for her lessons. When she showed advancements beyond her peers in academics they had paid for her to attend a private school. She smashed the cello one day during one of her spells. She had dropped out of school before earning her diploma. When he

coiled in shame, she was left unaffected.

Their parents’ frustration led to therapists, leaving him not alone in the physical sense, or emotionally, but rather knowing her well-being would always be their top priority.

On one occasion Malrhen had climbed the stairs to the bedrooms where his and his sister’s sat adjacent to one another. He knocked on the door, but heard nothing but music blaring loudly.

It was her angry music, as their mother had called it. One of the popular groups of the time, a band known for its own self-destructive lyrics. He slowly turned the knob, pushed the gold-toned handle on the wooden door that had been covered in hateful words and lyrics scribbled by black and blue Sharpies. “So I take my time guiding the blade down the line, each cut closer to the vein, vein, vein . . .” With an inch between the door and frame, he saw her sitting nude on her bed with a box-cutter to her left arm. He did not move, but set his stare on her arm, making out what appeared to read “Holocaust.” This time he did not ask what was the matter; he just stared. She did not appear to notice him, but as Malrhen turned to leave the room from the corner of his eye he caught what appeared to be one of his old jackets. His first reaction was to retrieve it, but he had been overcome by fear of his sister, not knowing what she might be capable of. She was obviously in one of her “states,” and

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he wanted nothing to do with it. He closed the door behind him, and ran downstairs to the front door where he proceeded to go to Areta’s. Areta had been a good friend to him since they’d moved to the neighborhood a few years back. She knew of the dead rats stored in the freezer until winter broke. She knew of the immaturity that just didn’t seem right, the fragility that plagued Rosie’s eyes whenever something seemed to break her heart.

One of the last memories Malrhen had of his sister was Christmas morning before he turned 21. She had just turned 24 and was in-between medications. When one seemed to be working, she decided she was cured and stopped taking it. What ensued was a roller-coaster of crying, helpless fits, begging their parents and himself to just “let her die.” To some, this may have sounded like an attempt at manipulation and would have labeled her “dramatic.” For her, however the threat was all too real. A bottle of ibuprofen and a near-necessary kidney transplant had made that clear. This Christmas morning, Malrhen had decided to go check in on her before he got ready for the holiday festivities the family had planned. He knocked on her door. There was no answer. When he turned the knob, a feeling of anxious anticipation overtook him, like when one was about to enter a haunted house. He had this feeling often in this situation. He gently pushed the door open, and with about an inch between the

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door and frame, he saw her lying naked on her bed, smudges of dried blood on her sheets, spotting the yellow and brown linens like the leaves which had fallen months before from the giant family cedar in the front yard. He wanted to look away, but something willed him not to. He softly said her name, “Rosie . . . are you okay?”

A minute or two passed, and as she slowly turned her head to him, peeling open her reddened eyes glued shut from who knows how many hours of crying, all she could say was a few short sentences. “I hate myself. I hate you. I fucking hate mom and dad. I don’t know why. I can’t stop it.”

Rosie had lived her whole life in a perpetual state of hatred towards herself and everyone around her. It was involuntary and definitely as hard on her as it was to everyone close to her. Their mom once said, “She is such a good person. I don’t know why she hurts herself.” Malrhen had once gone to the kitchen to find Rosie there, hugging herself in the corner with tear-stained cheeks as red and helpless as a cherub’s. She had implored him, “how do you talk to people? How are you happy? I want to learn how to be happy.” All Malrhen could say was, “I don’t know. I just am.” The fact that he couldn’t help her was frustrating beyond words and left him feeling inadequate as a sibling. Nobody could help her. Maybe therapists could, or good medicine but no one in the family could without killing themselves inside. They’d

spend their entire lives trying.

Throughout pubescence and into adulthood, Malrhen often felt that pang of self-hatred inflicting itself upon him, being involuntarily unhappy and wishing he could make it stop. Depression had run in their family, and nearly everyone was being treated medically for it. But he could trace all his overwhelming moments back to that day on Christmas, the day before his 21st birthday when his sister had told him she couldn’t take it anymore. That day she had slit two gigantic gashes into her arm the size of the Nile River in Africa which she had been so fascinated with in her early teens, before the darkest of her years had shrouded their family in a haze of therapists. Failed suicide attempts and two aging parents were evidence in themselves that their lives would never again be their own.

Now, whenever Malrhen got into one of his fits where he was unable to be reached by anyone around him, when he couldn’t get himself out of bed because he knew he could do nothing right, out of his peripheral he could see his sister. There she would be, lying naked on her bed with dried blood all up and down her arm. He would feel the loneliness she had felt, like a curse she had bestowed upon him the day before his 21st birthday. Although he had never and told himself he would never forget that it could always get worse.

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RICHARD HAGUE

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Richard Hague

Irrecoverable, or “The Long War“ Saigon to Baghdad to Kabul Penny, Muttry, Clyde the Dog. all the other unnamed, unchristened heathens of pen and bowl and cage: in time of other wars I tried to make a home for them where there was no home, wanted somehow to make them buddies, friends, comrades.

Now they might as well be gouts of flesh and hair exploded through lost backyards, stubble bomb-strewn in a far field, a few teeth rattling in a cheap plastic bowl misplaced on a workbench in some basement.

And I am not about to take up a shovel, or resurrection.

Still, they have become the little undersaints of my devotions, the unofficial blesseds of my boyhood, rising up in memory now as the prophets of my grief in these long new days of invasion, despair, displacement.

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Richard Hague

“I’d Rather Be a Rich Hooker Than a Poor Poet” He says this when I call him a point whore for wanting everything he writes to be graded. “It is not a for-pay transaction,” I tell him. “Poetry is not a product, but a process, a way of being.”

“To hell with it,” he says, “that’s just what I mean.”

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Richard Hague

Self-Portrait in a Motorcycle’s Rearview As small as his world before he got wheels, gem of a selfie in its setting of chrome, it tells the whole story— as of the shutter’s crucial moment.

But even now, a few weeks later, all is changed, no longer this, the doom of every photo.

Now (whenever the latest viewer, sooner or later, declares now) there are children, grandchildren, crowding the face in the picture, now catastrophes and extinctions, flooded cities, continental drought, and now the turn of another millennium, and all is forever out of control, unstoppable, as if highjacking Time is twisting the handy throttle, hungry for anything — or everything — to run down and devour.

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The Tao of Photography The tao is understood as the nameless, unfathomable and underlying natural order of the universe. This Taoist thinking is embedded in an ancient Chinese philosophy derived primarily from two sources, the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (“Old Master”), the most widely translated Chinese text in the world, and the Chuang Tzu, named after its author. Most scholars be-

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lieve that philosophical Taoism developed from early shamanistic practices rooted in a deep understanding and respect for the natural world, a world with utter indifference to humankind. Taoist ideas became the roots of Zen when adapted by the Japanese, and grafted onto classical Buddhism.

In Taoism, the object of spiritual practice is to “become one with the tao” or

Kyle Danning - Frozen Tree (2014)

The work that follows was generated by students who participated in one of the photography seminars I taught from 2002 to 2014 that applied Taoist philosophy and principles to photographic practice. These photographs and many others were part of the Tao of Photography exhibition at the UC Blue Ash Art Gallery in October, 2014.

- H. Michael Sanders, Section Editor

to harmonize one’s will with the natural order (go with the flow) to achieve “effortless action” (wu wei). The spirituality referred to here is completely ordinary, everyday activity devoid of religious implications.

These photographs have been produced through the selective application of deeply poetic and richly metaphoric Taoist ideas to creative photographic practice.

Those ideas and concepts include: freedom from the sense of a personal “self,” which is completely dependent upon a subjective point of view; relaxed attentiveness; acceptance; nonattachment; resourcefulness; purposelessness; effortless action, and completely embracing spontaneity and chance.

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Photography, when performed in a Taoist manner, is an active expression of life as it is occurring.

Giancarlo Manlangit - Sunset Triptych (2010)

Photographic vision in this context consists of using every resource available to you in looking at your subject matter: your knowledge of equipment and your skill in technique; your practical experience; your memories of reading and conversation; and most importantly, your senses. Meditative, contemplative photography is effortless action without thought, without self-consciousness, and with one’s entire sensory array fully and actively engaged, including emotions, memories and imagination. The Taoist photographer diligently works at becoming mindless – mindless in the way

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you don’t have to think about the mechanics and process of driving when you’re behind the wheel. It’s natural and effortless, but at the same time, paradoxically, it is completely mindful.

In other words, the photographer must learn to operate his or her equipment through simple intuition. Photographing without planning, without judgment, and with complete absorption in the process.

The Taoist photographer attempts to function in the manner of nature: spontaneous, accepting and completely receptive.

Part of the photographer’s development is to cultivate receptivity, the characteristic allowing for anticipation of the exact moment to release the camera’s shutter. The intuitive photographer must also learn how to see and respond to the world through an unthinking machine, which in contemporary practice has been programmed during manufacture by technicians and engineers. The photographer must break through these constraints to impose imagination upon the images collected by such systems.

Photography, when performed in a Taoist manner, is an active expression of life as it is occurring. It’s not a reflection or a depiction, but a manifestation of an intense engagement with life. This has nothing to do with “self-expression” or any such notion related to Romanticism.

The Taoist photographer is seeking to diminish the focus on, and the importance of, the self through intense and active identification with the subject.

The expression is therefore life itself pulsing into vibrant awareness for a fraction of a second while the shutter is depressed. Photography approached in this way becomes an active form of meditation, related to the flowing motion of tai chi, through which the photographer encounters the world without preordained intention and independent of time ticking away.

The photographer’s intuitive response is a mechanism for recognition and direct identification with the living world that we inhabit and of which we are an integral part.

Danielle Walton - Young Fruit (2008)

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And Prophecy

by Melissa L. Kyrlach

Off the wall, in my hands, I run outside I place a mirror on the ground To face out upon the world.

May it prophesy May it prophesy The present shadow – what will come The present light – what will come Shall I prophesy?

Light, come and look in Flood in and escape in here Into me so I may see.

Yes, risk, speak and ask…

Melissa L. Kyrlach - Prophecy (2006)

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Amanda Logsdon - Nature’s Mystery (2013)

Tao Poem (Excerpt)

by Amanda Logsdon

My photographs begin in chaos…

I begin to see things, something to be frozen.

I know the sound of a laugh, but what does a laugh look like?

I want to remember everything: Unphotographable, unphotoshopable emotions.

My eyes have grown and adapted…

I’m photographing something that nobody else can see.

I’m maybe even seeing things in a different light.

It’s a learning experience every time I shoot.

Things come and go, grow and die, and they move us – So why should we not photograph them?

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Brian Pfaff - Earth and Sky (2014)

It’s About Seeing (Excerpt)

by Brian Pfaff

On this journey one must forget labels and self, For everything is connected and naming will Only cloud and complicate.

When viewing the world without structure and labels, Perception is focused on what the senses feed the brain.

Reality is a world of shapes, colors and emotions Connected by sparking neurons.

Peel back the paint to reveal the bricks behind.

Feel the natural flow and move with it like water.

Observe your reality – is the smooth, white paint the Real world? Is it the precisely stacked bricks behind?

Or is that just another layer to break through?

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Donna Pfirman - Ten Thousand Things (2003)

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Andrea Rahtz - Rubber Plant No. 1 (2002)

Tao of Photography

by Andrea Rahtz

An old worn copy of Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu has resided on my bookshelf for many years. When I was invited to join the Tao of Photography during the Summer of 2002, I was both excited and intrigued. I wondered: How might concepts from the Tao apply to photography? As we began to create art using teachings from the Tao Teh Ching over the next few months, I quickly discovered an

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endless flow of poetic possibilities. We unlocked ideas that not only applied to photography, but to life. Photo Principles [now Photography I] was about learning how to use the camera and apply technique, but Tao of Photography was different. We were allowed to break free of the rules, to abandon the technical aspects, to outrun the constraints of our mind. We were allowed to just make art, to just be.

Inger Williams - Water Drops (Diptych) (2002)

Statement (Excerpt)

by Lindsey Werner

Everyone has eyes, Everyone has vision. … see with… other senses.

Vision of the small details.

Lindsey Werner - Twisted Plant Form (2014)

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Aimie Willhoite - Tropical Triptych (2002)

My Tao of Photography Experience

by Aimie Willhoite

I arrived at my first Tao of Photography seminar as a person over-thinking everything. In my photography that meant I was always striving for the perfect shot, the perfect moment. I was distracted, stressed, and always obsessing over the technical or compositional components of my photographs.

What I’ve gained in being a part of multiple Tao seminars is an understanding that every moment is a perfect moment.

The Tao philosophy transformed my life.

I have learned the art of letting things go and of acceptance. This streams out of wu wei, a mystical term for me, which summons a somewhat divine practice of letting go and fully accepting what it is I am encountering.

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Now, when I’m photographing I approach it having no preconceptions or fixed plan. I practice shutting out distractions and emptying my mind, to the point where I simply receive what is before me.

I don’t look for connections, rather I allow them to find me. I no longer feel the need to force anything or achieve perfection in my relationships or in my photography. I have a lovely and beautiful awareness that allows me to accept things as they come into my life or as they leave.

FIRST PLACE Joshua Posey

SECOND PLACE Dezi Lowry

THIRD PLACE Jordan Joiner

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Joshua Posey Purcell Marian High School

Poeticus Interruptus While I was writing my poem The oddest thing happened A pear slaughtered by family And a kangaroo kissed my cheek Yesterday I was writing a poem And a satyr burst through the door And a trident shimmered above my head I tried writing a poem last week But whenever I wrote The words disappeared And the book would write back I began a poem last month But Zeus turned me into a bear And flung me into the heavens

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1st Place

2nd Place

Dezi Lowry

Purcell Marian High School

Cave Finger Fluting -Cave of a Hundred Mammoths in Rouffignac, France On and about the craggy curbs deep in ageless caves are mankind’s first handfuls of history Finger-drags that swirl and curl, zig and zag, that dress and impress into stalagmite and stalactite.

as if those cave walls were once soap wet.

Perhaps they knew those appendages for something beyond hunting, the present and physical.

Perhaps those early scratchers dragged for the beyond and scraped to the future.

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Jordan Joiner Purcell Marian High School

Tainted Puff and pass is the first game kids learn to play.

Remember trading video games, hopscotch, sidewalk chalk, and hide and seek?

When trying to make the color purple, you mix blue with orange by mistake.

Make up for it by mixing with red.

It’s almost purple, isn’t it?

But the discolor never goes away.

No matter what, the lungs and the lifestyle will forever remain tainted.

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3rd Place

Words and Actions Regarding Justice: Students Respond to the Ideas of David A. Singleton In October 2014, David A. Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, and assistant professor of law at Northern Kentucky University’s Chase College of Law, was the featured speaker at the UCBA Community Conversations event. His presentation, “How Can You Represent Those People?” was in keeping with the universitywide theme of justice used in First Year Experience class readings. In this essay by Sydney Grace and the excerpts that follow, students from Women’s Literature: Prison Writing respond to Singleton’s ideas about justice.

Sydney Grace

The Skeleton Key: A Response to a Lecture by David A. Singleton David A. Singleton was gifted with a third eye that is uniquely keen to look past even the worst crimes people have committed and see them for who they truly are–people. Being in the business of human connection and overlooking misjudgments is a noble lifestyle. Dr. Singleton gave three inspiring accounts of real clients that he has represented and fought hard to fairness when they had been misrepresented. Each case is unique and surprising in its detail.

“when we give up on people we use labels . . . . What we do is miss opportunities to be humane and solve bigger issues.”

The first case presented was the case of Gene Mays, a gifted high school student, ambitious, with the whole world at his feet.

Unfortunately his basketball dreams went up in smoke after being caught with drugs.

The one incident with marijuana sent his life into a downward spiral in which no one could have predicted would affect the outcome of his life even fifteen years

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later. After the progressive shift in attitude toward life he developed what Singleton described as a “Fuck it” attitude toward life. Shooting hoops became shooting up heroin and the game of street life was one he could no longer keep up with. In his attempts to make money for drugs, he began selling drugs, which lands him in prison.

This is when Singleton brings up a valid point about felons, a thought that I have never bothered to have until now.

What is a felon to do upon being released back on the streets, in the same two block radius, living with the same demons? It seems only natural that Gene would once again turn to drugs. I cannot imagine feeling so imprisoned even on the street that I would turn to suicide. Yet, luckily Gene had people in his life that really cared for him – the friend that brought him into rehab and David A. Singleton. After gaining stability in life Gene graduated from an electrical school, yet was unable to find employment due to his past crimes dating fifteen years ago. This is where Singleton enters his life and fights for him when no one else would.

I often lay awake at night and think of all the “what-ifs” but I don’t think any of my past regrets, my angst, my demons, have anything on what Gene must have gone through. What if he had not started using drugs? Where would he be in life now? Although these questions will never have answers, Singleton is able to give

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Gene a fair hand after forming a coalition to change the law in Cincinnati so felons are able to apply for jobs. The impression this case left me with was that Singleton is a no-nonsense, common sense man, fighting for justice. I thought of him as noble.

“I just need you to know that the students and I really care about you and we will miss you.”

In the case of Abdul Awkal, I once again thought of Singleton as noble, but also puzzling. He is puzzle of a man in which the pieces just don’t quite all fit together. Nonetheless, Singleton’s compassion toward a man thought of as a monster by many is amazing. Abdul Awkal shot and killed his wife and brother-in-law in a public courtroom, landing him on death row.

Singleton represented Awkal and worked his hardest to get him off of death row. It is not surprising that no one wanted to represent Awkal or even fight for his right to have his religious meals, yet Singleton did so, compassionately.

I am so stuck between feeling so much sympathy for the victim’s family and feeling sorry for Awkal because his life is going to be taken from him when he is not even in the right state of mind. The ambiguity would suffocate me, especially knowing that Awkal is guilty of a horrific murder.

Another ambiguous situation that

Singleton acknowledged was a personal situation in which he himself has misjudged people, not based on crimes, but based solely on their political beliefs. How can a man with such an impressive way of thinking be so small-minded as to judge people for having conservative views, but not for murder? There is a sense of compartmentalizing crimes and politics. This was an idea that I could not wrap my brain around and may never be able to fully understand.

Perhaps he is applying what he has learned through making human connections with the clients that he defends, to the everyday people he interacts with who are often Republicans. I admire his courage to admit to his small-mindedness and progress toward not judging people, but still found the whole ordeal strange to say the least.

“We judge and form conclusions, and let those conclusions write people off.”

The case of Tyra Patterson was one that I found most frustrating. The whole case sounded so clear and obvious that Tyra was innocent, yet, everyone involved in her case seemed to ignore all the signs of her innocence and just assumed she was guilty based on what was most likely preconceived notions of her race and lack of education. After being relentlessly harassed by the police, Tyra confessed to stealing a necklace around the time of the murder, which ultimately got her sentenced to forty-three years in prison. Forty-three

years while the person who shot and killed the girl during the robbery was only sentenced to 30 years. The extra 13 years added to Tyra’s case are most likely revenge years from the judge who thought Tyra was wasting her time by choosing to fight for innocence and have a trial. Even her defense lawyers chose to omit the call to the police made by Tyra herself after the girl had been shot.

Years after the trial was over and people of Tyra’s jury heard the 911 call that Tyra made, the majority of the jury members said they never would have convicted her, had they heard about her phone call in court. It seemed that everyone had given up on Tyra, except Tyra. It’s incredible all that she has accomplished while behind bars. Instead of being beaten down by bitterness and anger, she has risen above the hate and educated herself. Tyra not only has Singleton fighting for her, but a handful of other influential people from across the political spectrum.

David A. Singleton is a skeleton key of a person. While others let misjudgments and hate hold them back from connecting with criminals, Singleton somehow breaks free from the rigidness of misjudgments and connects with everyone he comes across. The underlying message I took away from Singleton’s lecture was to never write people off. Starting now I will do my best to not let any sort of preconceived notions guide how I treat a person.

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Words and Actions Regarding Justice: Students Respond to the Ideas of David A. Singleton Excerpts from Other Students: “The question he asked was, would you rather have a person come out of jail hungry with no hope and who hasn’t changed, or a person that is motivated, can pay taxes, and not resort to crime to make a living? I know I would rather have a person who has changed and is motivated. If they have become a better person, they will also be a better member of society. From David A. Singleton’s lecture, I realized even though someone committed a crime, there can be a positive outcome just like in Gene May’s case.”

– Vanessa Poole “‘Don’t judge someone’s choices without first knowing their reason.’ This is one of my favorite quotes that just so happens to be what David Singleton’s lecture was all about. In today’s society you can’t post anything on social media or even just simply walk out of your house without someone judging you for the clothes you wear or what you look like. Imagine being in jail for murder or in jail for something you didn’t even commit and having to hear all the judgment from the public and even your own family.”

– Megan Yards “What stood out the most to me is what he said about judging other people.

To be honest, I probably do that each day

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when I see someone new or someone I don’t know. It’s a bad habit that most people have, but I realize that I have to look past the surface because I wouldn’t want people judging me based on the outside.”

– Ali Settlemyre “While Singleton’s beliefs are strong, his overall goal of changing society seems next to impossible. It is easy to change the beliefs of an individual, or a group of people, but to change the beliefs of society as a whole . . . is extremely difficult.”

– Hystri Waldespuhl “‘Don’t write people off.’ What a simple notion. It makes me wonder what kind of world we would live in if everyone followed and believed in this idea.”

– Kayla Hulsether “While reading the poetry of prisoners in class, I was faced with that reality of every person is a person, no matter what wrongdoings they may have done. The ambiguity that came along with this was, at first, very frustrating. As I learned to deal with these feelings, I realized the black and white had turned an awful shade of grey.

Singleton helped me realize that I can feel sympathy and sorrow for the “wrongdoers” we see behind bars, because more often than not they have been wronged too.”

– Nico Morgan

This is the second selection of work produced by members of the UCBA Creative Arts Faculty Learning Community to appear in the Blue Ash Review. During the 2013-14 academic year, members included representatives from the departments of Art and Visual Communication, Electronic Media Communications, English and Communication, and Foreign Language.

A range of forms and voices are evident in the work here, and one of the pieces must be accessed online. The work presented includes public service ads about breast cancer, “found footage� video production, poetry, creative nonfiction, a lyric essay, and song lyrics.

Some of these pieces are finished works while others are works-in-progress.

The Creative Arts FLC, led by assistant professors of English Kevin Oberlin and Robert Murdock, received financial support for books in support of their craft from the UCBA Faculty Development Funds Committee. If new members from other departments join the group as is anticipated, this FLC will undertake creative projects that are collaborative and cross-disciplinary, and use these experiences as a springboard for pedagogical reflection and development.

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Jamie Albert

Visual Arts and Communications Dept.

These inkjet print advertisements are the first set in a series of information graphics meant to simplify the complex medical information typically provided to breast cancer patients. By incorporating anecdotal experiences, I hope to provide context and understanding for other patients and those potentially at-risk. This work was peer-reviewed in a Faculty Learning Community and will continue to be explored in future applications.

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Jody Ballah Foreign Language Dept.

This poem is another in a series of poems inspired by the work of French poets. This one takes its cue from “Fantaisie” by Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855). An English translation of the poem, “Dream Memory,” can be found in The Penguin Anthology of French Poetry.

It’s just a song The song is already half over as the car radio finds its station “…but they’ve never stood in the dark with you love...”

Johnny Mathis ignites her and invites her to that alone place where she can drift even with others nearby.

But it’s the music too.

Her body rises to match the violins’ crescendo as the percussion leads the beat.

As he gears up for the last verse, Johnny’s words are from another time giving her permission to go back there too, all the while hoping no one will say anything or notice her distant eyes.

In those brief moments she savors her senses stockpiling enough of them to hold her until Johnny comes back again.

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Matt Bennett

Electronic Media Communication Dept.

Hair Club for Men (an online, “found footage” video production) Hair Club for Men is the last of a series of five “found footage” video works I created as criticism of the media’s role in constructing societal gender expectations. Borrowing terminology and technique from Guy Debord, the Letterist International, and Situationist movements of the late 1950s through early 1970s, I refer to the works as détournements.

These pieces attempt to turn commercial media representations of gender back on themselves, in a critique of the consumer capitalist culture that produced the images.

This particular work is an investigation of the ties between hair and male virility, from the classical and biblical periods to today. It is a critique of consumer culture’s attempts to play upon male insecurities and sell imagined masculinity.

The images and sounds in this video are the properties of the copyright holders. I mean in no way to infringe on their rights. The content is used solely for the purposes of criticism.

See the video at: http://matchcut.blogspot.com/2014/05/hair-club-for-men.html

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Rita Kumar and Sunitha Narayanan English & Communication Dept. / Career Coach with Promark

In 2011, my co-author, Sunitha Narayanan, and I began talking to women from different cultures in an effort to understand the woman immigrant experience. We were curious about the hidden, personal challenges that were unique to women, challenges that go unspoken. We started this qualitative research project using a carefully designed questionnaire and in-depth interviews to gather information. We were overwhelmingly struck how eager each woman was to share her story with us. Our process was to use these personal narratives to write creative non-fiction composites and give a personal voice to the stories shared in these remarkable journeys. This short excerpt from one of the composites demonstrates the conflict borne out of divergent thought processes that brings two women to the United States.

An Uneasy Alliance Doesn’t Ana get it? Bella has questioned Ana about this many times.

They are like trains on parallel tracks, their destinations in opposite directions.

Bella came to America to escape and embrace the contemporary, independent, forward-thinking lifestyle. Not to be old-fashioned like their mothers, dependent on husbands and stuck in the past.

They always argue about whether or not it is possible to fully feel integrated into American society. Even back home, Bella was compelled by the urge to be selfreliant, uphold her feminist perspective and be herself, not shackled by age-old conventions. They bicker insistently when Ana, with child-like glee, seeks out other Venezuelans and, without warning, brings them into their dorm room. The lack of privacy annoys Bella while these impromptu gatherings energize Ana. It is easy for Bella to be indifferent. She certainly does not miss having other people in her

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business all the time. The freedom of making decisions on her own, small and big, enthralls Bella. Ana needs a community consensus for even the simplest of decisions.

“Ana, what do you want to eat?”

“What do you want to eat?” Ana replied.

Bella struggles to understand why Ana is happy with status quo, while she passionately wishes to seek all things new.

Even as Ana seems to run away from her destination, Bella rushes to get there.

“Ana, why come this far if you didn’t want to be an American?”

With a puzzled look on her face, Ana replied, “Why would I want to be American?”

Bella continues to reflect on their numerous disagreements, breathes deeply as she crosses the Commons and continues her search for Ana. Across the campus, Ana feels the

breeze caress her face and dry her tears.

She despondently sits on the grassy slope of the small hill sheltered by ancient maples, their red and gold leaves reminding her of the cool air heralding a not too far autumn. She watches clouds pass by as her mind sifts through a kaleidoscope of memories. Ana recalls how Bella had introduced her to this special place, which soon had become her favorite haunt too.

Grudgingly, Ana begins to process what she just saw back in their room. She is suddenly parched; her throat hurts as she unconsciously tries to swallow intense, impure and unwanted images. The cream silk chiffon blouse she so generously gave Bella. Once held gently in her hands and lifted to her cheek in a caress: a gift from the heart. The wonder in Bella’s eyes as she tried on this expensive blouse, letting her fingers smooth over the silkiness, admiring herself in the mirror, even rashly promising Ana that she would wear the blouse to church this coming Sunday. Now discarded carelessly and lying on the floor after being thrown down in a hurry, the twisted garment shouts out Bella’s ingratitude. More dark images flash in Ana’s mind. Bodies entwined on Ana’s bed. Betrayal and shame of the worst kind. Bella might be a lapsed Catholic, but that is no excuse for flagrant behavior with a gringo. Ana could probably forgive veiled flirtations, lingering conversations, stolen kisses, prolonged farewells. But how could Ana look past this

monstrous indiscretion? How dare Bella use Ana’s bed? What was Bella thinking?

Unconsciously, Ana shakes her head to ward off the assault she feels on her cultural identity and moral values which she is unwilling to compromise. Ana spoke out loud, and not for the first time, “Adjusting to America is like using a pencil eraser on a full page of writing. Isn’t it relentless as it rubs away the sharp, defined outline of our identities?” She could still hear Bella’s curt response, “Boy, you are so predictable in how you constantly complain about ‘in this country’. You are just too sensitive. Stop thinking so much and enjoy being different from who you were back home.”

Ana could never understand why it was easy for Bella to be indifferent. Bella did not miss the loud chatter of neighbors, the bright noises on the streets and the jarring chorus of random conversations. The more casual Bella was about discarding old ways, the more hysterical Ana became as she despaired at her accented voice, cringed when she apologized yet again for something she didn’t know, and drowned under the weight of American patronizing.

Ana’s body sinks to the ground in despair. A life as easy as breathing is fast disappearing around and within me–there are days when I chase after a memory or trusted ways of doing things only to have it vanish quickly down an alley, eluding capture.

Continuing her walk across the campus, Bella is distracted and irritable

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that she even cares about Ana’s distress over this incident. I am tired of defending my actions all the time. What gives Ana the right to become a destructive inner critic of my life? Whenever an opportunity beckons I am eager to grab it with open arms open, a smile in my heart as I discover anew and reinvent myself. Oh, the joy of thinking freely, the delight of trying on a role without guilt and anxiety of disappointing family, the pleasure of crossing the line because I can, and the elation of not getting caught.

Who is Ana to place the weight of tradition and cultural expectations on my shoulders?

It has been difficult enough to break barriers in my head.

“What do you miss the most?” Ana would frequently ask.

Bella usually made up stuff that sounded like things people might miss when they arrived in a foreign country.

Honestly, in my mind I have gained more than what I have lost by coming to America.

I have made my choice, and I do not need to defend it to anyone.

With resentment, Bella wonders whether her ease at accepting the American way is because of what she left behind.

What would she like to forget? What she ran away from? Maybe it was time to tell Ana the truth about her life back home.

Ana is the talker; Bella, the listener. This was the role each fell into easily in conversations about home. It was easier this way.

Would Ana, the Venezuelan elite, truly

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understand a Venezuelan peasant?

The constant longing for home, the mindless devotion to the Catholic Church and the incessant need to preserve culture at all costs is beginning to touch a nerve in Bella. What should she long for? A home, crowded with siblings and extended family, and with no privacy. An independent thought that is quickly pushed aside by voices that “know better.” For Bella, a nagging worry is that her life will sit on the sidelines while the world marches on.

Ana, sweet gentle Ana, with a room of her own, servants to do her bidding and plenty to eat – what does she know about longing? Just vocalizing this to Ana is sacrilegious, a crime for which there is no just punishment. Bella is tired of defending her actions all the time. She is tired of pretending to miss something she willingly ran away from. She is tired of hearing that things back home are nicer, better, more comfortable. Because she knows it is not true.

An errant thought whispers; maybe I don’t want to be friends with Ana anymore.

Even as Bella tries to ignore this thought, she quickens her pace to reach the East Campus—the special place where she thinks she may find Ana. It is time for the two trains to pass.

Robert Murdock English & Communication Dept.

Focused around Pluto’s devolution from planet status, this piece is an excerpt from a lyric essay-in-progress that explores how memory and loss shift in time, how outside expectations inform the self and how the self re-defines itself after loss.

Excerpts from “Memories of Pluto” The girl folded herself into white, giggled, and waved an un-mittened hand to me as I folded a Stratego game board to place upon the heater so I could sit and not get burned. I had forgotten my hat so I was confined during our ten-o’clock recess.

I watched the girl, my best friend Amy, run around in the snow while Miss Shook suggested I play with the “big” blocks. I sat on the heater under the wall of windows and watched.

Amy’s mitten hung below her wrist, moving out of time with her waving hand.

The girl ran in circles, dove into cement pipes that lay around the school yard. She ran to the distant fence, before another teacher ordered her back to the black top.

She came charging back toward the building and kept running toward the window of our first-grade classroom. She stopped just short of the window and looked at me, then looked up into the nascent blue sky and started laughing. Amy then fell into a snow that had drifted against the brick under the window, shoved hard her arms into white.

I couldn’t see her from my perch.

Amy’s head popped up to the bottom of the pane of glass. Her eyes were the sky.

She mouthed the words, Open the window.

So I did and got two fistfuls of packed snow in my face. I cursed and backed down off of the heater into the body of Miss Shook. From my desk, I heard Amy laughing her deep, hoarse laugh as the teacher shut the window.

The light shone off her now-reflective snow-covered self, creased dark blue by folds in her suit. In the warmth of the inside, I watched – now from a distance – the recess monitor collect Amy and bring her inside. # No. That couldn’t have happened like that. The snow was cold on your face, but the room is all wrong. The room you’re thinking of is a room in Richard Avenue Elementary not Kingston. The heater was hot and you did sit on it, but Kingston had radiators not heaters. More specifically, the Stratego game was Mrs. Snashall’s – your fourth grade teacher. Remember? It was her daughter’s, but her daughter, Mary, decided it wasn’t a “game for girls” when she started middle school. We did spend the rest of the day in trouble . . .

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The woman in seat 12C laughed again, as coarse as the first time. I leaned to look up the aisle at her–blonde hair, blue eyes, illuminated by her reading light, spotlighted in the otherwise dark cabin – and that deep laugh. She spoke gently with the woman next to her, occasionally breaking the solemnity of the nearly-empty plane with a boisterous laugh. I pressed back into my window seat and leaned my forehead against the cold plane window and looked out at the black sky above the clouds that dim moonlight made gray.

The flight from San Francisco to Memphis had been turbulent. The sky was just clearing. # On the afternoon of February 18, 1930, Clyde Tombaugh was studying sky photos taken that January. He found a dim object that changed position. Tombaugh’s discovery proved to be the ninth planet.

This news excited the world.

The planet was named Pluto after the Roman God of the dead who ruled over a dark, cold underworld full of shifting shadows and half remembered lives. The sun is nothing special when viewed from Pluto.

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The Rape of Persephone Demeter worked hard to raise Persephone right. The girl was everything a “good girl” should be. She followed her mother home, watching flowers bloom as she passed.

Pluto’s life had been a life of lots drawn. A loser confined to the dark, he crafted himself from those shadows.

Pluto and Persephone had a lot in common. Each chaffed against expectations.

Kevin Oberlin

English & Communication Dept.

This poem was a new piece created for the 2013-2014 Creative Arts FLC. It was presented as part of the FLC’s reading at UCBA’s fall convocation, and served as a jumping off point for a new collaborative project for 2014-2015.

Prayer for the Devil to Restore Our Child I kick the mix of dirt and gravel to cover the hole we dug, raise a puff of red the wind casts away, a discarded veil.

A cigar box buried with photos, a lock of hair, some chicken bones, and powder, black, purportedly goofer dust, a ticket from the county fair, we have it on negligible authority the devil desires these tributes, that given faith and the patience to wait, for days if need be, here the spell may work.

You tuck your braided hair up into a ball, gaze down the eastern road, your back to me as it seems it’s been throughout our travels, drinking the bitter lagers of townie bars often without towns, the roadsides depressed in apocalyptic splendor—the caved in roofs of doublewides, the packs of dogs that appall the civilized suburbs back home. The gas stations, few and far, found our gaping stares risible, it’s never been otherwise here. The registers work.

The cokes are cold. And what are you folks doing in these parts? A kind of welcome,

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we supposed, and so grew cautious and polite.

You gave up changing clothes a while back, the same pair of jeans mile after mile, and I gave up trying to explain what we’re about.

To call on the devil, to devote to superstition our tithes, is necessary to say that we’ve tried everything.

A white barn, a water tower with rusting legs, a copse of trees, these people our gray horizon and bear witness. You held me while I wept for the home we lost to hospital bills, for the kids we’d never raise, for the lightning strikes that lit our dreams with static. I remember your touch as clear as the slick tape I used to seal our casket for ritual grieving. My thumbs smoothed surface to damp surface, and I prayed it would never open again, that, demon come, you’d turn, entwine your arms through mine, my waist in the cups of your hands, and my sandpaper cheeks clearing your tears as you pushed the bundle of shadows from my hands. Let it break on the hardened ground and dump its entrails in full view of those who might read our past and future mingled with tire tracks, some their own, the skins of everyone’s lives woven together for a purpose, to call upon whoever waits where the roads meet. Give us the child we murdered in sleep. Give us the guitar we picked into wealth. Give us the bullet back

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that put our brother in jail, that spurned the girl, that robbed the bank when we should have been CEO, and give us the pickup truck that will take us home.

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Rhonda Pettit

English & Communication Dept.

Like “The Deed” (see Blue Ash Review, v. 21), “Three Ships” is a poem in a yet-to-be titled sequence-in-progress that examines the inner life of a World War II veteran from the upper South. This poem was drafted during the 2013 fall semester of my participation with the CAFLC.

Three Ships For sinuous moments, Gora and the troops on board the three ships sailing to Le Hávre were rail birds, watching the Boston harbor diminish to an imaginary line, a horizon forever there and nowhere once they turned around, wingless, to face water and the European Theater.

He wasn’t with his boyhood curl of bark he’d floated down Grassy Creek, or on the boat he’d dreamed of taking north up summer’s umber Licking River, letting the current do the work, knowing he’d never fight it to return.

Three ships: two luxury liners and a banana boat retooled, like their occupants, for sacrifice.

What would they discover he hadn’t learned?

Cain was a farmer. God wanted blood.

To Here, he had written in the margin, marking the end of his first college reading assignment: the prehistoric earth an odd speck in space, its cooling fires exposing rock and water, steaming beaches, the battle for life when whatever happens leaves a trace.

Beneath it all, wrote H. G. Wells, was fundamental gneiss. The future promised longer days, lungfish, reptiles, mammals, the first true men who rarely drew themselves, religion, and the riddling of the faithful. Jesus was a man with difficult accessories.

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Three ships. What makes one man attack another?

The throb of soldiers on deck was beginning to soften.

How long had he stood there before turning his back to America, trusting it behind him, his mind as serpentine as his gut? The last gulls were gone. Tomorrow three would be a convoy of eighty-plus: Navy in front, a line of tank-heavy freighters to the north, and ships horizon-deep to the south, all plowing through ridges of water to land he didn’t want to imagine. Neither food nor emptiness would stay down then. To Here, To Here Next Time, he had written in the margins of all his college history books. To keep up.

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Mike Roos

English & Communication Dept.

“Rich Man (Venus and Mars)” and “Ship of Fools” are song lyrics I wrote, along with the music, as part of my participation in the 2013-14 Creative Arts FLC. I have recorded and performed both songs.

Rich Man (Venus and Mars) I am a rich man, I take what I want From Colorado, Tennessee, and Vermont.

I made a fortune in South African mines, Been round the world and slept with all kinds.

I take their mistresses, their kids and their wives, Cut out their hearts and eat ‘em alive.

Chorus: Blow up the moon, stir up the stars.

Ride on a rocket, take Venus and Mars.

Silk stockings, high heels, and cigars, Ride on a rocket, take Venus and Mars.

I am a rich man, it’s what I deserve.

You want to stop me but you ain’t got the nerve.

You save the whales and drink your green tea, But deep inside you want to be me.

I am a rich man, I drink what I need.

When I make war, it’s you who must bleed.

Why should I worry when I poison the sky?

I won’t be breathing any air when I die.

Chorus I am a rich man, I do what I please.

You see me comin’, better fall on your knees.

I own the fuel, I own the sun and the breeze, Purple mountains, green valleys, blue seas.

Chorus I’ll tell you something every president knows.

I use their hair and their skin for my clothes.

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Chorus

Chorus

Ship of Fools Captain, won’t you tell me, can’t you tell me are we going down?

Starbuck’s got the scurvy, last night we let the cabin boy drown.

Been sailing now for three years and you know we really miss our girls.

You promised we’d be rich men, you promised we’d get bags full of pearls.

Can you tell me why There ain’t a star in the sky?

Is this end of the world?

We left the Port of Happiness and followed all the trade winds east.

Been gone so long I can’t recall the land where I was born in the least.

There’s a blackness on the water and an albatross is in your hair.

You tell us not to lose our faith or let go of the power of prayer.

It’s all a disguise.

We’re sick of your lies.

We got no faith left to spare.

We did all that you asked of us. Your every call we duly obeyed.

We trusted you to lead us, but now you’ve left us lost and betrayed.

There’s no more food or water. We even ate the soles of our shoes.

You tell us we can feed upon the dead, but that we’ll surely refuse!

But when you breathe your last, As you hang from the mast, We’ll feed the sharks with you.

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Claudia Skutar English & Communication Dept.

This poem, submitted to the CAFLC for feedback, went through several drafts, growing shorter with each draft. I still consider it a work-in-progress, with this poem to comprise the first section, ultimately, in a longer poem.

Silence She is a prayer in your mouth – a hair shirt, a dull blade on skin.

Your words begin to stagger; make a sound with your mouth, and she will weld it to your lips.

You remain a mouth with restless tongue.

Where, or where, is your prayer?

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FIRST PLACE Caylan Hays

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Caylan Hays Boone County High School

1st Place

Morning Dew Capo 3, Key of Bb Verse 1: G D Em C D G Walk the road that you know can’t take you home Sing the song you’ve never sang to anyone Find the strength to make it out find the strength to make it right But I’m sure gonna miss you tonight Find the power in being alone Independence is rarely fully grown So take advantage while you’re here oh just give it the year and smile darling never show your tears Pre-Chorus: Em C Em C Em C D And when the wind blows casually Over defeated causalities Don’t peg yourself as one And when a smile takes all your strength I know you’ll smile anyway You best believe me when I say Chorus: Em C G D I see you as morning dew waking up to something new You might be afraid but you don’t show it anyway Your smile is fierce your soul is brave, you take in life day by day Dance in the rain, soar like a plane You’re a soul that can’t be tamed I see you as fire light burning strong throughout the night Baby your flame is always shining through Yeah I see beautiful in you, I see morning dew Verse 2: G D Em C D G Take the chance no one dares to steal Find a love but make sure that it’s real

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Cause a heart like yours has been down and through the dirt And love’s what it deserves to feel Try to make sense of all the whispers in the wind You know you’re always welcome home again But what kind of person would I be if I didn’t set you free So run along go on forget me (Repeat Chorus) And when the wind blows casually over defeated casualties don’t peg yourself as one, you’re not one.

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FIRST PLACE

Katherine Wilhelm

SECOND PLACE Wesley Osler

THIRD PLACE Kyla Andrus

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1st Place

Katherine Wilhelm

The Longest Night Troy was a loser like me, a Jack White wannabe, his favorite movie was A Clockwork Orange. He had smooth hair and black clothes. He always wore black and every now and then he would dye his hair black to match and there would be a funny brown line as it grew back out. Mine was cherry red. I dyed it red for him, because I noticed he liked red hair. He was in his senior year and I was just a sophomore.

He was going away to college and I was stuck home with my parents.

Troy’s parents owned a funeral home and his Dad was a mortician. It never bothered me, they were always cool when I came over, but I think it did things to his mind. He couldn’t bear injustice and he was always depressed about the lack of originality in the world. He was always saying “fuck it” as if he didn’t care.

He used to take the hearse out to the clubs and there was this park we used to go to before, to light up for a while. Maybe drink some stolen beers.

One winter night he didn’t drive me home. We went back to the morgue and parked the hearse in the small garage. We sat in the car and he was so concerned about the war and the men who were dying for it and how they were all being lied to.

But it was a freezing night and even with the garage door shut he had to turn

on the engine to keep us from freezing to death. I laughed a smirky laugh thinking how his Dad hated him to waste gas and we climbed into the yawning womb of the coach.

Troy took his hands and smacked them together, rubbing them vigorously until they were really hot. Then he placed them over mine and our rings clacked together and we smiled as his warmth spread into my cold, stiff hands.

The engine continued its lulling low rumble and though the garage had an odd smell we felt safe and invincible in the cushioned rear of the hearse. Eventually the borrowed heat from the running car sank into me and we made love. Troy was a beautiful lover, tender and compassionate, if a little self conscious and afterward we fell into a deep, deep sleep in each other’s arms. I hoped we’d never wake up.

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Wesley Osler

2nd Place

Pinch Me It is a normal day in a small, unremarkable suburb. The year is 1975. A child rides down the street on a bicycle, an ice cream truck can be heard in the distance.

Summer is in full swing, as the birds fly overhead, and the feel-good hit of the season blares on the radio. “I love my honey, yes I do, my love will go on, yes it’s true,” a singer croons. An air conditioner clicks on in the distance. The current time is 3:25 PM, July 18th.

The citizens of the small, nameless town are bracing themselves for the night to come. They have always braced themselves for night, when they would have to watch that which they feared. The show would always start at 6:35 PM, and they lived in constant fear of 6:35 PM. It wasn’t that they were afraid of the time itself, but as 6:35 approached, fear overtook their collective thoughts. Tonight was no different, and panic began to take hold over the Myers household.

It is 6:30 on the very same Friday night, July 18th. The all-American family is gathered on the sofa after dinner, preparing to watch the show. They are just finishing a scientific documentary on the Sahara desert’s wildlife. The time is now 6:35, and the TV flickers, as all TV’s in this town do at this time. Everyone is watching.

The screen flickers to a nearly-empty

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room, held within are two occupants. One, a man dressed in a suit looking slightly disheveled. He’s lost his jacket as well as his tie, and is bound to a metal chair. The other occupant is a tall man with a simple gray mask covering his face, the mouth twisted into a sort of grotesque smile. The masked man is holding a large belt sander.

No words are exchanged between the two. The sander is turned on, its sound is deafening in the quiet, concrete room. The noise seems to leak through the television in the family’s living room. Without provocation, he rams the sander into the man’s left shoulder. He cries out in pain, but he cannot form the words to protest.

Blood begins to stain his white shirt and khaki pants, splattering all over his casual business shoes. The masked man is careful to keep blood off of himself. The left shoulder finished, he moves onto the right. The bound man is weeping. The camera zooms into his eyes, it is easy to see his pain. His mouth is unbound, but he cannot form any words to beg or plead. The masked man puts down the belt sander, and exits the room.

Another person comes in, nobody is sure of their gender. They, too, wear a mask; this one a dark red face that is fixed in a permanent grimace. The viewers around town have seen this person before,

and they were terrified of them. The grimace-masked torturer walked over to the bound man. He is kicking and screaming, his earlier pain forgotten, trying desperately to escape his bondage and flee. His efforts are futile. They walk over to the bound man, and after ruffling his hair, they leave. They return only a minute later, holding what seems to be a coffee mug.

They turn to show the audience what is in the cup. It is filled with drain cleaner.

Others have walked in with the genderless torturer, but they are not facing the camera. They untie the man’s hands and feet, and gently place the cup on his lips.

A tune starts to play as they force him to consume the mug’s contents. It’s the same tune that was on the radio earlier today, while children were chasing after frisbees and the ice cream truck sounded its bells around the city. The catchy interlude swells as the man has the cleaner forced down his throat. “I love my honey, yes I do.”

He begins to kick and scream, but his screams are quickly silenced as he convulses and falls from the chair. He is lying on the ground now. He has been thrashing restlessly for 5 minutes since he consumed the vitriol. He has stopped moving. The genderless torturer, their face still hidden in a dark-red mask, fixed into a grimace, crouches down to check the man’s pulse.

He is dead. The screen goes black, and the words “JAMES CORY, AGED 32” flash on the screen.

The show is over. The father gets up from the couch to turn the lights on. The children are weeping, screaming with horror at the scene they had just witnessed.

The mother comforts them. “There there, honey, it’s okay. This is just a part of life,” she says reassuringly.

“It could happen to any of us,” the father interjects, his voice subdued and silent. He had worked with Cory; he was an average citizen, no different from the rest of the community. But he was the one to be in the show that week. Next week it could just as easily be him, his wife, or even his children. However, they would never know until the show began.

This was a fact of life in this small, forgettable town. The daily program had always done this type of thing, and they were powerless to stop it. Their bodies would not let them speak to outsiders about the practice, and they could only even talk about the program in the 5 minutes after it ended. Until then they were forced, by unknown powers, to exist mundanely. The mother would get up and continue cleaning up dinner, the father would go to the porch and smoke his pipe. The children, though they would sit and contemplate what they had seen, are physically unable to, and they get up to go back to their game of hide and seek. They will continue as if nothing ever happened, until 6:35 tomorrow comes to their television screens, and they will be forced

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to see another tortured and killed. In this senseless tradition, no meaning or purpose is upheld. It has always been, and it simply always will continue to be. Such is just a fact of life in this small American town.

The date is July 18th, 1975, and on this day all remained as it was.

Photo by Malachi Mason

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3rd Place

Kyla Andrus

[untitled] The house was dark, but I could hear the sounds of a movie–it sounded like Beauty and the Beast–echoing through the empty first floor and there was a flickering, blue-ish light at the head of the stairs. The kids must have fallen asleep with the TV on. But why the TV was still on, when my husband normally turned it off, I couldn’t quite figure out.

The silence combined with the darkness raised the hairs on the back of my neck as I made my way up the stairs, one hand on the rail, the other on the opposite wall. At the top of the stairs, I turned toward the sound of the TV. It was the set in the spare room, where the kids played. I flipped the light on and turned everything off. I turned to leave, looking over my shoulder as I did so as to make sure everything was picked up. The social worker was coming by in the morning and as it was, I would have to get up and corral the kids. Seeing that everything was in its place, I flipped the lights out and turned to leave; I nearly screamed as I almost bowled over my husband. “Oh my god. What are you doing?”

I whisper yelled. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

He stood there, looking at me like he was in a trance. I leaned toward him a bit, waving a hand in front of his face. “Earth

to Jim. Earth to Jim. Are the kids in bed?

Please say yes. Tomorrow’s going to be an early morning for all of us. It’s the last visit from the social worker before we finalize the adoption.” That was when I noticed a few specks of blood on the sleeve of his robe. “Oh goodness. Did Kimmy have another nosebleed? I’ve told her, time and again….”

Jim stood there, silently, staring at me like there were lights on upstairs but no one was home. It was starting to seriously weird me out. “Jim are you okay? Should I call the doctor? Are you having another episode?” That’s when I noticed his hands.

My scream was muffled as my hands flew to my mouth, and I jumped. At about the same time, Jim jumped and I could see him return to himself.

“Jesus, Lisa. What the hell?”

“Don’t you what-the-hell me. What the fuck is on your hands?!”

He raised his hands and looked down.

“I cut myself while trimming the rose bushes. I guess it split while I was sleeping.

It’s nothing serious, just a little flesh wound, but it’s been bleeding for a while, I’d guess. Why are you so jumpy?”

I smacked his arm. “You were sleepwalking again and I was really freaked out.

It was almost like one of your attacks.”

He gathered me into his arms, careful

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to keep the blood clear of my hair and blouse, and hugged me gently. “Sorry sweetie.”

“It’s okay,” I muttered. “Just...freaked me out is all.”

As we stood there, I heard the whisper and creak of little feet across floorboards. I watched as the door to Isabel’s room swung gently open, revealing Kimmy. Quietly, she stepped out of her sister’s room, turned, closed the door, and then turned to face us from across the hall. She stood there, watching, silent as a church mouse on a Sunday.

I disengaged from my hug with Jim to crouch in front of the only one of my three children that was biologically mine. “Hey sweetie. What are you doing up so late?”

Kimmy stayed silent, her hands behind her back, staring at me. Quite recently, we’d been told she had the same sleep disorder as Jim, which was somewhat worrisome but nothing we couldn’t handle. Thinking she was having one of her attacks, I stood up and walked toward her, intending to guide her back to bed. But she had other plans.

As I stepped toward her, she blinked and her hands drifted out from behind her back. In her right hand was a long, thin knife, one I carried for protection when I had to go downtown to meet with a client.

I kept it locked in a case that was always locked in a drawer of my home desk, and there was only one key to the case, which

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I wore on my person at all times. How she had gotten it, I had no clue. Her left hand, partially hidden behind the skirt of her nightgown, appeared to be stained with something thick and black, almost like tar.

“Kimmy…?”

That was when I noticed the absolute silence.

From my position in the hallway, I should have been able to hear Isabel’s noise-maker, which we were using to help her sleep without the noise of the city around her. I also should have been able to hear Garrett’s occasional whimpers and gasps in his sleep. “Jim, where are the kids?” I asked quietly. “Jim?” Turning to face him, I noticed that he appeared to be back in a trance. “Great,” I muttered.

“What have you two done?”

All I got in response was the silence of blank stares.

“What have you done?” I asked more forcibly.

“There was a problem Mommy,” Kimmy said sadly. “But Daddy helped me fix it.” Her bright smile and sweet, loving tone filled my stomach with dread and caused it to churn as it dropped to the floor.

“Oh my god,” I gasped, a hand over my mouth. “Oh my god.” Weakly I sank to the floor, my knees buckling and knocking against my beloved hardwood floors.

“Don’t be sad, Mommy,” Kimmy said.

“If you’re sad, I’ll have to fix you, too.”

I sobbed, and she sighed. “I warned

you Mommy.� As she stepped toward me, I screamed and then the world went dark.

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Christian Marion

[untitled] I’d rather be a grave-digger than save lives, A gold-digger than love twice.

And I’ll see the whole world with my own eyes.

I’d rather die young than live afraid, Die a sinner than live a saint.

And they say, I’m digging my own grave.

I walk alone, don’t tell me other-wise, To see her face, oh yes that would be nice, But I walk alone, always, So I’ll see you in the end of days.

Oh I know just how you’re feeling, ‘Cos I’ve been there too.

Nobody knows the roads we’ve taken, Except those we leave between.

And the words, the words they’re saying, To me, Don’t mean a god damned thing.

Page 78 | Blue Ash Review

H. Michael Sanders

Five Lines of Inscription Inscriptions inscribed.

Inscriptions inscribed

on air, sand and water.

Inscriptions on fire.

Inscriptions erased.

Volume 22 | Page 79

H. Michael Sanders

Three Stanzas from a Notebook Seamlessly hovering between object and space.

Amorphous mobility…

Promiscuous mobility.

Perceptual mobility.

Perceptual fragmentation…

Perceptual connection.

Variable relation…

Relational possibilities.

Irreducible relationship.

Erratically flickering between recognition and mystery.

Formal induction.

Looking at…

Looking through.

Subject/object.

Generative and transformative…

Successive transformation.

Forces of differential…

Differentiation.

Continually shifting between mobility and stoppage.

Boundless flux.

Ambiguous…

Arbitrariness and contingency.

Autonomous and discrete…

Connective and contingent.

A chaotic surge…

A surge of pressures.

Duration of perception.

Page 80 | Blue Ash Review

Contributors

Jamie Albert is an assistant professor of communication design in the UCBA Visual Art and Communication Dept.

Jody Ballah is an assistant professor of French in the UCBA Foreign Language Dept.

Matt Bennet is an assistant professor in the UCBA Electronic Media Communications Dept.

Richard Hague’s recent poetry includes During the Recent Extinctions: New and Selected Poems and Public Hearings, as well as Lives of the Poem, a book about teaching poetry. He is a former teacher at Purcell Marian High School in Cincinnati.

Rita Kumar is professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

Robert Murdock is an assistant professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

Sunitha Narayanan is a career coach with Promark, a Career Partners International Firm.

Kevin Oberlin is an assistant professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

Rhonda Pettit is professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

Mike Roos is professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

Claudia Skutar is an associate professor of English in the UCBA Department of English and Communication.

H. Michael Sanders is chair of the UCBA Electronic Media Communications Dept.

Unless otherwise identified, all other authors are or have been students at UC Blue Ash College.

Page 82 | Blue Ash Review

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