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QUA
LITERARY AND FINE ARTS MAGAZINE FALL 2013 CO-EDITORS
Jenniger Onufry Joel Zuehlke
Marketing Editor
Shekinah Shazaam
Readers
John Stephanie Brittany Christopher
Cover and Design Alita Prince
Web Design
Hannah Eckman
Art and Design Advisior Ben Gaydos
Faculty Advisor
Stephanie Carpenter
F O E ABL
S T N E T N O
C Y R T POE
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Warped and skewed, curved and bent, Rapid eyes destroying sense. Bits and pieces, excerpted baggage, Consciousness amidst the wreckage. Like slow motion shattered glass, Its beauty must be slowed to last. A muffled laugh, odd and strange, The arms of time – elastic range. The ground is up and up is ground, His ear, it hears a glassy sound; Except without a single vibration— Sound without air: its common patron. What is heard, he really does knot, Reality one end; the other, thought.
SHARDS • JOEL ZUEHLKE
It happens each and every sleep, But only few are made to keep. A puzzle of shards to rejoin, Bloody fingers, but on with the sewing. The creak of the door; her ambient skin, Outside the window; the sky like tin, Realer than real she barks her words, Turns her back and grabs her purse. And dragging it as she did, Their picture falls into a pit, Until the ground, it dropped through air. To nothingness he did stare. Then like slow motion shattered glass, It burst and wedged his eyes – the past. Bloodshot red, they shall not return, To that pit where he wants to learn; Not today, perhaps tonight; A moist addiction – his pillowed plight. He’ll tarry until he plummets there, But even so, his dreams prepare.
Let us walk these streets. Let me hold your hand in mine, Let them call us children while we find some grass to lay in. Follow my eyes to the skyline as it recites the story of where the buildings grew: hungry shadows reaching in prayer, longing, desperation pleading for what was. See the cars crawl to oblivion from their former glory, Weep for those hopeless, simple, calloused hands that wagered their dreams on assembly lines to watch the machines dance themselves to death.
Remember thisThis concrete belongs to us. These streets are the bones of giants. We tread on titanic skeletons of our mothers and fathers. We are the blood running rampant. Clinging to the bones We are the muscle.
BONES OF GIANTS • JAMES O’DEA
Now while our loving city sags beneath the weight of its past and wraps its bruised and broken arms around us
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT • JADE BELL
The sun sets over the ocean and here I am standing watch on an aircraft carrier. I’m supposed to be a lookout. The proper term would be low visibility watch and when there is fog or some type of element preventing visibility, I have to stand here and stare at the ocean. It seems easy enough, but when you have been up since four the previous morning and only had four hours sleep within the last twenty-four hours, standing and watching the ocean is the last thing that needs to happen. Watching the water is like being hypnotized. Your mind starts wandering on journeys that make you wonder if those are the things that you would have been dreaming about had you been asleep. Right now I am thinking of the living things that I miss. That probably seems a little crazy so let me back up. We have been out to sea for months now. When we do stop for port visits, it’s usually to a place in the Middle East where there is mostly sand. Rarely have I seen grass. It’s such a simple thing to miss but grass became important to me the moment when there was just water as far as the eye could see. The farther out we go, the less life we see. Well, that’s of course with the exception of random whales and jellyfish. There are no birds, trees, or even bugs. As much as I hate spiders, I would at least like to see a web of some sort; anything that lets me know that there are things around me that are alive besides people. I used to wonder how people go crazy in solitary confinement. I thought that if I were locked up the one thing that I would want is to be left alone. I actually like being by myself. Then I joined the Navy. I am here amongst thousands of people and the one thing that I do feel is alone. The new friends that I have made are cool and all, but there is always the “starting over” that concerns me. The small things that my friends back home already know about me are things I
I used the officer’s binoculars to study her face, the pale, metallic blue of her eyes, moist with apprehension. Each crease in her weathered skin acted as a journal of the events she experienced that led her to the ledge. No ring. The megaphone distorted my voice coldly, my usual cadence manipulated and compressed. Every word I spoke sounded like an indictment against organic thought. So I told her to stay calm and handed it off. With every stair I ascended my tired organs twinged in lackluster defiance. My heart was throbbing behind my ribs. Six flights. I was a younger man years ago. Her door was open so I entered. There were paintings hanging precariously from tiny nails driven into the drywall. The paintings were of buildings I didn’t recognize, though one appeared to be the Library of Congress.
Her bed was just two mattresses on the wooden floor, but in the way a harem would be. Her red sheets were strewn haphazardly around. A stuffed wolf lay on a pillow. As I stared at it, I felt tears bubbling up. She was watching me from outside the window. She said she thought I wanted to talk. I nodded, then added that it’d be easier to talk if she weren’t at risk of falling to her death at the ad-
STAIRS • NICK PUGLIESE
She heard me enter and screamed that she’d do it. I believed her and told her to relax. I just want to talk. We all just want to talk. I wiped the sweat from my face with my handkerchief and caught my reflection in a mirror. I was flushed. I looked like I was about to vomit. I was a younger man, years ago.
SEﾃ前RITA Y FLORA. 窶｢ ADARA (FLICKR)
FARWELL TO SUMMER • PRINCESSINBOOTS (FLICKR)
“THE CLOSING OF ANDERSON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL” • AMBER COCHRAN
The sky shines blue. A desperate blue— A blue that’s not found in Crayola. Teal blue— Turquoise blue— Ocean blue— But not desperate blue. The leaves are stretched In all their bushiness Still against the sky. The grass stands sharp Eerily still. Though mowed—No tracks. The school stands too lonely, too. Where are the kids? Have they already been dismissed? That’s when I see The windows chained, boarded. Then I see the chipping paint On the caterpillar. The loneliness of the slide. The rusty chains. We swing. They sing. Squealing. Squeaking. Screaming. The tired bolts Happy to be swung. The swings blow. The wind calms their longing. Bottle glass takes place Of where pattered feet would race. Condom wrappers Of tainted lovers Replaces candy foil. Even the soil Is not the same Without the kids Running around Hooting and hollering.
CAN’T SAY IT • JADE BELL
Why can’t I just say the word? Is it because Really After Penetration I was Empty? Or maybe because the Rage And Punishment was External? Or could it be that I Regret Agonizing over the Pain that Engulfs me? Or because of the constant Reminder that Alters my Personal Environment? Could be that I feel that Really All Perpetrators are Evil Or that Right After Perverts Ejaculate They Really don’t Actually Picture the Earthquake No matter what the reason is I just can’t say the word out loud So for now Reading and writing A
COLOPHON This book was designed by Alita Prince, typeset in indesign adobe software. I wanted to put all of the important elements of Qua together in an abstract way. I used a technique called quilling to form a collage of colors using cardstock paper. This theme embraces each significant talent that goes into creating a successful Issue of QUA Literary and Fine Arts Magazine. This book is printed on Sandstone Paper. Font Names: Bebas Neue Corbert Colors: I decided to go with a casual and exciting color scheme. These colors help the paper pop off the page, while illustrating curves of detail
ALITA PRINCE © 2013
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