October 2005

October 2005 2

Martyrs

Eric Haney

2

Paper Robert Disque

2

Worth and Waste Charles Rohr

3

The Color Red Ian Walker

3

The Bar Nightmare Russell Lemburg

5

Marlow and Shakespeare Daniel Escudero

5

Behind the Walls of Thy Mind Ian Walker

6

Golf on Fridays Daniel Casper

6

The Chair Scott Moore

8

Hope Ann Nick Sementelli

9

Faulkner Daniel Casper

9

The Idle Threat and The Empty Promise Eric Haney

11 Whip Russell Lemburg

Publisher

Student Council

Artistic Editors Nick Sementelli Ian Walker

Layout Editor Eric Haney

Art Contributors

Art by Pablo Cerillo ’07

Brooks Oliver Ross Johnson Mike Brady

Jesuit Journal

Moderator Mr. Degen

www.jesuitcp.org/campuslife/studentcouncil

Martyrs

Paper

Eric Haney ’06

Robert Disque ’06

Nothing can prepare our hapless house guests for the horrors of my living room wall.

Here, my parents keep their two terrible collections; my mother has roughly three dozen crucifixes and my father has two deer heads mounted as trophies from his hunting excursions.

The disembodied deer heads and the hanging images of a bloody savior are there to serve as a reminder of sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus who died for my sins and Bambi who died for my sausage. Their legacies are left to me through these icons, the symbol remains and outlives the spent flesh and blood of their sacrifice. Although it is a strange and gruesome collection to keep, much less display in our house’s largest room, I think it is important to them to have.

I wonder what I should collect when I have a house of my own… The shrunken heads of my mentors and friends? A necklace of my family member’s ears? Andy Kaufman’s brain in a pickle jar? No, this is a stupid thing, a disturbing senseless thing that I will not take a part in. Keep your mouth shut, Jesus; we can worship movie stars instead. Lay low, Mr. Deer; we can live on carrot sticks and cheese cubes, I swear. There is already too much pointless death and dying in our world already for you to be finding reasons to off yourself. Everyone needs to fend for themselves.

I will not have my scalp hanging from a savage’s belt, a trinket made from my broken teeth, my skin shading a psychopath’s lamp. I could not bear a life of persecution or a death of sacrifice.

Maybe it is cowardice or only immaturity that keeps me away, but I am not ready for the cross of the living room wall.

What a haze running through our minds Lost and adrift in the seas of time

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What a modicum of misery That pervades our society Awash with frivolities Of useless decree The stagnant thought Wafts on the breeze Let everyone do As everyone will please And the title wave rushes Closer to the green shore All the waters of the Earth And ever more

Worth and Waste Charles Rohr ’05 Metaphysics, a discipline in philosophy whose purpose and function is hotly contested, is the study of the true nature of reality. It is the epitome of all that is philosophically grandiose, a discipline whose primary constituents consist of questions like “What are the most general features of the World?” and “Why does a World exist?” and “Are there really causes and effects in the world or are such concepts only tools the mind uses to make sense of experience?” and “What, if any, is the role of human beings in the World?” Unfortunately, there has not been much consensus about proposed answers to these questions. But, even more unfortunately, there

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Jesuit Journal

has been little appreciation about the value of such questions among most people.

Philosophy has often been condemned as impractical and worthless by a great many people, especially by a group of people that consist of a philosophical school called “Pragmatism.”

Pragmatists believe that what is “true” and what is worth devoting effort towards is simply what “works,” that which has the greatest utility. Many people who do not call themselves “pragmatists” adhere to this creed, and even those people who do not fall under the later category are pragmatists in regards to a great number of things in life. To me, however, the problem is glaring: how do we define what works? Although something might “work,” this does not necessarily mean that it is true, much less guarantee fulfillment of the human spirit. For example, Newtonian physics, although later discovered to be utterly flawed in describing physical phenomena as they “really” (or seem to “really”) happen, launched us to the moon and offer simple, practical solutions in everyday affairs. Capitalism, despite the fact that it creates wealth and decent standards of living for millions, oppresses many more millions with its free markets and objectifies human labor and creativity into paper-tradable commodities.

How much are we willing to sacrifice respect for truth and beauty for things that “work”? Should we perhaps revise our definition of “utility”? I am not writing for the purpose of making moral judgments on our own generation, but it seems to me that the old saying, “Man shall not live by bread alone,” is now true more than ever and that those who think only of the “practical” are likely to miss out on much in life. Perhaps, after revising the way we look at utility, we might discover that philosophy is the most practical of any pursuit.

Jesuit Journal

The Color Red Ian Walker ’06 Up here, on this decrepit balcony, I Can sit in the late of day, Watching the golden sky fold its wings, And dip its beak into the glowing milk Of the moon. I can hear the goodbyes, Farewells of birds, names unknown, punching their Cards and leaving for home in their own particular fashion.

I can recall the words of a saying I heard the other day, “Meditation is exercise, and exercise is truth” I can close my eyes for a moment and take in the world around me.

And then I go inside to watch the evening news.

The Bar Nightmare Chapter 1

R.A. Lemburg ’06 There was once a fat, grim bartender who, one day, on occasion of his fiftieth birthday party, decided he had enough of his dull job, enough of its beer-smelling attendants, and enough of long nights under the dim smoke-filled light and treacherous heat. He made his mind up that he would quit, find another job, and hopefully continue another joyful, healthy, second half of his life.

It was a yellowed, dull Sunday afternoon when he walked toward the bar to divorce himself from the 32 long years he had worked at the bar, the bar that served his fellow colleagues, friends, and occasionally family (though not very often). He walked toward the brass-hinged doors, which sparkled with the last lights of this life-giving statue, this somber building that housed partylike figures of happiness and intoxication. Al-

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though the light from the door hinges reflected the orange glow of the sun, they also reflected the light of friendship, the drink, and endless Friday night bliss which halted the continuum of five horrid workdays. The bartender, with a nervous bewilderment, continued into the building as he planned.

His boss was over one hundred years old, covered in Vaseline, spirits, the smell of aged cheese, garlic, and whiskey. It wasn’t easily perceived by him that the person now entering his very quarters was the same man who had worked with him the last thirty or more years, but he had a feeling that someone was entering the room, as he clanked away, making as much noise as possible to alert him.

His office was covered in magazines, mostly of the current events genre, and he sat half-naked reading the latest Glitter. The pipe he was chewing on, but not smoking, was breathing the must of “fresh” smoke and he eyed his mistress, Charlienne, who left him alone with the unexpected client. As every breath he uttered mingled with the fragrance of the garlic, his yellowed teeth protruded to allow the bartender an idea of his current dental work, or lack thereof.

“I’m leaving,” he uttered nonchalantly. “I think I’d better move on.” His eyes moved toward the ceiling tile, which had a yellowish hue to it due to the inefficient cleaning and magnitude of smok-

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ing the old man had been doing. “Umm… I just came to say that it’s been a good job, but I have to move on.” He felt bad talking to the old man, who looked as if he could die at any moment, or possibly the second he left the room.

The old man looked up. He took his eyes off Glitter as if he was regretting the discontinuation of the sentence, an interruption which caused him to spit out one marvelous word followed by a sputter of drool: “He…ee… llp…” A choking gurgle and lifeless expression of both blackened olive-like eyes caused the 50-year old bartender to instantly go into frenzy. He ran toward the man who smelled of aged cheese, garlic, whiskey, and now the fresh scent of death, reaching out to grab the gagging throat, the stomach, the hair, anything that would prolong his life further, but only helped to shorten it. Just as the bartender had managed a grip around Art by Brooks Oliver ‘06 the stomach of the deceased elderly man, Charlienne walked in. The old lady, filled with wrinkles of age like bedsheets or a pruned finger, let out a scream with a pitch high enough to wake a sleeping robin from atop its highest perch.

“It’s almost three and I haven’t gotten out of here,” Germaigne uttered nervously. “I’m deeply sorry, miss. He just died. I’ve gotta get out of here. I mean, I only came here to quit this job,

October 2005

Jesuit Journal

and I wasn’t expecting anything like thi… ma’am?

Miss… are you sure you are allright?”

Echoing beyond the distances of the bar were the noises of glasses clanging, of liquor pouring, and of shrill cries that woke the farthest robin. “I’ll get you! I’m calling the police! I’ll get you for what you’ve done! You murderering wretch!” No more tears were spilled that afternoon, no more cries of pain from Charlienne, only the strident sounds of sirens voyaging toward the bar. ************************* NEXT: CHAPTER 2: THE CONFESSION

Wrote about the moon and the sun, Wrote about a summer’s eve, And a spring that had just begun.

But then some English fool came along, And stole my words from here, Put his own name upon their fronts; He called himself Shakespeare.

I could not speak out against him, For I was an unknown.

I just gave up, but was too late.

He had gained fame, that devil man.

Thus, I sit here in my bed, Wishing all was new.

But you only get one chance in life, What’s going to happen to you?

Marlow and Shakespeare

Behind the Walls of Thy Mind

My life was all for poetry, Where starry nights describe a woman’s eyes And where trees desire to be free from bondage, And birds graciously soar through the skies.

Behind the walls of thy mind, lies a kingdom untold With parts played by all, yet their reasons unknown In the royal court, the players talk and lay about, Through time, they corrupt and plunder throughout

Daniel Escudero ’08

Where lovers walk by a flowing stream, And Silence reigns o’er the night, Where sunrays flash from a sunset, And fill the world with light.

My mind was in imaginary places, Places you do not expect to see.

Places where bizarre things happen, And sometimes they happened to me.

I moved from country to country.

Set up my own death date.

And then I settled in Romania, Trying to set things straight.

I started back on poetry,

Jesuit Journal

Ian Walker ’06

Anger, the priest, the bishop, the sorcerer He works tirelessly on preparations, plotting and devising Performing the ritual that is both crude and unnecessary Yet shakes the foundations of life, frightening the laity Envy, the Jester, a Fool and a Brute Mocking the others with jokes both trite and rude He tells tales of fallen angels, of emperors long past gone For a moment, he bears the pastor’s robe, but realizes it is much too long

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Nostalgia is the Keeper, the key holder, who reserves entry Into the inner tomb, for the royals only, those who have the reason To gaze on books of memory, yet in this reason, there is no reason A Paradox that disheartens and belies the holy Pride is the foolish page, who attends to all who listen Though he means well, and strives to aid, his actions are uncertain In Labor work, he works too hard and knocks over pillars many But when he strives to hold them up, their weight brings death to plenty Apathy, Boredom, and Ignorance, are Beggars who wait outside They hold out hands with silver cups, and listen to each other’s lies “Life is tough” is their harsh motto, they claim they had it harder yet when the merchant offers work with pay, they huddle in their dark corner Listening to all their subjects, as they go about their duties Happiness, the King, and Sadness, the Queen, gaze unaware, unmoving Lingering on their thrones, one intricate, one simple, they order These silly children around, oblivious to how the walls crumble If I had a wish, they asked, what would it be?

Too late, for Time, too old, for Rebirth Too young, for Death, and too Human for Earth, I’d present myself to the court, smile and bend on my knee Live as their joyful and loving houseguest for eternity.

Golf on Fridays Daniel Casper ’05

T Telephone poles pass across an asphalt binding, Flipbook into the lives of these nuclear families, Across the rhythm of “one-size-fits-all” housing, A teenage mother bounces her baby on her lap, A sunburned man stares into the distance, Why was she crying?

What was he thinking about?

I would never know.

But the pages to my little novella keep turning, Farther along from these personifications, this side plot, To my climax, the great American Dream.

Godspeed you martyr!

Godspeed you personal Jesus in uniform!

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, One day I’ll own this city, And God and I will play golf on Fridays.

I’ve read about empathy in a novel somewhere.

The Chair

Scott Moore ’06 A boy sat there, In that silver chair Shivering in his aloneness Looking in your eyes Like deep blue skies Happily raining Yet watching him cry He reached for your face For the millionth time Only to be remembered The you was his mind There he sits

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October 2005

Jesuit Journal

Art by Mike Brady ’07 A young man of stone His loneliness frozen, his every bone But his heart, It beat so strong For you he said, for you, you

But I The man of stone I say I am in my head and here to stay Sitting on that silver chair Watching you, breathing you, For my taker Put me there

But you said, I’m not like you, So he sits and dreams of the day That you will turn and say Its ok, I am that way And I love you more every day

I feel the unstoppable coldness Creeping into my bones To sink its icy teeth into my ashen heart For this time I cannot depart Into the you the way I have before

He reaches for you He touches your face He dies in the presence of you grace For that was his promise to his maker Once he touched you, his maker, his taker And so it was The man of stone with the roaring heart No longer sat there in that petrifying silver chair For he’s no longer there He is in a better place they say

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I feel it coming yet I try not to stop it Let it get my beating heart Let it freeze my heart, my you I don’t care, Wait is that you sitting there?

Is this my maker?

NO, I see you there and that is all I live for

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Now I can live in death Grope my heart oh freezing tears I can see you I won’t fear I promise you my one my all I’m coming

I fished out on that pier They seem to know me there now Still thinking of the day When love was alive within both of us I proclaimed it to be the greatest day of my life And all the creatures of the sea looked at me And I kept looking at her

The inert spirit of a boy to man Sits frozen to that silver chair With a poster of you Put at his feet “The one who lost his heart”

Everything stood still around us Talking on for hours Awkward silence spoke more than we did Then came the moment The Reality and Innocence, blending into a fine woven net Taking the deepest breath and holding it in

Hope Ann Nick Sementelli ’05 I lost Hope…

The value of the warm blanket over a motionless body It seems as if yesterday I held it close to me Close to my heart it pounded on I felt it most when the moon spoke softly upon me Guiding me in the midnight sky to find peace again The feel of the sea’s breeze blew across my face That is where I found love

Even nets have imperfections Muted words speak between us now Silence leaves a scar on everything we know I forget the moon and venture out into darkness Are we happy?

I wanted to say I was sorry For my perfections they are a curse But no matter what happens I lost Ann…

Art by Mike Brady ’07 Page 8

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Jesuit Journal

Faulkner

she knew brought about the same death when she splashed her ear lobes with it and went for her rounds into town. Honor, it was honor you see – don’t you – and that the pride of living and having the name, of The wind grew quiet and hung in the air like the bees being legitimate. They would never let me buy the and everything hanging stood in a halycon calm, name (I could never afford it), but I didn’t want it, the transfixed, but she remained there and the snow empty nominal acknowledgement can be reserved for refused to come, no matter how often she looked up those fools who believe in law and God, but I knew at the sky, hanging like the insects in the clouds, but there was nothing before our us and melting and now the ground was cold and unmoving and did not seek they think I am out to buy his name as if I were some to touch the sky as it once did but she was moving of the men that had kept it low, they kept the grass without moving in silence as the sun came and went low and the flowers low and brought the bees and the between the clouds; Jill wondered when the same trees to the ground, to where everything was short frost would return and coat her with the layers of white when it snowed and they were swallowed. Then they and white, and then she killed the snow with could be cold, finally cold rocks but it was with another named never enough beStanley and his layers too cause things kept would fall with the snow growing and returnand then melt away and ing, and that same return to the cold and salt would bring unmoving, but the bees something else into returned again instead being for as man I ate the apple from the tree and the fierce white noise seeks to destroy he And knew I did nothing wrong; reminded her of snow merely creates No punisher would punish me, because of the word white inadvertently, and so I was on earth all along. which always came with nature will always the bees, despite the fact carry us in our that they were yellow and absence or prescame and went with the ence. The bells from sun. Wisteria crept up from the ground like doubts and the church rang out eleven and now it was five minencircled the base of the bench like an altar, but how utes before he would be late, maybe bearing a heavy could he? The dreadful, the blackguard, the demon! letter, bearing the unfortunately heavy letter or one Both of them, it was not I who brought us before the disgracefully light, or maybe he would never arrive past and family it was he, him, and the words spoken and she would never have to face the family and in the back parlor amongst the smoke really had simply live with the disgrace of being snuffed out like nothing to do with the smoke but with my own wallet a candle with too many years left to burn and and my father’s wallet, because of the fact that we smudged out for it. This was to decide things and then had none, to the dreadful it did. It was never him or the bench felt tighter and harder around her hands me but of them and him and me and him. It was that were white and very cold. The snow had come to enough for me to remain in the park out of sight of them from the very first day and it was unusual that it their veranda and stay in being with him but it was should snow this far south due to the heat but it did never enough for him. The knowledge and honesty of and it was unusual that she should find a man in the it all shone through like his morals and proved he was sun with such a fine watch and finer, fairer, face. He a damnable honest man, too honest, the honesty that spoke to her it wasn’t my fault Father I had loved her lived and yet still spawned death like the rosewater in the snow and everything that you had taught me

Daniel Casper ’05

The Idle Threat and the Empty Promise Eric Haney ’06

Jesuit Journal

October 2005

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Art by Ross Johnson ’06 wasn’t there, I love her now, won’t you understand? I have returned for permission. No - you cannot- you swore to marry Ella Darcy, you have known all this time and to run with this faceless nothing, she lies between you and I and think of our name! and you will never ever listen to me speak you young fool, you will marry Ella, think of us, think of the Smitheson’s and she had given up all as if she were a child floated down the river in a bulrush reed basket to him, a flower unfolding in her breath and his breath and her face blushed and his hand and voice closed it and opened it both with the same touch, both blooming and not blooming fixed in her breath, heaving heavy pollen between in chest. Why did he ever descend to her and why not now (certainly not now) now that he knew the terrible truth of her name and her wallet and the betrayal of all his strong convictions, his very honor as a gentleman, and a man wearing a coat – she couldn’t see the face because of the glare and sun – shifting her hands over her eyes hoping with all the brilliance that is sun reaching down and gracing new fallen snow, could he have surrendered his honor for love? It must be him! The jacket was his and who else would come to her in such a fashion, oh how their love triumphed and she stoop transfixed again,

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this time humming and crackling with brilliance, with hunger. The clocks told it was eleven twenty and her ears told her the church was silent and her eyes confessed to her, stabbing down into her heart, that it was not even him but some poor papier-mâché Mephistopheles so transparent she could push her fingers right through him but not far enough to reach Stanley for he had gone and could never come back, the snow had disappeared and everything smelled of spring again, the time of evil rains and cruel easy loves, she wished those rains would come and drown the messenger on his wisteria-lanced path and bring him back on the winds from the north and carry them further south until they were far enough away as to not have recognizable names or families anymore but simply two separate bodies, conjoined at the heart, riding the same wind. The glare minion boy in his oversized twill jacket handed her a letter and cooed almost silently between his teeth, the snake telling Eve, “It was all he could do. You could never understand.” And he clicked his heels and swallowed all his swords and left much lighter than before. The letter was heavy and she could muster the strength or bear to open it she stuffed it back into her blouse near her silent heart, the blood running cold now, and she

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Jesuit Journal

pleaded at the back of the glare page boy of the blackguard, she pleaded at the sun to calm its heat and the clouds to well up and the bees to stop buzzing for a minute and the church bells to stop counting down time and slaying it mercilessly under their clicks and turning gears. But it was to no avail, it was too late, everything was too damn far, the sun had gone down and could never return. She wept, her tears falling like the snow which would never come, for she was much too far south, it was much too hot, she was much to alone. That’s when the memories returned, they came to her like the bees and she tried to swat them from her mind with the handkerchief he had given her on that day that smelled like his pipe tobacco, but the smell would fade and be covered in terrible deathly rose water which he was unknowingly forcing her to douse herself in for the rest of her life, it was all to no avail, their noises kept stinging her ears, their white noises calling, trying to bring in the past like a net in which she unwillingly struggled down farther into the desperation of despondency, he was gone but the net still dragged her back to him. He stood there so cruelly and she struggled to be free but her heart was too powerful despite its weakness, despite its sudden inherited silence. His touch, extincted by his honor, would never be felt again, his breath and heavy beard would never scratch her skin and dig deeper under, these things belonged to another world of winter. She pushed her hands to her face to stop the tears that would not stop streaking themselves hot and wet down her cheeks, everything grew hotter and wetter and began to rain. The bees did not retreat to wherever they had come from, instead hung around in the fluid air. She remained at the bench for a long time, unable to move or comfort herself, the rain falling deep within her and cooling her heart, and the bees dancing jeeringly in the air around her, the nets utterly closed.

Jesuit Journal

Whip

Russell Lemburg ’06

The whippoorwill*

It lies there in the void of deep abyss Amidst the flow of life and death As Death faces its counterpart of darkness Life face its counterpart, the light And drinks from the rain of the earth The barren wasteland Which spews from its bitter skies a falling tear And yet from the distance across the fog-buried hill Lies the whippoorwill Basking in the sunlight Among the forgotten and thirsting The tears of the earth fall to bathe them To share its life The whippoorwill drinks softly Basking in the wetness, the resurrecting waters Heaping upward Bourgeoning in exultation While the others lie forgotten Amidst the showers they refuse drink Blanketing themselves in their own darkness Only looking upward toward the whippoorwill Who basks in the sunlight. * A North American nightjar of woodlands, with an insistently repeated call.

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