Share
Art & Literary Magazine
Disclaimer Share Art & Literary Magazine of Kennesaw State University is publised annually in print format. The online edition is ongoing. The publication is funded through student activity fees and is free of charge to all members of the KSU campus community. All literature. artwork, and digital work are self-expressions of those who created them and are not intended to represent the ideas or views of the Share staff or its advisors. They do not reflect the views of KSU faculty, staff, administration, student body, KSU student publications board, or the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. Artwork contained in the magazine or on the website is not intended to specifically illustrate any literary work or vice versa, but may have been placed according to content. This includes editing artwork to better serve the magazine's needs in terms of size or composition with textural elements. We welcome artists to contact us if they find this policy unacceptable. Though all artists may retain rights to their work, Share reserves the right to print and reprint all submissions.
Letter from the Editor Hi’ya Fellas, There is a transition from working as the art editor of a magazine to working as the Editor in Chief. That transition comes as a shift in perspective, and so in writing to our readership today I want to offer a bit of that perspective.
The decisions we have made this semester have often brought up a common question asked by student based publications, a question that investigates the purpose of the publication. Does the magazine serve best as an objective tool, which stands apart from the student body in order to showcase the students, or are we a part of the student community which collaborates with our readership and contributors to create something worthwhile? Do we buy a texture image for a page background online or do we ask a student to create it for us? These are the kind of questions that are asked when the Share editorial staff meets to discuss the publication.
This semester we’ve made some decisions that foreshadow the trend for the magazine while I’m at the helm. It has been the tradition of Share to use exterior sources to create the cover of the magazine; it made sense. We aren’t in the business of picking a prize winner. We figure out how much art and writing we can fit into the magazine and we pick the best, piece by piece, until the issue is packed cover to cover with what the students have to offer. It was felt that by using student art as a cover we’re saying, “Hey, this is the best.” We wanted to avoid that.
This still holds true, but in this semester and the next you’re going to see student created art work on the cover of our magazine. That cover isn’t picked from student art submissions, but rather we design a cover and ask a student to execute that design. The reason for this is pretty simple; the cover of the magazine determines its attitude. It’s both the handshake and the face of what we are doing for that semester. We want that face to be art that comes out of KSU.
Regards, Christopher Michael Wong Editor in Chief – Share Art and Literary
Contents 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 40
Youth Acclimation and Assimilation Holy Hand Aftermath Encapsulation Answers Bleed Well Deep Sea Bicycle Innocent Memories Dance Butterfly Lightening Bloom Iceberg Digital Date Night Miniature Crystal Pottery Michael Bogalusa Scars Passing Through Without Really Noticing It Trial" Sleeping Wide Awake #1 God I Hate Text Messages Waiting His Majesty Carry On Self Portrait A Healthy Lifestyle Hot Asian Porn Contemporary Putti
Brooks Moore Meghan Greer Daniel Brandon Curley Kimberly New Bradley Lewis Alex Tramble Brett Frank Anna Stallworth Adeokunbo Olaibi Bradley Lewis Daniel Brandon Curley Jason Wright Candace E. Webb Maria Azarraga Candace E. Webb Meghan Greer Denise Burke Rachel Wade Brett Kelsey Julianne Trew Andrew Abbott Kristina Ramos Jonathan Boswell Jessica Hain William Cash Kristina Ramos Munroe d'Antignac Matthew Anderson Christopher Ward Nikki Starz
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 68 69 70 71 73 74 75
Little 5 Points Project Waiting" James Taylor Brooks The Fear of Rejection and Alienation Nativity on the grass Tharsis Montes On Your Wedding Day Hand is the Connector 1 Rococo Chihuahua Cake Femme Fatale The Lows Broken Unemployed Graduates Metropolis Bound Letters From War free fall Nature's Reclaim The Summer Lawn Life Mask Dysmorphia The Sleeper of Five Hours Gladiolus This is not Still Life Up, Up, and Away Endless Baarri NIght Wanderer's Womb Series No.1 What the Birds Know Religion: Sife Effects Include: Slavery When One Wont Do Destruction
Patricia Chourio Dayna Melton Imani Marshall Brett Frank William Cash Mark Verlander Sterling Denson Christopher Ward John Entrekin Nikki Starz Caroline Annandale Maria Azarraga Amy Vassen Thomas Dunn J. Morgan Booker Caroline Annandale Mark Verlander Sarah LaRue Heather Cook Joseph Barbier Andrew Abbott Alex Tramble Melinda McPherson Brittany Stansel Sarah Hamby Jason Wright Kate B. Brusack Kathrine Allen Erin Kay Spangler Joie Martin Kevin Sandy Meghan Greer Sarah Singleton
5
Youth
Brooks Moore
Digital Illustration 9.5" x 12.5"
2009
6
Acclimation and Assimilation Meghan Greer
Back home when I was too young to drink coffee, Papi gave me the berries to chew, purple and slippery like river stones. Mamá combed my curly hair straight and tied it into thick braids with little streams of ribbon around the ends like balloon strings. I fell asleep to the sound of coquí frogs cooing their "coh kee coh kee" outside in the ferns and plantain trees.
Now the boys sneak up on me in class and frighten me to make the Spanish come out. ¡Oye! One boy grabs my braids and tells me my hair is like the horses' in his father's stables. Coarse and black and ugly. Giddyup! The cowboy jerks on my braids.
Papi left in a shiny new red car. The old hens next door cluck when Fernando and I walk by. "Those yellow haired women don't have the hips to be mothers. He went all the way to Puerto Rico to find a wife, and then what?"
7 "Mija, not in front of the children." Fernando, who is older than me by seven inches, stiffens, and we walk faster.
MamĂĄ has a black bottle under the sink with a faded label: hydrogen peroxide. My older cousin, Sibya, wears a bra and showed me how she dabs the bubbly water onto her lip to make her mustache disappear. I dip a toothbrush into the bottle and run it through my hair.
Fernando stands in the doorway wearing one of Papi's old t-shirts. ÂżMira, tonto, que paso a ti?* Ever since Papi left, he won't speak English, nor drink Coca-Cola, nor talk to white women. He doesn't like the taste. I am afraid he will take the bottle and pour it down the sink, so I tell him I don't want to look like a horse and if I have yellow hair Papi will come home. But he doesn't take away the bottle. Instead, he grabs onto me like I am the giant teddy bear I won at the fair and squeezes me tight and holds me and holds me.
*Hey, stupid, what's your problem?
8
Holy Hand
Daniel Brandon Curley
Ceramic 5" x 8"
9
Aftermath Kimberly New
Photography 12" x 12"
2009
10
Encapsulation Bradley Lewis
Oil on Wood Panel 31" x 41"
2010
11
Answers
Alex Tramble I throw all my questions to the midnight sky. They rise and ricochet off the crooked constellation and slowly sink back down, spinning silently ‘til they reach their destination, a pothole in the ground. Buried beneath dust and dirt lay the answering words, tucked away like coffins hiding from the birds.
12
Bleed Well Brett Frank
Watercolor, Inkwash, Human Blood 18" x 24"
2010
13
Deep Sea
Anna Stallworth
Pen and Ink on Bristol Paper 14" x 17"
2010
14
Bicycle
Adeokunbo Olaibi Amidst the laughter of the hailstorm no bicycle sings as beautifully as yours I wait patiently as you zing toward me from a distance the clouds furrow in envy green grass wilts in shame an owl stirs in his sleep You may be singing in his ear but you are crooning into mine I listen to your stories I dance to your songs I ride with you in silence until the sky beams a crescent smile and the hailstorm becomes marshmallows I open my mouth to taste the sweetness of the night and I wrap my arms around you We are glued together by our honeyed sweat as I buzz away with you A restless bee on your bicycle
15
Innocent Memories Bradley Lewis
Oil on Canvas 36" x 48"
2010
16
Dance
Daniel Brandon Curley
Sapele-Wood 8" x 13"
2009
17
Butterfly
Jason Wright You’ve always favored style over substance. I see you all decked out in your ornate
patterns. Your bright colors turn every head. You dazzle them with the way that you move, floating on air with an effortless grace. Look how you hover around the pretty Daisy, hungry for her sweet nectar. You dance with her for a little while, the two of you swaying in rhythm. I pity her because, soon, you’ll tire of her embrace. True to your nature, you’ll leave after you’ve had your fill of her. You’ll say goodbye, spread your wings, and flit over to your next date with Lily or Rose, repeating the dance.
18
Lightening
Candace E. Webb
Oil on Canvas 50" x 56"
2010
19
Bloom
Maria Azarraga
Ink, Printmaking, Lithograph 9" x 11.5"
2009
20
Iceberg
Candace E. Webb
Oil on Canvas 52" x 20"
2010
21
Digital Date Night Meghan Greer
To the console, his other woman To her monolithic breast, which receives more adulations than my humble pair To her enchanting stare and her flickering glare To keeping him up all night To the vibrations in his trembling hands as he fires his rockets To rocket launchers, staple guns, flame throwers, and brute shots To assault rifles, battle rifles, beam rifles To sticky grenade suicides and RPG genocides To moders and noob combo-ers To Bill Gates with his bad harvest To the red light of death and the extended warranty To Hideo Kojima To the Fox and the Hound, the Liquid and the Solid To Raiden, he's just misunderstood To fifty-nine impossible-to-snipe frogs To the ninth plague, which brought the horde To General RAAM To the Berserker, her love for you is like a truck To being just another cog in the machine of war To the God of War To Kratos's nightmares To falling asleep by myself To his reply, "But baby we do spend time together." To the power going out
22
Miniature Crystal Pottery Denise Burke
Porcelain Pottery with Crystalline Glaze
2010
23
Michael
Rachel Wade
Oil on Canvas 36" x 48"
2009
24
Bogalusa Scars Brett Kelsey
I’m always thinking of things in a different way.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve thought of the leaves in autumn as
gold tokens trickling down into the purse of the earth. There aren’t no right ways or wrong ways to look at stuff; there’s just normal ways and more irregular ways.
Take my friend, Billy, for instance. We’ve been friends all ten years of
our lives and never once did I see him cry until about a few summers back. You see, Billy’s a tough son of a gun and, were I to ever get in a scrap, I’d want Billy by my side. He’s so big he could walk into an eighth grade class, sit down, take out his pencil and everyone would just figure him for the new kid. That’s the kind of big Billy is.
He’s also got a few scars. Now, I’ve told you that me and Billy been
friends for as long as we been people, but as long as we been people, we been taking our blows like people do. Billy’s had it worse than me, I figure, because his daddy is just about the meanest old man in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Everybody knows this. In fact, common knowledge has it that Billy’s daddy got fired from the paper mill on account of his roughing up some delivery man for being a half hour late. No police was ever called, but he got fired right then and there, and nobody dared to cross him since. None of us kids won’t even walk by his house, not when we know he’s got a shotgun that he keeps by his side like a lucky rabbit’s foot.
For all these reasons, Billy don’t have any friends outside of me. That,
and his awful quietness. I like to think he really knows everything, I mean,
25 everything that could ever be known. I like to think he’s like god or something and, like god encased by his knowledge of everything. So, the one thing that keeps him from knowing anyone else is his knowing everything else. That’s the way I like to think of it. I told you I’m always thinking of things differently.
Anyway, a few summers ago, I was waiting for Billy up by the
streetlight on Fourteenth Street. See, we liked to sneak out our bedroom windows every Friday night and meet up at that streetlight. From there, we’d go down to the old cemetery behind the Baptist church and hunt for ghosts. It was a little more spookier during the chillier nights because of all the steam coming off Anne’s Lake, but we still found the occasional spirit in the sweatin’ heat.
That particular night, Billy was running real late and I was starting to
think he had got himself caught by his daddy. I weren’t dwelling on it too much, though, because there was this humongous white cloud hung across the space where it met the treetops. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn on every grave in the cemetery that it was some kind of mountain, sort of like one I’d seen in this movie about World War II. And I doubt it would have been a stretch to say that whole mountain was covered in the thickest snows you’d ever seen at least ten feet of snow covering every inch of it. I wanted to climb it real bad. It looked like I could walk there on the amount of PB&J sandwiches I could fit in my book bag. I could just walk there and climb it and make my home at the peak where I would take a different view than everyone. And I would be king.
Just then, Billy come walking out from around one of the houses.
“Hey, Billy! What took you so long?” I demanded, but his head was all
low, and he just kept walking towards me, then past me.
I caught up to him and asked him why he were late again, but he just
kept staring at the sidewalk and finally muttered, “Sorry I’m late.”
26
“Did your daddy catch you sneaking?” He didn’t answer, but just
looked up at the west sky. For a minute there, I thought maybe he’d been thinking about the mountain and all the snow, but I know I got a different way of looking at things and Billy probably weren’t thinking about the mountain at all.
“Well? Did he catch you, or were you just afraid of all the ghosts we
might find?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He seemed a bit agitated and I’m smart enough
to know that agitating someone bigger than me ain’t a good idea, even if that someone is my best friend.
“Alright, then. You’re here.”
We kept walking to the cemetery and Billy didn’t say anything on our
way there. Neither did I. Fourteenth Street’s got streetlights just about every fifty feet, and I couldn’t help noticing the way they looked when I walked under them and kept my eyes up at the same time. This darkness would come and then this blinding light, then darkness and light again. I bet Job from the Bible would have liked to see that; I bet it would have made his day.
When we got there, Billy sat down on this head stone, but he sat down
with his feet on the grave side. Now, everybody knows that it’s okay to sit on a head stone so long as your feet ain’t over a grave. But if you tread on a burial place, folks say you won’t never rest in peace.
“Billy, you know you can’t put your feet there! If we meet any ghosts
tonight, we don’t want to be on their bad side!”
Billy smiled a bit, but it weren’t a big one; it was the kind of smile you
muster up for a rotten meal cooked by someone you love. As he did so, I noticed a fresh cut on his thigh. The end of it was sticking out past his shorts.
“What’s that cut, Billy?”
He grabbed his leg real fast and covered the wound with his hand.
“It’s nothing,” he told me, then turned his head back to the ground.
27 His smile slipped away, too.
“Did you get a good scratch against a prickly in the woods?”
“No, it wasn’t no prickly.” His head was low as ever.
“Well, if you ain’t going to tell me, we might as well not be friends.
Friends tell their friends everything. Anything one friend knows, another friend knows, too. Didn’t you know that?”
Before he could answer, a small gust of wind shook through the birch
branches, and we both gazed up at them. It lingered a moment, then everything got calm.
“You know, Billy, it’ll be autumn soon enough. Ever since I can
remember, I always thought of the leaves as gold tokens, trickling down into–”
“My daddy did it to me,” he said before I could finish my thought. “My
daddy cuts me when I do wrong.”
“That ain’t true,” I told him. “You don’t got no other scars.”
He got up from the head stone.
“Take off your shirt.” He pointed to my baseball top. “Take it off, and
I’ll take mine off.”
He took off his shirt first, then looked at me meanly. I took mine
off, too.
“Alright, Billy. I still don’t see no scars.”
“Take off your swimming trunks.” He started to untie his.
“I’m not doing that! What’s got into you?” I thought he was maybe
joking around.
“Take em’ off and I’ll take mine off!” He was looking at me square in
the eye, and from Billy’s screaming, I could tell he weren’t foolin’. I loosened my trunks, and he let his down, too.
In the moonlight, it looked like Billy’s thighs was overrun by
maggots,like these maggots got a hold of his legs and were having a mighty
28 feast. I thought of a roast my Ma made once that looked like it had maggots in it, but they weren’t maggots at all; they was bits of garlic. Stuff rarely is what it appears to be.
“What are those, Billy?”
“I told you,” he heaved with tears in his eyes, “my daddy doesn’t like
me doing wrong.”
“He did that to you?”
“Yep. I get one cut when I do something bad, three cuts when I do
something real bad.”
Billy was crying and I didn’t never see Billy cry before. He was shaking,
too, and breathing heavy. I walked a little closer to him and bent down to get a look at his legs.
“You know,” I said, “I saw this painting in a book one time where the
painter had just flung all sorts of paint at white cardboard and I thought it was beautiful.” I raised back up and was looking him in the eyes. “Look at my legs, Billy. They just plain and usual; nothing too special about em’. But look at your legs, Billy. Your legs look just like that painting. Your legs look beautiful.” He didn’t say anything else, just gazed off at the lake with a wet face, then sat back down and kept crying. I sat down, too, but on a different head stone. I made sure my feet was on the other side of the grave.
29
Passing Through Without Really Noticing It Julianne Trew
Pen and Ink 10" x 8"
2010
30
Trial
Andrew Abbott
31
Sleeping Wide Awake #1 Kristina Ramos
C-Print 16" x 20"
2009
32
God I Hate Text Messages Jonathan Boswell
The tedium was jack-hammering my brain “Yeah. OK.” I fought for words, They were only thoughtsFingers and thumbs back-pedelled What and how andDefensive now, inside my own mind only Couldn’t establish your tone -demeanor -intention Wishing everything I said didn’t have to end with ‘send.’
33
Waiting
Jessica Hain
Digital Photography 20" x 30"
2010
34
His Majesty William Cash
Oil on Wood 18" x 20"
2009
35
Carry On
Kristina Ramos
Oil on Canvas 36" x 36"
2007
36
Self Portrait
Munroe d'Antignac
Digital 12" x 10"
2010
37
A Healthy Lifestyle Matthew Anderson
When Jim practiced his regimen, he told himself it was all for Bonnie. Roy Pickens down the street, was a man who had let himself go. He was friendly and jolly like Santa Claus, but he had a belly and little breasts like Santa Claus, too. Jim wasn’t going to let that happen to him. He ran six miles, five days a week and three miles on the other two. He would swim at the aquatic center most evenings after work, and he always made sure to be in bed by nine o’clock so that he could sleep for a healthy eight hours and wake up for his strict routine of crunches and weights at the gym. Now when he gazed at himself in the mirror, he could count six perfect sections in his rectus abdominis and trace the lithe, slender shape of his torso. He was happy, and the other women who looked at him while he was at the gym made him feel sure that Bonnie should be proud to be seen with him. That was why he couldn’t understand when he went home early one day to find her sharing their bed with Roy Pickens. He’d been excited to sweep her off her feet like on the cover of one of those paperback romances, but all he could do when he got there was stare back and forth between the two pairs of frightened eyes and the large underwear on the floor.
38
Hot Asian Porn Christopher Ward
It was a birthday gift from friends in college. More specifically a dirty magazine— hot Asian porn—direct from Japan. It was a dependable friend. Particularly at two in the morning when everyone had been taken or already gone to bed. Adorning the front were two, sweet delicate girls—locked in an innocent embrace. Covered only in sheer panties and naughty smirks. The girls gave way to over one-hundred pages of godlessness and heart-stopping filth. The
39 kind that stimulates fiery desires and leaves nothing to the imagination. Always returned to the black, shiny wrapper, I made good on my word to tuck her safely away. To a secret space— to my hiding place— away from prying hands and jealous eyes. Until one day I walked in and saw my wife holding her. Goddamn! Goddamn this hot Asian porn and all excuses for owning it! I could not claim weakness. I could not claim stupidity. And I certainly could not claim that I owned that magazine for all the wellwritten articles.
40
Contemporary Putti Nikki Starz
Ceramic, Oil Paint 15" x 21" x 13"
2010
41
Little 5 Points Project Patricia Chourio
B&W Film, Minolta Maxxum 7000 SLR 8" x 10"
2010
42
Waiting
Dayna Melton
Digital Photography 14" x 11"
2010
43
James Taylor Brooks Imani Marshall
She lay there limp in her hospital gown as the Pitocin flowed through her veins. Gone was that smile I’d seen on her face just two weeks before. I sat beside her and tucked her stray hairs behind her ear. Her flush face reminded me of the day she had her first schoolgirl crush. She was quiet. She swallowed and digested the fate of her swollen womb, while I held her shaking hand. I closed my eyes as she pushed. The infant looked calm when it emerged from her belly. She held him close and took a deep breath to inhale his new scent. She hummed as she sat and rocked him, hoping his little chest would rise.
44
The Fear of Rejection and Alienation Brett Frank
Oil on Canvas 18" x 24"
2010
45
Nativity
William Cash
Oil on Canvas 30" x 48"
2010
46
on the grass Mark Verlander
Oil on Canvas 32" x 18"
47
Tharsis Montes Sterling Denson
We were a stain upon that world. The landscape leering at us like a stolid dog, smelling us, a smell it didn't recognize. And each time our boots dug into the thick regolith, it examined our nature, feeling us with thin arms of air. Did Armstrong feel the same in the Sea of Tranquility? Did he wonder if the blank world held him in contempt? The white disk of the sun was suspended in an amber sky that shifted to violet as it ran for cover behind a bulge of land. We smiled sporadically, even as the Tharsis Montes appeared as shadowed sentries in the distance. They knew our intent, but their stillness showed only submission. Geologists have a saying... Rocks remember. The slipping assurance of our courage waned with the passing of the sun and we were goaded to go further gleefully like lemmings. We slashed a boulder in half with metal arms, and we examined its innards, our incredulity masked by a polarized lens. More will roam this rusted soil; we were just the first to stride across it like feathers. We stared at the glorious and twisted outline of the skeleton as it spoke a thousand things never uttered and never known. We responded just by our presence, Ad Vitum Paramus. We are preparing for life.
48
On Your Wedding Day For Grace
Christopher Ward I should like to dance with you one more time. My hands, drawing upon the acute awareness of joy and sorrow, will hold you closer— refining a permanent definition of times spent together, exceeding the limits of what my senses may contain; holding you tighter, I will feebly demonstrate the impossibility in letting go; I will hold on with careful fingers, a soft touch, a gentle hand and a measure of grace to remind you wherever you may go, you go protected, remembered and loved.
49
Hand is the Connector 1 John Entrekin
Scan, Photography 20" x 11.6"
2010
50
Rococo Chihuahua Cake Nikki Starz
Styrofoam, Fondant, Food Coloring 24" x 13" x 11"
2009
51
Femme Fatale Caroline Annandale
52
The Lows
Maria Azarraga
Ink, Printmaking, Aquatint 5" x 7"
2009
53
Broken
Amy Vassen Creaking stairs give her away. She lumbers down them like a troll with no bridge and nothing to say. Hair streaked with gray on a ten-year-old head, a Tinker Bell t-shirt and Velcro shoes. Donny and Marie are her favorite tunes. What does she want? She really doesn't know. One syllable answers are what she gets. For the love of God, why won’t she just go? And finally, she does; the creaking stairs give her away.
54
Unemployed Graduates Thomas Dunn
Oil on Canvas 42" x 48"
2010
55
Metropolis Bound J. Morgan Booker Low country girl, we are leaving you behind. Among your bayou and your birds singing deep and sweet, your heady locust lemonade days, cornfields and hay-yellow hair and triple-dog-dares, we are vanishing, we are silver and slick and speed, we are leaving you for the big city. You can stay with the bullfrogs and their quartets, the creek and the lilies and the hot sigh on the hot porch on a hot night, you can stay and sweep those wooden steps where we left our prints and you can stay and boil those shrimp, and be the one that remembers when the town wasn't full of ghosts and by-gones and bitterness. But we, we are leaving we are on the last caravan out, my low country girl and we will drink and dine and dance and deviate and when we are tired and dark and sweet with the city we will speak of you with wistful lips hooded eyes and remembered bliss.
56
Letters From War Caroline Annandale
57
free fall
Mark Verlander
Oil on Canvas 40" x 30"
58
Nature's Reclaim Sarah LaRue
C-Print 20" x 30"
2010
59
The Summer Lawn Heather Cook
Pushing. Pushing. P
U S H I N
G….
But not like a woman in labor. No, he pushes like a man. A man with a mower. And he pushes with more drive than a golf club and more steam than a sauna. Machine-like—an engine… on a train. He makes circles as the blades of grass perish under the weight and pressure of his pushing. Sweating. Sweating so much…yet, he doesn’t smell. Smells good, in fact. Like the smell of pavement after a summer shower. Drip. Drip. Drip. But what is this? Ah, he is followed. Trailed even. By who? His son. Pushing. Pushing. Tripping. A shiny yellow and green plastic mower releases little bubbles as it is pushed. Soapy spheres float in the air like the circles he and his dad are making. Silence. Nothing but the sound of the mower… hummmmmmmmm. It is summer. And his son is blowing bubbles.
60
Life Mask
Joseph Barbier
Photography 20" x 30"
2010
61
Dysmorphia Andrew Abbott
62
The Sleeper of Five Hours Alex Tramble
I killed the calendar on the wall, Skipped the glorified ceremony and all. Pieces of plans soared through the air, Nearly brushing my cowlicked hair. To the Disrupter of my Dreams, The Screaming Sleep Waker, The Insolent Sun Beams: You are punctual, and I am pissed. Why must we only meet like this? I’m staying here all day long. You can’t stop me. Unless you bring me a hot cup of coffee… Sincerely, The Sleeper of Five Hours
63
Gladiolus
Melinda McPherson
Oil on Panel 28" x 15"
2010
64
This is not
Brittany Stansel a burning desire, okay? it’s more of a “why not?”
65
Still Life
Sarah Hamby
Ink on Blueprint 18" x 24"
2010
66
Up, Up, and Away Jason Wright
Look, up in the sky! I soar high above the clouds without the aid of a harness. As I float into the ether, the husk of me remains below, earthbound and still, as rigid as the blue polyester costume I wore far too long. Truth is, I couldn’t live up to that letter stitched on my chest. Not super, I was just a man trying to find his way through the darkness. They couldn’t see me for who I could be, only who I was. My fate was sealed: no escape, no way out of my personal hell. Imprisoned inside of a cardboard utopia called Metropolis, the dimming spotlight burned. Trapped, the walls closed in around me, and I wasn’t strong enough to break through. No, I’m
67
no hero, I just played one on TV. I couldn’t play that game anymore, so nine millimeters paint the walls crimson. The City of Angels adds another to the host. I’m free. Faster than a speeding bullet? No, I can’t say that I was.
68
Endless
Kate B. Brusack
Digital 16" x 20"
2010
69
Baarri
Kathrine Allen
Ink and Watercolor on Paper 12" x 7"
2010
70
Night Wanderer's Womb Series No.1 Erin Kay Spangler
C-Print 11" x 23"
2010
71
What the Birds Know Joie Martin
One girl and one boy, fair-haired and rosy-cheeked, set out, hand in hand, into the black forest, the place where shadow swallows sunlight. The birds watch from the canopy, the trail of breadcrumbs scattered from dimpled fingers. The birds see with eyes like drops of ink, the path worn down and broken, the children have traveled: the humble hut, the woodcutter, the scheming mother, the piled-on kindling. The birds know, in the manner of silent neighbors,
72 that sometimes it is better to lose yourself among the rushes. Sometimes, when your heart howls with hunger, and your pockets are heavy with pebbles, it seems almost harmless to dwell with beasts in darkness. Sometimes, it is best when the paths you build are eaten, in a flurry of wings and silent beaks, and sometimes, it is safer when you can't go home.
73
Religion: Side Effects Include: Slavery Kevin Sandy
Oil Paint 8" x 10"
2010
74
When One Won't Do Meghan Greer
My favorite color has always been grey. On opposite ends of the paint palette, black globs white globs never seemed right in little cubbies, separated. So much depends on girl, meets boy, meets girl.
75
Destruction Sarah Singleton
Medium Format Camera, Silver Gelatin Print 11" x 14"
2010
Fall 2010 Staff Kristin Kembel
Layout & Design Editor
Editor-in-Chief
Christopher Wong
Heather Cook
Art Editor
Literary Editor
Kristel Nubla
Lit Staff
Art Staff
Aaron Artrip
Art Staff
Cristina Guerrero
Hollis Adler
Michael Ruther
Lit Staff
Promotions Director
Leah Bishop
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Thank Yo
Ed Bonza, Jessica Larkin for the cover illustration, Geoff Johns, Dr. Laura Dubundo, Student Life, The Sentinel, Talon, Student Life Media Board, cookies, Terri Brennen, Hollis' brother Dylan, Staff of the Writing Center, the MAPW faculty, the Art & English faculty, and all of the artists and writers who made this magazine possible.
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Art & Literary Magazine
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