Open Mind Vol. 1 Issue 1 Editor-in-Chief: Mitchell Dudley, mindsteady.edition@gmail.com Assistant Editor: Chukwuemeka Uchendu Assistant Editor: Weasel, systmaticwzl@gmail.com Assistant Editor: Em Ramser, erpublicpoetry88@hotmail.com Copyright © 2013 Mind Steady Front Cover Copyright © Gage Beck Back Cover Copyright © Vulpecularity All written and visual works remain the sole property of their creators. They are free to use their works however they see fit. Open Mind is an independent anthology that is published by Mind Steady and Weasel Press, and is printed through Lulu printing services. If you would like a copy of the magazine, please email us at the emails listed above. Open Mind is a non-profit based magazine and runs solely off the support of its readers, authors, and artists. If you would like to be considered for our next issue, please visit our website to see when we open up again. http://openmindink.tumblr.com http://www.facebook.com/openmindpress
The editors at Open Mind would like to thank all the dreamers out there that made this project possible! This edition is dedicated to all our supporters. Readers. Visionaries. Everyone who helped us achieve this. Without you, this delicate explosive could not have been possible. Thank you, and enjoy the first issue of Open Mind!
Sincerely, Mitchell Dudley, Editor-in-Chief Weasel, Assistant Editor
Featured Writers EM Cooper Alyssa Cressotti Mitchell Dudley Gordon Gearhart Tybalt Maxwell
Emily Ramser Valdon Ross Sendokidu Weasel
Featured Artists Patrick Andrews Gage Beck Carla Bradley Lupita Flores Raul Hernandez Earl M. Sanjog Rai
Snappy Stettner Shovana Thulung Timmy Chukwumeka Uchendo Vulpecularity Joey Wootton
From the Abyss (Gone Beyond) Valdon Ross From the edge, into the abyss a thousand centuries blink in the pass of a breath Looking back, I can't recall who I was, who I've been
[That's intended to be a Nietzsche allusion]
the ashes embers of a creature desperate to preserve its own memory handwritten notes of personal epiphany, poetic infernos stoked by glimpses of the infinite inexpressible books scattered scribbled and scrawled with madness, half used, half-written, abandoned to a greater ambition, a poisonous notion, a dream of a perfect arrangement of sound symbol and word Somewhere within this creature grasped after this notion for identity As fair as it is to say, this creature was me, or rather a former arrangement of the elements that once inhabited this body that consciousness long put to death by sleep and the passing of days the stream continues to flow, and within nothing remains of "I" I lost myself somewhere between those pages in an unfinished line, a half-thought image fragments and memories charged with meaning and symbol enough to cause my spirit to spontaneously combust the voltage left me fried and numbed the sun the moon and the stars there was a time when these symbols meant everything but now they have lost their meaning they are dead to me totally blown out [as in Nirvana, not ultimate, but a plateau of sorts -used burning from the inside more for pun than accuracy. Of course the well informed consumer of Buddhist ideology should also catch heart felt ending... oh what fun it is to make pun.] the smoke drifts into the night and i am left smoldering grinning mad and wild heart beating, the only remains of a man who has lit himself on fire
[yes, the switch to non-capitalized is deliberate. ponder the meaning, if you will, but only in context of the change within the overall piece...]
slipping stumbling through the sky on a starry sojourn barreling bumbling bounding between back-country beats floating following falling further further further i leave behind this notion like i leave behind the ocean as i'm sailing through the sky watching the clouds drift through my mind keepsakes and memories, forget-me-nots scraps from a former existence an arrangement of parts and cells thoughts and moments that i no longer care to even burn have the muses left me or have I just moved beyond? reverberations leave me hanging like a bass clef smoking barrels blown wide open, the chambers of my heart scattered like dust from the moth's wings gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi sovha
[Not to suggest I am beyond the muses, but rather that I have outgrown the connection I have been conditioned to. Evolution is eternal.]
[save Eye -Eye always remains]
Skulls and Saints by Carla Bradley
Ruins by Gage Beck
Psychonaut (Parts I and II) Valdon Ross Fire sweeping across the mind “The lights are on but nobody's home” he said As the bodies walked past the windows “I stay till the job is done this one is important” “It's my Groundhog Day” “It's my Groundhog Day” “It's my Groundhog Day” [at a certain state of consciousness communication becomes irrelevant, when the mind is torn open to the vast limitless... all this modern way of hyper-consumer-competitivealienating way of life seems so pointless] They were trembling stuck within their own world stuck within their possessions stuck within their routines like tunnel vision graves “Not the Kitchen-Aid” Tsk, tsk, tsk, silly creature, don't you know such pleas only provoke Spirit? Spirit that see humans as cells in a greater organism. Immeasurable, Impersonal Spirit. Of course not, even as your possession crashes through the refrigerator you weep and cower pimped out by the possessions that give you existential security see how fragile it all is? Just like that, you too descend into desperate madness... We laughed together, he and I while they trembled never seeing beyond the surface distraction of material manifestation The authorities who protect us from such “disturbances” of the metaphysical mindscape diagnosis such episodes as psychosis, symptoms of the schizophrenic label but as I gazed into his eyes and he peered through mine we knew what need not be said what could not be expressed They would call his behavior infantile regression I could see the desperation of Spirit, clawing outwards from beneath the flesh bursting through the psyche, rending the psyche from its “seems” I could see a true Psychonaut, brave and bold, ready to dissociate from all assumptions and limitations of our prescribed cultural vaccinations of Spirit “Let's leave this place” he said I can't, I'm stuck here, for now this is the frequency I'm tuned into for now Counting my breaths, waiting outside of time Waiting for the fruit to ripe...
Sanjog Rai
To Iron Work by Earl M.
Keep up with these electric artists and writers! Patrick Andrews: https://www.facebook.com/PatrickAndrewsPhotographer
Sanjog Rai: www.phosan.daportfolio.com
Gage Beck: http://www.gagebeckphotography.com/
Emily Ramser: http://chickadeesweetie.wordpress.com/
Carla Bradley: http://carlabradley1989.wix.com/portfolio http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlabradley/
Valdon Ross www.flickr.com/photos/sagetosomeone/
Alyssa Cressotti http://about.me/alyssarae Lupita Flores: http://journal-records.tumblr.com/ Gordon Gearhart: http://promisemetomorrow-ggg.blogspot.com/ Tybalt Maxwell: http://tybaltmaxwell.tumblr.com/ https://www.weasyl.com/profile/tybalt
Shovana Thulung: http://www.thulungphotography.com Weasel: http://systmaticwzl.tumblr.com Joey Wootten: http://jcwoottonphoto.wordpress.com/ Vulpecularity: www.naturgeistfotos.de