-1-
TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITOR’S NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
WHAT DO YOU SEE? . . . . . . . . 17 DERRICK R OBERSON ON PHOTOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . 18 GIOVANNI MALITO
DREAMING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 D IANA LANG
UNTITLED 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 JOHN STAMP
ISLAND SONNET . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 B OBBY L URIE
FRENCH TOAST . . . . . . . . 20 – 25 WILLIARD COOK
RIPPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 CHRIS RILEY
UNTITLED 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 JOHN STAMP
ESCAPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 B UCK H ARVEY
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT . . . . 27 JOSHUA STEWART
HARD CANDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 J OY PUGH
WINE RACK . . . . . . . . . . . 28 – 29 ROB MINTON
SHERIFF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 J ON T ARLETON
SET 1 OF SERIES 1 . . . . . . . . . . 30 SHELLIE HENSLEY
COCOON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 D USTIN SALAS
THE WINDOW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 ERIN L YNCH
THE DETAILS . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13 RYNN WILLIAMS
HOWARD STREET. . . . . . . . . . . 32 SCHELLY K EEFER
GROUP SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 ANGIE AND B RENDA EURY
WITE-OUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 JEAN T UPPER
CYCLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ALISSA VAN A TTA
TANKA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 MIKE SPIKES
FLIGHT 813 TO MIAMI . . . . . . . 16 D AINALEE VELIE
-2-
WALKING AWAY . . . . . . . . . . . 35 E RIN LYNCH
GRAFFITI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52-53 AMY E. MUNNO
OUR MOTHERS . . . . . . . . . 36-37 J OSEPH DANIELS
BIRTH OF A FOOL . . . . . . . . . . 54 SHANNON BARBER
WHEN I COULD STILL DREAM . 38 B UCK H ARVEY
I’LL NEVER TELL . . . . . . . . . . . 55 JOHN STAMP
THE JOURNEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 J ORDAN BEALL
NOTE TO A RATIONAL MAN . . . . . . . . 56 – 57 SHANNON BARBER
PENELOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 D AVID T HOMPSON
MARIN HEADLANDS . . . . . . . . 58 BROOKE HALL
UNTITLED 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 KEIICHI SHIRAISHI
THE END OF A ROMAN GOD . . 59 HELEN LOOSE
CAN WE BE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 J ON T ARLETON WHEN MEMORIES LOSE THEIR MEANING . . . . . . . . . . . 43 KENDRA KENT
ARTIST BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 AUTHOR BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
PAC-MAN’S NEW NOSE . . . . . . 44 J OSHUA C ANIPE
ART JURY AND LITERATURE JURY . . . . . . . . . . 62
PAC-MAN HOLDS A GRUDGE . . 45 J OSHUA C ANIPE
COLOPHON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 STAFF BIOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
M VINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46-51 D AVID K EAR
-3-
Editor’s Note Sanskr it is named for the ancient written language used by the Hindus. Traditionally it it is used for expressing emotions and the love of learning. This volume of sanskr it literary-arts magazine is crafted to reflect the look and style of vintage hardbound books. Attention was also given to the ideas they traditionally produced, namely thoughts on literature, art, religion, and just as the Hindus, a love for lear ning. We have used authentic engraver’s fonts, produced a wor n cover and pages, and attempted to mimic the traditional layout of classic olden books. These days, the closest that most people get to reading a good book is the TV Guide or a romance novel. This year’s volume is modeled after books that too often sit atop dusty shelves and are rarely opened. Today’s society craves quick, graphical information. The patience to sit down and open a book purely to learn and to be enlightened is all but lost. This year’s magazine is a tribute to the days of old, when opening a book was sacred. As we modernize our lives with palm pilots, the Inter net, and a constant connection to everyone else in the world, sometimes it is good to pause and glimpse into the past to see how life used to be lived. Perhaps this can give us some perspective to deter mine if we are where we want to be.
Jason Anthony Keath Editor-in-chief
-4-
Dreaming Diana Lang
8 3/ 4” x 7”
black and white photograph
-5-
Island Sonnet Bobby Lurie
“Freedom is only the distance between the hunter and his prey” Bei Dao
I have forgotten how to talk to you So what I do is say the things I used to say I write them in a letter, send the letter to A random address I find listed in the yellow pages I hope whoever opens it will understand It’s over — can I be any clearer than that? I walk into a health food store, ask the man Behind the counter for a pill for heartbreak, his hands Are shaking, his eyes are red, he says there’s no such thing as that But there’s a drink called Rapid Recovery, something like Gatorade, he says I buy some, drink it, suddenly the trees look ominous The island sounds are crashing inside me as I realize freedom Is the distance between the hunter and his prey That the ocean is a throat and the waves the things I long to say
-6-
Ripples Chris Riley
white ash, black walnut, 1/4 white oak
26” x 18” x 8”
-7-
Escape Buck Harvey
11” x 18”
pencil
-8-
Hard Candy Joy Pugh
When I was eight years old I swiped sour ball candy off my grandmother’s coffee table. They were stale, as was she, a sticky film coating the outside. It’s too bad they couldn’t be preserved in vodka
like she was.
-9-
Sheriff Jon Tarleton
27” x 19”
relief print with silkscreen
-10-
Cocoon Dustin Salas
21” x 12”
ceramics
-11-
The Details Rynn Williams Soon there were weekends exposing the beams, peeling down strips of flocked teal wallpaper, prying out pre-Revolutionary nail heads, whole afternoons raking, lying in the leaves, watching the red-violet kindle the valley. There was the three-hour drive from the city, boiled eggs, Saran wrap, NPR, antifreeze, Friendly’s drive-thru, the old bridge, the flagpole. There were the gorse bushes, blueberry pies, the sweet smell of Excelsior tobacco, new upholstery, the dark of the barn, gophers in the pole beans, frayed fan belts, skids on the upper Taconic, the FDR Drive, hand jobs and L.L. Bean tote bags. There were cases of Beaujolais Nouveau, snowdrifts to the gutters, burst kitchen pipes and moldy carpeting, the upstairs infestation of ladybugs, Friday nights at Price Chopper, the overhead light in the kitchen as they unpacked the groceries, Beefeater and tonic, there was Tanglewood, The Berkshire Eagle, there was the TV and the TV trays, doubles tennis and the 30-year mortgage, the same yellow Hotpoint refrigerator and the mice droppings, mice in traps, there were long bubble baths, red potted geraniums, the Mobile station that marked the half-way point, the workshop where he went with his scotch and his soldering gun, two wing chairs by the fireplace, there were the cold plates in the sink, the new upholstery, there were the Jaguars: sedan and sports car, there was a wet autumn and the strange cold spring, abundance of mayflies, the old stone wall and efforts at intimacy, there was hollandaise, MacNeil/Lehrer, Hustler behind the john, the cats asleep in the back of the car, Stouffer’s chipped beef on toast, the acrid smell of Excelsior tobacco, and there was that Monday night in February when she realized, as they passed the Dairy Queen in Winsted that neither of them had said a word for three days. -12-
And there was the moment, after the glass had dropped to the kitchen floor, when she was afraid to move and so she stood there, looking at all the jagged shards, the big ones, the tiny ones, rapacious little rainbows, light broken down to its elemental parts. And she remembered the acronym — ROY G. BIV: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. How easily that worked — spelled out, you could remember it. Like the names of all the small towns — Bethel, Danbury, Otis, Lee — you could pass them for years and feel you understood something, the tenor of the town encrypted in the word. Still, there was soup to make for lunch, and lemon pound cake, the pile of kindling outside the barn, there was the dead hydrangea, the guest room, there was the long wait in the cold as he unlocked the front door, there was the clod bathtub, there was the Christmas Party, the failed brûlée, there was the next morning, hiss of the radiator, eyeliner smeared, there were her bare legs, hair in the sink, the ashtrays, twisted sheets on the living room couch, there was always the light on the sugar maples, sap in the lines and the buckets, leaves like a poultice on the surface of the pond, the moment between when the motor died and they opened the car door, there was the nightlight in the hallway, the can full of grease, there were needlepoint pillows, six blue plastic recycling bins and the Christmas fudge and when she finally left she walked down to Route 8, past the chicken farm, each long coop with its own separate word: EGG EATERS MAKE BETTER LOVERS. And she stood facing north, her face in the wind for a very long time.
-13-
Group Shot Angie and Brenda Eury
7” x 5”
Photo and Digital
-14-
Cycle Alissa Van Atta
6” x 6 1/4”
copper, wire and maple burl
-15-
Flight 813 to Miami Dainalee Velie
Over a warm banana, cold cranberry muffin, and patch work green fields, seemingly, decades above gr ief, and Maryland, I give up my aisle seat to a stranger, who wants to be with his wife and daughter, should we all crash and die. All this he explains to me with gestures from his soul, love motions of his hands, speaking foreign words I don’t comprehend but clearly understand. Climbing over two passengers, who refuse to budge, to the window seat in the last row of the plane, I take his vacant seat. Pressing my nose against the glass, star ing down at the Atlantic shoreline through the sun splattered window and sudden tears, you smile at me through the clouds, having already reserved your seat forever next to mine.
-16-
What Do You See? Derrick Roberson
32” x 42”
oils
-17-
On Photography Giovanni Malito
Heads without bodies fill these hard pages, faces that go on in moments of forever out of context leaving behind, or creating anew all that was borrowed (stolen) from life and chance but some will be viewed as art, some as artifice and others as anecdote or abstractions trapped within a frame, signposts for the past full of or devoid or potency dependent upon the viewer, their mood, their milieu, the time of day, of year, the colour of their eyes.
-18-
Untitled 1 John Stamp
8” x 10”
black and white photogram
-19-
Willard Cook It was Saturday morning and I was vacuuming the living room when the phone rang. I turned off the vacuum and picked up the phone and cradled it next to my ear. It was my exwife Kate. She wanted to speak to the kids. The phone slipped and fell to the floor but I could still hear her voice coming through the earpiece. I wanted to turn the vacuum cleaner back on and suck her right out of the phone up into the vacuum and leave her there forever. I picked up the phone and told her as politely as possible, “Jill is at her piano lesson and Jack is playing basketball.” “What’s he doing playing basketball?” “He likes that kid next door, A.L.” “A.L. is a troublemaker. I want to speak to Jack.” No you stupid bitch, you’re the troublemaker. I thought better than to say that. I went to the back door and yelled across the yard, “Jack, your mom is on the phone.” “Tell her I’ll call her back,” he said. “Did you hear him? He wants to call you back.” “I want to talk to
-20-
him right now.” I want to hurt you right now. Why is it so damned important that you speak to the children? You just saw them yesterday! Jack, who is seven, doesn’t like how his mother always calls. He has told me that more than once. I hate it too. She wants to know every last detail including exactly what and how much they ate for dinner. I used to fight it. I would screen her calls, or if I did answer it I would prepare myself emotionally and say something nice and then get the kids on the phone as quick as possible, but the whole thing drives me absolutely bonkers. I just don’t understand why she can’t leave me in peace. “Well maybe I’ll just have to come over and talk to him about why he can’t come to the phone when his mother calls him,” she said, and then hung up the phone. That sent the steam out of my ears, but I felt helpless to stop her from showing up. She is one of those people that simply takes command and I can’t stop her. I have my weak moments and I guess for my kids I like to think that everything is good between me and my ex, but it’s not and never will be. I finished vacuuming the living room and then put the vacuum away and started on some laundry. Since my divorce three years ago I’ve come to like the routine of the Saturday morning chores. Chores make me feel like I am doing something in this world. Anyway my daughter Jill, who is 11, came in from her piano lesson and said something about how she really liked Mr. Brickle and that she wanted to get good at the piano. What kid says that? I thought to myself. Nevertheless, it made me feel proud and as I was I enjoying this proud parent moment, sure enough my ex-wife and her boyfriend pulled in the driveway in his new blue Chevy Caprice, a do dum dickwaddy car if you ask me. I mean who in the world would buy a fucking Chevy Caprice? Kate got out and walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. I didn’t want to answer the door, but she’d kept pressing the doorbell like it was some kind of emergency. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong. Finally, I gave in and went over to the door and opened it a crack. Kate has beautiful long straight brown hair that comes down to the middle of her back that she normally wears in a braid. On that day there was no braid and her hair was flowing freely about her shoulders, which meant that she had been having sex. I could see her stiff nipples pressed up against the shirt and normally I might have been attracted to that but I felt disgusted by the whole thing. “Are the kids here?” “We’re right here, Mom,” Jill said, showing her face in the doorway. “Everything is fine. Now you can go home. Leave us alone, please.” The moment my daughter said that I felt like I should have been the one to tell my ex-wife to leave, but I am not exactly quick on the uptake, if you know what I mean. Kate furrowed her eyebrows, looking hurt. She is the nervous type and I always want to take care of her. A lot of times she overreacts to stuff. Once, she called the cops because she thought our next-door neighbor, Danny Lamont, was robbing our house, when he was returning a rake, and then there was the time she called the fire department because the -21-Backmans’ grill was throwing up a lot of smoke from a pig roast. It drove me right out of my gourd to the point where I would yell and
scream. She insisted I was having an affair with this happily married woman, Marianna Hess. She found some matches in my pocket from the Knotty Pines Motel and said I was going there with this Hess woman and watching porn movies and having sex on my lunch hour. I laughed at that, which only made it worse. Her constant suspicion became hell to live with. She was paranoid. Truly paranoid. Calling Bill Doyle at the Knotty Pines, asking to see if I had rented rooms there. She started listening in on my phone conversations, asking me what I was spending my money on, and where I went in my free time. I own and manage two hardware stores. I am well known in this town. I am a family man and like any other man I have eyes for pretty women, but I am not the straying type. “That’s no way to talk to your mother, Jill,” I said. “Really Dad, it is your home, isn’t it?” Jill said. “Anybody want some French toast?” Kate said, stepping in the doorway. “Look, Kate, I don’t think this is a good idea,” I told her. “Hey, we’ll just have a quick bite and then I’ll go. Jill, go get Jack and we’ll all have some French toast.” “Mom, isn’t Nick waiting in the car?” “You do as you’re told, young lady,” Kate said. She stepped out of the doorway for a moment and motioned for her boyfriend to come in, then came right through the front door. I was still trying to sort through what my daughter said and about it being my house and before I knew it Kate had some eggs in her hand and was cracking them in a bowl. “Jill, I thought I told you to fetch your brother,” Kate said. “Okay, all right, Mom,” Jill said. I stared in disbelief. Anger maybe. Awe really. I found it incredible that she had found her way into my house on Saturday morning and I didn’t want her there. It was the same feeling I had when I found out she was cheating on me. Stunned and like duh. How stupid could I be? Then she said she wanted a divorce. I didn’t want to believe that either. I wanted to stay married. I tried to reason with her, but she’s not exactly the reasoning type. She found the cinnamon and measured out a quarter teaspoon exactly and dumped it in the bowl with the eggs, milk and vanilla. Then her boyfriend, Nick, Mr. GQ, came tiptoeing through the front door dressed almost like he was going dancing Saturday night. By now, my ex had the bread out and in a pan and was actually cooking the first piece of French toast. Hunky fucking dory. I can’t even have my own children to myself on my weekends and I am paying her child support. I could feel the pressure rise in my temples and I felt like a total asshole for letting her in in the first place. I wanted to dump the bowl of eggs over her stupid mane of hair that she was always flaunting and tell her to get the fuck out, but I -22didn’t, I just pretended everything was normal. “Do you have this month’s check? You were late with last month’s check.” “I’m sorry,” I said.
“I don’t want to hear sorry, I just want the check.” I went over to the desk where I pay my bills and got out my checkbook and wrote her a check and handed it to her. Then I got to thinking that I ought to call my lawyer. I was thinking I’d ask him if there was any law against ex-wives barging in on ex-husbands and making French fucking toast. In fact, I had a little fantasy that my lawyer would call the cops and they would cart my ex off to jail. I knew that I could prevent her from coming near my house with a court order but I didn’t really want to go through the whole rigmarole. “Hey Nick, you want a beer?” she asked. Then she turned on the damn clock radio (the one I threw out the window) and that made a terrible staticky sound before the station tuned in. I sat down at the bill table to pretend I was balancing my checkbook. “Hi punky, how’s my pumpkin?” she asked, when Jack came in the kitchen. Even though I knew I was going to, I just kept telling myself not to lose my cool. I tried to imagine myself inside a big redwood tree where no one could get me. I felt safe in there. Anyway, I figured she needed the attention. She always needed fucking attention. She’ll be gone soon, I thought, back into her miserable life with her brown-noser boyfriend. Then her boyfriend kept eyeing me with this big fat smirk on his face like he knew something that I didn’t. I wanted to stab the retard in the ear with an ice pick. “Who wants the first piece?” she yelled. Neither of the kids said anything and I just tried to fake concentration on the checkbook. I hadn’t balanced my checkbook in years. “So I got a new job working at a television station,” she said. “A television station?” “Yeah, they think I can be a news anchor.” “Like a regular old Dan Rather.” “Isn’t that exciting?” “Very.” “Jack, your French toast is ready.” “I’ve had breakfast, Mom.” “Jack, I said it’s time for breakfast.” Jack jumped up and trotted to the table like a frightened puppy. The whole thing was beginning to feel like some kind of rotten cosmic joke, like God was teasing me for being a candy ass. I just wanted her to leave. I felt pathetic for letting her in the door in the first place. A weak, little asshole. “You seeing anybody these days?” she asked, putting another piece of egg-soaked bread into the pan. I stood there and looked at her, trying to stare her down. Like that’s any of your business, you fat little busy body. Of course my daughter spoke up. “Penny is his girlfriend if you want to know, Mom.” “That whore!” “Please Kate, don’t talk that way around the kids.”
-23-
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Sometimes I just get carried away.” Then she started fussing with her hair, trying to tie it
in a bun, but it wouldn’t stay. She moved away from the flame over near where I was standing and whispered, “Penny Jacobsen is a slut and I don’t want my children around her. Do you hear me?” Please just take your boyfriend and go home. Please, I kept thinking, but I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to start a fight and get the kids all upset. If I insisted that she leave, I knew she’d pitch a fucking fit. “How’s that French toast, Jack?” “It’s great, Mom.” “Better than Dad’s, right?” When she said that I wanted to slap her. I mean the gall of the woman. I could see Jack was kind of freaked out because I knew he didn’t want to say anything bad against me. “Right, Mom.” I told myself I was not going to give her the satisfaction. I told myself, no matter what she does or says I am not going to get mad. I am going to cool off and take some deep breaths here. Then I heard myself actually say this. “You know, Kate, you make excellent French toast.” It’s actually true. She does something unique by running up the flame real high and getting the pan scorching hot and slabbing the butter on thick, but I was still wishing I hadn’t said that, because she was eating the whole thing up like she was Julia Child or something. What I really wanted was for her to get out of my house but I was afraid to speak up. I wanted to calm my nerves so I went over to the liquor cabinet and sneaked a fat shot of Jack Daniels into my coffee. Another 30 minutes and she’ll be gone, I told myself, and we’ll all have peace and quiet. That afternoon I was looking forward to a trip up to the lake with Penny, her sister, and the kids to relax, have a swim and a cookout. I sipped my whiskied-up coffee and counted to ten real slow. Kate was still at the stove cooking Jill some French toast and she had her eye on me real careful like I was some kind of experiment she was working on. It was like she was waiting for me to explode. I felt halfway between being an asshole chump and a holy man from India. I looked out the window into the backyard and there were these two squirrels chasing each other. They were flying squirrels. They looked like they were having fun cackling at each other and at that moment I wanted to be one of those squirrels. I truly did. I felt it would be better to be a squirrel than to have my fucked up life of trying to bring up my kids with a wacko ex-wife. She was complaining about how two of the burners on the stove were busted and I nodded in agreement and took another sip of my coffee. At this point I was retreating into my squirrel world fantasy, thinking I would like to be able to race up to the top of a tree the way those squirrels were and take a flying leap onto the big maple in the Masons’ yard next door. “Why don’t you fix them, for God’s sake?” It was almost like I couldn’t hear her. She was asking me something about French toast and how many pieces I wanted. Then I was looking at Paul or Dan or whoever her boyfriend was. He was pretty-boy handsome — kind of had that chiseled look with slate gray eyes. He works over at McCann’s Medical Supply and from what I understand has a great -24job. A salesman extraordinaire. Probably can talk a dog off a meat wagon. Anyway I just kept looking out the window and I was doing everything in my power to keep my mouth shut. Don’t say a word, I kept telling myself. Just suck it up. I felt like I was in some kind
of trance. I wanted to hurt Paul or Dan or whatever the hell the guy’s name was. He was asking me if I saw the Celtics game on television last night. “Here, have some French toast,” Kate said, setting the plate down on the table. Look, it’s not like she doesn’t know that I hate this shit of her barging in here like this. She does and I know she’ll apologize later. She’ll say sorry for being so pushy, but she was just worried about the kids. She’ll say something like, “Look, I’m sorry for being so pushy, but I just worry so much about our children. You know me.” And then I’ll tell her it’s okay. When I don’t really think it is okay. I really wish I could be like my daughter and tell my exwife that the kids are fine and that she can’t come in. Good-bye. I sat down at the table with Jack and we ate French toast. It was just what she claimed, the best — maybe it’s the way she combines the cinnamon with the vanilla. “Have I got a woman for you,” she announces. “Please, Kate.” “I am serious.” “No thanks.” “She has a body to die for.” “Please, Kate, just go home please.” “Oh stop, you can handle this. I know you can and besides she loves to fuck and you’d be just the one to give it to her.” “Kate, stop please.” “She’s a lot better looking than Penny.” With all my might I hurled my plate of French toast at her. She ducked and the plate flew against the back of the stove and smashed into pieces. Then I smelled something. Her hair had caught fire and I could see the flame crawling right up the side of her face and there was this terrible stink of burning hair. For a moment I glimpsed a kind of glee — something had happened to finally shut her up. Like God had intervened on my behalf and sent misfortune her way, but it was me, not God, that had caused the accident. I leapt from my chair and grabbed a dish towel and took a good whack at the flame, but I didn’t get it the first time; I had to put the towel over her head to smother the flame. After that it was quiet. Real quiet. And I could see fear in her eyes. A look I don’t think I had ever seen in her before. She had a serious burn on and below her ear and Frank or Paul or whatever the guy’s name was had some ice out of the refrigerator, but it was too far gone for ice. Some of the skin had burned away. Soon all five of us were in Frank’s blue Chevrolet Caprice speeding toward the emergency room and I was in the back seat holding Kate. I didn’t know if I should be holding her because I was the one who had wanted to hurt her, but I did it anyway. I held her in my arms, hoping that we would get to the hospital soon. I just kept murmuring, “It’s going to be okay, everything is going to be okay.” She had gone into shock. I was praying to God for everything to be okay. I asked for forgiveness. Jack was next to us asking me, “Is it going to be -25okay, Daddy?” Jill was in the front seat crying. I was thinking Kate will be scarred permanently. We will all be scarred permanently and it was my fault. My fault.
Untitled 4 John Stamp
11” x 14”
black and white photograph
-26-
You Are What You Eat Joshua Stewart
for Tim Ostrander Walking through a park the scent of dogwoods mixes with the stench of raw beef and sweat lingering in my work shirt. After twelve hour s of carving carcasses, sweeping bits of flesh into a garbage disposal, mopping bloodstains splattered on cement floors; and wrapping dead meat, I’m sliding off my bones. Once I was the life of the party, now I sit at dining room tables gagging on an apple, preoccupied by how quickly blood spirals down a drain. The cattle hearts that spill onto my rubber boots are the sweethearts I’ve come to know. I should quit my job, but I don’t have the guts; the need to survive, a hook in my back. Shrubs shake and moan in the center of the park. Crouching behind a butcher’s-broom I watch two lovers burying their bodies deeper into mulched leaves as they thrust against one another. Their souls, two currents of vital energy whirling in the vortex of their eyes. Moonlight turns their smooth skins a pale blue. Craving the electromagnetic impulses shooting through the lovers’ forms, I’m incapable of controlling the saliva seeping through my teeth, and I’m hopeless but to think: naughty little corpses.
-27-
Wine Rack A study in wood/steel construction
African Padauk, Maple, and Steel
-28-
Rob Minton -29-
Set 1 of Series 1 Shellie Hensley
12” x 14”
black and white photograph
-30-30-
The Window Erin Lynch
8” x 10”
black and white photograph
-31-31-
Howard Street Schelly Keefer
15” x 21”
pastel
-32-32-
Wite-Out Jean Tupper Rather than cross out fait accompli items on your To Do List with inky Bic or black magic that invariably bleeds through to the next page and makes it look even more thick and threatening than the or iginal commands, why not make them disappear? What you do is buy a little bottle of super-white, super-smooth cleanup fluid, the goop that promises to make all the corrections you need. Unscrew the top and start painting over assignments you’ve hated for months, names that gave you heartburn. Slather gobs on ex-dastardly deeds. You slap the white stuff on everything you’re done with, or want to be. Make white clouds all over the page, covering bills you’ve decided not to pay, RSVP’s you won’t respond to. Pretty soon, white to the knuckles, you’re loving the absence of demanding things and people. Eradication empowers. Your mood lightens and pressure drops as you whiten up.You’re the artist, adding white space; the domestic eng ineer, uncluttering closets. Or, like me, you’re Lady Macbeth, “Out, out…” removing those treacherous spots till there’s nothing left but white on white. -33-33-
Tanka Mike Spikes
and they say it’s hard to lose love — last night i forgot you fifty thousand times
-34-34-
Walking Away Erin Lynch
9” x 12”
color photograph
-35-35-
Our Mothers Joseph Daniels She lies on her bent back underneath a window sealed hand-tight — no outlet for the radiator heat; Her chest heaves vertically, dramatic altitudinal changes, And her arm, pale blue veined arm, is outstretched — accidentally directing birds over the Hudson; Thirty floors in the sky, the afternoon sunlight streams in that empty nest, igniting the dust floating up from the rug and her desire to remember is over-ripe, manifesting in splotches of memory: the soft Riverside grass was so cool to the touch, back and forth satisfying the itch of the oft ignored webbing between her fingers her arms? — extended behind her, her hands? — bent back then came the moment when the inward pressure of her thighs was conscious and then consciously they parted
-36-36-
— it all ended with a shivering in the summer sun — children playing their indecipherable games not far from the tree and, minutes later, when her clear eyes opened to see a scarier city, one stood apart, a young man, dangling his bruised and scratched knees from the top of a glimmering slide, looking wise (eyes directed downward) and scared (eyes wide open) at the same time. Thirty floors skyward now, under a window sealed hand-tight She is shivering, she is trembling still, and she is wiping the July sweat of memory from her forehead, now and then some of these beads escape her thirsty fingers, now and then some of the droplets drip surely into her guilty mouth
-37-37-
When I Could Still Dream Buck Harvey
24” x 36”
oil on canvas
-38-38-
The Journey Jordan Beall
15” x 30”
digital illustration
-39-39-
Penelope David Thompson
He’s in line at Rite-Aid just to pick up his prescription, the cashier’s this old squat woman with a low forehead and hair like a chunk of worn steel wool who moves like she’s ten months pregnant. When he sees that the name tag on her blue smock says Penelope he wants to ask her how Telemachus is doing, if she’s heard from Odysseus lately, and if the pain-in-the-ass suitors are still falling for that old unraveling the weaving gag, but instead he just pays the bill and smiles weakly at her because he knows he doesn’t have time to chat. He has a stack of essays to grade before tomorrow’s classes, has to drive through traffic to the grocery store and the cleaners, drop off some overdue videos before he gets home to some leftover pizza and Lite beer in his apartment.
-40-40-
Untitled 5 Keiichi Shiraishi
11” x 14”
black and white photograph
-41-41-
Can We Be Jon Tarleton
22” x 30”
relief print with silkscreen
-42-42-
When Memories Lose their Meaning Kendra Kent
20� x 35�
fiber
-43-43-
Pac-Man’s New Nose Joshua Canipe So what if it’s slightly br ighter than the rest of me. So what if it’s held on with super gr ip adhesive, neon to my canary yellow body. It works. I’m heroic again. I’m back. I belong. I go out to dance and drink, to find the next Ms. Pac Man. She hasn’t seen it yet, my ex-wife, but I sent her a picture, attached to a six page note of explanation. Nothing desperate, of course, just chit-chat about the nose, her new husband, God’s fierce judgment. She called when she got it, asked if I was okay and what it was that I was looking for. I told her fun, a good time maybe. Life. When we hung up, she sounded tired, like her new life is getting to her. What I didn’t tell her is that, at night, when I peel this thing off of my face, feel it’s absence and the naked slope from my eyes to my chin -- I remember being happy, once, with the way it was. What I didn’t tell her is that, each time, I pray for someone who won’t laugh when I place it on the nightstand, roll over, and kiss her goodnight. -44-44-
Pac-Man Holds a Grudge Joshua Canipe People believe I’ve retired, smoke pipes, moved to some place like Boca Raton and collect royalty checks the size of West New Mexico. No.They’re not as big as you’d think, thanks to Mario and technology and Ms. Pac-Man leaving me with less than half, claiming I bore her and smell of pork rinds, oriental fried rice. That’s fine. I still work. I have options. I get a lot of work overseas. Lately, I’ve had a stable gig bouncing across words to kid’s songs on this show featuring a talking cow. Commercials too. I’m in the one starr ing that Karate Kid what’s-his-name, selling cruises. Although, I’m about to lose these as well, due to frequent stubble, fuck it, and something about an attitude. And my cheeks have kind of sunken in, deflated kick-ball style. This doesn’t help. I’ve tried to break back into entertainment. Sega said I wasn’t sexy enough in 3-D. Kind of spooky, they said. And what’s left? My resume lists gobbling up dots and fruit as major job experience. So I roll around my apartment, dust a lot, watch As the World Turns. It’s not so bad. At night, I like to sit outside, listening to the traffic of cars and trucks, speeding, changing lanes, sucking up the median’s white lines, everyday circling at a faster level, as if chased by ghosts.
-45-45-
A
fter she loaded the duffel and zipped it, m Vine sat stock still on the couch, thinking what-the next thing to do. The bag lay at her feet, though she refused to look at it. In the still apartment, traffic sounded its hollow spray of mechanical waves rolling in against the concrete beach; the reflections of metal and glass racing walls, racing ceilings. After thirty minutes sitting stock still, m stood up from the couch, shouldered the bag and left the apartment. The Excelsior Hotel would be the right place, since there was no fire in this building for the garbage. Garbage here at 205 E 78th St. was bagged and trucked away for landfill, a child’s playground one day, a housing development maybe. But The Excelsior Hotel had one of those whatchacallits, burn-er-a-tor — incinerators, black coal death machines. Yeah. So. Yeah. There was more dignity with The Excelsior Hotel anyways. (The Excelsior Hotel has been here a long time, her father says as they pass it. Longer than he is old. Father is very old. m is the youngest child, of three, the others moved away.) The elevator chick chicked its way to her floor from those below. The second hand on a clock moves round, ever after its destination of the second ahead. Ding went her floor. Rush went her floor door opening. There was no one in the little room, and that was good. She stepped in with the bag and pressed Lobby L that lit up when she pressed it. Ding-rush went the doors, and the 14th floor disappeared from sight. (But m is so quiet, whispers her mother’s voice in the exhaust fan overhead, spinning. Maybe she should do a camp or something to meet other kids. She could swim and she could hike, stay active for the summer. Not sit so still, not sit so alone in this apartment for hours. Whirs the fan. Reading all those books. Whirs the fan.) (The floors rushing by are her father’s response. Where they talk behind the doors, masquerading as machines at night when they think she’s asleep. It’s her summer, let her do what she wants.) m Vine’s mother was not her real mother. Just the woman she called mother, but only to her face, mother. Her real mother was taken away by an airplane when m was very young. Waving -46with her father from the tarmac. (Father says the plane took off and just kept on going to San Francisco like it was supposed to. But m knows better. San Francisco is heaven. The plane flies into the ocean and drowns.)
Elevators amazed m. You call box, box opens. You stand in box like food in microwave. Doors close. You wait. Doors open, the place you are is not the place you were. Like food in a microwave, you are altered. Different. She pondered the physics of this as she crossed the lobby toward Victor the doorman. She even thought about asking Victor what were his thoughts on the subject of elevators. But before she could ask the question, he whisked open the door with one hairy hand, and with the other made a half point half wave that made young m Vine feel as if he were pointing a gun in her face. The name was a bullet. (How’s Miss Emily today? using her mother’s name who is no longer her mother but always will be. That is her name as well, m vine, but not her name at once. Named for her mother, she cannot wear it, the sleeves too long, it must be taken in at the waist and altered — m Vine.) But everyday the same, this invocation of the dead. Or an inquiring after the health of an imaginary friend. That older self I imagine will be me one day. (Emily Vine is fine as time. Emily Vain is right as rain. And how is Victor Dormin?) Not his real name, but a name she gave him all the same as a very young girl with the way she had misunderstood her father’s meaning. Not Victor Dormin, but Victor the Doorman of our building 250 E 78th St., Apt. 14L. The last part emblazoned in memory, were she ever to be lost, m Vine. Conjured up at once, she has no idea what E., th, St., Apt. or L, meant only that without them, there was no home. (Hot as the devil, speaks Victor.) The heat from the open door, now gaping on the street stopped her cold with his hand out for change. Heat, he clung with sweat and the stinking breath of the steaming city as he put himself before her, lips chapped to suck the coolness from her skin. Delaying her to know the time, when he was full aware she had pressing business elsewhere. Traffic whipped by in fits and starts, spurred on by the reds and greens. Yellow cabs at yellow lights. Foot traffic bumping m, bumping the bag and plodding on without notice. The bag jolted from her shoulder and fell on the sidewalk. m felt like crying. Then she thought about this being Friday and all about how that was the day Father didn’t wear a tie. That was the day he wore his loafers without socks that always made him look silly. (It’s casual Friday, he says in a passing man’s face, and I’ll look as silly as I want. So long as I’m casual. You gotta be cool, Miss m. As he always wears the same Hawaiian shirt on casual Friday. The one m can hear the ocean in the pattern and watch wind blow through the coconut palms.) m grinned then at the back of the hurrying woman who had been too much in a hurry to apologize for knocking the bag. m grinned and flipped her the bird. (It’s casual Friday, Lady, so fuck you. For some reason, that word makes her stomach warm, and she thinks it again without the finger this time, just the word. fuck. fuck. fuck. Not what it means but that you shouldn’t say it.) She had no idea what the word meant. But it seemed appropriate like the right word always does. m shouldered the bag again, this time on the side facing traffic, and headed down 3 rd avenue toward The Excelsior Hotel. Later, finally in the Park, m let herself cry on a bench for exactly 10 minutes. 10 minutes to the second as best could be determined on her-47rotary watch sweeping round. Then she began to plan her next move. m Vine used her extensive knowledge of television to decide what to do next. Hadn’t there been just last night a program on the History Channel she watched with Father all about middle
evil Japan. No, that wasn’t right—the word, but Old Japan, back then before even The Excelsior Hotel was built. A girl jogged by one of the park paths, replete in silk kimono — her black hair shellacked into the shape of a frozen seaspray breaking over rocks with shiny black sticks protruding, spiked into the glue lacquer holding all in place. Middle evil feet (though that wasn’t quite the word) bound in high-tech running sneakers. It was customary, said a duck pond duck in the manner of a History Channel narrator, at the death or disgrace of a single family member for the entire family to commit hair Carrie (maybe the word but not the spelling only the way it sounded and who was Carrie). That was killing yourself, the duck went on to explain. Ceremonially and socially accepted by the society of the day. That and a now deceased sports announcer whose glass lenses were so thick they were reputed to have set fire to a stack of copy they lay on in the double-header sun. The last part coming not from the duck but m Vine herself who was in fact along with Father an avid fan of the game once called America’s game though the Japanese were equally if not more so mad for its balls and bats which brought this rumination of hairy Carrie somehow full circle in m Vine’s mind. But since this is a program about mid-evil Japan (that was closer to the word now), quacked the announcer shake a tail feather tuck its bill beneath a wing we shall focus on the ritualized suicide of the disgraced and/or mourning Japanese families and not its relationship to root root root for the whole team. Three bike messengers fell dead along Park Drive with short swords opening their bellies. Faces painted white black red in a grotesquerie of living mask. Since m had no idea where she could buy one of these swords, she decided to review other options. She thought about the books she’d read. One morning m Vine awoke to find herself much changed. Though the light fell through her bed window as it always fell at this time of the morning, something felt very different, very wrong. The apartment lay quiet. It was not that she had been left alone in the apartment. Summer days, her parents always left for work before she started her day. That was the routine of vacations, and she rarely even heard the door close behind them with sadness anymore. But something else, as she went down the hall to the living room, thinking as she went, “Had Eustacia Vye drowned herself or had there been an accident?” Father had read that book to her, explaining the dog’s name. “The Return of the Native”. Eustacia Vye was not the native. Eustacia Vye was a cocker spaniel who had lived with Father even before m. Back before the woman m now called Mother. Back when the original Emily Vine lived with Father Vine at 205 East 78th St., Apt. 14L. For as long as the Vines had lived there up to now, so had lived Eustacia Vye. Then not there, either. But if not, then what? Not television, not books, just where, then? Maybe Eustacia Vye herself. But no. That was the whole problem for seeking options of answers to begin with, wasn’t it? On the day Eustacia Vye died, the windows of the sky were all cracked. m Vine was the girl who found her, drowned. Whether by suicide or circumstances, the world would never know. m picked absently at a scab on her knee and watched the Bagman shamble along the path from trashbin to bin. He had that smell to him in passing. The sweet sugar ferment of Mother and Father’s room on Saturday morning before they were awake. m Vine standing oddly in the -48shadows — make believe she was a killer in this tight closed room reeking of the night before. Bagman drained a coke bottle of its contents in the grass and deposited glass in his Bagman’s bag.
The cans and bottles there rattling were m’s now-Mother’s voice speaking to Father who was the Bagman’s footfalls. (She’s a little girl — fall the footfalls.) (But her and Stacie — rattle can, clink bottle clink — I don’t know. Ask her a question and she asks the dog — clinkrattle — Like she can’t answer until the dog gives her the answer.) (fall, fall the footfalls — She’s just a little girl — foot. fall — And besides, well — fall — Stacie is a smart dog — foot.) (That’snotfunny — clinkrattlecrash) (Of course it’s funny — the feet hit a puddle and the voice submerged — This whole — glug — conversation — glug — is funny. She’s just a little girl — and blub blub blub.) The just a little girl sat like that on a park bench in the middle of the city, without conscience or judgement. Stacie — Eustacia Vye — always barked at the door when the postman came to slip letters through the slot. He, post-man, after-man, was not a nice man with a nice post-voice. Though m Vine had never actually seen him or had any encounter of him other than the sound of elevator in the hallway, the sound of liquid jangle that must have been a key chain hung from his belt, and his animal pant breath digging paper form a leather bag forcing letters — narrow parcels through the thin metal slot the tongue to which flapped for seconds afterward like loose lips sinking ships as the elevator arrived and whisked him away to the next mail slot. But she knew he was not a nice man. Hunched-over hairy (maybe hairy Carrie) like the men before men, premen and not post, in the Natural History Museum. She always held her breath at the falling of letters through the flapping mouth and refused to touch them for 1 hour entire. Not until Stacie panted okay, it’s okay, and licked her hands that it was okay to touch that he was gone and the mail was safe to touch. Stacie chewed up a book — m Vine refused to read it. Stacie refused to be moved by her leash on the street — they would stand that way until she would. Stacie had her reasons — m lived by. m’s grandmother lived at The Excelsior Hotel, and that’s how she got past the Dormin Vigo. A sallow German guy with thin yellow moustache, that is to say thin white moustache made yellow by cigarettes he smoked on breaks to make his already gravelly voice even more filled with rocks. (It iss the red ridin’hoot — he says holdink door for yunk frawline — Come to granmutters wit gooties in baskit.) (Danka, Vigo. Though she wears no red hood skipping through the deep dark woods of The Excelsior Hotel’s plastic palmed inner-lobby with no intention of visiting grandmother.) (Mayhap I am das wolf big and bet to eat you — he growls and snarls and makes his fingers claws while the door falls-to behind her, closing m within the relative darkness of his Excelsior cave.) Schweinhornt, she said under her breath and skipped across the lobby to the elevator. The bag was growing heavy now slung over her shoulder with purpose. But instead of 3 like Vigo would expect her to do — the elevator around the corner and out of sight from the doorman’s’s station — m pressed B, the arrow rang down, and the elevator went beneath the street. Past the time card ticking loudly the time in the hollow hallway and eating greedily of the men’s cards with vigorous ink. -49Past the door to the room where the supreme beastie of The Excelsior Hotel dwelt, dials whirring energy expended to keep the place alive. The beast-he stirred at phantom dreams, twitching in sleep behind the door, and m’s hair writhed against her neck as she walked fast past
the HIGH VOLTAGE entryway. To a door leaking smoke around its seams that was her destination goal. Hinges glowing red, this brother to the beast HIGH VOLTAGE marked now FURNACE to its friends in black lettering. m shifted the bag on her shoulder and shucked a shirt sleeve down over one hand in potholder fashion to twist the glowing latch. Overhead, the hallway light fizzled-fsst-and burned out-nck — startling m Vine who stepped back three steps just as the dragon, FURNACE, blew the door open. Coughing emphysemic at this young girl who had so dared to enter here — abandoning all hope — her sacrifice to make. Blinking blindly at the fire and smoke, warrior Vine screwed courage to the sticking place and crossed the threshold to the serpent’s lair. Another door in her life fell-to and closed forever behind her. Her eyes burned, and she stayed low, seeking air beneath the reek of the worldeater’s breath. Half-hunched, half-crawling, she crossed the room to him that was called Him called FURNACE and knelt before his inflamed gob of a maw of a mouth. Now next, what next now that she was here. Had come all this long way, what was she to do? If Stacie was here, she would know. She would dance in a circle to the left or right before prancing and pawing her bed into the proper aspect of sleep, and m would know then exactly what to do. But Stacie was here. Right here. m — consulted the bag. But the bag — said nothing. Not nothing but — you’re on your own — which is the same as nothing. So the bag — said nothing. Being an 8-year-old agnostic, she didn’t think it was right to pray to GOD, even at a time like this. But shouldn’t she say something at least something. So, she said something at least something to FURNACE who was the closest next thing to GOD, being here and real and hot, and GOD — not at all. Okay, FURNACE. hi-hello My name is m Vine I live at 205 East 78 th St., Apt. 14L My parents’ names are Father and Mother — though she’s not really my mother And I’m here to — (what was it the way said it on television) — commit to commit unto your bosom this here canine dog, Eustacia Vye Stacie as she was known and loved My sweet Sister who was more of a sister than Mother is my mother Um That’s it That’s all Take her and keep her warm the way she used to lay on my feet and keep them warm at night. Ashes to ashes — she hoisted the bag and pushed it into the fire — dust to dust. Then m Vine turned her back forever and always on Eustacia Vye. After 2 hours sitting there, the first 10 minutes having been taken up with crying, m got up -50from the park bench and began the walk home. She bought a hotdog from a vendor on the corner with ketchup and mustard. Then she spit out the first bite that was making her sick and threw the rest in the garbage.
Eventually, she crossed 3rd Avenue with the light and walked into her building before Victor was quick enough to get the door. (Miss Emily — he says to cover his chagrin, making as if he means to make this mistake on purpose and it is the job of the doorman to narrate rather than to man the door — Back from her journeys in the big city. ‘d’you lose your bag?) (And — no — is all she says.) Victor decided not to press the issue with the downcast girl whose face was wet with crying, wet with tears. (I bet Stacie’ll sure be glad to see you. About time for her walk, isn’t it? — m vine sure loves that dog.) And but — no — was all she said when the elevator came and lifted her in Father’s arms and asked about her day — how was your day Miss m? — Asked her about where’s Stacie, and she told him everything. The elevator held her while she cried as Father held her on the couch that evening, crying. Where Father’s shoes were kicked off that evening on the carpet and his feet made fists without socks, because this being casual Friday. Casual Moanday. Maundy Friday. To the still apartment front door, elevator doors rushing-to and closing behind her all these doors today closing behind her shutting. To the still apartment front door where Stacie did not bark and scratch on the other side. The hardwood sounding only at the coming down coming down of m’s sandals, not the scrabbled clawclicks of her furry shadowed conscience following from empty room to empty room. Here she had risen from sleep that morning and called. Stacie. Stacie. Here she had walked down the hall with rising urgency calling — Eustacia Vye — now invoking the dog’s full name to show she meant business. But here, there was to Eustacia Stacie Eustacia Vye to be found. Until the kitchen where here had been Eustacie Vye who was Eustacie Vye no more. Face down and drowned in her water dish. Just like her namesake E-V of that Native Thomas Hardy Boy novel read to her by Father. Just like Mother E-V, m Vine’s namesake Emily Vine who was her real Mother and not this other mother whose name she thought was Karen though it had only been used to rarely m could not be sure. And so it was that here she had stood stock still in the kitchen for 23 minutes over the body of her dead friend prior to the sitting stock still on the couch for 30 minutes exactly, the bag beside her feet containing the remains of the Sister she had always and ever before gone to in need. A bark of reason constant and reliable until today when she suddenly wasn’t and the doors started closing behind m and the world falling apart on the other side of them. (The old ones speak of those in battle — warriors who could not be killed. Through the magic of their tribe or clan, the smiling favor of the gods, their souls had been set aside for safekeeping in a vessel which lay elsewhere and not upon the field of war. Be that vessel a bird of song, fish beneath the sea or a handful of pomegranate seeds, such a setting aside of life-essence made the warrior virtually invincible. The light of him was not within him to be extinguished, and therefore he could not be killed directly. But what of the vessel itself and its inevitable destruction as all things are destroyed?) When Eustacia Vye died, m died with her. In their place now was Emily Vine named for her mother, who stood in the silence of the apartment but for her breathing and looked ahead with older eyes, far across the canyons of the city to the place where the getting-on-with of her life lay growing in the sun. -51-
Graffiti Amy E. Munno On the Parkway the rest stops bore me, nothing exciting about grabbing the random stall, locking yourself in for longer than you should, sitting down, ready to read. The walls are bare, sterile, smooth with the inner sheen of a mussel shell, just washed up. A grey that wants to be silver but will never have the class. Where are the signatures, names of wild women like Crystal and Roxanne, the good time phone numbers without area codes, the dissing of enemies, lyrics from songs I hated in high school, curses written just to feel the power of writing curses, the treatise on who has better sex, pieces of poetry I’d once known and can’t place.
-52-52-
Remember that diamonds etched Elizabethan glass with tender words of poesy, sad women with their gems, scoring fate and dream into chamber windows. Remember the Renaissance young, candle wicks burning, smoking foul thoughts on ceilings high above their lovers’ beds, ashen soft letters up and down curving. Remember Jane Grey with her sharp pin, scratching verses of misfortune on the Tower walls, the prison stones cold and unforgiving. I am looking for a nubby black marker, sweet stinking permanent, fat tipped, thick squid bleeding my name on the Lysol wall just so I can stay somewhere for a while, be noticed, be remembered in some way, even if I’m the one who put me up there.
-53-53-
Birth of a Fool Shannon Barber
Birth of a Fool She pushed me through her hips in seventy-seven. I came out pissed and screaming as though I were the one who had labored, and She was the one being born. Not much changed over the years, I continued to wake with a grimace Thinking that somehow God forgot to kill me in my sleep again, and I didn’t know why. I drove down dark roads with shiny asphalt and Dreamed of the possibilities As I passed cliffs and drop-offs. I drew distorted pictures of what I thought about the life That twisted and swayed in my mind, Of Kermit singing his song. I pushed her though my hips just last year. She came out calm and content as though She was returning home, and I was the one being born.
-54-
I’ll Never Tell John Stamp
11” x 14”
black and white photograph
-55-
Note to a Rational Man Shannon Barber
Note to a Rational Man To: From: You call me emotional when I cry at a commercial and You call me a bitch when I yell because I am angry. You think that you are rational because you don’t give a fuck about anything except money, or power. The world is not a crystalline lattice. Education has sterilized you. Do you really think that you are learning something real because you know how to dissolve organic compounds or calculate the distance to the sun? How to describe the world in scientific terms and catalogue the details on a grain of sand?
-56-56-
When was the last time you visited the sun, by the way, and enjoyed its warmth on a sunny day? At the beach Where the sand gets in your shoes and drives you crazy? Where seashell cut your feet and Where the water stinks of fish and you love it anyway? Do you think it possible to vaccinate the world against ignorance? against hunger? against disease? against death? You dissolve everything organic around you, the feel of a moment, the magnetism between two bodies, the understanding in a comfortable silence, and call yourself a rational man.
-57-57-
Marin Headlands, San Francisco Brooke Hall
8” x 10”
infrared black and white photograph
-58-
The End of a Roman God Helen Losse
Jupiter sips his purple wine, adorns a fountain in mythic glee — manly but broken. The new religion rendered him harmless: a mere statue — useless as a butterfly, minus a wing.
-59-
Artist Bios Alissa Van Atta is a senior at UNCC. She is currently working on developing a hybrid between painting and sculpture. The pieces’ main influences are derived from the artists Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois. Jordan Beall is a senior at UNCC, working towards a BFA with a concentration in Graphic Design. After college, he hopes to find a big box of money. Ang ie Eury graduated from UNCC in December of 2001 with a BFA in graphic design and a minor in art history. She thinks of herself mainly as a digital illustrator whose love for art spans beyond the realm of graphic design. She enjoys translating her imagery in various media when digital work alone cannot express her emotions. Brenda Eury graduated from UNCC in 1995 with a BFA in visual arts. She uses photography to express her lifelong love for nature and animals. Brooke Hall uses art as a venue for self-criticism, as well as for critique of her external environment. Although Hall’s work has always contained political undertones, she is currently focused on work relating to women’s issues. She is interested in the way gender shapes her own experiences, identity and relationships. Buck Harvey is a sophomore in UNCC’s art department and has been experimenting with different media for as long as he can remember. He is most familiar with painting and drawing techniques. His work tends to reflect objects in his life, which he considers beautiful and symbolic.Art has incredible power. It is his goal to harness as much of that as he possibly can in this short lifetime. Shellie Hensley is currently a junior at UNCC. Her major is in art with a concentration in Illustration. She was born in Charlotte, but studied at East Carolina University for two years before returning home to finish her degree. Shelly Keefer grew up in rural Maryland. This upbringing is a strong influence in her work. She has lived everywhere from Mt. St. Helens to Gettysburg, New York City and Charlotte. Shelly paints because she feels compelled to express her feelings about a time, place or person. Her medias include watercolor and pastel in styles that vary from realistic to impressionism. Her subjects cover a wide range from landscapes to human form. Kendra Kent is a senior at UNCC concentrating in fiber arts. She chose to continue to concentrate in fibers because she is naturally drawn to the versatility of working with fabrics. Most of her work tends to be autobiographical, drawing from a number of influences ranging from lyrics of her favorite songs, 1960’s pop artists and life experiences. Diana Lang is currently a junior at UNCC working towards her BFA in graphic design. She wishes to get her master’s degree in architecture after completing her bachelor’s degree. Erin Lynch has been attending UNCC since 1998.Although she enjoys art mediums, photography is her most preferred vehicle of expression. When not a school or at work, she travels. After graduating in 1999, Rob Minton set off on foot from Georgia to Maine via the Appalachian Trail. Enveloped by the inspirational natural environment he drew when not walking. Minton inherently carried these organic forms into his furniture, which he has been making professionally since the completion of his journey. He has returned to school to further study the creation of space and form in architecture. Chris Riley is a native of the Ohio River Valley area, who relocated to the Piedmont area four years ago. He is an abstract contemporary sculptor who is developing a ser ies based on the dynamics of nature. Currently using North American Hardwoods to pursue the focus of nature that shift our surroundings on a profound way. Wind, water, and fire are the present aspects of nature he is focusing on. Derrick T. Roberson was born, May 25th, 1974 in Sanford, NC and has two brothers and four sisters. He graduated on June 5th of 1992 from Lee County Senior High School. He began attending UNCC in 1995 and accepted a call to ministry in 1997. Engaged to Babbette Willis, a UNCC alumni. He also enjoys playing basketball, shooting pool, and listening to jazz. “Behold the Age of Aquarius, the age of information.” This is the base thought involved in this series of work by Dustin Salas. Describing life in a cocoon form, he takes the natural process of evolution and mirrors it in sculpture.The next step in progression as a human race is in the form of energy. With this in mind, he explores the possibilities of this transgression. Keiichi Shiraishi is a senior at UNCC working toward a BFA with a concentration in photography. He is making artwork to reveal who he is and where his roots are from. John Stamp is a senior pursuing a concentration in photography -60- at UNCC. He sees art as a means of self-discover y and uses photography to uncover the beauty of things often over looked. After working through various mediums he found himself drawn to printmaking as his medium of choice.The layering images, colors, textures and concepts, along with his reflections on modern society and his own life, have become the calling cards of his work.
Author Bios Shannon Barber is a junior level English major and chemistry minor at UNCC. A native of Kentucky, she is an aspiring writer, but is also interested in medical science. Currently a Charlotte resident, Shannon looks forward to graduate school in Spring 2002 at UNC Wilmington. Joshua Canipe is a senior at UNCC and hopes to pursue an MFA in creative writing after graduating in May, or when he can save up enough money to pay for it. Willard Cook has an MA in English education from New York University and an MFA in fiction writing fromVermont College. He teaches fiction writing at Gotham Writers Workshop and New York University School for Professional Studies. He is currently working on his third novel. Joseph Daniels is currently employed at McKinsey and Company as a consultant. After graduating from Washington University with a BA in history, and Minor in writing, he earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and became a lawyer at a New York City Law firm. David Kear says that m Vine was written at an average speed of 73 miles per hour, sometimes going as fast as 90, but then only on the downhill grades of the story and only when he happened to let his attention wander a little. mVine was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (at least, that’s where he got the idea) and she spent her formative years careening across Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and finally reached her maturity when Kear rolled into Los Angeles County on the forth day of traveling on his trip from Tennessee to California. Helen Losse has published poetry in a number of North Carolina magazines and journals. Currently, she is beginning work on a book adapted from her master’s thesis, Making All Things New:The Redemptive Value of Unmer ited Suffering in the Life and Works of Martin Luther King Jr. Bobbi Lurie has worked as a muralist, printmaker, therapist, art reviewer, and essayist. Her autobiographical essay, “4 O’clock” was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Giovanni Malito is a Canadian (from Toronto), but has been working in Ireland as a lecturer in chemistry for the past six years. He also edits The Brobdingnagian Times (a literary broadsheet) and has been a coeditor of Tableau (an interdisciplinary journal). Amy Munno is a managing editor in academic publishing and holds an MA in English, writing. She is the coeditor of the quarterly literary magazine The Unknown Writer and member of the Haiku Society of America. Amy lives in New Jersey and loves astronomy and collecting vintage pop beads. Joy Pugh is a proud UNCC alumnus, and even has the sticker on her car to prove it. After graduating in May 2001, she took a job in the nonprofit sector and quickly discovered why it is named such. She finds great satisfaction in breathing, writing a good poem, going for a run, and HBO Sunday night programming. Her eye towards the future sees indecision, uncertainties, and maybe graduate school. Mike Spikes is a native of Mississippi who currently teaches English at Arkansas State University. His poems have appeared in such publications as Mudfish, Frogpond, Modern Haiky, Lonzie’s Fried Chicken, and American Tanka. Joshua Michael Stewart is originally from Sandusky, Ohio, but has been living on the east coast since 1988. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a BA in social history and is currently working as a counselor for mentally challenged adults. David J. Thompson currently teaches English at the University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Rockhurst Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Slant, Licking River Review, Missing Spoke Press, No Exit, Maelstorm, Karamu, Concho River Review, Pitchfork, Raintown Review, OwenWister Review and elsewhere. Jean Tupper has worked as a writer and editor, workshop facilitator, and frequent mentor to developing writers. She completed her MA degree in English at Central Connecticut State University with a thesis on the Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s use of metaphor. Dianalee Velie is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has a Master of Arts in Writing from Manhattanville College. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women and the International Women’s Writing Guild. Her play, Mama Says, has had successful staged reading at the TaDa Theater in Manhattan, directed by Daniel Quinn. Rynn Williams is a poet and freelance writer/editor. Born in New York City, she has lived there her whole life, with the exception of one year spent in an Ecuadorian cloud forest, where she lived without electricity or indoor plumbing, one hour’s walk from the nearest road. She is currently building-61a house in the same cloud forest, with the hope of living there a portion of ever y year.
Art Jury
Lit. Jury
Crista Cammaroto completed her undergraduate training Virginia Intermont and Arizona State. From there, she worked for three years at the Light Factory, as the program coordinator and then the assistant director. She returned to school and received a master’s degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She describes her works, especially her installations to be “temporal visions of the Queen City.” Her mediums are performance, photo, digital, and installations. She values her friends, family, nature, outdoor sports and her work, as she enjoys teaching. Lisa Holder is a part time professor of photography at UNCC and CPCC. She is in the beginning stages of incorporating photography with second grade students’ lesson plans at University Park Elementary through a grant with The Light Factory. She loves to make images that look as if they were altered digitally, but were actually made “the good old fashioned way, in the darkroom.” Her favor ite artist is Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Her favorite food is coffee and she watches films in her free time. Ce Scott was born in Detroit, MI. She Graduated with an MFA in Installation at the Maryland Institute, College of Art under a Hoffberger Fellowship. At present, Scott is the Director of Education and Artist Services at the Tryon Center for Visual Art, in Charlotte, NC. She is well known for her award winning original performances as well as her shrine and window installations and also for her visual artwork. Brent Skidmore is a Fulltime Studio Artist in Charlotte, NC. He graduated from Indiana Univer sity with an MFA in Sculpture in a three-year assistantship. As a member of the American Craft Council in New York, NY, and a founding member of the Furniture Society in Free Union,VA, Skidmore has established himself to be a well-rounded furniture artist. He is most recently exhibited, this year in Four Studio Furniture Makers, in Little Rock,Arkansas, and 20Years of Functional Design at Murray State University, in Kentucky. Also in 2002, Skidmore won the Fellowship for Emma Lake Collaboration, in Saskatoon, Canada.
Christopher Davis is an associate professor of creative writing at UNCC. He has published two collections of poetry, “The Tyrant of the Past and the Slave of the Future” and“The Patriot,” and has completed a third,“A History of the Only War.” His work has appeared in many jour nals, including American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Volt, and Fence, and in several anthologies, including “The Best American Poetry 1990, ”“Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry,” and “The Next Generation.” S. Craig Renfroe, Jr. received his MFA in Creative Writing from UNC-Wilmington where he held a Philip Gerard Fellowship. His writing has appeared in The Macguffin, Seedhouse, Atlantis, Iodine, and Counterpoint. He currently teaches wr iting at UNCC. Connie G. Rothwell is a lecturer in the English Department at UNCC. A graduate of the University of Michigan, she has taught a variety of writing courses over the past fifteen years and considers UNCC students, faculty, and staff her community. Julie Townsend, a published short story writer, also teaches argumentation and fiction writing at UNCC. Sam Watson has been spending his life teaching writing courses at UNCC and sneaking some personal time for projects in his backyard woodworking shop in Concord. A lowcountry South Carolinian by birth, he hopes to return home someday.
Sanskrit literary-arts magazine uses professional juries as the predominant decision maker of the magazine’s content. Due to the fact that sanskrit is a magazine as opposed to a gallery, editorial review is reserved and needed to adjust the selections for print. However, we would never be able to produce sanskrit without the help of the professionals in the Charlotte community that volunteer their time to jury our submissions. For that we thank them.
-62-62-
Colophon Copyright © 2002 by sanskrit literary-arts magazine and the Student Media Board of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. All rights reserved by the individual artists and authors. Printed by Jostens Printing Co., Winston-Salem, NC. 3,000 copies of sanskrit literary-arts magazine 2002 were pr inted on 100 lb. text grade Mountie Matte stock. The magazine contains 64 pages with trim size 7.75 x 10.5 inches. Cover is a separate attached hard cover (NO. 7 size 120 pt. board) with smythe sewn binding. Typeset is 11 point Bembo. Titles of pieces are Caxton Light. Artist and author names are in Zapfhumnst BT. Other fonts used include Apple Chancery, Caxton Book, Enya, Acoustic Light, Copperplate Gothic Bold, Copperplate Gothic Light, and Apollo MT. Produced on Power Macintosh G4 computers, using Epson Perfection 1200U flatbed scanner, Adobe PageMaker 6.5, Adobe Photoshop 6.0, Macromedia Freehand 9. Cover design by Jason Keath. Illustrations and layout for “French Toast” by Jénice Bastien with the assistance of LouAnn Lamb. Illustrations for “mVine” done by Jason Brown and Jason Keath. All other pages designed by Jason Keath, Jénice Bastien, and Jason Brown. Sanskrit would like to thank the assistance of our Literature Reader Group consisting of Jade Tornatore, BQ Nguyen, Derrick Smith, and Samuel B.W. Mitchell. Special thanks to LouAnn Lamb for her guidance in design of the magazine and in life, to Wayne Maikranz for being the supreme advisor and having faith in our abilities, to Mark Haire for keys and holding down the fort, and to Kevin Snook for keeping our computers on-line.
-63-63-
Staff Bios editor-in-chief
Jason Anthony Keath is an interesting fellow. His loves in life are his friends, his art, and his ability to produce the most chaotic situations possible for himself in life and to somehow draw out harmony from within them. associate editor
Jénice Bastien Milburn is an ambitious artistic women striving for excellence through God. She uses art as an outlet of expression and capture beauty nor mally overlooked in everyday rituals.What else can we say about this hard working and dedicated lady?... she knows how to get the job done... r ight. literary editor
After two years in the art department, Nicole Schulz has discovered that she and most art majors are nerds, whether they like to admit it or not.While fighting the never-ending battle with procrastination, her mom hopes that she will decide (soon!) what she wants to do with her BFA. assistant-literary editor
Home for Sarah Feinman is a park in Aurora, Colorado. As a child she would lay in the cool g reen grass and watch the clouds pass over. If she closed her eyes, she would see herself flying with those puffy white things, into that place unknown. design editor
Jason Brown est un artist calé avec trop de “skills.” Il veux habiter en France avec une femme, une grande maison et beaucoup de vin. art editor
Armed with a big smile and her favorite pair of jeans, Martina Fox is always on the go. She looks forward to studying in Ludwigsburg, Germany this summer and Stuttgart next Fall. Martina enjoys reading and receiving snail-mail from her fr iends and family, whom she cares for very much. Hopefully she’ll get some when she’s abroad. She is glad to be on staff and hopes to continue her work with student media when she returns.
-64-