harvard-westlake school los angeles, california
stone-cutters
stone-cutters
Editors in Chief Ava Kofman Candice Navi Eli Petzold Staff Matt Ward, Eli Petzold, Madison Tully, Maria Qui単onez, Errol Bilgin, Gaby Leslie, Chloe Lister, Abbie Neufeld, Meghan Hartman, Hannah Schoen, Jessica Gold, Wyatt Kroopf, Steven Ring, Nora Kroopf, Elizabeth Evashwick, Karen Kim, Melissa Flores, Jeff Dastin, Jordan Freisleben, Rachel Katz, Spencer Horstman, Catherine Park, Chelsea McMahon Jessica Lange, Danni Xia, Connie Lee, Jacob Witten, Jessica Barzilay, April Rosner, Arielle Maxner, Lauren Li, Chase Morgan, Lael Pollack, Amy Weissenbach, Kelly Ohriner, Myles Teasley, Jackie Arkush Faculty Advisors Jennifer Raphael English Department Nancy Popp Visual Art Department
Special thanks to the Chronicle, Vox Populi, and Jennifer Bladen. Front Cover: Untitled by Ingrid Chang Back Cover: Smile by Charlie Fogarty Stone-Cutters is a Harvard-Westlake publication for prose, photo, and art. The fonts in this issue are Palatino Linotype and SevilleT. Printed by DT Graphics.
winter09
No 15 Lot 15 Per 16 Th 17 Ire 18 Dea 19 cata 19 awk 20 Sta 21 salv 22 Des 24 Th 25 Inn 12
er09
Voice Myles Cameron Teasley 1 Untitled Catherine Park 2 The Flowers Mary Rose Fissinger 3 Waiting for a Star to Fall Jessica Gold 4 Crumble Candice Navi 6 Brother Errol Bilgin 7 Alone Erin Landau 8 Paris Gabriela Leslie 9 The Silent Treatment Wyatt Kroopf 10 Someone died today C. Morgan 11 Focus Elizabeth Evashwick 11
Noa Rachel Katz 15 Lotus Eaters C. Morgan 15 Peripheral Maria Quiñonez 16 The Observers Gabriela Leslie 17 Ireland I Romina D’Alessandra 18 Death be Delivered Jacob Axelrad 19 cataclysmic reunion Rachel Katz 19 awkward Celine Pourmoradi 20 Stairway to Studio Jacqui Lee 21 salvation Chelsea McMahon 22 Despondent Pilgrim Elijah J. Petzold 24 The Preacher Man Nora Kroopf 25 Inner Monologue Alex Valdez Blown Away Charlie Fogarty 26 American Sign Language I Romina D’Alessandra 27 Canoeing Amy Zhang 28 Untitled. Caity Croft 29 News Candice Navi 30 doubt Erin Landau 31 O lente lente currite noctis equi Elijah J. Petzold 32 War Matt Ward 34 Thumbprint Jacqui Lee 35 The Four Shadows Karen Kim 36 Quiescence Jessica Gold 38 Puget Sound Chloe Lister 39 12
Voice The days pass and my silence is measured in the weeks which slide across my mind and the cars that pass from time to time unfocusing these glazed pupils ever waning with the ebbing light of wishes and resignation. Thrust this useless mute into the flames of rebirth and pray I return unscarred by rejuvenation, restored with the long lost voice I can no longer recognize as my own. Deeper, lower, more coarse than I remember and untried by the tribulations of anger and argument; unsteady as the fawn, new born of the Serengeti standing on trembling limbs, lacking the strength of use. I breath out, breath in and whisper words only I can hear, deep breath and force a guttural sound from the chest breath out, breath in, and scream as fire and daggers tear my throat raw already ragged from over use but burning as much for release as for cessation. It is time.
Myles Cameron Teasley
1
Untitled Catherine Park
2
The Flowers My dress hangs quietly above my knees As away from my eyes the water flees, And I grasp longingly at things not there. The sky bears down with its perpetual stare At me alone in this deserted hour, Nothing but myself and all the flowers. Begrudgingly I ask myself how sweet They can remain through famine, ice, and heat? While everything I am eats at my core, And I am soft and innocent no more. Always by the road the blossoms remain. I see not the colors, only the blame. But every so often I reach down and tear One from the ground and place it in my hair, Hoping that maybe for a sweet short while As I tread onward through the lonely miles, I might fool the world into thinking me Sweet as the flowers that cushion my feet. Mary Rose Fissinger
3
4
Waiting for a Star to Fall
W
hen it rains, I race outside and baptize
dream tha
myself in the tears of the heavens. The
render to
liquid pours down in torrents, and endless
wings usel
benedictions courtesy of whichever being was watching
I dream o
from above and happened to throw open those pearly
dwell prin
white gates long enough for the water to get through
quests and
drip upon my head like honey, drip and drip and drip
are real, t
and drip until I know I’m sticky sweet not tarnished or
one for on
stained and I’ve been cleansed of all sin and then I stay
truly noth
out there a little while longer just to get a head start on
I fall aslee
next time before trudging back in to begin racking up
dreaming
the black marks again. Often, I dance like one pos-
true and n
sessed, and ask myself if I’m the only one to see the irony
did.
in that. I see it through eyes blurred with sorrow not my
Som
sky. I’m re
own. Or I might laugh as the wind caresses my cheek
this bolster
with an icy kiss—laugh because I can’t feel it, it’s much
into the in
too cold to feel anything, and I wouldn’t care if I did.
these speck
Isn’t the point of numbing that one can’t feel anything
every secon
at all? So I tip back my flushed head, let my mane be
asked says
whipped to frenzy around me, pour out my mirth to the
ally drawi
open air and wait for the parodied affection to end.
reach me.
I have to tell myself to stop when I think it’s too much,
to infinity.
when it’s obvious I’ve offended the anemoi, when the gales blow full force around me, envelope me with malice that simply skids right off, obscure the world through
M
a whirling tumult of fading motion. I’m invulnerable,
have to go
and it’s difficult to remember to pretend otherwise.
then morn
Sunset comes, and the world blushes with color.
it’s not. M
I long to paint the moment, to capture the feeling, the
remember
emotion, but of course I don’t. The instant is a treasure
the way it
instantly lost, instantly forgotten, instantly perfect and
Morning i
instantly flawed by that instant perfection. No colors
Morning i
exist to paint the colors as they are, because nothing is
of another
as true as truth and nothing can impersonate the vision
Morning i
better than the original impersonator. Nothing’s true,
staring up
and so I watch with brush in hand, image glued to
more and
mind, and let it pass, and tear it free, and forsake the
they fell an
lie so I don’t have another one polluting my mind. It’s
that long a
a little hard to do, but I do it anyways because I know
ends until
I have to, because who wants to be part of anything as
Som
fake as the eternal curtain call of day when really it
the sky. So
will always return?
miss them.
At night, I lie awake and dream of dreams. I
aptize
dream that I could wish for happily ever after, sur-
The
render to the crushing velvet blanket that waits in the
d endless
wings uselessly and drop straight into my own fairy tale;
atching
I dream of an alternate reality, lost in slumber, where
pearly
dwell princes and faeries and knights and castles and
rough
quests and magic and true love. I dream that dreams
and drip
are real, that even if they aren’t, I could at least have
nished or
one for once and escape from the reality that tells me
hen I stay
truly nothing is true. I dream while I’m awake, and then
d start on
I fall asleep and don’t dream except to dream that I’m
ing up
dreaming and in the morning I know it’s too good to be
pos-
true and no I didn’t dream obviously I just dreamed I
e the irony
ow not my
did. Sometimes I think the stars are falling from the sky. I’m reclining in the lap of the meadow and I’ve got
my cheek
this bolster of grass cradling my head and I stare up
it’s much
into the infinite layers of darkness and all I can see are
f I did.
these specks of flickering light that keep getting closer
nything
every second and I don’t care that everyone I’ve ever
ane be
asked says they’re catapulting away I know they’re actu-
rth to the
ally drawing nearer and I lay there and wait for them to
end.
reach me. I wonder how long it would take a star to fall
much,
to infinity.
nerable,
M
wise.
then morning will come again and again you’ll know
th color.
it’s not. Morning is remembering that you can’t really
ng, the
remember anything, not the way it’s meant to be, not
treasure
the way it was. Morning is confessing while God sleeps.
en the
with mal-
d through
rfect and
orning isn’t new birth each day; no, it’s new death. It’s waking to the fact that nothing is as it seems and it never will be and you will
have to go through it all again and think that it is and
Morning is dancing before an audience of illusion.
colors
Morning is a picture of a lie. Morning is the beginning
thing is
of another night. Morning is mourning what cannot be.
the vision
Morning is waking with your head still throbbing and
’s true,
staring up and seeing that the stars aren’t there any
ed to
more and they must have fallen while you slept, and yes
sake the
they fell and you missed them and they didn’t fall all
nd. It’s
that long after all. Morning is knowing that it never
I know
ends until it does. And morning is accepting that it will.
hing as
ally it
ams. I
Sometimes I think that the stars are falling from the sky. Sometimes I wait for them to fall. Sometimes I miss them. And every once in a while, I don’t. Jessica Gold
5
Crumble Candice Navi
6
Crumble andice Navi
Brother The impenetrable crust I wear divides my core, Concealing the vengeful inferno of wrath in which I speak your name. For its molten brand, now iron, engraves a raging scar on my loin; Perpetuating the wicked curse I breathe. The pangs of private infamy are savage, Shattering the deceitful reflection of a false dignity. Noisy hallucinations of the past now shrill in desperation, Obliterating my fortress, pleading for an escape. Oh, Almighty, you triumph my soul! Capture my mind! Conquer my body! For I belong fully and wholly to you. – Now do your dead, lifeless eyes replenish? Blazing flames of odium radiate the dark in secrecy, Embracing the affliction of my crest. The remains of a virtuous heart melt into hatred, Drowning this empty vessel that harbors a lethal truth. This is what I am A carcass of my old life, deteriorating and slowly rotting to its core. Your poisonous, peril lips return and have a different feel; Powerful, intimidating, superior. Disconnecting my mind from my body, I leave the cold, mutated exterior to you as A token of the wicked horror you need; A trophy of my soul’s enslavement; A reminder of your forceful chokehold As I suffocate in your rusted palms; I am nothing. Errol Bilgin
7
Alone I feel like a dead man, Sunken sockets of gurgling eyes Fingernails tearing against the wood, Against the soil. We are all rats clawing the fur of one another, Scampering, clambering to the top, Crushed under the weight of a thousand eyeballs. There is so much that I don’t understand. The hypocrisy of life threatening to slip from my grasp, Each time my footing less and less steady, Each time so much more to lose. Do we dare question why When even that one word has lost all its meaning? How can we claim the sanctity of ourselves When it sinks lower into the depths than we dare to go? What if we are all that’s left? What if we are alone? Erin Landau
8
Paris Gabriela Leslie
9
The Silent Treatment
The clouds seemed to be in the sky forever. They cried periodically, and screamed often. It was often hard to distinguish between the yell of the clouds and the yell of the people below them. Both shared a sense of pure desperateness. The clouds feared that their friend the sun had perished, but don’t worry the sun was just falling. Falling very fast though, but that was because it was dropped. The people yelled for attention. They all seemed to believe that they had some huge importance in something. That something was depending on them. Pathetic. The sun was shockingly content. It was dropped on accident, but it was unaffected by its imminent end. It was just waiting for something. A young boy was playing in the fields. The boy was dancing with shadows, his closest friends. The boy made a wish that these shadows would come to life, and dance back with him. The shadows came alive, moved by the wind. The boy had a look of innocent glee on his face. His face illuminated the whole world. The clouds thought they saw their friend, the sun, and they ceased to scream. The people mortified by the flash, assumed it to be evil. They feared so much that there was something greater and bigger than themselves, that they lost their voices, and ceased to yell. The sun felt as though it saw its own reflection. A mirror must be there the sun thought. It smiled, feeling satisfied. There was absolute silence for just a moment. The boy’s face still shone bright. Then the sun shattered against the floor. The clouds, the people, the boy, and the world went dark and ended. But there were no screams heard, just a dark, empty silence. Up above, a simple man, who had dropped the sun, muttered “Oops.” He went and got a broom and dustpan. He swept up the pieces and threw them in the trash. As he walked away, he said to himself, “Well, they were a mistake anyway.” Wyatt Kroopf
10
Focus Elizabeth Evashwick
Someone died today I. I remember no loose flesh in the days that I grew, But the sun came through the window in our piano room. Since those shadows were the only company I knew, I learned their lessons until they let me leave again. II. There were flowers next to the coffin that no one had changed, And they were starting to wilt yellow-brown, yellow-gray. They were dead from the moment they were picked for display, But they still hold life in their small glass vase. III. They bury you underneath a tree, and the tree bears your fruit. Your children eat beneath your shade the pleasantness of youth. C. Morgan
11
I
could stare into the shallow, fading gloss of the veneer for hours. Maybe I was. It had all seemed surreal quite honestly. The whoosh
of Grecian sirens, piercing and wickedly alluring as those from which their namesake had descended. Seeping all at once into the chalky frigid sky, suckled nearly into a pacified infant’s oblivion, until smog had ate up the stars, and Los Angeles stood a distant, painted backdrop to my probation. The sirens’ shrieking is a doubleindictment: not only are you feeble to a fault, but when graced with the opportunity of redemption, you fail miserably; peering over the lichen-laden rim as the stormy tumult consumes your first mate fallen overboard; you fail to rescue her. These are my thoughts as I observe the unfortunate, puce-coloured vinyl restore itself after having yielded to the impression of my thumbprint for the two-hundred-fiftieth time. My eyes have been fixated on this tragically entertaining spectacle for a while now; partly because I can’t bear to look at anything else, and partly because I’ve already completed a
Noa
three-hour shift with the coffee table. You’re twenty yards down the hall,
but in another world. Here there is, at least, cold leftover coffee, with the sooty remains pooling a few centimeters from the bottom, a hovering tarn whose lapping against the plastic pot’s interior acts only as another medium of time, a measure of slow hours trickling past. Here, at least, there are others beside you, in whose nervous finger-dancing or lone sigh, you might perchance, for a brief moment, take some solace. Here, at least, they feign sympathy.
12
Not there. You are enmeshed in starchy, endless whites. The sterile atmospheric pressure might just be enough to force a painstaking IV drip into your deplorably weak arm, and there are bandages. And the wan, waxen pallor of your skin must be lying in perfect contrast to the caprice that plays under your high-arched cheekbone when the sunlight catches it the right way. I love you in all your incongruities, your frailties, and your faults. I will love you even after this, but I do not love this. I don’t believe in fate, or serendipity, or chance. I believe you make your own luck in this world. But I’m starting to question things, because it wasn’t by any calibrated set of circumstances that I came home when I did. That I was fortunate enough to find you where I did. That your mom forgot to hide the car keys, and they were there on the counter when I dashed into the kitchen, bathing in sweat and scared. That somehow I managed to coax the Jeep out of the garage without my license, and drive 3 miles down and left with furious tears blinding the dark and rainy road ahead; fresh saltwater stinging at my hot, ruddy face. It was by luck that I was able to muster name, date of birth, and the fact that you’re allergic to Penicillin through the paralyzing fear of what had happened, and of what would happen next. It will be by luck, and luck alone, if you, and by virtue of that, if we,
A
make it out okay. ll I want is to burst through that set of double-doors, that barrier between life and death, between what
was and what might be. I want to careen
13
down that despondent hallway with an immeasurable, indomitable force, because I refuse to acknowledge the implications of the latter statement, I refuse to comprehend the potential of what life might be without you. I want to silently lean over your unconscious frame, your fragile, burdened frame and let my sad lips graze your troubled brow, so that just for one moment, I will, selfishly, not be faced with
I
the possibility of emptiness. n order to have emptiness, an outside particle must steadily and snugly and surely wedge its way into an arena that’s already packed.
Once it has found a spot in which to nestle, it can seek nourishment, and with delicate attention and the proper care, it may, perhaps, flourish. It is then, and only then, once such a bit has incorporated itself so tightly, and has grown to occupy such a disproportionately large part of the arena, that the absence or departure of it might be felt, profoundly, by its host. That a space will be what remains, a vacuum of the richness that was, an emptiness. So it is with relationships, with people, with love. So it is with Josephine. I do not want emptiness, but what will be is a function of something greater and higher, it is out of my control. I want happily-for-at-least-another-hour, but sometimes the little things collide and add up to something undesirable, and cataclysmic within the narrow context of an individual’s world. I have hope, but I don’t know. The only certainty, when all else is pending, is “I love you.” For now, that has to be enough. Rachel Katz
14
The Lotus Eaters I lit an altar fire with baited breathing And scattered ashes in an open sore— Just like the child biting fingers teething: Numbing my pain by making pain the more. I drank my health like virtue, too with worms, And wrestled with apocalypse, and won. I sought the devil in the eye of storms, But quite forgotten why, why had I come. Yet, the angel fell upon my shoulder, And laughed: “Atlas, hold your chin up higher— Love and people always come to smolder, Never, though, our eternal desires.” I bore the world’s weight for what it was, All pounds of flesh to question our because. C. Morgan Peripheral Maria Quiñonez
15
The Observers Gabriela Leslie
16
Ireland I Though tragedy struck Hot hearts did not flee It was the lesser pain That robbed cold hands of glee Tenements took years to kill Each and every desperate soul Neither did famine nor fire Starve and burn them as a whole But it is this walk down the Liffey Along with some other thrills That requests a doctor’s prescription For my first set of pills Romina D’Alessandro
he Observers riela Leslie
17
Death Be Delivered Death be delivered, Thank God! Where have you been? We’ve all been waiting, We thought you’d never come, Margaret already left, She gave up hope, But the rest of us waited around for ages, You certainly kept us on our toes, Talk about manners! I suppose that’s all for the best though, Now we’ll have lots of good stories for dinner table conversation… Jacob Axelrad
18
awkward Celine Pourmoradi
cataclysmic reunion showers of scintilla detonate from the mighty welkins littering what lies beneath; atlas of lost threnody, with a soft, disillusioned ash raining down “but wert thou my son,” the old man mustered with a choke of his throat, “thou wouldst run up to me, this very moment, casting aside my demons and mistakes, and embrace me fresh, not new, but loving my soot and flaws each; for each heathen scab, i’ve been caressed by a ripe and tearful angel” Rachel Katz
19
Stairway to Studio Jacqui Lee
20
ay to Studio Jacqui Lee
salvation The cold tile floor steals the heat from my blood; Sprawled out, face down. As I let my thoughts flood Hell’s flames lick my ankles and slowly get bigger. They’re pulling me down: lock the gate, pull the trigger. I’m losing it now: my passion my worth, I stumbled and fell off the face of the earth. I can’t stop the trembling while creating my art: Lines on my arm with the blood from my heart. I do it again though I try and restrain, The elixir of life I remove from my veins Will cover what’s left of my only goodbyeI cannot stand up, as hard as I try. It’s an odd place to be: not alive and not dead. I wanted it quick but chose torture instead. My past is a blur but passed on I won’t care, There will be nothing left but my bones, skin, and air. My fingers run cold and I let the blade fall As salvation comes slow, to a dark place I crawl. I can hear screaming but don’t make a sound, The threads of my life are slowly unwound. My mouth becomes dry and I’m choking down sand, As the devil himself comes to offer his hand. The cold tile floor steals the heat from my blood; Sprawled out, face down. As I let my thoughts flood Hell’s flames lick my ankles and slowly get bigger. They’re pulling me down: lock the gate, pull the trigger. Chelsea McMahon
21
Despondent pilgrim, how far you have come; too far to be standing so dejected, halted in your steps where you now are, pulling weeds and grass from ancient rocks, contemplating worms and the Beyond, sitting, frustrated in your mind, hurt in your heart, lost in your purpose atop a terrible precipice at the ocean’s edge. You have passed through vast asphodel fields, too
green
and
verdant
in
the
sun’s
shining
light; innocence in ignorance and indifference. So simple, so dichotomous: imagining duels between white-horsed, valiant knights yclad in silver armor and barbarians, fierce and lawless. Looking through the train window (in which your curious face was reflected), you saw simplistic and fanciful dramas performed outside the window as you sped faster and faster to those spinal mountains. And
And
you
tains,
with
climbed
those
snow-capped
adamantine minarets
and
mounspires,
thinking yourself a god. Like a Superman, you stood, looking from above at the vast dark wood beneath the mountains, and at all the inferior minds below you. (You had not thought folly had undone so many.) And what little flies they were, aimlessly flitting here and there without the knowledge of a Superman. And on clear star-quilted nights, you had your plentiful meals of transcendence and ecstasy. That was when the universe was within your head.
And
the Fates were in your hand. All that was unknown was an arm’s reach away.
And
you saw that it was simple and it was good.
22
Despondent Pilgrim
you saw that it was simple and it was good.
And
you
fell,
(all
things
that
go
up
must
come down) because of your high aspirations, into the dead-leaf-strewn hollow dead winter woods ever haunted by that hideous crow who attached himself to your shoulder. Not to mention the vultures that tore out your spirit nightly, (letting it regenerate almost completely by day.) And to live in constant fear of the barghest, the banshee, the black prince himself in that wood of dangers and uncertainty, to know in your gut that every turn could reveal Darkness or Oblivion of the mind (did you not hear Lethe babbling?) – to be in that wood was to be Nothing. And Nothing was your god. And you saw that it was simple and it was good. And ers
most
recently
you
navigated
around
jagged
jaws
jutting
water’s surface.
rapid
riv-
through
the
And under a hot, cloudy,
and humid sky, you trudged, sinking in black sands, across the vast, abandoned post-Industrial deserts. The air you breathed was stuffed with radio waves and information. In trying to find yourself, you lost yourself even more. The places you have been dissolve so quickly. Do you remember that valiant knight you saw? armor.
He was wicked beneath all that The universe is an infinite quilt,
not in your mind. (The apocalypse is not a struggle; it is the tiny seams fraying over uncountable eons.) “Nothing, my lord,” says you. Pilgrim, man,
now
pulling
Says I, “Nothing will come of nothing.” you
stand
weeds,
vanquished
dislodging
and
invasive
huvines
from stone, watching the ocean suffer civil war, foaming and raging with medieval clangor. Is this the edge of the proverbial Flat Earth? Sad little primate pilgrim, your mind is lost. Elijah J. Petzold
23
The Preacher Man Nora Kroopf
24
eacher Man Kroopf
ora
Inner Monologue There’s something I’ve been meaning to record: An inner monologue (Or really, partial dialogue) Of what my character should say to you. However The second that our smiles met has yet to be discussed; You always hint that it exists, (You hide it deep as deep can go) While all the while You can hear it beg to be announced. Until that moment gets it turn To roll off of your tongue, This inner monologue (Or really, partial dialogue) Of what my character should say to you Will stay a should And not a would Or can Or must Or will. Alex Valdez
25
Blown Away Charlie Fogarty
26
American Sign Language I A nasty habit I yet don’t pick up Not because it’s wrong but reasons more obscure Just an oily geek I want to romp To this disease might be the cure Oh, for sure But to lure A beast so tall and hard A bit tiny grand A greasy swollen gland… Limbo will take me A child of some revolution Momma knew religion wouldn’t set me free So I chime and slime Down a slide of impurities Ready to make excuses Snort some pills Do all the things I love to do Plug in under the covers Kicking my legs won’t let me sleep Not Ativan, not Propanalol Will let me LOL Put aside the Paxil It just makes me suicidal So I cut with kitchen knives That only let me survive I guess I’ll get caffeinated, get nicotined While I insist on a gamer with a lisp Romina D’Alessandro
27
Canoeing Amy Zhang
28
Canoeing Amy Zhang
Untitled. Blades of grass and that faint smell you always carried about you like a security blanket. Your whirlpool eyes- always half closed- flecked with gold. The languid, self-assured movementsYou strutted on stage like a lion Slinked off like a tabby cat. Broken water balloons still lay in the yard filled With altered memories. I still see youThereBalanced on the tip of my fingerPirouetting fasterandfasterandfaster. Hands trapped inside the jar, we avoid each other’s eyes Too stubborn to be the first To surrender. A piece of you fell from the sky tonight It does not want to be found. In the dim light, That buried piece glints gold. Caity Croft
29
News Candice Navi
30
andice
doubt I am plagued by doubt. In my head, it swirls round and round Like lost souls in a puddle Each one replaced by another, and another Rippling slowly, struggling against the current of my thoughts. In my heart I feel it also, Stealing quietly as a thief through the crumbling walls. Each passing moment one more piece falls broken on the floor. Despair stretching its ivy fingers through the cracks The unseen breach like waves of thunder Crushing cliffs into sand. If I could, I would sprout wings and fly away Leaving the thief and his souls to the dust. Instead, the tendrils curl tighter round my veins The broken pieces still shattered. They call to me with the lips of the earth News Navi
I whisper, “I am alone.� Erin Landau
31
O lente lente currite noctis equi
1
(from a notebook; 10/19/08 – 6/1/09) 2/28/09 going away thru mirrors, 4/21/09 out of the forest of vultures and skeleton trees, 11/17/08 (where the moon is orange with flames.) 3/17/09 time is nonlinear and reversed: 12/4/08 mirrors reflect starlight endlessly. 6/1/09 i really hate poetry, just so you know. 3/5/09 a storm is coming and i know this because the seagulls know this. 5/6/09 birds don’t brave the night; 2/28/09 angels sleep by beer bottles and awaken near flowers: 4/8/09 an antlered boy rises from slumber in sunflowers. 2/2/09 this is not the best i can do. 10/20/08 ribs smashed, two arms in slings, feathers at his feet: 4/26/09 ikarian aspiration; 4/19/09 drowning birds 10/25/08 (why is my coffee gone?) 5/18/09 feet dangling from earth’s edge, 1 “O run slowly, slowly, horses of the night”
32
5/9/09 i dream of planets not named after roman deities. 3/20/09 we have failed the greeks, 2/7/09 staging nightmares: 11/15/08 let the theater burn! let the theater burn! 10/27/08 a thousand music boxes sing their songs 1/6/09 (dead + gone + invisible.) 1/28/09 i am not what i’m not; i’m not what i am not. goddammit. 4/17/09 free, but haunted, 2/23/09 suffocating in soil beneath a field of clovers. 5/1/09 the wolves have slain the gods. 5/18/09 the mouth of hell spews forth industry. 5/28/09 “Oh, it is excellent
To haue a Giants strength: but it is tyrannous
To vse it like a Giant.”
11/17/08 i have it in my hand. 3/29/09 this whole industrial atlantis, 5/24/09 pristine, naked nature ruined, abandoned urban waste. 11/12/08 through my squinted eyes the oncoming headlights look like fairies. 3/16/09 i am still a child. Elijah J. Petzold
33
It was hell on all of us serving the morning shift at Macy’s. Nothing we’d ever been taught prepared us for what happened on Black Friday. I had one of the safer spots, the register. All I’d have to do would be check the bloated sale sharks out. I got cussed out more than several times being screamed at to go faster. But we all pitied Tim, poor chump. He drew the short straw and had to work the front of the store where all the biggest sales were. Kid must’ve wet himself when he saw the horde nearly break the glass wall separating us from the madness at five thirty. He was a sophomore and we just let him take the suicide mission, none of us were dumb enough to take his place. We knew he’d face the most damage, if he made it out alive. Working next to me were Suzy and Carl. Suzy was trying to be tough, she was our manager and couldn’t let us see her squirm. Strong woman, but only I could see that beneath the marble countertop she was shakin’ in her stilettos. God help us if Suzy couldn’t keep her cool, none of us could’ve. This was the woman that didn’t even flinch once during Saw. It was silent in the store, except Carl quoting bible. Big religious man, he puts all his faith into god.
But there is
no god here today, this isn’t some quiet place for redemption, this is Macy’s. At 6:59, time flowed so slow I could see a bee flap its wings. The animals outside licked their chops with a perverted glee. They knew in a matter of seconds they would get their grubby paws on the prey. The doors opened and the tidal wave crashed on us. Within a matter of 30 seconds, fifteen people were already at my register with countless items. I was in the zone, checking bags fast without even the slightest loss of focus, knowing my fate if I did. I peeked out at the front for an inst and saw that Tim had been swallowed into the void. I couldn’t look back, this happens on Black Friday, we’d mourn him later. This went on for hours. Later in the day it gets worse, because we start to sell out of stuff. I saw two grown women get into an outright brawl over the
War
last Panini maker. I was sweating, and my hands were cut and bruised from rapid credit card swiping. Just a little longer I thought, and this madness would be over. But the worst had just come in. Two racing grandmas riding rascals, the rhinos, as we had called them since their fateful appearance last year zipped in. They were beating people with their canes and using the momentum and holding capacity of the moving chairs to get more stuff than anyone else physically could have. It was frightening and I had nightmares about it that night. dead.
It all ended, at 11 p.m.
I felt like dying, or maybe I was already
Everyone was handling it in their own way.
Carl had his prayers,
Suzy was crying in the arms of her boyfriend, and I don’t even want to know what Tim was doing to deal with what he went through. Me, I went home and spent the night with my best friend Jack Daniels. Black Friday is hell.
34
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35
The Four Shadows Here in mortal eyes, Cursed as we be, Judged as falls and frailties Of humanity. Nevertheless, Fear the wielder, not the weapon. I am poison summoned by trouble, Veiled by jealous rage. I, the new crown, grip the innocent’s fair hair. A scream escapes from her throat. Too late, too late... Our beloved princess is dead. There is a figure in the shadows. A jealous woman, A deserted wife. Fear the wielder, not the weapon. I am the sword that severs ties Reawakens in the form of retribution. A mother who murdered a father, the king. The blade drips crimson. Two figures hide in the shadows. One stays behind in the light. Children who rise to power, Born in a broken household of murder. Fear the wielder, not the weapon. I am the jeweled brooch, Eyewitness to the hideous truth, Bearer of a punishment-turned-crime. The incestuous mother takes her own life. I saw it all.
36
My needle blinds the now knowing son. I am the verdict that succeeds the trial. Three figures lurk in the shadows. A father tries to alter the Fates’ decree Out of fear for his life. A mother marries her own son in her own ignorance. A son is pulled into this vortex of tragedy. Fear the wielder, not the weapon. I am stolen fire, The downfall of a Titan. Was I brought down to this Earth for mankind alone, Or for one’s lust for power? I mark the end of the Golden Age. My descendants are the miseries of the world. Everything outnumbering Hope. Four figures reside in the shadows. A god who takes immediate action once modern science Reaches his own creation. An Ancient who harbors ulterior motives Receives eternal agony and pity. A bereaved brother receives a curse in disguise. A wife opens the curses of the world out of curiosity. Fear the wielder, not the weapon. Fear the wielder, not the weapon. It is the wielder who determines one’s fate. It is the wielder whose mind and memories Can change the lives of many. After all... Are we not human? Karen Kim
37
Quiescence Quiescence. Anarchic tumult whirling, dizzying, coalescing thoughts And souls, and persons, and emotions and beings and lives and Time. All become one, all meaningless but meaningful In their meaningless existence. A maddened dance, no order To be seen, and yet order In that lack of it—a pattern in the patternless. Thrown back crowns, shining stars wave atop them, pale limbs work To frenzy, welcoming the day. The new day, the end of one, the beginning of another Where they meet, where mayhem reigns, where the king has been deposed Here we find quiescence. Listen to their voices raised And trembling. Listen to them warbling, sweet and sharp and high and perfectly off tune. Lend an ear and wait and listen, as they pour their shadowed souls to the shadowed sky. Listen as they wail; listen as they stop. Listen to the end of days; Watch it as it comes. What more can they ask for, these dancers of the morn, What more can they await than what is a moment away? What they wait for they know not—they merely wait. Wait, and dance, and sing and shout Fall and rise and fall again, Tumble eternally round the wheel, pitching underfoot Like the faithful ship bucking ‘neath Her master’s well worn feet They stand and leap and soar and hope, while all the while They’re constantly pitched off, to rise again Or not. Quiescence in the chaos, in the noise; serenity, in that it never shall arrive Always to oppose, always to contest Always to paint the struggle in its very own life Blood—always to wait, and always to know. They dance and sing and shout and wait and rise and fall and laugh And all the time they join and part and life goes on but it doesn’t It continues as it halts For in the never-ending cycle are the moments And the moments are quiescence. Jessica Gold
38
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Gold
39
winter09