The Wire Harp
Spokane Falls Community College – Two Thousand and Ten – Creative Arts Magazine
2009 – 2010 Wire Harp Staff Literary Editor
Derek Annis
Art Director
Jesse Hansonl
Graphic Advisor
Doug Crabtree
Literary Advisors Laura Read Connie Wasem Literary Staff
Jackie Burns Allyson Cochrane Karie Cooper Louis Gravely Ryan Miller Allen Stover Hannah Faurest Nelson Wicks
Special Thanks
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Richard Baldasty Glen Cosby Connie Johnson Heather McKenzie Neil Nedrow Alexis Nelson Carl Richardson Tammy Santana Erik Sohner Dan Wenger
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Richard Baldasty Awards Richard Baldasty taught philosophy and history at SFCC from 1984-2007, and during his tenure, he was regularly published in this journal and contributed significantly to the arts on our campus. Upon his retirement, The Wire Harp honored the spotlight he shone on poetry by naming this award for him. Each year, The Wire Harp staff selects what we consider the most artistic poem, written by a student and published in this issue, as the literary recipient of the award. And the Graphic Arts staff likewise chooses a student visual artist to honor. Each of these students will receive a $100 prize, as a result of a generous gift from Richard.
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Wire Harp –Table of Contents Richard Baldasty Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Phonebooth –Loretta Surma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Worn – Jessica Harnisfeger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 From the Matinee – Patt Duff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Buildings –Shelly Ann Ruddell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Water Company –Elizabeth Mason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Meshugan – Claire Pflueger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Rose –Ashley “Ashe” Samuels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Ceiling – Marissa Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Untitled –Melisa Fritz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Untitled – Adam Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Gertrude –Alyssa Besenty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Mosque – Aisha Marie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Mr. G-, Teacher of High School Algebra – Ryan Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Atomic Creepachu – James Kathman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 At the Discord – Richard Baldasty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 No Abstraction for Lone Women – Hayley Sims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Untitled – Nikki Freeman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Hook, Line, and Sinker – Dan Caudel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Untitled – Makayla Cavanaugh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Escape – Cody Burns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Black Coffee in a White Porcelain Mug – Louis Gravely. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Branches – Chris Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Valuable Life Lessons – Allyson Cochrane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Tragedy – Tom Versteeg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Untitled – Adam Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dostoevsky’s Devil Birds – Derek Annis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Car Alley – Loretta Surma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Days Past – Samantha Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Untitled – Adam Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
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Wire Harp –Table of Contents Untitled – Loretta Surma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 DC Metro – Leah Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Untitled – Adam Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Barns & Moonrise – David Sams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Expendable – Nikki Freeman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 through the haze – Melisa Fritz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Cinderella’s End – James Gonzales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Eugene – Marissa Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Old Victory Kitchen – Lisa Nilles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Ms. Aire – Patt Duff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Untitled – Makayla Cavanaugh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Thoughts – Samantha Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Tin Can – Jackie Burns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Music [Wo] Man – Keeley L. Ford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Coffee – Jolene Krupke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 My Electrician – Ashley March. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Scrolls – Shauna Dullanty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 My Mother’s Daughter – Sarah Suksdorf-Reiner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Untitled – Shelley Ann Ruddell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Untitled – Ethan Leitner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 To Return – Natalie Lester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Fog – Paula Siok. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Bungoma Falls – Jessica Harnishfeger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Lonely the Rat – Hannah Faurest Nelson Wicks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Chicken Gizzards – Nikki Freeman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 ’nuff said – Nick Tucker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 What’s Inside – JoLynn Morse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Let me introduce you to myselves– Andrea Erpenbach. . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Unbroken – Karie Cooper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The Stage – Derek Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
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Wire Harp –Table of Contents Life – Chris Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Autumn – Shelly Ann Ruddell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Three Birds on a Bench – William A. Winchell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Party for the Dead – Neal Weyrauch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Self-portrait – Claire Pflueger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Bikes Africa – Jessica Harnishfeger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Stay – Andrea Erpenbach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Cul-de-Sac – Derek Annis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Peter Pan – Hannah Bridgeman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 terrible season – Rachel Petek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Careless Caress – Jaymie Moreland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Our Father – Karhonkwison Logan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Poppy – William A. Winchell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 The Frog I Saw Yester-Never – Nick Tucker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Abstract Stairwell – Lisa Nilles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Wing – Jessica Harnishfeger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 The End of the World – Hayley Sims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Veiled Lady – Aisha Marie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Self Portrait – Cody Burns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Nightfall Tree – Neal Weyrauch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Thing-a-ma-jig – James Kathman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Work – Jessica Harnishferger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Untitled – Ethan Leitner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Dillah (Arabic Coffee Pot) – Aisha Marie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Be Still and Know – Shelley Ann Ruddell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Untitled – Aly McInnis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Destiny – James Kathman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Charlies Dock – Chris Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Thanatos – Claire Pflueger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Night Fountain – Greg Ostlie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Lost Time 1, Lost Time 2, Lost Time 3 – Carrie Kunasek. . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Untitled – Paula Siok. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Untitled – Paula Siok. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
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Phonebooth –Loretta Surma
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Worn –Jessica Harnisfeger
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From theMatinee –Patt Duff
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Assumption – Karhonkwison Logan Look at you, White Boy, with your soft and peachy skin and blue eyes As clean and rich and perfect as I will never be Look at those eyes Blue as textured sky with cones of quilted clouds and jet trail rods stretching back into your head and far away Blue as rippling waves with changing intensity and sudden moves because still waters are not really deep Blue with uncertainty like love and like assumption Blue like me and you
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Buildings –ShellyAnnRuddell
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Water Company –ElizabethMason
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Meshugan –Claire Pflueger
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Rose –Ashley “Ashe”Samuels
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The Ceiling –MarissaTaylor His cock filled the condom like a brick He fornicates like he drives, too proud to ask for directions So I sit there and take the fucking like punches in the crotch I thought marriage would mean more than this I thought sex was like entering someone’s soul I thought he’d peel the top of my head off like a hat then dive into my brain I thought this would be more than blood on a white dress I thought sex was an art I thought we’d create something together I thought wrong All I can see is the clock jumping into my vision off the wall Tick-thrust Tick-thrust Tick-thrust I’m going to die here
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Untitled –MelisaFritz
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Untitled –Adam Smith
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Gertrude –AlyssaBesenty
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Mosque –AishaMarie
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Mr.G-,Teacher of HighSchool Algebra –RyanMiller It is to be learned-This cleaving and this burning, But only by the one who Spends out himself again. - Hart Crane
In the field of ashes he teaches children to combust: illuminated by scattered embers, he demonstrates with his own flesh the blurring of body against flame. This is my skeleton he says, producing charred fibulae from beneath the soot, and again as he allows the children to pare back his skin with a glowing coal. Each child reaches to experience the texture of bone: pausing lightly over knuckles, cupping the dome of a knee, tracing the lipless expanse of his mouth. There is no talk of pain; there is no talk of why men and women fall to the ash and remain silent as they burn. What is death but a twinkling he asks, once more pulling blackened bone from the Earth, and the children wonder at flames slowly brightening upon his back.
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Atomic Creepachu –JamesKathman
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At the Discord –RichardBaldasty Wages were good back then, but I should have stolen daddy’s truck and gun. In a redneck town, life plays rough with a changeling unless he can kickbox or climb like spiders up the sanctimonious pillars of the community. I could have robbed the bank, got clean far away. Instead, every Tuesday I raked the funeral home yard— twenty bags bones and leaves—then did night shift as dishwasher at the Cafe Discord. That’s where reality subdivided, revealed a movie screen when they tore out old linoleum from under slot machines. I saw my nightmare projected: a wolf in stilettos carrying malachite bowls of oyster stew on a pink Lucite tray. I felt like shooting flames, flames out ears, nose, anus, fire out all my insides. You know the world. Sometimes that’s what’s left to do.
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No Abstraction for LoneWomen –Hayley Sims Richard Baldasty Poetry Award Winner
She always thought loneliness crossed the street at night over flattened fallen leaves turquoise toxic water, garbage neon reflection. The record shudders under the cold scrape of a needle. The Almost Empty Café hums sine waves of sorrow to the sidewalk bums. A clear coffee mug lifts her maroon sweater sleeve at ten to twelve— sorry, no spare change. She always though loneliness kept DVDs out of their cases lint-balls on the carpet un-matching shoes in the hall bedroom window sweating from the shower Mac n’Cheese renamed “Seven Days a Week.” The coffee pot begged to go to the store if only to ride in the cart. Outside, her navy pumps clicked on the balcony as she gave a hard stare to anyone who would bum a smoke that she didn’t even have.
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Untitled –Nikki Freeman
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Hook,Line, and Sinker –DanCaudel We fish together from a boat on a crystal lake where fish don’t bite. Trees and mountains hang like paintings in the distance. All is silent except the clang of ice cubes in a glass. My father, cross eyed and flush, finds a worm, baits a hook, stirs his drink all with the same fingers. He clears his digits’ toxic drip with a slurp and a lick. He growls with pleasure and casts a line. How many is that? I ask and he slurs, Haven’t caught a single one.
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Untitled –Makayla Cavanaugh
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Escape –Cody Burns
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BlackCoffee in aWhitePorcelainMug –LouisGravely She wears my mother’s face, bare with indifference this morning. I haven’t forgotten how to tie my tie, button my white-collared long-sleeved shirt and polish my black shoes, laid out with the rest of my suit. I gaze headlong into the image I swore wasn’t like my father’s as he too swore so many times before. We both knew I wasn’t meant for much, for this. I plunge the razor deep into hot water loosening the blades soon to begin this descent, lathering my skin—shivering bristles of facial hairs against these pensive blades—their edges against their edges. She’s tapping her fingers, stealthily flashing her eyes back and forth, almost heavy with burden over the draining seconds, for the coffee, this was some ungodly machine: flashing, grinding, brewing and an uprising steam bursting forth curses to foster to render to relinquish that black liquid into the white porcelain mugs.
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Branches –ChrisThompson
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Valuable Life Lessons –AllysonCochrane Number one: don’t drink and dance. Number two: falling makes you learn unless you are an unobservant idiot. Number three: don’t date your ex-boyfriend in jail. Number four: don’t date your best friend’s ex-boyfriend in jail who dumped her to star in a porno. Number five: road trips with a hungry parrot in the backseat asking “are we there yet” require a calm driver. Number six: Harry Potter won’t lend you his cloak of invisibility no matter how many times you write to Hogwarts. Number seven: it’s possible to piss off the postman by writing to a nonexistent address forty-seven times. Number eight: don’t spit in a pool full of body builders if you can’t run. Number nine: Venus flytraps don’t care if it’s a fly or your finger. You can’t reason with them. Number ten: don’t see a doctor with a degree printed by the local nightclub. Number eleven: don’t accept medicinal cookies from a doctor growing the ingredients in his basement. Number twelve: tampons will not in fact stop your boat from sinking. Number thirteen: number 13 should not be uttered when you’re surrounded by superstitious old goats wearing black robes. Number fourteen: don’t sleep in the same bed as someone who watches scary movies and changes the sheets every night. Number fifteen: don’t travel wearing baggy pants and no belt. Holding up your pants by the pockets for twelve hours will force airport security to jump you. Number sixteen: insulting a cook with a rolling pin may be hazardous to your health. Number seventeen: don’t steal a kid’s lollipop if his parents are lawyers. Number eighteen: don’t clean your windows too well if you like birds and don’t like random thuds. Number nineteen: you can’t teach a dead bird how to fly. Number twenty: it’s best to take life with a smile. You’ll live longer.
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Tragedy – Tom Versteeg Consider the shape of fire in the dark, the way all those bright lashings flail westward, then to the north, then straight up out of their stone circle— jagged tongues of heat lunging again and again toward the cool night sky but each time falling back into the char and turmoil of their making.
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Untitled –Adam Smith
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Dostoevsky’s Devil Birds – Derek Annis Tiny red birds stand in the snow around a crater in stone covered earth. We think they are beautiful. The man beside me lets me know these birds are preparing to fight the wolves. There is a spot where the snow has melted, the place where we built our fire. A crowd gathers around as the wolves arrive, the birds take their positions. Hotels and casinos are wheeled in, we cheer for the birds, we want them to win.
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Car Alley – Loretta Surma
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Days Past –SamanthaBrown
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Untitled –Adam Smith
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Untitled –Loretta Surma
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DC Metro – LeahThompson
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Untitled –Adam Smith
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Barns & Moonrise – David Sams
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Expendable –Nikki Freeman
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through the haze –MelisaFritz
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Cinderella’s End –James Gonzales stars infest my prison their rays like steel pins burning doors in the night a star tacks a sexy poster to the wall takes aim against the cobwebs and misses blasts pin-sized holes in the walls stars bleed on my skeleton’s furniture beside my bed there’s a cup of tea that tastes like dust and a book made of skin
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Eugene –Marissa Taylor Prepare for a tie-dye explosion. The people here are like comic book heroes, underdogs, adventurers, and even your occasional homeless performer. Come as you are, traveler. Don’t be scared— we already love you! Just don’t forget to lock your bike up, or it might just roll away with the “wind.” We always have a reason to celebrate. Peace signs litter the streets, and cannabis smoke bleeds into the air. Everyone wants to be mediocre in Eugene.
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OldVictoryKitchen –LisaNilles
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Ms.Aire – Patt Duff
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Untitled –MakaylaCavanaugh
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Thoughts –SamanthaBrown
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Tin Can –Jackie Burns Packed in like sardines, the stench of the masses engulfs me as I await the lurching sensation of movement. All around me is the ebb and flow of conversation. Some words happy, some sad, and some outright offensive. That annoys me the most, trapped within the metal confines of a bus with the foulmouthed fool in the back. I inhale deeply, an attempt to hold my own tongue, and draw within my lungs the cornucopia of humanity. I am assailed with aroma. The woman three rows back has bathed in the cloying scent of roses. The sting of it burns my nose and I wish that I had found a seat farther back. Then again, I would condemn my ears to the profanity of the unintelligent. Words of disgust still spewing from his mouth, the fool is going strong. I close my eyes and imagine a freedom from the crush of travel. There is a dusty road with tall grass on either side. No car has ever traveled this road. There are no people, no sound, and no smell. There is only freedom from civilization. Here I journey by foot without the jostling, complaining, and everyday bustle of a city hard at work. Here I move at my own pace and I am liberated from the obligations of being a good traveling companion. There is no one here watching me, wanting to engage me in conversation, or being obnoxious. It is only my thoughts and me. Finally, there is movement. Like the unwieldy gait of a steel giant, we rumble away from the curb. In a few moments now, I will be free of the pack and press of humanity. I will slip out that peeled back opening and be swallowed whole by the world.
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Music [Wo] Man –Keeley L.Ford
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Coffee –JoleneKrupke
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My Electrician – Ashley March Dirt’s caked onto the hair of your arms that drape around me. Your skin cracks under its dirt and oil. An electric stench drips up my nose. When you laugh, the whiskers from your face rub my head causing wild ringlets to enliven my hair. Not just a pretty face any more. Cigarette smoke lines your clothes from this long day of work and I tell no one you smell terrible, because I wait for hours for that smell. It’s so good that you’re home.
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Scrolls – Shauna Dullanty
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My Mother’s Daughter –Sarah Suksdorf-Reiner after Sharon Olds
After work, before eating I stand at the dirty metal sink dish rag in front of me with soapy water and an old sponge, I scrub to rid the black and white plate of dried cheese, and wash away the chocolate ice cream from the night before, red tomato sauce stuck to the tongs of a fork. Faintly, I remember my mom with the binder propped against her knees laying down on paper, in her sprawling script, a letter to someone I didn’t know. I recall how she taught me to take care of myself, knowing her death wish would come true some day. So when I let the stained glasses soak or use a paper towel like an eraser to wipe up mysterious liquid droplets solidified brown over time, I am doing something I have always done, I am thinking of my well being knowing that no one else will. I try to stay strong, to bind myself to this world.
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Untitled –Shelley Ann Ruddell Richard Baldasty Award Winner
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Untitled – Ethan Leitner
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To Return –Natalie Lester Like a laugh assaulting the air with its sharp cry of divination, you shot yourself into this life. Your face, beaming light upon a current. Your hands, lamps of solitude, curled tight by the uncertain night— pure as the water and the lily, before the torturous travail of men covered the earth and its heritage. Your feet were twin doves, free in their flight before that exodus into this dust of knowledge of which you are now a slave fully acclaimed. I want to remember you as you were—weaving your silent essence through every thought and hour. Before the dawn— yourself, before you existed.
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Fog –Paula Siok
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Bungoma Falls –Jessica Harnishfeger
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Lonely the Rat –Hannah Faurest NelsonWicks Jake always had a problem with Lonely. He thought Lonely might have looked like a big rat that crept and hid and bit. When he graduated high school with a 1.2 but felt like an honors kid because of that scroll all sweaty in his hand, and saw his mom going 60 in her blue-red rust Chevrolet to leave him and this town behind like she’d always wanted to do, Lonely came back. Lonely came surging onto the stage and Jake wasn’t an honors kid anymore, so he dropped to his knees and asked his girlfriend, colored pink and yellow, to marry him. He couldn’t find Lonely in their wheeled tan house with the no-money-down mortgage, especially not when Jake’s wife took off her Salvation Army gown with real imitation Chinese silk, $22.50, lay on the bed and spread her legs and whispered, Let’s have a baby. Light lit up the walls for months and months until his child came from his wife in a rush of water and blood, and Jake imagined that the baby girl clenched her dough fist because she had caught Lonely and he was withering and dying in her palm. Lonely stayed away, scared of baby girl’s desperation and needing and love, until baby girl found herself a woman and didn’t want her father anymore, then Lonely started to sit on Jake’s shoulder again, giggle and hiss whenever baby girl clenched her pearl teeth at him. When he crawled between his wife’s legs and slid inside and she bellowed the neighbor’s orgasmic and velvety name, Lonely grew bigger, bounced on the mattress and cackled until Jake’s ears hurt. Jake took a toothbrush with extra bristles for plaque control and his jeans with baby girl’s shadow blood from when her pink tricycle with fortified plastic wheels from Walmart, $9.99, had crashed and he’d picked her up and her blood and snot and tears and taped her knee back together with her
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Lonely the Rat –Hannah Faurest NelsonWicks favorite Shopper Barbie Band-Aids. Jake put them in a bag and got on a train. Lonely followed him to Alaska, where there was no baby girl or wife or neighbor or mother but only him and snow. He stayed in the cabin, no power no water but all his for the low low price of $5000. After two days with Jake, with northern lights glowing and moose howling and wolves scratching at the window, Lonely disappeared. No one else was around with whom Lonely could mock him.
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Chicken Gizzards –Nikki Freeman
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’nuff said –NickTucker
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What’s Inside –JoLynnMorse Do I secretly hide inside some lace or a knotted cord strung with colored beads which I peek at in between the daily chores? When the baby quietly snores, words pour over reluctant tongue not landing on a page to become sober poetic songs. The dish rag slides soapy opalescent suds across a deserving plate, like a whisk of the paint brush over adolescence. While I twirl to an imaginary tune, the slow rhythm of the broom sweeps the pebbles among the dirt— my dance partner with no feet to trip. While a watched pot never crescendos, a tempo change borrows several stolen beats and holds the measure to call my own. Will that knotted cord if pulled unfold the creative she-wolf or a paper lioness?
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Let me introduce you to myselves – Andrea Erpenbach
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Unbroken –KarieCooper Look at them lost in their velvet blanket of supple oblivious youth unaware of my accidental gaze I spy their sticky cotton candy innocence sweet as ether before it steals your eyes Look how they walk as one blurring the lines of autonomy blood sinuous streams through both finishing the other’s thoughts Look at them reminiscent proof of purity before the heart crush lung removal autopsy before the tongue swords future fury I’m not jealous of spring’s first blissful blush I had a boy with a lion’s mane running wild in a topless mustang I don’t envy their young love soft as rainless clouds I want the unbroken vessel the fearless flower that blooms just once
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The Stage –DerekBrown The red curtains flow down like silk, from the stage lights to the floor. The lighting casts the illusion of rose petals in some eternal sag across the stage. The black piano shines alone on the left, only standing – always meant to be alone, the stool half empty. Organ pipes wrap the sides of the stage with peaks and valleys of tone and harmony. Escapes are labeled exit. The stage floor – old maple, wood top – shines golden among reds, creates regal appearance For these amateur plays.
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Life –Chris Thompson
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Autumn –ShellyAnnRuddell
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ThreeBirds on aBench –William A. Winchell
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Party for the Dead –Neal Weyrauch
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Self-portrait –Claire Pflueger
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Bikes Africa –Jessica Harnishfeger
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Stay –AndreaErpenbach Suppose you never ran away, that you stayed just where they wanted you. Where the night held voices of those dark places we should not know hidden in the cracked eyes of a homeless man holding crushed cans and a picture of a daughter he will never know. Suppose you never took that leap into the space of least desired. Suppose you just left your self here to wither into the women you never wanted to be, rotten from the inside, void of unknown spaces, left to shrivel in the lack of adventure. Suppose you are there on the gapping edge of time, and you stand still, watching the monotony of your life flash shades of grey through your closed eyes blinding you with normality, the idling of your hours filled with obligations of a half lived life. Suppose you never saw these things. Suppose you never ran.
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Cul-de-Sac – DerekAnnis When my sisters Rachel and Selena came to live with my grandparents and me they were four years old, I was twelve. From the time they were born I had always thought of them as my responsibility. I suppose I knew that our mother wouldn’t take on the responsibility, though I didn’t think of it that way at the time. All I knew was I felt like they needed me. As a result we never had any real fights or arguments, and I assured them I would always be there. I did, however, partake in some teasing that I saw as a requirement for older siblings, and had a tendency to drive them crazy some of the time. They found it especially frustrating when I would play the “got your nose” game with them. They would yell at me to give it back and I would hold it between my fingers, toss it into the air, catch it in my mouth and swallow it. Every time they would run crying to our grandmother, who ensured them their noses were still mounted on their faces right between their eyes where they should be. Then she would hunt me down wherever I was hiding, under the basement stairs or down the street. When she found me it was always the same lecture with the same outcome, an apology and the promise it wouldn’t happen again. Another one of my favorite games was to steal the television remote and stand outside the window with it, changing the channel or turning the volume all the way up. They didn’t find out it was me until many years later. With those exceptions we always got along pretty well. We spent a lot of time doing normal little kid stuff, like sledding in the winter. When the snow on our street got packed down we would take out the old wooden sled with red metal runners and all three of us would squeeze onto it. We got so good at steering it, which was a three person job when you factor in weight distribution, that Continued...
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Cul-de-Sac – DerekAnnis
Continued from previous page
we could make it fishtail around the corner into the cul-de-sac. In the summer we would hike around in the woods near our house for entire days. Sometimes it would get dark before we could make our way home. On those occasions I would hold their hands all the way back and do my best to hide my fear, ensuring them that the eyes glowing in the bushes belonged to deer, even though half the time it was coyotes. We were about as close as siblings could be. It was about the time I went to high school that we started drifting apart, or maybe it would be more accurate to say I started drifting away. At any rate, I encountered a whole new social scene, and it just wasn’t cool to hang out with your younger siblings when there was all sorts of booze to drink, and pot and cigarettes to smoke right down the street. When I was home I was either sitting in my bedroom listening to loud music and talking to a girl on the phone, or arguing with my grandparents about why I should be allowed to stay out as late as I wanted. By the time I was fifteen I had had enough. In a display of independence I decided to move out of the house and quit going to school. The four years that followed were a big blur of intoxicated nights and days of begging for change. There were months between phone calls home to ensure my family I was still alive, and I only visited on the holidays. Every time I left again after a holiday meal my sisters looked at me with the same facial expression, an expression of betrayal, an expression that I had seen on their faces only one time before I moved out. It was on a hot summer day, my sisters were wearing brand new matching Sunday dresses. Selena had lost her first tooth and was extremely pleased with herself for it. Our grandparents had just finished up some yard work and had left the empty yard waste
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Cul-de-Sac – DerekAnnis cart at the top of the driveway. The three of us were sitting on the front lawn, bored to death, and the yard waste cart presented me with an opportunity for some entertainment. “You guys want to go for a ride?” I asked. “Um, no thanks,” Rachel replied. “Why not? It’ll be fun!” I exclaimed. “We’re too scared,” said Selena. They had a habit of talking for each other like that, and finishing each other’s sentences. To this day they communicate with some sort of supernatural body language that only twins understand. Sometimes I will be sitting in the kitchen with them and Rachel will start rummaging through the fridge. “Do you want one too?” Rachel will ask me. “One what?” I’ll say. “A smoothie,” Selena will reply. There will have been no prior conversation about making smoothies. I would say they had telepathic powers if I, or they, believed in that sort of thing. Since I was extremely bored I pressed the issue, “Come on, I won’t go very fast. It’ll be really fun!” “What if we crash?” Rachel asked nervously. “I promise I won’t let you crash,” I replied. Satisfied with my promise they climbed into the yard waste cart, getting green grass dust all over their new white dresses. I pushed them down the driveway and into the street. They both giggled wildly and kept asking me to go faster, so I started running. Selena looked back at me, briefly showing off the gap in her teeth with a wide smile.
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Cul-de-Sac – DerekAnnis Continued from previous page
As I made a right turn into the cul-de-sac the right wheel of the cart came off the ground and the whole thing tipped over, catapulting the two girls into the air. My heart jumped up into my throat and lodged itself there, blocking the air from my lungs. My sisters came crashing down, skidding across the asphalt and rolling over the top of one another. They both screamed, tears running down their faces and blood seeping out from their palms, elbows, and knees. They were painted green and red, and black and blue. They both looked up at me with those awful expressions on their faces, Selena screamed at me for both of them, “You promised!”
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Peter Pan –HannahBridgeman “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, … it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” -- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
And you know… that is exactly how we liked it. We were too young to care, too old to be told what to do. Too wild to sit still, too calm to know any better. And damn, we were just too free to ever believe that the world would eventually close in around us. Our lives were filled with concerts and fast cars, drugs, alcohol, girls, boys, and nights that seemed like they would just go on forever. The days were spent in an idle state of excitement, waiting for the night to unfold into its normal state of fever. Waiting to feel that pulse of the music as it ripped though our bodies, seeming to reset our very selves. That is what we lived for, the rush of a Pit, the excitement of a mass of bodies all entranced in the same rapid movement. The thrill of a car ride on a back road, the world zooming by faster than life. Or the high you could get just standing on a cliff overlooking life. Nights sneaking out to the golf course, or smoking pot down by the river. Life was good… no Life was better than good. It was everything we wanted it to be and more. Our parents trusted us, they had no reason to doubt our sincerity. We could get away with murder, everything, all we had to be was anything, because it was just us. But as amazing as those Continued...
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Peter Pan –HannahBridgeman Continued from previous page
summer months seemed, and as wonderful as life was, we all have to grow up some time. And as the air grew colder, and the nights grew longer, it suddenly came to be that the fast-paced, adrenalin-filled life we had come to be so accustomed to, was changing, and so were we. College was in our future, bringing with it frightening words like Jobs, Responsibility, Work. Concerts no longer seemed important, girls and boys, and drugs, all paled in comparison to the new rulers. Like Money, Grades, Future. We grew apart, slowly at first. I’m sure we didn’t mean for it to happen, but when one thing becomes the main focus of your life, all the other things that you thought were so important, sometimes slip. Now we see each other in passing, share a smile, a hug, a hello, or just a nod and we keep walking. Wondering to ourselves, as we walk right by a part of our past, just what happened over a short six month period that pulled us so far apart? What was it that occurred that turned friends into social strangers? Sometimes I feel like life is laughing at me. I never thought I was going to grow up. I was going to be like Peter Pan, I was going to live in this Never Never Land of fast nights and slow days forever. Life was going to have trouble keeping up with me. But now, I’m having trouble keeping up with life. And I wonder what those people, the ones who shared that part of my life with me, I wonder what they are doing right now. What they are thinking. Do they ever miss those nights when we were carefree? Do they ever miss spray painting at midnight with our pulses racing at the thought of being caught? Or just sitting there, watching movies till morning, laughing and eating pizza and candy, making up stories and scenarios? ‘Cause I know I miss it. I’d love to be able to relive those
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Peter Pan –HannahBridgeman summers. I’d love to be able to run my car up to 70 and not worry about getting caught. I’d love to just go back in time and do it all over. Because suddenly, my life has this ordered structure that wasn’t here before. I find myself making schedules, penciling people in because I don’t have enough time for life. I have to set aside time for fun. But when you schedule fun, is it really fun? Fun is spontaneity, getting a call at 5:oo to go to a concert at 6, or walking out of school and deciding not to go home, and just going somewhere. Anywhere. Fun were those nights under the stars, doing silly things like capture the flag, or Boo and Go Back. Laughing and talking and just walking somewhere. That was fun. But now, it’s just entertainment. Now we have to set aside time a week in advance, or it never happens. We have to try so hard just to see a familiar face. I guess what I am so caught up on is that I find that I’ve grown up so suddenly. I look in the mirror and realize I am becoming an adult, and I wasn’t around to see it happen. I still want to be this person who existed in a different time, but I can’t be. Because that person can’t survive here. And I don’t really know if I like who I am now. But I guess, there isn’t much I can do to change it, because it’s who I need to be. And that’s all I can do, just be me and hope life will come full circle eventually. So I suppose all that’s left to do now is say a fond hello to my friends, and say Happy Birthday Peter Pan, it’s time to grow up.
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terrible season –Rachel Petek laugh to see the huddled smokers safe inside an outdoor shelter keeping their bodies warm while they give their lungs cancer I’m looking for you I’m running out of time give me a few years and I’ll be up on the windowsill in the sun with tomatoes avocados and other fruits that don’t age well
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Careless Caress –JaymieMoreland Her hands are bigger than mine. Nails bitten off, cuticles as well. Her hand lies gently on my thigh, slightly squeezing. Her hand pats my leg in time with her laugh. I fail to get the joke. All my thoughts focus on the circular pattern she has traced on my upper thigh. A waterfall on a warm day, conifers mixed in with deciduous trees. The water’s cool. Gentle. The sound of gushing water is drowned by the blood rushing through my head. I ask her, “Do you know what your touch does to me?” She replies, “Oh sorry, didn’t know it bothers you.”
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OurFather –Karhonkwison Logan Our houseboat used to flood each spring on the Sacramento River bank where I was raised. Brought there by fruit crops and fickle Steinbeck summers so my father could find work in the fields, we boys constructed corn cob-blunted arrows to shoot each other with, playing just long enough to feel the cob weaken, exposing a sharp arrowhead underneath. But my father had been strong, so we knew we shouldn’t cry when that arrow finally pierced through, or when my older brother kicked
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OurFather –Karhonkwison Logan our younger asses, or when Dad got Parkinson’s and left for good. But it was the church that drove me from California, from their pious condemnation, unmerciful damnation of the soul that had surrendered. And drove me on black ribbons, first to the bottle, and then to the womb, which cleanses me of that thing I can’t forget. That day at the tree where one burdened bough did swing, my childhood ended and forever extended.
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Poppy –William A. Winchell
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The Frog ISawYester-Never –NickTucker
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Abstract Stairwell – Lisa Nilles
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Wing –Jessica Harnishfeger
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TheEnd of theWorld –Hayley Sims [There is no such thing as solitude, or The fear beginning tomorrow in The White House.] The bone doorbell tints itself orange while the oven slips and falls The spumoni is sleeping with the tea cozy tonight as the calendar rips a page off and bleeds finding its own mortality, finding itself The drapes squish together to hide the window from the world the cabinet nestles its goodies like the fat man on the bus And the carpet smokes every dropped cigarette saying, “really, I should quit, it’s killing me.” If you cry backwards, will you drown? If you turn a highway upside down, is it an overpass? In some old warehouse in the middle of the night analog abominations scream into the ears of the young, “you’re not dead yet so stop killing yourselves” Then the putrid piano croons of lost loves over churning quartz and molten feldspars deep within the Earth In the bathroom of the warehouse locked into a metal stall, Olivia Olivine is hating her name Do snakes commit suicide on train tracks? Where does J.C. Penny go when she needs to buy new clothes?
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TheEnd of theWorld –Hayley Sims However, red bolts of lightning never touch the ground so you’re safe in the boat on the lake but the trout is too scared to paint himself on a plate Mindy stays up to redecorate painting the countertops with nail polish and the woman outside tethered to the tree barks for something she once knew as dignity Olivia is in an attic blowing trumpet wishes a kiss out the vent into the blackened sky We must travel in this volatile time breaking our backs on stairs riding up the quad skiing down “Oh, morning! Mourning!”
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Veiled Lady –Aisha Marie
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Self Portrait –CodyBurns
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Nightfall Tree –Neal Weyrauch
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Thing-a-ma-jig –JamesKathman
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Work –JessicaHarnishferger
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Untitled –Ethan Leitner
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Dillah (ArabicCoffeePot) –Aisha Marie
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Be Still and Know –Shelley AnnRuddell
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Untitled –Aly McInnis
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Destiny –James Kathman
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Charlies Dock –ChrisThompson
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Thanatos –Claire Pflueger
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Night Fountain –Greg Ostlie
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LostTime 1, LostTime 2, LostTime 3 –CarrieKunasek
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Untitled –Paula Siok
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Untitled –Paula Siok
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Spokane Falls Community College – Two Thousand and Ten – Creative Arts Magazine