EDITOR Leigh Hendry
ART EDITOR Janice Hoole
NON路FICTION EDITOR Patricia Coe
PHOTO EDITOR David Dulaney
FICTION EDITOR Angelyn Bales
POETRY R.D. Leitner Carey Jobe
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Drew Noyes - Business Paul Duning Marc Edwards John Furlow
漏 Copyright 1978, by the University of Tennessee. Rights retained by the individual contributors. Send contributions to Phoenix, Room 5, Communications Bldg., 1340 Circle Park Drive, Knoxville, Tennessee 37916.
Striking Distance fiction by Gory Shockley ............................. 4Futuristic Facilities: design by Ken Cooper............................. 14Portfolio: Michael Tomlinson by Gino Pera .................................... 16 Expressions photos by David Dulaney .......................... 24-
Poetry 3 10 11 12 20 21 22 28 29 30 31 32
Steve Sanders David Ingram Shirley Whitney Kerr Eddie Francisco John Hart John Hart Anne Deaton, Ursula P. Spence, Annie Odom Joe T. Joynes Joe T. Joynes R.D. Leitner, David Ingram David Ingram, Ursula P. Spence .. Anne Deaton Elizabeth Myers, John Rainey
Art/Photography 2 2 5 9 11 13 20 28 29 31 32
Kerry Bowden Kerry Bowden Kirby Shelton Andy Meacham David Hobart Moria Davis Bruce Lustig Bruce Lustig Joe Tabor Bruce Lustig Andy Meacham
Cover-Plastics by Paul Duning Frontispiece by Paul Duning
Kerry Bowden
2
- - - - - - - - - - - - Captain Robert A. Burke Award - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Gary Shockley There was plenty of time. It was still early, just past midnight, and the lounge was dark and warm, almost friendly. Charlie sat by the door and studied the other customers: a bored young couple at the bar, an older, obviously married pair in the back arguing in savage whispers, a drunk at the jukebox with his fingers in the coin return slot. A fat bartender was rinsing out glasses and making halfway effort at conversation with a waitress filing her nails at one end of the bar. Charles found the whole scene immensely satisifying. It was not like the places he had gone to before, the roadside joints and hillbilly taverns, good places to get knifed. He didn't feel ready for anything quite that strong yet. There would be plenty of time for those places. " 'Nother draft, sugar?" said the waitress, startling him. "Yeah, sure," he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. "One more can't hurt." He watched her wa lk back to the bar and wondered vaguely why she bothered him. Charlie Albert, one week free, was a happy man. He had spent the last four years, eight months, and sixteen days in the state penitentary and his freedom still seemed tenuous, a bright toy that someone would snatch away if he did not hold on tight enough. Yet it became more rea l with each passing minute, with each cold beer. And as his new condition grew more real, prison began to fade, just as words like "armed robbery," "deadly weapon," and "incarceration" had faded before, leaving only bars and walls and guards.
"50 many words," he thought, "and so few of them mean anything." "Here you are," said the waitress setting a thickly frosted mug on the table. "That'll be seventy-five cents." Charlie pooled the soggy bills and slippery change on the table and picked out a dollar and two quarters. "Thanks, hon'," he said, handing her the money, almost smiling now. "Thank you, sir!" she said, much friendlier now. "And you come back just as soon as you can. We got happy hour every day, four till seven, two for one. You just ask for Louise, they'll tell you where to find me." He watched her walk away, her long hair flashing and rippling in blonde waves, with a feeling that was a lmost nostalgia. 5he reminded him of so many girls he had known before. It brought back the special songs, the backseat romances, the sharp smell of mingled perfume and sweat. He noticed an unfamiliar warmth in his abdomen, a stretched feelacross the tops of his thighs. Laughing to himself, Charlie decided that there were some things he would never forget. He had had to forget many things in prison. Women and time, more than anything else, were the forbidden subjects, they would put you over the edge. You forgot about days and years and learned to think in terms of minutes: this one and the next. And you learned to lose it all in the sweet death of sleep. However, women were not quite that easy. The ones that could not forget that new wife or old
girlfriend on the outside didn't last long. They either cracked up or blew off steam until somebody cut them open to let it all out at once. Charlie remembered what a face looked like when the blood started leaving through a ragged wound in the throat. He decided that that was one of the things he was going to have to forget. Charlie Albert had made it, though. He had done his time and kept his nose clean and his mouth shut. He had forgotten the things he had to forget and remembered the things he could and learned the things he had to know to survive. He congratulated himself on his survival. Charlie had decided a long time ago that there was something in him worth being, something very lonely and very strong. There was something in him that had grown hard in the last five years, the thing that kept him sane when he woke to darkness and silence in bottomless hours before dawn. He had made it, he was clear and free now and he knew he had all he would ever need resting somewhere deep inside of him. Charlie turned up the full mug and drained it in one
long, groaning gulp. Burping happily, he grabbed the faded jacket from the back of his chair and headed for the door. There was plenty of time for everything. He ran across the littered parking lot to his car, broken glass crunching under his boots. The door opened on the fourth pull, with a protesting scream , and he dropped into the seat without looking, sitting on a safety pin lying open on the driver's side. "Son of a bitch!" he spat, cranking the engine impatiently. After a few prefatory whines the motor rumbled and caught. Charlie eased the gear shift down and turned towards the highway. "This isn't even my car anymore," he thought. He noted with disgust the lipstick stained cigarette butts in the overflowing ashtray, the crumpled tissue on the seat, the bumper sticker plastered on the rear window at a crazy angle. "Just like her to junk up this heap even more with that damn sticker," he said aloud. His voice sounded strange in the empty car and his breath fogged the windshield in front of him. He turned on the radio and found a local station.
Kirby Shelton
5
Charlie noticed the new buildings along the highway, the huge neon signs of the chain stores, the vast expanses of their empty parking lots. None of the songs on the radio were familiar and he did not like many of them. They all had too much string section and saxophone, not enough steel guitar. Looking at the sports cars in a used car lot, he almost slid into the car ahead at a stop light. He checked his watch and found it was almost one o'clock. Charlie knew that his wife would be home from a friend's soon and he was still twenty-five miles from home. He imagined the scene that would inevitably occur if she got home first and was waiting when he came in. What he needed was a good excuse, one that included one harmless beer. The lights of the town were beginning to fade now, the residential areas beginning. Charlie wondered how many wives were waiting up for husbands behind the neatly trimmed hedges on either side of the road. He pressed the accelerator and the car bucked twice and settled into a higher gear. His wife was the sole blot on Charlie's happiness. They were married only six months before Charlie went to jail and she was still a stranger to him. Everyone had expected her to file for divorce while he was in but she had not. In fact, she visited him often, always bringing news of his family and her friends, always pledging love and fidelity, always forgiving him. He came to dread her visits. She had changed in many ways while he was away. She had grown coarser, distant, with none of the terrifying passion that had marked their first months together. Heavier now, she moved with infuriating slowness, as if she feared she would shatter if she hit the sharp corners of the world. He found her watching him while he read the sports page or watched television. At times he wanted to grab her and shake her and scream until she stopped forgiving him and started trying to understand him. But he never said anything and she always turned away, blushing, when he returned her stares. He wondered why she had not divorced him while he was in jail. If the first week was any indication, it might have been better if she had. He had, in truth, begun to think of it himself. He swung the car around a tricky uphill curve, wrestling the road with his arms. The rear of the car slid towards the shoulder, the tires screeching a shrill complaint. He was out in the country now, over halfway home. Charlie knew the road well and knew that there would be little traffic so late. Picking up speed down a small hill, he saw the curve ahead dance into his headlights. He pushed the accelerator to the floor and laughed, knowing he would be asleep by the time she got home.
6
The curve was broad, sloping gently to the right and downward. There would be no need to brake and his speed would sling him into the inside lane for the straight stretch ahead. Charlie kept the car right to the shoulder of the road at the top of the curve to let the road pull the car towards the center. The old car was flying now, the engine singing a tortured, deafening baritone. The right side tires slipped off the road into dry gravel but the tires held and he did not bother to correct them.He had reached the middle of the turn, where he would loosen his grip on the wheel to begin his slide to the other lane, when he saw it. The shadow in the headlights became a noise like thunder and the car shook as the dark shape rose across the hood and hit the windsheild with a flat, sickening roar. The road went dark as the car spun into the other lane, turning crazily through the curve, and into the flat road beyond. It stopped about a hundred yards past the turn, in the wrong lane, facing back towards town. A single headlight shone back into the darkness. Charlie sat in the seat, stunned and dizzy, for a full minute before opening the door and stepping unsteadily into the road. He walked to the front of the car and saw that the headlight on the passenger's side was broken and that the bumper was bent back towards the tire. Broken glass and bits of red and silver paint sparkled back up the road. The windshield was shattered on the right side, the broken glass bending and reflecting the moonlight. Charlie looked back up the road and saw a big lump laying in a spreading pool of darkness. His stomach revolted and in a blinding, burning rush, he vomited on the crushed fender. He lay across the hood and tried to breathe, bitterness coating his mouth and throat. He felt the universe pivot above him and, for a moment, thought he would faint or throw up again. Strangely, he remembered the smiling waitress in the dark, quiet bar. "Louise," he muttered, "they'll tell you where to find me." Charlie staggered back to the car and got in, sitting on the open safety pin for the second time in an hour. He started the car, whipped it in a vicious half circle, and did not start to cry until he was almost a mile away. He drove at top speed until he remembered the broken headlight, then slowed down to within the speed limit. Watching the rearview mirror anxiously, he expected spinning blue lights at any second. His hands were clenched tightly about the steering wheel, fingernails digging into palms. A car came into view heading towards town and he sped up, stifling a sob. He watched as the car's taillights disappeared around a bend.
Charlie suddenly realized that he could not go home, not with beer on his breath and blood all over the car. A wave of panic rose within him and he struggled against it. Another car passed him moving towards town, towards the body in the road. Desperate now, Charlie decided to go to his brother. "Reese will help me," he said aloud, almost a prayer. "Reese will understand." Charlie had always known that to understand, to truly understand, was to forgive. That was why they put you away, because they could not understand what you had done, why you had done it. They kept you in a cage for a few years until they figured it out. then they let you go. But you never got a chance to explain. You never got a chance because you might tell them what they did not want to hear, you might tell them the truth that there was no reason for what you had done, that one night you just felt like holding up a liquor store or getting drunk or killing somebody and you did it. They had to find their own reason for your crime. And if they never understood, if they never forgave you, then you never got out. Charlie signalled carefully and turned off onto an old side road half washed out from the Spring rains. Bare branches laced over the road, shutting out all light except for Charlie's single beam. He drove slowly but still managed to hit almost every chuckhole, each one jolting the old car and sending a violent shock up Charlie's spine. Charlie was almost sure he would go back to prison now, probably for a long time. He remembered a lifer he had known, a pale old man convicted of two brutal murders. His entire body was covered with homemade tattos, pictures of skulls, naked women, knives dripping blood, flags, animals, slogans of every kind. The man had been in prison for almost forty years when Charlie met him, had lived with criminals of every variety for most of his life. He remembered the man's eyes, the faded grey irises that looked as if they too had been tattooed in. Charlie shuddered involuntarily, unexpectedly cold beneath the dark trees. The car eased into the gravel driveway of Reese's home. Charlie turned off the engine and coasted into the open car port. Slipping from the car quietly, he walked to the front door. The house was dark and he worried over whether to ring the bell or go around the back of the house and try to find his brother's bedroom window. Before he could decide the flood lights at the corners of the house blazed on, illuminating the whole area. Instinctively, Charlie ran for the car. "Hold it right there!" he heard Reese shout. someWhere behind him.
"Reese, goddammit, it's me!" he yelled back in a coarse whisper, careful to stand very still. "It's Charlie." He turned his head and saw Reese advancing slowly towards him, a shotgun aimed at Charlie's midsection. Charlie noticed that Reese was dressed in his pajamas, bright red flannel with prints of Model T's on them, and he found it hard not to laugh. He wondered how a man dressed like that could shoot anyone. "Charlie, what in the hell are you doing out prowling around my house at this time of night?" Reese said, finally lowering the gun. "You want me to scatter your ass from here to kingdom come?" "Reese, you got to help me," Charlie began, walking towards him. ''I'm in big trouble. I'll go back to jail if you don't help me." "For Christ's sake, Charlie, hold it down," Reese said, clearly annoyed. "You want to wake up the kids? Now, what's all this about going back to jail? What have you done this time?" "Come over here," Charlie said, gesturing towards the car port. "I banged up my car pretty good." As they moved towards the open garage, Reese cursing softly under his breath, Charlie felt panic rising again. He knew the irrationality of fearing this serious, dull little man but he could not stop. He began to search for a plausible lie. "Charlie," Reese said, turning towards him in the harsh light of the open garage, "you been drinking." "Yeah, but just a little," Charlie said quickly. "A man been in prison five years, he just naturally likes to have him a beer or two to celebrate when he gets out. But I'm not drunk. I swear to you, Reese, that I am not drunk." Reese had lost interest in the confession and was squatting by the ruined right fender. He put his finger to the shattered glass of the headlight and brought something off with it. He rubbed it meditatively between his thumb and forefinger, brought it to his nose and sniffed it. He lowered his hand and looked at Charlie accusingly. "See, I was going around this little left hand turn," Charlie began, his story ready, "and I kind of lost it. Next thing you know-Wham!-there I was in the ditch. Had one hell of a time getting her out, too." "A ditch, my ass," Reese said, rising with difficulty, truly angry now. "There's blood on this fender, Charlie! Did that ditch bleed when you hit it? No Charlie, you run somebody over. All I want to know is who and where so I can march in that house and call the police. Maybe they can get there before he bleeds to death or some other drunken slob comes along and decides to take another crack at him." "Reese, don't!" Charlie pleaded, his voice rising
photo by David Dulaney
7
strangely. "If you call anybody I'll be on the morning train back to that place. You got to help me, I got nobody else to turn to. Reese, I'm your brother! You got to help me." "Yeah," Reese spat, "and whose brother is that lying out there in the middle of the road? Or didn't you think about that? If we get help, right now, he might live." "He's already dead," Charlie lied, unsure. "I went hack and checked. He was too mashed up to live." "Bull. You don't have the guts to go back and look." "Reese, I hit him full on, fast. Look at that car! Are you going to tell me you can hit somebody that hard and they're going to live. No way. There's nothing me or you or the police or anybody else can do for him. He's dead. And so am if you go in that house and pick up the phone." Reese looked at him for along time, as if trying to remember where he had seen this vaguely familiar stranger before. He finally turned and took a crowbar from a tool rack on the wall behind him. He bent and began to pull the crumpled fender away from the tire. "Thank you, Reese!" Charlie rejoiced. "I knew you'd help! I knew you wouldn't .... " "Shut up, damn you!" Reese hissed. "You're going to wake up the whole house!" Very quietly, Charlie apologized. "You know," Reese said, "just by doing this I'm commiting a crime. I'm an accessory to murder." "I won't never tell nobody," Charlie promised. "Hey, Charlie, you reckon they's let us room together in prison? Just like when we were kids, only this time I get the bottom bunk." Charlie turned without answering to look out across the lawn. It glowed strangely in the moonlight, moving with the wind as if stroked by an unseen hand. He had not expected it to be this hard, for Reese to be this angry. He had thought that Reese, of all people would understand, but he had not. No one would understand this time. He turned back to the garage, suddenly afraid of the moving darkness. "Charlie, get over here!" Reese called. "Wipe the blood off the fender while I tape that window." Charlie took a stained rag from a work bench and bent to the fender. He saw dried blood mixed with traces of his own vomit. Wiping the rusty stain with the rag, he felt ill again, cramped and dizzy on the cold cement floor. He stood up and breathed deeply, afraid that he would faint and Reese would call the police while he was unconscious. Reese was leaning across the front seat, one knee bent on the seat, his otherfoot outside the car on the garage floor. He was putting long strips of black electrical tape across the broken window, striping the
8
interior of the car in a horizontal darkness. He bit the last piece off the roll between his teeth and backed out of the car. "Yep, Charlie boy," he said, "you really done it this time. Screwed everything up but good." Charlie looked down at his boots, noticing new scuff marks on the pointed toes. Reese spread a rag under the damaged fender and knocked out the shards of the headlamp with the handle of a screwdriver. Charlie watched the pieces, some red tipped, drop to the cloth. "Here," Reese said, handing Charlie the glass bundled in the cloth, the roll of tape, and the bloody rag. "You take this and get rid of it somewhere. I don't want none of this stuff traced back here, you understand?" Charlie nodded dimly at his armful of junk. Relief and exhaustion, indistinguishable now, shook his body. "Just one more thing," Reese said. "If anybody, anybody at all, comes around here asking about this, I'm telling them everything I know. It's your ass, Charlie, not mine. I'm not the one that killed a man." "Reese," Charlie began, "I know I can never repay you for what you've done tonight ... " "Charlie, you can repay me by never showing your pitiful, tear stained face around here ever again. If you ever come back here again, for anything, I'm going to the cops about this. That's the bargain. Charlie, all right?" "But, Reese," Charlie said softly, disbelieving, ''I'm your brother." "Charlie, you stopped being my brother a long time ago. Now get out of here, I got to go to work in the morning. Besides, just to look at you makes me sick." Charlie watched as Reese turned off the light and waddled across the yard towards the front door. He saw the gun left laying on the work bench and, for a wild second, wanted to grab it, to shoot Reese or himself or both of them. They would find them in the morning, two brothers asleep in the dew soaked grass with the dawn blooming pink above them. The thought made Charlie nauseous. He got back in the car, careful to move the pin this time. The car started on the first try and he backed slowly out of the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Driving down the darkened road, Charlie felt the trees arching above him, a tunnel of shadow and silence to hide in forever. The single headlight searched the road before him but did not even ' bother to dodge the potholes. He slowed as he approached the highway and signalled his turn carefully. Turning to check for traffic, he saw the moon between the lines of tape. It was fat and yellow, racing him to the horizon already far ahead.
Untitled
Intaglio by Andy Meacham
9
Bain-5wiggett Prize
Conventional poetry
To Tutankhamun
You have risen from the Volley of the Kings Where Heh has held you hidden in his heart. Thoth said it would be so; And the journey has been long From Thebes to there, your final resting place, Now wondering in sleep around the world From where Anubis laid you Among the living flowers. You once reveled in the rays of Ra, Speeding like a chariot Across the ageless sky Of the youthful day. Sealed into your tomb of sleep, Your age become a particle of dust As infinity settled down around The cluttered crypt where you loy, Resting in the splendor of your reign, In gold among the lotuses, One hundred thousand times infinity Among the ancient ankhs. Once more token up and well attended In your endless procession For which you were well prepared, Proceeding still in a ceaseless slumber. How would the ancients weep if they could know Tutankhamun, Nebkeperura, Strong of head and wise of heart, Their lord, has given up the ankh. David Ingram
10
Editor's Note: Dear Sir: Enclosed are some poems of mine resulting from having been allowed to (ome back to school to audit courses at no charge, at age 60. This has been a much appreciated opportunity. I have enjoyed Jon Manchip White's Introduction to Writing Poetry. I submit these for your consideration for publication. Shirley Whitney Kerr Class of 1 940
UTK I watch the grave young poets striding by, The solemn lawyers- doctors-yet-to-be, The frisky kids: new teachers who will see Their students re-define both far and high ... Here by the Hill, between the court and sky, They learn the prison-bars of being free, Example furnished by a book, a tree, Strange forms, epiphanies, all askings why.
VILLANELLE UPON AUDITING A COLLEGE COURSE AT AGE 60 I tell myself in time of pain, When social grace eludes my grasp, "Where something is found, there look again." When all my efforts seem but vain And all that I can do is grope, I tell myself in time of pain, "Aloneness works, for now and then "But try for structure, try this group: " "Where something is found, there look again'." New tricks of thought for mouth and pen May be developed with new grist, I tell myself in time of pain. Though youths may far outstrip this brain, I can improve my mental grip, I tell myself in time of pain. "Where something is found, there look again."
And I, returning in my latter days, Find changes which with pelting force astonish. I dodge the blows of change, or let them fall... Then sight old Ayres, serene in winter haze. I dream the Tower can greet me and admonish: Change? No; old Theophrastus knew them all.
David Hobart
11
THE HUNTER SON For James Dickey and Doug Goddard
Scarcely eight (going on manhood) he stalks the doe with wobbly knees and porting the gross, advances as the wind breathes caution in his ears. Slowly he counts to himself one, two, three, then stops The doe listens raises her eyes gone dark with danger. And though death swarms like gnats around her twitching white toil, she hears no noise, no sound break but that of twigs crocking nervous under hooves.
Sweating, Hair rises on my arms. And crouching in the weeds like The shadow of a frightened snoke I crone my neck stiff to see the face of my hunter son, Slowly darkness slants over him reaches under his eyes now whit in bloodless resurrection.
For they have risen there The dead sons, Have waited for the scent of life To rise escape until now Without a sound They work like dreams To shope the face of my only son. Yet there is no way not to know I am the one. On a stage of pinestraw I have cost him In a role That calls for blood. And now he acts From stillness lifts His arms finds The doe spilling Over in his sights Soon to hear the thunder of a clop Unless--
I raise my lens Fire A still life Shot to save Us both And he is left Standing On a land escaped As the doe Bounds away With a shudder And a click.
Eddie Francisco
12
Hell-Hound
Lithograph by Maria Davis
13
U
t;s
a
~
r--
~ l.L
14
FACI LITI ES---Electro Regional Monitor Ken Cooper, designer and U.T. architecture student, was the jurored winner of the spring 1978 TAAST exhibit. The purpose of this project was to design a Regional Information Center that would bridge the communication gap that exists in automobileoriented cities. The Center's function would encourage and enable people to take full advantage of the opportunities and facilities their of community. The resulting architecture is a completely electronic organism with computer storage for recall of dynamic information and display areas for static information, as well as the full range of electronic communications known to man.
15
by GinaPera
Past the dangling clay mobiles, up the wooden steps and through a short passage lined with intriguing art items, Michael Tomlinson works at his craft. Pottery and hand-blown glassware surround his fiveby-six foot cubbyhole in "The Complex" on 17th Street. A few feet away the windows are dotted with miniature stained glass frames. This local craft and import shop seems an ideal place for one who calls himself a "metal craftsman" to create his works. Tomlinson presently has several pieces on loan to various museums and others have been sold locally and through art galleries across the country. "Specializing in jewelry gives me a great outlet because there are so many different forms to explore," the 31 year-old University of Tennessee graduate explains. "Jewelry's only limitation is its wearability." For his smaller pieces, Tomlinson works directly with the metal, hammering, filing and bending it to achieve the desired form. Woodenhandled, intricately-styled tools are pigeonholed neatly above his work table. "Making something merely pretty or technically superior is not the only function of the artist," he says. "It depends on where the focus of his work is. If it is a superior technique, then it's merely an empty form devoid of significance. It's important to me that visual objects have depth and other associations." The White Elephant
16
Sterling silver
David Dulaney
Pushing blonde shaggy hair from his elfin-like face, Tomlinson skims through dozens of slides of his jewelry. He finds one shot of a necklace. It is a finely detailed gold-shaped black rose-he says it's one of his favorites. "Here," he says, "I tried to combine technique and depth, and embody seductiveness, as well. The sweet and beautiful, yet It s rose ... it's black ... dangerous and intriguing. The colors and forms work together to produce a mysterious effect." Tomlinson believes that art should be more than a mass fusion of shaped lines. When he was working on his master's degree at UT he was instructed to design a "trophy" whose sole function would be to display technique, not theme or meaning. The finished product was a sterling and column-like piece with strong lines and a pose that was almost classical in its severity. Tomlinson says itfulfilled the assignment. But closer inspection shows that is did more than that. There, in the center of this metal mass of form and shape, stands a two-inch finely detailed "white elephant." Contemporary art critics contend that one function of art is to criticize other art. "That's what this does;" the craftsman says, grinning. "That's what I like about it. It's sticking out its tongue and being sarcastic of itself."
Hula Dancer
Sterling silver
17
Now I'm Disappearing
Gold Electroplate
"This piece was constructed to hold a series of pictures of a dying potted plant. It's a comment on tronsciency."
Studies in Anatomy Sterling silver
18
..--~-
..
-..-- ..
"My
artwork
is
a
philosophical comment."
---
Archipelago
Sterling silver and Enamel
19
(untitled) before a storm knoxville is armed with cigarettes and old black men and kids riding their bikes into the wind ... love is some echo fading and life its thunder John Hart
Bruce Lustig
20
l cross the ticn.es onife路 i;t'he' hea t~brain IS awi rid ow f r the dead c ossing str~ i om--ne-any run down b blin~ ~ driving tidal w~ chevys driv1ng tidotwave chevys byblind men_ i am oearlY run down
Quito Beholding you is not your capture nor this image by my bed the temple of a staying spirit and this head upon my breast is just your head, not your heart
THE JOURNEY
You are Free!
My bright skiff drifts upon the wO'''es, In luscious, breezy summer days. I spread my limbs and with a sigh, Enjoy the rocking lullaby.
But, should you let me touch your tears or see within your iris a meadow where your spirit floats upon the dew and, should I open my mouth to echo your laughter because I heard it dancing to an autumn wind
The gale that churns the tranquil air, Soon taunts and curls my moistened hair. My limber sail begins to sway, And transports me across the day. My vessel mounts the soaring swells, And carries me where Neptune dwells. It casts me out into the deep, Where porpoises and dolphins sleep.
You are Mine!
Anne Deaton
As I journey far from land, And sail beyond the sunny sand, I'll plot a course of destiny, And soon I'll find infinity.
Ursula P. Spence
(untitled) Listen, I think I hear a bubbling spring Hidden somewhere in this forest green Look, over by that rock and grove of tree~ I know its there by those damp leaves Just think today a deer may have stood And had a fresh drink in this thick wood A bird may have gained strength for its cheery song Wonder if a small trickle would spur me on?
AnnieOdom
22
'L'hiver n'est jamais qu'une saison'
..
"-'
--
.........- .......,.... ,..
Debra Hawk
23
~~t; ~~~ The Student Art Exhibit The U.T. Art Department had their annual student exhibition in April. Marvin Lowe, professor of printmaking and painting at the University of Indiana was the guest juror for the show. Eight awards and S670.00 in award money was given. Winners of the exhibit were:
Composition with chains Varapoj Suppipat
photos by David Dulaney
School's Out
24
Merit Award - Wendye Claredon
U. T. Book and Supply Store Cash Award
Lady in Green
Anita Johnson
Best in show Juan Rodriquez
"La Ciquena," (On being the Baby)
25
----------------~------~
"Smile"
"Goats"
26
John Litton Purchase Award
U. T. Art
Department
Purchase
Award
Kim Nixon
Carol Haynes
U. T. Art Department Purchase Award
Rechenbach's Purchase Award
"ErrandsJor the King" Paul Scoonover
Conrad Chitwood
27
ERSPECTIVE Dusty silence is the only thing Which now survives within this Hall of glass. The silver faces of each mirror in the vast Expanse of empty hall gaze quietly Across the vacant floor between them and reflect ... Tinkling notes from walnut harpsicords Clash softly with the powdered whine of lords and servants trembling at the Court Of His Most Catholic Majesty Louis XIV King of All of France. Lesser kings wait nervously at doors Which lead into this Hall of Mirrors. They flicker, and are qone. Multicolored maps of war-torn Europe Glisten in the sunlight. Across the conference table Marshal Foch is smiling, while Europe is partitioned With the flicker, of a pen into pretty, perfect pieces Which will breed another war. But wait! Too late. The silent frames have blinked, and they are gone. A little boy is standing at the door, Awestruck to see this silent Hall of glass. He wanders softly, slowly, shyly past These heavy metal frames. He stands tip-toe To gaze into an endless tunnel where Reflections march into an unseen past And obscure future ... Somehow he fails to see The courts of mighty kings and the treaties of the great Which flicker briefly in that endless tunnel and are gone.
Joe T. Jaynes Bruce Lustig
28
Inspiration (Or LacR of It) Inspiration is the stuff of poetsNot perspiration. Work matters little when the head is vacant. To sing a song; to paint a scene; To write a line: All of this is futile when the spirit's absent. What then of "creativity" That's welded to a deadline? "Is it Art, Daddy?" asked the child. I doubt it. Joe T. Jaynes
Joe Tabor
29
Hearing the First Real Look Upon The Bust of Beethoven Those lips of strength that brazen stare, I tap cold brow, in time, explore What thickness deep, what god or more Immortal wind did blow that hair? Just he and I, a rhyming pair Alone in library, by that door To learn what metal makes his glare I fear, his doleful sneer what for? I feel that collar thick, it kept him warm, This glove was cold; it's still-cold where we stand. A captain's gaze, effacing sea of storm, I'm blown his way that's mapped past empired land To find that shore (he knows) its rhythm forms With that eternal note-sad truth his pain That fast-paced laugh conceals, our lives he mourns Over and over and over again ... Transcendent shape that must look straight ahead, Will your expressions mold this face and ear? One's motive's echo pounds within my head, My friends the notes leap, dance, and run; I hear That silent sound of grief in beauty melt I feel that movement, Keats, that's seldom felt. Again I turn to him and stare, Again I tap, but hear a roar Of brass that cloaks his themes which wore Eternal woe, his strain lies bare. This library cell, the vokes blare, The books there words are mute and frore; They cast his freedom here fore' er... This mold, man's cadence, we both abhor!
Da capo: I turn young eyes to ears but dumbly look upon, For first of many times, The Bust of Beethoven. R.D.L.
ForMaudie
She was useful in a heinous sort of way. Her folks made her live among the pines And when the company came The men would slip out back And take Maudie for a walk. She couldn't talk But she loved trinkets Or playing with silver watches like a child, But they were only Maudie's for a while. It's maddening for a mute to have to scream. And she never understood the baby, It just sort of fell into her world With a dull thud, sounding like its mama But screaming, screaming, screaming For Maudie.
David Ingram
30
Bees The bumbling bees know no keeper, They bow to the buzzing sun And dance and dance their pagan jig Humming for their honey. They know little of loyalty, Even to their metropolis - mother. Another queen will make it work as well, Christened with the bees' shallow devotion. They will turn upon her when she's barren, Bobbling and babbling to avenge The deadness with deadliness: her daughter Strikes her down spinning in a sting. In the interim the order turns to chaos: A brooding melanoma Inside a buzzing box-Sexless stinging cenobites gone ma d
THE WALK If one walks the narrow road One walks it all alone. If one walks the broader street There's room for friend and foe. As for me, I pick the broader: Heaven it may not beBut it beats the lonely walk Into eternity. Ursula P. Spence
Then back to the arrangements of geometry, The systematic making of honey. Fill the sweetened cups to their brims And disregard the shrouds of tattered wings.
David Ingram
Selves cascading in the anguished mirror of my mental eye convolutions ofa million different me's Shall I pause to make your acquaintance? (of choke you each to death)
Anne Deaton
Bruce Lustig
31
Intaglio
Patrons: The Tennessee Theater
WUOT Rechenbach's
~~
Andy Meacham