Phoenix - Fall 1992

.u. L

Arc

ill 1

.T2P3 v. 34 no. 1

1992 cop. 2

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

t\NOXV1LLE

STAFF editor sarah e. lynch

designer kurt zinser

managing editor rachel newton

art editor kerri burke

assistant designer. tanya mytkytka

fiction editor lea noel

non-fiction editor elizabeth w. goza

poetry editor tammi wells \

staff eva atkins bryan baker kerry brewer shelly bible brian a. courtney amygosen claire jantz katherine larabee stephanie levy sarah mckee . k. aisha moon antigone patanizopulos siddharthan ramachandramurthl brian skoloff paige travis emma williams

staff advisors jane pope eric smith

L+\ .:L :I.1P3 VI

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CONTENTS john kontrick untitled

karen miller an old lady exhales

2

12

paul duty untitled

timothy j. maloof untitled

jennifer murrian onion birth 24

frank stimson dawn of spring

3

13

25

1.lindsey garbett steel bridge story

heather steber decomposite into h~aven

hamid babaei untitled

4

14

26

j. ashley jackson untitled

5

sidney setzer leonardo

15

graham higgs half time

26

shane ivy untitled

elizabethYV. goza voo d~o rocket .profile

rok klancnik carpe diem

6

16

27

adrienne mccormick heirloom

george anne boyle writer in the womb

brenan sharp the gould family project

7

18

28

meredyth steitz "in tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you" j.k.

8 alan gratz a generation of dreamers

kev,n fielden security 19 katherine larra"bee enclosure

10

greg noe untitled 10

deana duncan untitled 11

29 anand malik the day the dictionary exploded

30

9 britton blasingame quickness

stacy s. smith brusha brusha brusha

>c!onna . ~oVle if my body was a poem '21

jason gregory untitled

30

hunt clark trapped ' within

steve braski another tweek

22

31

fay I:!oston' ' near drowning

23

a.j. dumsch

as the world turns two cosmic things hump at dawn 32

2

john kontrick

untitled

•

3

UNTITLED

II I

he heat makes people restless. It takes you in its grasp and holds on with a relentless passion that refuses to give up. And that was the way it was on August 25, a Tuesday.

The dust hung heavy in the dry Texas air just outside of Muerte as the sixty-six Ford roared into the dirt lot of Wayne's market.

The driver opened t he door and deliberately planted two black leather boots in the sand.

He stood there for a moment and squinted out towards the Rio Grande. He saw nothing but the heat. The land was barren for an infinity of miles.

He then strode towards the porch. A lizard slithered across the tip of his left boot and he killecl it with his right.

He took the two steps that led to the screen door with ease, stopping only to butt the dust off his boots. The door slowly opened with that familiar sound, the kind you associate with your grandmother's house, and then quickly banged shut with a c1~p. A squaty, bald man of about forty looked up from behind the counter.

"Howdy!" Wayne drawled. It was rare for a customer to show up in the middle of a summer day Like I said, the heat makes people restless. The muscular figure returned the salutation with a hand and Wayne as ed "What can I getcha ya?" The driver, leaning on the c0unter, paused in thought and said he'd like a beef n' cheese and a six pack of Lone Star.

"You got it." Wayne replied as he prepared the sandwich while he made small talk about the chances of A&M going to the Cotton Bowl this year. Wayne wiped his hands on the thighs of his apron and turned around to get the beer as the driver pulled something out of his belt.

He squeezed the trigger once and Wayne's head exploded into the cooler. The driver calmly took his sandwich, but hurriedly walked out the door. He hopped rnto the seat of his blue Mustang, fired the ignition with one turn of the key, and sped off in a trail of dust. The radio blared. The cooler whispered softly across Wayne's body, but the heat still hung outside.

The driver stopped about eighty miles outsiCfe of Muerte at a pay phone that only God knew why was there. He made a call to EI Paso and an old girlfriend . Danielle, I

believe was her name. She was a trashy blonde, but nonetheless was always looking for a good time, and he figured she would be good company for the ride. She had done him wrong in '87 and he had sworn "to teach her a lesson" the next time he saw her. Time had cooled his temper, or so he thought. But the day was getting hotter.

And Texas was in a drought.

He didn't sleep well that night. But it was not his conscience. He had lost that years ago. He just laid on the bed of his Motel Grar:lde room. The air conditioner was broken and he was swe~ting. But what do you expect for twenty dollars a night? Not much. Besides, the desk clerk did not ask any questions, and he did not feel like answering any.

By two o'clock the next day, Danielle was in the passenger seat and the driver was barreling down a deserted stretc~ of highway 275 when she started to mouth . The temperature was 104 and rising. Twenty miles later he slammed on the brakes and got out. The old Ford immediately turned into a pressure cooker when its driving wind ceased and the heat of the barren wasteland hit him square in the face with all the force of a champion boxer. The radio hummed innocuously as he stood on the cracked earth.

The sun assaulted his eyes and they became raw.

Danielle could still be heard . One minute later she was dead. Her boCly lay alone in the ominously quiet heat, caked in a pudd e of blood. Two miles down the road a bead of sweat for ed on the brow of the driver.

He was going to Mexico. The authorities needed to believe he was dead.

If they caught him, he was guaranteed a speedy death up in Austin.

I don't know what happened to him. There was a report that a blue sixty-six Mustang had attempted to jump the Rio Grande, but from Mexico into the United States. The car was found without a driver or any trace of the body.

And no one believed an individual could survive the desert sun.

I have no neยงd to worry about that now. If you ask me, he's dead. But Mexico is getting very, very hot. I believe I am getting restless.

paul duty

โ ข

4

ST E E L

ST O R Y

R ID G

In the cab, with a half-smile, Della awkwar dly makes love.

Wobblin g with his weight on her, holding onto his sweater, she balances herself on the cracked vinyl seat.

A white shadow of a moon floats twenty feet below out of focus. Remade and broken on black waves planets soar-Delia throws acorns at stars.

Larr:v Joe has troubles starting the engine.

Busy witb the defroster, getting the tape turned over, he spirrs the last of the black Jack on the floor.

Yellow headlights cut the dark tr es and brush all down to the water anC!i across to the other side of the river.

Della, can see November stars pulling away.

Standing on a plank and steel bridge leaning into a wheeling wind, Della holds onto steel cables and sways.

Rocking flatfoote d she pushes herself into the bridge hanging up in the limbs of the scaly bark trees.

Highway twenty-seven past Pocahontas is mean the fastest stretch of road for twenty miles every curve banked like a dream.

The railroad lies off to the side and crosses over at the seven mile marker just before the Texaco station store.

Della . . . she loves to hear him say her name.

Della . . . dark hair hangs in her face.

She's watchin g zig-zag patterns on the waves.

She knows exactly where he is beliind her.

The skim along the blacktop Larry humming Della's head resting on his arm.

For awhile, the smooth vibration rocks her then, she comes awake hears the freight train rumble reaches out and touches oblivion.

And on the tail-gate of his yellow Dodge truck under his grandmother's friendship leaf quilt they huddle together laughing. Larry Jo 's hands warm inside her dress; lynx eyed and smiling she traces the line of his jaw.

Frost forms on the windshield. the moon has gone beyond the edge of the earth.

I. linds ey garbe tt

•

5

j. ashley jackson

untitled

•

shayne ivy untitled

•

7

H IRLO

M

In my memory's eye, you sit astride a large horse, spirited, both of you young and still dancing away from a girlhood I imagine.

The letter sent @oes from my apartment, where: I make love on the floor, to tlJe room in the I:touse where you live.

Last week they found you on the floor, far from making love, years since the pieces that made any sense had gone.

Trying to say I am coming there too-I ask if this love will burn off with the rest, or take me there more slowly.

adrienne mccormick

•

8

meredyth steitz "in tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you" j.k .

•

9

A GENERATION OF DREAMERS

"1111

ow about a Generation of Potatoes with an e? You know, like Dan Quayle spells it."

"Potatoes has an e."

"It does?"

"Yes, because you made it pluraL" "Oh." Peyton thought for a moment. "Then what about a Generation of Couch Potatoes?"

"Too cliched," Nicco told him. " Just give up, Peyton."

"Look, Coop, if I can coin the name for our whole generation, I'll be famous. You know--like Hunter S. Thompson called his generation the Generation of Swine.

Gertrude Stein's Lost Generation. The Me Generation, that kind of thing."

"I think those two became famous for a slightly different reason, man. Try writing."

"I'm no good at that. I'll leave that to Nicco."

Nicco smiled, but it was a quiet smile. She was sitting on the floor across from Cooper, who sat cross-legged on the couch. Peyton sat to her right, leaning back against a Lay-Z-Boy. Nicco reached behind her back, groping for her purse. " A little to your left," Coop said.

Nicco searched to the left and found her purse. She dragged it in front of her and fished a half-empty pack of cigarettes out of the murky lake of lipstick, tissues and loose change.

"I had this dream last night, and I can't figure it out," Coop said. "I was wandering around this neighborhood, and I came across this beautiful woman."

"What was she wearing?" Peyton interjected.

"What? Oh, I don't know ."

"Nothing?" " No." Cooper said resolutely.

"She was wearing something, but I don't remember what. All I know is she was really beautiful."

"Women are only naked in your dreams, Peyton," Nicco joked.

Peyton smiled.

"What was her name?" Nicco wanted to know.

"I don't know. Anyway, she was lost, or she was looking for something, so I helped her look for whatever it was.

Then all of a sudden we were in this house, and Peyton,

you were there with us." " Hm, I think I'm starting to like this."

Nicco shushed him and Cooper continued.

"She started to come on to me, and we came up with this plan to meet in one of the back bed roo s so we could be alone ."

Nicco kneed Peyton's leg. "1 think this might actually be turning into one of your dreams, after all."

"But the weird thing is, now that I start to think about it, the house was my grandparents' house. I remember the shaggy, worn, snow white carpeting on the foor and the black and white leopard spots on the bedspread."

"Kinky," Peyton approved.

"So I'm aiting in my grandparents' bedroom, and this girl is in the living room with Peyton. Then she excuses herself to come back to be with me. She's just t the door when Peyt0n calls out to her. 'Don't go in there right now,' he says, 'let Coop take his medicine.' The door is cracked open a little, and I'm looking out into the hall. The girl is stanqing there, just about to open the door; . I can see her silhoue te, but now she doesn't look like the girl in the dream."

"She looks like your grandmother, right?"

Nicco punched Peyton's leg.

"Ow, cut it out. I was just kidding."

Cooper ignored Peyton. He was already lost in the dream.

"The sil ouette looks like this girl I know from work."

Nicco blew a puff of smoke into the air between Cooper and hersel and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. She leaned back, a little less interested in Cooper's dream .

"So I whisper to her through the crack in the door that she had better wait a little while until Peyton doesn't see her come in, only I call her the wrong name. I call her the girl's name from work, because just at that mom nt that's who I'm t hiinking of, because of the silhouette and all."

"I thought you said you didn't know her name," Nicco said, punGtuating her observation with a drag on her cigarette.

"That's the thing--I don't know if I ever did. Ma be I just put that girl from work's name in there because that's who I wanted it to be. I don't know. But she takes off before I ever get p chance to explain to her why I calle her the

alan gratz

•

wrong name. I don't want her to take it the wrong way.

So I sit down on the bed, and I wait for what seems like hours, and then finally she comes in the room and I get up to meet her. Then just as she gets over to me, she slaps the hell out of me."

Nicco grinned.

"Then she turns around and heads right back out the door. I don't think I went after her, because I knew I had screwed up. The best night of my life just got flushed down the toilet because I had the wrong name. I think I woke up right after that, but I felt really bad, like I had missed out on something great."

Cooper sat meditatively in the dim light. Nicco snubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray on the coffee table; "How about, a Generation of Lust?" Peyton said, long since disinterested in Cooper's dream.

Nicco stared at Cooper. He seemed to still be trying to decipher his dream. Nicco had her own theory, one that she thought explained everything. But Cooper had to figure that one out himself.

"Or maybe, the Sex Generation . Or, a Generation of Greed. What do you think, Nicco?"

Nicco blinked and automatically went for another cigarette. As she fumbled with a matchbook she tried to remember what Peyton had' just been talking about.

"What?" she asked, clenching her cigarette between her lips and trying to strike a match.

"A Generation of Greed."

"No, that's the eighties."

"Oh," he said dejectedly. "Well, how about the Prophylactic Generation?"

Nicco wasn't thinking about prophylactics. She was thinking about writing. It had been weeks since she last wrote anything she was happy with, and days since she had written anything at all. She needed inspiration--she needed an idea. She looked up at Cooper. He had his head tilted back on the couch, and he was either staring at the ceiling or had his eyes closed--Nicco couldn't tell which. " I've got one for you, Peyton. How about the Generation of the Blind?"

"Not bad," Peyton mused. "Not bad."

10

QUICKNESS make haste hurry hop over to me i'm alone waiting beneath merciless sheets wrestling with uncaring pillows panting with seatbelt anticipation

britton blasingame

greg noe

untitled

•

11

deana duncan

untitled

•

12

AN OLD

ADY EXHALES

You walk like an old man with a stubborn spirit.

Your shoulders draw up slightly and dangle long, arrogant arms which are limited by frozen, arthritic elbows.

Your legs fight gr.avity patiently - they are hair, skin, muscle, bone.

The active ¡thoug ts that fly behind your mild eyes make you cranky.

I'm an old lady out of breath from a short climb through the past.

I'm just a little bit wiser today; gray hair, gray matter You're the only senility I know.

I'm old and stuck in the tiresome fear that may never leave me.

I rock in my cnair with restless hands and count the creaks I hear from the sad hardwood floor.

We are foolisl;l people, hoarding our savings, ancient and isolated from life, struggling with that bitter fear of death.

So, the old an is afraid of the last day he' ll feel the sun on his back.

He stays inside, behind the tinted-blue windows, watching his beautiful garden waste away.

And the old lady never lays her sleepy head on a pillow in the fear of never waking again.

She writes long letters to her friends at strange hours of the night.

We are silly p,eople, both of us afraid. How funny.

Well, let me tell you what I'm learning as an old lady: We should listen to our heartbeats, not to our hearts between beats.

Old man, notl:ling breathes steadier and survives time better than my full and basic desire to sit with you in the same room, in different armchairs, reading different books, both of us cradled by the sounds of turning pages.

karen miller

•

13

timothy j. maloof untitled

•

14

heather steber decomposition into heaven

•

15

L

ONAR

o

Put the conch to your ear Leonardo can you feel the trade winds astir Will they raise your dark locks up like horns?

In what school <do the mermaids paint?

Will you map the globe, circle in mid-air and return with a flourish in your sequined mantle?

Will you disturo us with lunar vistas and wishing wands?

The bishop t Iked of excommunication for hours you stalked Science about your villa then donning gossamer wings you sailed from the baloony like Icarus.

Will you call up flame from the underworld, humble us with doggerel and sweet flute music, filCld the mass of a proton?

Tell us of the sea LeonardoDark blotches, pirates, their long knives flashing just beyond th mangroves.

sidney setzer

â&#x20AC;˘

16

VOODOO T [I]

here is something familiar in the saying, "Two guys, one cup of Joe, and a Sensitive Rocket", which inspires a number of images associated with the artistry of Voo 000 Rocket. Voo 000 Rocket, or more commonly VOR, is a collaborative effort on the part of Kevin Bradley and James Anderson, two seniors who are currently finishing degrees here at the university. Kevin is working on a double degree in Graphic Design and Painting, while James is earning his degree in Painting. With a desire to learn more about the history and purpose of VOR, I sat down with Kevin and James, and discovered the incredible amount of time and energy that has been spent on this collaboration.

When asked about the origins of VOR, Kevin and James unanimously refer back to visiting artist Michael Bulka.

Bulka was a visiting artist at the university a year ago, and spent some time in the art building working with students.

James recalls being fascinated by Bulka's art and his ability to create pieces from ordinary trash . Bulka's main inspiration is a recycling theme, in that everything can be used in order to create again . Kevin and James were drawn to Bulka's "ideas about breaking with traditions". Kevin recalls being in class during a critique and after showing their paintings Bulka says, "So what, do something else".

This theme of experimentation and breaking with traditions lead to the formation of Voo 000 Rocket, a realm in which there are no bounparies.

17

ROCKET After the birth of Voo 000 Rocket, whose home base is Kevin and James' studio, work was begun in all types of mediums. Although a painting major, James prefers to experiment with different mediums and incorporates them together into his art . Within the VOR there is much room for experimentation and together Kevin and James use painting, sculpture, graphic design, fiction, and anything else they can come up with to create art. Over the past year they have collaborated on several spontaneous"shows" within their studio, and Kevin began work on turning VOR into a self-promotional piece for him and James.

Kevin recalls "pretending it was a real business, because that's what I do, and VOR became a self promotional project for myself and James. It became a way to learn a different aspect of design".

"Art", according to James, "should bring across meaning about the artist, and the environment he works in".

This was probably the foremost goal of VOR, to capture the time Kevin and James have spent working together at the university. As Kevin likes to call it, "VOR is an autobiographical history of our time here" . Although most of the effort into VOR has died down, the spirit of experimentation hasn't. James is currently working on combining fiction and painting in his work, and wants to "refine my painting and sculptures, so that they are more specific about me and what I do". Kevin is busy working on finishing a set of lithographs, working on some typefaces, and painting the perfect Elvis.

elizabeth vv. goza

18

WRITER IN TH

WOMB

I was conceive in the imagination and started as a quote of paper Curled up in the womb it is hard to write without developed I am bound to mother and she feeds me she whispers secrets that I wish to draw I pray I develop before I forget them Sometimes, I kick to find my own space within her She pats my place in her womb In nine months This womb will be too small I will kick until I find a way out my voice will cry it'll be cold out there

â&#x20AC;˘

19

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kevin fielden security

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I

20

katherine larrabee enclosure

21

IF MY

ODY WAS A POEM It would be sweaty and nervous, uncertain where to begin.

Legs crossed? Uncrossed?

Standing up or I~ing down?

If my body was a poem, it would surprise \1ou with unexpected angles, sudden softness.

It would scream where you wished a whisper and blaspheme where you would bow down.

If my body was a poem it would be naked. y~u would turn away, pretend you didn't see, look again.

You would correct its posture, powder its loins, swaddle it in a silken shroud, whispering, "Shh .. :slow down."

It would bolt, my tjody if it was a poem, running on and on and on, exhausted, breathing hard, collapsing prone to your poking and prodding.

You would look for a metaphor in this curve, that winkle, and it would rise scr eaming, "Literally, take me literally!"

donna doyle

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22

hunt clark trapped within

23

fay boston near drowning

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24

o

ION BIR H

Squatting on a milkcrate with fifty pounds of onions in purple mesh leaning against my inner thighs I breathe them in and sort them out rubbing loose skin from yellow meat withered peels flutter fly with the rhythm of my body settle in my hair I cradle each one whole and heavy in my palm exposed onion wetness glistens juice coats my hands with sweet onion s ell and black onion dirt my smell and my dirt the basket fills with round and alive delicious onions ~

jennifer murrian

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25

frank stimson dawn of spring

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26

hamid babaei untitled

LFTIM This indian has cracks in his feet half inch deep Lives on half bowl of rice a day Lost half his brothers and half his sisters at birth Half works at half-assed orticulture Lives in half a home, no roof Doesn't half education Doesn't half rationale Lives his whole life Half as long

graham higgs

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27

c

RPEDI M Before I will write a book She will write me and dismember me into fiction (just like I've existed since now) but - be aware it will happen very silently whisperingly I trust You and promise You that Jesus A. Christ was a woman and didn't die on the cross

rok klancnik

I. lindsey garbett flowers among the tombs

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28

brenan sharp the gould family portrait

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29

BRUSHA

RUSHA BRUSHA

Small animals li",e in my toothbrush-but that's okav.

They sing songs to me while I brush.

They. hide in the black oristles at night and wait for me to come to them each morning ..

I ,hear their screams of tiny delight as I touch the rubber h They sing to the rhythm of my strokes in a language of loss that pulls me .into th~ dee~ plac~ bristl~ยง with them.

Ala! Alo.,ahh! they sin Theirs is a song of dirt reJTloved-of exposure, of white enamel shining like a false limb.

stacy s. smith

โ ข

II I

THE DAY THE DICTIONARY EXPLODED

he process of passivity was seeping in twentieth century mass culture. She was dozing, drugged . . _ by myths and too oppressed to dream. Que sera, sera. What will be, will be. The deadly feeling of powerlessness over her own life was clutching her throat.

She had to look for an antidote. She was a creature of the images of the past. In her kitchen was a black and white kitten teapot with one paw raised for a spout. On her table was a tomato that holds thread. Even the masses did not consider her a women. She was either a doll or a broad.

Chick or tomato. Honey-chile or patootie . There was water in her eyes. All her life she had been sweeping cobwebs. Uma no mimi ni nembutsu. Pouring prayers into horse's ears. She had done everything right, there was nothing left.

One day as dusk fell, the dictionary exploded, brave as winds that brave the sea. Trees began dancing on gusty rivers of wind. Masses rushed to the street. Some looked for dead words, mourning the dead .

For her, it was a key to social revolution. She jumped into the are a. The world is such a boring place. Not to get stagnant, iYou got to make waves. She cut out tne origins and histo of the words. And made living mo ents of them. She hung the fops, wastrels, and the dandies, who were stra gling words. She created new mea mgs, new acts, new passions. She <;reated a new language . She lived with f ree and unfettered imagination. Sh ' tilled the earth anew with her bare hands. She avoided living with a purpose, living for emulation, for edification of her childre . Her life became primitive, complex. The stories in her life no longer had forced endings. They were paradoxes. The stories carried force. Because they were unfinished. Because they were real. All creative work is the un ~onscious, the imagination. Real cannot be falsely control

anand malik

jason gregory untitled

â&#x20AC;˘

Human rationalism imposes an order where none exists.

And so distorts what it sees to what makes sense, to formulate a theory. She had been told that nothing exists without a theory in which you can fit the facts. That was precisely the tragedy of her life. Life simply had to make sense. Perhaps truth is non-connected and non-sense.

Perhaps truth is always a paradox, as it defies our laws of linear logic. Perhaps truth is like a woman, a torch, the more it's shook, it shines .

She found truth in the vigorous exercise of her imagination, unfettered by expectations and conventions. Her lips were moving: I am the young generation, and I have something to say. I am the fly in the ointment. I am the fly on your window display. She didn't like the news. So she went out and made some of her own. In the beginning was the word, a modest beginning to change the world.

MORAL: There are no sane students who have not set fire to a bureaucratic building or to a status-quo school, either in thought or action. I wanna hasten it slow and easy, says a gentle one .

steve bras k-I another tweek

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32

AS THE WORLD TURNS TWO COSMIC THINGS HUMP AT DAWN

"Every time a tree falls, a beast rises in the woods."

This is Tasha caught in a spinning daydream orbit too far out in space to see the snaky jungle stretch of the Amazon River. Tasha is a glowing beauty, a cosmonaut with wide hips but compact frame. Her nation's bureaucracy is p-ying to pass legislation that would bring her back down to earth. The present government is more unstable than the one that rocketed her above the blue cracking ozone. (It's election time so space exploration is low on the prioritized list of things to do.) Tasha hopes to be brought down in time for Christmas: snow, sugared bonbons and wood fire warmth. She had been promised an Easter homecoming but now it's October 31 st and the media is bored with "the little lady in space" and ignores the fact that this waning female celebrity has lived without gravity for 364 days. Tasha's breasts and buttocks have gone flaccid within the closet confines of Space Capsule Eros.

"Every time a tree falls a beast rises in the woods and the lusty armored knight rides out to slay it," Tasha stories to herself. Alone she sighs as a tube of banana puree floats near her head; she swats at it with impatience. Her hunger goes beyond what tropical fruit can satisfy.

Bobby's sitting in a modish john upstairs in a suburban spread in Phoenix. He'd like to crap but a wildly fluctuating diet of red meats and microwave pizzas has compacted his colon. ~e's out of toilet paper and in acute pai and even if a movement occured, he'd be forced to wipe his arse with a glossy page ripped out of the current issue of Gentleman's Quarterly that he's been perusing on the pot.

Bobby's too often morbid these days. He no longer finds paisley amusing. (Sometimes pinstripes on Fridays and always leg garters to hold up his silk socks.) Dull ache is not always indicative of hard labor in one place all day as cashier for a fashionalble men's clothing boutique.

Bobby is a good looker, but he is not looking for love: dreams of Tahsa suffice. The Ylellowed clipping of the heroic woman in free float, helmet in hand, smiles at him from the corner of the bathroom mirror. He's now a little drunk at 3:23 AM. At dawn (which in space is an artificial event created by a buzzing droning out "Awake! Awake! The day is yet young, the battle not won!")

Tasha wakes up with a sweaty heart and her legs {why shave?) secretly squeezing her small foam pillow. Ground control is not aware if this lonely cosmic pelvic grind, this celestial hump at dawn: the geeks in glasses are tilted back in swivel chairs, eyes off the monitors, sipping fresh instant coffee cooled with nondairy creame .

Bobby groans. His sorry tool has all the concrete sogginess of water-logged wood. He is embarrassed that alimentary distress can cause elementary lust. "Down johnny johnny johnny down!" he says and thwacks his tender nuggin with rolled up GO mag. He slowly looks up and, like a shy two year old toddler, avoids contact with her newsprint eyes.

This is Tasha's queer vision of synchronicity: a handsome cavalier in a pinstripe blouse and silk garters is sitting on a porcelain throne, smiling beguiling as he calls out to her. He's not exactly the knight she created to sla~ the beast but lord his words are sweet to hear: Lover, let us touch temples, cool brow to hot nd play at being opposing comets bu ping up together in the dark eternal night.

a.j. dumsch

â&#x20AC;˘

ECTEDWO KS

hamid bababei untitled

th staff would like to express their appreciation to jane pope, eric smith, be tv allen, linda graham, and jason gregory for their patience and support of phoenix.

8inxl0in black and white photo fay boston near drowning

5ftx4ft oil on canvas steve braski another tweek

katherine larrabee enclosure

29.5inx22.5in copyright 1992 by the university of t ~ nnessee. all rights are reserved by tile individual contributors. phoenix i prepared camera-ready by student s aff members and is published twice a y ear. works of art, poetry, fiction and non-fiction are accepted t ty0ughout the academic year. send submissions to phoenix, room .5 communications bldg., 1345 circle, park dr. knoxville, tn 37996-0314. c

watercolor timothy j. maloof untitled

15.75inx17.75in intaglio

$

20inx20in

greg noe untitled

slide of color photo

ink on paper brenan sharp

hunt clark

jason gregory

trapped within

untitled

10ftx12ft mixed media

8inx10in black 路and ,white photo

deana duncan untitled

shayne ivy untitled

36inx45in

11 inx14in

woodcut

black and white photo

kevin fielden

j. ashley jackson

meredyth steitz

security

untitled

"in tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you"-j.k.

8inxl0in black and white photo

slide of color photo

39.5inx40in woodcut

the gould family project

28inx22in linocut and acrylic heather steber decomposition into heaven

8inx11.5in intaglio

rok klancnik 1.lindsey garbett flowers among the tombs

8inxl0in black and white photo

carpe diem

al poem translated from sloven ian john kontrick untitled

9inx7in black and white photo

frank stimson dawn of spring

15inx24in oil on satin

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