Yahara Journal 2004

YA H A R A J O U R N A L

J. Gillis Barbara Sanders Dominic Duffey-Prior

2004

Pernille Schmidt Luke M. Starkey-Williams Lacey M. Moline Kathrin Kohler Rebecca Washecheck Justin Cornille Josh Liss Franco Parisi Jessica Laurent Johanna Christianson Lyndsay Nissen Katherine Olson Steve Hinman Bridget Murphy Susan Hughes Kris Cummings Dwight S. Nodolf K. Johnson-Bair David Cox

YA H A R A J O U R N A L

2004

D E D I C AT E D T O sonja

Yahara Journal Mission Statement The Yahara Journal will support learning and creativity at MATC through the publication of a print journal and the sponsorship of events and activities that facilitate growth in writing and visual arts.

YA H A R A J O U R N A L s t a f f

Editor A.D. Verona Assistant Editors Matthew Greidanus Chandra Osterhaus Editorial Board F.J. Bergmann Katherine Girdaukas Emily Haack Josh Liss K. Johnson-Bair Krissy Motwani Advisors Sonja Hansard-Weiner Doug Kirchberg

On The Cover “Jan and Jesse at Persepolis” by Ken Opin

YA H A R A J O U R N A L t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

11 12 13

J. Gillis Impresario Redemption Sonnets from the Brazilian

15 16 18

Barbara Sanders This is Genocide Today My Eyes are Hanging with Bodies The Girls of Guanabara Bay

23

Dominic Duffey-Prior Untitled

27 29

Pernille Schmidt Growing Up In Response to James Wright

32 36

Luke M. Starkey-Williams Uss3 Untitled

40 41 43

Lacey M. Moline Untitled Look Straight at the Camera Pomander

45

Kathrin Kohler Insomnia

47

Rebecca Washecheck Saint Peter’s Former Employ

51

Justin Cornille Three Hours from Cairo

55 57 58

Josh Liss Hypostasis Don’t Get Caught Up in the Specifics I Just Opened the Book

61

Franco Parisi The Gills

YA H A R A J O U R N A L t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

63

Jessica Laurent Earlier at the Gallery

66 68

Johanna Christianson Magnegation Relative Absolutism

A RT W O R K

10

Lyndsay Nissen Mind and Body Bending

22

Katherine Olson Queen of Pentacles

26

Steve Hinman Balloon

31 46 54

Bridget Murphy Il Battistero, Pisa Occhio, Malta Strade di Perugia

35

Susan Hughes Snarky 1

39

Kris Cummings Untitled

50

Dwight S. Nodolf One Man’s Trash, Another Man’s Treasure

60

K. Johnson-Bair Untitled

65

David Cox Jimmy

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Mind and Body Bending”

By Lyndsay Nissen

10

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Impresario

By J. Gillis

A violin genius asleep on a beach of Barcelona where the adventurer stood salting the seas stains of wine under his feet stains of grass as gardener in a young Versailles he returned to them a strawberry picker In love

11

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Redemption

By J. Gillis

He has lived since jail Signed a lease on donated furniture to find notes of encouragement sixty dollars worth of deli meals and the carpets shampooed

12

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Sonnets from the Brazilian

By J. Gillis

Cold Manhattan streets selling plastic fruit and vitamin capsules Calendar entries vanish without trace only blisters account for them Stirring Job calling “Pick up!

We know you’re there!”

Nada Declarar I remained deaf for the flight from the pressure

13

SONNETS FROM THE BRAZILIAN j. gillis

God’s eyes passed with clouds looking down at them I floated skyfacing with shirt on the sand humming the words I did not know using my sandals as paddles back to shore Within a week, I spoke Portuguese and had mistaken myself – more than once – for a man

14

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

This is Genocide Today

By Barbara Sanders

Lined up along the ridge of a forest path, they are shot from a range of 10 feet or less, tumbled down this small incline, come to rest in a tangle of arms, legs, boots. Bodies jumbled up — skulls, thigh bones, hands, feet sticking out at odd angles — workers use picks and shovels to uncover decomposing corpses, sugary smells of rotting flesh waft through the trees, by end of day dozens of little flags — red for skulls, yellow for hands or feet — are scattered up and down the hillside, flapping in the breeze like babies waving goodbye.

15

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

My Eyes are Hanging with Bodies

By Barbara Sanders

Bergen-Belsen, April 15, 1945.

Bundles of clothing hold together 40,000 emaciated, lice-infested survivors, walking skeletons hardly distinguishable from 10,000 corpses hanging on barbed wire where they’ve crawled. A killing rage, 170 million lives extinguished in the century, more than four times the number sacrificed to war.

Ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Yugoslavia, gassing of Kurds in Iraq, Cambodia’s killing fields, Argentina’s disappeared, peasants of El Salvador and Guatemala, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia. Soldiers wearing necklaces of human eyes and babies’ fingers, women and children wailing.

A radio commentator describes naked bodies neatly stacked up like cord wood, tidy

16

MY EYES ARE HANGING WITH BODIES barbara sanders

piles of gold extractions from teeth, orderly charts to document the extermination, color-coded in tens of thousands — the miracle of satellite technology telling me more of what I don’t understand.

17

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

The Girls of Guanabara Bay

By Barbara Sanders

On the back streets of Brazil the young girls slash their arms, carve on their flesh the record of their brief, turbulent lives, the edges of the sharp new blades, razors with tongues, flitter like gold.

I was alone.

I could do nothing.

I cut myself.

18

T H E G I R L S O F G U A N A B A R A B AY b a r b a r a s a n d e r s

This cut she gives herself when she leaves home at seven this one marks her rape on the streets at 12, and this, at 14 when the shack she lives in collapses in the rains, this child, her name is Soledad, orphaned, abused by her brothers, her innocence tossed away like some carnival gimcrack a man in feathers and sequins might throw from a float We do not think, this will be ugly, this will be beautiful.

19

T H E G I R L S O F G U A N A B A R A B AY b a r b a r a s a n d e r s

Balance so fragile the smallest thing can make her hurt herself, the strongest have the most scars — tiny screaming mouths, a warning: Stay away, I’m not a good girl, anymore.

We suffer together, we cut in anger.

In the shadow of that awesome statue, Christ the Redeemer with outstretched arms — to gather them all in, or let them all fall through — she dips her finger in her own blood and slashes on her arm

20

T H E G I R L S O F G U A N A B A R A B AY b a r b a r a s a n d e r s

this message this cry for help.

I wanted someone to ask if I was O.K.

21

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Queen of Pentacles”

By Katherine Olson

22

YA H A R A J O U R N A L f i c t i o n

Untitled

By Dominic Duffey-Prior

My father almost never talked about the war. That is to say, the Vietnam war. He constantly talks about the current war with Iraq.

I’ve always known that he was in the war. He would mention it every now and then. But he’d never talk about it, he’d never tell stories.

A couple of times during nature shows, if there was a centipede or something like that on camera, he’d say something like, “You know, in Vietnam I saw centipedes as long as your arm.” But that was the end of it.

However, recently he told me a story. It was the first time he had ever told me a story about the war that wasn’t just some information he had learned about the native wildlife. We were in the living room. He was sitting on the brown rocking recliner, which isn’t as comfortable as the green one. I was amusing myself by rolling around in an old arm-powered wheelchair I had purchased from a thrift store for $10.00. Normally he doesn’t talk when the TV is on.

And in our house if someone is in the same room as a TV, that TV is on, even if no one in the room is actually watching it. So it struck

23

UNTITLED dominic duffey-prior

me as somewhat odd when he began to speak in the middle of a program. I think that the program was about tigers, because that’s how he started it. “You know, in Vietnam we probably lost more men to tigers than to the Viet Cong.” This was one of those tidbits of information that he would talk about every now and then. It was one of the rare ones that I had only heard maybe twice before, but I had heard it before. I was about to go back to playing with the wheelchair when he continued.

“In the morning, we could see their tracks in a circle a few feet outside the camp. When we asked the night watch about it, they had seen nothing all night. Sometimes scouts would go out in groups of three. The tigers were less afraid of them in such small numbers, so often two men would come back to tell how the third had been dragged off.

“Tigers weren’t the only thing to give us trouble, though.

Sometimes the monkeys were also problems. One of those groups of three I mentioned earlier came across a whole pack of these monkeys.

The monkeys started to throw things at them. They couldn’t shoot them because it would give away their position. The monkeys kept getting closer until eventually one of them was able to steal a gun from one of the guys. At that point, they decided that they would have to shoot them.

“Another time, we were getting supplies from a helicopter.

After it gave us our supplies it couldn’t take off because of the low air pressure at that altitude. So we had to wait up all night and guard it. Real late into the night we heard a rustling. Normally we would have called in artillery but we were too far away. So we called in a flare instead because they had more of a range and could reach us.

24

UNTITLED dominic duffey-prior

When that flare went off, we saw a bunch of white faces staring at us from the bush. So we opened fire. There was a firefight for about two minutes. We were up and nervous till the morning. When we went to search the bush, we didn’t find a single body. But later in the day, after the helicopter was able to take off, we saw some more white faces looking at us from the trees. We’d been shooting at monkeys all night.”

At this, he smiled.

25

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Balloon”

By Steve Hinman

26

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Growing Up

By Pernille Schmidt

We were afraid of everything.

A door would open somewhere.

A faucet turned on.

A cup set down too hard, and off we were, shaking beneath the moon.

The night seemed darker when we were younger.

The closet seemed bigger and more capable.

But not even a monster could stop our fear from turning into a memory.

The fear of ghosts, monsters and madmen turned into fears of bankruptcy or

27

GROWING UP pernille schmidt

divorce.

Our children know these things are beyond us.

That the monsters can be destroyed by the sound of a mother’s voice.

A ghost disassembled by the flick of a light switch.

But adult fears are beyond our control.

28

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

In Response to James Wright

By Pernille Schmidt

Sunshine dazzles me, so I adjust the brim of the hat, given to me by my grandfather.

His smell lingers on my hand reminds me of summers long ago in Connecticut.

All of the family gathered whenever a new car arrived, bursting with smiles, chaos, joyous cries of summer landing.

Children run towards sandy beaches.

Wagging tails and bronzed bodies.

29

IN RESPONSE TO JAMES WRIGHT pernille schmidt

Those summers are long gone.

The house sold.

After grandma’s death, Connecticut disappeared off our map.

30

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Il Battistero, Pisa” Bridget Murphy

31

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

uss3

By Luke M. Starkey-Williams

uh, feel ingersoll a ound you tease me an get hurry hurry to me sta{questnomatterwhat{ion space ever i please myself

32

USS3 luke m. starkey-williams

myself my almost evention raided so i’m hurting not new things anyone knows loaned to me me me presha cooka ismeme nouned out seem telegraphic{ion} teleologic oat ion, gote, head lawnchair here your hair lists what does sebonic eagle mean? what chirps i’ms at sun gone? but or leaks trail oil spread even lies in wake?

33

USS3 luke m. starkey-williams

i am going to be with you we here their us even, i am with you now amhome frenchcurving irly irly emmorning issed ussth rie am coming again to uss

34

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Snarky 1”

By Susan Hughes

35

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Untitled

By Luke M. Starkey-Williams

when i always judge my face it’s a halftone and reversed negative compressed in a vanmirror vertically and i accept the falsehood of light in the garage so easily you see i can consider where i’m almost leaving they’re clearing the raingutters of leaves and other debris relics{release}from timezero valuing out that’s we’re personthing

36

UNTITLED luke m. starkey-williams

“nick, you owe it to your species to be beautiful” “you have no responsibility to distraction” “infactyouhave the opposite one” {child} and i’m constantly not wrong and bothered left of or missing incorrect by eighty millimeters and howmany grahams werefor shannon when she melted a chocolate chip in her navel how many of his telecasters didn’t i wipe away when i really tried to kiss her ohyeah, once i did. i also stole some of her vodka and mixed it with juice belonging to wesley and went up stairs and drank ocala i was a dumbkid put poorly and lastly, lover oh yes, you are i continue to always be beginning starting over because of … no answer

37

UNTITLED luke m. starkey-williams

just newness learned every other wednesday and fridays til nine a precursor, perpetually in honeybearjars of a crumb ate

38

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Untitled” Kris Cummings

39

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Untitled

By Lacey M. Moline

I set them on fire Like piles of crows, naked in the sun (feathers on a truck to the boa factory).

A prison-break distraction, smoldering in the kitchen amongst the spatula goo and cindered mousetraps.

Like jungle homes of neat little ape families, tearing through banana leaves and sessions of monkey love.

Just like Hitler’s books, combustible typeset ink.

They set me on fire.

40

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Look Straight at the Camera and State Your Full Name

By Lacey M. Moline

The day of auditions Ted Neeley sings “What’s the buzz?

Tell me what’s a-happening” better than the other 12 and lands the role of a lifetime.

The hysterical phone call home: “Mom! I’m the son of God!” and everyone cheers “We knew you could do it,” lying through their teeth, shocked that the lazy eye didn’t hinder his Hollywood goal.

“You’d be a great stage actor.” (no close-ups)

41

L O O K S T R A I G H T AT T H E C A M E R A l a c e y m . m o l i n e

But that voice, As if Freddy Mercury and Geddy Lee procreated, wouldn’t let the lazy-eyed boy go unnoticed.

Maybe J.C. had a physical flaw he had to overcome while saving the world.

It’s possible. After all, he was a superstar.

42

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Pomander

By Lacey M. Moline

On hot summer days when I’m feeling weak against humidity, I like to peel away at the protective flesh, hating the white that wedges under my nails, to get to the segmented citrine that is hiding like a sensitive girl with thick skin, veiling something sweet from the world. And just like when I was four, I pull out and eat the navel first, then devour the fruit not in segments but as an apple letting the sticky juice run down my chin shamelessly, even in the parking lot of the super market surrounded by people my age, acting it. Even at my age I don’t know better, but at least I know I should and I make a still-born decision to start

43

POMANDER lacey m. moline

acting my age and eat more oranges and run every morning and write daily and cut up the Victoria’s Secret credit card and smile more often and finish a pomander this year instead of leaving another one incomplete hanging in my mom’s closet to shrivel up half naked because my finger tips ached after two hundred cloves and I never go back the next day, so like everything I do it is left unfinished and I feel the weight of regret all year.

44

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Insomnia

By Kathrin Kohler

It is thundering.

I paint tribal warfare on my face, light a cigarette and howl.

I dig a trench beneath the kitchen table, crawl in and wait for the sun to sound all clear.

45

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Occhio, Malta”

By Bridget Murphy

46

YA H A R A J O U R N A L f i c t i o n

Saint Peter’s Former Employ

By Rebecca Washecheck

It wasn’t as if I took a very long break. I just stepped out into the Abyss for a moment, and when I came back it was the biggest mess I’d ever seen. I don’t mean to be too vulgar, and if you’re squeamish, you might want to take a moment to think happy thoughts, but by the Holy Light — it was like an explosion. Now, I’d dealt with some messes before. When the Lord was making his universe, and the cosmos, and all the little creatures, there was an awful lot of scrap left over, and quite a few distasteful remnants — especially from the time when he was making “animals.” But this, this was like no mess I had ever seen before.

I knew they’d been having trouble — Lucifer and the Lord, that is — but I had no idea it would have come to that. After he revolted, there were dead souls lying around like petals fallen off of some giant rose. Everyone was gone, of course. Lucifer and his lot had gone off to lick their wounds and brood, and the Lord and his crew were in the Abyss, being shocked. All that was left in Heaven was the aftermath and me, the janitor.

47

SAINT PETERʼS FORMER EMPLOY rebecca washecheck

It was horrifying, really. I was just a janitor, after all, so I didn’t have all the highly evolved emotional senses of the rest of the angels, but I certainly felt the horror. There were shattered souls like broken glass and rents in the clouds so huge that gusts of cold air screamed in from the Abyss. Broken harps lay in great burnt heaps, and Lucifer’s lot had torn an awful lot of wings — feathers gusted around like “tumbleweed” or “trash” does down in the cities of Earth. It was quieter than the Abyss, because there was no wind, and there wasn’t the sheer static sound of nothingness. It was worse than emptiness — it was the sound of a place full of things being extremely quiet.

I had to clean it all up, all by myself. I piled up all those feathers and burned them, and folks say the flames burned so brightly they could see them all the way on Earth, and called it the Star of David — which was nice of them, even though my name is Peter. I planted all the harps, so they’d grow again. I went over all of Heaven with a mop, to deal with the Light — which is what evolved angels bleed, obviously — and then I sat down for a while, and looked at the great expanse of an empty Heaven, rolling into infinity like a great sheet of whipped cream. Without the Lord and his singers, it was an awfully sterile place.

It took me a few centuries to decide how to deal with the bodies. Finally, learning that they turn into a substance very similar to glass over time, I elected to take their remains and turn them into a honorific mosaic. I was going to patch the holes in the floor of Heaven with these glass monuments; but just as I set about to do so, they began to come back — the angels and the Lord, that is — and they were terribly upset at how I’d just left the bodies lying around for “such a long time.” I can’t say as it’s fair, really. Michael took over

48

SAINT PETERʼS FORMER EMPLOY rebecca washecheck

the project and decided the dead souls should be commemorated by turning them into something called “rainbows.” And for my trouble, they demoted me to admissions advisor.

49

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“One Man’s Trash, Another Man’s Treasure”

By Dwight S. Nodolf

50

YA H A R A J O U R N A L f i c t i o n

Three Hours from Cairo

By Justin Cornille

He looked over at Lain. She was sleeping on the seat next to him. Curled up with her head on the car’s oversized window, her dark, leather-brown hair clinging to the glass, arms folded neatly across her chest pushing her breasts together and causing the words “faster pussycat kill kill!” on her shirt to become tangled and compressed. Her shoulder still bore the scar he had given her when they were seven — he pushed her too hard and she fell off the faded red wooden jungle gym onto the gravel underneath. She had taken her shoes off somewhere around Cairo, Illinois, the paint on her toenails chipping but still red in some places.

She hadn’t talked to him for about 150 miles, and he pretended it wasn’t bothering him. Instead, she sat silently, sucking on a few gathered strands of her chin-length hair. “Can’t digest hair,” he had said in an effort to breathe a little levity into the car ride. She had just stared at him with her once-friendly eyes that reminded him of the color of burnt pine — not the black part but the beautiful shade of

51

THREE HOURS FROM CAIRO justin cornille

brown just before the charring. She hadn’t said anything, just turned her back to him and went to sleep.

She shivered a bit, and he covered her with his sweatshirt. She took it without waking and curled into a ball on the seat next to him.

Her movement caused the fabric of her blue jeans to sag and he saw a thin purple band of fabric peer over the top of her oversized belt.

She suddenly opened her eyes and lunged at him, pinning him up against the side of the car. She looked into his eyes, “go like this” she said opening her mouth and looking at the roof. He followed Lain’s instructions and she jammed her finger into his mouth to hold down his tongue. She had bought pop rocks at the last gas station and her fingers still tasted like strawberry. He thought he felt one last pop.

She inspected his mouth. He looked down at her, his head still tilted back. “Sorry. Nightmare. You were full of bugs inside. You can close now.” Before she could pull out her finger, he closed his mouth applying gentle pressure with his teeth. She pulled and he just smiled.

“Open” she said using the same tone she used on his dog. He did and she pulled out her finger. “Close.” He just smiled again. His smile was crooked and displayed a pair of fangs that he had had since birth.

His mother had tried to make him get them filed down but he had refused.

“Still mad?” he asked. She turned around and pressed her back into him. She laid her head on his shoulder “Promise me you’ll never be full of bugs and I’ll call it even,” she said to him with closed eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

She muttered something that he is sure was important and went to sleep. He followed suit shortly after while the melancholic

52

THREE HOURS FROM CAIRO justin cornille

tune drifted out of the radio and into the back of the car like smoke.

“Whenever I’m alone with you … you make me feel like I am whole again … whenever I’m alone with you …”

53

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Strade di Perugia”

By Bridget Murphy

54

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Hypostasis

By Josh Liss

It breathes just below your skin because it can’t stand to be seen outside where the kids on the carousel point and laugh at its pale complexion.

It supports the forty-five stories below you the steel I-beams and concrete bricks iron mesh and rebar, but without form it falls into itself, folding and twisting within its own faceless attributes a false façade whose only purpose is to prop up the last book on the shelf: Gnosticism for Dummies, distinguishing the demiurge from the divine being.

55

H Y P O S TA S I S j o s h l i s s

It cautiously settles to the bottom as the centrifuge slows to a halt like platelets pooling in a white kidney or jaundice from cirrhosis of the liver.

It is dissected by the neurologist who decides the paradox is uneven, that this statement is false, and it continues to unravel.

The alchemist links it to the trinity, to the salt, sulfur, and mercury at the base of the elemental table from which one can create gold or perhaps a human limb.

56

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Donʼt Get Caught Up in the Specifics Because None of This Will Matter in the Morning

By Josh Liss

it’s built that way, two straws and a paper cup holding flowers that bloom only in winter the sparrow flies north toward the sun’s four seasons of melting orange, mint, and thyme and under icy sheets of smooth silk ants carry their prey to underground caverns where carrion beetles taste the flesh of rotting lilies as blue-green magma flows upstream a black and white bear sits up waiting to strike at the undercarriage of a Ford Escort missing one rear tire, propped up on a cinder block and chewing on a pair of bright blue tennis shoes a golden saluki runs from your side to sniff the marks left by a large pink rabbit in heat, it left behind a bottle of whiskey and a hookah the bartender lets out his last call, you wake up to see you’ve spilt your beer and nothing seems to taste right anymore

57

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

I just Opened the Book

By Josh Liss

The set of whole numbers is equinumerous to the set of its squares – Galileo’s Paradox

And there it was standing in a conflicting direction cutting its way to sanity with both ends tapered and a pipe, grey, between its lips.

Shouting obscenities at the passers-by and using its Kung-Fu grip to squeeze out every ounce of patience, coaxing a fight, it always enjoyed a fracas à la mode.

58

I JUST OPENED THE BOOK josh liss

It woke on a tarnished platter, generously caked in Tennessee mud, served with a robust side of sarcasm and one of those wonderful Hostess treats covered in pink coconut.

Barely making a living selling lawn gnomes from its parents’ basement and being compensated for random acts of sciolism it afforded only a ten-page travel guide while plotting an efficient vacation.

They say it once traveled to France, checked itself out at the National Archives, sent a German Shepard into space and even launched the political campaigns of a few barren US senators.

Now it’s found constantly stuttering over pornographic words and its own economic policy, occasionally taking breaks to allow its roots to catch up under the radical of Galileo’s Paradox.

59

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Untitled” K. Johnson-Bair

60

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

The Gills

By Franco Parisi

The gills Open.

Close.

Open.

For if they didn’t I would think it was dead.

It floats.

Motionless.

Isolated.

Alone.

Sitting on my counter staring beyond its plastic limit.

All energy is focused, Hoping there is more to life.

This fish came from wal-mart where it sat on a shelf in a cup of water

61

THE GILLS franco parisi

surrounded by many other cups of water containing fish.

Some actually dead.

All look it.

Before wal-mart I guess it came from a fish factory.

With the purchase came a small canister of food, that will indeed outlast the fish, purple and blue neon rocks made out of condensed plastic, and a small plastic fish bowl.

Knowing this creature has been and will be miserable for all its days makes me want to flush it.

But I don’t.

62

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Earlier at the Gallery I Knew What You Were Thinking About

By Jessica Laurent

So I don’t regret yawning, letting my eyes narrow to accentuate the highlights and shadows of the scene.

Eyes probing the contours, planning the composition.

How might I frame the curve of a back?

What would accent the lamplight glow, the highlight resting on some rough cheek?

Warm brown paper, soft vine charcoal— smooth as gestures of bodies curved about each other, resting endlessly on some rich fabric.

I want to record this moment of silent, pale skin before it walks away.

Varied light waves are hurrying past me, and the few I catch are filtered through Cornea

63

E A R L I E R AT T H E G A L L E R Y j e s s i c a l a u r e n t

Pupil Iris Lens Retina.

Buzzing franticly along intricate highways of optic nerves, taking the chiasmic overpass to a tingling projection — reinverted, and turned with right side back to right.

Lit against the visual cortex in the far back of my head.

But in the very second I divert my stare a negative afterimage will flash and fade, and because I have no pencil, will be lost.

Yet it would be rude, I suppose, to unwrap your arms, abandon your admiring gaze and naked torso — glowing in perfect dim light.

To scurry for a pen and paper, and ask you to hold very still, while I scrutinize your proportions.

64

YA H A R A J O U R N A L a r t w o r k

“Jimmy”

By David Cox

65

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Magnegation

By Johanna Christianson

i didn’t have dinner tonight, perhaps it’s still on the table brown and boring lentils drowning in the cold, neglected broth. or maybe the cats had an early breakfast. i don’t like fighting, somehow it just happens when i walk in the door and forget to ask “how was your day?” before going into my shrieks of “who the fuck left the laundry in the washer overnight!?” i would rather have sex really i would

66

M A G N E G AT I O N j o h a n n a c h r i s t i a n s o n

but the idea of being caressed repels me, almost as if we were the wrong sides of magnets rolling against an invisible ball of ions until finally all we can do is get our sides to touch. i suppose i’m missing some important hormone, or maybe my high school frivolity has left me frigid still, with our sides touching ... your feet between mine playing with my too-long toenails i don’t need sex at all and i rather enjoy being the wrong end of a magnet

67

YA H A R A J O U R N A L p o e t r y

Relative Absolutism

By Johanna Christianson

a fear swept through me yesterday, as i was driving home from class amid the lights and fury of late-from-work drivers. a letter came, addressed to the future Mrs. Ben Whiting ... black monogram of two wedding rings entertwined with a cross. inside was our schedule for marriage counseling: meetings that will provide enlightenment, the determination of our future, a final judgment. i ran through all the details of our relationship ... are we going to make it?

68

R E L AT I V E A B S O L U T I S M j o h a n n a c h r i s t i a n s o n

are we good enough? we fight more often than we should, i’m sure ... (my boss claims that she and her husband have never had a fight ... isn’t that unhealthy?) ... and he hates my best friend, (hated, i should say ... now he says he just really dislikes her, i don’t know why, they’re so much alike ...) ... he thinks i drink too much, i think video games are rotting his brain. we live like siblings, best friends, and lovers, (not nearly as often as we should, i’m sure ...) but my worst fear is of the day my pastor finds out about the pentacle tattooed over my fiance’s heart, and about his opinion that Jesus was the best BSer that this world has ever seen ... aside from the Pope of course. relativism, the belief that all points of view are equally valid. a puzzling philosophy ... one that we all wish could be true. that’s why i’m a relative absolutist, (absolute relativist?),

69

R E L AT I V E A B S O L U T I S M j o h a n n a c h r i s t i a n s o n

my theory being “i’m right, and you’re right ... but we’re going to do it my way anyhow.” that’s what i’ll say to my pastor ... i’ll agree when he says it would be best for us to think about our future more before we decide to marry, and I’ll say “OK” ... and take Ben to Las Vegas.

70

YA H A R A J O U R N A L c o n t r i b u t o r s t a t e m e n t s

Johanna Christianson is finishing her liberal studies degree at MATC and will transfer to UW-Madison in the fall. She plans to major in anthropology. Her extra time is spent curled up with her two cats and a good book. She says she enjoys writing and drawing and hopes to somehow integrate them into her career.

Justin Cornille is in his second semester in MATC’s college transfer program. Upon completion, he looks forward to transferring to “somewhere” and majoring in “something.” He then plans on getting a cushy desk job, perhaps in a customs house, so that he can still write during the down time. His hobbies include writing, cooking things on the grill, and driving around listening to his iPod since his car radio is shot.

David Cox is a graphic design student at MATC. He has always had an interest in illustration and hopes to have a career in that field someday soon. Some of his interests include music, films and playing with his son.

Kris Cummings plans to enter the graphic design program at MATC. She graduated from UW-Eau Claire in December with a degree in illustration, and hopes to become a freelance illustrator or a graphic artist.

Dominic Duffey-Prior is a second semester liberal arts student at MATC who is considering entering the culinary arts program. He writes as a hobby, focusing mainly on sci-fi and fantasy.

72

YA H A R A J O U R N A L c o n t r i b u t o r s t a t e m e n t s

J. Gillis. Seeks companion for wining, dining, and spiritual fulfillment. Literate, well-grounded, enjoys being critcal of cinema, cries while watching modern dance. Attending UW-Madison in the fall.

I can recite Pi with accuracy to the 106th place. Smokers need not apply.

Steve Hinman is enrolled in the programmer/analyst program and is in his last semester at MATC. Susan Hughes is a graphic design student at MATC. She is a returning student after beginning her retirement from being a musician. She aspires to be a visual artist and enjoys the creative potential of all art forms. Her other interests include music and computers.

K. Johnson-Bair lives and works in Madison, where she attends MATC. Her interests include writing, music, web design and photography.

Kathrin Kohler is a returning student who graduated from MATC. Poetry is but one form of expression she enjoys. Others include painting and woodworking.

Jessica Laurent is an art major at the University of WisconsinMadison. She is taking poetry classes at MATC in order to pursue her interest in writing. She hopes to eventually incorporate her writing into her art and has started to work some of her art into her writing. Publishing a collection of poetry is on her list of things to do before she turns 30.

73

YA H A R A J O U R N A L c o n t r i b u t o r s t a t e m e n t s

Josh Liss is a computer science major at UW-Madison and current student at MATC. He is currently looking for any excuse to combine computer technology, poetry, visual art, politics and philosphy into one large happy medium.

Lacey M. Moline plans to transfer from MATC to a school that offers a nurse-midwife program. She calls herself a nanny who is addicted to condiments and GameCube. Lacey said she hasn’t been published since she “moved out of my goth phase in seventh grade.”

Bridget Murphy is a student in MATC’s meeting and event management and travel services program. She enjoys travel, photography and reading. Her favorite places to visit are countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. In her photography, she likes to use structural frames in order to convey feeling or emotion.

Lyndsay Nissen is an MATC student who enjoys the fine arts, painting in particular. She said her submission reflects the many things she has learned at MATC, along with the knowledge she has gained about herself.

Dwight S. Nodolf is a freelance photographer and painter and a skateboarding enthusiast. He enjoys urban-focused artwork and social themes in art.

74

YA H A R A J O U R N A L c o n t r i b u t o r s t a t e m e n t s

Katherine Olson is a graduate of UW-Madison and a current MATC student. She first chanced into photography in 1998, and fell in love with the medium. She is particularly fond of long-exposure, low-light photography.

Ken Opin retired two years ago after 21 years as the lobbyist for the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers, where he represented, among others, the faculty and staff at MATC. He is a member of the Democratic National Committee and the city of Madison Planning Commission. Since retirement, Ken has been studying drawing and watercolor at MATC, and through UW continuing education and mini courses.

Franco Parisi wrote, “When I was younger, I used to walk these same streets with a chip on my shoulder. But ever since I plucked my uni-brow, life has been grand. Your mind is only there to interpret what your soul speaks.”

Barbara Sanders is a student at MATC in the Associate Degree Nursing program. Her poetry has been published in The South Carolina Review, Lullwater Review, The MacGuffin Reader, Crazyhorse, Calyx, Mudfish, Peregrine, among others, and in several anthologies.

Pernille Schmidt is a college transfer student at MATC who plans to attend Edgewood College to pursue a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She enjoys writing, but has written more

75

YA H A R A J O U R N A L c o n t r i b u t o r s t a t e m e n t s

short fiction than poetry. Her summers are spent riding on the back of her boyfriend’s Harley-Davidson.

Luke M. Starkey-Williams is a first-year networking and communications student at MATC. He enjoys creative writing, drawing, painting and making music. This is the first time his work has been published. Someday soon, Luke would like to publish a book of his poetry.

Rebecca Washecheck has attended MATC for one year in hopes of transferring to UW-Madison, where she intends to study journalism and romance languages.

She hopes to become a novelist.

76

YA H A R A J O U R N A L i n f o r m a t i o n

How to Submit All students of Madison Area Technical College are welcome to submit literary or visual artwork for consideration. A team of student editors will evaluate the work and decide which submissions will be published. Although the Yahara Journal is published in the spring, students are encouraged to submit work throughout the school year. Work accepted includes short stories, poetry, essays, one-act dramas, photographs, paintings and other illustrations. Written items should not be more than 10 doublespaced typewritten pages. To submit: E-mail items to yaharajournal@matcmadison.edu Drop off items at the MATC Student Life Office, Truax Room 140, Downtown Room D237.

77

YA H A R A J O U R N A L i n f o r m a t i o n

How to Join Staff The Yahara Journal has several student staff positions available. Students are needed to help evaluate and edit items, prepare items for publication, layout and design the publication, maintain the Yahara Journal web site, produce a newsletter, help coordinate writing groups, and assist with readings and other events. Staff applications are available at the MATC Student Life Office, Truax Room 140 and Downtown Room D237.

For more information, call (608) 246-6576 or e-mail us at yaharajournal@matcmadison.edu. http://matcmadison.edu/studentlife/yaharajournal

78

YA H A R A J O U R N A L s c h o l a r s h i p

Yahara Journal Fine Arts Scholarship In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the Yahara Journal staff is working with the MATC Foundation to establish the Yahara Journal Fine Arts Scholarship.

The hope is that eventually the scholarship account will grow large enough to award two $300.00 scholarships each year – one for a student taking creative writing courses and one for a student taking art courses.

To make a gift to the scholarship account, mail a check or money order to: MATC Foundation Attn: Yahara Journal Fine Arts Scholarship 3550 Anderson St. Madison, WI 53704-2599 Make checks payable to the MATC Foundation. Please indicate on the check that the donation should go toward the Yahara Journal Fine Arts Scholarship. Provide your name, address, city, state and zip code so we can send you an acknowledgement of this tax-deductible gift for your records.

All donors will be acknowledged in next year’s edition of the Yahara Journal, unless they indicate that their gift should remain anonymous.

79

We Would Like to Thank Those Who Have Helped Create A Strong Foundation For The Yahara Journal Over the Past Ten Years Karen Faster John Galligan Eric Schumacher-Rassmusen Doug Kirchberg Sonja Hansard-Weiner Robb Westby Ana Munson Jason Damm Karen Silvers Victor Hammer Greg Hyde Josh Goodman John Stephenson Brenda Walton Jennifer Every Christopher Legel Jessica Miller Kristol Unterseher Robert Michaelis Sarah Jones Devon Cournoyer Laura Miller Max Blaska Wanda Gibbs Sarah Johnson Todd Novak Pat Peyton Robert Toomey Margaret Wild.

Brent Kramer Robert Laib Jay Mominee Ryan Hoven Elisa Derickson Troy Saxe

Nathan J. Comp Stacy Horne Elissa Breitenstein Christine Matthews Lara Klipsch Genia Daniels Andrea Carter Jon Ferris F.J. Bergman Richard Commander Brandy Copeland Tim Mantz Lesley Wolf Kari Steinhilber Mel Wartenberg Alex Andre Dawn Lambert Corey Leisher Dustin Pageloff Tiffany Pope Kathy Smith Joe Vickers Michelle Weidner Jared Kubokawa Jessica Duncan Emily Haack Josh Liss Jennifer Paige Sherie Rakow April Wunderlin

80

YA H A R A J O U R N A L

J. Gillis Barbara Sanders Dominic Duffey-Prior

2004

Pernille Schmidt Luke M. Starkey-Williams Lacey M. Moline Kathrin Kohler Rebecca Washecheck Justin Cornille Josh Liss Franco Parisi Jessica Laurent Johanna Christianson Lyndsay Nissen Katherine Olson Steve Hinman Bridget Murphy Susan Hughes Kris Cummings Dwight S. Nodolf K. Johnson-Bair David Cox