Issue 6 ~ Fall 2015
This is the digital edition of Issue 6 of The Big Windows Review , the literary magazine of the WCC Writing Center, Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Visit our website: https://thebigwindowsreview.wordpress.com/ The Big Windows Review accepts poetry and short prose from WCC students, faculty, and staff. Email to tzman@wccnet.edu. Fonts used include Alien Encounters and Arial Narrow. Design and layout by Tom Zimmerman. Copyright Š 2015 the individual authors and artists. The works herein have been chosen for their literary and artistic merit and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Washtenaw Community College, its Board of Trustees, its administration, or its faculty, staff, or students. ~~~~~~
WCC POETRY CLUB Meetings are in the Writing Center, LA 355 Fridays @ 5 pm in Fall & Winter Fridays @ 1 pm in Spring/Summer All Welcome tzman@wccnet.edu http://wccpoetryclub.wordpress.com ~~~~~~
The Huron River Review WCC’s Award-Winning Literary Magazine Seeks Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Artwork, & Photography Open to submissions from September through January hrr@wccnet.edu http://thehuronriverreview.wordpress.com
ISSUE 6 ~ FALL 2015 Edited by Tom Zimmerman Contents—Words Wanda Kay Sanders Ember Plummer Adam Lowis Calvin McMillin Diane M. Laboda Thomas Cudney Derek Li Davon Shackleford Ayowole Oladeji Radek Ozog Sheldon Ferguson Tom Zimmerman Lylanne Musselman Tyler R. Wettig Matthew Hunter Zachary Baker
Jazz and Blues Scream the way technology has ruined me anxiety sensitivity Bellatrix Secular Prophetic Rebuke More Than Meets the Eye Unpleasant Thoughts at Two in the Morning The Rhyme of the Adjacent Mourner Moon Viewing Escape Forgive Rosa Mystica V for . . . Virtuosity? Bloody Vengeance White Dwarf Stars Sparkle Like Diamonds Darkness Falls over the Woods Forest Four Haiku Tetons Journal A Rant against Algebra Good People: Halt! Deliverance Everything Is Normal On How
4 6 12 14 16 18 20 21 22 24 26 28 30 32 33 34 36 37 38 39 42 44 45 46 48 50
Contents—Images Tom Zimmerman Tyler R. Wettig Zachary Baker Adam Lowis
Covers, 9, 31, 40, 41, 47 5 11, 15, 49 10, 17, 25, 35
JAZZ AND BLUES The music starts. Rhythms in waves Through the air As Lady Day sings In a sultry Voice. The pain, Her laugh mix– A life who knows Both. Love and Hate–the joy and Terror seen in Strange Fruit In place of Living flesh. Counted not as Human, any longer If they ever were. Her songs seek to Pluck it, to save The sweet and seeds So more grow to Feed us with Sultry songs again. Blossoms of beauty White and fragrant, The only white this Living song will Embrace, not Forgetting the Fruit. Waves Upon the air
Surrounding the Tree, protecting Each fruit like some Sepia skinned angel. The special assignment Just for them.
Tyler R. Wettig
SCREAM (a) I died that night. Though I couldn’t see The crash–mangled metal, Cracked glass–shattered Shards on wet concrete. You lying in your own Blood, skull exposed. I couldn’t hear then Your last breaths Gurgles and gasps Fighting so hard to come home. Every night now I hear that Sound no music can Cover over and I can’t sleep, Because I keep hoping That you’ll be at the door And I can let you in. You always told me When I was alone at night Lock the screen. I need You to stay safe. And You would rustle my hair– My boyish bob, smiling, Laughing and call Me Kewpie and I Would laugh, let you Take me in your arms. I remember that text. Told me you would be late
Coming home–the rain, the fog so far to drive but it would be Fine cause you would be Careful. I texted you back Please do and I prayed– Lord keep him safe. If I couldn’t ever hear His voice or see his smile again I could not go on. When the doorbell rang I jumped up smiling expecting To see you–ready with a Hug, a kiss, wanting more than Ever to have you hold me. (b) But it wasn’t you this Time, not then, not ever again. I remember I heard a someone Screaming, then only darkness. When I awoke I was not At home. I wondered if It was a dream–the Worst of all nightmares. If I called for you Surely you would come Hold me and tell me You loved me. but there I was– White sterile walls Bleach, ammonia smell, I gasped and threw up. And a nurse came in No hint of smile and Cleaned it all up. Stiff
Sheets so clean and yet My flesh crawled. And then I saw the scars–deep Purple black–ugly on both My wrists. Then I remembered Every pill I had and the butcher Block in our kitchen full Of knives. Those gurgles Those gasps I couldn’t Ever stop them now. And that scream–my Scream. Man-sized copper Boxes and you no fingers in my hair. But Crossed peacefully. No Smile–at least not the One I knew. I heard my mother say How nice a job they had Done, so natural–and I could almost hear you Laugh, men in copper Boxes could never be Natural. Then the gasps (c) And the gurgles and Till at last I saw You once again–laughing Smiling, your fingers in My hair. No gurgles. No gasps. No scream. Not mine or any other. Only you and the Name you gave me
When you held me In your arms.
Tom Zimmerman
Adam Lowis
Zachary Baker
the way technology has ruined me i. i take a selfie. and this is everything i am condensed into pixels on phone screen, a collage of me, i turn my head so my piercings are more visible, wear my hair down, and open my mouth just enough to show front teeth, beaver though they may be, everything that i love. i take a selfie and i create myself again, something i can be proud of. art when my hands are too tired for writing. i take a selfie. i take hundreds of selfies. ii. i edit a selfie. and this is everything i’m not sure i love gone, or invisible but not gone—i do know that my skin is not clear, but i am happy to pretend it is. these are not lies. the most famous portraits do not have acne or dark eye circles, so why should i? when i can be this perfect moment saved forever. brighten, add contrast, remove the too-pink in my cheeks. blur just a little so my hair isn’t frizzy. i edit a selfie until i am exactly who i want to be. iii. i post a selfie. or two, or three, or six— and this is not narcissism.
i post a selfie and friends from around the world can see me. and i become real, to them, to strangers, to myself—this is not narcissism, this is me, reminding my friends that i love them because i’m sending a smile all the way around the world, to Germany, to Belgium, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Norway, New York, California, and back home. where i text my boyfriend a copy because he has been at work for weeks it seems— this is not narcissism. i post a selfie. and i love myself.
anxiety sensitivity lay me down over any beat you can find give me background, give me sound to walk to something to hum when all i hear is whining and whistling and buzz of panic through fingertips. lay me down, give me beats, beatings, heartbeatings change the way my blood flows. change me all the way to blood flow— this isn’t it. not the way my veins supposed to move. not meant to be this loud. pray please quiet down. pray, please, quiet down. be gentle, be tapping, be anxious leg shaking table, be thumb, back and forth, back and forth, gentle, caring, be panic attack reprieve. too much. be bleeding? is that the kind of breathing you need the footstep rush and hum and panic in digits in triple digits in BEAT ME || BEAT ME || BEAT ME one—two—three—
like this. quiet down. i can’t hear my heartbeat.
Zachary Baker
BELLATRIX For you the walls are down. It’s the way, when your voice chimes my name, that I’m dead in the tracks. And that pitch, sweet as nectar of spring’s first clover, resonates to the depths of time. It’s knowing that your hair has been caressed by the breeze of a hundred seas and been infused with the whisper of the beach-break. It’s because you know how to ride, how to answer the tide and have heard the cries of the sinking earth. You and I know the need for change, and know the changeless change. I know your heart is adventure. I know your soul is discovery. I know those roads call out to you. I’ve ever heard them beckoning too. In the dream I can see, in the crossroads of silken sunlight, you and me in a warm symmetry of smiling eyes.
Adam Lowis
SECULAR PROPHETIC REBUKE This side of heaven nothing is visited from the ether. And heaven might be a swindle. Preacher pays no taxes!!! Preacher procures his private plane!!! INSANE! INANE! PROFANE!!!! It is we who must render material unto ethereal. The inverse, PERVERSE!
has shackled us to gods of war, demons of contention, monsters of infantile invention. Evangelical, fanatical, capricious, humonculous anthropomorph that our failings bring forth. It is we who must make substance sublime. He who has ears to hear…should take a glance.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE A Hasbro-Takara Zen Koan Browsing the aisles Of the local Target Mine eye takes notice Of a curious delight —A Transformer made of single, solid piece of plastic. No movable parts And thus manufactured Without the ability To transform. And so, the obvious question arises: If an Optimus Prime toy Cannot change into a truck, Can it rightly be called A Transformer?
UNPLEASANT THOUGHTS AT TWO IN THE MORNING What if Your landlord Hid surveillance cameras In all your smoke detectors And is live streaming The footage Right This Very Second? Sweet Dreams.
THE RHYME OF THE ADJACENT MOURNER (AKA “THE PATH”) I From the day my father was laid to rest, An unexpected ritual was born. For each day since, he’d have a special guest— My mother, who’d come visit him each morn.’ In her black Lincoln Town Car, she would drive— Two miles west and two miles north from the lake. To Westview Cemetery, she’d arrive On a pilgrimage only she could take. Hobbling along the lonely gravel road, She’d tread across the silky summer grass To the grave atop a hill, freshly mowed, There my father lay, finding peace at last. She’d kiss the portrait of her husband’s face And tenderly wipe clean the granite stone. Together in this quiet, sacred space, My mother was never truly alone. II We the children returned at her behest, Assembled in the February cold. All four of us had gone and flown the nest, Children no more, now quickly growing old.
There, we bore witness to such a surprise— A seeming mirage one dare not believe. And yet I saw it with my own two eyes: Mother Nature’s tribute to those who grieve. If one looks back upon the grassy way, From the gravel road to the earthen mound, A makeshift path appears—as plain as day. A testament to love ‘pon hallowed ground. This imprint in the yellow winter earth Trodden every day by her tiny feet Shows us love’s great cost and its greater worth, A path she’ll walk until again they meet.
MOON VIEWING I am a moon viewer, mostly nocturnal, occasionally rising early with the day, needing no amber filter to open my eyes wide to its revisionist glow. I invent stories about how the moon came to be, why it alone circles high seeking clear conversations with the sun’s energy, composing a reflective requiem. I’m enchanted into love with all who gaze upon the blue moon’s grinning face, eclipsed by sentence after sentence of nonsense and grace notes. I rise and fall with tides of emotion, pushed and pulled along the sea bottom, scraped over coral, surviving on motion alone, weaving letters into crescents of sand. I ask the moon on Tuesdays what it sees, viewer-to-moon, moon-to-viewer—how it sees, what it knows endlessly circling, grasping through the dark for love.
I howl at its brilliance, drink of the blood moon and take nourishment from the dark sky behind, healing wounds inflicted by stars.
Adam Lowis
ESCAPE I’ve lived as a farmer, raising cows and pigs and chickens, and the crops to feed them: corn, oats, and alfalfa hay. One needed to be a master mechanic (or know one) to keep all the equipment operational. One also had to be a master meteorologist with particular insight into rain patterns and humidity. Farmers live the weather, drink it in, swallow its benefits, suffer its consequences. Farmers dither. They define the word. Each miscalculation costs real dollars to remedy. And the frustrating part is that the same amount of work has to be done to remove spoiled hay from fields to make way for the next crop. Corn planted too early or late suffers from drowning or drought, oats in head blow flat in a wind storm to the delight of mice and woodchucks and deer. When stalks aren’t strong enough to stand tall again combines have no head for raising the downed. That life and its artificial clockworks take a toll on even the most seasoned agriculturist. Most small farmers just give in or their heirs refuse to follow.
I escaped to life in the city, a “real” job, punching the time clock and living as though the weather had nothing to do with me anymore. Yes, let it rain. Let me hear it on the roof and outside the car windows and divorce its powers. It’s now a joy to watch the grass grow and be cut by the kid next door. Tomatoes and cukes plump overnight. Flowers bloom and burst with colors I’ve never had the time to visit before. Evening light now brings the sweet close to the day. It is not the tired light at the end of haymaking— lasting long into the dewy, dusky evening. And I am now neither tired of its haste nor disappointed in its coming.
FORGIVE Forgive—I swear the word has feathers. It flits about in my consciousness like a hummingbird, buzzing in and out of my mind as if it can’t quite reach the nectar. I know the word has meaning beyond “Please accept my apology” and “I’m so sorry.” I know it’s with grace that one accepts and moves on, but damn, it takes serious work to treat myself the same way. Forgiveness gets buried under layers of deep-seated memories too painful to forget, I-don’t-want-to foot-stomping stubbornness, an insidious need to be in control, a catlike “who, me?” denial of ownership. It’s crowded out by a lifetime of hurt, solidly packed and inexplicable. It’s squashed by the constant need to validate my imperfections, to keep them nourished but hidden within my esteemed self. It’s harder to let go when I’ve got such a tight grip on my creature anima, the one bouncing around, never allowed to float free, see the light of day or polish its face to a luster.
I try to get a handle on forgiveness by keeping it near, in my pocket, but it will not stay put, flexing its wings impatiently, wanting to hide amid the hustle and bustle of truth and consequence. Sometimes I have it in my palm to take a closer look, sitting on its little bird feet. We look at each other, eye-to-eye, briefly assessing each other’s commitment—I always blink first and the word forgive floats off again on its tiny wings.
ROSA MYSTICA Have you ever felt that gentle beauty within, so precious and rare, a glistening jewel, open rose of gold? Yet without fragrance; no worker bees are drawn to gather or carry forth even a drop of its mystic nectar. Like true pearls that can but seldom be told from beads, it remains safeguarded from tradesmen and our designs. The petals all fall down, yet, from the flower of my heart. Shall I sew them to my coat, pile on them my words, or print them? Shall I shut its luster off from all light, or from that of the world? The wellspring does not run dry: love blooms forever, spurned. So let it be that, laid with quiet peace in his living blood. A relic, locked away from the markets, in a chapel on the hill.
Tom Zimmerman
V FOR …VIRTUOSITY? The valorous, voyaging vagabond–vexed by the visitation of this writer’s voluble verbiage–veered his vessel from his vacation and ventured into the vale. Via veneered viewports, the vagabond’s vigil unveiled a vista–the vivid vision of a vibrant vixen vaulting vivaciously through the verdant, viridian valley.
BLOODY VENGEANCE I can’t believe I did it. He’s dead. I killed him. He’s just a bloody, gory smear. I didn’t want to do it, but he pushed me too far–too far! I couldn’t sleep. He drove me insane. He wouldn’t stop. I had enough. I threw a paperweight at him. It connected with an audible clunk then dropped to the floor–utter silence. At last, I had peace and quiet. I left him on the wall and crawled back into bed. Let that body serve as a monument to the sins of mosquitos–at least until tomorrow morning. [Beat] Did I just hear another one?
WHITE DWARF I’ve read about many great men in my life but only one colossus Only now do I understand what this force of nature was: the light in a dark world– Alexander the Great 323 BC the year darkness conquered light And within hours the wars of the world began His presence was like the light of Apollo And through it, his men were better than themselves Men rise and fall like the winter wheat but Alexander’s name will never be forgot ten Find peace my brother
Adam Lowis
STARS SPARKLE LIKE DIAMONDS As the sunset rises early Rays of the light beams Air becomes hotter than lava Trees shedding their leaves Ground is burning so hot People have to find some way To cool their bodies down So they plunge into the Deep icy cool ocean Suddenly it becomes pitch black The sky darkens up As the stars billions of them Light up the sky All shining and sparkling like Diamonds are forever
DARKNESS FALLS OVER THE WOODS Peace and lovely sunny and bright Skies open up over the bare forest Bears, birds, deer, rabbits, and horses Enjoying the warm light of the sun Sounds of the river flowing Through the banks of the rough woods Colors of the rainbow light up The deep blue sky Trees and plants blistering In the after glaze of paradise Hearing the echoes far far Across the southwest All of a sudden Night settles in Slowly and slowly Pitch black Dark as a black cat Covers the whole woods
FOREST silent springs golden leaves have fallen chipmunks run up tress, faster than loud birds howling big trees move in the wind, breath seconds sun light, then shade as clouds, move past the sun.
FOUR HAIKU Moon casts a glow on stony pond from starlit sky ~~~~ Iron spit pig roasts over open roaring fire ~~~~ Yellow butterfly flies up to window I think to myself what a miracle ~~~~ Snow sparkles with a diamond’s gilt on moonlit ground
Tom Zimmerman
Tom Zimmerman
TETONS JOURNAL 1 The Tetons off the balcony, like me, awash in blue-gray haze. I drank an oak-aged IPA at Wolfgang Puck’s in Denver. Read Baudelaire, Detroit to Jackson Hole. I stuck my head inside a teepee. Feel affinities. 2 Snake River rafting, saw bald eagles, ospreys. Great blue heron in a marsh. And ravens everywhere. A bull moose in the brush. Some huckleberry vodka. Stayed astride a horse named Buster. Cowboy sang while rainclouds sat on Mount Moran.
3 That roof in Moose, Wyoming: good for drinking beer. It’s Idaho beyond the eastern slope: the mountains craggy, close, most beautiful I’ve ever seen. The Tetons. First fur traders named them: French for breasts. Gets lonely in the West.
A RANT AGAINST ALGEBRA Algebra, you are problematic using alphabet in place of integers spelling doom for some with D or F, giving A+ power to others who can relate your secret recipes exactly to pi squared, nonsense to those who know pie is round and comfort-filled, flaky but understood, not tough to digest uppity crust like your arithmetic problems: What difference does it make if your sum is more than X, less than N ? It always equals “Why?� Algebra, you are odd. Even your expressions are confusing! Why does math need a box and whisker plot? Sounds more like a mystery novel with a cat who finds its base of power and knows that a stem and leaf plot is binomial and loose, rather than one of your angles that produce complex fractions to factor in formulas completing the square. The endpoint is, Algebra, What is the root sum of evil?
GOOD PEOPLE: HALT! And watch out for science-fiction Christians! The six o’clock news– show business! All cities and even little towns, appeals for money, near-death experiences, entertainers on television. A new strain of ethnic-cleansing is to cut off its nose to provide some filler, again and again, for the sake of clarity to spite its face– conceivable remedies in every case nowadays, pathetic or even absurd. Support justice and sanity: Too late! (A Found Poem using: Vonnegut, Kurt. “unfortunately, the recent legal difficulties.” God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999. 71-73. Print.)
DELIVERANCE I have a fetish for agonizing over the unattainable. The faces, the places– is death really like a photograph? In signal phrasing I hate myself and I want to die and how I’m going to do it, these eggs of melancholy will finally hatch beneath the ashen midwinter sky— no brooders. And in paraphrasing Fred Mertz, those chickens are going to freeze their fuzz off.
Tom Zimmerman
EVERYTHING IS NORMAL Tee Bee used to get ten at time investment money made from the water dro, dry, blue pebbles broken down on the table mary haze, baby white hazel drunk, purple light watch him roll it watch him light it watch him toke it green till he’s broke boundless though maybe just a taste empty I let go life through ellipses un mitigated welcome incarnate now the dow da death like practice sh ow meh ow to break in to pieces accu mulat ions undifferentiated un ion intro induct reality
now it’s more steady every thing is normal but the magic we have we hover two feet above ground level
Zachary Baker
ON HOW things happen like this old woman heartbeat wobbles and wanders white nightgown tattered walks round round the block pink fluffy slippers her arms squeeze to chest teddy bear she knows exactly where she is going but it is impossible
Praise the great windows where immigrants from the kitchen could squint and almost see their world, hear the chant of nations I saw storm windows lying on the ground, Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream Away in lines like seaweed on the tide Or blades of wheat leaning under the wind. In the center of things between the pressing of the window and air — a small space — there is a meeting that defines nothing, everything. Nay—bold in the sun I speak thy name, I too, and I wait no more Thy hand, thy face, in the window niche, but thy kiss at the open door! Each window possesses the sun As though it burned there on a wick. this kind of bird flies backward and this love breaks on a windowpane where no light talks I will open the window and the large, frosty air will enter, healthy as tragedy. But don’t believe it: a happiness exists, All right, I have seen it for myself, Touched it, touched the woman Who with her daughter together keep Ammonia in Mason jars by the side window.
—Martín Espada
—Howard Nemerov
—Rachel Sherwood
—Schuyler Van Rensselaer
—James Dickey
—Diane di Prima
—Anna Swir
—Alberto Ríos