A WCC Poetry Club Anthology
Honk If You Love Weirdos is a publication of the WCC Poetry Club, Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. This issue was produced on a PC using Microsoft Word. Font used is Arial Narrow. Design and layout by Tom Zimmerman. Cover design by Tyler R. Wettig. 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. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// A special thanks to the fine folks at Town and Country Parts & Auto Recycler, who let us visit them for a photo shoot on May 5. Many of the photographs appearing in this book are products of that visit.
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The Big Windows Review The WCC Writing Center’s Literary Zine Seeks Poetry and Short Prose for Issue 6 Deadline: July 15, 2015
tzman@wccnet.edu https://thebigwindowsreview.wordpress.com/ /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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
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HONK If You Love WEIRDOS A WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Tom Zimmerman & Tyler R. Wettig Contents—Words Tyler R. Wettig Adam Lowis Joey Sims Haley Schrader Lawrence Moebs Thomas Cudney Diane M. Laboda Ember Plummer Sheldon Ferguson Justin Stott Stephen Chang Kay Sanders William Bullard Ayowole Oladeji Lylanne Musselman Tom Zimmerman Simon Mermelstein Hannah Degutis Michael Moriarty Zachary Baker Jessica Winn
Men in Togas Looking at Fruit Romanticide Stealing Plymouth Rock Poem for John Nash Anemnesis Allure Baggage Claim Dissociative Falling Axis Strange The Moon The Sofa Beast 1—2—3— A Tanka and Three Haiku Two Haiku Five Haiku Weirdo On the Mechanics of Weirdness: A Fragment Love Is Real Thinking of You Driven Music Quitter Found Sonnets for Bob Dylan J. Alfred Pruf-Rock Anthem Smoke Rings, Until It Honks To the Sound of Her Laughter The Walk Hello, Again.
4 5 5 6 8 10 12 14 18 20 21 22 23 26 27 28 30 33 36 36 37 38 40 42 44 46 48 50
Contents—Images Tom Zimmerman Tyler R. Wettig Zachary Baker
Front cover, 9, 13, 15, 21, 24, 29, 45, 50 4, 16, 25, 31, 32, 35, 39, 43, back cover 11, 17, 19, 27
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Tyler R. Wettig / Men in Togas Looking at Fruit Honk if you love weirdos says the bumper sticker, but I don’t because I like to think weirdos see the world through big eyes: blinds open, backs to the sun, their lava lamp libidos ebbing and flowing like a pot of water boiling on a stovetop— the very essence of life.
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Tyler R. Wettig / Romanticide The first time I could declare love for anyone, I did for my kindergarten teacher: Two husbands are better than one I would say. but years later, the true tapestry of chemistry has at last been unfurled— its credence no longer of meaningless youthful disposition, but of the shattered glass and echoed yells of a romanticide. And Don Juan In Hell I become; but as the wisdom of I Love Lucy imbued in me, Don Juan is a story about love— it has nothing to do with marriage.
Tyler R. Wettig / Stealing Plymouth Rock A broke, lovesick, burnt out Warhol impersonator’s pilgrimage begins with a shambling gait. He happens upon Plymouth Rock and channeling Oppenheimer ponders: How many atoms could I fit into that rock? But Fred Mertz is not there to say this bird needs to be put back into his cage as rubber-skinned g-men paint it in four shades of fallout. 5
Adam Lowis / Poem for John Nash Did you see the wars? the windfalls? the tsunami on the horizon? All permutations reduced to a game? Will the game save humanity? preserve our history? direct the environmental refugee? signal the break in the dam? Was the paper truly meant for Capitalist, dice-rolling, insider-trading pigs, leaving what is left of our wealth rotting under the monuments, while cancer of rust creeps out over concrete infrastructure? Did dust dance in a beam of light in the theatre of cause and effect, while the droning small-talk of awkward social pugilism faded beneath the silence of the world? And from that silence, what was whispered from the buzzing power lines? What voices had their knives out, Accusing from the static background? Did the numbers taunt you? Dancing infinite, inscrutable, dichotomous and empty?
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The matrix stretched like the skin of a trampoline, springing you in the leap from logic. And did waves of exquisite brain bounce like a pinball off the bumper of every short-wave beam now saturating sky? I hope your game sees men on Mars, trains to the stars. Not just the endless money menagerie, skewed by the variables of every human failing. I met that muse once too. Perhaps the same that visited you. When I had the magic summer. When the milirad oven of California sun exploded my brain in eleven dimensions. When I couldn’t stop talking. When I tried to sniff gold powder. When aliens gave me superpowers, and I tried to extract Isaac Newton’s alchemical codices out of Blue Oyster Cult lyrics… …and I thought back to you… Starved for affection. Middle-aged regressing to an infant, curled-up in the arms of a wife devoted to beings in the hell of mind.
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Adam Lowis / Anemnesis Allure Softness within a hazed aura of cerulean memory... A disarming smile against the cooling fog of sea-breeze blended into smoldering sunset... Within the fading photograph of lighter-than-air pristine recollection... far behind in the widening range of this waxing new century back to the time where we danced a lively talk... ...in another life. Pray... Let me not forget the snapshot of your bemused eyes beneath your raven crown. So alive...so alive. Five feet tall... yet steadfast in your stature and ageless wisdom in the skin of youth, towering over all. Perhaps it is saving grace that these musings remain fantasy. Like so many things... Like so many magnetic draws of the nefarious will. Yet when I find myself adrift fastened to the mast in the winding bindings of woe, the supreme elixir of the memory of your surprised and lifting countenance waving through a windshield as my tired eyes lifted in the connection, as my weary steps crossed the four lanes of Venice Boulevard,
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I found a moment I could breathe in... of boundless space ... pulling me from concrete tide crushing and strangling this hell of the mind. The thrill‌ that you were still tickled to see me even in the gravity of my decline. You were resplendent in that moment like silken grace, as eternity was infused in those seconds before the light turned green‌ Signaling the insufferable, inescapable Asphalt anxiety of locomotion. Your face will always melt this iron resolve. Your presence will always beguile. Though I never could betray These sealed up secrets.
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Joey Sims / Baggage Claim a pristine white chapel on a hill surrounded by dark clouds early in the evening farm machinery centipede in the wee hours of the morning seemed in the glare of the window like an alien parasite siphoning out the earth the motion of windmills against gust of wind and rain; a flag wrapped around the flagpole only a few stripes remain flapping rapidly a chihuahua runs against traffic in a bleak manufacturing town; graffiti on abandoned buildings; unfinished freeways; perpetual housing projects middle class coffins; towns no one has ever left ears popping acclimatizing; a security guards aggressive swooping movements and attitude; the look of a person who must reboard to get to their destination; huge cockroach scurrying on a greyhound bathroom floor roads like rivers emptying out into lakes of population; my head presses against the window i feel the current of the road the grip the swaying of the vehicle drafting the pattern of my boxers stuck to my ass passing fort bluff; night herd; wafts of drowsiness jolted out of; stalemate; disillusioned; the distance was like a family of migrating dinosaurs unable to find a comfortable position with two seats or with a passenger crammed close by so tired the body finally goes limp mildly for a flash; dreams of the two homes far apart colliding waiting to not be in kansas anymore letting out silent farts sam cooke on the countryside brings tears to my eyes; before departure/embarking in the terminal we were on the same bus/route since whenever he boarded as our paths went separate we stood and chatted bout the robust sound of early female jazz vocalists like carmen mcrae, ella fitzgerald and sarah vaughn; how ella went from being a teeny bopper to a big multi ranged sassy momma in my mind one home is still going on without me, one home is awaiting; i think of the people i left that i feel i abandoned and how they are going to be and already projecting the long bus ride back from revisiting my other home and get caught up on what went down since i was gone; it may seem longer than it actually was, it may go by quicker than i actually want; i can't 10
wait to arrive and see, i can't already wait to leave the developments since I've seen you last after all this time; i will be fine when i leave and never see you again in this flesh we got what we needed to get off our chest before what is coming comes whenever that is; in my dreams i am never away, you are never out of my sight cause my ghost travels light
Zachary Baker
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Haley Schrader / Dissociative Today, I thought I saw a shelf on my bookcase in desperate need of a breather, so I said, “One of us will have to change, and it won’t be me.” I left for work feeling empowered. The first thing I could bring myself to say once home was, “Hey, look, I’m sorry.” I moved some books, but the shelf still looked slouched. “God, you must really be hurt.” I tore off the others, but the wood was still warped, simply less so, like a cut that left a scar. I sat down in front of the bookshelf and sighed, put my head in my hands and sat there. “I didn’t know what I was saying until after I remembered where I heard it first.” I put my chin on my fist, but couldn’t bring myself to look at the crippled shelf, so I stared to the side. “My demons used to say that to me.” When I looked back at the shelf I thought maybe I could help straighten it out. I eased it from its ledges and tried to bend it gently in the opposite direction. “I just kept getting piled with things—like you— only not physical things. The devils that did the abusing, they told me I’d have to change too.” The wood started to groan, and I tried to be more careful. “So I did—I mean, I figured, fighting just wasn’t working anymore, and really what I wanted wasn’t for me to be happy.” I frowned at the shelf, bouncing it on my knee in short bursts to save it from too much at once. “I just wanted them to act differently for once. Only I figured, 12
say I gave in to them and finally admitted that I was just as awful as they said. Say I was, y’know, really shitty and a piece of trash. It’s not hard,” I scratched my jaw casually, “I’ve given in before. And I figured I could do it again, but this time pretend that I was one of them, evil and all that. What I’d do that’s different is still be nice.” The shelf rested on one corner on the floor, gravity pulling it to one hand or the other. “I’d be a demon but not act like one. The only way you can see a monster act nicely is to make it act that way yourself.” I felt myself stop short. Some part of the story was missing, the apology. “Something must have gone wrong today, I guess.” When I looked up at the bookcase, it was for validation. I could feel that hope on my face, only to remember I was searching for emotion on an inanimate object. I looked down at the shelf and put it back and I cried after I filled it with things that weren’t too heavy so it could still hold something with its one broken arm.
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Lawrence Moebs / Falling The skeleton plods, Head bobs and nods, An interlocking system of sinews and rods. Looking down like gods At the various sods Over which we trod, Stepping over wads Of bubble gum clods. And the whole damn time, No matter how we climb, You are and I'm Falling, unsteadily through our pantomime Like limeys lacking limes, Scorbutic, lethargic, slipping on slime On decks, unsteady seas As the world spins and yaws and gees, Buckling like knees bent back, stung by bees Perceived as enemies Swarming from the trees Until pollen makes us sneeze And in fits of pique we wheeze And gasping, catch our breath Briefly staving off death, A poor replacement, like Seth. each step falling into the next. Quadriceps draws tight Lifts leg up some height, Swings forward into sight, Against gravity it fights Until falling again We lean like wooden men falling forward when our balance overextends And fluid in the brain Sloshes up against the pain 14
Of landing, and un-sane, We safely land Foot firmly planted and we fall again Moving forward on land Unsteady as the ocean while from his place among the Gods, Poseidon glares down and nods As mortal flesh, against all odds, Mechanically scraping, falling, skeleton plods‌
Tom Zimmerman
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Tyler R. Wettig
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Zachary Baker
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Thomas Cudney / Axis I think— To what end? And therefore— Wherefore? I am— Here and there. ---------------------------A tyranny— No axis clears The heavy proof— Of possibility. ---------------------------Ordination— Latitude, Longitude, The long art, The wide flanks, Of mind’s triumph. ---------------------------Marshal— Command the legions, Assail the filth, Civilly; Bronze and iron Forge stronger chains. ---------------------------Calibrate— Hidden astrolabe! Sailing far— Nearing naught. ---------------------------Celestial nets— Coordinates, Effable void— Sink into earth, A living dream— Of spirit-stream.
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Diane M. Laboda / Strange Like a Dali pocket watch you ooze out of bed in the morning, Never quite vertical, never fully open to the air around you that props up your chin, that fills you only as much as you let it, that resists your movement, backs you into a corner, strangles you. Your first footfall, usually backward, puts you somewhere in yesterday, back inside your eyes, bogged down and in horror of having to live it again. Your eyes, sunken from a wakeful night, cannot decipher today’s reality, its sun rising again, its shadows still attached to your feet. You use this disconnect to fuel your lopsided desire to slide through the cracks in the pavement to get to the other side of memory. You use your lack of focus to explain away your lack of focus, your desire to be as strange as you want to be without peeking at tomorrow or starting your quiet, shabby heart.
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Diane M. Laboda / The Moon It creeps across the floor as if confident of its path. It wishes to be in corners or under covers or up my shirt. I let it follow, knowing that it is no better than its daytime partner, no brighter, no less full of someone else’s light. It creeps across the sky as if dancing with an unseen partner—someone who had hidden in the attic before showing up one day with blinders on and choosing this partner sight unseen, and learning to square dance out of the shadows like a half-blind, jilted lover.
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Diane M. Laboda / The Sofa Beast Aunt Clara’s slime-green sofa languished in the sun room, laid to waste as if the dog had mangled it and discarded it in the corner like a soggy, fetid bone. The ripped upholstery hung like sphagnum moss from arms and cushions—ghoulish and swaying in every puff of breeze the holey screens let through. It was the author of nightmares, this skuzzy heap. In dreams it became some silent swamp creature lurking, waiting for the swishing sounds of the dishwasher to trundle undercover into the house and attack the plumpish ottoman first, then go for the children, one by one, devouring them before they could form a pile. A pile was powerful safety from wild things, from bullies, from salesmen and from creatures of the night— something about safety in numbers and cover your heads, and way too much for the shaggy sofa-beast to handle all in one bite. But the children were not to be found anywhere. not in the living room, not in the dining room piled under the table, or in the kitchen piled in the broom-closet— so the sofa-beast lumbered on, dragging matted tentacle-like tendrils of once woven upholstery behind it through the door and out onto the back porch. On the back porch the sofa-beast hoped to find a lime green deck chair to suck on. But it had been moved outside. All it found were shredded magazines, mammoth spider webs and the bare frame of the once matching chair playing solitaire in the moonlight, drinking 5.0 beer, and belching onesies and Oshkosh overalls.
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Ember Plummer / 1—2—3— it starts like this—her heartbeat always a little louder than her family’s so when they finally get her on the surgical table they bring the whole class to watch. cut her open head to toe, no, collarbones to hip, no hesitation just cut. she bleeds, only a little and they’re all wearing gloves so that’s okay. peel back the skin and start searching. then, farther down. break her jaw if they have to, open her mouth, wide, this is farther, straight shot down her throat, through her chest, down, down, down, she bleeds more. and when they reach her stomach, they lose their equipment. sudden. their knives fly out of their hands, their gloves sucked in, hands now covered in her blood and guts, see there’s a black hole, right where her stomach should be. and it beats, just like another heart.
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Tom Zimmerman
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Tyler R. Wettig
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Sheldon Ferguson / A Tanka and Three Haiku Rodman with his hair died rainbow, pulls off jersey after being ejected and throws it into the audience ///// Haiku to Weird Al Flipping on the TV I listen in to Weird Al singing "Eat it" ///// Mildly cold spring day, a chipmunk skip dashes through the woods ///// Flying mallards splash land in wooded swamp splishhh
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Justin Stott / Two Haiku Light and dark—both unique yet one can only exist in absence of the other ///// He's filled with anger and hate always pointing the finger—yet, three are pointing back
Zachary Baker
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Stephen Chang / Five Haiku The growing storm approaches— The house like a threatening monster Rumbles with great displeasure ///// The sun rises, Awake and ready to bring warmth— To all of life on Earth ///// Summer arrives— School is out for us How do we enjoy it, I wonder? ///// Bad memories— They haunt me like a nightmare, Like a curse ///// Love— Mysterious as a shadow, But can turn against you
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Tom Zimmerman
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Kay Sanders / Weirdo I remember well my photo shop class. It seems so long ago that I was fourteen. Yet I see the faces and hear the voices, People, classmates, dead to me long ago. Those sudden flashes of a world long gone For me. I wanted then to see my life in prose, In still life black and white. Permanent pictures of youth that would fade, Who I was, who I had been already Violently changed. No more to smile so casually. Nor trust what on the surface I couldn’t see. My voice in angry outburst at injustice. Ready to fight for those who couldn’t. He was smaller than the other boys. Thin, short, pale skin that even the sun Couldn’t tan. Silent almost always even Against the bullies. I watched it for a while – Longer than I should have. Till I could see How his breath got heavier, and how he Held back tears, turning so they couldn’t see. I, a survivor from bullies – old men and young boys, Could no longer watch his pain in silence. That day, when he came late – always late now, “Steeling himself” perhaps from onslaught. I told them all in gossipy whisper and Cheshire Smile: “You better leave him alone. I saw him do something – well let’s just say, he might be A serial killer in training. That weirdo who brings The shotgun to school and blows us all away.” They looked at me, scoffing at first, But then it sunk in with wide-eyed wonder. There were no more taunts that day. No taunts ever after either. 30
I saw his confusion and relief. Not knowing Why it all stopped so suddenly. But inside I still smiled my Cheshire smile, One former weirdo to another.
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Tyler R. Wettig
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William Bullard / On the Mechanics of Weirdness: A Fragment In the course of his now famous Oscar acceptance speech given on February 22, 2015, screenwriter Graham Moore said, “When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong. And now I’m standing here and so I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she’s weird or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you do. You do. Stay weird, stay different.” Graham Moore felt so strongly that he was weird, and that he did not fit in, that he felt he could not live in this world. In Leslie Feinberg’s novel Stone Butch Blues, the protagonist, Jess, says something similar. She says, “I didn’t want to be different. I longed to be everything that grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all the rules, tried my best to please. But there was something about me that made them knit there eyebrows and frown.” Jess, in the course of Feinberg’s novel, relates her experience being a lesbian who is “butch.” At one point, when she is in high school, Jess reads out loud the following lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Alone,” in a class: From Childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring From the same source I have not yet taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone. Jess says, through her poem, that she “from Childhood’s hour” has not been “as others were,” and that she has tried to be like others have wanted her to, but she has not been able to—because she is different. Jess, like Graham Moore, does not fit in. Graham Moore, in his speech, offers support to “that kid out there,” the type of support that he never got. He tells that kid out there to “stay weird.” Jess, Feinberg’s protagonist, goes on to find people that will support her, and she grows up, accepts who she is, and deliberately attempts to live the lifestyle that she feels relates to who she is. However, throughout the past, and still in contemporary times, there have been many kids “out there,” as well as adults, who feel weird, but are not getting support, and are even going on to the extreme solution that Moore felt that he almost needed to use. In contemporary times, as in the past, there is not much space for “staying weird,” although in some places that space has been and is expanding. There are many people who feel weird in contemporary times; and there are hostile places and spaces where people are being demeaned, harassed and 33
bullied for being weird. This has certainly been true for LGBT people now and over a long period of time, even though there is increasing national support for gay people, and even though gay people have, through much effort, gained some acceptance. It is not just in Russia that LGBT people are being harassed and bullied. Young people, whether they are LGBT people or not, are being bullied in this country, either actually, or in cyberspace, all for being different in one way or another. What is more, even where gay and lesbian people are more accepted, transgendered people of all ages are being harassed. What is still more, this is happening to Muslim people all over the world. Thus, many people feel that they have no place to fit in, and thus may feel weird; indeed, they are made to feel weird. In light of this darkness, I want to look at the some of the mechanics that are involved in what “weird” is. There are several constituents related to “being weird.” Two main elements are what a person thinks and feels about him- or herself, and there is what another person thinks. Within a person there is the real self, and there could be false selves (this is a very complex element, but in this case it relates to personas, masks, and façades, which relate to defenses—a lot of which relates to what a person experiences in childhood). What a person thinks and feels relating to another person often has to do with projection of something that he or she cannot relate to within him- or herself. These elements can all play a part in this matter of “being weird.” One very important thing is that “being weird” must not be an excuse to act out or embrace being extreme for the sake of being extreme. This relates to acting out of a false self (this is the term coming from Humanistic Psychology; other schools have other terms), or putting on a mask. What is important is to come to live out of one’s true or authentic self. This is always weird; this is never normal (being “normal” is always about wearing masks; being normal is always about adopting a false self or putting on a façade). The Transpersonal psychologist John Rowan calls the real or authentic self the “Centaur Self,” and he indicates that this is the self that is beyond what he calls the “mental ego,” which is the point where most people stop in their development. The mental ego relates to what is normal. When people accept who they are, which often means taking care of what happened to them in their childhoods, and often means starting to work with their shadow, they move into the Centaur Self, or authentic self, space. This is going beyond the normal. It is “staying weird.” Society doesn’t offer much support for moving beyond the Mental Ego into the Centaur Self. In some societies, there is no support, and this can be dangerous. People get killed for this, even in contemporary times. In at least one African country, a gay person can be sentenced to death. In Iran, a gay person can be forced to have a sex change operation. In America, transgendered people can be fired from their jobs, and some states are trying to pass laws that make it legal for businesses to discriminate against LGBT people. Much of this is about projection. People disown parts of themselves, and take on false selves. This is a part of being in the normal Mental Ego. These disowned aspects have to go somewhere, 34
or a person cannot be aware of them. So people project things on to other people. This is how people come to think other people are weird. There are many constituents that people project on to other people. One set of elements are disowned elements of sexuality. Furthermore, people project parts of themselves that their parents have shamed or not tolerated; or, parts of themselves that were not compatible with how their parents wanted them to engage, or what their parents made them do. When all of this gets projected on to another person, the other person looks weird, and can get treated as being weird. All of this comes down to the Centaur Self. When a person moves into this space, it can seem weird to other people, because it is not normal. However, the Centaur Self is authentic. A person is living an authentic life, which others have referred to as self-actualization, which is on the path to Individuation. The thing is that a person can feel weird, and usually does, when he or she is not living in the Centaur Self space. This is a negative kind of weird, and a person can project, act out, or be extreme. When Graham Moore says “stay weird,� he is saying move into the Centaur Self, be who you actually are. This takes work, but is about the truth of who a person is. Stay weird.
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Ayowole Oladeji / Love Is Real You cannot deceive love Wherever you go love will find you The word love is strong Not a bad thing to feel loved Everyone should have love For one another Because love is full of passion Desire and emotion It’s a strong word To say but it shows Love is fun and exciting
Ayowole Oladeji / Thinking of You I wake up every morning Tired and lazy Not knowing what the day is going to be So I glide downstairs Deciding what to prepare for myself Then it hit me like a switch Opened my colorless cabinet Took out a bottle of Bacardi wine Laid down on my cozy futon Set the record player on Then played our favorite song Baby come to me
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Lylanne Musselman / Driven At 16, I test drove a ’57 Chevy, the car that flares in the back – like wings. It was turquoise and white and didn’t have power steering. It was hard for my young arms to turn. So my first car was a 1964 Buick Skylark Convertible, white exterior and red vinyl seats and dashboard. My parents bought the car from twenty-three-year-old Terry – a licentious grease monkey who took me for a test drive in the country and a spin I wouldn’t forget. That car and Terry shifted my life – one would leave me stranded on train tracks or in the middle of busy intersections, one would leave me directionless on a well-traveled road, empty, fueled with doubts.
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Lylanne Musselman / Music Quitter I In fourth grade, I learned song flute, which made me want to learn a major music instrument to play in school band. Mom chose the flute for me – more ladylike, and inexpensive. Blowing across its opening made me dizzy. I hated the flute. I refused it wanting to try something else. Mom decided clarinet, my older cousin excelled with one. She impressed mom since she won Delaware County 4H Fair Queen and was head high school cheerleader. We traded the flute in for a clarinet. I learned to change the reeds, but was frustrated when I tended to always make the reeds squeak. Practicing this wind instrument was boring, so it stayed in its case day in and day out. I quit band, but Mr. McKinley, the band teacher, wanted me to succeed. I met with him afternoons and he let me try out different instruments – drums were off limits to me since I was a girl. The instrument I took to was the trombone. Even he said I had a knack for it, I could make that horn honk and moan. When we approached mom with my joyful news, she said, “No.” I’d had my chance with music. I wasn’t going to go through every instrument known. II At the end of junior high I wasn’t interested in school band – I wanted to start a band of my own. I needed a guitar. Again, mom said, “No,” but at the factory dad made a deal with a guy selling his electric guitar and amplifier. I began guitar 38
lessons right away, with ease I learned the chords and boasted blistered fingers. I wanted to play pop songs like a pro, it wasn’t as easy as I hoped. When the guitar teacher’s son asked me out, at fourteen, the guitar and the amplifier took a back seat.
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Tom Zimmerman / Found Sonnets for Bob Dylan 1 Like a rolling stone, you lean your head out far: “Am I here all alone?” Famous long ago, you’re tired of yourself, with no direction home. You go watch the geek, Ma Rainey, and Beethoven. You don't have to speak. Pencil in your hand, you see somebody naked: melody so plain started out on burgundy, died in battle or in vain. 2 Silver saxophones, country music, must get stoned: consciousness explodes. The neon madmen, dancing child you said you knew: friends. I believed you. Undertaker sighs when you're playing your guitar. Hope you’re satisfied. Poison headache, but here I sit so patiently. 40
See, you’re just like me: saviors who are fast asleep. Can this really be the end? 3 Gaze upon the chimes, empty-handed painter: times sit and wonder why. Strength is not to fight smoke rings of the mind: be one more person crying. Howling at the moon when you whispered in my ear: “Hungry women there.” Forget the dead you've left, too serious to fool. Busy being born, sure your thoughts are not with me, gather flowers constantly.
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Simon Mermelstein / J. Alfred Pruf-Rock Anthem (to the tune of LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It”) Yeah…when I walk on by, I'm flipping through Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy I skip to the beat, reading bout The House on Mango Street, yeah This is how I roll: Animal Farm, 1984 It's Mermelstein with the kick-ass flow And like Gilles Deleuze I’ve read Foucault, yo Ahhhh...Grrrl whersalibrary? (3x) Ah-ah, I read Maus! When I look on my shelf (yeah) this is what I see (ok) Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy I read Shakespeare and sometimes I Edgar Allan Poe it, Poe it, poet ...This ballad is heroic Yeah… When I'm at the mall, I'm in a bookstore if I'm there at all And when I'm at the beach, I'm tryna read James and the Giant Peach What. This is how I roll… Come on, George Martin, just write one more! Headed to the slam, baby things are fine I spit a weird rap and I still get nines Ahhh, I read Harry Potter (3x) Ah-ah, I read Sartre! When I look on my floor (yeah), this is what I see (ok) The Oxford Pocket Spanish-English Dictionary If the book is Atlas Shrugged, then the trash is where I’ll throw it, throw it, throw it ...Objectivism’s bullshit Check it out: Literary literary critic, yeah (x3) 42
Yeah, yeah…I do the critic When I walk in the branch (yeah) this is what I see (uh huh) A Mecca to all things literary Now I’m done with my piece and it’s time for you to score it, score it, score it ...Please don’t 6.4 it
Tyler R. Wettig
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Hannah Degutis / Smoke Rings, Until It Honks I sat lazily, gazing up at the sky: Door flung open on the passenger’s side; Legs dangling and arms stretching wide, Blowing smoke rings into the high . . . The VW logo made it feel iconic— Like a Polaroid photo with sunspots on it. Tan skin and summer bleached hair; A cross on the mirror, a finger in the air. I circled my ankles, etching curved lines in the dirt; It sent sensation through my body and I rose with a smirk. Tape recorder in hand, I pondered my question. Taking steps forward with giggling intention, I leaned in close to a bundle of feathers, Long neck with short legs—the subject of endeavor; It gazed up at me and for a moment I felt clever: Hello Goose, can you tell me that I’m strange? The look on your face would suggest I’m deranged. But, if you don’t mind, I’d like an answer— Sometimes in this life, I feel like a cancer. Is it okay to be weird, a bird with no flock? It was oddly reassuring when she replied with a Honk.
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Michael Moriarty / To the Sound of Her Laughter Song lyrics if she remembers me as all my birds are leaving I might be undone and if I could give her something worth keeping I might be glad for these lungs on the lake I joked how she hated the cold she pushed me off of the raft and I went under I came out of the water to the sound of her laughter and for a moment, I was not so broken, I was just her brother and you are what I come back to, when I'm lost that far and you wake the crickets and violas all play I think of her as small as my hands could imagine light fallen... light learned and standing next to her in the morning at the bus stop feeling what I might be worth we go out for fast food late at night and through the streetlight's open harbors she casts me better through alone nights where I go she keeps me sane when I go back there and you are what I come back to, when I'm lost that far 46
and you wake the crickets and violas all play and she is kind and she is quiet and she is smiling at the waves and if I'm not okay at least I did this thing right and hugged her when she cried that day let my sister push me laughing to my tumble let the graves and words and wild sage rise and stay I let my head fill with the flashing and the thunder and all I’d ask for as I climbed that height to say let me come out of the water and find her remembering me happy when I can't, if I try when I can't see what's left of my smile let it be a kite in the wind in her eyes and you are the lift the stirs the dry leaves I've been lying in and you are the wind that brings me back again
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Zachary Baker / The Walk Song lyrics Chorus: I got the I-wanna-run-but-I’m-stuckWith-an-apartment-in-the-city blues It feels like this has all happened before But this time, I feel so much more As I close the apartment door You never did quite understand That I didn’t understand what you wanted from a man But this is one of those walks you’d say is no one’s fault Chorus As I set out, a kid sits on the apartment stoop Under this moonless, starless, rascal sky The look on her face says she is thinking of robbing a bank As I amble these savage streets, A man with a black eye and a torn green dress Hails a taxi cab without a tear Chorus The city is hungry with its tired eyes Pays no attention to a man that pushes his whole world in a shopping cart He plays a mostly broken radio to soothe his heart I am one of the empty bottles that I kick Into the gutter, where all the others fell In this imperfect world of angels Chorus
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Each footstep questions: what will I become? One of those old men that sit in the diner and argue about bygone times And which president turned the Statue of Liberty’s torch into a middle finger You’re right: I’m not as tough as I used to be But no one is really who they used to be At some ages, the best one can do is to despise one’s self Chorus The cubical dweller rushes to the subway Tries to erase his day with pictures on his phone He’s surrounded and so alone The train stirs plastic bags out of the trash cans like ghosts The subway sweethearts kiss and blush in the filth And the trains never really stop Chorus By the apartment dumpster, a crow stands on an abandoned globe The crow steps; the world turns Sunrise perched on the crow’s beak So I have strolled the longest night with my thoughts And I go back for more Sit with my back against the locked apartment door Chorus
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Jessica Winn / Hello, Again. Maybe a revelation or two, Some venting, surely, is always good for you But loveliest of all, some quiet surprises With paper and pen, realization arises A reconnection with the spirit inside Awakens the happy you thought had died The fire remains and continues to burn The mind ever eagerly awaits your return
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