The Stone CircleVolume 8 Number 2 Spring 2009

McLennan Community CollegeStudent Literary and Art Journal

From the editor’s PC:We are thrilled to annouce the establishment of an-other prize: “The English Faculty Prize for Fiction.” An anonymous donor has generously funded this award of $100 to the best piece of short fiction in each issue of The Stone Circle.

I am overwhelmed by the generosity of our patrons as we approach our tenth year of publication.

Thanks again to all my colleagues, students, and for-mer students who helped with the selection of entries for this issue.

Each issue I plan brings new challenges and more difficult decisions. It does not get easier to turn away so many talented entries. However, I relish the job -- MCC is fortunate to have such a wealth of talent.

We hope you enjoy the latest issue.

--Jim McKeown

Cover photo:First Prize, McCalmont Award

for Creative Excellence in Photography

Pablo Amos“The Ghost and You”

The Stone Circle (ISSN 1931-3381)is published twice each academic year in

November and April

Printed by Waco Printing Co.

Copyright McLennan Community College1400 College DriveWaco, TX 76708

Volume 8 Number 2

Carolyn Ott The Dawn Yawn

Dionne Carrizales Baby Sue

The English Faculty Prize for FictionTy Hall “A Story”

In a town of little importance lived a man of even less. He swung in the rafters of a small crib-stile barn his grandfather had built over sixty years ago. He swung like a pendulum keeping time for the world. These are the thoughts that glided through his mind like an underground train.

This action he had considered for some time, but with a different form. It might have been guilt, though guilt does not mean the same thing to a man in this position. Perhaps rationality. But just last week he had sat in the corner of this rustic barn and contemplated the same end with a different means. He lit a cigarette. He smoked it down to the filter until it burned his lips. He could feel. He stared down into his left hand where he palmed a 35mm drug—a final narcotic. In his right hand was the tool for injection. He saw his wrist. He thought of the Fates. Atropos. A single cut of the string. Too messy, he decided, and this small consideration stayed him awhile.

He always thought everything would fall into place, like chicken bones for a voodoo priest. He believed in destiny, to a point. He believed in purpose. He valued life so highly, in a way, that he could only see the futility in it. To assume one’s life is guided by one’s own hand is to assume one can make a blind man listen. The only action he ever took to guide his life seemed to prove him true.

People cared about him for awhile. Like everything else that was important to him, he would seclude himself from them until they gave up. He would push them away. Scenarios of previous interaction would play in his mind over and over again. Few stayed. Those who did, understood. Someone would have to take care of the details.

The man was smarter than most. A dreamer in the most dangerous sense of the word. A protagonist to whom life was a game. Often he was considered to be lofty and to confuse fiction with reality. A romantic. Creative but rational. Sometimes the levee would break in his mind and his brain would be flooded with ideas. Loud ideas. Ideas that would persist until he could wrangle and wrestle them down in some form or fashion and rebuild the dam. Sometimes the ideas wouldn’t come when they should. He found depressants that would coax them out into the light. Control them. But eventually they would overstay their welcome and he forced them to retreat into the thick darkness of his mind. Ideas became memories. Life, now, had become a memory.

The man remembered his childhood. At this time he was six; maybe older, maybe not. He was outdoors with his mother. The mother loved her son very much. They were in a park, or what would pass for a park in the mind of a six-year-old. He sat on a swing. She stood behind him, pushing him higher. He loved to swing. The mother had a stiff back; a back acquired from raising a son. Working to feed him, working to clothe him. A back that hurt in the morning and hurt in the cold and hurt giving her son what he wanted. And now he wanted to swing. So she pushed him higher and higher until they were both too tired to go on any longer. When he turned around to face her she smiled. She loved her son. He loved to swing.

And now he swung. In the rafters of a barn his grandfather had built. No more than fifty yards from where he had spent his life; where everything he ever had still waited for him. It was still too early for anyone to know. Someone would eventually find him. Someone’s heart would break. But not his.

The poetry of pessimism it was not. A sin against God, perhaps; perhaps even pardonable. But a sin against man there is no doubt. He was a thief to those who loved him, to those who could love him, and to those who thought he loved them in return. He was a murderer. A man who kills a man kills a man. A man who kills himself, for all he is concerned, kills all men. If only he would have vanished. If only his epitaph would read “Figment.” But these thoughts do not concern a man who keeps time for the world. A man who loves to swing.

Sigma Kappa Delta -- English Honor Society Prizes for Poetry

First Prizea three-minute poem

in a minute i can find the answers but right now i only see practicality

never mind the balloons that float outside your window they just symbolize the birthday where the clown threw up all over your cake and the merry-go-round stopped dead while you where in mid-swirl

never mind the people looking in either they’re not actually thinking, they’re just watching what happens waiting for you to go to commercial so they can get up and go to the next window, the next show...the next episode.

in a minute i can find the answers but right now i’m just waiting for someone to like me

never mind the sidewalk apparently it ends in a place where poems not quite like this one protrude from the mouths of poets not quite like me elementary but dear watson has been dead for centuries

never mind that old woman on your porch just give her a beer, a little smile and she’ll be on her way after all she just wants to know she’s made a difference if you watch her leave you’ll notice she only makes it to the jones’ house where she takes a seat and waits patiently

in a minute i can find the answers but right now i’m watching an old lady get free beer

--iokepa

Third PrizeConfession #534

I sat here.Under the shade of an oak,

And watched.That’s when I saw it.

An autumn leaf.Catching the sunlight.Falling from its tree.

Landing ever so gracefully on water.It was carried away by the current.

Riding down the stream.Unaware of its destination.

--Amanda Galvin

Amanda Galvan La Nina

Second PrizeCold Nights

Somewhere in this empty nightWhere the stars are bleached dull by the slumbering city and its bright streets And the cold wind is like an ocean in the treetops above me And like diffused ice on my bare arms I hear the sound of a trumpet playing somewhere nearby, in the dark

On stiller nights, other nights, I’ve heard it play longer snatches of music Nostalgic hummable things, or hymns to a God who on nights like these feels too far away to bear But tonight there are just loose jumbled bars of a Taps revelry or Amazing Grace It’s really anyone’s guess They don’t seem to have their heart in it tonight

I think of them, the person playing (though I don’t think they know that I can hear them)

And I think of the time (it is one in the morning) And I wonder if they are preparing for a performance, or if this is the performance (Do they ever wish to be heard?) And I think of how lonely a trumpet sounds at this hour in the cold, limping into the dark without an army behind it

And I think of this night And of myself And of the fact that I am young – it is normal for me to have no one in my bed these nights, and to be alone Just as it is normal for me to be awake at one in morning and to have stepped out for a moment so as not to work on a paper I have waited until the last minute to do Or away from a computer that connects me to a world that feels as empty as I do, on nights like these

But there is no one young like me around here There is no one with any reason to be doing anything at this hour Don’t they have a life to awaken to in the morning, where we can pray things will feel more aligned? And I think (and know that I think too much) of the solitude necessary to stay up into the new morning, performing fragments of music into this endless ocean of wind And I go back inside, to where it is warm --John Fram

Many, many thanks to Dr. Dennis Michaelis & the Board of TrusteesDr. Jack Schneider -- Dr. Donnie Balmos

Dr. Bill Mattafor financial support and encouragement.

A special thanks to all my colleagues, students, and former students, who assisted with the selection of poetry and short fiction:

Dr. Cheryl Bohde -- Dr. Carol Lowe -- Dr. Bill MattaDr. Lisa Hoeffner -- Dr. Kent Hoeffner -- Dr. Linda Cook -- Dr. Charlotte Laughlin

Renee Martinez -- Londa Carriveau -- Heather Michael -- Brenda BradleyRyan Thompson -- Nicolas Webb -- David Daniels

Lynne McMahen -- Maria Delgadoand to Ramona McKeown for her patience and help with the design.

More poems by our first-prize winner, iokepa

whalesi rolled over onto my back and found the funnies there’s nothing like a little calvin & hobbes to take one’s mind off waking up behind a dumpster with nothing but a tone-deaf drunk and a blanket of newspapers to keep you warm if you can imagine the smell in the air then i’d have to say you’ve been wasting your imagination you should try putting it to use for a change like flying or being inside the belly of a whale the smell might be the same but at least you’d have better company i’m sure jonah and that puppet enjoy a game of cards or dominoes from time to time something about that comforts me a sea full of whales swimming around full of make-shift parties drunk on everyone else’s good times maybe thats the mystery behind a beached-whale

he’s just partied out

spider-websin this life (or perhaps another) i’ll learn the difference between true love and spider-webs i’ll have the time to inhale the many words of a single thought i’ll drink the drink of the blue-jays made from souls left to cool on window-sills and in this life (or perhaps another) i’ll learn to breathe hope to dream of the love i’ve left instead of these lonely spider-webs

ageif i get too old for erections if i lose my whiskey teeth if i can no longer recall the melodies

if i have forgotten the joys of spitting from roof-tops if i can’t describe her smell

if life is just a cereal if i believe every word the reporter says if god is younger than my left hand if the devil can write a better song

if four pm is dinner time if kids are scared of me if every good thing is tainted with sweet-n-low

if i look forward to the past repeating itself again and again and again if my sadness has lost all its beauty

then by all means install a clapper on my heart

and applaud.

the dancethe second time i found a rabbit in a hat i knew i was on to something the squirrels and monkeys that came before it didn’t seem to get much attention but the rabbit, the rabbit wins ‘em every time and so goes the dance entertainment for the lazy pays the elite to record fake laughter to make their shows seem as though they were recorded in front of a live studio audience

take away all advertisement just throw it out the window let the quality of everything be carried only on the tongues of those who like it

radio would begin to play good music again business would have to depend on taking care of the customer presidents would be elected based on merit

there was a time music was enjoyed because of the way it sounded

i wonder what that was like

Amy Who is God Amy who is humbleSitsIn the valley and teaches mountains to growShe coaxesPetals to form from stale budsTheir warm winter shellsAnd sterile wind To make wavesTo ignite the seaAmy who is GodCould lie on the bankAnd teach fish to breatheOn landOh, oddAnd lovely AmelieMother of my soulMy church, My keeperSet your third eye upon meAnd keep meSafeTeach me to loveTell me I am still a childAnd let me re-growOh dear, sweet thingI am Your little messRe-mold meI say ‘love’ And you help me loveI am small, I am young, unfamiliar with this gift -hospital come- The nature giftThe nurture giftI say ‘God’And you’d keep the world on a spindle, on it’s strange axisTwirling it with your slender, brown fingersSo I say ‘truth’And you’d enlighten these dull, dark hoursThere are many.You, you are few.A small miracle. A winter bud. A fish on land. Mother, born from the starsBorn from the otherworldly,

You are hopeThat IThe same, The identical The counterpart of your soul-(kindred, mother!)-could somehow keep you, be youAnna said women are born twice, But she didn’t mean it this way

And what I meant wasPlainlyMother, you were born twice

BirthdayI was thereWhen you were newWhen you were near-life in your warm canalAnd you came out from the slash of red, a splash of blackYour chemically blue eyes flooded your little purple face with near combustionAnd you shook and shook in the cold roomAnd my brother heldYou With teary eyesLike he had been born, tooAnd your mother With near exhaustionHeld youLoved you I was there when your eye lids were paper thinAnd every fragile vein was thinly illuminatedAnd your head was a small tuft of downAnd everything you did seemed Godly And you made us believe

I was there when you discovered your fingers, your toesWhen everything fit so nicely into your small, pink mouthAnd here there are photographsFor proof when you are old enoughAt that stage when you’re invincibleAnd you no longer need that mother-loveThat father-loveSeeSee how they hold you so happilyAnd proudlyWith tearsBecause they were born too

The Happy AccidentThe happy accident is a fit of fateThey are kissing cousins and know well of GodsIt does not phone, to say,HelloOr to notify you on its next arrivalIt shows up on your doorstepA swaddle A sheathe of blanket enclosing the most precious of fortunes Fate is your mother and your child. You care for it. You nurse from it.

Three Poems by

Vanessa A. Cowart

Blue TrainsI used to ride the Blue TrainsLooking, watching, observing, admiring the way God smiledI used to say to my soul isn’t it marvelous the way God knowsHow to last a day and prolong a nightThat somehow enables you to bear what you may consider your coldest wintersSpent aboard the Blue TrainsIsn’t it wise the way God disguised distractionsThe way they appear like mountainsAnd wet the appetite like fountainsThe way they shiver during a kissThe way they lock you into a wishIsn’t it noble the way God keeps the Atlantic soberEven though there are Blue TrainsAnd on those Blue Trains is or was people like meAnd those people who is or was like meWould often compose the same never ending songs of escapes that had turned into journeys.

James Riley

What did James Riley doTo make a man who calls himself “Sweet Tooth” despise himWhat could have James Riley doneTo make a woman who prays to guns call him the “Polluted Son”What has James Riley gotten himself intoTo make a school boy kick him while he’s downWhat has James Riley foundTo make the world keep spinning around.

Ode to Quentin

I awakened before God came homeBefore he was seated on his throneThe Angels quickly rushed me out of HeavenAnd told me to come back around sevenI was lucky for I had nothing else better to doBut between now and seven I had to find something to get intoI decided to rob a bankBut I was thirstyAnd across the street from the bank was the Stop N ZipSo I got myself the Big Bing Bang Orange Zip just after I robbed the cashierArmed with a pack of Double Mint Gum I told the teller give me everythingIncluding the one dollar bills you have in your pocketsI hid out in the basement of this blues club called The Battle of The Last WordAnd everything was going fine until the owner came down the stairsHe must have heard a strange noise or something, ‘cause he reached down and came back up holding a gunLuckily for me, I didn’t know the guy he shot in the headBut as the owner walked back up stairsI let myself out the same way I let myself inI hitchhiked my way back to Heaven.

Three by Ashley Stramler

Hannah McLean 198

Amanda Galvan Sunday

Ariel James Comfy Bananas

Ariel James Hoarfrost

John Neufeld On the Edge

McCalmont Awards for Creative Excellence in Photography

Second Place -- Mick Burson Timeclock

Third Place -- Cameron Burk Album

Pablo Amos C’mon, Just Spit It Out Already

Pablo Amos Pulling My Own Weight

John Neufeld Haleakala

Pablo Amos All That is My Own

Stine Pedersen Untitled

Tucker Mueck Yellowstone

An extra special thanks to Glenn Downing

for his tireless efforts to collect hundreds of photos for each issue.

The judging is difficult, and we all appreciate

his assistance in making The Stone Circle

the successful journal it has become.

James Myers Jingle Trucks

Walking Past

My brother drove me to the airport. We opened the car doors and stepped to the departure curb. I took out my bag. One of its carabineers snagged on the leather seat. I pulled up and un-snagged it. A pea-size hole remained. Both of our eyes grew wide. We shook hands and I walked.

I entered the terminal and dropped my bag off at the USO. I wandered until the crowd thinned. There were some seldom-used restrooms. I went in, entered a stall and sat down.

What is the past? If it is memories, it doesn’t exist outside of my mind. I can always change my mind. If it is artifacts, I can always smash a souvenir and destroy a photo.

The combination of a hangover and an imminent redeployment hit me in the form of a low-grade anxiety attack. My mind stampeded. I leaned forward and shut my eyes so tight it pushed tears out of the edges. I felt the heat rise from my stomach to my chest. I placed my head in my hands. My chin sank into my chest. I tried to regulate my breathing and calm myself. Calm did not show up.

It is not real. It is an overactive imagination. It is stress. I closed my eyes and started the metered breathing. Dr. L. said that if I control my breathing, I can attenuate the attacks. Then again, he also thought a pill could repair a brain.

Assumption # 1: my brain is broken. Assumption #2: my brain can be repaired. Assumption #3: I don’t want a broken brain.

Through my eyelids I saw the bad days superimposed over a ghost restroom. I saw the little, bullet-riddled girls between the ivory toilet and the tiled wall. Lying on the faux-marble counter top was a dead soldier. He was drained gray from the bullet hole just above the ceramic plate of his body armor. Leaning against the urinals were the squad mates of the dead sniper. They cried towards pink cakes after their comrade stepped on an IED.

Am I the same person now as opposed to then? Every seven years our cells regenerate a new organism. Is that me? Look at a baby picture. That can’t be the same person. I have to tell a story to connect me to that child. What is the difference between history and fiction?

Projected inside the back of my skull, there were good days. Days when I knew I was doing well. I got medication for the translator’s diabetic mother. I smuggled the contraband puppies back on base. I found clandestine homes for them with troops. I assisted the surgeon sewing up the hole in the local policeman’s heart. I helped resuscitate the soldier when his 4-wheeler exploded. I helped build a school. I won hearts and minds. Steps were lighter. Sleep arrived immediately. Dreams were vivid. I was calmed.

I gathered myself, pulled the silver door slide, exited the booth and approached the array of sinks. Eyes point to the mirror. I looked at the regulation haircut, the clean, shaven face and the desert camouflaged uniform. “Is this where I am?” I exhaled to no one.

I washed my hands a little longer than normal. I felt the water warm my hands. I thought I could get rid of the mirror’s image that way: cleansing. Antibacterial soap doesn’t work that way. I walked out. I drifted to a newsstand. I bought four different, Arizona-themed post cards. “Arizonans rarely receive Arizona postcards”, I thought. I was going to send them home when I got back to Iraq. It seems like a good idea at the time. So did enlisting. Was it redeployment or a vacation from my “R and R?” I am doing my best to forget. I am thinking of buying a sledge hammer and a shredder. --James K. Myers

You Are Not You are not dead. You are not. Why insist on welcoming them, Where the fair folds are liberated? The convivial adjoining vine to vein breaks free, That screams, that pleads, ‘You are not dead. You are not.’

--Vanessa A. Cowart

Illuminate the World

I am the day, you are the night. Forever we will chase one another.

Only at dawn and dusk Will we ever be able to hold one another?

For my light makes you disappear And your shadows throw me into darkness.

But my love, my half If you did not exist, neither would I

So though I can only be in your arms For a short period of time.

I will live for you And we’ll illuminate the world.

And we will captivate them with our love.

--Amanda Galvan

Two in One Ice water hits the woodSean looks the other wayI wish I could divest that lookAs one rips through a plastic bagTo find a heap of rotting leaves

Anguish like that of a lost loverI tried to make him a brotherHe spits false--he thinks I’ll buy itBut I see--I see through the thinBlack fleece that hides a viscuous coatOf slime and hangs upon a hairyBack and hides great fangs withSearching eyes he looks to the skiesIn the lights that know all that he is

Something more dwells within.They resonate with truth--the lastwords of a shattered vanity.

--Zac Chadwick & Sean Kamperman

Announcing special issues ofThe Stone Circle

To celebrate the upcoming 100th anniversary

of Cameron Park and a partnership between the

City of Waco and the National Park Service

to improve the Bosque/Brazos River Corridors,

The Stone Circle will feature

poetry, prose, and visual arts inspired by the water, the banks,

and the environment of Central Texas.

A special exhibit will be organized in spring 2010.

Kelly Brown Lover’s Leap

Game of Life

My revolution shall not be televised Nor my religious beliefs compromised by your judicial system

My tears shall not be captioned As U wait for me reaction just so u can judge me

My lifestyle won’t be pre-empted By ur attempts

2 disguise ur intentions with my best interest

Imposing your morality on my shortcomings I shall not broadcast my fear on your local network station

Advertising my frustration For the sake of emotional compensation, with which you are giving

I will do you one better This is my commercial letter

Of what will be No sanctions imposed by the FCC can tempt me

No longer shall I proceed with caution becuz ur feelings are offended Your guilt is tormented by my 60 seconds of fame

So, please remain seated Seen clearly like Hi-Def surely u are defeated

So stay tuned to my reality show series As we are live and as I learn

LIFE IS ONLY A TEST

Nicholas Wilks Untitled

Description

Flash feed net speed upload ur personal image Ya dolled up for call up, but im definite vintage

U can label or disable or waste ur time bein traceable but im capable and casual, ur styles just erasable

Replaced by next month when ur pockets really hungry Considered a trendy dumby yet i really think its funny

Yet we still burn through the money, like BEARZ chasin the honey

Now my words are so critical Trying to attain a visual Of a style so spiritual

Matching clothes is just a ritual But it defines u so pivitol, I got a rockstar mentality

With a Hip Hop physicality And my styles so sporadic If u want it u can have it

Two

Poems

by

Geoffrey

Madu, Jr.

casserole

jesus left me a quarter god sent me a care-package that contained the left overs from when he made the world a creation-casserole full of pieces of the sea floating between islands of dust soaked memory

i lay back on one of those islands taking in all my yesterdays feeling the sand scratch my back and i resist

stuffing my pipe i light the soft embers of aroma and the world smells like i want it to

it smells like surf-wax like willy wonka’s basement full of rejected oompa-loompa candy

it sounds like the kind of melody you find behind a dumpster on a saturday night hard to hear at first but if you scrape all the pieces together you can begin to tell where it comes from

something with blue on the five something underneath the tables

rhythm is my favorite thing but melody sticks to your teeth when you sing

--iokepa

James Elmore Destruction

You Were There

You were there when my life was tattered And all my dreams were shattered

When I thought it was too much to bear My best friend, you were there.

You were there when I picked up the pieces And when I found out what real peace is. When His grace lifted me from my despair

My best friend, you were there.

We have laughed and we have cried We have shared and we have tried.

When all I needed was someone to care My best friend, you were there.

My heart cannot find the words to say But you always seem to know anyway

What your friendship means and how much I care My best friend, I hope you will always be there.

--Tammera Moore

The Argument

What a lark!To diffuse each shout with a bitch-smile. To conjure thoughts from faces. They say, they say “I will break you. I will make you pay”

--Vanessa A. Cowart

Poem #2

It is time for change. Time to be something that no-one would expect. Time to be called something. I have never been called before. Diversity is the key to life, without that you do not have anything. --Sarah Elliott

Two more poems by Vanessa A. Cowart

Mother The night is inspired with the cold, the silentI set music to my pulseI rest it on my chest like a concrete block So it’s tangible And the Metaphysical surges through me The automatism surges through me The nights I am awake I write about my dead grandmother and my sisterAnd love And hurtThey are all here Every vagrant one is stranded for the night Even Doctor MartinSalado Rushdie Nietzsche attends And the Jelly Bean Feast

The sickening sweets And the empty-- the clockwork sweets

Sometimes you are awakeAnd we talk about your dead mother, your dead daughterHow once there were two of them, two dead daughters Sometimes:How one was resuscitated--How she withdrew the pills into the bathtub and was pure againAnd the other’s organs were harvestedThere is a dead fiancéAn Italian man An agriculturistSometimes we talk about Pop Surrealism Or Modigliani and those almond eyesOr counterfeit supermarketsThe ones you make upWhen your eyes linger on one object for too long And all the lines run togetherAnd your brain forms shapes from air On these nightsI read to youFrom the death notebooksMine or another’s And you tell meAbout the ghostWho came to youWho told you what it feels like to be alone I might say something about the girl in the mirrorAnd how I’m never myselfAnd how I share two souls

And I might add, mother, how we share the same mistakes, and also, The adjective “mad” in our diaries

Curled up in the Cosmos

Somewhere Soft and quietDark and airless

Where you Can finally restMay I rest with you

Can I unpin the stars From every shelf and niche

And sleep Between you and Orion

Like I am Sick and feverish

And you care for me As you did when I was small

Un-tidying the calculated massesmy fingers cinching each lightthumb and forefingerlike a small flameand thimble at my bedside

And if you still don’t know, And if you never know:The astronomers and their telescopesOr kids outOn warm nights(Because, of course, my love is not transient

and woven around the earth)Will tell the story of how this particular formation

came to beAnd Unmistakably MotherHow I would follow you anywhere

Have a safe and relaxing summer!

the travels of whiskey randal the left side of my heart sold itself for half-price at k-mart just to get back at me for that time i drove off and forgot IT in reno

they put IT on their discount shelf where IT sat for three weeks until tara bought IT for her eight-year old kid but he only played with the box

so a year and a garage sale later found IT going home in the pocket of a twice-divorced-caucasian named amber who listens to classic vinyls but doesn’t know the world is actually flat which is odd since amber is the colour all the rainbows forgot to mention last year at their annual fund-raiser

she lost IT in a boating accident somewhere on the mississippi the police tried to investigate but all she could remember was how the water burned her eyes

turns out IT floated down stream to new orleans where IT learned to play jazz piano and was hired by the Jivin’ Jesus Quintet IT cut a single with blossom dearie’s third cousin but they never figured out how to mix the romance

now i hear IT spends its days walking on the beaches of my regret drinking salt-water to keep the sanity away

the other day i asked my right side why the left had gone he said, because IT was sad, and IT was lonely IT had a hole in it through which all the grace leaked out, and IT was never home IT longed for the ocean, and IT liked too many things

but mostly, he said IT was love, and love is best when it’s remembered

--iokepa

Into the NightCome away with me.

When the hands of the clock Reach up towards the sky.

We will scream our fears into the night. We will yell our desires into the night. We will cry our sorrows into the night.

We will become one with the night. Reach up towards the sky

Like both hands of the clock. Come away with me.

--Amanda Galvan

Hip-Hop Haiku

Silence--a strangled Telephone has forgotten

That it should ring

Freeway overpass-- Blossoms in graffiti on

fog-wrapped June mornings

--Geoffrey Madu, Jr.

The Kid I saw this kidWho stood there as you or as I wouldHeads were down, but thoughts were highStill I saw this kidWho stood there as you or as I wouldThe day was up to no good, while the night remained the same wearyBut I saw this kidWho stood there as you or as I wouldTears served their often purposeAnd for once the crowd didn’t cheerThey just rose like the kid I saw And stood there as the kid would.

--Ashley Stramler

Raylan WittenSweet Sunny Strawberry

Mick Burson Nick Nollie Big Spin

Jennie Bryant Ash

Hue Ta A Miracle

Chris Burch Change

Raylan Witten Which Way Will You Go?