The Wake

Everybody acts like they
have fallen in love a thousand times.
They give boxes of chocolates,
perfumes and flowers
and thank each other with cards.
While the boxing companies may be doing quite well,
I can no longer spot
burning hearts in rooms of hundreds.
They all keep their clothes on
and four chair legs firmly planted.Count on your right hand
how many times you’ve been in love—
the lucky
will need their left hand.
Few make it to their feet,
fewer count at all.Georgia O’Keeffe lived for nearly a century.
Even those who saw only one painting
never complained.
Consider me among the grateful:
who knows that the colors
of my red sun sleeping heart
match the tone of the Oriental Poppies?
I need both hands.

I flick my wrist when I talk to the girls
I consciously control it when I’m around my fatherI drink pastel liquids
And prance when overjoyedI cry at sad moviesI cried when brazen hands pummeled my flesh
Soul left bodyI groaned when they shoved me
I begged when I saw cold metal
Your phallus of unequivocal madnessProfane blood splattered words
Capped acceptance
Topped off insecurities
Societal washYou pierced my flesh
Trying to bleed out perceived abnormalitiesMy spirit will haunt you
As I prance on your graves

Two women exchange names and inanities in the room adjacent. They chuckle and giggle; yet I can’t feel their laughter. The table where I sit appears to be oak, finely stained- illuminating the deep and thick grooves of the wood. The smell of coffee and cigarettes permeates through the cafe. The music is drowned only by the clinking and clanking of the glasses in the next room; this nagging white noise. Outside, students amble the streets, zigzagging, exchanging subtle nods and polite observations of the weather. A man sits and sips his coffee, starring aimlessly at the page. His eyes grow blank, and the alabaster skin blanches. His piercing slits of vision wander over the words, while a demolition derby rages inside his mind. His sanity teeters …

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They make me what I am. A mermaid with wings,
Or the days of the week in colors and patterns
That help to create my interpretation of time.When I sleep I always wake up wondering
If I have the day off, or if I slept through my alarm clock.
It sounds like a train halting at intervals on a blackboard.Months are calendars without numbers that stretch to the horizon;
December is always the farthest away, even when we catch it.
I want to have cereal and coffee for breakfast,
Even though the word breakfast brings toast to mind.You know how when you close your eyes,
you see pink and yellow?
Or is it really pink and yellow?
It could be blue to someone else.A parking spot has it’s own texture-
Like a flavorless …

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Conceivably, inevitably, regrettably a notion…
Ambers, lusting, elongation and implosion
I burned the wretched city to ash
Sought lastly and callously a world.
A new earth.
Fell through the sky on my back
Landing and wandering by, by foot to seek for potion.First met a beggar, poorest of tribe
I know who’ll take you to the window in the sky too high to scribe
His legend, he spoke.
To sparrow’s nest, a sit in smoke.
A plan.
The seeds.
Empirically a tree to match the sun.
A watershed vice of onward eyes I spun and climbed the pine.Crusted, darkened, blood and bark neath battered nails apart,
Upon the tree my solace silking in the growing scene.
A setting sun, on seas of cloud, spilling colors entwined,
Glazed nectorate flowering pigmentations in my mind….

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February 21, 2005It’s 1:45 a.m.; the dark cover of night has finally pulled itself past the horizon. The city skyline is filled with esoteric lights that illuminate the blackness. A thick blanket of fog hangs next to the window. The pane is covered with ice that has formed botanical designs, a perfect visual for my scrambled thoughts. Outside, the village lush struggles to find his way home, heading everywhere, anywhere, nowhere. The echo of the shot has finally gone silent.His lips enclosed the cold barrel of the .45 caliber handgun when Hunter S. Thompson pulled the trigger to end his life. His wife, Anita, heard the blast on the receiving end of his phone call; his son, Juan Thompson, and son-in-law were sitting in the room adjacent. News …

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character: Paris
young, intellectual, presumptuousplace: a bedroom
dark, desolate
dungeon of conundrums jetlagged from the info highway, hours taut in knotted string theories, young Paris sinks through the conscious mirror
his eyes fire, flickering after-lights become fractals, snowflake silhouettes, and stars on the ocean skyFirst Dream: Creationthe initial explosion
baryonic energy flung in all directions
shards of stars soaring outward from ground zerofirst there was a festering sweat of dark ages, murky wick, infinite
followed by a cosmic fire, intergalactic plasma pyre, first ignitiongravity was gaseous astral clouds
an ardent contrast
bright glistening celestial colors dissipated into pale pastels of billowing mist
clumps clung together, other clumps of wandering matter were repelled, soon patterns emergedelectron like ellipsoid sights of gravity grasping satellitesplanets came from shimmering streaks of pure white light dust, like foamy …

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I crawled into a seashell.
Coral encompassed my heart.
Calcium leeched into my skin. Ridges of cool cream
And rust orange
Lapped at my ribs and spin.Abalones by bones,
Augers under arteries,
Limpets through triceps.Smooth purples and blues
Running on my underside
In iridescent rainbowsLike oil riding waves.
I basked in a tide pool
Shallow as a puddleAnd you picked me up in your palm
And held me close to your ear.
I murmured sea secrets,Drowned in my own words
Like a lover of the land
Not the sea. -Kim Gengler, student of English & journalism, Junior

The earliest memory that I have is a vision of myself, probably 3 years old, hiding in the racks at a department store. Outside of my smothering cotton fort, I can hear my mom frantically calling out my name, inside of the rack I am giggling with delight. This is one of the only memories in my life that doesn’t have a soundtrack. From there on out, Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue haunts my subconscious valleys. As soon as I climbed out of the clothing rack and moved on to bigger and better hiding places, Tangled Up in Blue always managed to creep right along with me. This may be due to the fact that it sums up the single most important moment in my dad’s life. …

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Note: To read the previous installment of this play, please follow this link.ACT I Scene II [Rina and Arturo in studio. Enter Martin]Martin: Hi Mom, hi Dad. [Hugs Rina and Arturo, they are somewhat distant to him]Rina: Oh mi’jo we were just talking about you. Are you hungry? Want me to make you something to eat…How’s Melissa? [Getting up]Martin: No mom. I just came to ask a favor…Melissa’s good.Rina: Oh. Okay. [Sits, Rina and Arturo exchange glances and nods]Martin: Well…actually Melissa…is not good. [Fades as Martin begins to discuss problem. Audience can’t hear but can see the discussion. Arturo reaches in his wallet and gives Martin money. Exit Martin.][Same room. Rina and Arturo working again.]Rina: Can you believe that Melissa, Arturo? Running off like that and leaving her kids behind…and to …

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Least ResistantNever mind the cold
Never mind it, persevere!
Wild ice will break stonesMy Lover Leaves for Work as I Wake UpNine bamboos and me.
I kiss your yellow pillow.
Dish of sun, tout seule.
Sartre and SarcasmAll of this is real
Tell me what would not be real:
All of this is fake
:: Haiku-ist’s Bio ::I write the Haiku
Looking out in the Urban
My deep heart blowing

The rumbling against the pavement approaches the door
He enters unannounced with his board
With a sigh, he overtakes the nearest armchair
His body slouched and sprawled devoid of care
Tossing his hat and kicking off his tattered shoes
He displays shaggy hair and an ankle with a fresh bruise
A typical reciting of daily events begins
He reports his troublemaking and mischievously grins
Revealing teeth like a tattered fence
Proud of who he is and his lack of common sense
Soon the conversation tapers to a quiet break
He’s entranced by the buzz the television makes
The clock ticks and I must leave
I send subtle messages he doesn’t perceive
He remains slouched, doesn’t bother to move
With no plans and nothing to pursue.

Keeya Steel is currently a freshman at …

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New Yorksteams wheels,
inhales burnt out joints,
harvests moonlit-limbs,laces imagination with brandy,
Bukowski as
legs drip out of bathtubs. It was here I first knew
broken saxophones,
love-scented cabs,cowboy’s crushed trigger finger,
naked subway graffiti of I hate my life and yours,
slumped bottles, the wild prairie. I could steal Central Park,
big-boned blade of voluptuous earth,
tax-deductible on Wall Street.New York all-nighters hit morning and run,
ride high with blank stomachs blank guns,
pockets of plugged nickels. Fear New York, a casket without a headstone.
It slays traffic with scarred palms,
inside the jungle gym where God’s eye is slit. As for me, I’ll move back to the farm.
I’d rather be stolen by a tractor,
unloaded in the dark. New York, …

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The television lit the room.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Miss America!
“I need a smoke.” His cigarettes were by the door.
“You can’t just blow this off!”
“I think I’m in the better position to judge what I can and can’t blow off.”
“Wallace!”
Wallace lay sprawled out on the couch, one hand dangling over a bag of Doritos. She stood between him and the television.
…Let’s meet this year’s contestants!
“Well what do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know, maybe act like a man for once in your life?”
…I am looking forward to a career as a congressional lobbyist and have served as an intern for Senator Elizabeth Dole
“No problem. Go get me my cigarettes.” He pointed.
“Wow, that’s just so funny I …

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