Running out Of

Plotting a Perfect Poem Rue Lazzaro The point of this poem is to inform The point of this is to conform The point is to get your attention The point is to teach poets to write Every sentence will be in quatrain But there won’t ever be a refrain There’s gotta be a lot of rhyming For swear words, watch the timing Fuck. Running Out of Ink Fall 2011 The author has to sneak in a plot Bad critiques for your poems - shot Continually rhyme the word orange And use clichés - creaky door-hinge Daily you should chant this mantra In every poem, obey your genre Originality won’t get you published Invented words should be rubbished The title should have no meaning As most words convey no feelings 4 Table of Contents Plotting a Perfect Poem|Rue Lazzro.......................................4 1075|Michelle Kunze..........................................................6 Yellow|Claire Pincumbe......................................................7 Click, Click, Bang|Lisa Lowe..............................................11 The Nice Things are the Only Ones Worth Talking About|Jim Hinkson............................................................................12 How She Huants Me|Caskey Wiseman...............................16 Beautiful in a Way|Jacob Guajardo...................................18 Nebula|Rachel Bowling.....................................................22 Disassociated Footprint|Maya Soter....................................23 A Writers’ Club Publication December|Josh Campeau.................................................24 Grand Valley State University Be Safe, I Love You|Daniel Cairns......................................26 Allendale, MI The White Knight|Casey Wiseman.....................................29 For Amy|Daniel Abbott......................................................30 James|Elizabeth Morse.....................................................32 Ordinary Day|Raine Gersky...............................................33 Jack|Erin Cole..................................................................44 Fervor at 8am|Rue Lazzro..................................................46 Unlationship|Abigail DeHart..............................................47 The Toad|Kate Bezak.........................................................51 Completely Irrational|Rachel Bowling.................................53 West fo Anarchy|Claire Pincumbe......................................54 Conflict|Morgan Colby......................................................60 Layout and design by Ellen Lundgren, Hannah Moeggenborg & Drake Parker Editied by Hannah Moeggenborg Norweigian Wood This Bird Has Flown|Matt Cook..............63 Untitled|Sarah Donaldson.................................................64 Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved by the original authors. Stepping Stones|Krysta Thelan...........................................68 No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent of the author. Love’s Requiem|Joseph Moravec.......................................71 By night the room came to life with a vengeance, one that I could only blame on my mother for her dreadful choice in paint. With sundown the color deepened, became as offensive as the untrained screech of a violin, glaring at me from the walls. Once friendly, the rabbits like demons awakened and watched me through the night with their beady, gargoyle eyes. I spent the first several years of my life in a constant state of anxiety sleeping in that room, the way some children are ter- rified of painful dentist visits or of their cheek-pinching great aunt. Just when you think the drilling is over, the pinching has run its course, out of nowhere comes a cavity or a family reunion. 2011 Fall I remember lying in that room attempting to capture sleep, face pressed into the pillow to avoid the fall once more into terror. The open window cast shapes and shadows of the night across my covers, the twisted branches of the tree outside were fingers reaching to get in. Worst of all was the large, jagged gap behind my bed, lurking silently. At some point my mother decided to angle my bed against one of the corners of the room creating what she liked to call an “interest- ing effect” which “opened up new possibilities for the room”. For me it created an interestingly paralyzing effect as I lay in bed every night trying not to imagine what new horrific possibilities had opened up behind me. I would cower under my covers, my only shield, trying desperately to keep my mind 8 5 Don’t revise, modify, bend,andcontort revise, modify, Don’t Never everkeepmakeyourworkstooshort And gooutofyourwaytomakeitcheesy Make referencestowomenverysleazy And Iguarantee–yourpoemwillsell thewrongones,pickthemwell Find Running Outof Ink 6 but itwashome. It wasjustonesmallpieceoftheglobe everyone waswelcome every treewasafriend every trailhadapurpose kneweveryinchoftheland We we played,laughedandfeltsafe we learnedourbeliefshopes we madememories we plantedseedsandtheymatured I hadspacetogrow where Iwasshownlove This istheplace, Michelle Kunze 1075 7 Yellow Claire Pincumbe Before I was born my mother was an interior decorator. Afterwards she quit her job to become a Full Time Mom, leaving her creative energies no other choice than to wreak havoc on our small, unassuming household. Being the newest addi- tion to the family at the time, her favorite target became my bedroom. In the top corner of the house it hid from her, sheltered by a staircase and a small window- less bathroom, dreading every whim and attack brought on by her restless need for aesthetic change. It was a small room, longer than it was wide, with a large closet and two white-trimmed windows, one which sat cozily in a dormer that faced the front of the house. The room was painted a color I liked to call ‘yellow snow’, though my mother’s name for it was probably something more like ‘Buttermilk Sunshine’. By day it seemed as friendly as a child’s bedroom could be. A charming Peter Rabbit peaked out from the repeating wallpaper boarder, his face innocent, but his guilty paws holding stollen radishes and heads of lettuce. Sunlight shone through the big open windows and reflected off the walls, making the awful shade of urine somewhat more bearable. The endearing canopy bed in one corner of the room held the many stuffed animals, named and loved, that I once called my own. 12 The Nice Things are the Only Ones Worth Talking About Jim Hinkson *SRS Witching Hour Event Winner* Here are all the things I remember about the day I lost my mind. It was one of those days in late January, you know the kind, when the summer sun pokes its head up from beneath the sheets before going back down, and piles of snow begin to have just the slightest pools of water around their base. It’s the sort of day that brings out the exposed forearms, the lack of scarves. Sweat pooled in the curve of my back, I’m still wearing my thickest jacket. My neighbors sat on their back porch, a few feet below my open window. They smoked cigarettes and planned growing marijuana in the backyard once this weather became a regular occurrence. She opened up her purse and baggy was in her hand afterwards. Sheets of little blotted paper, pictures of a skull and crossbones painted lightly on the front of each one. I get the momentary glance that means she’s double-checking if I mind her smoking in the house. I do. I don’t say so. But I love the way she holds cigarettes between drags, with her wrist limp and seemingly careless, her hand only exists to hold up the parliament. I really don’t know her that well and we’ve been fucking for at least six weeks. I wish I had a reason to remember the first time. 9 out of the treacherous no-man’s land behind my head. At one point in an artistic fit of something resembling insanity, she placed a dusty old fake tree in the gap, a piece that had come up from the depths of the basement and which no one in the house could fully explain the origins of. I didn’t sleep for a week, tormented by visions of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ taking place in my bedroom. Even protected by the daylight hours the room had subtle ways of reminding me of it’s true nature, little taunts that it saved solely for me. As I sat in the win- Running Outof Ink dow, learning to read from my mother and an assortment of fantastical characters, the shadow behind my bed crept up as far as it dared under the glare of the sunlight. The tree outside creaked in the wind, laughing at me for feeling momentarily safe. The closet held my fear unconditionally, nighttime or not. One of the painted white doors hung inches lower than the other and the darkness of what it held seeped through the crack, evoking thoughts of mean eyes and foul breath. Somewhere in the house, probably still lost in one of the scrapbook album now hoarded by my mother, is a photo of me taken with dad’s old Polaroid. I can still imagine him standing at the foot of my bed with my mother, trying not to wake me as they silently captured a flash of my childhood, small as a puzzle piece. They giggled quietly at my ridiculous measures. I took things so seriously, they used to say. Packed onto my bed was every single stuffed animal I owned. In the picture Fall 2011 Running Out of Ink Click, Click, Bang Lisa Lowe I know how it starts. But the gun isn’t in my How a spark sets it off. hands, How words are no longer is it? You have the 9mm spoken and silence is sung. pointed steady. The ridges How lingering touches turn dig into your palm. to cringes and bruises The dark gleam reflects in your eyes. The safety I know how clicks under your thumb an argument escalates. How voices can turn You know how to end to screams and shouts. the violence. How to fix How love can be twisted the broken home. How and burned till there is to bring the laughter nothing left but a pile again. You know of ash and debris. what has to be done I know the hard feeling of metal in my hands. The way the ridges press into my palm. The dark gleam of the barrel. The click of the safety. my dark-haired figure is surrounded by toys of every shape and size, all turned my dark-haired away from me, keeping their black eyes on all edges of the bed.

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