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Meem Library St. John's Colleae the grout St. John’s College’s Literary and Arts Magazine fall 2011 table of contents Page Title, Author 5 Shut Eye, Akiva Katz Photo by Ben Holme 6 Artwork by Isla Prieto 7 Mom, Zachary Hooper Photo by Andrew Peters 8 Untitled, Olivia Broustra 9 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 10 Space Trip, Cheryl Abhold Photo by Haley Tethal 11 Untitled, Rhys Conger 12 Sand Dollar, Jillian Burgle 13 Grape Vine, Padraic O’Neill Photo by Audra Zook 14 The Storm, Charles Brogan 15 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 16 Get Your Head Out of the Clouds, Arthur Lopez Photo by Rhys Conger 18 Metalhead Lament #27, Cheryl Abhold 19 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 20 Photo by Mary Creighton 21 Passion Poem, Bryce Gorkins 22 The Self is an Empty Heart, Rhys Conger Alley Dog, Jillian Burgle 23 Photo by Andrew Peters 24 Girl Gone Wild, Sabina Rai Photo by Mary Creighton 25 Photo by Rhys Conger 26 Mercado San Telmo, Andrew Peters 27 Photo by Mary Creighton 29 Artwork by Isla Prieto 30 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 2 table of contents Page Title, Author 31 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 32 Psalm 51:3, Bryce Gorkins 33 Photo by Ben Holme 34 We Go Light Fires, Jillian Burgie 35 Artwork by Anastasia Kilani 36 Photo by Haley Tethal 38 Untitled, Padraic O’Neill 39 Photo by Mary Creighton 40 Photo by Andrew Peters 41 There is No Unturned Stone, Peter Horton 43 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 44 Ode to the Interstate, Andrew Peters 45 Jared is an Elephant, John McAlmon 46 Photo by Rhys Conger 47 Excerpt from “The Ivory Tower,” Kurt Strom 48 Photo by Audra Zook 51 Photo by Mary Creighton 52 Photo by Chloe Ginsberg 53 Waves, Zachary Hooper 54 Hell is a Battlefield with No Soldiers, Nathaniel Keen 55 Photo by Mary Creighton 56 Godly Precision Unknown, Jack Brookes 57 Photo by Chloe Ginsberg 58 I Was Out Walking when I Heard About Your Death, Rhys Conger 59 Photo by Rebecca Ahrens 60 The Mendicant Scholar’s Tale, Akiva Katz 63 Artwork by Isla Prieto 64 Silent Musing about Life, Allen Matsika 65 Artwork by Anastasia Kilani 66 Music and Film 3 the staff Senior Editor Jillian Burgle Junior Editor Felicia Thompson Page Editors Rebecca Ahrens Sharon Beckstrand Katie Huang Padraic O’Neill IT Editor Rhys Conger Staff Members Cheryl Abhoid Jack Brookes Olivia Broustra Gray Crawford Gonzalo Gamarra Malcolm Garland Alex Lieberman Allen Matsika Haley Tethal Terri Weber Thanks to the following Tutors and Staff, members of our Semifi nalist Panel, for their generosity in reviewing: Guillermo Bleichmar David Carl Robert Richardson Greg Schneider Nancie Wingo Russell Winslow And a thousand thanks to Polity for granting the funds and the faith to make this happen. Cover design by Gray Crawford. Thank you! And thank you to all who submitted! If you like this edition of the Grout, let us know! Send questions, com ments, etc to [email protected]. If you’d like to make a donation for next semester’s issue, please direct your gifts to Polity, who will guard the funds for us. Thank you for your support, and enjoy! 4 Shut Eye I know no greater pleasure than to dream Inside the Sun, waiting ceaselessly for waking And, hoping it won’t come. Drowning in unconsciousness And wishing to move on From lucidity and hopefulness that cognizance is gone. And that all the cards in my hand That make me want to fold. Dealt me by a poker playing god When I came in from the cold. Might vanish for an instant In unin’trupted sleep Of the great black robed equality That draws me toward the deep; And the heavy creeping ivy that pulls blankets cross my head Ties me to the black abyss that people call my bed. Refuting any efforts to do anything instead Of waste away. Akiva Katz Ben Holme 5 Isla Prieto 6 Mom Night sometimes comes withered or in a barrage of dewy filament either a pond with boating leaves of autumn or the city midnight first time snow both, however, emit yawns via starry mouths & infinite melancholic breath breezing by nostalgic gusts to my desk blowing on to caverns of transient joys Among stalagmites run shadows of a California toddler blonde hair long & behind him, rainy day kid with buzzed head a myriad of shadows passing by & what? what constants? few across state boundaries & school districts but at end, one shadow received all who ran & it’s her, that shadow who still receives me now wherever I may run. Zachary Hooper Andrew Peters 7 Untitled left with no remorse. Next we travel Olivia Broustra through the church to see if God is there to cry to. The sound of his When I first gaze upon his hooves fills the empty silence and noble face, he is in chains. His mane he can see that we are not free. The is matted and his hair tangled. His church and state forge new bindings eyes are dead and his spirit broken. every time old ways start dying. As I try to break the chains that bind we approach where we began we him but only succeed in failing. The pass through a forest where beasts next night, his chains are broken but are dying. He rears up and screams he is still a dying beauty. I ran my his anger as I clasp his mane and hands along his body and feel the hold on tighter. He is angry at what scars that man has dealt him. My man has done to the world that craving to ride him begins to rise gave us life. We stand there killing but try as I might I carmot return for stupid reasons while the world light to his eyes. On night number around us fades to ashes. Even three I found a comb and soon his worse we turn on our own and mane is free of tangles. I continue leave fellow man to rot among the on to save his tail, as his head turns rats. I try to explain, but I cannot, to touch my own. A week goes by why people believe that they are as he begins to heal until I find him better just because of paper cash. running wild. I approach him with Or maybe it’s just human nature, to desire and soon I find myself upon believe that it is better to be skinny his back. We race through forests or of certain color. He races back and across the plains, both of us to where we began and I dismount freer than we’d been. He carries me with a heavy heart. He turns to to the end of the world and even leave and race away but suddenly there he does not halt. Leaping stops and turns his head. Facing into space we decide to explore the me his eyes reveal the truth inside great unknown. Galloping across that I’ve tried to deny. He and I are the stars and skies I begin to feel at one and the same. He’s the black home. Out here there’s nothing to stallion inside my soul. The chains bring me harm. But soon he stops that held him are the world that and turns toward earth, we both with its laws has bound me tightly. know we must return. And so we There was no light within his eyes head back to the world, knowing to because I was blind to my world’s space we would return. He carries sins. We were both scarred and our me slowly across the plains neither hair tangled because words hurt of us wanting this to end. Through and life’s perplexing. But the last battlegrounds of silly wars we trot. week has let time heal me. Our eyes He tosses his head to say that war is meet as we make the promise. I sad and man is a goner. For here we win not let the world bind me or let see that man destroys what little is other men’s words scar me. When 8 life’s a mess I’ll hold on tight and go through life and see that stallion remember that there are things when I struggle. But today he says they’re hiding. The world around goodbye and I know why. I don’t might try to blind me but now I see need him now as I have found the truth so clearly. Finally he turns where I belong. He rears up and to leave and races away as daylight screams goodbye before racing wakes me. away into the night. I remember that dream as I Space Trip everything you hate and burning Cheryl Abhold it alive. This is a forced catharsis, a necessary sedation. When the door There are no re-entries closes, you are ensnared in the hot- at Launchpad. Just like a real box. Claustrophobia is a catalyst rocket mission, once you’re in, for mosh pits, some of the best I’ve that’s it. There is no escaping the ever been in. The sounds pulse on celestial spectacle, unless you feel the floor and echo off the walls. like being thrust into an endless The lights reflect the bloodstains on vacuum of instant boredom or your shoes. Everything culminates death, respectively. The interior is and congeals into a high-octane ornamented with dazzling graffiti heU-ride. The aim is to delve so and stickers juxtaposed on the deep into the darkness that you grimy walls.