Clemson Chronicle, 1994-1997 Clemson University

Clemson University TigerPrints Clemson Chronicle Publications 1994 Clemson Chronicle, 1994-1997 Clemson University Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/clemson_chronicle Materials in this collection may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. code). Use of these materials beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. For additional rights information, please contact Kirstin O'Keefe (kokeefe [at] clemson [dot] edu) For additional information about the collections, please contact the Special Collections and Archives by phone at 864.656.3031 or via email at cuscl [at] clemson [dot] edu Recommended Citation University, Clemson, "Clemson Chronicle, 1994-1997" (1994). Clemson Chronicle. 37. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/clemson_chronicle/37 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in Clemson Chronicle by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ec t-(-tl n^7:5fri^^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/clemsonchronicle19clem_37 Fall 1994 — From the Editor: I have noticed a fierce whispering lately about the nature of this magazine. The undercurrent of displeasure has always existed in union with the purpose of the Chronicle that is, to be a showcase for campus creativity. For one thing, who is to decide the constitution of creativity? While we understand that the source of the grumbling is our tendency to publish staff work, we assert that the people most concerned with the success of the magazine, the staff, are talented people. We would like to publish more talented people, whether you are staff members or not. The problem, however, is that we do not receive enough quality submissions to fill out an issue without using staff work. Grumbling cannot be avoided when inevitable rejection affects some of our contributors. The problem is that we, in keeping with our purpose, cannot in good faith publish inferior literature in order to cease the grumbling. This is a world of "survival of the fittest," both in business and in publishing, itself a literary business. If you have submitted to the Chronicle and have been rejected, rest assured it was not from lack of attention on our part, but that for some reason your contribution did not fit the needs of the magazine. We implore you to keep trying, because we greatly appreciate your interest. The greater number of grumblers, however, are those who have not and do not submit to the Chronicle, and yet still air their unfounded gripes about our selection process. To these people we ask: What is the problem? If you have not submitted your work, then you are not only contributing to our low submission problem, you also have no basis for complaint. If we receive 100 submissions, and the ones judged to be most fit are staff members, then that is a reflection on the quality of submissions as a whole, and not an indication of an "inbred" system. We absolutely do not discriminate between staff and non-staff, and our selection system is anonymous, so no names are involved. The Chronicle is still your magazine. It does not matter who puts it together, or who prints it, the content is still yours. If you choose to make a difference, and you think your work is good, send it in. If you don't, you have only yourself to blame for not getting in. Heather Anese Rek Table Of Contents omise of a drynd to a satyr Heather Anese Reid 2 u sea, alone 3 \isible Fire Darren Blytho 4 Sonnet to Poverty in 1927 Zachary Stoudenmire 16 y Dirt 17 /nthesis 18 nother Cycle 19 ashville or Memphis Mason 20 ender Night John Orfield 25 he Mistake R. B. Parker 26 he Tale of The Three Clouds Rahul Sharangpani 28 rother, Can You Spare a Dilithium Crystal? Trea Holladay 30 -one To See a Shrink 31 inocence Dana F. Griffith 32 he Dream 34 mbracing the Mind Jack Vardy 35 lomesickness I. Rae Schmidt 36 Cover Art Done by C. Allston Kendall: Front cover, "Experiment," back cover, "Waterfall Woman" —— Heather Anese Reid Two poems Promise of a dryad to a satyr Love is a dark place, cool with the scent of rain, a forest of rain, quiet in the small hours of a dew-soaked sky, red with dawning. Your heart the sun, mine the palest moon, deep into night 1 reflect the treasure of your love to illumine the lonely, my soul. I was made for you, the earth for the sky, and deep within me your heart beats, your soul stirs in me some new life, spread with branches like the Reci Oak. 1 will grow as you grow, and fail should you fail, my life the soft heart, your love the wet bark of the tree, dark with promise. Let your voice be the rain, life-giving the death of love my grave only. the sea, alone Voice of the sea your song is endless, has serenaded the stir of hearts to love, consoled the salted grief of love-torn ages, ever contant, as Nature is. What to you the hearts of women, the souls of men who come, and are silent here in your wake, to whom you give your voice, meditation for their words. The cycle is served, by tears, by joy—you sing, and the lovers hear the groan and sigh of ecstasy, the grieving an ocean's tears, the lost the silence behind the surge of tides. You sing, the canvas for our thoughts, and there is no "you," only silence, and a thousand, thousand hearts. Darren Blythe Invisible Fire It was late in the summer of 1983 when Wilson Lomax came into my life. Blown in off of the Nebraskan plain by a late season thunderstorm, he sat huddled over a cup of coffee in the Grand Island McDonald's while 1 watched him, unnoticed, from behind the cash register. He stared out the front window through one of the golden arches while the rain came down, and 1 thought that 1 had never seen anyone look so tired and beaten. Although he looked old, somehow I knew even then that he was under thirty. A battered, dark green backpack sat on the floor next to feet clad in battered hiking shoes, and his black hair lay unkempt almost to his shoulders. His once-pale face, almost as battered as his gear, was scarred and harshly tanned by the midwestern sun and came to a point at his chin. His cheeks were stubbled with growth that looked to be a few days old. But it was his eyes that wordlessly told just enough of his story to draw me to him, to begin spinning the thread that would bond us for four weeks before being severed. Dark, deep-set and bracketed by shallow crow's feet, they were eyes that looked ever ahead. Not out of hope or optimism but out of despair and fear of what lay behind. There had been a momentous turning away somewhere in the past, and looking at him dredged up a word that echoed in my head with every tick of my pulse: Ri(iuiiij>^. And so it was that 1 approached him with a pot of coffee, my McDonald's uniform itching in places 1 didn't dare scratch, and uttered the words that breached the barrier between us. "Would you like a refill?" Mom and 1 were cleaning up after supper, and Dad and Willis were bringing in the few cattle that grazed a small pasture left untouched in a sea of corn. Looking to my left 1 could see Wilson out on the front porch, rocking back and forth with his drawing pad in his hands. He was looking west at the sunset and absently drawing something 1 couldn't make out. My kid brother Jimmy, who was ten and after just a week worshipped the ground Wilson walked on, sat across the porch from him with a yt'How legal pad. He kept looking up at Wilson, and I realized that he was trying to draw the wanderer whom my family had taken in. A strange, beautiful intertwining of lives had begun, and it was all because my older brother John had contracted a social disease. I have often wondered about fate, and that evening with my arms thrust into a sinkful of dish-soap bubbles 1 replayed our meeting in McDonald's, seeing the images and feeling the giddy novel emotions that a sixteen-year-old girl feels. He had looked up at me slowly, as if becoming aware of my presence gradually, and had smiled. It was a wistful smile and tinted with pain, but in that moment 1 had seen the person he had been in his other life: Warm and secure, surrounded by friends, and prone to thoughtful, dry humor. The age had briefly fallen away from his eyes, and they pierced me softly, making me want to put my arms over my chest and look at the floor while my face grew hot. "Are refills free?" he said in response to my query. "1 just spent the last bit of change I have." "Of course. But I'd give you one even if they weren't." 1 was sure 1 was blushing furiously. How could I have just said that? "You're too kind," he said as he held out his cup. "Thank you." The wistful look again, not quite becoming a smile.

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