The Laurel Has Entered Our Midst

The FallLaurel 2011 POETRY & SHORT PROSE: Page 19 “Don’t talk when I flutter on by” - Emily M. Steves Page 3 “A Constant” - Kevin Cooley “Depletion” - Kevin Cooley A Constant Photography by Lisa Malmgren Page 20 “The Exclusivity of Corn” - Philip Nichols Page 4 “The Wheel Won’t Stop Spinning” - Jacob Fischer The sun lies dead behind their mighty form. T Page 21 “Modernist Poem #2” - Laurie Branch To see the shaky tops of endless leaf; “the poets” - Samantha Berkhead Page 5 “Wisdom” - Bill Mulligan their bark is taut as childhood belief. Photography by Jeremy Martin a “Mister Moss” - Samantha Berkhead Photography by Jeremy Martin A sight I know as beauty, yet forlorn. Page 6 “On Listening to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue While b The sky is scratched by their powerful gait. Page 22 “Track 3” / “Track 5” - Jess Rehac Reading Beowulf” - Chris Radey The chutes above my tiny little head Photography by Lisa Malmgren Photography by Lisa Malmgren l pass judgment down from their almighty stead. Page 7 “Westermore” - Samantha Berkhead Page 23 “Never mind” - Kara Michelino Quite kind, they say “forgive” with every sway “Stray Cats” - Karly Gombert e Page 24 “On Sleep:” - Karly Gombert but never quite acknowledge my small frame. Page 8 “Rubber Wings” - Patrick Francis Hosken The mouse before the cat is spared, for shame, Photography by Lisa Malmgren Page 26 “Fearfully Fearless” - Kimberly Bates as Cat turns teeth to plowshare with a file. of Photography by Paige Winston And I, for one, have found more than my aim Page 9 Photography by Maria Hayes Page 27 “Freedom.” - Sara Ward from walks among the woods; my toothless flame. Page 10 “Sacrificing Air for Relief ” - Jacob Fischer Photography by Jeremy Martin & Chris Radey Among the wooden scented pine-strewn aisles. Photography by Paige Winston C Page 28 “Basements” - Bill Mulligan Kevin Cooley Page 11 “Both” - Felice Brooks Photography by Manuela Marin Salcedo “Morning Cigarette” - Patrick Francis Hosken o Page 29 “The Weather Outside” - Patrick Francis Hosken Page 12 Photography by Lisa Malmgren n Photography by Lisa Malmgren Page 13 “Escaping Agony’s Company to Discover t FICTION: Eden’s Ecstasy” - Philip Nichols e Page 30 “Pusing Up Crazies” - Terence Hartnett Page 14 “GHAZAL” - Bill Mulligan Photography by Kaitlin Lindahl n Page 34 “Nightscape” - Brett Keegan Page 15 “Burnt Around the Edges” - Jessica Thompson Page 54 “The Only Character That Doesn’t Get Much t Screen Time” - Kevin Cooley Page 16 “Forsaking Poverty” - Philip Nichols s Page 62 “Café au Lait” - Brett Keegan Page 17 “Blank Stares” - Jacob Fischer “Favourite Colours” - Patrick Francis Hosken Page 65 “Hollow Body” - Chris Radey Photo: Lisa Malmgren Page 18 “iloveyou” - Alexandra Henry Photography in the Fiction section by Jeremy Martin, Paige Winston & Manuela Marin Salcedo. Photography by Paige Winston 3 The Wheel Won’t Stop Spinning Wisdom The night will come Save the sin for the light, its call knows no end, My heart convulses in the fluttering of this narcissistic nightmare Like a vulture for your prey The queen of your doubts writes a number on your chest asking all agents of proverbial chaos to stall, while the constellations The bags around your eyes, tell a story Read it off, read it loud, read it proud for none to hear of a stargazing wonderer contemplate the nature of a backyard Of a life once lost These images are caged in your mind like a rat fistfight. Now is liberation is now. We live and lie in this dead sinking story that is not immune to the inherent purity of the sun in my I’m not a poet The sirens wail and sing a song of temptation eyes. So we’ll crowd together in a cellar door and make a fleeting Don’t kill the messenger The blood on your hands sings a song of temptation attempt to build a fire, and we’ll grow humble before the all mighty Insects will flock to the scene of your crime You gave in, you forgot, how pathetic of you power of the passive aggressives. The sea will silence us all and we’ll We’ll scream victory, as our numbers rise to one Now you’re pacing back and forth, laying grass down at your feet exclude by violence because it’s all we know and tonight never had a This is the day the black sheep will take hold Repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat reason to pompously believe that it would be any different. Because this is just between you and me and the sky and because we’re not Photo: Jeremy Martin Repeat the endless night, dream of her lost faith You’ll drive yourself mad, if you keep up this game the intended, and this is what keeps us staring at the top floor, living Wasps sing like a choir above your lost faith Save yourself the time, give up the charade sin in grey, addicted to the progress of elimination. She stares to The scoundrels will attack the weary and weak Sink em in, Sink em in fall. The universe has expanded so hideously but never took the The frail will consume all that you know Line em up, Sink em in time to answer the questioning nature of September or the color of Take a chance on luck; pay the loan for your sin Just murdering your loved ones because you were lonely dysfunction. My lips explode into a smile. Your hands won’t stop shaking till their wrapped around my throat We’re watching, we’re waiting See if I care, see who cares to listen Bill Mulligan Like a cross on the tomb Line em up, sink em in, sink em in My hour has come We’ve done all we could, there’s no stopping him now I’ll accept my death like a blind man I don’t mean to sound literal, The words flow like sludge His hair and his flesh amongst the maggots and hosts Parasites live off your lost dreams They’ve been waiting for the chance to cry out your name Jacob Fischer 4 5 Stray Cats On Listening To Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue While Reading Beowulf We are the painted people, the ones with scars to speak of, Ah, how one can pair with two! And yet, how two can so The ones that wouldn’t follow suit. naturally become one; Anglo-Saxons anglin’ their saxes, if you will. The younglings, Westermore I can hear it in Heorot, the alliterative fusion of that jazz, with scraped knees and scabs we’d picked until they bleed. of those warrior cries, ringing—nay, bopping—coolly off the stone At dusk’s last rattling echo of life, walls. Unruffled, modal improvisations flinging Grendel off to his The hallowed hollow of the sun’s final light vibrato forest, his mother back below the swan-road—inconceivably the wanderers, always called back to where we should be Breaks through the cracks of gnarled fingers, far from the effervescent Green Dolphin Street. Quintets, sextets, Makes stained glass of the horizon. even full orchestras of men, slain under the lullabies of the dragon’s and never responding well. horn. We are the in between, Sanctified spirits, the relics of our time Show themselves only in the canopy Two wrinkled, convulsive scores of music; one driven by The not sure where we are, But sure that we’re alive. Of a vast and wild divide, of heroism, the other by heroin. Limbs strong enough to break our fall. The stuff of heroes, the stuff of epics. The runners; The climbers; And in that sacred amber glow, The freedom finders; With a swift and blinding strike Most gracious and fair-minded hunter burned to the heavens; One reaches out to sainthood the dragon’s horn pitched to the sea, drifting along the whale’s way, Easily as tear is dropped from its duct. headed back to the Bronx. Brass trumpets, iron shields, wily shouts The ones who make the doors when we can’t find them. of impromptu passion: all gifts for two simple men. The mural people We reach, we run, we fly into the westermore. The only God we know is a foreign shore. Two heroes. Painting and chalking, Colouring, caulking, Samantha Berkhead Two cats that could really play. Stretching, defining Until the canvas is obsolete, Chris Radey We are the live ones, and Photo: Lisa Malmgren We refuse to let us die. Karly Gombert 6 7 Rubber Wings Grey-brown muck bearding my tires, I spun them just after 9: past that one midtown jeweler near Bluebird Square—the one with the neon awning, drooping below the slushed-over sidewalk like a shaggy half-folded umbrella. Imagining men with skinny black ties disappearing inside a chute of diamond-glass, the way a tail skitters through a doggie door, revolving portals flapping like rubber wings. That one midtown jeweler with the boisterous façade of screaming scintilla, aqua blue laid over deeper blue, source of shiny necklace pining and cold bracelets for another. But I spun home under a soft sky and slumped, jejune and dank, like a melted snowman in March. Photo: Lisa Malmgren Patrick Francis Hosken Photo: Maria Hayes 8 9 Morning Cigarette Sacrificing Air for Relief Both Weekdays, we’ll sit in your car, an odd Do you get it yet? swirling combination of blue and purple, Brick stones The guilt will swallow you whole if you do not find and make the dashboard disappear behind hard pebbles higher ground. cloudy exhales. We drag like mobsters lovely rocks Is it weak to move on, or is it a sign of growth? parked on a leafy side street in October.

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