:!). LeW?J -1/~Er~k r- Z·rMf 7aro / ~ - &~ ~- hobart park [Editor-in-Chief] Christian Hunt [Associate Editors] Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, Jeremy Campbell Molly Allan Ed Anderson Alexis Boehmler Untitled [Art Editor] Jenny Lyon GILL HOLLAND Quickening My Father's Boss REBECCA HAZELTON Morning Restoration LUKE O'HARA Written, Perhaps, on a Tomb Seen JEREMY CAMPBELL Dreams [Readers] Steven Meriwether Lauren Lester Palmer Seeley Aileen Waters Abbey Winant [Of Counsel] Lamar Clarkson The Ruined Barn ALAN MICHAEL PARKER Untitled DAVID RUSHTON Dame Fillander excerpt from "The Dogs of Negril" SCOTT GEIGER ALEXANDRA POPOFF Two Lines from Spenser at Home Waking Shed Skins BROOKE SHAFFNER Klopstock at Woodstock MARK McCULLOH The Kachhua YASAR ISHAQ Noah's Wife Hagar ANNE STANCIL JAMES EVERETT Images From BEN BUXTON AMBER WORRELL LAMAR CLARKSON ANNAJUDY hp Untitled GILL HOLLAND Evening in the front garden on Davis Road , summer-time 1997. I recall receiving a electric shock from a cattle wire on a farm near Bremen in the summer of 1960. How the German farmers all laughed at the American jig! Enclosed across the road Janet's horse looks. I am just watering a bush. With the drought we may be too late with this hose. It rustles a smooze. Together we harm lessly remember the electric fence on Herr Haft's farm which rippled electrical experience through my innocent arm . Hilarious opined my farmmates in cattle. I lept sure as hell. I did a devil's jig, then blept a faint ha-ha. The Germans laughed . No way I'd die far from accustomed fields of play . -Naw. That was 1960. You, beauteous mare, were not even born. A lovely smooze she rustles . Whinny thou about the juice in the wire that keeps you enclosed? Loose ly you stroll the paddock. Isn ' t it strange how still electricity wants us, tame, in order , arranged? Quickening REBECCA HAZELTON We were standing knee high in sharp - edged grasses, your back to my chest : warm . Cicadas ' calls scraped a drunken round . No light. The border between lake and land one band of black bleeding into another. hp Something shifted then: the insects hushed , the lake disappeared. Disoriented , you panicked, pushed me aside, running for light, our waiting car , definition. I followed , running , stumbling in the dark, and hit a park bench with my bare shin , hard. I limped to find you waiting by the car, uselessly tugging the door handle, frantic. Angry with you, too sick with love to say it, I let you in and drove you home, ignoring my pain but not your panic . I stroked your hair and soothed you . Virginal and skittish, you permitted nothing but the lightest of touches, brief embraces, kisses cut short at the first sign of quickening breath . I pretended respect, when in fact I feared exposing my own fumbling. How could I ever unbutton your crisp white shirt , perfectly ironed, knowing that the clasps of your bra would defeat me? But before you left, you clutched me, and kissed my lips raw with insistence. Dazed in your departure , I touched my leg, my lips. hp My Father's Boss REBECCA HAZELTON would pull up to the curb ofmy highschool at the barest promise of rain, to see me home safely. He drove a small blue sports car, the radio loud with the song all the girls hummed in class. One brown arm lazily steered, banded with a silver watch and furred with dark curling hair. The other helped him talk. His cigarette , ash heavy, was always ready to set the ceiling on fire. Our talk would turn from my tests to his accelerating divorce, and I learned about the photographic opportunities to be found in strip clubs (the lighting is quite unique) and the money he'd have after he was free . Till then, he could only buy me sodas, candy bars , but just wait, he ' d show me my worth. I was curious to know . If the rain let loose before we reached my house , h e' d downshift to third, take the curves slowly , carefully, while I snuggled down in the seat, enjoying the ride, one foot on the dashboard , my skirt sliding unbidden up my thighs . LUKE O'HARA Morning hp " sinc e feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you ; wholly to be afool while Spring is in the world ... " ee cummings My bed is too small for us. Strewn in sleep like the clothes on the floor , you've claimed most of it for your- self. But I don ' t mind . The skin of my back tensed against the tackboard wall, I'm sinking into a canyon , sliding off. Your face holds the light. Holds it how a painting holds the painter, in awe . I'm watching the sunrise with- out the window . The lines of smeared azure from last night have crept down your eyelids, to your fluttering sickle-thorn lashes. Only the birds and I are awake . They litter the air with odd squeaks and chirps. But I am quiet. Museumquiet , as if I stood alone , past the silken cords close enough to touch the statue. I crouch in the crevice of the bed, drinking your hair. It is long, running straight and wide. An old river through the wide banks of my crumpled sheets . As it begins to lighten, a gentle gauze , an easy amber ember floats around your face . Sun on water, playing on ripples and tangles , the illusion of movement. Flowing. I push the hair from your eyes , with the tips of my fingers. Soft. One is elusive, silken, illuminated spider-spun strand. I think you are almost smiling , the way I think cats are sometimes smiling. Your lips almost curled in a shallow crescent pink moon. hp Jcontinued from page 5) In our haste, we must have neglected the cov- ers. Letting kisses flow over the sheets like music over water . And now we lie uncovered, unconscious (well , at least you), unclothed, unmasked. Naked to the dawn. You breathe. Rising like the sun must be now. Your arms surround your breasts . One shadowed the other sundrenched, like Atlas holding sky from earth. Up and back, in and out, but I am always slipping down. I know I haven't slept. Your skin is a poem. Unchained, flowing, bare, sleek, exposed. It shakes with the breeze. It flattens and then rises gentle like water beading. I rub your arm and shoulder, to keep you warm. Your skin rises a little into my finger prints, hills push up some geological shift. My leg is almost between the bed and wall. I want you closer , but I'm just slipping. I can do nothing ... nothing else. Neck extended like a thin waterbird toward a mir- ror. fragile grace in awkward movement My lips on yours like things that fit. Your lips crisp and cool, in the dawn. They quiver a little under mine , and I feel that I'm falling. hp Restoration LUKE O'HARA When it rains in the Gobi desert, the staccato drops wake green from subterranean sleep, as a tomb raider opens a chest of century-dark emeralds. An air of musky antiquity escapes the lost color, old smells still preserved, trapped in windless tombs. Green excavates its revenge, splitting the sand with roots. It bulldozes under to find long tracks of grass like jade roads under the dunes. In the cool dew night, green steals the beige desert's livery and stains it, soils the banner with blades. The ghosts of green-eyed Titans roam unfettered for a night, reprieved from mythical defeat. Green gulps lakes before they're deep, desperate like fire ravaging fuel. The pools burn off in a few hours, showing no trace of fish or frogs. Just the tail of an old malachite salamander, burrowing through dry-flaked mud, following the water hp Written, Perhaps, on a Tomb JEREMY CAMPBELL Here, far from everyone, the sun beats upon your hair and rouses its honey , and we're reminded of our lives by the summer's last cicada from its bush and the siren that shrills its deep alarm over the thunderous plain. 0 voices seared by the air, what do you want? Trouble still rises from the land. But here ' s what the thunder did not say : in a summer of dead wood, when we were most beautiful in this life, there was a hiccup , a time to decide what had died, to name and mourn it. We had a moment when direction didn't matter and the voices didn't care. Once, when we touched the tapestries of night and spoke. I am become the last believer in words. I can.fix you with a host of names, degrees of names , pieces of names , subtle plays on knowness. Far away from the city, there is a rim without a lid upon which we dance. I tell myself that I can still see you being born into the heat and death, steel and conversation. To ask life of these words is to risk being crushed. The power of stone, filament lights cover like grave blankets Flickering in the auburn sky. The gray summer is behind us the hour of the firing squads say goodbye forgetting you, soft , say , Now we can say the simple things simply once more Like a stone, hard , hot earth between man and what shines . hp photography: (top) LAMAR CLARKSON {bottom) BEN BUXTON ' r Seen JEREMY CAMPBELL One eye, they say, looks inward while the other scans the world. One eye examines the selfs invisible wanting. The other scurries over the horizon, connecting one place to another , uniting warm stations , obligations , and restrooms . They say you can't ever look someone in the eyes , you'll only ever look with one, only ever see one staring back. Left, right, left , right, you'll have to choose: The bridge of the nose is a dangerous place for cross-eyeds only. Green, however, is not a color I do well with. It catches too much of me nervousness, greed , envy , and hope grinds me down to a fme powder you gather with cupped hands. I lift a fmger for your epicanthic folds, for the lines of life your laughter makes . In a total ocular, emerald fire I am reduced ; Surely you see the fixed image of falling. They say you can't ever look someone in the eyes. I ask if they ' ve ever tried. Dreams ALEXANDRA POPOFF In a dream I can write poetry . I twist and twine the words perfectly and can ' t wait to wake up to write them down . But sometimes the morning has something else to off er and my verses get lost like a dream impossible to describe yet still so vivid. I can remember the dead weight of my fuzzy numb limbs and think of how I make love to the wall while my roommate makes love to her boyfriend. And I remember my dreams too but never the poetry that I write while my mind touches those unknown dimensions. hp Shed Skins BROOKE SCHAFFNER I remember plucking the shed skins of locusts from pine bark in the yard in Georgia my mother, my father, and I chasing each other with funny hollow insects that clung to our sweaters with sticky legs in the days when screams were followed by laughter. I remember waking to dead fireflies in the days when I believed I could jar magic to keep on my nightstand. Since then so many have promised a curtain of fireflies lowering on a lake after sundown, a sparkling roman candle grand finale, but I do not know that kind of ending. Now you stand naked with love offering me your shed skin and I ponder it, I do but I can guess at the things your skin is heavy with, some of your insides being the same as my own. Maybe it is only the thought of how perfectly your skin might fit over mine, the thought that once shed and slipped over my own, it would make ajar of sorts, the thought of its emptiness come summer. Seventeen years since I have seen fireflies and I am still not ready. I have not yet run to the point where laughter follows the screaming, where the weight of my own skin lifts into the lightness of breath and pulse. ) ) ) J j hp Klopstock at Woodstock MARK McCULLOH Since Dali's dead I don't know what to do. What skating prompter, destroyer of the national glue Unfurls its flag, her flag, in gusts of change? While bombers ride shotgun across the amber range? Meanwhile amidst the skaters at the lake, We pray the Lord one final time our souls to take. The golden Prusso-Poet hail to thee: "O Klopstock!" Contrast the anthem's parody at Woodstock And turning, dance that little Hitler jig beside the train Kick up your boot, your sandals, and refrain: Our rhetoric of protest sets us free to use the most extreme hyperbole Now that Klopstock Has graced Woodstock, Woodstock, Woodstock, Woodstock! We continue to progress in our morass Like Daumier's snails encircled, head to ass. Since Dali's dead I wonder what to do. Despairing, Klopstock, dare I turn to you? hp The Kachhua YASAR ISHAQ retreating into a shell--the proud loner unoccupied for so long where daydreams and memories are external hints threatened with uncertainity, she keeps her head Salman Rushdie is snoring inside reading another ghazal he wrote for her Allah blows it away, far from her tresses remembering your cursive handwriting on my purple Ludhiana turban unraveling the Bilal , alphabetically his kisses wait for her breasts; her eyes await his arrival some time later, you would call me the Purple Sikh flickering your paisley wisps near the great crowd people would call you the new Amerikan girl-an IPO babe-the net sweatheart with you it was always like this with my Begum , it was different resting her head on a cushion , imaging tete a tete it would have to be an unusual fuck you sort of get sick of the Amerikan routine after awhile no woman will ever love a man you tell yourself she adores the ghazal and must admit my Petrushka, my stoned statue waiting like Ha Jin it replies, "Soorqj ki har kiran tera naam Nabilqji " just as Mumbai hai merijaan for the Soda-Pop-Gin-n-Tonic-Haji Ali-wallah you are a timid God, we now know he knows Moors are for Moors only sunflowers do not grow in the Thar desert she speaks of there being many alternate human beings he sighs, knowing that each and every Pakistani lives in misery (look earlier in your pasts) hp unaffectionate distancing between the two: disassemblage what did I bring you to? Ondaatje says, '" you were the only one who would dare tease me and I am a man who fasts until I see what I want" both walk away in opposite directions the ghazal of Old Delhi falls to the ground and its indifference bellows "too soon we assume and forget that things may not have changed, so" tucked safe in between those colours of a new found mother the armour and earrings of the Mahabharat do not protect her loneliness hides behind the closed shutters of the Sunset Boulevard Lady who does not share her sambar and rice what should I tell you about the bend in the river remember the old story of the king whose soul rested in his parrot the lines of mehndi smell the paint near the paintbox like the beautiful moment before the last sigh do not elude yourself because of The God That Failed listen to the winds resting on the road see the tribalism and try to understand miserability in the end we begin again (for Nabilaji and our misunderstandings of love) Kachhua is Hindi for Tortois e. " Soorqj ki har kiran tera naam " is taken from a ghazal sung by Punkaj Udhas and translates: Each ray of sunlight radiat e s within your name . B e gum is Urdu for wife. hp photography : (t op ) A NN A J UD Y { bo tt om ) A M BER WORRELL •'i · •r -~) ,, : . . -~ · • .. ', ' ~I \~ '- ' . i T ~ • ),, .• ~ .. \, .. \ t " .,, ,.,_ t•,.Q.i \"" '!! . \ .: ' l ' , • " r-· t C . ~ ~ r } t I ~' ~ l ,, . I~ • - ~<:. r • - - ~,\ t.t c"r ·' . .• "~ \ ., / .~ .. . , \ , i, ,/ \ ,t,t'' 4.: ~ t- · 1 ,, I, ' ·)·lt I,{ .,,~ • 1-\ :: :At · , ANNE ST A NC IL hp Noah ' s W ife The stench stings my nostrils - horse shit mixed with dog piss. We sail in circles, heavy with cargo : beasts bobbing in a vast ocean . He wanders, muttering incoherences, hoping for land - sending the dove proves futile. Forty days and nights burn as candles drip. We're both weary from retching overboard. I deserve to be swal l owed up, drowned with the rest of creation. I do not believe this new knowledge: humanity will not emerge from my womb. I cannot summon the strength to walk on the soggy earth . I will stay in the boat, and row home. Hagar You stand in the corner, a sly smirk twisting your lips . Do you enjoy watching your husband move in and out ofme? My belly ripe with him instead of yours, you kick me out after he shakes off - yo u don't enjoy my company . I wi ll not give this child to you: S l avery does not shackle my womb . I will dislodge this baby, emptying myself, leaving it for the vultures. I will not offer my eggs as a consolation prize . I pee l l ayers o f b ark from an olive branch, refining a sharp point. ALAN MICHAEL PARKER The Ruined Barn The wind is from the north; The barn door faces south. The boards have spit their nails And hang like open mouths. Swallows stage their play In swoops and whorls and falls. Through the holes in the walls Thread thin soliloquies. The drama starts each dawn To end each dusk again . Till winter comes, Or chance, or violence. Or another play is staged: Mennonite men and boys Tackle beam and board To load their skids with wood . But not today. Today belongs to the wind, The only actor on the stage . The only one in place . Were we ever here? The wind said go away. The swallows huddled somewhere. The barn door swayed. ( DAVID RUSHTON Untitled the surging ache quivers within this wine-consciousness when we are apart you don ' t know howl shake from the joy of desire the nectar that drips from my eyes is the only release from how tightly my body grips itself face to face why do I not cry then? I saw where we will make love the gently flowing cascade if not you the lover behind your eyes my whole being is aroused trembling from the thrusts of your looks and your soft, erotic voice that throbs through my eardrums to the center --1 think you said six words about leaving a message did I hear this through your letter a year ago the liminality that I expressed to you today that you said was like knocking on a door from the inside not knowing the eternity overflowing around me is you I hope I can laugh about this soon hp Dame Fillander SCOTT GEIGER A Senior Common Room Dinner 'I've known many pleasures in my life ,' She said, ' but nothing delights quite like it . To have one ' s organs rearranged with a good stiff- ' Mr. Moresy, the dean , chokes, needs to adjust His bow-tie, attend some hair that is not there While old Dame Fillander sips her bulb of port. 'By a good book!' she announces , drunk, A rill of lusty purple running from worn red lips. He says , stammers , slurs , 'I've read all the big books Of the last ten years. Do you find finding the Famous inferior in their theme-' ' No! But when was the last time you let a story ravage You and the words ring in your ears like thrusting Of church bells?' Mr. Moresy is quite alarmed but quite Afraid to retire, to quit this lecherous bitch who Threatens to skewer with a weapon ' s leer. But poor Mr. Fillander, a sprite of a man, a man given To sampling - if rumours be true - his stock of women ' s scent And a dainty blouse or two, saves poor Moresy as Dame Fillander takes her post-dinner cigar . 'W e' ve been speaking of books and things,' she reveals. ' Right ,' he says , Tm weary and ready to go.' ' And so we shall but not before I bid farewell! Mr . Moresy , Twas a pleasure we must explore even more.' Then at the door She turned to say , 'Mr Moresy, come to tea , round four And stay to talk of our leisurely reading. ' Now Mr . Moresy, heart speeding , takes from the bowl His desert of grapes and a banana; but could not eat For the sake of his soul nor recall a novel worth reading. hp . . . from 'The Dogs of Negril' SCOTT GEIGER That night I studied myself in the mirror for quite some time. I studied my posture , my smile , the way I spoke with my hands . My eyes were the same shade of cobalt as Doc ' s. My lips were just as thin. My cheeks could easily shrink and my body collapse, implode with unbearableness of failure. I would not speak so colloquially , use less oily language. Doc decided that we should walk to Mariposa ' s. It was a gentle evening: the clouds had broken in mid-afternoon and violet light seeped through the trees. The heavens were decreating them- selves , inviting darkn e ss. I don ' t know how he managed to pick up a pair of Vegas Robainos. I suspected another friend that he might've touched for a favor. Doc displayed the cigars like artifacts . Their length , width , musk should be studied carefully, appreciated, he said. I suddenly found myself thinking of Hans Castorp smoking his Maria Mancini's; he too had been a captive of sorts . When I glanced back at Doc he was , again, almost transparent. The man was not my father , he was not even a man: He was less of a man than a complex code or sym- bol. I felt the weight of my own secret history upon my shoul- ders. If I came to Doc ' s end, what would it have been for? All the moments of grace and glory counted for what if I was to die bank- rupt and crippled in a place like Jamaica? The thought of Anna and the cosmic beauty that she represented waged war against these fears. If Doc was a figure of defeat, Anna was blond winged-victory. If I could find her again, somewhere in Negril , all the stars in the night sky would wink conspiratorially at me. We approached the bend in the road before Xtabi when the first shouts reached our ears . A crowd was gathered at the side of the road. Two rastas had cornered a do g against the fence between the bar and the street. The smells of deep-frying and burger patties were in the air after the morning ' s rains . ' Gwahn! Gweh!' one of the rastas shouted , feigning to kick the dog . 'Get outta m'bluidclot fais, ' ell doag!' When I was thirteen, I spent a summer with Doc. We often spent late nights on the beach with another expatriate, a black man called Mr. Shanney. Doc would play the guitar , and Shanney, his drums and harmonica. One night I wandered off while they played around a fire. While I was looking up at the stars, my neck pulled hp impossibly far back , a dog came up wagging his tail. He sniffed my shin and nudged it with his face , leaving a warm slobber along my leg, and he was happy to be led over to where the men were playing. I told the dog to sit, and he obeyed. The music stopped , and the men stared. He was a mongrel, a mix of terri- ers it seemed . Sniffling and whimpering, he repeatedly smeared his face with his tongue. There was blood crusted around his jowls , and it was still streaming from the hollowed-out sockets of his eyes . Doc shooed him off with swipe, and took off his shirt to clean the blood and mucous from my shins . Dog's are despised in Jamaica ; the objects of cultural hatred, they face the machete or worse. The dog at Xtabi was a proud German shepherd whose fur was caked with filth. He seemed willing to do whatever it took to get a meal. He merely wagged his tail hopefully in the face of the patois screams . Even when the net came down , a weighted fishing net , he only paced faster . The taller rasta in a white tank top dealt him a sharp kick to the ribs. Behind the dog, his companion had pulled the wicked curve of machete from his belt. In the evening light the blade glimmered as it arced, striking the dog's hindquarters ; and the crowd cheered. When the net was snatched up , the dog finally screamed as it was pulled from his feet . He squirmed and yelped , trailing blood across the pavement as the rastas dragged him to the short wall overlooking the rocky , dark waters. The sound that came then from the net was remarkably human that it occurred to me that pain was one of the few universals that made borders porous. Ceremoniously , the net and dog as one were cast into the Caribbean Sea. Another cheer went up and men bought beers and of- fered congratulations for the heroes . I think Doc may have known what was running through my mind, the cruelty of the parallels that I was drawing. Could he have known that I was so sensitive to living metaphors? We'll be late for dinner ifwe stand here any longer, David ,' he said. Doc began walking. I looked again at the trail of blood and the rasta who was brandishing his machete as a magician might wield his wand . Life has its own techniques, grand weap - ons . 'Life ' was a misnomer for the malevolence that hunted Doc, and which I believed meant to prey upon me . The urgency of Anna became all the more apparent . JAMES EVERETT hp Two Lines from Spenser at Home Come then , come soon, come sweetest death to me, ease the hours by unfolding this used mind. Sharp be thy wounds , but sweet the med'cines be. On the porch I study the wind chime through a tree. It's a sovereign rhyme. Come then . Come soon. Bring sweetest death to me. Struck in the bedroom I go to the kitchen to bleed. Trailing you pick up an orange, tear off the rind. Sharp be the wounds, but sweet thy medicines be. You went to sleep , I noticed, without an apology . I watch 1V looking for a sign. You come into the room like sweetest death to me. Books are raged reaching for deeper psychology- this search on paper for words I can't find .... Sharp be thy wounds , but sweet the med'cines be. Words will eviscerate me over time. I'll be spilt on the ground; the flies will nest in to dine. Come then, come soon, come sweetest death to me . Sharp be thy wounds , but sweet the med'cines be . Waking JAMES EVERETT Start with metaphors. Begin . Try to make sense of waking from dreams. Find the familiar with touch: warmth sleeps beside you. Because an arm wants to close around a back, let it. Let the tension slacken from muscles: feel heartbeats slowing down. Close eyes when eyes sense sleep. Begin again. optional first line (how I wrote it) Start with an image. Begin. Try I think I like it better that way . ..