Ben Mason ‘11
Kent is back again.
New paint erases stigma.
Where are the assholes?
Water floods first floor.
All the people leave their rooms.
This is familiar.
Kent dorm is open.
School girls please apply within.
Free condoms inside.
Tour guides skip this place.
Who really wants to see it?
It’s a piece of shit.
Alissa Vecchio ‘13
Slipping into the hollow tube,
I feel the immediate stick of sweat cling to my neckline.
There’s a pause for a short breath and I’m off,
snaking down a tunnel of red.
Germs wiggle their way into my skin and onto my clothes;
laughter reverberates around my skull
until it’s long behind me and my body sweeps past
in a ripple of static shock.
It’s a one-way track,
but I can’t help feeling that I’m lost,
that I don’t know where I’m going
or where I will emerge.
I’m hoping it’s not where I started.
Painful, peeling squeaking tells me that I have stopped,
that the plastic suctioned to my legs is no longer blurred beside me.
Heels dig into my spine as I push forward,
struggling to get to my feet.
I was on the other side now,
unwelcomingly tossed into the world outside of the twists
where I could not live horizontally
so I turned and began the climb.
Doug Carter ‘12
95 north, where the interstate bends
into a curve through Maryland, trees
wait in uneven rows on the median.
Once, a Korean crowd in black array
gathered under an evergreen where
each pair of hands placed a bouquet
at the base of the trunk. Flowers?
There were hundreds, but with
regards to faces, thirty or more
could be found on the interstate,
wrapped in black crepe, weeping
petals onto the median, a bouquet
resting on the vast trunk of soul.
O.R. Bailey ‘07, M’09, Staff
How do paintings feel so strange and alive?
Out-living their creators as they strive to survive.
We – stare and wonder with hearts corrupt,
Almost expecting a change with movements abrupt.
Expecting smoke from a chimney,
A foot out the door,
Movement through a window,
Or steps on the floor,
A lonely house in the distance,
Covered in rain as it softly begins to pour.
I’ve nearly scene a person adjust themselves in a chair,
Witnessed a woman brush back her forever, falling, hair.
I swear I’ve seen a man blink his eyes to see
And heard them both whisper and plea, “please rescue me.”
Strange thought to beget in a fragile human mind,
Trapped in its own frame away from the answers it tries to find.
How can an artist create such a Thing?
A photograph in this world created from a dream,
The memory of a bird and the song it is meant to sing,
Or is it the recording of a voice, fragile in its scream.
There is the absence of the creator in the image of their art.
Mixed with the feeling of power come bleeding from their heart.
Jessica Wilson ‘13
This thing called love is like a drug
First it starts off slow
Then your addiction begins to grow
Anxiously wanting more
Surrounded by it 24/7
Feeling like you’re in heaven
Sitting on could 9
Knowing everything is just fine
As your love is getting stronger
Your mind is getting weaker
Because you are memorized
By the way it makes you feel
It takes you to that special place
That puts a smile on your face
But before you know it you’re in too deep
And your drug becomes hard to keep
But you have to be strong
and know Its okay to move on
Take it as a lesson learned
And your happiness will return
