Cabbages and Kings 2012

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Te time has come, the Walrus said,o talk o many things:

O shoesand shipsand sealing-waxO cabbagesand kings

And why the sea is boiling hotAnd whether pigs have wings.Lewis Carroll

Trough the Looking Glass


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Cabbages and KingsLiterary and Visual ArtsMagazine65th Edition

A student-run publication

at Monroe Community College

Mission Statement:Cabbages and Kings is an organization that publishes a magazine at least once a year,

in order to represent the artistic voice o our students, sta, and alumni.We aim to build and nourish a community o coexisting writers and artists on campus.


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Credits

Editor-in-ChieSimon WilsonAssociate EditorCatrina Foster

Graphic Arts CoordinatorJames Lowery

SecretaryA.J. Diaz

reasurerElicia Dean

Visual Arts AdvisorMarjorie CrumLiterary Advisor

Catharine Ganze-SmithCover Artist

Galen Erway

Special Tanks

We would like to thank all those who have served in ocerpositions in this past year: Jordan Watson, Luc Makowski,

Elisabeth Anna, and Stephanie Sherry.We also appreciate the people who have helped us

with scoring submissions, conducting interviews, or helpingto collect submissions:

Irene Mosher, Kevin Rose, McKenzie Swart, Brad Philips,and Emily Talmayr.

Lastly, we would like to thank the people whowere involved in coordinating and advertising or events:Beth Lenheart, Courtney Bearce, and Michael Burkhardt.


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Almost as Sot as a Whimper- Daniel RedicSalt and Metal- Alex KatesA Vision - Kevin RoseSingle and Looking- Catrina FosterLearning Patience- Catrina FosterTe Old News: An Interview with Billy Collins- Simon Wilson, Luc Makowski, & McKenzie SwartRadicals- Taddeus SchicklingEmpty Fountain - A.J. Diaz

Modesty- Daniel RedicOut Cry- Kimberly Nguyenwo Dog Night- Simon WilsonGrey Anticipation - Dominique BollerDear Peter- Kevin RoseSugar- Rebecca CinaTe Veils o the Equinox- Luc Makowski

A Novel- Catrina Foster

wenty Six Letters- Rebecca CinaSand- Melissa PiccirilliWhen I Dont Want to Go to Work- Kevin Rose

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Table of Contents

Literary Arts


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A Walk Trough uscany- Sarah WillisteinAn Echo o Autumn - Galen ErwayKodaks Eulogy- Courtney BearceChemistry- Steven AlexanderTe Eye- A.J. DiazForbidden Fruit- Samantha unneyRagged Witch - Stephanie SherryExit- Courtney Bearce

Eye o ahitis Waters- Galen ErwayBlackout Gallery- Catrina Foster, Simon Wilson, Kitty Niven, Irene MosherVinegar- Steven AlexanderDoomsday Ducky- Nicole Pierceypographic Sel-Portrait- Pat WhitingWindow View- Stephanie SherryUntitled- Clair MastenUntitled- Courtney Bearce

Solarization - Steven AlexanderBroken Fences - Dominique Boller

Table of Contents

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Visual Arts


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Leditor

Congratulations, reader, on nding yoursel holding the 65th issue oCabbages and Kings Magazine. Inside, youll

discover the collective voice o Monroe Community Colleges painters, writers, photographers, designers, poets,and artists o all trades. Were proud to showcase the creative work o our students and alumni, and we hope torepresent their excellence with our issue this year.

I should note that all ve o the ocers credited or the making o this magazine are serving their rst positionterms this year. I can speak or all o us in saying that without a doubt, this magazine would not exist i not or theincredible support o both our advisors, Proessors Marjorie Crum and Catherine Ganze-Smith, the advice andassistance rom past Editors Jordan Watson and Luc Makowski, our constant aculty support rom Shirley Provost,

the advice and inspiration rom Rockland Community Colleges First Inkling magazine team, the gallons upongallons o coee that our publication owes its entire hypothetical lie to, and all the students and alumni who werewilling to take time out o their busy schedules to help us put together the best literature and visual arts magazinewe possibly could. Youve all helped us learn over the course o this production how to become eective studentleaders, and to build a legacy together that can be passed on to all the production teams that will come afer us.

So without urther ado, we proudly present our edition oCabbages and Kings Magazine.Please email us at [email protected] i you have any eedback.

-Simon P. Wilson,Editor-in-Chie


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Editors Choice

A Walk Trough uscanyby Sarah Willistein


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Almost as sot as a whimperin a downstairs corridor,your expression olds like

origami, slowlyin uid creases and lines let in your skinto reect intention, use.

Your ace is native,to the kitchen,to the picket line,a sun-bleached stretch o road,a laugh.Comortable in its polyamory:It loves as God does;Knowing and diligent in its amiability.It uxes between the settled sedimento one look and another.

Always a glanceshot or rolled,

emanated or melted away.It moves, your ace, sotlyas the Earth does beneath us.Plate tectonics slidingacross the planets musculature.It has ssures ormed romunderstanding all-too-well.Ridges that show millenia

o hurt and triumph.It is a ace with purpose,sot as a whimper in a downstairs corridor.

Almost as Soft as a Whimper

Daniel Redic

Editors Choice


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An Echo o Autumn by Galen Erway


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Te smell o salt lled his nostrils. Low rolling hills moved smoothly amongst each other, reaching up romthe deep blue depths, vying or the suns kiss, basking in its warmth, and receding again into the shadows o theirmore eager brethren. Closer to shore, waves drited methodically towards the barren beach. Gliding in on beds o

white oam, their hushed breaths cast a timeless og over rocks and man alike.Standing upon the breakwater he could look down the shore to where it curved out o sight and all the way

up to where the piers began. Behind him stood the park, verdant and beautiul, but not hal as alluring as the eature-less sea. Tis early in the morning he could sit alone with the ocean. He could eel the mist all lightly upon his acelike cool ngers caressing his cheek. He could close his eyes and hear words in the waves. When he walked through

the damp sand, cold blankets slid over and under his eet, ollowing their whispers with a gentle embrace. Te oceanseemed alive, moving in endless contentment. Nothing else in his lie was as constant or reliable as those waters.

He sat contemplating how he ended up here, sitting alone on the beach with two pounds o steel heavy inhis pocket. It didnt matter. His memories were a ll blurred, undulating watercolors o love and agony. Except or herace. Tat he could see. But the image o her violently rocked him. Ripples o the past rode down his spine, across hisshoulders and along his tightening arms to clenched sts.

He turned away rom calm ocean waters and climbed the boardwalk stairs. Heavy ootalls echoed loudlyo the deserted promenade. Long, quick strides carried him switly through the tangled web o pathways that wovethemselves like a meandering stream through the park. Te treeless gardens provided little shelter rom the wind.

Where beore the light breeze was a welcome compliment to his dimly-colored morning, it now sent shivers throughhis body. Te thin black jacket he wore did little to keep out the cold. Pulling it tightly towards his chest, he crossedhis arms in deance.

He made his way through the last o the greenery and emerged in a two-toned world o red brick and blackasphalt. Te worn key hung idly in his hand. Despite his care, he umbled with the lock and entered clumsily intothe crowded apartment.

Mountains o cardboard sat in the company o barren walls where aded lines traced the borders o emptyspaces. He stood motionless, attempting in vain to call back memories spent there. He laid his hand gingerly uponthe railing as his legs plodded up the stairs. Dark amber-colored eyes stared at him rom within a wooden rame. Pry-ing his gaze rom those eyes or the last time he took his nal steps to the bedroom door. It hung loosely on its hingesand opened with ease.

With a single stride he entered. wo bodies rested under the blankets and locks o chestnut-colored hair werestrewn on one pillow. His vision was blurry but the cold grip in his pocket was clear. He raised his arm into positionand his nger rested lightly on the trigger. It elt warm, inviting. Te taste o salt and metal lled his mouth and dea-

ening thunder breathed lie into the awakening world.

Salt and MetalAlex Kates


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then I see people with peopleand people with smilesand they are the same

then I look around mysel,I see noneand have none.

and nothing is right.

A Vision

Kevin Rose


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Kodaks Eulogyby Courtney Bearce


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Splashing in the corner, Socratesis hungry. Orange splatteredhead pokes rom his shell.My eyes shadowed by

blankets. Hes begging orood, my legs gluedto the bed. Teres a little windowto the outside i the wiholds. Someone drives me to the bar. Musicloud and people plenty.Te worm struggles -still gets slurpedlike spaghetti. In the middleo the dance oor im alone, prison

walls turn into a haven. I allback into bed.

Single and Looking

Catrina Foster


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Chemistryby Steven Alexander


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Drumming thrums rom speakers, swirlingwith throaty guitar chords until music is dancingthrough air thick with water.My lipswide open, blinkingquite

unlike my pursed eyes. Silencelurks to hug crumpled sheets allingrom a bed shadowed with moon rays. I leanawaynot or lack o longing; but to waitor touch rom they who willshiver (smile) at each line gitedrom the beat movement, they

whose dreams are dashed with seashells abandonedby low tides, and they whose earthy ame is ignited by nothingmore than the purring o music.

Learning Patience

Catrina Foster


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Te Old News: an interview with Billy Collins

We sit down in a small back room. Former Unites States Poet Laureate Billy Collins has just nished an open interview/on-stage conversation with Proessor ony Leuzzi at the campus theater, and joinedCabbages and Kings members Luc

Makowski and Mackenzie Swart or a ollow-up interview. We talk or a little while o the record about his laureateshipbeore we begin recording, and briefy discuss the scholarships U.S laureates give to distinguished poets o their choosing.

BC: (laughs)So that was the poet laureateship. You get to do a lot o cool stu, you know, you get invited to embassies and you getto meet a lot o people, more people than you ordinarily would. You can go to any country, basically. And i you tellthem youre coming, theyll have a party or you at the embassy, so I did some o that.

C&K: Who were those two distinguished poets you saw potential in?

BC: Oh, a Russian poet named Katia Kapovich, a mad woman who I met in Russia. She had very long red hair, andshe announced that there was going to be a party or her. Tis was in the White Nights in St. Petersburg, during the


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know? o get more in touch with the way I speak and the way I think and the way I see things. And that meant beingclear to a certain extent. As I said in the interview, the beginning o a poem should be absolutely clear, and then weshould move into some cloudier territories. Something a little more ambiguous, something more conceptually...weird.

You begin in Kansas, you end up in Oz. I mean, who wants to stay in Kansas? So the poem should take you to Oz.It should take you to a little weird place thats somewhat disorienting. So I like to start with the reader very oriented,you know, here we are... And then, i you ollow me, I hope to mess you up a little bit. o take you on a siding, tothe point where youre pleasurably disoriented and you dont know exactly where you are. So I think the poems arereadable. But by the end o the poem, I think were at a curious place. And thats where I like to be. A stranger land.

C&K: o some level, a poet speaks or their time. Do you eel that where your poems end up taking the reader is apersonal place, something in your own voice, or more externally conditioned...an exploration o the human condition?

BC: I think every poet knows, i theyre a decent poet, what has come beore them. So they know where they are in asort o timeline. You know, here we are in 2011, and a certain amount o poetic activity has occurred up to this point.

And as a poet, you are presuming to jump in at this point in time. So, Im aware o all the poetry (or at least as much

o it as I could read) that is behind me and had kind o inormed me. So Im aware o being at a certain point in time,but I would say its more an idiosyncratic, imaginative journey or me rather than a social commentary. I think thereare many other medias ully devoted to social commentary, like newspapers, editorials, essays...PBS. All that stu.

Summer Solstice. So the party was to be held at midnight. And there she was. It was like a Fellini movie; there werejugglers and midgets and all sorts o weird stu. And she was sitting in a chair. A riend o hers was cutting her hairo. And he was just lopping it o, it wasnt like styling, it was more like a prison haircut or something. So I went overto her, I had to say something, and I asked i she was having her hair cut or her birthday. And she said, Yes.So I asked, What are you going to do with your hair when you get it all cut o?

And she said, Were going to take to a cemetery and bury it. And there a monument will grow...made o hair. Andyou will come to worship it.

And I thought, Now were getting somewhere...this is why I came to Russia.

Ten another poet called George Bilgere, hes a really good humorous poet who teaches in Ohio.

C&K: I wanted to present an idea: You mentioned vaguely in the orum interview...

BC: Te whole thing was pretty vague...

C&K: (laughs)...you mentioned that you like to take two extremes and try to go in one direction with them, and youtry to almost simpliy things in this way. One o my English proessors has been presenting some o your work to herclass, she reers to you as a readable poet. How do you eel about your poetry being considered readable, and whatinspired you to take that direction?

BC: Well...I just got tired o writing poetry with a capital P. I just wanted to write some poems. And just to talk, you


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diems is that you dont have an innite number o diems. So you gotta grab them while you can.

So basically, those are the concerns that poetry tends to be very wrapped up in.

C&K: You seem to have a distaste or romantic poetry that relied a lot on meter and rhyme schemes, stu like that.Where do you think that orm theory ts into contemporary poetry, or maybe just your own?

BC: Well thats a good question. I actually have a great love or the Romantic poets. I did my dissertation on

Wordsworth and Coleridge. I mean, I dont like romantic poetry, like, romantic music. Just that its romantic. But Ilove 19th century English poetry. Particularly Coleridge; hes sort o my god, you know? Hes my hero.

So, yeah. Rhyme. I try to write rhythmically; I try to write with my ear as well as my head. I try to write or sound,I try to write or cadence. And most o my revisions when I go back to revise my poems are usually to make thepoem to kind o jump a little better in terms o cadence and rhythm. I dont write in ormal meters; I have a greatappreciation or contemporary ormal poetry. I like inventive rhymes. But even i Im not writing in some kind oorm, like a sonnet, as Im writing Im always sort o seeking some kind o parameters or the poem. So it could be, as

an example, as simple as a stanzaic decision. You get to decide Okay, this poem gets to be in our line stanzas. Andi you look at most o the poems, theyve chosen or themselves a type o stanza. And then I have another obligation. Ihave to write good sentences, good lines, because were writing sentences and lines at the same time as poets, and

Poetry doesnt have to keep up with the news, because poetry is the news. Poetry is the old news.

C&K: As a poet, do you have any one particular thing or concept you enjoy writing about?

BC: I dont think I write about concepts. I think I write about concerns. I like to just start with something simple,

and then basically lead the reader and mysel. See, its not so much that Im aware o readers that might be out there,and Im trying to write clear sentences, and Im trying to be aware that someones going to read this. Its much moreselsh than that. It eels more selsh when Im writing, because Im the one whos going on this trip. Im the one

whos inventing the trip to go on. Its like laying your own tracks. I dont know i youve ever watched Wallace andGromit...remember when hes laying the tracks as hes on the train? Hes just throwing tracks down as hes going....and it seems like an appropriate image or poetry, that i youre going down someone elses track that already exists,its not a very original piece o work. But youre laying your own tracks and then going there. So its not so mucha concept. Most o the poems are about love or death, you know? Teyre about either how great it is to be alive orhow impossibly unimaginable it is to be dead. So really its all just about these two or three things. Its poems aboutgratitude, about how were alive and that sort o attention to detail, like look at this bird or look at that lake orlook at the reection o light on the water. Whatever that ocusing thing is.

Its not just about nature, writing pretty things about nature. Its saying that i you look careully at this, i you payextra attention, youll be lited into a sense o awareness. And with that will presumably come some kind o gratitudeabout these minutes that are being given to me. Basically its carpe diem. But the reason youre asked to carpe your


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recognizable orm where you can see A-B, A-B or something like that, I think most good poets are imposing somekind o ormal restraints o themselves. Otherwise its a ree-or-all. Form is sociable; orm is what gives pleasure.I mean, the cool act about writing, poetry particularly, which is all about the ego in a way, is that nobody cares.Nobody cares about your internal lie. I mean, think o the people around you: your parents, your riends, even theirattention to you is insucient. Teyre all wrapped up in themselves, whats up with that? Teyre attentions not aconstant on you. So how do you expect a stranger who picks up a Cabbages and Kings magazine to be interested inyour internal lie? Well...theyre not. So when I read your magazine back in my hotel tonight, or tomorrow on theairplane, Im not reading it because I care about any specic writer or artist, or anybody else. Im going to read this

because I like poetry. And Im looking or a pleasure in poetry. And what delivers that poetry pleasure is orm. Youcould say that orms are like signs o human intelligence, signs that theres been some care in designing the poem. Buti its just, you know, Tis is how bad Im eeling, I dont care anymore than you care how bad Im eeling. We go topoetry or ormal, literary, aesthetic pleasure. I mean, I dont mean to sound cold. But once we receive that pleasure,and maybe I will rom your poem, then Ill be interested in anything you have to say to me. But you have to give methat pleasure rst.

C&K: So to us as a student body, how do you eel your college studies and experience aected your style o writing?

then good stanzas. So were kind o doing three things at the same time: i every stanza is sort o a separate unit, youknow? Its not exactly standalone, but it has the sort o integrity as a stanza. So Im thinking very ormally as Im

writing. I mean, I might come across as sort o a sloppy poet compared to Robert Frost or something, but Im tryingto really...mind my manners...as Im going through. I try to display a sort o etiquette. A verbal etiquette. So its agood question.

You know, it was Whitman who rst got rid o rhyme and meter at the same time. And most o Shakespeare doesntrhyme at the end, its in blank verse. Its iambic pentameter without the rhymes. So it wasnt really Whitman, but

Whitman got rid o both at the same time, and then they didnt know i that was poetry or not. And someonesaid, I this is not poetry, this is something better than poetry...something greater than poetry. But some peoplemistakenly think that what happened with Whitman was that poets started scissoring o all the rhymes at the endand just threw them in the garbage. What actually happened in good, sound conscious poetry, poetry that deliverssonic pleasure, was that the rhymes actually went inside the poem. Tey invaded the body o the poem instead o

being stationed dutiully at the ends o the lines. So I try to have lots o sound eects in my poetry; I try to make itsound like speech. Im manipulating the sounds more than you may think, or more than anyone may hear.

C&K: But you do eel that orm still plays a role?

BC: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, near ormless poetry is a big movement. Tey have conerences, and I would imaginemaybe 20% o contemporary American poetry is ormless. But again, even i were not writing in a


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BC: Frost I think is very teachable. Im always surprised when I hear that my poems are being taught, because Im

not sure what could be said about them. Tey seem totally clear to me. But I always thought poetry should be taughtin high school chronologically backwards. In other words, start students o with something very contemporary, un,easy to get. Not simple-minded or anything, just poems that are very readable and pleasurable. And that deliver somekind o injection o enjoyment immediately when you read them. Ten work back and kind o hook students like that.Teyll say Hey, we dig this. and well say Its poetry. So theyll go, Well, then, we dig poetry.Ten work them back into more demanding poems, back into the 19th century where the language gets a little mustyand less contemporary. But thats interesting that you eel this presumption that youre able to extract meaning romthese more dicult poems. Tats like throwing you o the deep end. Like, heres how you swim: get in there. Figureit out. Eventually youll learn to dog paddle, otherwise youll drown.

BC: My college experience? Uh...it didnt help it at all. I didnt have a style o writing. I went to catholic high schoolages ago, and I went to college, and most o my teachers didnt really encourage me. I mean, a couple might have....Ithink you guys here have a healthier environment, but a lot o my teachers discouraged me. Tey just kind o passedup my poetry as adolescent dribble and in some cases they were right. But these discouraging teachers had a goodinuence on me. I have a keener appetite or revenge than I do or approval. So i you say to me Oh good, thats a

good poem, Billy. Write some more good poems, I dont like to be patted on the head like that. But i you tell me Icant write, as teachers did, that or me is inspiration. So when I received a phone call rom the Library o Congresssaying I was the United States Poet Laureate, I thought about those teachers. It was just adding a little sugar to theexperience.

BC: Let me ask you a question...When youre in the classroom, what problems do you have with poetry? Is itrustrating at all? How so?

C&K (M. Swart): Ive had a problem in the past when in the classroom, especially back in high school, whenwe would go over a poem and it would just be expected that we would be able to work through it ourselves. Youmentioned earlier about teachers standing between the poem and our understanding o it, but I eel that even at ahigh school level, theres an amount o understanding were already expected to have. And I think the readable qualityo poetry isnt really touched in high school, because its expected that we should be already able to work throughpoems, whereas poetry more like Robert Frost, or your own, is overlooked because its much simpler.


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Te Eyeby A.J. Diaz


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I remember going to bible school, thats howWed read Songs o Solomon to each other andmake out and say we were showing Gods love.

We dreamed o getting married and being

part o Jesus and the Church.We wanted three girls and to name them Faith,Hope and Love. Te greatest would be Love, shedshow us how to live and comort us in ourafictions. We went to the local bakery on Fridaymornings and ate bagel sandwiches.Tis was how we brokebread, talked Postmodern Apologetics and how to love

Jesus, then wed read Flannery O Connor short stories and dream o beingMists. When we went to church and had communion wed do double shots ogrape juice and take two crackers instead o one. But we werent content

with only having a little Jesus, we wantedhim all. One night my uture wie walked into the street in ront o a bread truck.Te drivers got out and Iattacked them with a crucix. Drivento their knees they asked or mercy, I granted it. We thenrode o, devouring our treasure. We never did have children.

Radicals

Taddeus Shickling


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Stone mist drited o the ace o the angel captured at the center o the ountain.Te world is sour to my senses, the angel thought. How long since He brought over those Desires? I his

ace could move, anyone passing and aware enough through the haze o rot in the air would have noticed the angelgrimace. It was the angels rst conscious thought in a very long time. Te people. Tey pass as i their very spirits aredead, and yet there is a glint o...cruelty in their eyes.

A woman scuttled into the court o the ountain clinging her child to her chest, its mufed cries wheezed

out rom the drab black cloth o her cloak. Her haunted eyes scanned the others passing the ountain or a hint ovulnerability, with heated suspicion. She could easily be overcome, but that did not stop her hunt or prey.

A man passing through her gaze pulled out a darkened blade rom beneath his coat, crusts o dried blood ellrom its edge. He pressed his shoulder against the woman. She instinctively switched her child away and shruggedrom the man, only just a little. She pushed back against him, his intent now mirrored in her eyes. Ten just assuddenly, both ell away, their motivation to victimize each other, gone; and they were back to their ruitless search orvictims too dull to resist or predators too lethargic to deend territory.

Te angel let out a breathless sigh. It cannot be too long beore all all to dust in the despair o the Desires.I can eel it creeping into my very core. I do not bother to break my stone prison. Would I even seek justice, shouldanyone want to liberate me? No, I would just lie in the ruins o my prison and wait or the lowest o these hollowpeople to end this oppressive vision rom entering my minds eye.

Empty FountainA.J. Diaz


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Forbidden Fruitby Samantha unney

d


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During the transition o the seasons,on the cusp o hunger and harvest,a mother lited her shirt in the mirror

and saw her ribs smiling back at her.

Her child, plumped on the last bito spring, sat on the oor nextto his mother and watched her skeletalcontinence with hunger in his eyes.

She had already given him the esh

that she had stored or winter, and inthe drought that was passing hadlittle more to give, than marrow.

Te young babe gauged his own cheekagainst the stark contrast o hers, herbones nestled high and alone under hereyes, the at o her ace scooped out

making her lips look like a pucker, a kiss.In the mirror he saw his rolls o succulenthealth measured out in his two chins and Buddhabelly. Unapologetically round, swollen.

Te woman hummed a harvest song,as i trying to invoke the all.She ran a ngernail down her ribs, makingxylophonic trills that made her Autumn

song sound silly and contrived. She didnt believethat she could just yield nourishment romthe thin air. So she stopped, pulled hershirt down over her ribs and jutting hipbones.

Modesty


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Tis is when her son, her young babe,reached into his side, took hold oa mound o esh, still resh and warm andshowed it to his mother in the mirror.

He labored to his eet, pressing downon the meat and oor or supportand held it up proudly or herto consume. She hesitated.

Ten in a moment o ravenous praisedevoured all o it, leavinggenerous smears o bloodaround her puckered lips.

Te child oered more,the mother modestly accepted, untilthe two had switched placesand the child smiled

his skull-bare smile thathis mother had been sated.

Daniel Redic


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Ragged Witch by Stephanie Sherry

O t C


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A kiss, a touch, a look, a tear,Everything and nothing,I was never here.

A kiss o perection upon lips o gold.I kiss melted honesty,One without liesOr corruption,I kiss the lips o an angel.

A touch o sotness upon awless skin.I touch true beauty,One without emptiness

Or sin,I touch the heart o a hero.

A look o regret upon mans ailures.I look into pureness,One without painOr hatred,I look into the eyes o a new born child.

A tear o remorse upon angry waters.

I cry or orgiveness,One without deceitOr tragedy,I cry or the wars that have started.

We have the power to control,And the power to overcome,But or everything we have,

We are blinded rom the truth.We take away our smiles,And laugh at the pain,But we have nothing in the end,

We are without hope.A kiss, a touch, a look, a tear,Everything and nothing,

We were never here.

Out Cry

Kimberly Nguyen


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Exitby Courtney Bearce

Two Dog Night


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He asked his ghost with all the condence in the worldSo what do you think about that, Je?Tat sly grin

I can only imagine that i Je was impressed, he tried not to show it.

Te old man had walked into the barely orescent shelter o the bus stopTe uncompromising chill o that December night gathered us as strangersSome o us wanderers were going home.Some o us were sharing the night with ghosts instead.

He came too close and started smoking something comortable.

Didnt notice meor anyone else, or that matter.I guess I wasnt so real to him and his world.

Just a shadow in a ickering orescent incandescenceTat was ne with me.

But I noticed in the gray lightthat the lines that dened his grinning ace werent so deep.

His wrinkles were almost embedded in esh, but not quite. His voicewith all the tired cynicism o a sax whispering jazz,was aged with his experiencebut not the countless years it suggested.

I think that Je stood right where I was.Joking and teasing and reminiscingo the years he shared with his old riend.Te old man laughed.Te years when Je might have really stood right where I was.Te old man laughed.He couldnt look his ghost in the eyes.

He continued to aunt his success to his old riend.$25 bucks or what?

He smiled and stared at his eet through the veined veil o a tired eye.

Two Dog Night

T t iti b


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Tey weren t waiting or any bus.Ater some time I suppose the ghost grew restlessand walked back out into the wind and snow.Te old man rowned.It was going to be a much colder walk or him that it was or Je.

But he ollowed his riend, again.Tey walked side by side into the two dog night.Leaving the rest o usstrangers sharing a gray light.

I looked around at the masks and scarvesas i they might have known something that I didnt.

Judging by their acesWe had all been inconvenienced, somehow.

Simon Wilson


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Eye o ahitis Watersby Galen Erway

Grey Anticipation


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Stone clouds take their placethe air hangs heavy and stale.

Warm wind blows across my summer skirt,lightning streaks across the aternoon sky.

Distantly thunder erupts into a slow crescendo.Teres a storm coming. I say to no one.

As I walk back to my car, the rains begin to all.

Grey Anticipation

Dominique Boller

Blackout Poetry


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In 2010, Austin Kleon published a book titled Newspaper Blackout, based on a ound art project he had been work-ing on or the last ew years. Te book itsel was a collection o Blackout Poetry; a specic orm o poetry Kleon hadrecently discovered. Blackout Poetry involves taking a piece o archived newspaper or other orm o printed work,and using the limited number o words on the page, to inspire and create poetry. By going over the body o text witha permanent marker (or some other marking tool), the words o the poets choosing are let untouched, and combineto create something entirely new. Te words will still reect the voice o the original work due to its origins, but can

only be seen through the lens o the poets intention or them. Due to the visual nature o Blackout Poetry, everythingrom the spacing o the words to the tools used to censor the original print can hold meaning in the nished piece. Along, black silence beore the poem can add a certain weight over the words selected, and words spaced too ar apartcan maniest a sense o isolation.Te Cabbages & Kings team would like to present this gallery o Blackout Poetry that a ew o our artists have beencreating over the last semester. Weve tried to expand on the traditional black Sharpie method by incorporating othermeans o artistic desecration such as coee stains, ballpoint pens, glue guns, and re. Weve chosen our canvases outo anything rom classic literature to 10 cent bargain bin paperbacks, to archived copies o our own magazine. So, in

the words that we have rediscovered through the strange and destructive art o creativity, we give you Blackout Poetry.-Simon Wilson

Blackout Poetry


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Catrina Foster


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Irene Mosher


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I created most o my blackout poetry while sitting in math class. Once I startedmaking blackout poetry, I got a little addicted to taking my rustration out on

the page. I really love the challenge o using correct capitalization and punctua-tion. My avorite medium is outdated text books and purple ballpoint pens. I nd

mysel eying reading material or blackout potential on a pretty regular basis.

- Catrina Foster


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Kitty Niven


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Kitty Niven


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o me, Blackout Poetry is taking our most beloved and classic works o literature andtransorming them into personal discovery. Were using the words youve already knownand cherished or years and bringing an entirely new meaning to them. Some people

are against Blackout Poetry, calling it distasteul and disrespectul towards the authorso any books subject to it. On the contrary, I think its a very high compliment. o me it

says, I was touched by your words so deeply, I wanted to make them my own.

- Kitty Niven


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Simon Wilson


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Catrina Foster


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Catrina Foster


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My inspiration or blackout poetry actually came rom an old issue o our magazine. Isaw words on the page that caught my attention and wanted to nd an interesting way

to put them together in a dierent way than the author had. Its like a puzzle; takingeye-catching words and trying to make them into something new and meaningul.- Irene Mosher


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Simon Wilson

I sit in the gravel lot o a church

Dear Peter


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I sit in the gravel lot o a churchsmoking a malboro gold-now Im just a billboard-a good one, smooth and appealing(but spelled wrong).

He said to speak o ood

reworks heardin the distance throughthe brittle night air

-the baseball game is over-do they interrupt?do they signiy an end?

or do they simplymake an extravagant displayor ricochets o gunre in back allies over drugs and prostitutes?

bitch screaming in drunk stupormotors roaring in protestclub musesickpoundin-ginthe groundtobacco

nothing.

Kevin Rose


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Vinegarby Steven Alexander

Sugar


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Love stories are sick candies.Pop pop popin my mouth.Pink and sparkling,sugary goo dissolves.

Real boys arent made o candy;theyre made o blood and bone.

Whenever my teeth sink in,Im startled by the salt.Tink o licking tearsthat run to my lips

on those wet sobbing days.

Rebecca Cina


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Doomsday Duckyby Nicole Pierce


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ypographic ype Sel-Portraitby Pat Whiting

Te Veils of the EquinoxLuc Makowski


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My tale is the most bitter truth: time pays us but with earth and dust, and a dark, silent grave. Remember, my child;without innocence the cross is only iron, hope is only an illusion, and Ocean Souls nothing but a name. Te Child;bless thee, and keep thee orever. Nightwish, Bless the Child

1I am kissed, outdoors, by the chilled air, permeating my angora sweater as I shufe down the suburban sidewalk.

Autumn is reshly upon us, whispering to the northern winds and ora the promise o an inevitable halt to lie, and o

immaculate silence. Soon the diurnal clouds will hang low in perpetual desolate beige, and glow a dull light-pollutedorange at night. Soon ater that is winter.

But all, or now, is still resh, still hard-pressed to undo the warm eects o summer. Te seamless blue aboveis still visibleand entrancing!ooded with sunlight. Rodents still take their time on orages; the cats still kill them.Songbirds still sing their songs in major, and dash into ight rom branch, to eeder, to ground; the cats still kill them.

And a warm day still peeks through the veils o the equinox, however sparsely.Tat exactly describes todayexcepting the warmthbut like the bluest orb o the moon, and all the most

wonderul, beautiul things, ruthlessly out o reach, I cant put my nger on its true dening quality. But I know that

the bookstore where I workwhere I am walking towill still be sold out o Stephenie Meyer, to be sure. I will haveto explain this to appalled aces; adolescent acestweens so to speakshrouded with the myopia o youth that ispre-requisite to appreciate Stephenie Meyer.

Tis, however, the center o the seasonal gradient, can be appreciated by anyone. Here in the north, the changein oliage color is inevitably the rst and avorite observation. Te approach o Halloween, the second. But to me, thistime o year is more charming than that. Coziness is charming; sweaters, sweatshirtsand o course, chimney res!I cozy has a smell it is that all-exclusive suluric aroma o burning wood, pluming through chimneys all around theneighborhood.

And all o it is simply joyous, but the methylphenidate in me has lit my heart ablaze, burning an ascendinghole clean through to my brain; my attention shits inward, storming or topics or an upcoming essay. But isnt LolitaFrench? I ask mysel. I so, I guess it wont do or a topic.

I see a girl up ahead.And I think its a pity that it wont do, or I am not otherwise well-versed in Nabokov. Is it destiny that insistently

lures Americas best artists over to Paris? I wonder excitedly i I could muse on this in my essay.Te girl is coming this way.

All this outdoors is simply joyous, and this girl up ahead, shufing down her own trajectory as I do mine,

Makowski

there is something to be read on her A memory perhaps o a day distant and cold hanging in a ar orbit around my


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there is something to be read on her. A memory, perhaps o a day, distant and cold, hanging in a ar orbit around mymind. Perhaps it is her age, or her mien o languid ocus, like a cat, so tiny and playul, but in her own world, one ono scrutiny, no bad authors, nothing to sella world that is cozy, wrapped in sweat clothes, with an atmosphere o

perpetual warmthshe is as serious as she can be. And I can tell what she is doing, what she is thinking, or I was herage once, or I lived in this exact day a decade ago, walking on this exact sidewalk. She wears her agenda on her pale ace,combs it through her wheat blonde hair; she is procrastinating this weekendit is Saturdayto the last waning hour.It is more and more plain as she draws nearer. She is on her way to a neighbors house, a riend perhaps, one that shecannot remember a block o time spent without.

But what passions could they share? oo old to, or instance, play; too young to, example, party; too nave orscience? literature? love?only just old enough to walk the sidewalks alone. What does one do to ll that gap o time?Climb trees perhaps; the neighborhood is dense with willow trees. I remember the low-hanging, lumpy behemoths, easyto scale, taking up a bulk o my pre-adolescence.

Tere it is! Te message, the memory, the hidden charm! It was a day, more than one, but in my mind theymaniest as a single climbing o a willow tree, and a sort o espionage on my ather as he mowed our lawn, leavingchopped-up clumps wherever he steered, and stirring up the sweet scent o new-mown grass. And I ran, because I wasa child, with every excuse in the world to dash rom here, to there, and never stop, despite the cold; like today, bundledas I was, my hands and ace were rozen numb, warmed only by the summer-reminiscent smell o new-mown grass andexhaust.

I climbed the tree as high as I dared to go, and up there I perched, to all the world invisible within the gossamertuts o willow. I watched birds; songbirds dashing, the hawk hovering, Canadian geese in their southbound V. I watchedmy ather and the red lawnmower circling and winding through the yard, devouring leaves and grass and the latest othe dandelions. I sat where the trunk orked into two hal-sized trunks, resting my head on the gnarly bark, and to myright, a hummingbird, beautiul in its golden-yellow brilliance, uttered up to me and landed on a protruding strip obark. And now that I have ound this memory, it is rejuvenated, restored to its ormer power, to be certain, and thoughit is odd, I know it is true; the hummingbird looked at me or more than a short moment. And it smiled.How he smiled with his lipless beak, I do not know, but he did, beore itting away to live out the remainder o his brie

hummingbird lie. Just now my walking pace slows as I realize that, in all my lie to date, it was the most beautiul thingI had ever seen.o the house, tired rom running, rom climbing. Te ront door opened beore me, automatically, beore I laid

a nger on it, revealing a cold that roze the autumnal cold itsel, maniested in a stare by my ather who nished thelawn and had been inside.

What were you doing out there? he demanded in a voice like arctic waters.My child eyes were locked wide open. He didnt try to be terriying. He wanted me to ocus on my schoolwork,

even at a young age. But it was a little too much. It was his ace, really, his mountain-nose, the great expanse o his

mandible, his eyes that knew everything, or soon would learn it, one way or another. He merely would talk, and his acewould do the rest. But he was trying to help me. Nevertheless, my heart would jack-hammer when he stared at me like

Te Veils o the Equinox

that and just as I began to wonder i it might explode he dropped his stare to the ground and shook his head


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that, and just as I began to wonder i it might explode, he dropped his stare to the ground and shook his head.You need to read a chapter or English. I you nish beore dinner, read ahead. Do not go outside.erried, terried, terried. He didnt need to try. I nodded and went immediately to my bookan Alice Seboldand

the pages unurled, releasing words o black into my eyes, and I dont know how a book could do such a thing, but itsnapped over and around me like a bear trap, swallowing me whole to digest me at its own cruel pace.

2I tell them I am sorry, and that we are out o Stephenie Meyer, that we havent ordered her series in over a year.

I tell them yes, we do technically sell it, but we havent placed the order in eighteen months.Tey roll their eyes. Tey are young, and contemporary, and this bookstore is all but contemporary. Actually it is ancient;one o the rst books carried in this store was written by Kate Chopin, and it had just been published. Tere are ew

who understand that back then, selling Chopin was beyond contemporary; it was revolutionary. Tis store could still berevolutionary, i there were revolutionary authors to sell. But all the best are classics now.

Tese are my bosss words; my boss, who, in his misconstrued view o a compromise, went into an agreementwith someone elses boss who now runs a ranchise coee shop in our store. Tere is nothing more aromatically brilliantthan the mix o sweetly rich coee and richly sweet resh-printed books. Butor the sake o being contemporarymocha, vanilla, and steamed milk are overwhelmingly added, along with glittering variations o pastries and muns. Itis too rich, too sweet.

Te hands on the grandather clock spin slowly. Te time is noon twelve-twenty. Ater a long hour, an hour oreplacing books, updating inventory on the computer, an hour o sorting, sorting by genre, by alphabet, by author, bytitle, updating inventory on the computer, an hour o replacing books, updating inventory on the computer, an hour osorting, sorting by genre, by alphabet, by author, by title, updating inventory on the computer, a long hour; the time isnoon twelve-thirty.

Sierra, my boss calls me over to the coee shop. Weve had another spill over here. Want it? He holds up aRay Bradbury, the edges o the pages swirled in a stain o brown cappuccino. Tis is the highlight o workdays, and thecoee shops saving grace; since we cannot sell books that customers spill coee on, we the employees are ree to take

them. I take this book to add to my brown, crinkled collection.Trough the window I see leaves blowing with the wind, scraping along the parking lot, and bordering thewindow is the tusk white that spreads throughout the inside o the store, like enormous blank paper. I realize the olderI get the more seldom paper is blank, the more seldom blank paper stays blank, or is lled with waxen color, scentedlike ruit and licorice. And isnt that the destiny I share with every other English major; to ll paper, or read paperthat someone else has already lled? Yes, that is simultaneously our greatest passion and most rustrating hubris. Teclock reads twelve-orty-ve. And why should it be any later? What awaits me when I step back out to that charismaticcoldness ater six hours o ticking, tocking, walking, working, with people, who become characters, and live this day

which becomes a book, this beautiul autumn day that passes by, through the window, carrying with it that sweet

Makowski

memory which belongs to me?


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y g

3

I leave work a hal-an-hour early instead o taking a lunch break; my essay awaits me at the public library. Ipass through the day as it passes me, rom one white room ull o books to another; another room ull o millions andmillions o papers, and not a single one blank. I approach Main Street and look around. It is quaint, cuddly, a class acti one is into Christmas train sets; everything compact, brick, windows, signs outside amily shops (shoppes).

Tere she is again; that girl, like a Norwegian Forest cat, sot, listless, bundled, and so impossibly small comparedto her obvious expanse o ree will. Stepping out o a store, her eline glance greets me, combusting me with the urgeto call her to meGood girl, good kitty! You come inside?but asking or nothing, she steps down rom the stoop inront o me and I end up ollowing.

I know what it is about now; it is about reedom, about shorter days and longer years, and lying in trees andgrass. Let Stephenie Meyer destroy post-modernism! Smell the re! Smile at our Main Streets New England charm (dontenter the bookstore)! Live your lie, girl, between games and parties, live it, and leave your papers blank. Around thecorner she itters away to live out the brie remainder o her youth.

4Printer use is twenty-ve cents a sheet, the librarian inorms me, using a somehow tting aade that she has

never seen me beore. Pleasant yellow exists on owers, and bees, and birds; on computer keyboards it is a nauseatingyellow, maddening yellow, Charlotte Perkins Gilman yellow. It is a distraction, and does not do or typing essays. I knowthat somewhere inside this keyboard is a girl, similar to me, who got lost in the keys, the letters, the yellow, and one day,Irantically ipping through the thesaurus in my brain, with sticky yellow ngers, brainstorming, brainhurricaning,the hummingbird o every warm sweatshirt, every treasured autumn aternoon, every savored scent, dying in mid-air, its back arching, plopping lielessly at the ront steps o the bookstore, the college, the drugstore where I pick upmethylphenidate, and then devoured by yellow unguswill rip the keys rom the keyboard, little by little, in secrecy,until the poor girl inside is ree.

I also know the girl inside is the girl I saw today, twice now, so ree, so warm, still roaming the town, climbingtrees, like she was when I was working, but somehow, in my mind, she is not ree in that way. I she is, it wont last, andthat is depressing. She will be typing rantically on this computer one day, pushing her brain to limits it simply cares notto tread anymore, or it is so rocky, so dry.

I jab these lthy keys with a vengeance, detailing the history, and analysis, and psychoanalysis, o old white men,o hysterical women, releasing rom my ngertips all that is hysterical, chipping away at the imposing wall beore me,one small grain o brick at a time. My hands shake as I jab with all my might, pounding in my mind, racing, screaming;the ideas I have that are new, and the old ideas which must be continuously expressed by old white men, by hysterical

women like me, and then analyzed by people like me, whose business it is to ll up paper, give the paper to someone,search with wild desperation or blank paper, and then ll it, ll it, ll it, submerge in it, swim in the thick pastiness o

Te Veils o the Equinox

its black ink, impossibly black, thick with the pigment sucked rom everything, everything, everything which, under the


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its black ink, impossibly black, thick with the pigment sucked rom everything, everything, everything which, under thesun, reveals color, and is compressed into a tiny cartridge which lls the paper, drop, by drop, by drop, words that areso dark and over-expressed that they coat themselves in thick yellow o ngers, and ngers, and ngers, honey-dripping

with the richest o urine; a vision which (being yellow) in my peripherals would bring me back to that bird; that sweet,beautiul yellow bird, o a orgotten emotion that is worth everything I may ever be. And yet to turn and look at it wouldll the paper and destroy my world at its smiling, uttering core.

5A strange noise sounds in the darkness. Something o a buzz and a ring, halway between in pitch, and the

darkness shrinks away, revealing light that is blurred into a dark grey expanse like a bathtub underwater. But it is moreo a blue, now that the blurriness clears, and I still hear that noise, something peaceul, but strangely demanding that Imove towards it. It could be wings apping, o a bee, perhaps. No. Not a bee. A hummingbird.I bolt upright, the blur clearing the way like stage curtains, and my disillusionment is complete. Te noise is my alarmclock. It is dawn.

Downstairs is stuy rom the woodstove heat, and it dries my eyes, and burns them, and my nose, bringing meover and over to the brink o a sneeze, but I always all short. Te mustiness o the laundry room orces out my sneeze atlast. Putting on a sweatshirt or the morning, resh rom the dryer, I eel that sensation; o warm atmospheres, and silentglowing coal.

Te kitchen swells with sunlight, revealing the air as a ballroom o oating dust. How strange it is, how unawarewe are when we are awakened rom the night, so unsure, like the rebirth o naivety. How could I understand my agendaor the day? How could I prepare my own breakast? How, when sleep leaves only bitterly, the wrinkles rom its grip stillresh on my pajama pants?

Listlessly I seat mysel to a bowl o cereal and switch on the news (conound the habit). I do not watch thereporter, but his voice lls my head like words ll paper, and I read with closed eyes the latest reports. Mostly sunny,highs reaching upper ties, and a storm brews or the ollowing week.I devour my cereal.House oreclosures areever on the rise as the numbers break a new record low this month.I place my empty bowl in the sink, satised, the

rst hunger o the day quelched.Gasoline prices drop, but experts predict that it is only seasonal. I dont know why,but I decide to look at the television.Local ten-year-old girl was killed in an act o domestic violence last night. An arrest was made ollowing a 911

call made by the mother; Jonathan Kistler, the ather, is alleged to haveAnd there she is. O all the most stupid things, to nd out something as big as this on the television news in the

morning. I there is such a thing as ate, it must be a lazy and terrible writer to have done such a thing. Her name wasDanielle Kistler, and her photograph takes center screen amidst a whimsical computer-generated background. Tat is her,

without any hope o doubt. Her warm atmosphere o sweat clothes was inltrated rom the inside, everything alive in

her pushed to the outside; domestic violence, a certain malice whose cruelty cannot be matched. How can I understandthis, when sleep leaves me so bitterly? Did she understand it, her lieblood, so pure, so untainted, abandoning her body

a little at a time under crushing blows which may or may not have

Makowski


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I must let this go. I realize now how bright the colors o the world truly are. Yellow is yellow, keyboard or ower,and what matters most is the time I still have to run my ngers along those things. Danielle Kistlers lie was sweet, but

short, and even the sweetness so desperately squeezed throughout the remainder o lie is more than anything she hadever seen, more than she had the time to see.

And so, skipping my eyeliner, and vanity and useless hygiene altogether, I decide or mysel it is time to shufeonce again to that sidewalk, through another beautiul day, to the library. Crisp, rereshing, just like yesterday, whenDanielle was still alive, and just like ten years ago when I mysel lived in a bliss such as this; lying in trees and grass, andsmiling at hummingbirds.

And so, just now, in my peripherals, hangs the most beautiul yellow, and ater a icker o thought, my centervision proves it to be true. A golden-yellow hummingbird, dipping his tiny beak into some orm o plant, but sensing

my gaze, he turns and he looks. Smiles.


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Window Viewby Stephanie Sherry

A Novel


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Hello to the little eeling,lingering despite the concentrated ocusagainst it. My heartis a muscle o some sort, located in my chest.Im not vague in an attempt to be artul, theres no ace

to explain the cause. My stomach is an acidlled sac in my abdomen. Yet you have to admitits rather ironic Frank OHara ell at the handso a dune buggy. Im not quite sure the dierencebetween my limbic system and my neocortex.Tere are globs o warm glue leavingstrings on the velvet, my thumb hangsa bit too ar. Te hot gun should just brushmy skin but the pain is so distracting I cantremember to pull away. I bet the leaves allingaround his mound whisper to him in exclamationpoints. My ngerprint is red and impossible to make out.

Catrina Foster


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Untitledby Clair Masten

Twenty Six Letters


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Brains vibrating with nowhere to go,locked up in my little lumpy skull.I love mysel. I try to.I hate mysel. On accident.I am beautiul, arent we?

Someone else is beautiul.Someone else is strong.Grace slipping around his eet,delicacy in her ngertips.Nothing is original.wenty six letters to choose rom.

What did we expect.

Rebecca Cina


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Untitledby Courtney Bearce

Sand


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On the oceans edge,men discuss war. .

Waves crashon rough, rigid particles o sand.Machines led into the sea

disappear beneath the surace.Dark clouds cluster, ormingstorms,the sand will become muddied.Boots clamor together, bodies huddle,plans are made.

A sign says, Keep outTey proceed.

Melissa Piccirilli


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Solarization by Steven Alexander

When I Dont Want to Go to Work


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the dregs o mind,poured out with a last sip o coeecontains grainy thoughts.large grittynot oul tasting, but unappealing

on the tongue,

and so these thoughts come into ocusthick and unsaturated.they make sense

*****Agreed upon sir.I said to himand make the wallsglow gold and green.o what?he saido me.

Kevin Rose


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Broken Fencesby Dominque Boller


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Submission Deadline For Te Next Edition IsMarch 1, 2013

Must submit to [email protected] creative forms of writing and visual art accepted.

Writing must be submitted in imes New Roman size twelve font.Artwork must be in jpeg form.

Must be previously unpublished work,however all copyrights will revert back to you after we have published it.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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