By Maddie Willigar | Editor-in-Chief
Her spirit still dances
on the piano keys, like an
unfinished composition of
words only uttered under the
solitude of twilight’s breath.
She whispers stories in the
ears of a once sane
man, a reprise that leaves
notes of the woman
he remembered –
until her figure looks a lot like
dust in moonlight, and her
dress looks a lot like curtains
By Isabelle Mascary | Assistant Editor
What was once
yours, is now
mine.
He said while
kissing his
cold lips.
Welcome to
my world!
You can watch,
you can’t run!
You can’t move,
you can’t scream,
you can’t cry
you can’t fight, but
watch what I do to your body tonight.
Wonderful
masculine frame,
every part,
still intact.
Not a bruise in sight,
such a wonderful delight.
Possible aneurysms! Can’t
wait to cut open your skull
and examine your lovely brain.
Much excitement and arousal
simultaneously. You’re my
By William A. Lefrancois | Observer Contributor
In a dark, dreary, deserted, desolate field
a pale, petrified pumpkin patch lies full of yield.
Many are round, robust, rigorous, righteous globes of orange;
One alone sullen, sad, sorrowful, sorry unfit for the grange.
On a nearby hill, high, hideous, hints of mortality
a graveyard yawns, yearns, yellowing, yesterday’s totality.
Underground buried, bruised, banished bones await;
Halloween night arrives, awesome, angry angst of fate.
Bones in multitudinous, murky, mire mix of shape;
By Rachel Geer | Observer Contributor
The pebble frog, small, round, grey
curls itself into a ball, looking,
for all the world, like
a pebble before casting itself
down the steeps of its mountain home.
It gives gravity, and vector dynamics,
control. A little
Anti-Sisyphus, the frog’s
goal is to reach the bottom with
as little fuss as possible.
It bounces off
even sharp surfaces without injury.
When the ground levels off enough (friction
overcoming momentum),
it uncurls, unharmed,
OK with its new surroundings.
By Josilyn Straka | Assistant Editor
I hear the rain tapping monotonously on the
metal roof just outside my window, I
lay there trying not to hear the excruciating
thoughts of my unexpected departure
The way I interpret the gray colored
sky is unsoundly disparate, agonizing in pain
like anguish with no sympathy,
Thoughts of my unexpected departure
The empty feeling that is felt, sadness
wrapped around me like a blanket
heartache halo’s my hollow heart,
Thoughts of my unexpected departure
Thankfully, that was a lifetime ago, I
By Maddie Willigar | Editor-in-Chief
After Aron Wiesenfeld’s “Study for Night Reading”
These windows are a frame
to the rain that paints our city like
Van Goh: dressed in monochromatic
blues and flickering skyscrapers that
bleed and swirl on a concrete canvas.
I wonder how many nights I’ve
spent watching it streak down
my windows, water staining glass
the same way I let tears fall
down and sting my cheeks.
Or how many nights I’ve spent
sitting in the shadows, staring at
an open book of letters you wrote,
By Mandy Limbaugh | Observer Contributor
After Blue Horse by Franz Marc
The blue horse leaps
as the multi-colored sky
illuminates his friends.
In a sapphire glow
they run and play
with no care in the world.
Red and yellow stormy sky,
streaks of white shooting down.
Three heart-shaped indigo bodies
nipping at each other,
bucking and kicking,
running through blades of grass.
The gentleness of these
magnificent animals,
angels sent from God.
The beauty above us.
By David Wyman
Swirling violins viola & cello
repeating symmetries lifting, the room.
This is where hyper-quantization
comes in, a secret ideology
invading your head till
you feel hacked, everything
being on the grid. A yellow streetlight
signifying memory
opening like a mirror
when it gives the impression
of expanding space. And the line keeps
advancing, in riot gear now
in this direction. Today, we’re moving
along an axis darkly
in ‘great broken rings,’ like swans.
By Cami Stephens | Observer Contributor
“Cordial. Stay Cordial. Don’t lose your cool.”
I chant that to myself with utter urgency,
hoping I can believe those lucrative words,
wishing your inconsideration, inconsistency, and incompetence did not affect me.
The chant fades into the back of my ruthless mind.
A chant loses its power without repetition.
I couldn’t repeat it anymore.
Now I’m a maniac.
Everything you do, I can’t stand it.
I can’t deal with you:
Your urgency, your abruptness, your terror.
You’re inhospitable, yet you invade my warmth, desperately searching for hospitality.
By Daniel Dow | Editor-in-Chief
“Ring-a-ring-a-rosies, A pocket full of posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!” A simple nursery rhyme, but the first time I heard my daughter sing it, it sent shivers down my spine. My daughter, who is nearly three, shouldn’t know this song and yes, a children’s playlist put on shuffle could easily play it. But I do not recall her ever hearing it. That being said, I still find it strange that this is the song she regularly runs up to me and sings.
I know it is just a nursery rhyme, but it does have a strange history. One that is surrounded by some of the world’s darkest days of death and disease. An interesting fact I learned many years ago was when I studied the Black Plague during high school history class. Thinking about this vivid memory and where the world finds itself now–dealing with a mass pandemic–certainly emphasized that eerie feeling. Every time I heard it, I just thought of all the negative connotations the song held. However, I tried to ignore it. It made my daughter happy and that’s all that mattered.