January 2011 Issue A

vergeAUGUSTA & THE CSRA

F R E E | JA N UA R Y 5 2 011 | VO L 3 I S S U E 13 | YO U R S O U RC E F O R C O M M U N I T Y D R I V E N N E W S

WRITTEN WORD It’s the Annual Inkling Issue, A Celebration of the Written Word + FILM The Poison Peach Film Festival + PIPELINE Chase Away the January Blues

vergelive.com | community driven news | January 5, 2011 3

4 January 5, 2011 | community driven news| vergelive.com


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vergestaffyeah, we made this

publisher Matt Plochaeditor Lara Plocha

contributors Chris Selmek, Alison Richter, PM Rogers, John Cannon, Dino Lull, Ben Casella, Skyler Andrews, Charlotte Okie, Elizabeth Benson, Abby Spasser, Holly Birdsong, Katie McGuire, Jennifer Maslyn, Mariah Gardner

vergeconnectwe want to hear from you

call us: 706.951.0579mail us: PO Box 38 Augusta GA 30903email us: advertising and general stuff [email protected]

story tips, ideas and letters [email protected]

free event listings [email protected] us online: vergelive.com

vergepoliciesthe boring part

GENERAL POLICIES: Contents copyrighted 2010 by verge. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Editorial content of verge is the opinion of each contributing writer and is not necessarily the opinion of verge, its staff or its advertisers.

DISTRIBUTION: verge is published twice a month and is available free of charge at distribution locations throughout the CSRA, including Publix and Earth Fare.

RECYCLE: verge is printed on 50% recycled stock.

SMATTERINGSFor Old Acquaintance

Welcome to 2011!

Can we just move on already?

Most people want to forget 2010 and, as one celebrity put it during the New Year’s Eve celebration: “Most people here in Times Square want to pack up 2010 in to a little ball, put it in a box and just forget about it”. I laughed but then started thinking. Was it all that bad? Why would people think that way?

We just finished up one of the strongest holiday shopping season in five years. I know the national economy is still not that strong but, here locally, we have held the line pretty well. I speak with friends from all over the country and I am not hearing from them what main stream media is reporting about the doom and gloom. Sure it’s not all rainbows and lollipops, but people may be just a little wiser than the past few years from some of the lessons we have learned. Nonetheless, we are still living, breathing walking and talking. So as I “reflected” on 2010 what I saw was pretty much good stuff.

The “stuff ” is what life is made of: trials and tribulations, victories and defeats. There was laughing and there was crying. Glad times and sad times. What we chose to do with that “stuff ” was where the lessons learned. Some lessons were pleasant and some not so pleasant, but during it all, we stuck to our plan. We broke clear of the clutter that life threw at us and focused on the lesson(s). This is not solely from a business perspective, but from a personal perspective as well. In 2010, I personally learned a lot about my family and how cool they really are. I learned a lot about my friends and their beliefs and how they are the epitome of the word. I learned even more about our community in 2010 and how it can get behind causes in which it truly believes.

On the business side of 2010 and the “stuff ” we endured this past year: verge began publishing twice a month, we expanded our editorial coverage to include the entire CSRA including Aiken and Columbia counties, and our distribution has grown all over the place which means readership is up. We added new features and columns to the paper and will continue to do so. Verge experienced a year of strong growth in 2010 and, in this industry, that is a minor miracle.

I can attribute this to a few key factors. First is you, our reader. Without you these pages would be pretty barren. It is your commitment to helping build a better community that makes us stronger than ever. Second, our advertisers and business partners. They all believe in our community and that it can and will be a better place to live, work and play. They support community-driven news. After all, we are the community, right? They support positive growth and forward thinking. They learn from the past and apply those lessons to the future. Much like our ‘little” newspaper, they too have a plan. Verge will continue to be connected to our community. Verge will continue to provide you with great community-driven content as we look at our role as a conduit of what is happening all around us on any given day. From the community events in our city and the people who put them on to behind-the-scenes previews and editorial coverage. Sometimes even exclusive interviews! Verge understands this connection and looks to expand on it in 2011. This was the thought process and plan we had from the very beginning nearly three years ago (March 2008 our first issue) and will strive to be even better at getting connected with our community in the coming weeks, months and years. We’re of the mind set that most folks are just plain tired of the negative. Tired of the finger pointing. Tired of the reminders of our failures and over all just tired of being tired. Are you with us? We will continue to be that breath of fresh air, the reminder that there is good out here and how to get connected to it and become a greater part of it. You can help shape and mold the future of our community and move it forward. So hold on tight – you thought 2010 was crazy!

2011 – Bring it! We’re ready - we’ve been through 2010.

See you out and about in our community in 2011!

Matt

ON THE COVER UNTITLED, GABI HUTCHISON, 2010, COLLAGE

Gabi Hutchison began creating collages in high school as unique communications for her circle of internet friends. She recently graduated from Augusta State University with a degree in Sociology. After a successful debut show at Tire City Potters in March, Gabi is currently working on a new series – part of which graces the cover and centerspread of this issue of verge. Each collage portrays an uncomplicated elegance, while simultaneously incorporating surreal imagery and themes. “I like the idea of a marriage between fantasy and the mundane; that’s what I try to do in many of my pieces. I’m drawn to the rawness of absurdity; things that don’t really make sense to others seem perfect to me,” Gabi states. Gabi and her husband, David, own The Book Tavern in downtown Augusta. Books are a constant source of inspiration for Gabi’s work.

vergeadvertiserscheck out our partners

1102 Bar & Grill8th Street TobaccoAB BeverageBar On BroadBrigan’s Land of Enchantment Casella Eye CenterCongregation Beth ShalomCuriosity ShopEdge Salon and SpaElduets TreasuresFort GordonHalo Salon and SpaManuel’s Bread CafeModishNew Moon CafePoison Peach Film FestivalPower ServeRe-FreshRock Bottom MusicSanford, Bruker & BanksSoy Noodle HouseThe Book TavernVintage OoolleeWindsor Fine JewelersZimmerman Gallery

WHAT’S INSIDEyou won’t want to miss a page

The 2011 Inkling BeginsThirty selections of prose and poetry grace this year’s pages

Goodnight Ambrosia by PM ROGERS The Engagement by MELISSA KONOMOS After Audrey, Anorexia by DAPHNE MAYSONET

Mira’s Rocket by JONATHAN JAFFE

Driving with my Dad by ROBERT MURPHY Marriage by JANIS KRAUSS Bats by MARSHA MAURER

Rembering Frank O’Hara by M.H. LYTHGOE The Highway by JESSICA MOUSER Indian Summer by

GREG TREDORE Madness by MARINA GODDARD

The Holy Coolness by SKYLER ANDREWS Film by

LEO LITTLES, JR. Power Outage by HUGH PENDEXTER New Book by MARSHA MAURER

Lichen Illuminated by PM ROGERS Lost: Calico Cat by CHEA CLIATT In the Glass by

MARSHA MAURER Los Feliz by MONICA HOLMES

A Prayer for My Father by ABBY SPASSER #503 by ELLA M. PEIGH I Need to Live by the Water by JESSICA MOUSER

The Stringer and the Strung by AUDREY WEIS

SMITH

Maternal Conversations by JENNIFER CRAIG

My Story by HILARY MATFESS

Blue Daisies by SERETHA WILLIAMS

Jester’s Poem by CHRIS SELMEK M Theory Sonnet by DAPHNE MAYSONET Destinies by MELISSA

KONOMOS

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the inkling

experience moreAll Around TownPipelineFilm: The Poison Peach Film FestivalThe Film ReelSound Bites: Lokal Music Musings

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vergequoteshere’s what inspires us

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo,

and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight,

to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

- RICHARD WRIGHT

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FROM THE MAYOR’S OFFICE: AUGUSTA CONTINUES TO SHOW STRONG ECONOMIC RESILIENCE The latest information from the Brookings Institutions’ Metro Monitor reports that Augusta’s economy continues to be among the best in the nation. The Metro Monitor has listed Augusta as one of the top 20 most resilient metropolitan economies for six straight quarters.

The national group gauges the economic health of the nation’s largest metro areas and compares them to their ratings before the recession began, focusing on employment, unemployment, housing prices and gross metropolitan product. Augusta stands out as one of the few Southern states listed in the top 20 strongest metro areas (Jackson, Mississippi, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, also made the list); six of the top economies are in Texas.

Mayor Copenhaver recently said, “Although we have undoubtedly been impacted by the worst recession in most of our lifetimes, we have been extremely blessed to have made it through in a stronger position than most cities in our nation. To be ranked in the top twenty strongest metro areas for the sixth straight quarter definitely helps make me feel confident in continuing to make this statement and should be something we can all be proud of as the year draws to a close.”

WESTMINSTER HONORS SCHOLARSHIP OPENS Westminster Schools of Augusta is accepting nominations for the Westminster Honors Scholarship. This scholarship opportunity is open to rising 9th grade students and ranges from half to full tuition. It is renewable each year. For more information about this scholarship or financial aid in general for Westminster, email [email protected] or visit WSA.NET/NEWS/HONORS. Tours of Westminster School will be held every Friday through January (7th, 14th, 21st and 28th, during their “See WSA Days,” beginning at 9:30 a.m. Westminster is located at 3067 Wheeler Road in Augusta. For details, call 706.731.5260 or visit WSA.NET.

GIANT FOR WOMEN BICYCLE WEEKEND Andy Jordan Bicycle Warehouse presents the “Giant for Women Weekend.” On Saturday, January 8th, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., ladies can test out Giant’s Women’s Specific Road, Mountain, or Cyclocross Bike. The demo includes taking these bikes on the road, so be sure to bring a helmet, driver’s license and credit card to participate. At 5 p.m., learn basic bicycle maintenance from the pros. The special instructor for this ladies-only clinic is Jackie Baker, a pro rider and expert trainer from Giant Bicycles who is a liaison from their comprehensive Giant for Women program.

The clinic’s topics are how to change a flat tire (the #1 bike maintenance skill), Jackie’s five-minute bike safety checklist (to make sure a bike is good to go before a ride), and her road-or-trailside survival tips should you break down away from home (and nobody is answering their cell phone to come pick you up). Complimentary refreshments will be available.

On Sunday, January 9th, from 2 to 4 p.m., Jackie will lead a Women’s Mountain Bike Ride and Skills Clinic where you can learn to ride with greater confidence through improved balance, braking, and shifting techniques. The ride will begin at Andy Jordan’s, head down the Canal Towpath, go around the Canal Single-track trail, and end back at Andy Jordan’s (weather permitting).

Jackie Baker from Giant for Women is an expert at helping women feel more confident riding and maintaining their road and mountain bikes. She grew up riding horses in Ohio, but has been riding and racing mountain bikes since moving to the Rocky Mountains in 1997. She’s raced cross country, spent several years racing downhill as a pro, can hold her own on a road bike, and has even dabbled in track and BMX racing. Before joining the Giant for Women team, Jackie was a coach for Bikeskills. She now travels the country in her Giant for Women van (affectionately named Gordo) filled with demo bikes, visiting Giant retailers and attending bike industry events to share her knowledge and expertise.

All events are free, email RSVPS to [email protected]. Andy Jordan’s Bicycle Warehouse is located at 527 13th Street in downtown Augusta. For more information, call Andy Jordan’s at 706.724.2453 or visit ANDYJORDANS.COM

ALL AROUND TOWNPIPELINEGet Warmed Up with These Great Events

The Great Russian NightingaleTuesday, January 11 | St. Paul’s | noon | Free ($10 for lunch)

Russia’s St. Petersburg press calls her “The Great Russian Nightingale.” Svetlana Strezeva is a Laureate of the Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow and did her professional studies at La Scala in Milan, Italy. She has recorded with the Bolshoi Opera Orchestra and the Moscow Pops. She now lives in the United States with her family and will appear in Augusta on the Tuesday’s Music Live series on January 11, 2011. The free concert will include Ms. Strezeva’s daughter, pianist Milana Strezeva. Saint Paul’s Church is located at 605 Reynolds St at the Riverwalk in downtown Augusta. Lunch following the concert is catered by Crum’s on Central and advance reservations are required. Details: 706.722.3463 or TUESDAYSMUSICLIVE.COM

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Brian ReganFriday, January 14 | The Bell8 pm | $36.50

Funnyman Brian Regan has become a dorm room favorite, blending a sharp wit with comedic physicality and stage antics. See a sample at BRIANREGAN.COM then buy your tickets at BELLAUDITORIUM.COM

JAN

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Artrageous! Family Sunday: Book Reading Spectacular Sunday, January 9 | The Morris | 2 pm | Free

Bring the whole family in for an afternoon of fantastic stories and wonderful art projects. Local celebrities Karen Gordon, Brad Means, Vera Stewart, and Cowboy Mike will read selected children’s stories. Afterwards, participants are invited to make their very own book. THEMORRIS.ORG

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The festival isn’t a new thing; it’s already been running for a few years already. This year it’s gotten a little bigger though, and changed venues. “We’ve always had the event at Le Chat Noir, which is a great place,” says director Chris Forbes, “but we’ve gotten bigger than a 70-person audience now, so we needed to move it to the Imperial [Theater].”

But let’s clear the air for a moment. Are these production companies on the same level as Hollywood or NYC? Or even the established indie meccas like Las Colinas or Chicago? No, of course not. Not yet. There is a difference between a shoestring budget and an amateur with a camcorder, and the local troupes fall under the former category. You don’t need an Arri or a RED One to make a good movie. Would the local directors be offended if a kind benefactor bought them one? Probably not, but they’re having too much fun to worry about it. Which, according to Forbes, is one of the main reasons they created the Poison Peach Film Festival.

After a year of projects, set design, acting, editing and post production, there are a lot of people who have been involved in one way or another in a local film. This is simply a wrap party writ grand to which everyone is invited. “It’s a way to rally local Augusta around local productions, but it’s also the best way to get people together who worked on these films,” explains Chris. “It’s really made for us, the film-makers, so you’re going to see a lot of the stuff we like: sci-fi, horror, good westerns, that sort of thing.” This is exactly how most film festivals get started, and if film-makers like it, then you might have a good time yourself.

It’s too bad, really that none of these releases could feature an A-list movie star ... oh ... our mistake. They will. Chris Forbes’ Cole Younger and the Black Train starring Michael Madsen and country music artist Cody McCarver will have its premier on Friday. Yes, that Michael Madsen – most notably recognized for his role as the sadistic killer, Mr. Blonde, in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs – and yes, that Cody McCarver – the top 20 country music artist. If you happen to be a county-western fan with a penchant for Tarantino flicks, you’ll be in heaven. Even if not, you’ll still have a great time from two talented professionals in a classic Western film. All directed, written and produced by Augustans.

That’s not the only highlight of the festival. Along with two other feature films, the action flick The Mark and the killer-thriller Last Step, the short films also promise to be quite entertaining. Guest directors from Columbia, SC, will be skip the state line to debut films Paranoid and Angel of Mine, and Ed Turner, with the help of the Number 9 band, will also debut a faithful recreation of The Beatles’ legendary 1965 performance played in Atlanta.

The finale of the festival features a screening of Stephen Gilliam’s short film Confederate Zombies: Trail of Blood. Gilliam will also be shooting - on site - scenes to be used in a feature length film based on the Zombie short.

Belly dancing, indie horror, the Beatles, shoot-’em-ups, Westerns and zombies. Augusta: The question here isn’t if you are going, the question is why wouldn’t you go?

Get a weekend pass for $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Just want to do one night and not all? Eight bucks at the

door. Get your tickets at IMPERIALTHEATRE.COM or call the box office at 706.722.8341. All festival events start at 7 p.m. each evening and run until 10 p.m to 11:30 p.m. Be careful with the kids, many of the films will have the equivalent of an “R” rating.

Meet the directors, mingle with the actors, learn a thing or two from the production team, watch a scene shoot on Sunday night, support your local artists and, above all else, have fun!

by CLARK FOX

Have the post-holiday doldrums set in? What will you be doing the first weekend after New Years? Sitting at home with nothing to do? Get off the couch, and get downtown. As usual, there’s plenty to do and this weekend is no exception.

Ever wondered why film festivals like Cannes and Tribeca are so popular and attended by so many stars and directors, yet most of the films shown are extremely limited release? They’re not made for the general public; they’re made by film-makers for film-makers. Which is exactly what makes them so interesting.

This weekend, from the 7th to the 9th of January, Chris Forbes and the Southeastern Filmmakers will be hosting the Poison Peach Film Festival at the Imperial Theater. Three feature films and 15 shorts along with a variety of other film-oriented activities, this weekend will be anything but dull, and if you’re a fan or student of film, you’ll be in for a real treat. On the last day of the festival, director Stephen Gilliam will be filming scenes for the upcoming film Confederate Zombies. Oh come on. You know that sounds like fun. Johnny Reb, back from the dead.

FILM: POISON PEACH FILM FESTIVALTake a Bite Out of These Peaches: Zombies, Westerns and Horrors

WHAT Poison Peach Film FestivalWHERE The Imperial TheatreWHEN January 7 to 9 | 7 pm each eveningTICKETS $8 Single Day | $15 to $20 Weekend Pass | IMPERIALTHEATRE.COM

SCREENINGS FRI JAN 7: Cole Younger and the Black Train + Short Film Showcase | SAT JAN 8: Films from Columbia + The Mark + The Last Step | SUN JAN 9: Abbey Road Medley + Belly Aura + Confederate Zombie: Trail of Blood

MORE | FORBESFILM.NET

Plan to Go

“You’re going to see a lot of the stuff we like: sci-fi, horror, good westerns, that sort of thing.”

FILM FESTIVAL CREATOR AND FILMMAKER CHRIS FORBES

ON SET TOGETHER: ACTRESS KIMBERLY CAMPBELL LEADS IN last step, WHILE MICHAEL MADSON IS FEATURED IN COle YOUNGeR aND tHe BlaCK tRaIN.

A CELEBRATION OF

THE WRITTEN WORD

ADAm DONNELLy

DAPHNE mAySONET

HugH PENDExTER III

gREg TREDORE

jONATHAN A jAFFE

SKyLER ANDREWS

ROBERT muRPHy

gABI HuTCHISON

HILARy mATFESS

jANIS KRAuSS

AuDREy WEIS SmITH

CHRISTOPHER SELmEK

STEPHEN HAWKS

jENNIFER CRAIg

LEO LITTLES

mARSHA mAuRER

ELLA m PEIgH

mARINA gODDARD

CHEA CLIATT

ABBy SPASSER

Pm ROgERS

mONICA HOLmES

jESSICA mOuSER

HALEy gRANT

m.H. LyTHgOE

SERETHA WILLIAmS

PETE BOyZuICK

mELISSA KONOmOS

#23 ella m. peighsometimes when our lungs are recorded on very fragile

eight millimeter film we can take apart the individual frames and moments: flattening a brown banana in a grocery cart rolling me to you a blue and

grey plaid scarfknot "polar bears can smell three feet

underground" Tangerines. oh! the pow’r of myth and I am punishing myself for loving.

the inklingvolume two january 2011

convergent childSTEPHEN HAWKS

He stole the firebecause his peoplewere cold and desired to read bedtime stories. He grabbed it, ran while they were toasting his climb—their heads tilted back, throats exposed, gulping ambrosia.

We lifted our headsfrom the pages and watched him leaping down the side of the mountain—at times a man flying—in the dusk of evening.

You said, “He should slow or it will out.”

When the glow was gone we set down our booksand held in the hammock by the fissure in the rockand warmed by the steam we talked in the dark about our reading.

We composed.

We each had a monologue.

You fell asleep during mine.

Goodnight Ambrosia PM ROGERS

Fountains AbbeyHALEY GRANT

We can’t help but hoard our blame,tuck it into a panty drawer underneath the old, tattered ones, or the too-tight, cherry-dottedpair. But all I can be sure of is the mere presence of the image: cat-slick eyes lined in the deepest ink,dripping black fabric from throat to ankle,and the tiniest of trunks,narrowed to marrow,almost gone.I believe itwas notthe stickof a smokethat called upon me,that cast out its mono-finger for action. No, but a barely-therelimb? Now that’s a sin to keep in wraps.If only I could divide mine up and make a fortunefrom slivers of my own oversized pair of pale, polygonal trunks.I would sell each portion off, and eventually be left with the nothing that I’m sure could satiate this hungerto be the nothing that I see on the TV.

After Audrey, Anorexia DAPHNE MAYSONET

the inkling was created to celebrate the art of the written word and to provide a focused literary forum for local and regional authors. Named in honor of the informal Oxford literary club of the 30s and 40s, which included two of our favorite authors — J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis — the inkling encourages the pursuit of the written word, both in its creation and consumption.

the inkling accepts unsolicited submissions of art, prose and poetry. All submission are judged anonymously and selected by an editorial team. the inkling is a special annual feature of verge. The views expressed in the inkling are not necessarily those of the editors or the verge staff. The individual contributors hold copyrights to artwork, texts, and poems in this issue. No material may be reprinted without the permission of the magazine or its contributors.

We invite you to curl up in front of a warm fire, coffee cup perched on your knee, and enjoy these pages of prose, essay and poetry. It’s a perfect January eve’s read.

copyright 2010, verge

the inklingvolume two january 2010

magenta fleshlike a fresh ruby, leaking on my knuckle.

The Engagement MELISSA KONOMOS

10 the inklingvolume two january 2011

PM ROGERS, an author in North Augusta, lives for the written word. HALEY GRANT lives in Aiken, pursuing a graduate degree in historic preservation. DAPHNE MAYSONET is pursuing an English degree from Augusta State University: “When I am not rifling through research paper sources, I pretend to have free time.”

JONATHAN A. JAFFE hails from San Francisco, currently resides in North Augusta, and served in the United States Army for eight years. the inkling 11

volume two january 2011

Mira’s Rocket JONATHAN A. JAFFE

These days I keep working, watching the skies and remembering Mira. She was this crazy eastern European lady I knew when I was ten. I think every neighborhood has one, eccentric tinkerer, that is. Mira’s obsession was spaceflight. My best summer consisted of watching her blow up homemade rocket engines and cursing at the top of her lungs in Russian, German, Romanian, or some such language. The rest of the neighborhood avoided her like the plague, as if fearing contamination from “space craziness.” It was a great place to escape the neighborhood bully. Even he feared her place.

Mira herself didn’t seem all that scary to me. Sure, she’d mutter to herself in some Slavic language constantly and chain smoke like the apocalypse was coming, but she never seemed to mind me hanging over the back of her fence. I’m of the opinion she liked it. She gave me the impression of someone who “aged gracefully,” growing into her indeterminate late-middle age. Still, I developed an odd schoolboy crush on her (as all young boys seem to have) and I spent as much time as I could just hanging around her place. I told myself it was all about the rocket.

“Since I was little girl,” Mira would say in her ambiguous accent, “I wanted to be cosmonaut.”

I sat perched on her red fence, hoping to catch sight of her latest explosion-waiting-to-happen. She brushed her grey-streaked brown hair out of her blue eyes and gave me a daring stare. She took a drag off her cigarette and walked to the ignition button, smiling.

“You think this one blow up too?”

I nodded with a huge grin on my face. She took another drag and regarded the big red button thoughtfully.

“One year I defect,” she paused to search for another cigarette, “next year, Glasnost, no need for defector, no NASA, no need for Mira.”

She stopped, lit another one of those horrible non-filters and chirped out in laughter.

“I take money from defecting, invest, make much money before market crash,” she explained, “now I build rocket, fly into space.”

I couldn’t manage much more than a fascinated “wow,” but she didn’t seem to mind. She looked down at the ignition button with a smile and a burning cigarette on her lips, and kicked it with her ill-fitting, oversized boot. The rocket motor roared to life with a deafening sound, flames blindingly bright, clouds of smoke choking off all visibility throughout the neighborhood. It didn’t explode, but I was still loving every minute of it. Mira danced a jig while the whole neighborhood called the fire department. Not everyone was enamored by Mira’s success, least of all, my parents.

“You’re gonna get blown up!” was my mother’s favorite line, followed by, “Just wait until your father gets home!”

“What did your mother say?” was father’s choice. “Listen to your mother!”

It was all part of the time-honored cycle of disobedience and admonishment, until now. This time, they brought in Pastor Graham. He sat me down, reeking of pomade and aftershave, and explained to me that disobeying my parents was a sin of the worst sort. Right up there with murder and becoming a vegetarian. He paced back and forth, working up a froth for the “Lake of Fire” sermon, and left me once my eyes reached saucer-size. It afforded my parents a much needed three weeks of their child’s safety.

I returned to an awesome sight. Laid out in Mira’s backyard, was at least forty feet of half-finished rocket. Mira walked out of her workshop with a smile on her face.

“Boy,” she barked, “not seen you for three week.”

She motioned to me and pulled the double doors of her workshop open. Inside, I could make out what seemed to be a cone-shaped capsule, and some prefabricated sections of the rocket. I was stuck on the fence, halfway between curiosity and the Pastor’s “Lake of Fire” sermon.

Mira cocked her head playfully, “You want to see capsule?”

I nodded; my mouth dry with anticipation. I crept up to the workshop as she turned on the light. The capsule looked tiny under the brightness of the naked bulb. At five feet tall and four across, the capsule looked like the old Mercury 7 done in miniature. The top of it seemed to have exploded in a multi-colored display of mismatched parachutes, which covered the floor around it. Through the tiny hatch, an oversized mishmash of cushions was riveted into a chair frame on its back. Mira reached into a cabinet and pulled out a patched-up spacesuit, tailored to her wiry frame.

‘You like?’ she asked.

I was speechless. I must’ve had the dumb smile of approval, since she smiled again with a satisfied chuckle and motioned me into the capsule. I squeezed in, squirming into the seat facing the sky. To the right and left, small portholes filled with thick glass. At the center, a riveted-down laptop and joystick, with a mass of cables and boxes beneath. Above my head, three bottles of oxygen, looking like they’d been pinched from Mee-Maw’s medical supply. Mira gave a satisfied chuckle and went back to work on the rest of the rocket. Something changed at that point. I had been merely a bored child, entertaining myself with Mira’s failed rocket motors. Now I felt a different excitement. Space was within my grasp, something I could do in my own backyard. More than just a stupid child’s dream. All Mira needed to do, right now, was finish it. Even going home to mom, dad, and Pastor Graham’s “Mira’s a Godless Commie” sermon couldn’t keep me away. It couldn’t keep me from dreaming.

A week later, I returned to a patchwork tower of metal topped by Mira’s capsule. Standing upright, you could see it from just about anywhere in the neighborhood. I had to go and see. I jumped the fence to find Mira in her workshop, parked in front of a dry-erase board filled with equations. The rocket towered over me, bigger than I imagined.

“It is all math now, yes?” Mira called out from her workshop.

“Math,” I groaned, “what’s so important about math?”

“What? You no like Mira?” she taunted, “You want Mira to shoot up in space and not come back?”

“No.”

“Then I need good math. End up here in seventy-two hours,” she pointed, then stomped her foot for emphasis.

She turned to the erase board and scribbled some more equations on it, took one last drag on her non-filter and stubbed it out. She regarded the stubbed out cigarette with a forlorn look.

“I will miss you,” she said to her stubbed-out cigarette, and turned to me with a sardonic grin, “I suppose I will be missing you as well.”

A feeling of panic swelled in my chest. I was sure this was goodbye forever. She seemed to sense it, and knelt down in front of me, gripping my shoulders.

“Dreams are good, yes?” Mira fixed me with her smiling eyes, “What good are dreams if you do not act? What good is rocket if I do not use? You want to join me, learn, grow, build rocket, yes?”

“Yes.”

She spun me around, and gently kicked me in the butt.

“Go home, study, be good.”***

It was four in the morning; the entire neighborhood was bounced out of bed by the explosion. The roar of it reverberated long enough for me to figure out what had happened. Sleepers tumbled out of bed. Robes and slippers were hastily donned as people stumbled out of their houses into the acrid white smoke that blanketed the entire neighborhood. Fire trucks crept along, sirens blaring, searching for the source. Everyone they met pointed the way. Everyone knew. Mira’s house and workshop were a flaming wreck, the fence I’d hung over, burned to charred ruin. A few twisted pieces of metal were all they found of Mira’s rocket.

A few days after the explosion, Pastor Graham overcame his distaste for Mira enough to organize a combination memorial service/fundraiser for all the homes damaged in the explosion. As for me, I was inconsolable. Finally, at the memorial service for Mira, my dad took me aside, and dried my tears.

“Son,” he said in reassuring dad tones, “someday you’ll find that dreams will only take you so far, someday you’ll realize –”

And realize I did. I realized Pastor Graham was a lot more athletic than he seemed. I was especially impressed with the way he vaulted over the podium to avoid being crushed by Mira’s capsule. Everything devolved into chaos as the mismatched parachutes settled over everyone there.

Mira stopped smoking and her cancer disappeared into remission. I call her with updates on the engines I’ve blown up, the capsule I’ve built and of this little girl in the neighborhood who seems to delight in watching me from over the fence. Mira can’t stop laughing about it.

I was stuck on the fence, halfway between curiosity

and the Pastor’s “Lake of Fire” sermon.

I could not imagine it getting anymore serene; the road lined with giant oaks went on forever. Off in the distance, farm equipment and wood structures from time past stood still. At other points, the Salmon River rushed alongside our journey for miles; the mountains in the distance were as unexplored remote lands. These pictures and places went on for miles, all the while Dad was driving. I often asked myself how he did it. Without stop, nor map, nor hint of reactive motion, he and his loaded-down wagon moved along the road from beginning to end with the ease of sitting in his red leather family room chair. As the sun dropped over the horizon and the heat of the summer day turned by a cool breeze through the cracked window, I dozed and dreamed with the most secure feeling of peace, one that I could never seem to replicate unless Dad was driving.

“Secure feeling” is a relative phrase in the mind of a 1970’s eleven-year-old. These words were clearly felt or experienced instead of understood. I knew it when I felt it. When Mom wiped my head when I had a fever, the entire family gathered for Sunday dinner, or I walked to school with three other brothers. There was a sense of things. On the other hand, as a kid on the lower end of a large family, I never really experienced anything other than security, certainly never a threat from an external force. Perhaps this was because my parents grew up living through three wars and somehow led our home in confidence and hope. Sure, there was fear from within. Liver night was a treacherous evening. To this day, I am still baffled about culinary usefulness of liver. Perhaps Mom was disciplining us or preparing us for a time in the future when the edible portions of a steer would become absent or, perhaps it was her concealed teaching of who ruled the kitchen ruled the house. Whatever the reason, I walked away from those meals, fearing the event as much as I feared the swing of the broom handle breaking up a boy’s wrestle-mania or Dad’s style of bedroom cleaning. We were taught to work, allowed to play, and encouraged to explore all under the cover of two people who somehow always displayed inner - discipline and strength. This was never more evident than when the summer began to end and the annual drive north consumed my mind.

With two weeks left in August, the entire family knew what the early morning hours would bring. Bags, boxes, sleeping bags, and bikes – Mom was like a machine, a geometrical genius loading the family Ford for another fourteen days in the Adirondacks. Not only were the essential supplies of the trip carefully loaded, but seven children, Grandma Caroline, and T.J., the dog, piled in, followed by Mom taking her position – front right – while Dad assumed command of the wheel. I usually found myself with a choice seat, lying down in the storage area or in the back window seat directly behind Dad. For reasons not known to me, I seemed to be the one who experienced car-sickness and required a space which provided fresh air and a place to put my head, other than on the sweat-soaked shoulder of another. Never a seat belt, a car seat, a DVD player, or music; this was a different season, a different way of life. Paul Harvey was on the radio; fruity flavored Life Savers and an Archie comic book were at the ready. Yet, when the breeze came through the window and my head was positioned with one eye on the scenery and the other on Dad’s face in the mirror, this secure feeling covered me more than ever, and I miss it to this day.

Forty years later, I have not experienced that sense of security that I felt in the backseat of the wagon. I prefer that someone else drives. When my wife is at the wheel, there never seems to be enough time to doze since she gets us where we are going so quickly. Sure, I occasionally sleep on a plane, yet with a keen sense of awareness. I have often attempted to trick myself into that same childlike secure feeling while in the Middle East, hoping my body would just fall asleep. I would lay my head on the ground, close my eyes, and quickly return to the unending roadway scenery of upstate New York, waiting for a breeze to surround my head, only to wake up and realize that a brief moment had passed and, I fear, so too had that secure sense known while Dad was driving. wonderland

MARINA GODDARD

Somewhere between awake and dreamsUnder my top sheet of sleepJust before my fallingYou clamber out of bedDisrupt the dog and catBlast into the bathroomTo say a trickled prayerThan back to snore while I lieWide eyed and blessThe together of alive

Marriage JANIS KRAUSS

Driving With My Dad ROBERT MURPHY

Near dark they gatheredin frantic feeding,quickeningas we recounted them,our vision dimmed with dusk.

So close, they were not frightful as we had imagined them, butfamiliar in their fur, echoing,our groundless fears.

We left them in the falling light,circling.

Bats MARSHA MAURER

Paul Harvey was on the radio; fruity flavored Life Savers

and an Archie comic book were at the ready

With an US Marine Corps career behind him and a business degree at USC-Aiken in front, ROBERT MURPHY’s passion is teaching others about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Author of With Healing Wings and A Fragrant Fullness, MARSHA MAURER won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for In the Garden. JANIS KRAUSS expresses the joys of growing old and grandparenting through her poetry.

the inkling 13volume two january 2011

M.H. LYTHGOE authored BRASS, a chapbook which won the Kinlock Rivers contest in Charleston, SC in 2006. MARINA GODDARD’s influences are Anne Sexton, Flannery O’Connor, and Pablo Neruda – at the moment. Currently a professor at Georgia Military College, GREG TREDORE’s life goal is to take over Josh Gates’ role on the show Destination Truth.


‘It’s more like spring than fall,’ you sayAs you wipe your nose on your sweaterAnd stare into the yard.‘It shouldn’t be so warm.’

You cock your head and rub your neck.I worry you have a fever.‘You shouldn’t sit on the steps,’ I say.You insist that it’s all right, you’re fine.

You play with your bracelet and smile.‘The trees look like they’re on fire.It’s funny,’ you say, ‘they’re prettier.They’re never this nice during summer.’

I wait for you to say something else,Like, ‘I’ll be more careful,’Or ‘I won’t mix up the pills.’You don’t. You stroll into the yard,

And pull leaves off the trees.And as you say, ‘I’m gonna press these,’The wind blows your hair acrossYour face. For a moment, you are gone.

Indian Summer GREG TREDORE

and don’t you know that god is pooh bear?STEPHEN HAWKS (a line from Jack Kerouc’s On The Road)

9:45 in Augusta a Wednesday four days before the feastof St. Augustine. Yes it is 2010 and I wear shoesthat need no shine so I cross the 5th Street bridge right on time for the Westobou Arts Festival meeting at 10:00 am in the Old Medical College on Telfair. I meet Kevin on the muggy Augusta street and we speak of Jasper Johns, Jap to his friends in Edisto; I eat an oyster “Po’ Boy” at Beamie’s and see Keith on Broad Street near the Regal Theatre before crossing to the Book Tavern to pick up a copy of verge, and Southern Review, to see if Linda Lee and Starkey are with the poets in Savannah again before I realize I must stop at Le Chat Noir to leave a Westobou banner and review the scene where The Dubber will play. See M’s clothesline poems, her wearable art projects on the screen? I view the church glass at Sacred Heart and dream of Notre Dame but the canal is not the Seine and the Chronicle is not Le Monde nor do my books sell like Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems so I stop on Walton Way to sip a mojito in the Partridge Inn a toast to jazz singer Abbey Lincoln who just died; on the radio opera star Renee Fleming sings low Dark Hope and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Listen to Tobacco Road. Read the Times.The front page headline yells about a mosque in New York City. The Indus River is pictured in flood; our own Westobou River flooded too. Sweating. It is so hot out before Labor Day on the River Walk in front of the Morris Museum of Art near the warehouse studio where hats fly; Philip Morsberger’s car parks when he paints. I must travel Fury’s Ferry Road with a Pinot Noir—a bottle—and a poem, since an Irish poet just wrote from Cork; she puts her Gaelic hope in words like little boats of language afloat not knowing where in the river they end up.

During Westobou We Remember Frank O’Hara M.H. LYTHGOE

I drove all the gray of I-26and in the median,wild zinnias were burstingthe tips of the grass into flame.

Two weeks latertheir shriveled remainsfloat over the ground,like some supernatural wastefound onlyby orange-clad criminals.

09.06: The Highway JESSICA MOUSER

I can make a world of crust and grainwhere the sycamore snores and the willow tree whimpers.I can toll a bell and make things appearupon each ring.

Ring.

A boy waits in a thick forest’s clearing,he is lean.He looks ahead,his hands dangle by his sides.Sandy skin and gemstone eyesabsorb the sun’s rays.

We stand amidst a grove of giants,A clearing of conifers, where he and I spit wordsthat whip like ribbons.

Trees burn, buildings blossom. Just wait,he says, looking up, his voice low,it is time for our planet to grow.

Madness MARINA GODDARD

The crashing storm has passed; it grumbles stillAcross the suburbs. Lightning echoes glintOn pools where run-off water gutters clog.The Spanish moss drips, and acorns clickOn the slick pavement. Lonely candles gleamFrom darkened windows. The electric hum is stilled;No tunk of changing traffic lights. Distant –Crescendo – a rock band blares as bright headlightsBlazen puddles sheeting over sidewalks:Shrieked lyrics din, then doppler down.Frantic, an ambulance bawls at distant traffic.My cautious steps seem loud against the night.

Sister FrancisGABI HUTCHISON

16 the inkling volume two january 2011

When SKYLER ANDREWS isn’t writing or trying to write, he’s probably bribing his Muse or praying to the Lord for his big break. An accomplished poet and novelist, HUGH PENDEXTER, III is Professor Emeritus at Armstrong State College. Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, LEO LITTLES is a special education assistant at North Augusta High School.

Power Outage HUGH PENDEXTER, III

A fedora and some clove cigarettes are all I need to feel cool. I like how the smoke looks. Like a ghostly jazz dancer. That’s what I tell myself. But I ain’t got a fedora or cigarettes. I don’t even have a drink. I am woefully unequipped, here. I look at the lights, so low I can’t make out the shape of the lamps above them. So low, the lights look like little still fairies, little fiery soldiers. There’re plenty of smokers, but no gray. The smoke from everyone just obediently slips upwards in thin wisps, like gentle upward faucets. It does not spread to cluster into a cool, choking mist—not cool as in cold, but cool as in “cool.” The music is tired—not poorly played, or dull, quite the contrary, but weary and heavy. The saxophone has a droll that lags and stays lagging. Tone bound. Not tone as in tone, but tone as in mood. It’s so dark in here. Everyone is so still. Even the women. But not stiff. I take note when I see the slender chocolate arm of a pretty, young woman with her hair done up like a Supreme, only with more modesty. She’s lifting up her cigarette toward her disciplined lips. They must be disciplined. Everything in here is. Everything in here quietly adores and obeys the weary lull of the saxophone—the bass and guitar and drums and piano I barely notice, its submissive cherubic host. The eerily stationary spills of cigarette smoke: that’s the incense. This is a place of worship. But why don’t I feel the spirit? I’m just not cool enough, I’ve concluded. I must work out my own salvation, I began to think to myself, and get a fedora, and a clove—magical cigarettes that have serpentine smoke that obeys you, or your spirit’s response to the holy coolness—and a reverent, free, faux-severe disposition. Screw that. No, I said, I just need to start my own band.

The Holy Coolness SKYLER ANDREWS

Finally,dishes done,husband warm beside me,I crack the cover of my eager dream. Until I lose my place,the weight of fragrant pages falls into another space andstartles me to sleep.

New Book MARSHA MAURER

we are not what we seeour flimsy facadesand finerythe blind biasand prejudicewe willingly fritter away blisswe’re ne’er silvernor gold chainneither nocturnenor elegy refrainfrom far awaywe flyinfant-bornewith single eyearticulation descentto incoherent babblersnow mute and mawkwe’re butlong distance travelers.

Film LEO LITTLES, JR

There was grassbut mostly dirt

And I took some between my fingersrubbed it real goodand dropped it into the green.

There were ants on your shoesscurrying around purity andwhite. Like self-doubt crossingbridges And you did not notice.

Nor would you care

There was a cranesimple and farMocking us in its freedomand gliding above water,where the fish bit and snapped

Like hungry barbarians.

So the sun glared down.

And the air became hot.

Our skin as moist and softas when we were fresh.

My eyes shifted onto the ripples ofwater. Where the fish lashedout through their cage

And you said,

“Let’s go.”

Sister FrancisGABI HUTCHISON

GABI HUTCHISON’s thought-provoking collages mirror her own unique perspective on the world around her. An aspiring editor, MONICA HOLMES is a California native now living in Evans. CHEA CLIATT, an 18-year-old Augusta native, enjoys ice cream, freshly washed sheets, painting badly and sleeping.


Goodnight dream-willed, bright draught, lonely chaps, who grab the woman by her elbow left and forearm right, impeding her way; and because she did not slap you I refrain from calling her “lady.”

Forgive me sir, for the gentle shove I gave you, as I am too in my way.

You gentle chaps with horrid ways, you black bloods, boot huggers, crude poets, vagabond angels, bird eaters, tea feelers, fear figures, dream coders, wonder worms, and those of you on eternal siesta that drink to the death of our St. Patrick who brought the blood to the forest dim—a slanting board of light that whiles around the drunks till even the lichen is illuminated.

Forgive me sirs, for the gentle shove I gave, as I am too in my way.

Lichen Illuminated PM ROGERS

It is an unfortunate sight,your orange juice sittingin the center of ourwooden table, untouched.You are sorry,you are in a rushbecause today is important,you do not have timeto discuss the cracked tile.You leave.Your orange juice is stillorange. You should haveknocked it over.

Los Feliz MONICA HOLMES

LOST: Calico Cat CHEA CLIATT

She passesin my morning glass above the kitchen sink.Beyond the pane,a hedge obscures ourneighbor’s view. ButI can see her reflectionthere, moving stooped andslow.

I catch her stillkneading hands stiff with years,wondering how to graspthe water glass andwhy I find my motherwalking in my early window.

In the Glass MARSHA MAURER

Davidson Fine Arts junior ABBY SPASSER’s “Should Be” won the Georgia Young Authors award. ELLA M. PEIGH plays with the alphabet, when she’s not pursuing her other passions of art and music. JESSICA MOUSER is an English teacher who lives in Aiken, SC and believes in the power of community to encourage good writing.


UntitledPETE BOYZUICK

I need to live by water, the water that circumvents the dirt, houses angler fish and couches eels and pushes trout for miles. I need the space it makes for sunsets, the carving of a river that arrivesand always leaves, but still somehow is always here. I need that bane of worms, those flushing storms, their cracking skies and drumming nights, their postludes of drifting pinks and blues. I need the cutthroat waves of sailors (I need a place to test my faith) and the dizzyspray of waterfalls that kill you if you fall.I need calm and glimmering lakes at deadnight hours, a time whose name belies itself. I need rain to walk in when my neighbors hide inside and the waves that lap and gently nagat feet. I need the sea.I need that drink, I need it pure,to rinse my tongue and feed my blood, to showit how to course and course, to cycle round,I need to wash my ears in sounds of showers,running streams, and fountains, I need all of thisand not to drown.

I need to live by the water JESSICA MOUSER

i’m watching you shave

your pumpernickel seed beardframes a frownon your face

i know you doubt yourselfeven nowand i know you’re afraid of dying

and if i couldi’d go back to when you were still covered in afterbirthyour mother holding you for the first timeand correct her formi’d go back and stitch your father’s mouth shutso he never underminedand it was impossible to mock

but i can’t

i can only tell you that the way you held mewhen i was little more than a misshapen mass of doughwas always the best kind of enoughthat your unfailing jewish pessimism will always cheer me upthat it made no difference to me that

A Prayer for My Father ABBY SPASSER

the soup you made for me was lentil instead of chicken-noodle

i can only tell you that your glasses do make you look distinguished

and yes, actually a bit like john lennon(which we both know is the real reason

you purchased them)i can only begin to knit you sweaters, because i know you’re always cold(though we both know i’ll never finish them)

i can only think all thiswhile you stand there shavingregretful eyesas pumpernickel seeds fall down to the earth

they sprout into fields of ryeeach plant outstretching like a little girlreaching outto her father

I charge Michael the bartender from around the corner fifty cents less on his large coffee because he’s short on change and I like his old tattoo

I can write that in this poem because Michael doesn’t read my poetry

I sing folk songs on my rooftop because I know Jenn hears them when she walks to work and that she likes the tunes

I can write that in this poem because Jenn doesn’t read my poetry

I leave unsigned letters for the boy with the messy hair in his apartment mailbox next to mine because I want him to know that sometimes the most beautiful thing is the smell of the bread he makes

I can write that in this poem because he doesn’t read my poetry

but I can’t tell him that I live next door and want the most in the world to invite him to tea

and I can’t tell Jenn “it’s okay to be sad” when I see her at the grocery

and I can’t tell Michael that when I quit my job his coffee will cost a little bit more

and because I can’t tell the most important people the most important things:

“Don’t Go Away$1.60Only Blackberry Jam, PleaseHey Jude, Don’t Be AfraidTonightI Love You”

#503 ELLA M. PEIGH

The Stringer and the Strung: Chapter One AUDREY J. WEIS SMITH

We had the worst drought in years the summer my sister Collette thought she was dying. It all started the week of June 7th when she came home from getting her hair dyed and found her husband, Mick, in bed with the postmistress. It didn’t help matters that our postmistress, Janine Jackson, is blacker than a ripe walnut pod and old enough to be Mick’s mama. Well, maybe not that old. Collette was five months pregnant with their first baby, a boy she had already named Smith Michael Culpepper. That was the year when last names were fashionable as first names. I tried to tell her that, once little Smith got to school, his teachers would be getting his name all backwards and it would be a nightmare trying to straighten out all his paperwork, but Collette was bound and determined, at least until she found Janine Jackson in her bed. Then she was bound and determined to drop both the “Michael” and the “Culpepper,” which would’ve left the poor child as Smith Smith, since Smith is our name. God wasn’t having any of that, though, seeing as how He snatched that baby right on up to heaven not a week later, leaving Collette all the more dazed, now husbandless and babyless. And a little bit nuts, I think. Grandma had just recuperated enough from her stroke to move back in with Mama and, the same week, Collette marched into Mama’s kitchen and announced that God had spoken to her through the horoscopes and she was letting Mick move back in. You can imagine the mess Mama was in, what with Collette wailing and carrying on well into July and Grandma needing constant attention. And then Grandma developed the verbal anomaly that gave us all the willies. She became a walking Bartlett’s Famous Quotations, spouting off aphorisms out of the clear blue, most of them uncannily related to whatever we were sitting around fussing about. The doctor called it “misfiring,” but if you ask me, Grandma’s aim was surprisingly accurate. I got home on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, Mama and I sat in her kitchen pondering what to do about her upcoming trial dates, Grandma’s condition, and Collette’s insistence that God had spoken on page 8 of the Metro Section. “When it rains, it pours,” Grandma said. She sat in a rocker by the stove, her arms like limp sausages in her lap. “We could sure use some rain,” I answered, even though Mama had told me to pay no mind to Grandma’s pronouncements. “I sure hate to see her like this.” Mama shook her head sadly and butterbeans plinked like tears into the bowl on her lap as she shelled another handful. “It could have been much worse.” I reached over and tucked a stray hair behind Grandma’s ear. “I’m talking about Collette,” Mama said. “This horoscope business is getting out of hand. Last week God told her to cancel her doctor appointment. That girl worries the bejesus out of me.” “Maybe He’ll slip the winning lottery numbers into my next fortune cookie.” I laughed, but Mama only scowled at me. “There’s nothing funny about it, Irene. Think of your sister’s health.” Mama scooped some more butterbeans into her lap. “She needs to get to the doctor. I called him last month and told him about all this foolishness. He said he’d refer her to a psychologist next time she was in.” “Loose lips sink ships.” Grandma grunted and stared at the teakettle on the stove. “What exactly did the horoscope say?” I asked. “Now what difference does that make?” Mama eyed me as if I’d just told her I was marrying the pope. “Collette will make it say whatever she wants. Never mind what it really says.” “An empty wagon makes a lot of racket,” Grandma said. This time she stared dead at me and goosebumps crawled up my arm. “You want some tea, Grandma?” I had heard enough of Grandma’s platitudes to know that you caught more flies with honey than with.... well, than with something other than honey. Grandma just grunted again and commenced staring at the teapot. I shook bean shells off the newspaper and flipped to the horoscopes. “ ‘Something you own will become quite valuable in the next three days,’” I read. “What do you suppose that could be?” “Rubbish, that’s what. How’s that lady know what you own?” She peered closer at the

newspaper. “What’s Collette’s today? I think she’s that scorpion one.” “It’s Scorpio, Mama. Says ‘Things are not going as planned. You’re strong but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Your brakes might be stuck.’” I rolled my eyes. “This is God talking?” “According to Collette.” Mama stopped shelling and looked up thoughtfully. “Maybe she’ll take it to mean she better get to the doctor.” “Two heads are better than one.” Grandma had her eyes closed, rocking gently to the hum of the teakettle as Mama reached over and switched off the stove, then hefted the pot to the table to pour us a cup. “Well, this head needs some aspirin. You got some, Mama?” Collette shuffled in, cradling a bag of husked corn, her pocketbook flung crazily over one shoulder. “I stopped at the market and got you some corn.” “Give me that before you fall over.” Mama snatched the bag from Collette and practically dragged her into a chair. “I thought the doctor told you to take it easy last time you went in.”

“It’s just corn, Mama.” Collette plopped into a chair and pushed a stray hair off her brow. “How you, Grandma?” She reached across and patted the old lady’s arm. “A stitch in time saves nine.” “Don’t I know it.” Collette grinned. “And I say it’s time we had a party.” She grinned like she’d just won a million bucks. “You get back to the doctor yet?” Mama eye-balled Collette like she expected her to fall out of the chair in some kind of spasm. “I thought he wanted to see you once a month for a while.” “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.” Grandma sipped at her tea and stared at the stove’s electric eye, which glowed a soft pink now. “That’s what I always say, Grandma.” I couldn’t help answering her even though she wasn’t really talking to any of us. “I’ll get over there, Mama.” Collette fingered a butterbean. “Are these from your garden? I sure feel like a bowl of your soup.” “Well, you can just keep on feeling like it. It’s too hot for soup.” “This from somebody who drinks hot tea in the middle of July.” Collette laughed. “Well, y’all – we’re having a party.” She was itching for somebody to ask her about it. “Who for?” Mama eyed Collette again like she wanted to hop up and palm her forehead or stick a thermometer into her mouth. Mama can’t stand when one of us is doing poorly and Collette had been doing poorly since she’d lost that baby. “Me.” Collette was still grinning. “A farewell party.” “Farewell?” Mama looked suspicious. “Where you going?” “I’m going….” Collette paused and grinned even bigger. “…to have a party.” “Well, you just do that.” Mama got up and hauled the beans to the sink and ran some water in. She sat back down and swished the beans in the water like a little kid playing ships in a puddle, not looking too much like she cared about a party. Looked kind of funeral-like, you ask me. Collette picked nervously at the tablecloth. “I went to see Mattie Hawkins.” Mattie Hawkins was not someone you casually went to see. And if you did go see her, you didn’t dare tell anyone. Mattie Hawkins was our local palm-reader/fortune teller. “A new net won’t catch an old bird.” This time Grandma was staring at Collette. “I don’t care what you think, Mama.” Collette was about to flood tears. “She answered my questions and I believe her.” Well?” Mama arched her eyebrows, still flipping her fingers in the bean water. “I asked her when I’m gonna die.”

“An empty wagon makesa lot of racket,” Grandma said.

This time she stared dead at me and goosebumps

crawled up my arm.


AUDREY WEIS SMITH, an AP Literature teacher at Davidson Fine Arts, enjoys reading and writing Southern fiction.

continued on page 21

“In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Grandma was shaking her head slowly. “That’s right, Grandma.” Collette smiled and nodded. “See – Grandma knows what I mean.” “If she knows what you mean, then you’re surely not making sense.” Mama scowled across the table at Collette. “What’s this death foolishness?” “I’m sorry, Mama. But it’s all I think about since I lost the baby. How God knows – hell, we know – we’re all going to die someday. We all prance around like we’ve got forever, only we don’t. And I want to know just how long I do have. So I asked her and she told me.” “She told you when you’re gonna die?” Mama’s laugh startled me so that I spilled beans all over the floor. “You really think she knows such things?” “No.” Collette shook her head. “She doesn’t. But God does – and He told her.” “Ask her for the lottery numbers next time you go in.” I laughed. Mama and Collette both glared at me. Grandma still stared at Collette, only now her mouth was twitching like she wanted to laugh, too. “So I decided to have a party that day,” Collette whispered. “A party?” Mama stared at her hard. “The day you’re supposedly dying?” “Why not?” Collette stared hard right back at her. “I can have a party, can’t I? Or do I have to sit around moaning like I’m already dead? Ever since I lost that baby you been treating me like I’m made of glass, Mama. Like I’m gonna crackle to pieces if you breathe too hard.” Mama sucked in her breath like she’d been slapped, but Collette didn’t stop. “What? You think since I can’t keep a baby alive, I can’t keep myself alive either? Well, you can rest easy, Mama. I got the date for you. You don’t have to hold your breath any more wondering when I’ll keel over.” “You’re a fool.” Now it was Mama whispering. “A fool and his money are easily parted.” Grandma closed her eyes and commenced her rocking. Mama eyeballed Grandma, then asked Collette, “How much you pay this fortune-teller?” Collette only stared at her hands twisting like coiled snakes on the tablecloth. “I always did like a party. You should play the Grateful Dead, Collette.” I know it was stupid, but I couldn’t stand them both looking like the end of the world. Nobody laughed. Why did I think I could come home and find answers to my own problems? All I found was more problems. “That Mattie Hawkins is a scamming, money-grabbing liar and if you paid money to hear her talk, then you ain’t got the sense you were born with.” Mama’s hands worked furiously in the pan of beans, slinging water everywhere, hopelessness clouding her face like she knew what she was searching for she wouldn’t find in a bean pot. “It’s living you ought to be worrying about, Collette Lewis. You leave the dying to God.” “I already found out what an expert He is when it comes to death,” Collette snorted. “He won’t cheat me again.” “I have heard it all now.” Mama carried her pot to the stove and slammed it down on a burner then switched it on. “I’ve a mind to tell that Mattie Hawkins a thing or two.” “Easy come, easy go,” Grandma whispered. “Don’t you go meddling in my business, Mama.” Collette snatched her purse off the table and stormed from the room. Mama just stood stirring beans until she heard the front door slam and then whirled out of the room. “Watch these beans don’t scorch, Irene.” I didn’t even have time to ask how much salt to dump in. “So, Grandma, you seen any good movies lately?” I asked, straining hard to hear where Mama had gone off to. “All the world’s a stage.” Grandma sighed. She sat tapping her fingers to the ticking of the mantle clock, a sad smile on her face. “Yeah, well, maybe so, but I think I’d rather be in the audience.” I got up and stirred the beans, sprinkling in a handful of salt, and plopped back down in my chair just as I heard Mama’s pickup roaring off down the driveway. “What do you think? Tragedy or comedy?” I glanced over, but Grandma had nodded off. I already had an inkling of the answer, anyway.

decisionsADAM DONNELLY

She didn’t get the benefit of the show.

Didn’t get to see meFill an empty Walmart bag, orTug a shirt over the kid’s sleepy head.

She did hear me Slam the trailer door, andFelt the plastic windows tremble,The tin foil siding shake.

She knew I heardThe words through paper walls,Suffered the bruise of lowered voice,The sting of barbed, disapproval.

But I had less than nothing,To accompany my something—A tired little girl curled up—I came back and now—now—she wants to talk.

I see. She wipes down the clean counter.She shuffles about on exhausted feet.Her explanation smothers the air.

This silence will hold.

Maternal Conversations JENNIFER CRAIG

JENNIFER CRAIG, a teacher in Aiken County, while searching to find her voice, says her daughter, Victoria, is helping to decide the accent. the inkling 21


the stringer and the strung, continued from page 20

It’s staring me in the face, bright orange and familiar to me. That little bottle of pills is so ambiguous, so bright as to be alluring, yet the color screams a cautionary tale. I twist off the white top and pour three into my palm, laughing at my moderation. I pop them into my mouth and lean my head back against the wall...

The day I was born my father died. Growing up, people assumed that he had left. It really didn’t matter that it was a medical attack of the heart, not a sexual one that took him away, so I often wouldn’t correct them. My mother was a social worker and after long days of dealing with other people’s problems she didn’t want to consider her own. Thus, Jim Beam was a steady influence in my life.

My mom was not a mean drunk, just a sad one. I remember her carrying a bottle like a baby up the stairs of our modest two story home in New Orleans. She still provided well for me, supplying me with more pens than my binder-pocket could hold and a healthy sack lunch everyday, complete with a loving note scribbled on a napkin. The only thing that I truly wanted from her that she couldn’t provide was a pet; she was ‘allergic’ to all fur. So instead of the fluffy, romping Labrador that I dreamed of playing fetch with, I had four slick goldfish in a big glass bowl next to my bed. I loved them dearly, thinking that they were my bedside protectors. I confided in them, sharing stories of schoolyard ecstasy and took care of them in a matronly manner; yet no matter how carefully I fed them, counting each fleck of food as it dropped and spun in the water, they all passed quickly, floating gracefully like balloons to the top of the tank. My mother would hurriedly purchase replacement fish, attempting to shield me from more death. In her haste, and often inebriation, she would buy the wrong color fish. I pretended not to notice and she pretended that I was too young to know that fish don’t change color overnight.

Raising my head from the wall, I gaze into the blurred, spinning world around me. I reach for my vibrant, only friend and grasp for his contents, spilling him across the tile. I slump to the ground. My body is dripping onto the ground and I forgo hands and scoop up a pill from the floor with a heavy tongue...

All in all, I had an ordinary childhood running up and down the streets of New Orleans with the other children. My skinned knees healed just as quickly and math stumped me just as completely. In fact, the only truly remarkable memory that I have of my childhood is my fascination with the ocean.

At every possible occasion, from age 4 to 22 when I moved away, I would march to the sea. It enchanted me and I would stand at the edge exploring the primal urge in me to leap in and become submerged the folds and shadows of the Gulf. Eventually I would give up the fight and my strong, slight body would throw itself into the water to be caressed by gentle swells. Under water, the simple silence seemed sacred to me. Turning, weightless in the shadows, I felt like a dark goddess. The intense infinity of the sea filled me with a sense of power, a sense of superiority that seemed impossible for a child to contain.

By high school, I had established myself, for obvious reasons, as an attractive girl. Life seemed easier for the women who were seen rather than heard and I wasn’t eager to have a difficult life. To maintain my image as a creature of beauty I kept my pale hair long and always wore it down. By nature I was slight, but I had developed a respectable chest and I ran regularly, my long legs flailing and large feet assaulting the pavement, to stay trim. I spent my time in school with an apathetic crowd who managed to squeeze through the public education system with a mixture of luck and cheating. I myself made B’s in most classes, occasionally allowing my math grade to dip into the C territory to avoid accusations of being a ‘nerd;’ being intelligent already subjected you to an array of difficulties socially, to be an intelligent person who possessed a Y chromosome would be to commit oneself to life as a hermit.

The only class in which I enjoyed was Anatomy; the way the human body worked was a wonder to me. I spent hours (most often at night, once my social obligations were fulfilled) bent over my Bio book, pushing golden strands of hair away from my face, gazing at the diagrams. It was staring at that biology book that I stumbled across my

passion. I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life seeing how the human body functioned. I knew that I didn’t have the money or the cerebral capacity to be a doctor, but I knew that I could be an ER nurse.

I managed to get myself into William Carey University, where they had a decent nursing program. College was an interesting time for me, as it is for most people, as I was finally exploring myself. My grades improved from their high school levels and I found myself submerged in a crowd that balanced their fashionable apathy with intense passions in varying subjects. I made fast friends with Martha Small, another girl who had grown up without a dad. For the first time I had a friend that I could confide in and with girlish glee we would spend nights in each other’s dorm rooms. We discussed, with our mouths full and our voices muffled, class, boys, fashion, food, even politics. We talked about how scary adulthood seemed; Martha forever endeared herself to me at 4 AM in the quad one night by saying “I feel like we’re on the perimeter of adulthood. And every time I poke my head past that line I can’t stand what I see.”

It was at college that I met Aaron Simanski, a business student and fell we in love. He was dark, exotic looking and Jewish; a fact that appalled my mother and drew me towards him even more. Within five months we were engaged, I was simultaneously consumed by bliss and isolated from my Catholic mother who had cut ties with me.

Aaron always described our meeting to other people by saying “I needed a little ‘suga’ with my coffee,” through laughter. He would punctuate his story by squeezing my sides, smiling adoringly at the yelp it evoked and pulling me closer. In reality we had met in the campus coffee shop where I worked, Betty’s Beans. He came in, shadows flying across his face, jeans torn and his button down loose and rolled at the sleeves. At the counter he was all attitude, and though I was attracted to him, I rolled my eyes at his order of an iced coffee. “What?” He demanded, with his leg cocked and his eyes playful. “Well,” I said slowly, pushing a renegade strand of hair back under my cap and suppressing a grin, “Iced coffee is made by the devil for little pansies.” The smile that broke out across his face at my teasing is one of the most beautiful memories I have. “Well then, smart ass, I guess you’ll have to give me your number so I can consult you before I order.”

He proposed to me in that same coffee shop five months later with a piddling diamond ring and a grand speech about how he was going to take care of me for the rest of my life.

HILARY MATFESS graduated from Greenbrier High School in 2010 with a taste for protests, politics and jokes made in bad taste. PETE BOYZUICK says “My Father called me Bum so my work is signed so.” the inkling 23


My Story HILARY MATFESS

untitledPETE BOYZUICK

My images of warm family moments were overshadowed by

the memories of cold bodies.


For the rest of my college career, Aaron dominated my life. College simply became days of studying anatomy and biology and nights of warm, comfortable passion. We were constantly together and when Graduation Day came, we were both as in love as ever. So, when Aaron got a job in Denver as a business manager in 1996, I got a job at Denver Health as an ER nurse. We were able, by some miraculous and mysterious credit score, to afford a modest house in a decent part of town. Because of our debt and our hesitancy to drench ourselves in more red ink, we decided to save money and wait to get married. Aaron would occasionally look at me, his hard brown eyes melting into chocolate, and would ask “Are you sure you don’t want to do it now? Go down to the judge and make it official? You know that I’ll do whatever you want to do, I live to make you happy.” And I would smile, laugh and pull him towards me saying, “I want you, forever; and that’s as official as it gets” before we would be off into our own world of undiluted joy. Some days I missed the ocean, missed the beauty and the infinity; but Aaron was my ocean, my beauty and my infinity now.

The world is spinning now and the tile is cold against my skin. There’s no pain though, only the intense weight of the fog that’s clouding my mind. I slide my arm across the floor and pull another pill into my mouth. It’s hard to control my body now, as I slip into the darkness, but I manage to swallow the pill...It was inevitable that this bliss couldn’t last. In July of 1997, Aaron and I were driving home from a late film when a drunk driver struck us head on. Aaron, still as full of untouchable attitude as when he was a college kid, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The papers

told me that we was thrown through the windshield; the doctors told me that he had probably not suffered much; I told myself that I was lucky to be alive. The truth was that without Aaron, my life was just my work. Thus, when my own gauze was peeled off and my shattered bones healed, I threw myself into being an ER nurse.

The first month without Aaron was hell, I had become so accustomed to having a warm body next to me as I slept that it was now impossible to rest alone. But, by the end of the first year alone my crying was sporadic and I had made a few friends that helped alleviate my loneliness; it still remained, however, that my life was dedicated to my work.

April 20th, 1999 – a day that lives on in infamy across the nation – changed my hospital from a place of competent healing to a place of terror, fear and horrified wonder.

Students from Columbine High School poured through the hospital doors. Some were only grazed by bullets and required morphine and patching up. Others, though, were

struck lethally. Nurses and doctors rushed past with terror in their eyes; no one wanted to stand still for fear that the realization of the immensity of this occurrence would catch up with them.

TV stations flooded the town and showed parents, teachers, pastors mourning. Not a single station could capture the true feeling of the moment though. The city froze, catatonic with grief.

Personally, I went from bed to bed, child to child, mending and patching and writing and hoping. My heart was cold, and my mind was shocked and I couldn’t help but think of my own high school years. I couldn’t help but think that times had changed and I couldn’t help but think that they would never be the same again.

After Columbine, I knew I had to leave Denver. I had seen too much hate, too much pain and too much death for this town. Martha lived in New York and I decided that was where I belonged. New York was like the ocean to me, alluring, dangerous and big enough to swallow me. In a beautiful twist of fate, the house didn’t take long to sell, and some of that looming, red debt was wiped clear. The day that I moved to New York I stopped by Aaron’s grave, now surrounded by the headstones of highschoolers. I knelt on the dewy grass and whispered “I love you, forever; and that’s as official as it gets,” with a weak smile. A tear rolled down my face and I wiped it quickly because even though he was dead, Aaron always hated to see me cry.

The pills are gone now, and my orange companion is now a blur of vibrant color. I am stretched carefully on my back, knowing that this is how it has to be. I can remember the ocean...

Since I was competent and respected in Denver, getting a job in New York wasn’t terribly difficult. I lived and worked in the heart of the city and I adored the anonymity that it provided. There was a beauty in never having an obligation to speak with people, to share your story. Instead there were silent subway rides and self-involved narcissists to indulge when the desire for companionship overtook me. When I wanted to be known, I would get together with Martha and I would listen to her speak of Mike her husband and their three ‘gorgeous’ sons.

New York is the city that never sleeps, a perfect match for the woman who never could. I cut my pretty blond hair into a sensible bob, allowed myself to gain weight, too much weight, and continued to wear my engagement ring; every time that a man approached me Aaron’s face would flood my memory. Though part of me longed for children, the memories of the Columbine teenagers suppressed the idea. My images of warm family moments were overshadowed by the memories of cold bodies.

When I wasn’t working, I took art classes from the community college. I wasn’t particularly skilled, but painting the ocean took me back to my New Orleans childhood and gave me back a sense of the limitless, there was a tiny sense of power in changing a canvas from a white monotony to an explosion of whatever I wanted. When painting wasn’t enough to satisfy that primal crave for the sea, I would go to Long Island and wade in the murky waters.September 11th, 2001, I had planned to take a trip to the shore with one of my few friends, a woman a few years older than I had met in art class. After the first plane struck, I was called into work.

I remember walking through the automatic doors into hell. The televisions were all tuned to CNN, where clips were played over and over again. As we rushed to treat all of the people, so many people, we questioned each other “Was it a mistake?” “Was this intentional?” The patients were coughing, wheezing, soot covered and dying. And they were pouring in, an endless stream of humans, flooding the staff with needs.

Then the second plane hit. And the televisions started showing people leaping from the tops of buildings, a last attempt at some control over their destiny. I wept as I treated patients, so many hurt people, so many dead people for so many hours. Men and women, innocent people, perished under my eye. Others fought on and I knew I had to fight with them, as hard as them, to save them. They were mothers and husbands and sisters and sons and brothers and fathers and husbands and daughters and people, and they were all my responsibility. Gurney after gurney, ambulance after ambulance, I had to fix them all. It was impossible to not change that day.

My fascination with the human body ended. Instead I needed to fix them because they were mine. Every person in the world had become mine and I had to fix them all, I had to take care of them.

I don’t remember this, but later co-workers would tell me that I spend most of the next 48 hours treating my new ‘responsibilities’ while murmuring ‘You’re mine and I can save you, I can fix you, this can change.’

I feel like we’re on the perimeter of adulthood. And every time I poke my head past that line I can’t stand what I see.


A military brat by birth, ADAM DONNELLY has traveled the world, and now studies medicine at the Medical College of Georgia.

my story, continued from page 23

landscapeADAM DONNELLY continued on page 25

A professor at Augusta State University, SERETHA WILLIAMS is inspired to be her best self by her three remarkable children. DRAKE SELLERS plays with cameras, lenses, and special effects. the inkling 25


I slept little, I ate less. The city itself-- the country itself stopped-- but I couldn’t. I worked longer hours than ever. After a few weeks, my superior insisted that I take a night off, telling me to “Spend some time with a friend, you need to take some time away.”

I decided to call the same college friend, Martha, who brought me to New York; we met at a SoHo restaurant for dinner. For the first time since I had moved to the city, I shared. I didn’t care about Martha’s husband, I didn’t care about her 3 sons. I spent the night telling her about my ‘responsibilities’ at the hospital. I told her how we planned to treat everyone and I told her how they were progressing and I told her how they were going to make it, how they were going to survive, how if we, the patient and I, worked long enough and fought hard enough, we could survive. And then I told her about the ones that died, “And I should have fixed them, I should have taken care of them. There was just so many... and it was so fast. There were so many people to fix, and there wasn’t time.” My tear ducts burst open and I buried my head in my arms, “I should have worked harder. I could have saved them.” The memories of smoke and burns and screaming and ash and death overwhelmed me and I cried because I should have saved them all.

“Go back home,” Martha implored me. “You can’t put this all on yourself, you just can’t.” Martha climbed into the booth with me and stroked my hair, pulling me close to her body. Sniffling together, I looked into her eyes and said “I’ve immersed myself in adulthood and I can’t stand what I see.” We cried together in a green vinyl booth in SoHo and that was the last time I saw Martha.

I’m in the ocean now. The light from the sun is playing in patterns across my skin and my hair is weightless about me. It’s so beautiful to float again, it’s so wonderful to let go of everything else...

I decided that it would be best for me to go back home to New Orleans. I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing my city in ruins, I couldn’t stand the destruction everywhere. I gave up my lease on the apartment and left all my belongings. My life was to start anew in the place where it began.

I found my mother, now aged, wrinkled and on pills to help her failing liver. I moved in with her, to take care of her and I took a job as a nurse to support us. I couldn’t help but view my patients as ‘responsibilities’ still, but I focused also on my mother. When I felt overwhelmed by their weight I was blissfully close to the ocean. It was a strange

feeling, to stand on the beaches of my childhood, thinking of how I used to look, how I used to be, what life was when I was so young. Under the ocean’s waters, those thoughts weren’t as urgent as they were with my feet planted on land.

When they told us Hurricane Katrina would land in New Orleans a few weeks ago, I didn’t concern myself, focusing instead on my daily tasks. Hurricane threats had been common in my childhood and I wasn’t one to flee my home whenever a hurricane was ‘supposed’ to hit. Only the night before did they realize that it was a ‘5,’ when there was no time to leave. Two days ago, the levees were breached and New Orleans became a bowl of Cajun soup.

Two days ago, I was called into work for catastrophe for the third time. And for the third time people kept pouring in. And for the third time I wanted to save them and I fought to save them. I worked day and night, not sleeping-- not even crying this time. To cry would have taken energy away from me and I needed all my energy to carry

all my ‘responsibilities’ to safety. I took my mother with me to the hospital, where I could take care of her during my rare breaks. The waters kept rising and I felt as if I was sinking under the weight of all my responsibilities. My body was worn, heavy and so tired. And after two days of working around the clock, I finally knew that I couldn’t save them all, no matter how hard I tried. And I knew that these disasters would somehow always find me. But, just as Edna Pontillier did, I knew a way out.

In the confusion in the hospital, it was easy to steal a bottle of morphine before I had my 15-minute break. I decided that it was time to go home; I walked and waded through the streets of my city, a bottle of freedom in the waistband of my scrubs. I hopped the gate to my house and carried my orange bottle up the stairs in the same way my mother carried Jim Beam. I walked into her bathroom and I twisted off the white top and poured three into my palm, laughing at my moderation. I popped them into my mouth and leaned my head back against the wall...

I’m part of the ocean now and all my responsibilities who I failed are with me. And they are whispering that it is okay now, that all will be well now. And I am weightless...

I walked and waded through the streets of my city, a bottle of freedom in the

waistband of my scrubs.

my story, continued from page 24

He bought me blue daisies,Said they reminded him of me.Who ever heard of blue daisies?Rare, unique, one of a kind, he says.Dyed cheaply, I think, but reply: I love blue daisies. He smiles- proudHe did something right (this time).

In my dent-n-scratch designer vase,Blue daisies almost find dignity.Crowded at the small neck,They look like a single blue rose-Become a symbol of our love:A love that cannot sustain itself in nature,A love confined to dyed flowers and chipped terra cotta.

Blue daisies stand in the middle of my cocktail table.Spilled water pools on the glass, surrounds the vase.He admires them, checks my expression.I smile coolly. At least he thought of me, I think.Lovely, I reply, and unique.

Blue Daisies SERETHA WILLIAMS

untitledDRAKE SELLERS

I am a peasant. Every morning, I rise before the sun and set off to farm the King’s fields. In the evening, I return to my family so that I may raise my children to be strong and obedient, so that one day they may be peasants as well. That is our lot in life, not to wish for more than our share, but to fulfill our duty until our dying day. If there is one thing that offers me comfort, it is to see the Queen at her daily showing. The Queen, god bless her soul, has never missed an opportunity to speak directly to her faithful, and if she realizes it is only that which gives us purpose in life then I suppose that is all the better. Every morning, the King escorts the Queen, along with her maid and jester, onto the balcony that overlooks the fields. The golden sun is of a color with their robes, but the Queen would be beautiful in rags, and her King would be just as wise. Usually, it is at this point that the jester makes some attempt to steal the show. We never laughed so hard as the day he fell off the stage right in the middle of one of his “friendship flips:” One, two, three, Do, re, me, Have some tea, You and meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee… And with that he went right over the railing, the field hands applauding as he tumbled all the way down to land with a wet “splat” at the end. After that, there was about a week when we didn’t have a jester. It was at this time the Queen instituted daily poetry readings, which were usually simple matters devoted to her king. I can still remember her first one: My husband, you are sweet and strong, I’ve never found you out of favor. With you a-throne we can’t go wrong, And life will never lose its savor. Shortly thereafter another jester appeared, though without the golden robes or inane stunts. He looked quite dour in black, form-fitting tights, a three-tailed cap, and painted on smile. He rarely spoke, but did play the lute in a way that complemented the Queen’s poetry. None of us felt particularly strongly about him, but he was an improvement on the old one, who was actually quite annoying. The Queen was always beautiful, but never more so than when filled with love for her King. I remember the day our kingdom went to war with our neighbor, when the Queen positively outshone the dawn with her radiance: A love like ours is beyond compare, Though others drag it to the mire. Ours is a light for all to share, When petty arguments are not what we desire. And on the day her husband declared that his place was at the battlefront, the Queen favored us with a double-length poem, which the jester knelt and handed her to read: I pray you safe and speedy journeys Far away from this your home. Remember it’s your wife who worries All the while and where you roam. Your crown is safe, of this I vouch, And if you don’t return, These men won’t see my shoulders slouch Or feel the tears that burn. Many of us wondered if the Queen planned to continue singing the King’s praises while he was away, or if she would turn to lighter subjects. Alas, we shall never know, for the king was assassinated almost before he could leave the town proper. With our army in tatters and our soul plucked away, I suppose it is only natural the Queen would seek a swift end to the war by any means necessary. The next morning marked a day of mourning, and the Queen did not appear. None held it against her, of course, and yet it would not be fair to say she sequestered herself. By noon that same day, there was a peace treaty posted just below the Queen’s balcony, and my heart swelled more because I knew the price she would pay. The next day, the Queen’s new husband took the stage before her. He walked stiffly and prodded us all with sunken eyes that showed nothing of mercy. The Queen walked a pace behind, and was helped to her seat by the silent jester, while her maid stood impotently watching.

The farmers were all silent as the new King delivered his address, a soaring victory speech which praised his own accomplishments in battle. After failing to receive applause from any but the maid, who at least had the sense to look embarrassed, he turned to regard the Queen heatedly, as though the cool reception were all her fault. True to her word she did not slouch, nor were her cheeks wet, but if she was being held up by anything aside from the arm of her jester I’ll plow the fields with my tongue. The royal family left the stage with the same sobriety they arrived, and we resumed our work without complaint. It wasn’t until the next day, when the Queen arrived wearing caked makeup not thick enough to cover her bruised eyes, we started to turn angry. I think there may have been a riot had not the jester at that moment produced a sheet of paper from within the folds of his clothing and handed it to the Queen: Your crown and throne are all your right, You’ve earned them well in battle. My husband’s reign is at its height, We wouldn’t want for him to rattle. The King’s throat worked nervously as he gazed out over the peasantry, unsure if he was being flattered or not. I would have been hard pressed to say so myself, but at long last one of us began to clap. One by one the remainder joined in, and before long the King was basking in the adoration of his people. They left the stage soon after, none of us quite certain how to feel about what we had just heard.

The next day, the Queen appeared with a distinct limp, and an ashen pallor that looked out of place beneath her golden robes. Again there was shouting, but their voices died the minute the jester took his bow, and with a small flourish produced the Queen’s poem. A weaker man could not be king, And for that you are well chosen. So lead us now and wear my ring And pray my heart’s unfrozen. Frozen? I wondered at that word. I wondered at the wisdom of the Queen’s bargain and I wondered at the jester, who nodded his head slowly to something the Queen’s maid whispered in his ear. That day my pack felt heavier, and that night I slipped a knife among my belongings to take to work the next day. The next four days followed the same pattern. The Queen would arrive with some new bruise or handicap she’d pretended to ignore, and the crowd would murmur until the jester put on his oversized grin and handed the Queen her poem. Every day the maid whispered in his ear, and every day he nodded his head silently before pulling the Queen back several paces behind the king, and leading her away. Each was more somber than the last: Lead us down the righteous path Or you will then regret The things you’ve done while in your wrath That none will soon forget. By the seventh day of their marriage, the field beneath the castle looked more unkempt than ever in my memory. My fellow peasants did not joke as they used to, and all felt exhausted. It was an effort to lift my pack at all that morning, but when I saw the King lurch to the balcony alone I felt grateful I had come, certain something important was about to happen. His dark cape trailed in the dust and his eyes were bloodshot, likely still drunk from the night before. Behind him, the jester and the Queen’s maid followed in neat procession, but of the Queen there was no sign. The silence was palpable. The King went to the rails of his balcony, then looked around with widened eyes as just realizing his mistake. A shudder ran through the crowd, but not a sound, as we all waited for our King to speak first. Behind him, I watched the maid again whisper into the jester’s ear. This time, however, he only grinned, and continued to grin as he produced a paper from somewhere within his vest and knelt forward to offer it to his King. The King regarded the paper for a moment, perhaps wondering what it was for. He took a breath, and in a deep, booming voice began to deliver the sermon we had all come to hear. The Queen is gone; she’s had her fun, Yet now her reign is over. No longer to enjoy the sun, Or crowns, or thrones moreover.

Jester’s Poem CHRISTOPHER SELMEK


CHRISTOPHER SELMEK originally came to Fort Gordon as a military journalist, but decided to stay “because there’s just something special about Augusta.”

The Queen was always beautiful, but never more so than when

filled with love for her King.


She hasn’t quite abandoned you, Yet patience has its end, And this new King, with whom I’m through, Commences to descend. She swore she would not shed a tear, But could not write a poem. So I confess my jester dear Has written these alone. A final gift I now bestow, Which many of you dream, Will soothe your pain, May it be so. And now LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! The King’s eyebrows sank, but he continued to stare into the paper as though demanding some explanation from it. He coughed once, and then someone in the crowd shouted and pointed to the smoke wafting from the empty page. No sooner had the paper started to burn than the King’s cloak began to smolder as well. He beat at it, but the motion only seemed to fan the flame, and as he turned his head I could see panic clearly writ upon those dark eyes. That was when the poem erupted in a gout of flame. The King screamed and clawed at his eyes, though by now every inch of his clothing was on fire. Guards rushed the stage, but it was far too late for any to interfere. With dawning comprehension, he looked toward the only water source in reach. I didn’t see him jump, only knew one minute he was standing, the next plummeting toward the moat many feet beneath him. He was ablaze now, still frantically trying to remove his clothing as his body crashed through the water’s surface. Even then he might have survived, had I not suddenly grabbed my knife and found myself part of the surge of humanity rushing forward, each of us eager for an ear, or a nose, or a finger… By the time the wind picked up enough to blow the dark cloud off the stage, there was no more royal family. The Queen’s maid became the steward for the new, duly elected representative. The jester, who may have been responsible for it all, was simply gone. Of course, I am still a peasant, and will be till I die. I desire nothing but to feed my family, and I have reason to avoid getting above my station. Tonight my wife and I greet our neighborhood’s newest residents, and should one of them appear always beautiful, particularly when filled with love for her husband with the painted on smile, then I for one will not look at them too closely.

boar’s skullSTEPHEN HAWKS

STEPHEN HAWKS is a visual artist, specializing in ceramics and hand building pottery. Much of MELISSA KONOMOS’ life has been formed by her nomadic and eclectic family as well as her unique experiences as an international adoptee. Melissa is married to her best friend, Michael Konomos.


jester’s poem, continued from page 26

arcane cycle: no modern novelty will replace

these, our destinies:infinitely scrambling to retrieve our voices—

while we round up heavy weaponry for our orphaned children—it is an open market—

they make a living mining fields:leaving behindlimbs, fingers— where violence glistens like gold,

puts food on the ground for

these little heroes, in droves piling high inchild villages—more and more.

so his only hope is the bicycle mule to win the girl over,with red fish and chivalry—

too much of her innocencehas been slaughtered, Satellite,

this one you cannot save. from

the grave of plummeting— lavender slippers linger,

her armless brother carries them offlike treasure

dangling in

his lips.

(Written in response to the film, Turtles Can Fly, about child orphans in Iraq)

Destinies MELISSA KONOMOS

Creation is just like you imagined:The rippling of the skin of two in chanceCasually intersecting at the grinOf two swinging hips swerving to the dance.And, thus, ignites the spark infinityFrom dense refrain where galaxies are born,And time extends from singularity --That is the point from which our time was torn.A theory is a poem gone too far.A membrane is a sheath not far enoughExtended past the corners of bizarreInto the realm of physicists’ cool bluffThat when universes make love (they proclaim),New infant ones emerge. All the same.

M Theory Sonnet DAPHNE MAYSONET


If you’re already missing 2010, you can still see some of the year’s best movies in theaters. Golden Globe-nominated releases like BLACK SWAN and THE FIGHTER will continue their box office runs this month. Oscar nominations, which will be announced on January 25th, will also likely include nods of some sort for movies like INCEPTION, TOY STORY 3, and THE SOCIAL NETWORK, prompting theatrical re-releases of those films in some theaters (even though they will already be available on DVD and Blu-ray). 2010’s finest limited release films will also get a turn at the local box office if given awards recognition. This ias expected to be the case for WINTER’S BONE, RABBIT HOLE, and THE KING’S SPEECH.

Hollywood kicks off 2011 with the usual lack of fanfare for January releases. Nicolas Cage reunites with his Gone in 60 Seconds director, Dominic Sena, for his latest film. The bad news for Cage: Sena’s last release was 2009’s critical and financial disaster Whiteout.

SEASON OF THE WITCH finds Cage and Hellboy star Ron Perlman playing knights who return from fighting in The Crusades to discover their homeland has been ravaged by the Black Plague.

The pair is sent on a mission to transport a young girl (Claire Foy), who is accused of being a witch, to a monastery for help. The girl is believed to have used her dark powers to spread the Plague in their town. Cage sympathizes with the girl on the long and treacherous journey, but can’t ignore that the band of misfit travelers accompanying them all seem to be experiencing gruesome misfortunes.

Gothic period CGI action-fantasies have not been successful in recent box office endeavors. 2010’s Jonah Hex and The Warrior’s Way were similarly-stylized flicks and both recorded tremendous financial losses. The movie opens on January 7th. Gwyneth Paltrow’s singing-and-acting vehicle COUNTRY STRONG expands its release on that date as well.

January 14th brings an action film with an unlikely superhero – Seth Rogen, the beastly male lead from Knocked Up, a guy who has never been identified with superhero-like physical fitness. Rogen stars as THE GREEN HORNET (not to be confused with People’s Sexiest Man Alive Ryan Reynolds who will play Green Lantern in a summer release). The Green Hornet, first introduced to the world through radio programs in the 1930’s, was a crime fighter by night and a newspaper publisher named Britt Reid by day. The superhero’s popularity earned him a comic book series and movie and TV adaptations, including a 1940 film and a 1966-67 TV series that featured martial arts superstar Bruce Lee as the Hornet’s valet and crime fighting sidekick, Kato. Expect the Rogen-fronted version of the story to be considerably goofier, but with modern guns and gadgets. Cameron Diaz co-stars along with Oscar-winner Cristoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) in this updated 3D superhero adventure. Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) directs.

The week’s other opener stirred up controversy in the fall when GLAAD protested a joke in the trailer where Vince Vaughn (Couples Retreat, The Break-Up) referred to electric cars as “gay.” The

bit was removed from the trailer for the Vaughn and Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) comedy vehicle, THE DILEMMA, but director Ron Howard and his producing partner Brian Grazer kept the joke in the film. Staying true to the part he is most frequently and appropriately type-cast in, Vaughn plays James’s comically impolite and loudmouthed buddy and business partner. When he discovers James’s outwardly perfect wife (Winona Ryder) is cheating on him with a younger man (Channing Tatum, Step Up), he has to decide how to tell James without ruining their friendship. Jennifer Connelly and Queen Latifah also star.

by MARIAH GARDNER, MOVIE GURU

THE FILM REELSeason of the Witch

IT’S A DILEMMA

THE GREEN HORNET

NATALIE PORTMAN IN BLACK SWAN

SEASON OF THE WITCH

Before I get rolling this issue, I just have one thing I gotta throw out there – please people, if I hear “twenty-eleven” one more time … just sayin’… it’s almost like the whole Hanson “MMMbop” thing all over again. Sheesh!

If you still have some Christmas cash burning a hole in your Levis and, like me, have a love for all things Augusta music related, then January 31st is a date you absolutely must mark on your calendar. Former Augusta resident/Dixie Grit/Dixie Dreg guitarist STEVE

MORSE will get the re-issue treatment when Metal Mind Productions releases a trio of Morse solo albums in Digipack format. Prior to beginning his current residency in DEEP PURPLE (which began in 1993), five-time Guitar Player magazine’s “Best Overall Guitarist” award winner Morse dropped High Tension Wires, Southern Steel, and Coast to Coast. All three albums will get a reboot in typical updated style with a limited run of 2,000 copies each. The Polish label is also home to Deep Purple releases. Check the news section at METALMIND.COM.PL for more details. Then, just a few days later on February 5th, the Grammy Foundation will honor our very own “GODFATHER

OF SOUL” JAMES BROWN in Los Angeles with induction into the

Grammy Museum. Widow Tomi Rae Brown is set to present the foundation with outfits and shoes of the late soul/funk legend before the L.A. mayor declares February 5th “James Brown Day” in the city of Los Angeles. Pretty funky and deserving, if you ask me. During his lifetime, Brown snagged three Grammy Awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has had four songs inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. I was honored a couple of weeks ago with an invite to be on the first episode of a new rock show on Augusta online radio station 92X. Hosts HALO AND ROCKSHOW MIKE bring a more modern rock sound featuring a combo of area artists and national artists coming through Augusta. Check out the station and show, slated currently to air on Monday nights at LIVE365.COM/STATIONS/NINETYTWOX. Speaking of online Augusta music, 2010 was a great year for weekly Augusta music show CONfederation of LOUDness. We had lots of great guests and in-studio/on-location performances leading to nearly 5,000 subscribers and an additional 5,000 weekly streams per week. Look for the COL crew to step up production and promotions in 2011. Listen and/or subscribe at CONFEDERATIONOFLOUDNESS.COM. To get an earful of what’s happening in Augusta music, listen to me rant with my good buddy Brian “Stak” Allen at CONFEDERATIONOFLOUDNESS.COM. Til next time … Make it LOKAL, Keep it Loud.

by JOHN “STONEY” CANNONTo keep up with what’s going down in Augusta music, check out

Stoney’s long-running website LOKALLOUDNESS.COM.

SOUND BITESLokal Music Musings

Look for the next issue of VERGE

hitting the news stands on

JANUARY 19 It’s a new year and Augusta is brimming with people who are changing

the shape of our community, new businesses opening up and others reinventing themselves, annual events and

new ones to try. See it all in our next issue of verge!

Pick up your copy at Earth Fare, Publix, Mellow Mushroom, New Moon Cafe, Metro Coffee House, or at any of our advertisers’ locations.

STEVE MORSE

January 2011 Issue A

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Transcript of January 2011 Issue A