Red Ink accepted many outstanding submissions for its fall issue. The deadline was November 7, 2014.
WRITING
featuring poetry by Anonymous, Caterina Baffa and Ramya Yandava ’17, and Gabby Clifford and Kurt Dean ’16, and prose by Anonymous and Celeste Amidon ’16
Yearbook Man
by Anonymous
An old man of a delicate skeleton
his hair a pile of feathers,
His skin is thin and his eyes are sunken
he’s content but still quite weathered.
Out on the street
the children are wild
their hands fresh and strong,
while his own shake as they open the door
to recall a time long gone.
The man sitting at the library desk
nods a curt ‘hello,’
and the old man who sets foot inside
cannot hide the joy below.
It smells of books and paper and pen
stories of now and stories of then.
But this is a book of quotes and faces
Of people who’ve left for faraway places.
After seventy years
he remembers these four.
To uncover the past
he could not wait any more.
He writes down the names of classmates and friends
hand trembling with joy as he clutches the pen.
He writes down one
then two
then three.
There’s William, Edward, and of course–Betty.
All of the faces come back to life
with a hand on his shoulder as he writes and writes.
They’ve gathered around to say hello
even the ones who live no more.
Their faces are breaking and fading,
just smiles on a page.
But when the man wiped off the dust
None of them had aged.
Understanding
by Caterina Baffa, ‘17
I feel so much
That I feel nothing at all.
My soul battles itself,
Trudging through the seemingly endless war,
Of identity,
Of logic and hope,
Of the dismal prospect that is humanity,
Of the pure distribution of beauty that is human kindness.
Why have I no being?
Why have I no stamp,
Spelling out exactly who I am in Black and White,
Like so many others seem to have…
Why must I know nothing?
Why must I be denied the innocent pleasures of…
Feeling, knowing, and understanding
?
Music
by Gabby Clifford, ’16
my soul is at ease
listening to your breeze
melody so wonderful
each new song
a new discovery
a new light
in the sea of darkness
never failing to be there
the notes are effortless
a coping mechanism.
express me, mine, yours, ours
lyrics
the key to emotion
I carry you in my pocket
my secret weapon
headphones
instant
cry or smile
there for you when no one else is
I salute you.
Flare Up, Blind Me
by Kurt Dean, ’16
flare up
blind me
light so bright
your eyes mine see
stars find solace
in blue sky
endless space by and by
grand adventures
lost within
i stare.
A Poetry Collection
by Ramya Yandava, ‘17
spectral rose
Overhead the tree branches become
illuminated by some miracle of the moon.
The world is too bright now, and the stars
will not go back behind the veiled whispers of cloud.
Shadow & light crosses, uncrosses,
draws silvergrey streams across the roof of the car.
Light and blindness – at the outermost edges of the city
I waited for you to return to this corner of the earth.
A narrow bed in a rickety room
where illusions flood through windows unbounded.
Limpid elucidation,
the hallucination.
At the center of my consciousness
I found a deep and terrible earth,
the unknowing of darkness,
the last tenements of pain.
new lunatics
you walk down hallways, into
open doors, lingering upon our
blanketwarm sleeping forms
sliverneedle of you piercing
through flesh, blood, sinew
lunacy, an incandescence
Reading Glasses
by Celeste Amidon, ’16
“So. How did you two meet?”
By the time the food came, there were already three empty bottles of Prosecco on the table. Michael Fynch watched Allen Smith tap his cigarette out onto the empty bread plate on his placemat before pushing it away to make room for the steaming plate of squid the pimply young waiter was setting in front of him. Michael watched the Smiths dig into their meals with an air of detachment. Allen worked in finance and she, Miranda, was a 40-something Liverpool-born socialite wannabe. Her arms were wrapped in stringy tendons like Christmas lights, her horse-like jaw gaunt and hollow from years of bulimia.
Read the rest of Celeste’s riveting story here!
Numbness
by Anonymous
He wakes up to yelling on the street outside. He stands up, bleary eyed. He looks around, sees a pile of clothes in one corner, a sleeping bag in the other. He walks over, puts on the clothes, opens the door and walks into the hall. The Iranian woman begins yelling at him, something about some bills, he doesn’t care. It’s the same way at the end of every month, yet he’s still here.
Read the full tale here—
ART
featuring photos by Gabby Clifford, ’16 and digital art by Brandon Sullivan, ’17
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