The Monitor Winter Issue 2010-2011

Editor's Note

The first issue of the 2010-2011 school year has finally made it to the blog, stuffed with submissions by new writers and some members of the staff. This issue includes work from school contests and the complex minds of other writers. For some of the authors, it is their first time being published. As always, if you have any writing you would like to submit or any photos, contact Mr. Baird, me or any other member of the club. Enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated.

- Junius Randolph


Editorial Staff:

Editor-in-Chief: Junius Randolph III
Assistant Editors-in-Chief: Brad Mutchnik and Eric Friedman
Editors: Nyan Min
Sam Sunderland
Oluwarotimi Lademo
Nik Zellers
Faculty Advisor: Mr. Baird


Table of Contents

“Spine” - by Will Becker
“Sight” - by Junius Randolph
“What to Write” - by Jordan Cann
“Angela” - Brad Mutchnik
“The Mind, The Matter” - Will Becker
“Snow” - Nyan Min
Six Sentence Shorts from Dan Wells
“Ghost Story” - Will Becker
“Reminiscent of a Bruise”- William Vieth
“Vicious Cycle” - Sam Sunderland
“Summer Nights” - Nyan Min
“Bloody Knuckles” - Brad Mutchnik
“Sense” - Junius Randolph
“Seraphim” – Nik Zellers

Photo: Alex Barton


Will Becker

Spine

You feel it behind the eyes,
that carcass.
Deadweight vibrating back and forth,
harassing your movements,
the twitch that makes your nerves sing.
That bastard, how I let it feed, burrowing
into my skin to breathe my breath,
devour my nerves, bleach my eyes,
to be left with this ache of sense,
I’m still alive.




Photo: Alex Barton


Junius Randolph

Sight

Eye sit there
Soaking in the pain
The beautiful, fabricated care
then breaks the shackles
letting out what it sees
or saw
or might have seen
a salty, stale ocean
filled with inner thoughts
failing what you thought you knew
knowing what you never thought
finding what you don’t know
But
It’s too big
Extending farther than eyes can see
Foresight would help
But Eye can see it
The problem of the color spectrum
The corruptness of all colors in one
The failure of the absence of it
And everything on God’s green earth
I have seen it



Photo: Matt Moores


Jordan Cann

What to Write

The peregrine falcon had feathers
mist of a fiery flame flower.
chartreuse complementing its eyes
Like a misunderstood
Nuclear bombs’ mushroom cloud
Standing out in the still of the day.
As the small mammals gambol in the
Cool midday sun, always
Gambling their lives.


Photo: Alex Barton


Brad Mutchnik

Angela

I gaze at her with curiosity
She walks away
Bouncing up and down
With the earth on parade
Lint between glued fingers
My cricket’s unwise tone
Summer months are empty blisters
In my paranoid mind

Will she grasp my dry drained heart?
Is she the queen of earth today?

Oh no, Angela
The cricket is laughing
He says I told you so
In my paranoid mind


Photo: Matt Moores


Will Becker

The Mind: The Matter

Dislodged, Vibrating, Encircled,
Left unkept, alone from its actuality
From the plane of its creator
Fluttering Flies caged against their borders
It runs, a creature, a single life, a simple blip,
Moving across its realm and placing itself
In its desires.
It speaks in waves skimming the outer edge
And surfaces to be met by the light
Dissolving its form into the mouth of the world



Photo: Matt Moores


Nyan Min

Snow

Specks of flaky snow outside.
Upon the lightest stroke
Send a chill down my spine.

Quiet.
Pristine.
Natural.

A fox runs
A reddish-orange blur
Only leaving small prints
for one to ponder upon.

Walking Outside;
the sound of my steps
into the thin crust atop the snow
echoes

Wandering around,
Snow covers the top of the pine trees.
But from the side,
Green needles jut away from the snow.

Astonished
Surroundings become suddenly opaque.
Can’t see for more than a few feet out.
I grow weary…



Photo: Alex Barton


Dan Wells: Winner of the Six-Sentence Short Competition


The church bells knelled as they left the cathedral. The sky was bright, blindingly so, as they walked through a faceless crowd. She was appallingly beautiful, he obscenely handsome. As they drove off in the hearse-black limo, the peal of the bells was heard again. No one saw the car until it was too late. The perfect couple, the perfect wedding, the perfect death.

The Cold comes to me in the night, not with the soft, shivering embrace I once knew her for, but with a bloody, searing pain. My bones were never so cold before; my bones have never shown before. If only I had some manna to eat, some clothes to wear, some blanket between my bones and the heartless, frigid bitch with whom I once strolled the polished streets, hand in hand in winter. Mother drowned in the rank, pale blue air last night; I’m told they took her to the ovens. Does the Warmth caress her now, a lover in the long night, a comfort in the blinding dark, or does he scald her, his blows branding her delicate skin as this freezing dominatrix now burns mine? Do I dare to cheat my mistress, even if only to see?



Photo: Matt Moores


Will Becker

Ghost Story

It was black, all of it, or so I was told. It seeped through the windows, staining the outer wood panels of the house and killing the plants surrounding it. My dad said I opened the door of the room, that room, the one where he kept the things, the stuff. Why does he keep it there? “Because, just because.” I never got an answer more concrete than, “because”. He said I opened it and fell, hitting the floor face-first as soon as I got my first glimpse of the jet-black walls. He heard the thump from the floor below and ran upstairs, finding the ripped “Do Not Enter” warning littered before me, pulling me by my feet out the door, seemingly unaffected by whatever had taken his son. He said I fell asleep as I went into my bed; I lethargically nodded even though I never believed him. I looked out the window; my socks were hanging from the clothesline. We never used a clothesline. They were black like ink, a swarm of crows circling around them.



Photo: Alex Barton


William Vieth

Reminiscent of a Bruise

The creature is now nothing more than a bruise
Black, Blue, White, and stained red
It sits there staring at me with cold, lifeless eyes
I feel no sympathy
no remorse
Too late to deliver salvation
Instead, I abruptly ended the suffering
Hobbling across the field,
Its wing dangling fruitlessly
I watched mixed with pity and excitement
I would have to play God.
The girl and I fanned out across the field
She, my scout, yelled the location of the jay.
The bird saw me and fled, clinging for life as we all do
A loud crack
a plume of dirt
The bird kept running
The threat is near
Again and again,
An angry rancher,
Trying to provoke lazy cattle.
Feathers sprung up everywhere, red spattered the ground
A joyous gasp exited our lips, watching the creature meet a timely end
The deed is done
The reward is hers.



Photo: Matt Moores


Sam Sunderland

Vicious Cycle

My eyes, dark
soul bleak
I'm told I'm strong
I feel so weak

I miss her spirit
It shone so bright
Now her spirit's dark,
Dark as night

She sees the white
Then takes flight
She floats to the light
Saying that's God, right?

Wrong.

It belongs to the other
God's fallen brother
That light is deceiving
Restricting her breathing

When she awakes
Her hands start to shake
Her voice starts to quake
My heart starts to break

From death into life
Peace comes from strife
It'll never happen again
I wish I were right



Photo: Alex Barton


Nyan Min

Summer Nights

Lady luck touched me

That night I was going to be with her

Pondering the events:
summer breeze
pricking my skin.
Her looks stunning

Pressured
Unsure of myself
Confused
Lady Luck ran.
Her touch different
The seasons changed,
winter time cold
Frozen

The constant incessant talk

Others
drove me further over the edge
Had me talking to myself.
Luck ever more eluding
Bitterly staring into each other eyes



Photo: Matt Moores


Brad Mutchnik

Bloody Knuckles

The president’s corpse in a stretched car
White seats, confetti and blood
Yeah we know, no one gets out alive
San Francisco burns Sacramento floods
Sgt. Pepper finally lost his heart
The artist’s mind in the trunk
Crazy and in love

Pause for a second, we finally
Reached an eminence of dreamful
Delusions and concepts
The absence of color fits
Shouldn’t it be hit out of the park
By now, the megaphone tells us
“Hate the man”

Crack and splat
The black mother’s face
Clearly in fear of the pavement
And the blue strips of bacon were just
Well they was just there

Just remember
Before you go ahead
Break your bones
Let the marrow ooze
Split the teachers fake wooden desks
And acid rain melts the dreams of our futures
Enjoy the suit and the riots
Do not worry pleasant confused readers
You will understand when it is too late



Photo: Junius Randolph


Junius Randolph

Sense

A curse
Scantily prancing
Thick cheetahs salivating
Inoffensively offensive
The cobras spewing venom
Firebombs spread and engulf all
The hippos watching
Barely budging
busy being braggadocios blimps
Crunching whatever is in reach
Too stagnant to reach out for more
Ignorantly ignoring irrelevance
Attempting to make cents
Without sense
For what’s right or left in the world?
What’s forward behind you?
Tinkering with the lives of others
Until they rot
The expiration date has passed
What’s due has yet to be done
And we just sit here
Reaching our sensible senses
Finally
I can hear the perception
See the silent, scared voices
Taste the new idea
Feel the inability to share
And smell it all
But I’m full --
I found the sixth.



Photo: Matt Moores


Nik Zellers

Seraphim

Hands shaking.
Like marbles pouring over flesh.
Choking on emotions,
inconceivable vexation.
Feverish.

Somber amber.
Mournful mahogany
reflecting eyes in awed admiration.
A quaver of the heart.
The sight of pallid complexion.
Air snatched away.

Icy fingers upon my face.
Hearts joined in warm embrace.
Death no longer daunting,
Father
Never leaving me wanting.



Thanks for reading! Any suggestions would be appreciated!