The Mottled Brown Vase

The mottled brown vase
lies in shattered
mayhem

while the grey concrete bleeds
its distaste.

It turns up its nose
with a sniff
at the audicity
of it all -
says:

“I told you so.”

For that mottled brown vase
had decided
it must experience
flight.


-Siri Hammond

(I dropped one of my parents' wedding presents on the ground at Beasley Coliseum last fall. Whoops.)

The Mirror's martyr.

Today,
she spends roughly twelve-and-a-half minutes in front of the Mirror,
a typical morning.

She tries on three or four outfits,
each discarded in turn,
having failed
inspection,
to land in a pile in the bathtub,
a pile from which one sorry winner
is eventually retrieved,
accompanied by a sigh of concession.

She has admitted defeat.
Today, her clothes will not be perfect.

Another five or so minutes she spends
veiling her skin
with paints and pigments,
hiding each tiny flaw,
trying
in hopeless concentration
to emphasize those features she wishes
were larger,
more seductive,
more intriguing –

But long curling lashes, it seems, are in nature reserved for boys.
It isn’t fair.

Still, with reddened cheeks and heavy eyes,
having wielded a pair
of potentially lethal curling tongs
in a hurried attempt
to exercise some fleeting control over her hair –
she rushes out the door.

She is late to choir again –

She is late.

What else in life has she arrived late for,
misssed out on,
all because of these
“necessary”
moments spent in pas de deux
with the Mirror,
split-second glances that turn into minutes,
becoming hours –

glances that sacrifice time
that sacrifice love,
even, in this martyrdom
for Beauty?

And to what avail is it,
when at the end of the day,
her careful mask has faded,
smudged -
and she looks tired,
not immaculate, composed
not glowing –
to what avail can it be?

All this she wonders,
but cannot answer,

still.

So more precious hours she will
despense
in contemplation
towards thinner waist
and brighter smile
and sweeter expression,
all this to mask
the pain
of
knowing

that she is neither pure
nor
perfect.

-Siri Hammond

Chessmen

The men line up
In rows for battle
Staring across
At the opposition
Anticipating
The next move
Taken aback
Strategy takes a role
Within the
Mastermind's scheme
Recruits fall dead
While royalty
Still stands
One move
Decides fate
Of the war
It is over
A race is
Extinguished
While another
Reigns
A king
Stands tall
With his
Remaining people
While a king
Meets his end

-Jeff Harris

Runoff-Lisette

From the pipe flows
Runoff
Mostly clean now
Making bubbles
Washing away the old bridge
The old growth
The old pains.
It calms
As the bubbling subsides to the serene pools
a Styrofoam peanut escapes
New growth is peeping through
Water
Rocks
Dead reeds
Moving on
Leaving way
For new life