William Byrd Sketches
2013-2014
Unfurled Unending
Eric Martin
Wispy and decrepit strokes
Of fragile heart and mind,
Outlasting the rusted,
Yet burnished shackles of time.
Honor to those who toil,
And live in restless peace.
Grave to the very same,
Who perish from their lease.
We are needy creatures,
Begging for the human eye.
Yet when we chance upon it,
It tends to be the beholder “my”.
Host to a world of vampires,
It becomes rather trying…
Holding onto precious sanguine,
And the art of not dying.
Crowning the wayfarer
As the Queen of the land,
Can only attain so much
In her monument of sand.
If only sand were stronger,
Than the toughest of dust…
Bombs in the harbor!
Set off by the whispering gust.
Watch the child there,
Upon the furrowed mound:
Gripping his gnarled cane,
Devoid of treacherous sound.
But this was no ordinary cane,
Laced with pliable ash.
This cane was constructed of gold,
And was worth far more in cash.
The old oaken man,
Bound up in righteous fire,
Fails to know the people
Wish to burn him on the pyre.
So too the Holy priest
With his tome of wicked spells,
Cast him down with precious sand!
Render him death’s knell.
And so, we intrepidly behold
The all-kindred youth,
With their encompassing sorrow,
Portraying the pseudo-truth.
Decadent and futile loathing
Of the silent honor guard,
Calibrating the gallows
For this lonely deck of cards…
The Price of Perfection
Aimee Creamer
Eyes frothed over,
Her blue glaze that in itself
Was caged in ice.
Wispy blonde locks
Framed her face forever.
Timeless rosy cheeks
Were always stained pale.
Flawless lips, red with vitality
Were frozen nonetheless.
Beautiful, lacy blue velvet:
The only dress she owned.
Ignorant to the world,
She lay still as death
In her lonely white box
With the lid propped open.
When the door shuts,
The hinges rust and bend,
The box browns and warps,
And she crumbles slowly,
Falling into her own decay.
Could Be
Callen Buchanan
Flowers represent a
Beaucoup of our
Silly, pathetic, lives.
They represent beauty, a
Main motive for today’s guild,
Yet we cut them, we
Murder them for our own
Pleasures.
We send these
Thoughts through each other’s
Screens, so we may remain similar.
A young girl represents a
Beaucoup of our
Demands,
She represents what she is supposed to
Be, beautiful. Preferably
Busty, and blonde, and happy,
With a 12 inch waist, or some other
Impractical anticipation. She
Murders herself for our own
Pleasures.
A young boy represents a
Beaucoup of our
Unspoken crimes,
He represents what he is supposed to
Be, strong, with well defined lines leading a
Muscular trail to what should be well
Endowed. Whilst gaining the ability to
Have sexual acceptance from the female kind, he
Murders himself for our own
Pleasures.
We are a joke, supposedly we represent
Individuality,
America’s main foundation
Is of course money diversity.
We represent the originality of a flower,
A seed could be anything from a tree to one
of those Alien-like cacti, but we
Grow ourselves to be flowers. We
Murder ourselves, and our potentials for our own
Pleasures.
Happiest Pessimist
Rachel Mann
Although life is a drag,
Why sit around being sad?
Overcome by distraught and fear,
Wandering a forest like a lost deer.
You are either disturbed by your reflection,
Or judged for liking the observation.
Is your mind a cluttered fog?
Or a leaping soul splashing into a jog?
We are the reckless youth,
Distorted in reality from the first time we have a baby tooth.
Some of us have religion,
And some of us have self-ambition.
Self-righteous hypocrites we all came to be,
Because no one knows how to be happy.
Life isn’t always fair.
But what would we experience if it hasn’t left us bare?
These illusions to isolate ourselves,
When why not know someone else?
Sometimes it’s saddening to realize that you can’t be,
The person God wants of me.
Taken under his wing by grace,
With a smile appearing on my face.
Be happy for who you are,
Not who they want you to be.
And that’s why I’m the happiest pessimist you may ever meet.
The Blessing of Oppression
Sarah Blankenship
It’s been here the entire time creeping
Those who could see it were wrong, and hateful
They improve life, and further the race,
But as soon as they speak, they are hushed by the bravado of men
Their bodies are taken, stolen, under right of law
Their choices, their rights, aren’t theirs; their opinion is pointless
Beautiful and Graceful and Human, no matter shape nor size,
Unless they are above 90lbs with plausible proportions
The monster, it scars them,
And rip the seems.
It will claw, hurt, bite, and bend
But they can do nothing but wait in calm
All hail him, the oppressor of woman,
It’s no doubt he’s perfect, a perfect husband by birth
But what is she? She who earns money?
Who works twice as hard and they think it’s amusing
She bares him children, and for that he is satisfied.
Unless she doesn’t want to have one, the “vain vulture”
Sex is entitled to him by nature
To this she must appease, bless, and be grateful
If she does not, what is she?
A prude, a wench, a shrew, feminazi
“Obey” and “submit”,
This is not our nature.
I am an hourglass
Callen Buchanan
I am an hourglass.
Not in my composition,
Nor in my figured form,
I am as see-through
As rounded glass, and
As I stumble and tumble
And fold in upon myself,
Letting grains of sand be overturned
And reversed and poured over my
Soul, I keep track.
Not of time,
Nor of death’s toll,
But of injustices being
Done to my form.
I am used
And discarded with a century’s
Newest fad. I am forgotten
And left to be nothing
But a ‘novelty’ never again to
Be touched with the hands
Of aspiration and desire.
I am an hourglass.
Not in the vapid ways one feigns,
Nor in my own.
I am as see-through
As an hourglass can be.
Emilie Hughes
Chamberlynn Bruner
Patrick Callaway
Emilie Hughes
Standardizing
Mrs. Nichols
One reclaims her hoodie
while another discards his
peeling it off
a snake slithering out of sedated skin
A lip is chewed in consternation
A sigh escapes across the room
A light bulb effulgently shines
and an answer is submitted
The only sound
the whirring of the air
a seat creak
the tackity tap
Two heads are tossed
at angles opposite the room
The lip chewer now bites her locket
chain taut against slender neck
pressed to her cheek – to her chin
train tracks guiding her thoughts
Three seats back in the 2nd row
a young man dozes
snaps awake
reads briefly
eyes flitting across luminous screen
selects a letter
We move through the test
Some sprinting
Some plodding
dragging weight of practice
of elimination
of second-guessing
of choosing
breaking through finally
submitting one last time
And then we wait.