ink
a literary supplement
Fall 2001
Entropy (Attempts at Conservation)
By Lindsay King
The fundamental messiness of the idea upsets me,
the inexorability of chaos,
luxurious ease of smashing.
The way people disperse from a train like germs,
never that arrangement again.
The crystalline perfection of the second before impact:
Things still aloft, intact, aligned, inert. Oblivious.
It is so maddeningly easy to undo things carefully done.
The futility of patching broken things,
inability to un-say a sloppy insult.
Lingering, poisonous distrust of all,
residue of a single pulled trigger.
Mildew encroaches on the yellowing polish
infiltrating cracks you hadn't anticipated.
A treasured assemblage of dirt or fiber or pigment
preserved for thousands of years
crumbles in a long slow scream under the light.
Necessity
Multi-Media
By Melissa Doro
Untitled
By Ray Martin
hogsheads of detritus
color dot sale of bedding and yard products
flooring behavior modes behind outdoor
living and pleasure in business and social
misdeeds not labeled dust off the trophy
the cost of death rites in the price of lawns
stra�ng served desired intentions shell pocked
safety sealed backyard no longer sanctuary
from hallway to walled bricked secrets be
sure you get all these features in writing
you owe it to those loved ones lost or
you carry eighty pound stones up a slope
damaged in cane brake fires some forced
to almost certain death at the hands of
threshold back door friendly forces how
we parade our lamps less for light than for
assertion torches at the top of cultural war
pathetic gardeners �nd or grub or want
and learn to distrust once loved first sprouts
where mired waste replaces spawning beds
coiled springs incantations yelled at fishermen
learning to hate their craft from vessels sinking
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