These are the entries for our Fall Semester Writing Center creative writing contest. The contest only had one rule: the writer must start the piece with the words, “The hand pointed to everything…” We received some short poems, long poems, funny poems, serious pieces and some longer prose pieces. We are thrilled to have received so many quality creative works and hope that our next contest (coming soon) is even more successful!
Sincerely,
Scott Lutz
Vice-Admiral of Creative Endeavors
Monday, March 26, 2007
Good Times by Bob Zordani (FACULTY ENTRY WINNER)
The hand pointed to everything inside
Joe's bulging rear: a dead gerbil, a stack
of Popeye comic books, an entire rack
of antique Irish snooker balls. Joe tried
to deny the x-ray's painful story.
He shook his throbbing head in disbelief
and howled Oh God! He'd never felt such grief
or encountered anything so gory.
If only joe could wrap his mind around
last night's events. He'd had a slough of drinks
at some party and chatted up some minx
who slapped his face and swore her friends would pound
the daylights out of him for words like that.
He told her to stuff it and called her fat.
Joe's bulging rear: a dead gerbil, a stack
of Popeye comic books, an entire rack
of antique Irish snooker balls. Joe tried
to deny the x-ray's painful story.
He shook his throbbing head in disbelief
and howled Oh God! He'd never felt such grief
or encountered anything so gory.
If only joe could wrap his mind around
last night's events. He'd had a slough of drinks
at some party and chatted up some minx
who slapped his face and swore her friends would pound
the daylights out of him for words like that.
He told her to stuff it and called her fat.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Running Blind by Ryan Clifford Titus Skelly (STUDENT ENTRY WINNER)
The hand pointed to everything
300 million people scramble to see into the distance
Grabbing and hitting and hating each other
Blindly scrounging for a piece of a dream
Or a hope or a one true love
Once upon a time and happily ever after
A forgotten fruit replaced by
Slogans, catch phrases and quips
The American dream mutated into
A smooth mix of conformity and monotony
With a warm, metallic flavor
Patriots leading proud companies into battle
Fighting for the corporate utopia
Beautiful in gleaming grey and solemn stone
Eden comes equipped with a Starbucks
Paradise has a Wall Street
With a hundred dirty dreamers
Begging for a piece of a hope
A part of a life
One quarter closer to stumbling bliss
Smiles behind pity-fear behind hate
The huddled masses yearning to live
Have stayed this course so long
And seen no end to the terror
Of living without choice or knowledge
300 million people scramble to see into the distance
Grabbing and hitting and hating each other
Blindly scrounging for a piece of a dream
Or a hope or a one true love
Once upon a time and happily ever after
A forgotten fruit replaced by
Slogans, catch phrases and quips
The American dream mutated into
A smooth mix of conformity and monotony
With a warm, metallic flavor
Patriots leading proud companies into battle
Fighting for the corporate utopia
Beautiful in gleaming grey and solemn stone
Eden comes equipped with a Starbucks
Paradise has a Wall Street
With a hundred dirty dreamers
Begging for a piece of a hope
A part of a life
One quarter closer to stumbling bliss
Smiles behind pity-fear behind hate
The huddled masses yearning to live
Have stayed this course so long
And seen no end to the terror
Of living without choice or knowledge
Untitled by Hillary Rains
The hand pointed to everything.
Everything that we are.
We are everything.
Everything is us.
In this world of disconnect
Of hurried greetings
Of scurried meetings.
We are one.
Call it God
Or something else
Perhaps just human nature.
Perhaps something more.
We are the world.
The world is us.
Everything that we are.
We are everything.
Everything is us.
In this world of disconnect
Of hurried greetings
Of scurried meetings.
We are one.
Call it God
Or something else
Perhaps just human nature.
Perhaps something more.
We are the world.
The world is us.
The hand pointed to everything... by Norma Taylor
The hand pointed to everything……
and each finger adorned with a beautiful ring,
sparkling in a cloud of hazy doubt
like it didn’t know what life was about.
The hand pointed to everything…..
sometimes fluttering like it was a wing,
as one would follow its pattern to try
to figure its purpose and why.
As in life, one can not point to everything
One has to look beyond any bitter sting.
And see the shining stars bright
with rings on fingers pointing to what is right.
The hand pointed to everything……
to make its point to every living thing.
The hand alone is unable to withstand
but as part of a body, can take its stand!
and each finger adorned with a beautiful ring,
sparkling in a cloud of hazy doubt
like it didn’t know what life was about.
The hand pointed to everything…..
sometimes fluttering like it was a wing,
as one would follow its pattern to try
to figure its purpose and why.
As in life, one can not point to everything
One has to look beyond any bitter sting.
And see the shining stars bright
with rings on fingers pointing to what is right.
The hand pointed to everything……
to make its point to every living thing.
The hand alone is unable to withstand
but as part of a body, can take its stand!
Submissive by Sarah Eller
The hand points to everything
I do not wish to be –
Compulsive,
Unimpassioned,
Submissive.
I can’t imagine my life
without these undesired traits.
I hate compulsivity
because I need scheduled construction.
I detest being unimpassioned
because it is not who I am.
But most of all,
I despise myself for being
Submissive.
I am not the kind of person
to let myself be dominated.
I am an independent –
the stand alone sort of person.
I can’t imagine why I let myself
be drawn into your web of lies,
your deceit or destruction,
but it happened so fast
I couldn’t stop myself.
My fear of you is staggering.
I look at myself.
Then I wish you to die.
Your life should end
in suffering pain.
You should die as I live –
Submissive.
I do not wish to be –
Compulsive,
Unimpassioned,
Submissive.
I can’t imagine my life
without these undesired traits.
I hate compulsivity
because I need scheduled construction.
I detest being unimpassioned
because it is not who I am.
But most of all,
I despise myself for being
Submissive.
I am not the kind of person
to let myself be dominated.
I am an independent –
the stand alone sort of person.
I can’t imagine why I let myself
be drawn into your web of lies,
your deceit or destruction,
but it happened so fast
I couldn’t stop myself.
My fear of you is staggering.
I look at myself.
Then I wish you to die.
Your life should end
in suffering pain.
You should die as I live –
Submissive.
Above and Beyond by Bill Felt
The hand pointed to everything that he had lost. It was a farmer’s hand, broad, thickly calloused, networked with veins. Then, as if punctuating the end, the hand etched a curt, sweeping arc, taking in the farm’s 80 acres, from the newly asphalted road clear to the Wabash River.
Standing on the porch, I listened as he told the story of his family’s farm, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder at the century old, two-story house, which had been weathered a thin-white by the prairie winds. Swaying lazily in a spring breeze, the porch swing rhythmically thumped the wall beneath the front window.
Along the gravel driveway, a newly whitewashed, three-rail fence stretched 150 feet from the road, along the house, to where it butted a giant oak tree that stood in the corner of a withered garden in the back yard.
A trace of amused wonder in his voice, he recounted the story of a tornado a few years back whose winds propelled, as if by a howitzer, a fencepost, unbroken, clean through the wall of the faded barn, which had miraculously survived the violent winds whole and unscathed.
In the pasture beyond the fence, a few remaining head of his prized Angus munched passively on cuds of clover and grass, occasionally bawling as they awaited execution. A squat Ford tractor stood nose first half way into the barn with its big balloon tires up to their hubs in foxtail. Dead center of the front yard stood a tall flagpole, the faded American flag at the top flapping weakly in the breeze.
He allowed his leathery palm to drop to rest on his thigh as if all of it, the loss of all he had nurtured, all he’d fought for, had just gained the irrevocable weight of certainty. In his other hand, he held a beat up cigar box. Most of the outer layer of the faded yellow box had worn away, but the ghost of Kind Edward remained on the lid. He cradled it in his big hands as he sketched his family tree.
His parents had come here in 1913 from St. Boswells, Scotland. Lenny paused, shook his head and chuckled wryly. “Folks made a beeline for this patch of dirt—‘magine that? Them, all of 18 at the time.”
Snapshot dreams of freedom and the promise of plenty had lured them to America. “Paw said they dropped to their knees and kissed the ground when they stepped off the boat at Ellis Island. Then there was the farm. … I was their only child. Born 1930. … That’s what took Maw. Guess she was too old … for babies … back in those days. Doc couldn’t do nothin’ for her.” His eyes grew moist and wistful. “Aw … But that’s a long time ago.”
Paw buried Kathryn … Maw … yonder under the big oak tree. We laid Paw to rest right next to her.” A single heart-shaped tombstone stood at the head of both graves and seemed to join the two mounds, grown over with the greenest of plush grass.
At least Landis had agreed to disinter and move the bodies the 15 miles to Oakland Cemetery, where a full-time caretaker manicured the grounds and chased off vandals as if the tenants were kinfolk. Through legal maneuvering Landis Land Development Corp. had acquired the land for commercial development. “Stole it right out from under me,” Lenny declared.
Sure, he could visit them every year to put flowers on their graves on Veteran’s Day—his father had served in the Army during WWI. At least, Lenny’s son Jed had promised him that much.
Still, this soil had been part of his family for many years and was infused with much sweat and tears and spirit. “Folks came straight to the Midwest. Worked the land for …” He scratched the gray stubble on his chin. “I guess for more’n 50 years. Survived the Dust Bowl.” I watched his eyes; it was as if you could see the years reeling through his mind as he reflected.
“After I was discharged from the Army … Korea … I drifted for awhile. Wound up back here. Tried to make a go of it. Done all right for a while. Then the city limits just swallowed it up and …” His voice trailed off and his dove-grey eyes gazed at the large oak. His hard fingers absently stroked dry flecks of paint that stubbornly clung to the wind-scrubbed handrail framing the big porch.
“Sure am sorry ‘bout this. I sure am, Lenny.”
He grunted as I handed him the clipboard with the papers that would release the land.
“Where you headed from here?” I asked.
Already ruddy, his complexion darkened as he squinted at the fine print of each page of the five-page document fluttering in the breeze. “G’dam landgrubbers,” he muttered. They had pursued and were able to seize his land through the legal loophole of Eminent Domain.
As Cass County sheriff, I had the lousy job of delivering the final eviction notice. It was my job, but I didn’t have to like it. I thought that for the second time in my life I’d looked into the eyes of defeat. I’d seen that look in my father’s eyes after the old Paper Mill had shut down taking his job and pension with it. Yet something still burned in Lenny’s eyes, something that had blown out of my father’s like candle in a tornado.
Recounting the story seemed to stoke his rage and his lips trembled. But I wasn’t worried about Lenny putting up much fuss, even with the shotgun slung across the rear-window of his dusty Ford pickup parked next to my cruiser in the gravel drive. His anger had been mostly spent in court and wasn’t at the local law.
Lenny had given them hell, fought more than the good fight. They squabbled for years in court, filing injunction after injunction. I remembered reading a barrage of pointed and persuasive letters-to-the-editor Lenny had leveled at the Landis Board of Directors. But in the end Landis had enough stiff Chicago attorneys to persuade the courts the land could benefit the community more as an industrial park than a self-supporting family farm. A strip mall would erase the big pasture, a Piggly Wiggly would replace the house where he’d been born, and that was only the beginning. The big business going up would employee 900 people and manufacture experimental aircraft parts for the Air Force.
Other than what I learned in the court battle played out in the newspaper, I knew little about him or his family, which probably meant Lenny was at least a peaceable fellow, a loner, never giving the department any cause to pay him an official visit.
Rumor had it a handful of shrapnel from an exploding Communist grenade, still imbedded in his hip, had left him his permanent limp. Rumor also had it that his wife had, just as his mother, died in childbirth. Other gossipers swore she’d run off with a salesman leaving Lenny to fend for himself and the boy. Either way, their son ended up staying with her parents in Iowa.
I had no more than tipped my hat to Lenny on the rare occasion I passed him in town, usually as he came out of Hedrick’s Nickel & Dime, across from the courthouse. As he walked down to the Checkerboard, he would constantly pop peanuts into his mouth from a white paper bag he kept tucked in the vest pocket of his overalls.
He slid a big calloused hand into the back pocket of his overalls and sighed. “My boy wants me to move in with him, his wife and two kids … up north … ‘round Chicago. “Never was much for kids. Too much dang racket. Haven’t seen ‘em since …” He touched his brow, “since they was babies, I guess.
“Won’t be long,” he said, raising his chin at the two yellow CATs parked heavily in the field. Work had already begun on the infrastructure, and the silent dozers had gouged thick strips of dirt, rolling them into huge coils of green carpet along the side of the road.
His house would be leveled as soon as he vacated it—by Friday, according to the papers he now clinched in his hand.
“Lenny.”
“Yeah?”
“Hope you don’t mind me asking, but what do you got there in the box … the cigar box?”
Lenny looked down at the box as if he’d forgotten it. “Nothing much. Found it while I was cleanin’ out the attic. Then you came.”
“Mind if I have a look?” Lenny squeezed the box firmly then pushed it at me. A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth then vanished.
Gently, I pried open the lid to reveal a wrinkled shop cloth. I folded back the soft cloth to reveal a gold medal knotted to a thick, faded blue ribbon. The medal was made up of a Bald Eagle above an upside-down five-point star. The inscription on the medal was tarnished, hard to read in the harsh sunlight.
I looked up at Lenny but read nothing in his face; he was focused on two whitetail deer, a doe and a big buck, winding their way warily along the serpentine Wabash River in the east. I used one corner of the shop cloth to polish the medal until it glittered in the midday sun. The eagle’s talons grasped a panel that read VALOR. In the center of the star, a twisted wreath encircled the carved bust of a woman, around which was inscribed United States of America.
It took several beats for its full significance to register and a lump swelled in my throat. I gently turned the medal over. In the palm of my hand lay the Medal of Honor. Inscribed on the back, THE CONGRESS TO LENNOX “LENNY” MACALISTER PVT 1ST CLASS US ARMY PUSAN ROK 04 JULY 1950. A million questions crowded my head, but I couldn’t get one of them past that lump.
“Len-Lenny?”
He didn’t answer, but I stared as the muscles in his jaws bunched then quivered. “Lenny, what … I—”
Cutting me off, Lenny lifted the box from my outstretched hand, replaced the cloth and closed the cigar box. As he turned, our gazes briefly met and his soft gray eyes seemed to flash icy blue.
I watched him limp away, about a million questions flipping through my mind about the man and medal in a cigar box, now casually tucked beneath his arm. His uneven footfalls echoed heavily as he crossed the wooden porch. The screen door shut with a clack.
By the time I pulled the door of the police cruiser shut, the sun had eased past its zenith and lengthened the shadow of the silo, tall and pockmarked, next to the barn. It too had survived the storm.
© 2006 by Bill Feltt
Standing on the porch, I listened as he told the story of his family’s farm, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder at the century old, two-story house, which had been weathered a thin-white by the prairie winds. Swaying lazily in a spring breeze, the porch swing rhythmically thumped the wall beneath the front window.
Along the gravel driveway, a newly whitewashed, three-rail fence stretched 150 feet from the road, along the house, to where it butted a giant oak tree that stood in the corner of a withered garden in the back yard.
A trace of amused wonder in his voice, he recounted the story of a tornado a few years back whose winds propelled, as if by a howitzer, a fencepost, unbroken, clean through the wall of the faded barn, which had miraculously survived the violent winds whole and unscathed.
In the pasture beyond the fence, a few remaining head of his prized Angus munched passively on cuds of clover and grass, occasionally bawling as they awaited execution. A squat Ford tractor stood nose first half way into the barn with its big balloon tires up to their hubs in foxtail. Dead center of the front yard stood a tall flagpole, the faded American flag at the top flapping weakly in the breeze.
He allowed his leathery palm to drop to rest on his thigh as if all of it, the loss of all he had nurtured, all he’d fought for, had just gained the irrevocable weight of certainty. In his other hand, he held a beat up cigar box. Most of the outer layer of the faded yellow box had worn away, but the ghost of Kind Edward remained on the lid. He cradled it in his big hands as he sketched his family tree.
His parents had come here in 1913 from St. Boswells, Scotland. Lenny paused, shook his head and chuckled wryly. “Folks made a beeline for this patch of dirt—‘magine that? Them, all of 18 at the time.”
Snapshot dreams of freedom and the promise of plenty had lured them to America. “Paw said they dropped to their knees and kissed the ground when they stepped off the boat at Ellis Island. Then there was the farm. … I was their only child. Born 1930. … That’s what took Maw. Guess she was too old … for babies … back in those days. Doc couldn’t do nothin’ for her.” His eyes grew moist and wistful. “Aw … But that’s a long time ago.”
Paw buried Kathryn … Maw … yonder under the big oak tree. We laid Paw to rest right next to her.” A single heart-shaped tombstone stood at the head of both graves and seemed to join the two mounds, grown over with the greenest of plush grass.
At least Landis had agreed to disinter and move the bodies the 15 miles to Oakland Cemetery, where a full-time caretaker manicured the grounds and chased off vandals as if the tenants were kinfolk. Through legal maneuvering Landis Land Development Corp. had acquired the land for commercial development. “Stole it right out from under me,” Lenny declared.
Sure, he could visit them every year to put flowers on their graves on Veteran’s Day—his father had served in the Army during WWI. At least, Lenny’s son Jed had promised him that much.
Still, this soil had been part of his family for many years and was infused with much sweat and tears and spirit. “Folks came straight to the Midwest. Worked the land for …” He scratched the gray stubble on his chin. “I guess for more’n 50 years. Survived the Dust Bowl.” I watched his eyes; it was as if you could see the years reeling through his mind as he reflected.
“After I was discharged from the Army … Korea … I drifted for awhile. Wound up back here. Tried to make a go of it. Done all right for a while. Then the city limits just swallowed it up and …” His voice trailed off and his dove-grey eyes gazed at the large oak. His hard fingers absently stroked dry flecks of paint that stubbornly clung to the wind-scrubbed handrail framing the big porch.
“Sure am sorry ‘bout this. I sure am, Lenny.”
He grunted as I handed him the clipboard with the papers that would release the land.
“Where you headed from here?” I asked.
Already ruddy, his complexion darkened as he squinted at the fine print of each page of the five-page document fluttering in the breeze. “G’dam landgrubbers,” he muttered. They had pursued and were able to seize his land through the legal loophole of Eminent Domain.
As Cass County sheriff, I had the lousy job of delivering the final eviction notice. It was my job, but I didn’t have to like it. I thought that for the second time in my life I’d looked into the eyes of defeat. I’d seen that look in my father’s eyes after the old Paper Mill had shut down taking his job and pension with it. Yet something still burned in Lenny’s eyes, something that had blown out of my father’s like candle in a tornado.
Recounting the story seemed to stoke his rage and his lips trembled. But I wasn’t worried about Lenny putting up much fuss, even with the shotgun slung across the rear-window of his dusty Ford pickup parked next to my cruiser in the gravel drive. His anger had been mostly spent in court and wasn’t at the local law.
Lenny had given them hell, fought more than the good fight. They squabbled for years in court, filing injunction after injunction. I remembered reading a barrage of pointed and persuasive letters-to-the-editor Lenny had leveled at the Landis Board of Directors. But in the end Landis had enough stiff Chicago attorneys to persuade the courts the land could benefit the community more as an industrial park than a self-supporting family farm. A strip mall would erase the big pasture, a Piggly Wiggly would replace the house where he’d been born, and that was only the beginning. The big business going up would employee 900 people and manufacture experimental aircraft parts for the Air Force.
Other than what I learned in the court battle played out in the newspaper, I knew little about him or his family, which probably meant Lenny was at least a peaceable fellow, a loner, never giving the department any cause to pay him an official visit.
Rumor had it a handful of shrapnel from an exploding Communist grenade, still imbedded in his hip, had left him his permanent limp. Rumor also had it that his wife had, just as his mother, died in childbirth. Other gossipers swore she’d run off with a salesman leaving Lenny to fend for himself and the boy. Either way, their son ended up staying with her parents in Iowa.
I had no more than tipped my hat to Lenny on the rare occasion I passed him in town, usually as he came out of Hedrick’s Nickel & Dime, across from the courthouse. As he walked down to the Checkerboard, he would constantly pop peanuts into his mouth from a white paper bag he kept tucked in the vest pocket of his overalls.
He slid a big calloused hand into the back pocket of his overalls and sighed. “My boy wants me to move in with him, his wife and two kids … up north … ‘round Chicago. “Never was much for kids. Too much dang racket. Haven’t seen ‘em since …” He touched his brow, “since they was babies, I guess.
“Won’t be long,” he said, raising his chin at the two yellow CATs parked heavily in the field. Work had already begun on the infrastructure, and the silent dozers had gouged thick strips of dirt, rolling them into huge coils of green carpet along the side of the road.
His house would be leveled as soon as he vacated it—by Friday, according to the papers he now clinched in his hand.
“Lenny.”
“Yeah?”
“Hope you don’t mind me asking, but what do you got there in the box … the cigar box?”
Lenny looked down at the box as if he’d forgotten it. “Nothing much. Found it while I was cleanin’ out the attic. Then you came.”
“Mind if I have a look?” Lenny squeezed the box firmly then pushed it at me. A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth then vanished.
Gently, I pried open the lid to reveal a wrinkled shop cloth. I folded back the soft cloth to reveal a gold medal knotted to a thick, faded blue ribbon. The medal was made up of a Bald Eagle above an upside-down five-point star. The inscription on the medal was tarnished, hard to read in the harsh sunlight.
I looked up at Lenny but read nothing in his face; he was focused on two whitetail deer, a doe and a big buck, winding their way warily along the serpentine Wabash River in the east. I used one corner of the shop cloth to polish the medal until it glittered in the midday sun. The eagle’s talons grasped a panel that read VALOR. In the center of the star, a twisted wreath encircled the carved bust of a woman, around which was inscribed United States of America.
It took several beats for its full significance to register and a lump swelled in my throat. I gently turned the medal over. In the palm of my hand lay the Medal of Honor. Inscribed on the back, THE CONGRESS TO LENNOX “LENNY” MACALISTER PVT 1ST CLASS US ARMY PUSAN ROK 04 JULY 1950. A million questions crowded my head, but I couldn’t get one of them past that lump.
“Len-Lenny?”
He didn’t answer, but I stared as the muscles in his jaws bunched then quivered. “Lenny, what … I—”
Cutting me off, Lenny lifted the box from my outstretched hand, replaced the cloth and closed the cigar box. As he turned, our gazes briefly met and his soft gray eyes seemed to flash icy blue.
I watched him limp away, about a million questions flipping through my mind about the man and medal in a cigar box, now casually tucked beneath his arm. His uneven footfalls echoed heavily as he crossed the wooden porch. The screen door shut with a clack.
By the time I pulled the door of the police cruiser shut, the sun had eased past its zenith and lengthened the shadow of the silo, tall and pockmarked, next to the barn. It too had survived the storm.
© 2006 by Bill Feltt
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