Poetry:

“War of Attrition”
“Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center”
“Saline” – H.V. Cramond

“The future terrifies [ . . . ]”
“A number of events [ . . . ]” – Justin Marks

“Heteronomy” – Christopher Nealon

(oil on wood panel, 20in x 16in, 2013)

Kate McCammon received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012.  She has been awarded a number of residencies while she was an undergraduate student, including one to study painting with Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, and since graduation she has been awarded residencies at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy and at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.  Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Monongalia Arts Center, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, North Valley Art League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, among others.  She currently lives in Bridgeport, WV and teaches courses at the Monongalia Arts Center.

(oil on wood panel, 10in x 8in, 2013)
Kate McCammon received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012.  She has been awarded a number of residencies while she was an undergraduate student, including one to study painting with Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, and since graduation she has been awarded residencies at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy and at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.  Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Monongalia Arts Center, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, North Valley Art League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, among others.  She currently lives in Bridgeport, WV and teaches courses at the Monongalia Arts Center.

(oil on wood panel, 10in x 8in, 2013)

Kate McCammon received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012.  She has been awarded a number of residencies while she was an undergraduate student, including one to study painting with Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, and since graduation she has been awarded residencies at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy and at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.  Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Monongalia Arts Center, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, North Valley Art League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, among others.  She currently lives in Bridgeport, WV and teaches courses at the Monongalia Arts Center.

(oil on wood panel, 24in x 24in, 2013)

Kate McCammon received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012.  She has been awarded a number of residencies while she was an undergraduate student, including one to study painting with Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, and since graduation she has been awarded residencies at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy and at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.  Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Monongalia Arts Center, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, North Valley Art League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, among others.  She currently lives in Bridgeport, WV and teaches courses at the Monongalia Arts Center.

(oil on wood panel, 10in x 8in, 2013)

Kate McCammon received her BFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2012.  She has been awarded a number of residencies while she was an undergraduate student, including one to study painting with Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, and since graduation she has been awarded residencies at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy and at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland.  Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Monongalia Arts Center, MICA Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Federation of Art, North Valley Art League, Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, among others.  She currently lives in Bridgeport, WV and teaches courses at the Monongalia Arts Center.

The strike is ended
and the television tells me
The Mayor Has Won A Great Battle
and
Important Things About Superman

I ask my composition students:
What is a Just Law?
What laws currently exist which are not good for the gander?

Heather, I mean, Professor, I mean
I really don’t read the news
It’s just my opinion anyway

The greedy teachers
unable to strike over anything but salary
have completed their strike over salary
and have somehow anything but:
nurses, textbooks, paper, counselors

I ask my poetry students:
What is a Just War?
What is worth Wilfred Owen in the trenches and
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner?

Heather, you don’t expect us to know about
I mean your class is cool but reading
history is you know I’m going to be a doctor

Children, I say, and their eyes glaze over
Laugh and shift in your seat

When I was 17, Schindler’s List,
Johnny Got His Gun, but first Metallica
Not only the starved old Jewish men
but Gas! Gas! Quick, boys—An ecstasy of fumbling

In Englewood in a school about to close
Under the watchful eye of The Mayor
A teacher strains to see
Which will the eight-year-old boy choose?

——-a)    To give up on adult intervention and hit the older student who’s been bullying him
——-b)    To embarrass his mother by telling the teacher that he can’t concentrate because he’s hungry, not
————–because he’s–stupid
——-c)    To maybe make some real money like his father must be doing, like a real man
——-d)    To get as far away from here as he can

This is a test, not a ballot
Choose from the existing options

Children, the tests say, and their pupils dilate
When you are 17 jail or maybe dead

And what do you know, what do you know?

Well, Miss Heather, ain’t you a child o’ Jesus
and what do YOU know about music anyway
Dance teacher?  Well.

What else don’t I know?
A girl with glass and lice in her hair
The sound of screaming as alarm
When you look for home, only smoke

What can governments mean
When your skin is on fire

*

H.V. CRAMOND is the Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art and a Writing Instructor at Loyola University Chicago. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Community Arts Assistance Program.Her poem “War of Attrition” was a finalist in the 2013 Split This Rock Poetry Festival Contest judged by Mark Doty.  Some recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Keep Going, Wunderkammer, Ignavia, death hums, and Pandora’s Box (Southport Press, 2011).  Read more of her writing at hvcramond.com.

Waukegan, IL, 1995

my grandmother          her face drained
had him moved to another room

but we stole his blanket by accident
tagged:                 Reichert in black Sharpie

mix-ups often occur:
——-he thought you were a nurse
——-that he was at war

his hands
——-so strong
——-the smell of piss

my own grandfather
——-paralyzed on the left
————–as long as I can remember
——-paralyzed from the bottom
————–as long as I’ve been an adult

grandfather what big eyes you have
——-I’m not Tina
——-it’s me
——-what big teeth

Why are you doing that?
get me my gun, he said

I gave the blanket away
I could never wash it enough

*

H.V. CRAMOND is the Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art and a Writing Instructor at Loyola University Chicago. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Community Arts Assistance Program.Her poem “War of Attrition” was a finalist in the 2013 Split This Rock Poetry Festival Contest judged by Mark Doty.  Some recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Keep Going, Wunderkammer, Ignavia, death hums, and Pandora’s Box (Southport Press, 2011).  Read more of her writing at hvcramond.com.

1.    Envelopes. The survivor’s case number and nurse’s notes are written on the envelope after evidence is inserted.
2.    Cotton swabs for the vagina (2) the anus (2) and the mouth (2).
Any unused swabs are discarded, and may be used for any orifice that might conceivably contain DNA evidence.  Those used are sealed in an envelope, and the nurse notes thereon where on or in the survivor’s body the evidence was collected, with a different envelope for each area of collection. Survivors who have showered or urinated may have less DNA evidence available.
3.    A comb for extracting hair samples from the genital area.  Stray hair or other genetic material from the perpetrator may be present.  Hair is combed, with care not to pull, over white paper and the paper is folded with the hair into another envelope.
4.    Wooden sticks for scraping.  Often if there is a struggle, the survivors will have pieces of the perpetrator’s skin under his or her fingernails.
5.    Piece of paper diagramming different areas of the body.  The nurse indicates where on the survivor’s body, if anywhere, bruising, tearing, or bleeding occurs.  This is usually completed after the doctor performs a full pelvic to determine if there is any need for medical attention. The advocate may or may not be present at the pelvic depending on the survivor’s preference.
6.    Any particularly notable injuries are photographed with a Polaroid camera; the Polaroid is then added to the kit.
7.    Paper bags. If the survivor has brought the clothes s/he was wearing at the time of the attack, or is wearing them, those clothes are taken off over a piece of white paper, again, to collect any evidence that may fall off of the clothes.  The clothes and the paper are placed in the bag.  Paper is preferred to plastic because it allows any organic stains to breathe.
8.    Test tube and a sheet of paper, both for blood samples to get the base sample of the survivor’s DNA.

If done correctly, there is an unbroken chain of custody from the attending nurse to the evidence technician.  If the kit is done incorrectly or at any time leaves the proper chain of custody (for example, if the nurse goes to the bathroom and leaves the kit unattended), it is inadmissible as evidence and must be started over.

Care is to be taken both during the pelvic and the continued collection of evidence not to re-traumatize the survivors.

After the evidence is collected, if the survivor is a woman and able to become Pregnant, The Morning After pill is administered.  All survivors receive treatment for Chlamydia, Syphilis, and Gonorrhea.  All blood and urine tests must be repeated in six weeks because those done at the time of the attack give a baseline indicating whether or not the survivor was pregnant or infected at the time of the attack.  Many diseases, including Pregnancy, take up to six weeks to surface.

*

H.V. CRAMOND is the Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art and a Writing Instructor at Loyola University Chicago. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Community Arts Assistance Program.Her poem “War of Attrition” was a finalist in the 2013 Split This Rock Poetry Festival Contest judged by Mark Doty.  Some recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Keep Going, Wunderkammer, Ignavia, death hums, and Pandora’s Box (Southport Press, 2011).  Read more of her writing at hvcramond.com.

The future terrifies.
Care is a mammal emotion.
Remember when it used to snow
and leaves changed to colors
other than yellow and took
months to fall off trees?
Let me say it again:
The future terrifies.
Things are coming for us.
What they are
we don’t know.
Death becomes more real
and thus more inconceivable
for being real.
The Imperial Theme from Star Wars blares
from my neighborhood firehouse.
Technique as a medium for expression.
The universe is a finite thing
growing into something infinite
if you’re willing to wait forever.
Or it’s always infinite.
Either way, a minute is a long time
in a microwave.
Either way, it’s difficult
not to think we’re in
the final days
of some ruinous experiment.

“Keep looking for reality. You’ll drive yourself crazier and crazier,” says Jany in Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School, a book where things start off horribly and end even worse.

“But the whole aim of civilization is to make everything a source of enjoyment,” says Oblonksy in Tolstoy’s Anna Kerenina, where things begin “very easy and simply” and end terribly, in part because they were never really that easy and simple to begin with.

“Shame on you if you’re not thinking every single year, ‘What’s my next step?’ ” says my career coach.

—————————Be still

————————————-my dying heart

—————————Just minutes ago

————————————————I was young

————————————–What’s on my mind

—————————is on my mind

——————————What’s your story,

———————————————–world

“We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams,” says Willy Wonka.

“They’re just humans with wives and children,” says the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne.

——————————–Empathy is a biological emotion
——————————–A specific chemical
——————————–progression
Last night I dreamt I was Captain America
——————————-shitting himself

——————————–Water sizzling on a burned man’s skin
——————————–as it runs over his legs from the spigot

*
Justin Marks’ first book of poems is A Million in Prizes (New Issues, 2009), and his latest chapbook is Best Practices (Greying Ghost, 2013). Recent work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Barrelhouse, Leveler and Interrupture. He is a co-founder of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press, and lives in Queens, NY with his wife and their 4 year-old twin son and daughter.