Art And Design High School - Prism Yearbook (New York, NY)

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EMOTIONS GRIEF Sunshine. Yellow-gold shining in my hair. Life is beautiful. Flowers are blooming. Birds are singing. The world is full of light. My hap- piness radiates from my eyes. A song bubbles forth with a will of its own. I can't control my feet from dancing up the walk. The house looks different today. Brighter. Homier. The phone rings. An ominous ring. Threatening in its sim- plicity. I try to close my ears. I will it to stop, but it keeps on. I hesitantly pick it up. Hello. My voice quivers. My hands shake. I hear the faceless voice on the other end telling me goodbye for- ever. The click in my ear tells me the conversa- tion has ended, but my hand is clamped tightly around the phone. My fingers turn white. The veins grow taut. The phone burns into my palm like white coals. I drop it. The house is dull and suffocating. It chokes off my breath, and I run out. Outside, it's grown cold. The fog has started to roll in, and has turned the sun black. I run. I can't stop running. The wind whips my hair into my vacant eyes. Finally, I collapse on a bed of rock. The screams are ripped from my throat with a will of their own. The salt of my tears burn my eyes. Drained finally of emotion, I walk home, and calmly rip the pictures off the wall. BARBARA ESCOFFERY A SONNET You stretched your hand out in an offering. An invitation for a short time stay. With great uncertainty, I wondered if Ishould not stop to hear your music played. To hesitate would be a faulted move. And yet, where e'er I turn, Icannot see. The water now has blinded reasoning In me. I long to find your manhood now. Across the seas of time unreal we reach Each other's fingertips. And with that touch I wonder if all innocence is gone. Ido not wish to cleanse my hands - in fear. To stroke your face must satisfy me now For, Thou shall not covet what is thy neighbors! HOPE SINGER POEM IFor H.R.S.l I won 't try to watch the stars breathe through us Or to listen, as the death drums have sounded, but, they are quietly beating beneath the roads of our evolution, over darl-r covered rocks, pouring forth tears to spirit, pacing the path . . . But the hazy love glow returns to reshadow the past with regret, turned to the place Where we once flew together exalted like birds in the free grey sl-ty. The Voyages where we vaulted into the patterned past have blackened. Still There is warmth for Nowlam wrapped in a soft brown leaf: inhaling, alone and pulled by the reassuring cloud substance to the cold and windy hilltop where I will Erect this daybrealf in the form of an Altar. MARCI COMPTON AND WHAT A BIZARRE RELATIONSHIP IT WAS A tear fell and wet my lip. It must have been the millionth shed. With all the strength I possessed, I lashed out-I struck, I beat, I wounded. I cut as deep as I could. Yet she re- mained there, unmoved. She would simply stare in astonishment. All my words were incompre- hensible and senseless. I struggled within:-why can she not understand? Why can she not? Why? O

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O dering, at him. They feared this dark, sweat- smelling figure in a goat-skin. What is your name? Long forgotten cords of something unde- fined rang inside him. But he could only draw distorted, childish forms on the ground, and call THE WANDERING ALBATROSS He came from the sea to puzzle us, like a wandering albatross. He had traveled many life- times and seen more than he told of before he came to us to choose his mate. He was fine-boned and handsome beneath his curls of soft down, and as the albatross is clothed in thick feathers to shield him from the wind, so was our albatross enveloped in his own shield of fantasies to guard him from the sober- ness of the world around him. We doubted him and knew too little of his mysteries, iust as the sailors hadalways held this unusual bird in wonder. Like the albatross, he seemed never to sleep. His eyes remained open in rest, as if he sought to see great distances in his dreams. He seemed to fear us, for he never fully landed in our midst, always hovering lust out of touch, not wanting to leave us, but afraid to give up his wandering life and put his wings to rest forever, not wanting to be soiled by our human frailties, and not wanting to recognize his own. He was a sea bird and a strange bird, and his goats. His legs then iumped lightly upon the rocks, and he disappeared. A free, wild figure. But something was missing in his mind, something he wanted and knew not. Something which could never be fulfilled. SCHOSCHONA SCHONFELD he came to us to find a mate. He found her in the summer and took her to the sea. The courting customs of the albatross are peculiar to us. Male and female waddle to- ward each other with a dignified step and bow ceremoniously. After some strutting, they cross bills and seem to fence like swordsmen, mean- while uttering strange cries. The pattern of their relationship bore a startling likeness to that of the albatross. lt was an odd and unearthly love, nour- ished on the sea, and always he hovered above her, not wanting to close his eyes to his dreams of wanderings past and wanderings to come: afraid to let her touch his vulnerable soul, and always afraid of losing his wings. The summer came and went, and few of us succeeded in truly understanding our albatross. When the sea froze, so did the love of our albatross. It seemed to be covered with a shell of transparent ice that promised to melt in the spring, and at the peak of the lonely winter the albatross stood at the shore of reality and spread his wings in the rain. JUDIE PFEFFER C 'iz'-: N r lfflyams s . t Ag itlminv' - W if T h QXXXS: 1 n 51 , 5 1 ' l W T' '

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O There was a time we walked along the shore together, she and I. We spoke in gentle tones of comprehending each other. We sat on the grey, broken rocks and watched the waves try to escape,-and we giggled, almost mali- ciously, because we both knew that Mother Sea would always reclaim them. There was some- thing ironic about us witnessing the water trying to leave the ocean,-of one trying to break away from oneself. The beach and the sea were great comforts to both of us. We claimed to be indigenous to it and swore that when death came, it would em- brace us there. But,-we fought constantly. Every day, a civil war, and there was no victor-because there never is in warl We wanted so desperately to loin together-to be one. And very often we did come close to it. Then, in one fell swoop, the magic would be gone. The day had come. The end was near. We both sensed it, at the same moment, as usual. I couldn't imagine life without her. That evening, we sat in my room as we had so many, many times before. She asked me why I was not sensitiveg and then why I was not creative: and why not good? These words, I had heard them so many times before from her, suddenly took on a new twist. More questions on the trueness of my spirit, on the honesty of my soul. We two players smashed that ball of hate with our paddles with vigor before unknown. She knew of my idealistic-no-simple minded search, and used that to lacerate. A Diogenes, she screamed, a cynical fool with a lamp. And what are you looking for? Do you think yourself a sculptor, your soul C piece of clay you can mold and shape and twist-to make yourself that soft, wholesome, beautiful creature you are forever reaching for? The warm tears flowed to the floor and quickly we found ourselves swimming, lest we drown. The flood lasted for forty days and forty nights. Lightning ravaged the skies. The turbulent water cast me to shores unknown. When the sun came up at the dawn of the forty-first day, I knew a renaissance was coming. I prayed for a clear light. And when the water left and the ground dried, I gazed across the land and found I had not been taken away ot all. She was still there. I know now she always w ill be there- for how can one lose her own reflection in the mirror of her own heart? RETURN OF MIDNIGHT Midnight came to fair Claudina Images returned in mist Ghost of fatal cavern boulders From the moulding rotting crypt. Calling for her but in vain Hands extended, eyes aflame Fair Claudina, I've come for you Trust in me, you'll feel no pain. You can't feel me touch your hair Tresses wildly strewn about you You cant hear my longing verses Staring blankly into space. Only now you rise from slumber Only now you rise in fear Fearing an unearthly presence Knowing somehow I am near. Sweet Claudina can you feel my Longing hands caress your hair? Can you see me, see me now Tell me that you know I'm here. lt is strange in midst of slumber Arms feel wrapped around my soul. It is I, my raven beauty Tell me that you see me now, Why on such a summer night Have I chills that paralyze? Sweet Claudine It is I, Look unto my longing eyes. Iohn, my love, Idream of you Iohn, oh Cod, can it be true? Flames of blue that sparked your eyes Hold my breath and stop my heart? Yes, Claudina, oh my beauty, Let my heart fly, come with me Ican feel your heartbeat quicken, Can you feel the life in me? Windows parted, doors blew open Wind had carried in the storm. HOPE SINGER Clocks stopped ticking, curtains rested, But the music box played on. CAI L DEBEL