The Clackamas print., January 18, 1995, Page 10, Image 10

Sl&clcarrvas
College
1.18.1995
forgotten dreams
Upon Magic Foil Carpets
slowly tears will fall
and fill the empty space
left by you who held my love
in dark mysterious embrace
I found a piece of shiny tin foil, our magic car­
pet upon which we’d chased the dragon, the deadly
black dragon.
K ;
Boiling mad was he; running furiously away
from our consuming flame, consistent assistant, a
long yellow-orange fire, burning with intensity the
sinister dragon.
How euphoric were we, the dragon now
burned, scorched to a crisp black shell... nothing
more than the blackened crust of a sour pie. A
reminder of a disappearing demon in the last rib­
bons of smoke that swirled about our blissful faces.
Now, revelingin our victory, we dreamily drift
far into the
^clouds, gleaming knights on our shiny tin foil car­
pets, floating endlessly within the realms of our
minds and beyond...
Still, I discover wadded up foil spheres, qui­
etly laying in the marbled rug, guilty souls of the
dragon slayer
Rachel Lewis
in the avenue of phantoms
that holds forgotten dreams
i’ 11 live in solemn loneliness
forever, so it seems
you came into my life
with a love that was so strong
you promised me “forever”
and forever you are gone
/ X
z^
in my heart i’ll keep
my treasured memories
of our time together
forever, you and me
and i know
Z£T
\
AJbJb ¿HZ?'
W
slowly tears will fall...
- By Cori Kargel
Factory Birds
My first day on the job a co­
worker took me outside to
show me where they kept the
barrels of oil and solvent. As
we passed through the big
double doors of the steel bay,
he pointed up to an outside
corner of the building. Hang­
ing there was a bird, or at least
what remained of it. It dangled
from a dirty string that was
twisted around it’s leg, a ball
of feathers and bones. The
bird looked dry and mummi­
fied, it’s beak pointed toward
the ground, its eye sockets
were empty. It hung there, out­
side the door, like a flag at per­
petual half mast.
“That thing’s been there over
four years now” said my co­
worker, a note of grim satisfac­
tion in his voice. “Poor
sonofabitch musta got tangled
up in that string and couldn’t
get loose.” He shook his head
that nodded in the direction of
the solvent barrels. “Let’s get
you a bucket of this stuff and
get back to work.” I followed
him to the row of barrels but I
kept turning my head to look
back at the bird. I didn’t want
to see it but at the same time I
couldn’t help myself. I had to
look. A slight breeze caused the scum floating in the waste water
dry feathers to flutter, as if it were tank. I wonder, how do they sur­
about to fly. The dirty string at­ vive?
tached to it’s leg looked as if it
came from an apron, similar to One day, as I walked outside to
the one I was wearing. I listened fill up my buckets of oil and sol­
to the sound of the solvent pour­ vent, I noticed something lying
ing into my bucket. It smelled on the ground near the door.
sharp and sour, like rotten eggs. Two baby birds, still naked and
I asked, why no one had taken wet from the egg, had fallen from
the bird down, “Don’t know. their strange nest and were ly­
Guess it’s stuck here like the rest ing on the concrete in the noon
of us” was the answer I got.
sun. One of them was dead but
the other was still moving. It
Other birds, Sparrows I think, opened and closed it’s tiny beak
build their nests by the big weakly, emitting a slight mewling
double doors, close to where the sound. The birds had fallen al­
dead bird swings. The concrete most twenty feet from their nest
below is speckled white with their to the ground. I felt guilty some­
droppings and an occasional bit how, as if I had caused this to
of fluff or loose feather that might happen. My stomach churned at
land there. They build their nests the thought of picking up the
with bits of red shop rags, short slick, bloody Creature. I put my
pieces of wire and ragged bits buckets down and stood there,
of Styrofoam cups, the discards watching the bird struggle to
of a factory. The nests are oddly breathe. My cheeks were wet,
shaped, crammed into openings my shoulders shaking as the tiny
in the steel beams above the black eyes became dull and the
door. I wonder at the babies bird ceased to move.
hatched in these nests. They are
introduced to a world of grinding, The forklift'driver saw me stand­
screeching noise and cold steel. ing there and shouted at me to
There are no trees here, no move out of his way. I pointed at
bushes. There is nothing even the birds and he became quiet.
remotely natural about this He stepped off the forklift and
place. The only green is th© toxic gathered the birds gently in his
big hands. He buried them out
behind the rows of barrels. He
didn’t say anything to me, but
later, I watched as he rinsed
the blood from the concrete
with a bucket of dirty water.
Occasionally, a bird will get in­
side the factory and not be
able to find it’s way out. Deli­
cate wings beat furiously to
escape the noisy, oily and
smoke filled air. Alone or in
pairs, the panicked birds will
swoop low over the machine I
run and then fly suddenly to
the ceiling where they collide
with electrical conduit and
grease coated steel beams. I
can hear them crying, I can
feel the terrified beating ol
their hearts as well as if the)
were in my own chest. M)
breathing becomes shallow!
my muscles tense, as I watcl"
them searching for a way out
I hope against hope, but I
know they will soon discovei
what the rest of us here founc
out. long ago.
Mary Sepulveda