Heart, Mind, and Pen

Anthology edition
Propaganda

Anthony Giorgio

i was talking to Wilson one day

About the Westminster honors college

i told him “it reminded me

of ames hearing professors talk about

Rigor

Relevance

Relationships

and the rest of the propaganda.”

He said “the rest of our VALUES, you mean?

i said “Sure, that’s what I said,

isn’t it?”

i wanted to tell him that

just because it’s propaganda

doesn’t make it untrue

A Short Poem of Self-Description

Kenny Lorens

This is a short poem

Of self-description
Deployment

Johnny Recendez

Freedom is not a right we have

It needs duty of care

There are times when duty will ask

For a price

Which a soldier may have to bare

This is what I think as the plane stops

As the doors come down

I wait to see where we have

Now flown

I can’t wait

To see where we’re deployed

Sometimes you get to be somewhere cool

That’s a perk for being employed

Ah crap,

Another desert hole

I hope for somewhere cool

I should’ve bloody known

An Ironic Poem

Lorien V. Cuellar

I don’t know what to write.

No thought is ready for flight.

It’s like a cloud that takes up space.

All the time given, gone to waste.

This is no good, being unable to think.

This is my thoughts without an inspirational drink.

I can’t have this trauma tying up my imagination.

It’s worse than sitting at the doctor’s office and worse than staying in a car for an hour or so.

You actually have something to do in those places by looking at what’s around you for inspiration.

You could write something, day dream, think about a story, or even draw.

Now, at least for me, some things are much more difficult for me to write.

In this case, I can’t find the switch to turn on the light!

Today is a day where cloud came to shroud my thoughts.

As time passes by, ticking trillions seconds of seconds away with its teeny, tiny, troubling hands, I checked the
clock.

Right now, at this very moment, I have writer’s block.

A letter from the Battlefront

Kaitlynn Jackson

My dearest Synthia,

Things have changed so much since I have last written to you. So much of them are gone now, and I only
fear that I will be next. The next fall, for my existence I fear will only be viewed as another number, as another one
that had to go for the means of the “greater good”. But what they didn’t say in the letter is how it truly is out here,
the screams, the sounds, and the seeing them. The ones that were your friends, the ones that only moments earlier
you shared a cigarette and a small laugh with, only to see them collapse lifeless on the floor. The stories never told
it to be this way; they only spoke of the courage and the defeat of the cruel seemingly nonhuman beast. That was
just another lie.

The cruel and evil, they are humans just like you and I. Humans told the same vicious lies of us as we were
told of them. They aren’t emotionless,, they aren’t evil, they’re are the same as me. Forced to fight in a fight that
wasn’t even theirs. All people doing shameful things for the sake of their lives, just I hope to survive. But from
what im told of the last war by my father, I know that of those that survive, only one side will be crowned and the
other will be viewed as the true evil of the world.

As I watch more and more around me fall, I wonder how it is that this is “good”. What is the true meaning
of that word, and how it would apply to something so terrible as I see around me. There is no good, there is only
bad and worse, the ability to kill or be killed, and which is truly worse I no longer know.

Synthia, things are so bad here, and I no longer know what I am to do. There is only one thing any of the others
seem to know anymore, and it’s fear. Fear of living to se the others falling one by one, and the fear of being the one
to fall. Though the worst part is that when the day comes to an end the fear never leaves you.

It appears in sleep, the screams, explosions, and blood. The nightmares are terrible Synthia, they keep me
awake, they keep me on edge. I feel like I haven’t slept for weeks, and when I do they leave more scared than the
night before. I don’t want to die, Synthia, but so many have, and what makes me so different from them? Why am I
still here when the men around me are gone?

How badly I wish that I could sleep, to have the nightmares leave me, just to finally feel a sense of escape
from the world around me.

I just can’t sleep, and fear that if I do I won’t be able to wake the next morning.

Yours truly,

Mark
Decline

Sharifa Matin

Talk me down from every judgement I have

Show me how to lose winnings I never had

Gaining friends

But throwing out what if’s

Arguments to settle at the 2:07 deadline

It’s a decline

And im running out of time.

Shot straight from the bottom

Bullets whizzing through the air

Such a dangerous playing field

No age appropriate ratings

They left out the M

PG

13

Letting us start so ill-equipped.

Hydrochloric Acid Commercial

Matt Walker

The Breakdown of the Hydrochloric Acid Commercial Originally Aired in 2012

Scene: a completely white room with five children, three boys and two grils, standing in line. Children range from
eight to fifteen. In addition, there is an annoying announcer guy and a bath tub.

Announcer guy (AG): Hi kids, what’s the matter?

Kids (simultaneously): Hey, Mr. Announcer Guy, we’re bored.

AG: Why are you bored?

Boy #3: Our parents kicked us out of our houses. Now we have nothing to do.

AG: there’s always something to do with Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle!

<Camera zooms in and out on awe-struck kids’ faces>

Kids (simultaneously): Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle?!? What is it?

AG: It’s the latest and greatest craze coming to America from Europe. Now little boy <talking to boy #1> why were
you kicked out of your house?

Boy #1: My mom says I have to eat all my broccoli <says this while pulling the broccoli from his back pocket.
Other kids gasp and boo the broccoli> I hate broccoli.

AG: I can fix that! You see, your tongue’s taste buds make the broccoli taste bad. <AG then pulls boy #1’s tongue
out and pours some HA on it. Boy screams until his tounge dissolves.>Here, now eat the broccoli. <Boy #1 eats
some broccoli. Then his face lights up.>

Boy #1: I camph hafe ha had vocco! <other kids ooo and awe. AG moves on to the next girl in line.>

Girl #1: My mom says I can’t come back into the house until I bury my cat. <She pulls out the dead cat’s
disemboweled body and decapitated head> She says that since I killed it, I have to bury it.

AG: That’s not fair now is it? However, we don’t need to bury it.

Kids (simultaneously): oh. <Girl #1 holds out her dead cat as AG pours HA on it. HA dissolves cat and Gril #1’s
hands and forearms.

Girl #1: Wow! That’s neat! <She then smiles for the camera and faints from blood loss.>

Boy #2: I bet you can’t fix my problem with Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle!

AG: Just try me.

Boy #2: My mom says I can’t go back home until I learn to live without hating the world. I just can’t help it.
Everything I see makes me sick.

<AG looks Boy #2 in the eye>

Ag: Boy, there are 2 solutions to that problem. Life changing therapy or Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle.
Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle is way cheaper at the special low, low price of $49.95 (plus $49.95 shipping and
handling) per every 20 ounce bottle. <holds it up for the camera to see then quickly and neatly splashes some in
Boy #2’s eyes>

Boy #2: AAAAAEEEEGGGGHHH! I can’t see! My eyes have dissolved you little &^%$! I will *%&* your
#$%# body, you piece of %^&%&^&*^*&. Wait, I can’t see! Oh yeah! Rock on Hydrochloric Acid guy, I love
you!

AG: ew.

Girl #2: Hey, Mister! My parents say that I have to cover up this cut. <she holds up her index finger to show a
minuscule paper cut.>

AG: The reason your parents hate the cut is because it makes all your skin layers look uneven.

Gril #2: Of course!

AG: Luckily, I prepared this special baby. <Points to baht tup filled with HA>

Girl #2: I don’t get how that will wor--- <AG picks up girl and tosses herinto the tub>

AG: Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle in large Quantities can even out your whole body, and existence, to nothing.
Thereby leaving nothing of you to be left uneven with the rest of you.

<Boy #3 claps in awe, not realizing he’s the only one not fatally impaired or dead.>

AG: what’s your problem?

Boy #3: every time I do something wrong I get punished. I wish there was a way to just get all the punishments over
withat once.

AG: Well that’s no problem.

Boy#3: Hey, yeah. I never thought about it that way! <AG hands Boy #3 the HA and the boy runs off screen. A
few seconds later, you can hear a woman’s voice say, “Are you ready for dinner, Davey?” afterwards you hear a
quiet splash, followed by the woman’s insanely loud, howling screams. Then silence. Followed by a, “Ha! Ha! I
got you good, Mom! Mom??

AG (over Boy #3’s sobs): Now you too <pointing at camera> can have all the fun of Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle!
Don’t pay attention to the price, just call the number at the bottom of the screen. <the number 1-800-Kill-Me2 pups
up at the bottom of the screen. Along with $49.95 plus S&H> You don’t have to be that stupid 18 or older rule! All
you kids have to do is call and say the highest number you know, below infinity please, COD and your address.
That’s it! Once your Hydrochloric Acid in a bottle gets to your house, your parents will have no choice but to pay!
Order now and we will send you a free liability waiver, and a fun with assassinations, executions, slaughter, science
experiments, homicide, suicide, genocide kit so call now!

<Screen fades to black and then the number and price come up again. This takes up about a 1/4 th of the screen; the
rest is filled with tiny, indistinguishable words. The only ones some people could pick out were: death, not
responsible, not liable, never use and suckers.>
Truth

Claudean Revada

Shall I compare thee to you before

Thou art not happy but you still pretend

You shut them out and won’t open the door

Waiting for the day when it all will end

You would let them walk all over you

You’d listen when they said all those mean things

Didn’t do crap when they made you feel blue

They didn’t realize all the pain it brings

Can’t get rid of the voices in your head

Never good enough that is what they say

Why can’t you forget everything he said

But now every day is a rainy day

We are all human and, we are all strange

Claudean Revada you don’t have to change

I Don’t Understand

Erin Turnley

I don’t understand how love works. One day, you wake up and there they are. Waiting for you to come to
them. He waits by the class door for you before you go into the room. He meets you on the way out so you can
have just a few minutes alone with him.

On days off, he check up on you by phone. Sometimes only to say hi, or I miss you. Just the thought of
him warms your hear. Life is wonderful with him, but for me, my love has ended.

I would hold and hold and hold him. Not wanting to let him go. Not wanting him to leave me. And then
he got better. Just a big, but enough. We had been dying for such a long time that we forgot. We forgot he needed
special care. Forgot that he could no longer keep up with his life that he had before.

We were just going on a walk around his house like we would do every other day. Holding hands, smiling
at each other, enjoying the others company. And then he collapsed beside me.

I called his parents, his doctor, the police, but it was too late. His heart had stopped beating. His brain shut
down. His blood stopped flowing. I was the last one he saw, and for that, I was happy.

Rainy Days

Sara Campbell

There once was a woman from Spain

Who really hated the rain.

She moved and she travelled,

But still slowly unraveled,

For the sun also drove her insane.

Weapons of Mass Inflation

Jeremy Wright

Send our troops overseas to stop a threat,

But you haven’t found that you’re looking for just yet.

Innocent lives have been wasted

And death is all you’ve tasted.

Looking for weapons of mass destruction,

Bull all you’ve caused is mass inflation.

Killing people to save your name,

You’re hoping to go down in the hall of fame.

But your fate will be the same

And now you’re losing this political game.

Told that they are fighting for a reason

And if they don’t, its treason.

Trying to hide your political blunder,

Meanwhile this whole nation is going under.

Killing people to save your name,

You’re hoping to go down in fame.

But your fate will be the same

And now you’re losing this political game.

My Pen is Power

Jerome T. Naea

How can I be myself in a world that’s so different from me?

I’m feelin jealousy but the world is jealous of me

I need peace so I let the ink bleed through the tree

I’m destined to be something great so now he’s targeted me

Aimin straight but too late he knows the poet is Tee

With righteous armor walkin with the father rollin wit me

I got the styx of light on my right

On the left is the rest I switch it over when the pen needs to fight

When my life is like . . . I do the magic

Rehearse the verse step up to the mic and grab it

So ya’ll can have it but mos of you won’t understand it

Cuz Hip-Hop has changed the radio left it stranded

Stories have been abandoned and I can see thru it

No more leamin in music so I’m careful how I choose it

And it’s disturbin to see how they all use it

So I keep writin tryin not to lose it.

Photon Story

Courtney Lane

You know we have been watching you people scratch your heads over us for quite some time, and let me
tell you, we make perfect sense. If you need to be scratching your heads over something let it be yourselves,
because you truly are the strange ones. Who are we, you ask? Photons, of course... bet you didn’t see that one
coming. Now you’re probably thinking: “oh those silly photons are always confusing us with their wave particle
duality!” Now, I have a question for you: why can’t we just be “Wavicles”? We are perfectly logical, I would
explain but I just don’t think you can understand… oh, you think you can… okay then, let’s start from the
beginning.

From the beginning of time there has been light. Some say it was the day God spoke the words: “Let there
be Light” and BAM, we came into existence, but let’s be real here.

So here we are, just killing time being our photnyselves, brightening your world every day, watching you
people slowly gain some intelligence and beginning to question EVERYTHING around you. Eventually, as it was
bound to, your questions turned to us.

Everything started to get strange to you guys the day you noticed that by shining a light on a piece of metal
electrons came off, but they would only come off if the light of a certain frequency was shined on the metal. Now
you folks were like: “whoa! This doesn’t work if light is a wave,” but that Einstein guy said, “hey, waht if light
came in units, like quanta?” You named this occurrence the photoelectric effect. We call it being a photon.

Wanting to understand us better, ya’ll decided to shoot us, one by one, at these two slits. People apparently
like to call this the double slit experiment. When we were shot at the slits we did this cool trick where we interfere
like waves would, seemingly going through both holes at once. You freaked out over that one because if we wre
supposed to be particle-like, you know coming in quanta and all, how were we going through both holes
simultaneously? To figure this out you put some particle detectors next to each slit to figure out which hole, or if it
was really both holes the photons went through. After setting up the detectors though we only passed through one
hole or the other, like a particle would have.

By that point you weren’t our biggest fans, just because you didn’t really understand us. Since then, you
people have spent years trying to figure us out, not really getting us at all. To understand us, all you would have to
do is ask. It’s simple, you see…photons get bad performance anxiety and get very nervous when we’re being
watched. All that pressure to act like a wave, go through both holes at once, just kills us. With that burden from
pressure and our nerves just one big tangled mess, it’s all we can do to make it through one hole, let alone tow at the
same time.

You have all been scratching your heads and thinking we do it just to spite you, please it is not all about
you people, it’s as simple as we just don’t perform well under stress, which causes you more confusion, putting
more pressure on us, which makes it harder to do our cool wave trick, making you more confused and it all just
creates never-ending cycle. Therefore, as you can so clearly see now, we are entirely “Wavicles,: no doubt or
confusion about it. Did that help you understand us better…? No? Told you that people wouldn’t get it.