Going and coming, beckoning, signalling, so the light and shadow which now made the wall grey, now the bananas bright yellow, now made the Strand grey, now made the omnibuses bright yellow, seemed to Septimus Warren Smith lying on the sofa in the sitting-room; watching the watery gold glow and fade with the astonishing sensibility of some live creature on the roses, on the wall-paper. Outside the trees dragged their leaves like nets through the depths of the air; the sound of water was in the room and through the waves came the voices of birds singing. Every power poured its treasures on his head, and his hand lay there on the back of the sofa, as he had seen his hand lie when he was bathing, floating, on the top of the waves, while far away on shore he heard dogs barking and barking far away. Fear no more, says the heart in the body; fear no more. This very real picture of Septimus' internal reality is imaginative. It is the placement of this imagination into the poetic form of free verse which illuminates the fact that Septimus is not insane at all. He is, instead, the accurate reflection of how twentieth century men and women are beginning to reach inside themselves for an internal interpretation of their rational world. The passion for form which is central to Septimus' development as a character is intended to outline the fact that human imagination exists in the mind as an inner reality that is actual to the individual. Imagination is capable of breaking completely outside of external reality. Septimus' desire to order his environment is proven just prior to his suicide. His search for order and form has gone on since he started writing down his insane thoughts. Once he realizes that he is in Bradshaw's power, he asks Rezia to bring him the drawings and writings which have been recorded by himself and Rezia as sort of a record of his insanity (or of his inner vision). This record is made up of Diagrams, designs, little men and women brandishing sticks for arms, with wings-were they?-on their backs; circles traced round shillings and sixpences-the suns and stars; zigzagging precipices with mountaineers ascending roped together, exactly like knives and forks; sea pieces with little faces laughing out of what might appear to be waves; the map of the world. He wants to bring him his "map of the world" so that he can burn it. Septimus was previously tied together with the mountaineers who were ascending the precipice and now he realizes that his form of reality is not acceptable to the rationality of the times so he decides to burn the evidence of his reality's existence. He then ends his life by flinging himself from a large Bloomsbury-lodging house window onto the rusty spikes below. Rezia gathers up the papers that he had intended to burn and ties them together for safekeeping with a silk ribbon because, she thought, some of them were beautiful. Beauty! A quality which exalts the senses and gives pleasure to the mind. Virginia Woolf s message is that inner reality, in the form of poetry, has a place in the novel genre. The message demands an evaluation of the purpose of art and literature in relation to life and sensibility. She is saying that imagination is humanity; imagination is the hope of mankind. But it must dwell within forms which reflect not only the external reality of the physical world but also within forms which reflect the internal reality of the individual. Septimus' self-inflicted death is a warning to the chief prophets of art and literature in the twentieth century. It is a warning that the time to develop new and innovative forms of literature is long overdue. Her warning heralds a new, more relevant sense of proportion and form. It also presupposes that if the opportunity to carve these forms out of the imagination is passed over, then the death of art and literature will result and also will be a causal factor in the death of human imagination in its most beautiful dimension, the dimension of inner realty. Old Weber County Court House TRIOLET by Maryonne Wilson A purple powder puff pillows the sky On its stem. It shrinks in my hand. The lilac sipped soil, pulled up a stem sigh. A purple powder puff pillows the sky. But when I touched, it lost breath by A faint and crumpled, could not stand. A purple powder puff pillows the sky On its stem. It shrinks in my hand. ON BECOMING ALONE by Frank Cook At three AM the stars begin to change and rearrange themselves into a pattern that caught me thinking how little one knew about the other. And the mind that saw me standing there was weeping because I understood the company that people keep before the night meets morning, and stars alone reflect upon the earth. 12 The Aardvark Review Volume 2, Number 1 MORNING by Robert J. Arway El Greco's mares'-tails when they sweep the sky Along the world's rim, smoke-like to the blue, Tear at my love-filled heart that wanders forth In search of space to stretch its arms and cry. For fresh, my heart from Your encounter, weeps, Still bearing bright the memory of You Sunlit white almond blossoms, blue square slates, White pebbles, all alit as reason sleeps. Then suddenly the barrel-chested men, Recovering from last night's alcohol And newly risen from their wives, reach round With tanned, blond arms to their machines again. by Robert G. Wright You are: A diamond in an open field, A white cloud, kissing mountaintops, Intelligence enshrined in frizzy hair, A forest of laughter, Confused but knowing, A heroine to kittens, Sensitive to the movement of minds, Physically perfect (give or take a flaw), My mind's imagined lover, Soft on flowered sheets, A sunrise through lace windows, illuminated blonde, Midnight eyes reflecting clear from street lights, Elegance in levis, The artist's inspiration, Sweet wine to passion's lips. You are not: Mine. HER SMILE by Mary Ann Suznovich Did you hear it? There There it goes again. It tinkled like a glass wind chime. If you didn't hear it, perhaps you saw it? Surely you saw it It was so bright, so clear. It was like watching a sunrise. Watch! Listen! Gaze at her eyes. Hear them tinkle? Watch her smile. See how it lights up the days. A DAY IN THE DEATH OF A BLEEDING HEART by Penelope Armstrong She. 2300-0100: Sitting before television, snacking on potato chips, resting. Strains of "Dixie" wound ribbons through her head as she gave her mind over to the television. The scene was a familiar one, a Civil War battlefield with small blue and gray markers moving in and around and down. Splashes of red would fill the screen in an instant and faceless figures would writhe in the mud. And still the pipes were piping, as if to evoke prickled sighs from the viewer. She was impatient for the movie to end while wondering what next she would indulge in to keep her occupied. She wondered how long it had been since she had been able to ease quickly into a deep sleep. Cannons popped, stricken eyes flashed and burned and personalities panned into plastic-like figures. She yawned and reached for a potato chip. She must try to sleep. The morning shift at the hospital would begin in a few short hours. Hospital. More an institution for the chronically doomed. Remembering Patient No. 1. 0800-1000: Ate breakfast c some assistance, bathed and dressed, sitting in wheelchair in hall, resting. Margaret maneuvers her chair for unnamed distances, stopping to retreive a bobby pin she had lost moments and miles ago, or to raise a quaking hand to a passerby for a lift on her long journey. Sometimes I wheel her to the end of the hall and she turns right around to inch her way back. I don't even wonder anymore where she wants to be. I wonder if she wants to be. Patient No. 2. 0700-1000: Most of breakfast consumed, bed bath rendered, hair combed, bed raised to approx. 45 degree angle, resting in bed. My God! Why does that old woman scream so? Without any warning at all, she bolts upright, raking trembling fingers through her thin, cotton-like hair and curses the wall in front of her, or the air around her or some unseen intruder hovering overhead. Her eyes sharp and wide, her thin neck taut and knife-edged, she works her dry mouth vigorously as if to suckle on the air. Sometimes she calms herself enough to lie down again, in preparation for the next untimed, unwanted explosion. Two minutes might lapse, or an hour or her head might not even touch the pillow before the train roars through her spine and crashes in her brain again. In the beginning I would take her hand and envelop it in "tender loving care" and ask "Annie, what's wrong?" She would not hear me, not even see me. The others would watch in conspiracy, telling themselves with knowing glances that I would soon learn to ignore Annie as she ignored the world. They would smile when I drew back suddenly as Annie shot up again shrieking, "JESUS CHRIST!" Patient No. 3. 0700-0900: Ate breakfast s assistance, bathed, dressed and shaved, hair washed and combed, restrained to t.v. room chair c posey belt, resting. After all this time, he is still intent on mastering the secret of the posey belt. He fingers the lock, the knots around the chair arm and his shirt buttons. This morning we caught him halfway down the hall dragging himself in the chair, picking it up and slamming it down as he progressed. His shirt was lying in the t.v. room. The boys took him back, scolding him for being bad. Of all the Volume 2, Number 1 The Aardvark Review 13