Folio

Since 1999 Folio, Salt Lake Community College’s literary and visual art zine has drawn together SLCC’s emerging talents to have a platform for being heard. We provide the venue for writers and artists to showcase their best.

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"Nowhere" by Ryan Carter

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"Nothing" by Ryan Carter

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"Nobody" by Ryan Carter

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"Particle Beat" by Jesse Crawford

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"Astronauts in the Ocean" by Travis Cross

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"Landscapes" by Jesse Crawford

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Erin McGuire: Artists of Folio

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"Lady of the Trees" by Carl Heath

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New Stories of Earth

New Stories of Earth by Keaton Butler Flocks of flying birds soar in flux on a season’s closing cusp and I witness them remove themselves from the pond-water’s blue haven and slip upward to that which some call the heavens and others give offerings to, the greying teal head that will soon be putting on its wintercap until acrobatic perennials reclaim the ground from the snow. I have heard stories from Earth, about her abundance, her arid places and fountains, that she told me in solemn tears, or while cast in a brilliant light so that her willow-hair and shoulders glowed, so the wind helped to juggle her changes and rivers churn silt and carry fish through humble flows, catering to the shape of the rocks, and calling out the name of life.

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Leaves

Leaves by Ryan Falco Lying in the leaves staring at their branches all the world quiet but for rustling. Already, most of the leaves have fallen, creating a bed for me, starting to cover me, some of them catch the wind, brush across me, away from me. The bark, lain in folded curves, majestically begets lines and planes unparalleled. Now, rugged and dry and gray and worn, it smiles like an old beard. Trunk unfurled, underground, towards the sky, it splits and splits and splits and holding to its branches a few brown leaves remain a few red leaves remain a few orange leaves a few yellow leaves a few green leaves remain wisping in the wind while the cauliflower blue sky dims. First, came the blossoms then, the seeds and then, the leaves, all with the same origins all of them appearing quite sudden during the sun’s season of progression. Dormant and then, abrupt: Blossoms turn to seeds replaced by leaves which gather ‘til maturity until the season when the sun recedes. Their sway induces recollections, times when full breadth, sunlit, rays dropped through, moving with vibrance, glimmering, dazzling, lustrous, a pure blind shine shimmer for a glimpse and then, when, still vital, in full breadth, they were cold and blue and wept and were swept against currents ‘til, finally, all the world now wet, they were left silent. Inevitable only to fall, to fall, to fall, to fall, to create a bed for me to cover me to catch the wind to brush across and to drift away from me. A few brown leaves remain a few red leaves remain a few orange leaves a few yellow leaves a few green leaves remain wisping in the wind while the cauliflower blue sky dims. Soon, I am certain, I will be lying in the leaves staring at their branches, all the world will be quiet and sourced from the sun’s last passing gleen one leaf will remain golden green, waiting, inevitable, to fall, to fall, to fall, to succumb. With it I will drift away.

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"Autumn" by Grant Armantrout

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Thunder and Lightning

Thunder and Lightning by Keaton Butler Sometimes, poems come in pairs when I sit to write. And sometimes I fear the raucous storms or feel hopeful I will get drenched in them, soaked to the soul by whatever they might Insight. As the lines fall straight from dark clouds of my hair, but like the summer rains in heaven Light still sips from the bosom of my eyes and parts the ‘gloom’ to kiss these newborn stanzas, that are swooping glyphs of sweet black licorice.

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"Lady of the Thickets" by Carl Heath

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The Sunflower God

The Sunflower God by Michael Montoya The darkness, hanging from the necks of the sunflowers like nooses, floods the room. Somewhere where my sight once was, and still should be, is the air around my fingers. A kinetic energy weighs like static from them, getting lost in the room. Doorways of darkness; living rooms of straight, closed-coffin like absence. Somewhere far off, climbing down the walls, and reaching down my neck is stale, drawn out breaths. The wind infects the house re-instating thoughts like “Why is the back door always open.” The weight of a piercing shadow shifts, awakening the real hollowness of the house, and nothing mattered. Nothing except that never again can the center most point of my vision be filled comfortable, familiar blackness. The fear split my body in two, clawing open my ribcage; screaming into my suffocated lungs. Outside the gentle breeze lifted the hanged heads of the sunflowers, rhythmatically swaying in a mocking dance of mourning. Another far off part of the house was opened to the reverberating thunder that rang from wall to wall to rest on my pendulum heart. “Save us” said the sunflowers through the prison bar blinds. Their imprisoned bodies pivoted in the wind to fill their frail bodies with violent animation. Their leaves ripped, and seeds shattered from the windows where they pounded. The petals turned black, crushed beneath the water’s gravity. The water creased their vivacious faces into miraculous canvases of agony; crying the tears down the windows, insisting to be let in. “Save us, He is gone.” They twisted in their pain, breaking, tearing each other’s limbs, writhing in terror, trying to escape the thorns and twists of their fears. Begging a blackened, silent sky for theirs to return warmth into their crooked spines and lift them back into glorious life. “Save us.” They echo, but are only ripples in too deep, too far away water. It’s now however, that something entirely unsurprising occurs. It’s a moment that I built like an electric chandelier filled with ach thought, intrigue, or static dream that left me in a cold sweat and/or a hot mess of things hap-hazardly put together like the take home furniture you bought before the fight, but had to assemble after. But somewhere in the “coffee table’s” elongated life, at the most ideal worst time (like most things), it breaks. Sending her to the ground and you out the door. This chandelier, the one night stand one, is the breathing outline of a lonesome sunspot on a cloudy day. The crystals glisten a violent trepidation. All the times of forced manifestations in times of intense ego manipulation; the missing things that find themselves home, with no house keys. They all support this...the This in all of us. The anytime but now time. The must have-been-the-ghosts. The “this is a consummation of all your practicalities,” and all the times you stood alone in a dark room and stared wide, window wide, at the blur just at the edge of comprehension. The This is the nothing. The nothing that caught your dilated eyes as they stumbled down the nostalgic walls of your bedroom. The Nothing you approach and open wound feel inside your chest like a cavity with not remedy. The This waits. Gentle is its patience; it has to only wait. It knows. Knows that the Nothing, is everything.

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"Butterfly" by Aaron De La Rosa

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Defiance

Defiance by J Rojas A bud, held vice-tight by five vertebral worms, Releases a seed to the ground Combating the wrath of the supreme elemental mother Suffocated by a sheet: rough, gray and made of course materials The darkness encases Summer’s breath sweeps across the seed coat, Exposing a shortcoming within the snare Moisture seeps through the imperfection, nourishing the arid veneer With age the seed will blossom, ascending to the twinkle of the heavens, overcoming her keep.

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"A Love Sign" by Sandra Lacma