Objet d'Art Spring 2014
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Transcript of Objet d'Art Spring 2014
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Objet d’Art Magazine of literature, arts, and culture
Spring 2014
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Staff Editor-in-Chief
Matt omasello
EditorsLisa Mathews
Justin RodriguezLucero Calleo
Sabrina RestivoNick Abraham
Table of Contents
Editor’s Note
Our small staff at Objet d’Art worked dilligently to assemble amagazine out o some o the best creative writing and artwork theRutgers community has to offer. A big thanks to Lucero, Justin,Lisa, Sabrina, and Nick or all o the time and effort they put intomaking this, and to all the students who let us publish their workhere. Te submissions we received were poignant and thought-provoking, and it’s an honor to be able to include them in ourmagazine. And thank you or reading Objet. Maybe you’ll finda poem or a picture in here that you really like and that you’llremember or a long time. Even i you don’t, just by picking it upyou’ve helped us keep the arts alive here on campus.
Matt omasello
“Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, andrecite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.”– Lemony Snicket
Layout EditorLucero Calleo
Cover Image
Eriko akatsukiJonathan LeeVictor WongLucero Calleo
Kleptok by Anonymous 4
Waiting or You by Jonathan Lee 5
Dots by Brandon Robert 6
PDA (“riend” watching) by Maxwell Williams 8
Tree Cups o ea by Lucero Calleo 9
Untitled by Victor Wong 10
Little by Brandon Robert 11
Lovely une by Alex Cruz 13
Fantasy Portrait Color Sketch by Lucero Calleo 13
Color in a Bag by Anonymous 14
Confidence by Brandon Robert 14
Untitled by Eriko akatsuki 15
Emma Watson by Brandon Robert 16
Aqua Vitae by Rahul D. Ghosal 18
Untitled by Eriko akatsuki 18
Styrooam Cups by Anonymous 19
Cherry Blossom Petals by Lucero Calleo 20
A Blue Magpie’s Song by Rahul D. Ghosal 21
Untitled by Victor Wong 22
Untitled by Eriko akatsuki 24
Te Dance o Lights by Lucero Calleo 25
Simple Math by Matt omasello 26
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Kleptok Tere’s an industrial meadow in Kleptok where men with castles on their backspass around a monkey’s jaw and imbibe a lot o beerthe courtesan comes to summonthe last remaining manso the court can watch his castle meltinto clouds o mustard gasthe seeds burn in the soilgrowing clever tongues o flamethat wrap around our anklesand shout everybody’s nameand i I saw that you were choking I would hesitate to ask i you thought that I was strong enough to wrap your head in bits o
ice and steelso that the blood in your eye sockets would stop flowing down youracebut i I lack the muscle mass, just keep bleeding anyway
Anonymous
Waiting for You
Jonathan Lee
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DOTSOur proximity is like two pinpoints trying to reach the sametrajectory o a passionLike stardust sprinkles into my sleepless nights without you,
Or the way the wind tugs on my hair pulling each strandnorthboundSaying that you’re up there and I’ll be there soon,
Or the sun giggling its way down to me with a war
m massage to myheartKneading through the doubts,
Or whispers in the meadows that listen to my mind as the wheatsways trance-likeAnd I listen or the answers.
Sometimes my stomach is like a harness attached to a bungee cordO my intestinesAnd as I jump,It wraps around my neck binding the reality o my breath.
Look, I can sit here and write every thought o you down on paper
But postcards are just too small, and so is paper.
When I describe visceral antasies o what we’d be doing right now,It’d be so different rom our small talk sincerities.
I’m like a butterfly that continues morphing into mysel because as I grow,I want to grow stronger with you.I will flutter my golden wings,But they’re nothing without your breeze guiding me through,Helping me fly into your lie with all o my words.
I we both aren’t perect, then why do riends all tell us that we are?
I struggle with the day-to-day,Te routine o “I-wish-you-were-heres”Tat reverberate through my ballpoint pen each time I try to makesense.
Tere is a boy ar away who is sprawling you out onto papero solve the scramble o our utureAnd my poems can only do so much.
I can carve the wind like a sharpened blade on my motorcycle,Revv the engine, and leave a cloud o dust behind me,But we are on two different maps right now like two dotsreading, “YOU ARE HERE”
Te gps is struggling to guide us through our separate routesAnd each time the wind speaks to me as I ride,I call on him to carry my message out to you.
Tis poem is not finished,Yet then again, neither is our story embeded in it.I know someday I will be writing about a poem that we both willshare togetherIn the proximity o the same mapin the same plain.
Brandon Robert
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PDA (“friend” watching)Your mouths locked together--
Slurping…
sla
pping...probing...
(as I sit herewatching…)
Keep me locked out--invisiblewhile barely eet away
Maxwell Williams
Three Cups of Tea
Lucero Calleo
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Lovely artistic rendering o the atherrom Malcom in the Middle
Victor Wong
LittleYep, I got you right in the balls, remember? right in the sweet spot,Tat spot that reminded you that your little nugget o a brothertook karate,And that I knew how to make you sound like a pipsqueak as momWalked into the kitchen, surveyed the damage, and said,“You deserved it,” and then stepped over you to complete her lunchtelling you about her day,While you lied on the floor heaving like a steamboat engine without
the steam,Or a water filter that can only filter air afer the last drooping drop.Call it an awkward beginning, but let me tell you Greg,Tat I don’t laugh like a girl,Tat I love eating peanut and butter jelly sandwiches, the ones Imake you ALL the timeLike the one you dropped gently as you avalanced to the groundKicking and screaming as Oreo barked woofing down thatsandwichFilling her tiny belly.
But I do know that when you called me on the phone the other day,and said, “Remember when we used to play tag?”I could eel the red ree alling rom my nostils and know that even
though I tasted blood, I bled love,And even though I nosedived into the bed spring during that gameo indoor tag,I could taste your innocence,that you didn’t mean it as you teared up and mom tried stitching usback togetherLike a quilted mattress you told me to bounce on so high that one jump brought me back to the present,And I tasted understanding;
And it was sour at first like the war heads we challenged eachother to as the lime, lemon, and cherry mixtures multiplied and wecontinued double daring,
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Your ace scrunched up while I thought, “What a terrible idea thisis”And did we stop? O course not.And it was salty like the popcorn you sold at all our neighbors’doors or Boy Scouts with dad,I watched you sell them all within a week.It was sweet like the Gertrude Hawk chocolates I sold telling youhow I waited or all my girlriends to sync their periods togetherlike an iPod playlistso that on box would vanish.
Growing up, my social security card might as well have read,“Greg’s Little Brother.”Te attendance lists o all my teachers said Brandon in bold ink but the teachers still called me Greg.It’s ok, “I’m his little brother.”
I met God, and I believed in God,Because God was a clarinet player. He wears glasses with squaredrims, has a roaring laugh that makes mine sound like a whisper,resides in a small, Jersey town,and I want to be just like him.
When your little eight year old brother kicked you in the balls,It wasn’t to humiliate you, it was to let you know I was there.When you called me the other day, everything collided into arealizationTat love is all the flavors o good and bad, riend and oe,
And though our eight year gap was wide like the hole between mytwo ront teeth,When you called me on the phone the other day,you said,”Brandon, I really love you.”It’s ok, “I love you too, Greg.”
Brandon Robert
Lovely TuneMiles away . . . ar away.
A thousand miles away, there is a lovely tunebeneath the moonlight, it sings its beauty
And caught up in a tree, by the lovely tuneenchanted by the melody,
Tere’s a cute little bird, and it has taken the lovely tune into its beak but last night, it took flight into the skylines, ar away or those to hear
It flew and chirp away with great beauty
And the nights, And the skies became silent, and the world became stillthe lights went out, and the world got colder
But then one night, all o sudden, the lovely tune returned back to the skiesIt came rom above, rom the little bird that flew miles
and miles, the one that spread its wings to sing the lovely tune to my soulLittle bird, sign to me, sing to me endlessly, would you?
I would sing to you, endlessly.
Alex Cruz
Fantasy
PortraitColorSketch
LuceroCalleo
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Eriko akatsuki
Color in a BagA bag ull o colors reflecting your acereveals all the missiles your mother misledrom the back o the scenery, the dirt and the greenery hiding the battalion o plastic army menperectly camouflaged, with toothpick-sized javelinsaimed at the eyes o the second-hand manswimming in rainbow paintwith eyes the size o the room
that deflate with the breaths he takesand make the colors ade in and out.
Anonymous
CONFIDENCETe clouds hovered, stretched likecotton candy against a twilight canvas.
Te sun yawned nestling to bed.In an opening o the cotton was a light.Te star was lonely among the sky,Waking up and shining or nighttime.And as the sun continued to rest,Te little ball awoke stronger and confident.Te twinkle in the ocean blue, sparkled, while its neighborawakened: glowing too.
Brandon Robert
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EMMA W
ATSONI ound love when she entered the movie screen.She stole my heart the first time she spoke.From one small clip my heart meltedlike an ice cube sitting in sun-warmed iced tea.
ell me that I were to meet Emma Watson,And I might think you were transfixed.I don’t think I can handle such a lie,
For my body would shake like a jackhammerYou know, the one you hold or hours in construction.
I would angirl like a baby that wants the comort o a hug,Emma, I just need a hug rom you.
When I sit at home with nothing to do,I orget about writing,Tough I could write a poem, a short story, and a Novel all abouther.When I go online, I go to the search barBrowsing images and interviews o my true loveBut there is never enough time in the day Because like a water lily she floats on water and ripples my
heartbeats.
“You are a crackhead,” “She doesn’t know you,” “She’s a HollywoodStar,”My riends chronically complain to my ace,And yes she is a star, a star I’m wishing on each night.
I I got to meet Emma Watson,I want her to know that she’ll never be alone,Tat I want to spend every moment showing her I care,Tat I would buy her the entire galaxy and then tell her she is thequeen o my universe,
Tat I am quite alright with being Brandon Watson or the rest omy lie,Tat I know just as much about Wizardy and as Hermione Granger,Tat when I go to the movies and she kisses another guy,I know she’s just acting and practicing or me,Tat in the confines my private thoughts there’s a “StrangerGranger.”
Emma, your accent has a rhythm that uels my racing pulseLike a metronome clicking to a constant speed,Your acting is as captivating as the proposal I havewritten out and waiting five years.
Emma, you stunned a little boy who is now a grown man,And though riends doubt our love,Tough I wish I can grab my wandand cast my love in a spell that you already know,Emma my love, we will meet on our wedding day,And although our ceremony will be ar rom traditional, just or you, I will switch quidditch teamsBecause the best man, who is my boyriend, will just have to dealwiththe act that the seeker finally ound his snitch.
Brandon Robert
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Eriko akatsuki
Aqua VitaeApplauding raindropsTe murmur o the oceanBaptismal solace
Rahul D. Ghosal
Styrofoam CupsIn her house in the middle o the oceanI slither like an earthworm on the pavement, tearing up my flesheveryone so ar away yellow rivers or her bleeding gumspush on her loose teeth with my tongueI rinse and spit into a cupwhile she shovels guts off her sidewalk
Anonymous
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Cherry Blossom PetalsWhen people look at the cherry blossom petals blowin
g in thewind, they think it’s such a beautiul scene.
But many ail to realize that beore the petals came there, theywere once part o a beautiul flower, snuggled on the branch o abeautiul tree. Ten the wind snatched them away and tore themapart, seizing them rom the love and warmth o their homes. Teybecame separated, alone, tossed about by the urious wind.
Aferwards, when they reach the earth, they are only trampledby muddy boots, never to see the light o the sun again once thedirt closes in on them. Ten they just rot away and are never everremembered or the little bit o beauty they brought to the world.
But who knows. Maybe that brie moment o glory when they’reflying on the wind and fluttering through the sunbeams is worth anentire lie o heartbreak and despair.
Lucero Calleo
A Blue Magpie’s SongDedicated to K.C.
Majesty heralded by a name—Fanare accompanyingEvery phonetic breathTat composes its poetry;A syllable—an inchO ceaseless silk damask
Rolling off the tongue—Te embroidery refines one’s tastes,As the linguistic threads dissolveAnd the violet dye spillsUnto one’s buds,Into one’s veins,Depositing in the lefmostVentricle.
A sonorous afertasteO that deceptive cadence—SuspendedDrifingAnd never settling.
Aporia.
Rahul D. Ghosal
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Victor Wong
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The Dance of LightsYour love is unmistakableOur bond, now unbreakable.I know now who you are,my beautiul star,brighter than a thousand suns,but the only oneor me.
I reached or You, but blindness reigned,engulfing every screamdrying out my flesh‘til it turned to crust and steam,crumbling, vanishing as the wind blew by learning only how to die.
But You restore every piece o melike placing every lea back on a withered tree.It’s time at last or me to shine,morning star, celestial lie joining in the dance o lights.I am reborn, whole again
knowing now You are my riendknowing that I’ll never endbecause you live in me.
Lucero Calleo
(lef) Eriko akatsuki
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Simple Math
Ollie Pak was good at math. He couldn’t dance or cook
or hold a conversation, but he knew Conic sections like a second
language. He understood complicated mulit-variable integrals,
knew how to calculate the rotation o curves around all three axes,
and could write out an entire advanced aylor series in under a
minute.Te students in the General Pre-Calculus class he taught
didn’t try very hard. Tey were seniors who were more concerned
with organizing parties and coming up with a senior prank. Tey
didn’t know or care what a aylor series was. Tat subject would
never be reached in a Pre-Calc course, and Ollie couldn’t have
explained it to them anyway.
When Ollie was in grade school there had been a daily ritual
where the teacher would select a boy to stand in ront o the class to
give the morning salutation and lead everyone in singing Poland’s
national anthem. Te day Ollie was chosen he rose rom his seatand walked rigidly like a wind-up toy to the ront o the room. He
stood there ghostly white beore his audience, stammering and
unable to speak. Four agonizing minutes went by until the teacher
quietly asked him to sit down.
“Okay, so uhh…” Ollie shuffled back and orth in ront o
the whiteboard. He wrung his sweaty palms together. “So, when
we take the derivative o the velocity, the, uh, the… przyśpie…no, I
mean, the uh…przy…” Te words choked him like thick tar in his
throat. He couldn’t remember the English word. “Te…przy…uhh-
“
“Are you high?” called a student loudly rom the back, and
the rest o the class screeched with laughter. Ollie’s ace blanched.
“Te uhh…uhh…the acceleration!” he finally got out, but no one
heard him over the ringing o the final bell.
Ollie gripped his desk tightly as students brushed past,
pushing each other savagely. He was a little boy, humiliated again in
ront o the class. He stared at the ground and wished he was one o
the floor tiles.
He sensed movement in ront o him and looked up to
see our o his students knock his file rack and all his olders off
the desk. Ollie immediately dropped to the floor to pick them up,
trying to grab them out rom under the culprits’ eet. When he got
them all he got up and started to yell at the students, but the yell
was more o a squeak, and it was mostly in Polish, and the our
boys were already out the door and running down the hall beore
he could translate himsel to English. He slammed the olders down
on his desk with a rustrated grunt.
Ollie took a large gulp rom his cup o coffee and sat down.
He rearranged the olders on his desk. He had a long night o
grading ahead o him. He knew he could do his work with the
rest o the teachers in the lounge, but decided that he’d rather be
isolated alone than where other people could see him. He drank
more o his coffee.
He looked at the first student’s paper. It belonged to Maria
Komito. Maria was seven months pregnant and being raised by a
single mother with a minimum-wage job. Tere was no way she
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could economically support the child, but she had lashed out at
every counselor and teacher that had reached out to her, and now
they hated her as much as she hated them. Ollie finished the rest o
his coffee.
He wondered what Maria’s baby would look like when
it came out o her. She was always chewing gum in class so he
pictured it emerging rom the womb with a giant wad o Spearmint
in its mouth, just like its mother. oday he had watched her chew
three pieces in his class, sticking each one underneath her desk
when she finished them. He pictured Maria holding her screaming,
disgusting inant, plucking the chewed gum out o her own mouth
and shoving it into her child’s.
Ollie stared down at the bottom o his empty coffee mug. He
realized he’d been looking at it or a long time. He shook his head
as i rom a trance and moved on to the next paper, which belonged
to John Dumont. John Dumont owned a switchblade. Ollie had
overheard him telling other students about it almost every day, and
one time he had even seen it. It had been tucked in the pocket o his
sweatshirt, and Ollie had caught a glimpse o it as the student had
passed his desk one day. He suspected that John had been trying to
show him it was there.
John was there, in the room. Ollie blinked. John moved
closer. Ollie stood up abruptly rom his desk and John was gone.
He took a deep breath, suddenly eeling cold. He began to rub
his hands together vigorously, but he kept getting colder. He had
a ever o some kind. He breathed in again and the whole world
seemed to breathe with him. Every surace o the room seemed to
undulate toward him in one uniorm motion, as i in one breath.
Suddenly he was choking. He couldn’t exhale, as i the air was
trapped inside o him. He pounded on his chest until finally the
air dislodged itsel. His breathing returned to normal but the
classroom continued to undulate, pulsing back and orth like the
sea. A million different curves rushed toward him in waves, there a
cosine wave, ollowed by a quadratic, ollowed by ones he had never
seen or calculated beore, mathematical monoliths he had never
come close to dreaming o. He was ascinated.
He sat down at his desk, straightened his papers, and looked
up to see his entire Gen Pre-Calc class sitting in their seats in ront
o him, pulsing gently. Joyce texted passively, John ondled his knie
openly, Maria rubbed the top o her belly. Her stomach seemed
to be swelling, like a balloon being inflated. “What…” Ollie was
at a loss or words again. His class was here, the day hadn’t ended
yet. He rose again. Te students were changing. Te pigments
that made up their skin and clothes were simpliying, actoring
themselves down. Tey were cartoons now. Maria’s stomach had
grown to twice its size. She rested her head on it, using her own
bloated body as a pillow. Cartoon John had wild hair like a current
had been run through him. Denver William’s ace had become
elongated, making him look like a something between a horse and a
baboon. All around the room the students were changing. Some o
them became cross-hatched comic book characters, others turned
into shapeless lumps. Vanessa Buyers had merged with the steel
radiator her seat was next to. Tere was a sharp metallic taste in
Ollie’s mouth.
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Without warning the students began to scream. Tey
unhinged their jaws and tore apart the skin on their cheeks as they
all filled the room with noise so loud it could be seen and elt. Ollie
made to scream as well but no sound came out. Te ghouls’ cries
were so orceul that it pushed him backwards, as i he were being
buffeted by a howling wind. Ollie closed his eyes but the shrieks
shook his skull, making him see throbbing light on the backs o
his eyelids. Suddenly a tremendous ripping pierced the screeching
typhoon. Ollie opened his eyes and saw that Maria’s stomach had
burst. She looked down at the torn remains o her womb and began
to cackle like a hyena. From the bloody, pulpy mess rose an inant-
like demon. It had claws that were six inches long and eyeballs that
dangled rom their sockets. Its head was bulbous and deormed
on top o its small torso. It pulled itsel rom its wrecked mother
and started dragging itsel toward Ollie, hissing and gurgling.
With horror Ollie saw that its skin was made o tiny numbers, as
i written on paper but cut out and woven together. He tried to
back away rom it but elt his back hit the whiteboard. He turned
around and discovered that it was rippling like water. He screamed
and turned back to see that the baby had gotten closer. Tere was
nowhere else to go. He shrieked and covered his eyes as the demon
lunged at him.
Te fire alarm was screaming; a routine drill had been
scheduled or this time. One o the assistant principals was sent in
to check each room to make sure everyone had gotten out o the
building. When he ound Ollie Pak his body was splayed out on the
ground behind his desk. Te papers he had been grading lay in a
messy pile next to his empty coffee mug.
Te nurse came into the hospital room at 8 AM to bring
Ollie his breakast. She set the tray down on the table next to the
bed and looked at him nervously. He lay in a reclined position,
staring steadily at the ceiling. He didn’t move or look at her.
Ollie’s doctor entered the room. He peered over his glasses
at the man in the hospital bed. “Anything?” he asked.
“No,” the nurse said. She shook Ollie’s arm gently. “I don’t
think he’s moved all night.”
Te doctor was not an expert on drugs. He knew the three
tabs o LSD that Ollie had taken would be considered a lot, but he
doubted the students who had slipped it into his coffee had meant
to mentally damage him. Tey had probably meant it as a prank. He
also knew that LSD didn’t inflict brain damage, not the kind Ollie
was apparently exhibiting. He studied the lieless look on his ace.
“What do you think the problem is?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t know,” the doctor admitted. “On the outside he’s
fine. He’s just…catatonic.” He glanced at Ollie’s blank expression
again. “I he doesn’t eat anything by tonight then put in a tube.”
“Okay.” Te doctor lef the room. Te nurse adjusted the
bed sheets, then took a step back. Ollie continued to stare at the
ceiling. “Please let me know i you need anything,” she said, her
voice altering a little. Tere was no response. She lef the room and
quietly closed the door.
Matt omasello
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