Category: Poetry

Ekphrasis (The Portrait)

by Parallax-OnlinePoetryLeave a Comment on Ekphrasis (The Portrait)

Visual art by Sana Liu

The portrait is done. I eat
A sandwich, down a coffee,
Break my fast.

Halfway through the third croissant,
The girl in the painting –
She’s a striking girl, with wry lips
And gray eyes –
Suddenly parts her lips
And speaks.

I don’t remember my childhood,
She murmurs. I have lanky arms
And a moony face and all I do

All day long is sit in an oil painting
And grimace at this paltry flower.
I must’ve lost my memories
After someone pushed me
Down a gorge.

Did you fish me out?
To which I reply,

No. I down another coffee,
Grab my paintbrush,
Blot her lips.

She faces the sky now,
A wayward diverge,
The long and unbroken dirge.

 

 

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Apocalypse

by Parallax-OnlinePoetryLeave a Comment on Apocalypse
Visual art by Jahaira Anaya 
There is an earthquake
in her chest
every time she exhales and you can feel it
ruining you.
You are slowly
falling apart
the gale force wind of each of her breaths
widening cracks in your skull
behind your ears
And every time you
hear her voice
the aching in your chest
can’t mean anything but
your imminent demise
and no one ever said it would hurt so much.
But these are
end times
and all the rules are changing
the beat of your heart is a
	time	bomb and nothing
is making
contact
clutching fingers
	and searching lips
and there is no more
air in your lungs
or maybe we’re running out of oxygen.
She digs her
	fingers into your hips as if
she’s gonna tear you
in
two
and you could almost believe it
so maybe the thing to do
is
	curl your fingers
around the
		curve of her
	jaw
and hold on
	until the	tremors
			stop.
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D Minus 39

by Parallax-OnlinePoetryLeave a Comment on D Minus 39

Visual Art by Austin Starr King

[box]
Dante Yardas is student at Idyllwild Arts Academy. His poem was selected as a winner in the Parallax-Online Apocalypse writing contest.[/box]

— Dad?
— Yeah, buddy?
— How many stars are there?
— Eight hundred thirty-two.
— That’s a lot of stars.
— The people at the star factory put them there.
— The star factory?
— Remember how there’s the food factory, and the clothes factory, and the water factory, well, there’s also a star factory.
— How do they make them so bright?
— Just like how they make fireworks.

— Dad?
— Yeah, buddy?
— What makes the grass green?
— Pixie dust. Magical pixies sprinkle shiny dust on the grass to make it green.
— How come I haven’t seen them before?
— They always do it in the nighttime, when everyone’s sleeping.
— Well then, why is the grass so brown then?
— They’re on vacation.

— Dad?
— Yeah?
— How come we always eat food out of cans?
— Because the best kind of food comes out of cans.
— How come we used to eat food from the market, but now we don’t?
— Because the market closed down.
— How come we didn’t eat food that came out of cans before the market closed down, but now we do?
— …
— How come we aren’t magical?
— We are magical. We are very, very magical.

— Dad?
— Yeah?
— Why don’t you work any more?
— I don’t need to.
— Were you fired?
— No, the boss decided to shut the whole thing down.
— I don’t understand.
— You don’t need to understand, it’s adult things.
— Well, then why don’t you work any more?
— Because I wanted to spend more time with you.

— Dad?
— Yeah?
— Where’s Mom?
— She left. She couldn’t take it anymore.
— Where did she go?
— We don’t know.
— Why don’t we know?
— Because she hasn’t contacted us since she left.
— Will we ever see her again?
— Yes.

— Dad?
— What?
— What’s the day today?
— D minus 39.
— D minus 39? That’s as old as you are!
— Tomorrow it will be D minus 38.
— And the next day it will be D minus 37, and then D minus 36, and then D minus 35…
— Yes.
— What does the D stand for again?
— It stands for days.
— But days don’t go backwards. They go forwards!
— It depends on how you look at it.

— Dad?
— Now what?
— How many stars are there?
— I just told you. Eight hundred forty-two.
— You said there were eight hundred thirty-two. Where do they come from? They don’t come from the star factory, do they?
— Who knows.
— Have you been lying to me the whole time?
— Not the whole time.

— Dad?
— Yeah, buddy?
— Will I ever become a star?
— Soon. Very soon.

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He Who is Birthed from Suicide’s Loins

by Parallax-OnlineFiction / Poetry / ProseLeave a Comment on He Who is Birthed from Suicide’s Loins

 Visual art by Yulia Kuan

VIGNETTE ONE

 

Dear Mom and Dad,

Please pardon the smudges, as writing this is making me tremble.  In a few hours from now, you will walk into the house like always.  “Honey”- you will call- “Darling we’re home.”  Without my response, you will tip-toe around the house, assuming I’m already asleep.  However, No-Doz has put me in an eternal slumber.  I know this news will bring you great misfortune.  Please recognize that this is not your fault, but his.  You have always been the happiness in my life.  Let my ashes swim with the dolphins.

Love Eternally,

J

 

THE PILLS

She looks at us with her lusty eyes.  Lightning tears make war with us, melting us into her.  Slowly, we become her, one by one.  As we individually make our way down her larynx, we are greeted by the residues of her dinner.  And like sugar cubes, we dissolve into her hot lava blood stream.  We float through her, changing her, polluting her.  We graffiti our chemical identities in her brain.  In her, we exceed maximum occupancy of “one every three hours”.  Our colony over-populates her adolescent form.  Slowly, we kill her.

 

No-Doz

Mom’s overdose

Hospitalized

Pumped clean

Saved from her ghost

The hospital- where she met my dad

Alchohol- induced psycophrenic

Tragic

Iliad

Dad’s disease made him call himself Jehova

Mom and Dad fuck

Backseat

Toyota

Positive test

Deciding what’s best

Mother torn

Adoption, abortion, life

Baby me born

VIGNETTE TWO

 

Please refrain from judging my following words, as exposing my soul to a stranger comes with great reluctance.  I pray your promises of confidentiality are legitimate, as only the night sky knows my secrets.  I am writing this in the solace of my four-walled bedroom. I would have no need to write this if not for he, the cause of my recent metamorphosis from lover to single mother.  Looking out my window, I can see the leaves are turning that venom piss color, not unlike the hue of his booze.

Seasons change with love’s rolling tides.

And within my soul, a lost identity hides.

Unwillingly Yours,

J

 

MARAJUANA

We are the shit that turns fathers into criminals.  We tempt the youth generation with our promises of social acceptance and popularity.  We produce burnouts, high school drop-outs, addicts, abusers.  We produce users.  We live in their lung lobes and modify their brains.  We are the writers of tragedy and the murderers of identity.  We bomb their brains with false imagery.  We develop synthetic serenity and plastic euphoria.  Encripting dream-like visions.  Phantasmagoria.

Dad chooses drugs.

The real one he loves.

Paper wrapped green.

Crumbled love dream.

Scream.

Dark.

Moon beam.

 

VIGNETTE THREE

 

Every day, I disappear deeper into my bed of petunias and daffodils.  My tattered comforter provides no comfort at all, as these feelings of inadequacy are becoming me.  These feelings are engulfing me.  Perhaps even killing me.  My caccoon is inhibiting my true-nature as a butterfly. This sorrowed bedroom of lavender and gold suppresses my identity with the passing days.  My son’s eyes are searching for his inadequate mother trapped in hybernation.  And my little boy fears that he’s the cause of my tears.

Unwillingly Yours,

J

PROZAC

We inhabit the bodies of mental hospital patients and housewives.  We create mannequins out of men and fabricated females.  We are the craze of the crazy.  We are guilty murderers with innocent labels.

Tin-foil wrapped wishes

Hershey’s Kisses

Codependent candy dishes

It’s daddy she misses

Diamond tears

I fear those diamond tears

 

VIGNETTE FOUR

 

     Perfect specimen

Absent father, bound with aggression

Bed-trapped mother, lost in depression

Shit births obsession

Compulsion

Disorder

Whorish hands

OCD demands

Tapping

Brain trapping

Checking the lock on the door

“Go do God a favor”

“Die”

“Gay whore”

Peace no more

Afraid of loss

Tap the possession

Anxious obsession leads to depression

Meditation versus medication

Prozac

Remeron

Abilify

Chemical shit gets me by

 

 

 

Now, I’m becoming what’s prescribed to me.  Truth be told, the apple doesn’t fall far from the family tree.

 

 

 

 

 

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Roll Your Tongue Back

by Rebecca CoxPoetryLeave a Comment on Roll Your Tongue Back

Visual art by Samara Liu.

Tuck tongue in cheek and knot it
now to please. Apple Bitten, hey there
anesthetize me tease, head knocked against
the bed post, now make notches with your teeth,
opening up a burning throat, coated in a candy
sheen. My tongue a rolling rambling
tambourine, let the noise making muscle,
hammer against your bones, mandible beaten bolus
vibrating brass piano strings. Sigh and
let your flesh fly, roll it out back against
your slick dentines. I wanna feel your lip slip back
feel my fingers break, hear your saliva smack,
go ask karma how difficult it is
to crack me in half,
and push humility down my throat,
where my bile floats and you
can smell my shoe soles burning.
Turning into tallow in the jaundicing streets,
slick and melting sallow to adhere
faster than horse glue can coagulate,
and appease the need of adhesive
youths yearning, now wait it's my mouths turn to kiss
the asphalt and melt tomato red. Gyrate your
buds back, chew the cow cud spit
and smack it in your jaw, down till it's ground fine.
Daddy says he likes that. Sweet drag,
little lovers layered thick with vasoline,
she'll swallow all your stomach's nubile
grease. Here I am, Apple Bitten lookin smitten,
how's your new cheap thrill, nose holes drilled quick
to the leak out your dribble spill. What's happenin, did your
tongue slide slack, break your taste bud sack?
I wanna see you roll your tongue back.
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Where Violet Dies, Poisoned by Her Own Self-Hatred

by Isaac DwyerPoetryLeave a Comment on Where Violet Dies, Poisoned by Her Own Self-Hatred
Visual art by Lydia Claussen
Emerald dress drapes enviously on perfect skin,
		tulip petals budding from her laced cuffs,
heavy make-up on a waxed face,  head  low—
Her locket turns on chain-link thread, frame & glass
		brittle and black by the smokestack’s exhaust.
	She never wants to see the sepia photo of the deceased, last
chances to see yellowed façades—
		lips absent—platinum sunrises
	through scratched skylights embroider arachnids
into corneas. Spiders trace steps on linen—whispers
		from the thumps of the flowers on floorboards.
	I tie my fibrous tendons through the grommets of her dress—
held together by thumbprints traveling on grease trails:
		crystalline satin folds ripple, and I send
	stalactites falling through her porous, tender scalp.
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The Thoughts of the Trees

by Parallax-OnlinePoetryLeave a Comment on The Thoughts of the Trees

Visual art by Karina Li

The sound of grass is hard to hear,
The hare may miss its whispers,
Though the hare walks away with glee and pride, the grass stands still.

The thoughts of trees are heard to read,
The hare may miss it’s knowledge,
Though the hare walks away aloof, the tree sways with nothing.

The whole forest knows the hare,
For which its opinion’s heard,
Though the grass and the trees may have more needs and more thought,
Many things fly above them.

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I Hope You Have Thought of Me

by Kalinah WhitePoetryLeave a Comment on I Hope You Have Thought of Me

Visual Art by Isaak Brown

Espero que me hayas querido a mí
Como yo te quiero a ti
Pero la vida no es normal
No es simple
No es justa
Así que solamente espero que hayas pensado en mí
Es la única cosa que puedo hacer
Esperar
Esperar y soñar

Dudo que hayas pensado en mí
Porque yo no soy para ti
Soy para el aire, el agua, y la tierra
Soy para el mundo
Pero no para ti
Así que dudo que hayas pensado en mí

Pero con todo que lo te he dicho a ti
Las malas palabras
Los insultos
Y más
Espero que no hayas cambiado por mí
Quédate cómo quieres
Quédate cómo eres
Y cuando estás listo y seguro
Espero que hayas pensado en mí
Como yo he pensado en ti

Yo he pensado en ti
Yo he pensado en tu corazón
Y como late
Yo he pensado en tu alma
Y como canta en mis orejas
Pero no me miento
Yo he pensado en una persona más
Mi

Si tú dices que usted no eres para mí
Te oigo claramente
Sin gritar o fusilar
Te dejare
Solo, sin nadie
Pero de verte así
Me molestare
Así que
Espero que hayas pensado en mí
Como yo he pensado en ti

I often think in lonely moments
Of what could have been
I ask myself
If you thought of me
As I think of you
But one can merely dream
This small glimmer of hope

I doubt your mind has wondered
On any thought of me
I gave myself to another
I gave myself to all
All except for you, who I had not discovered

I have spent most waking moments
Deciding how you exist
How it is that God crafted such beauty
And now what must be decided
Is my own fate

So think of me
As I think of you

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This You Have Learned

by Becky HirschPoetryLeave a Comment on This You Have Learned

Visual art by Esther Chung.

This you have learned:
In some cultures they spear roasted pig guts on a stick;
They grip hard with both hands.
In the end times scenario that plays out in your head, you pray to be one of the saved.

This you have learned:
You have lost control.
In the end times scenario that plays out in your head, you pray to be one of the saved.
We have only been awake a little while but already begging gets us nowhere.

You have lost control.
In some ways there is nothing left that we can teach you.
We have only been awake a little while but already begging gets us nowhere.
In the night you clutch hymns to your heart like cluttering insects.

In some ways there is nothing left that we can teach you.
Where you go on vacations is not where you will go to die.
In the night you clutch hymns to your heart like cluttering insects.
In some ways there is nothing left but what we can teach you about yourself.

Where you go on vacations is not where you will go to die.
They grip hard –both hands!
In some ways there is nothing left but what we can teach you about yourself.
This you have learned.

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You Are Everything

by Dante YardasPoetryLeave a Comment on You Are Everything
Visual art by Vita Wang
You are everything,
the sky,
the trees,
the earth,
they’re all a part of you, and you are a part of them.
You are the pigeon,
soaring through the sky,
and landing on the telephone wire.
You are the door to the house across the street,
slightly open, not completely closed
as if it couldn’t decide.
You are the pinecone
that just fell off the branch.
It collides with the ground with a thump.
You are the glass bottle,
shattered on the pavement,
like a million broken secrets
that will never be told.
You are the child,
sitting on the roof, lost in thought,
pretending to be something you aren’t.
You shouldn’t be pretending. You should be studying.
You have a math test tomorrow.
You must be crazy, sitting on the roof,
wasting your time.
You don’t want to flunk the test again.
What are you doing on the roof, anyway?
It’s dangerous to sit on the roof. If you fell off,
you could really hurt yourself.
You return to your bedroom window.
Somewhere, across the street, you hear a door slam.
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