Embedded Files
On an empty grass field by Bryan Zhang
Like withered petals blooming after ashes settle,
Drunken soldiers sleep well past preambles
Of War and heavy losses; “Have some mercy”,
So said the corpse whose mouth was moving.
He died in the war though no bullet went into him,
But his sister daughter mother children and bloated
Balloons, they all mourn for his brothers siblings
Friends, and him. Though he may live in cities,
NoRoomIsLeftForHimInTheCrowdedWallsAndEmptyMorgues,
So he slowly drifts,
Closer to his brothers
So he slowly exits,
From the city which can’t see him
So he slowly vanishes,
Into his coffin made so long ago
So he meets himself where he’s supposed to be
In history books, and documents,
And newspapers, and tombstones
Though his mouth may be screaming,
Though his heart may be bleeding
Vincent Guy, Ceramic
The River by Bryan Zhang
Of gentle whispers pressed against my ear,
there’s none more pleasant than the flowing stream.
When winter pours dismay upon my dream;
the stream will flow, her voice I hold so dear,
her soothing song dissolving my one fear
like raindrops; seeping into every seam
of nightmares, only then can that soft gleam
of gentle susurrations glow so clear.
But now, the flowing river’s dried out;
exposing ugly yellow mud, dying
corral of droplets slowing and crying.
Decaying creek! How you so wish to shout!
but she’s too tired now. The stream lays, complying,
unmoving. And I watched as it died out.
What would be in your dreams? by Bryan Zhang
Like raindrops, our bodies slowly melt within the sand,
Shells, and the scent of blue ocean; or green or red or
Glowing bright purple, closer to the night than the sea.
Swept up by beachside blindness and dryness and
the past. But slowly, when tides rise and the moon takes
Center stage on the canvas above, bright cerulean
Eyes cover the purple background, waving through
The thin sheet of crystal blue which breathes in rhyme.
Quietly, we slumber.
Like tepid drizzles and slanted rain-
Burning by Bryan Zhang
Concrete walls with scratches and marks in ashy whites,
Tall charred suits forming barriers around the bright red furnace,
Grimy shoes trample all over old dirty fliers, staining
Scorched dreams from youths, now covered in grease and soot.
Memories of passions burning in an oil fire, efforts made
To salvage what remains, though not much remains in the wreckage.
Piano by Bryan Zhang
A piano was left in the abandoned classroom of a school,
People didn’t pay much attention to the classroom, anyway,
Except the few who had used this room to learn the way
That the notes would dance through the air, like fairies
That soothes and calms. But the fairies have left the room now.
All that’s left is a piano in the abandoned classroom of a school,
But maybe, if one of the few happen to come back one day
And gently lay their grown-up fingers on the faded keys of
The piano left in the abandoned classroom, and let the rusted
Strings vibrate, ringing out the story that was inscribed
On the piano left in the abandoned classroom, then maybe
You would see those fairies, also grown-up in their own ways,
Dance around the faded piano in an abandoned classroom.
Claire Zhang, Mixed Media
Days go Colder by Connor Casserly
Days go Colder,
As the older slows their praxis.
A four dimensional being,
Doesn’t want to move older,
As it’s pushed to the end of its axis.
I want to mourn the tip of my finger.
I want to mourn the bottom of my shoe.
I want to mourn,
before I was born,
A death only grieved in the fifth.
Maybe if I grow my head taller,
The plane above will notice my presence:
my essence,
transmitted parasitically,
Feeding on my victim’s neurons.
No, there is a difference between space and time.
Like a fall through the sky, unable to climb,
And unable to see,
The possibility to fly,
From the single dot on the line.
But we all fear a death of perception.
Prioritized over interpretation,
To not see the world after;
Possibility of experience;
The frequencies past intuition.
We have found the workaround to death.
An efficient inscription of presence:
A few inches shy,
From a chip in the eye,
Is immortality in all directions.
My grip will become the diameter of the earth.
And with age, will grow through the fourth.
And through eyes of scrabble,
Break the fifth; library of babel,
A simple trade of parasitic belief.
When eyes are mirrors of beliefs,
Nothing but a projection of another,
It’s easy to see,
Impossibilities,
The surface of everything.
Soon we’ll meld together.
The Selfish Thought, survived.
And as days go colder,
To stop the older,
My presence will revive.
You, too, grieve a death in perspective.
But the anticipation of possibility has ended.
Through time you wanted,
The limerick that haunted,
Died, for you, at the end of the second.
The Ocean and its Beautiful Starlight by Bryan Zhang
I love the ocean and everything it brings:
Be it winds that are slightly too cold,
Or calm breezes that rustle my face.
In the ocean, there are always bright lights:
Gentle bioluminescence brought about by life,
Or warm, radiant starlight piercing through its depth.
It doesn’t know it, but I love it most when it smiles
with its charming indigo arbor and calming waves,
When it surrounds the harbor in a loving embrace
Of nostalgia and passionate mildness.
Nylon by Bryan Zhang
Bright, urban, neon lights shine through crystal
droplets dropping through the air filled with scents of
businessmen, tourists, and water bouncing off
plastic umbrellas which bloom like an ocean
of flowers or mushrooms. These streams of
colored buds coalesce at crossroads to form
some sort of modern mosaic, with the pitter-pattering
serving as background to the idyllic grey city life.
Luck Limerick- Anonymous
Once there was a Little Leprechaun,
He sat on a shroom, watching a fawn.
It munched lush green grass,
And had a coat like brass.
Yet it became gold at light o’ dawn
Shriya Raut, Digital
Shriya Raut, Digital
Graveyard by James Bryan
it was january when you died
which is strange
because you are very much alive now.
i spoke to you
before your thoughts were buried
by the old tree they grew from.
i was told by others it was worth it
that you spent your time wisely
that this would carry into your future
but how can i hear them
and think their words wise
when you said yourself
you were happy it was over
for three months you died
you worked until your back arched
in harmony with your trifold.
i was unable to be happy
looking upon your talisman
for i was busy mourning
the rust on the clock that went
unwatched in your focus.
they say it made you stronger
atop your survivorship
but what doesn’t make you stronger
kills you
as it went for many others
in this graveyard.
and these
these are the years we look
back on and say “we
miss it?”
you mean the time you didn’t spend
on the things you didn’t do
because someone told you
to do something else?
i wish i could see it
as more than the pain
that lead to its inception
more than the stone
unmarked
where my name
would have been.
so that’s where you were
this last january
an open casket funeral
grieving the struggle, the viper
that you took and swallowed down
a pill with sharp edges
making you better
by cutting you up
from the inside.
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