Objet dArtLiterary, Arts, & Culture Magazine

Fall 2013 1

Staff

Editors

Nicholas AbrahamMatthew TomaselloLucero Calleo

Editor in Chief

Lisa Mathews

Layout Editor

Lucero Calleo

Cover Art

Images by:Amy Caprioni & Ishita Jain

Editors NoteFirst of all, Id like to thank every single person that submitted to us for their consideration. Its truly a blessing that we have writers and artists dedicated enough to their work for us to be able to cobble together an issue, especially on so cramped a time period. As a publication, we strive to present some of the best of what Rutgers has to offer. At the same time, we have to also recognize the difficulties with upkeeping a print medium on a modern college campus. For that, I also have to thank every single one of you reading this note for believing, at least a little, in the power and significance of the arts. The power of language and image will never die as long as there are people willing enough to observe them with an open mind. ~Nick Abraham

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Table of Contents

Page ~ Title and Author/Artist

4 ~ Blood by Raka Chaki 5 ~ Intensity by Amy Caprioni6 ~ Your Hands and My Mind by Alexander Velazquez7 ~ Koto Players at Rons Spring Festival by Jose Gabriel Alvarez-Manilla Sanchez8 ~ Lifeless Memory by Brandon Robert8 ~ Gabe Being Awesome by Wesley Jen9 ~ Lightweight by Margot Rjaud10 ~ Good Church Folk by Daniel Al-Daqa12 ~ Untitled by Ishita Jain14 ~ Anonymous Friend by Brandon Robert14 ~ Nicaraguan Boy by Nisha Datt15 ~ Reality Is Striped by Andrew Park16 ~ momma bird blues by Michelle Moncayo17 ~ Route 18 to Rutgers by Ronnie Mendoza18 ~ Elizabeth, New Jersey by Michelle Moncayo19 ~ Waterfall at Steamboat Springs by Amy Caprioni20 ~ Shining by Arielle Bookspan21 ~ Untitled 1 by Ted Spade22 ~ Untitled 2 by Ted Spade23 ~ Untitled by Scott Severa24 ~ Give It Time by Brandon Robert25 ~ Colorado Rockies by Amy Caprioni

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A drop of scarlet blood. Stains the white paper. And blossoms into a million tiny flowers, each extending its petals outward.

My pen drips on to the paper. A million tiny flowers stain the white paper, each extending their petals outward. The work of my blood coursing through my veins. Exposed through pain yet existing through the joy of my heart beating.

Ecstatic pain and glory.

Blood

Raka Chaki

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Amy CaprioniIntensity

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Your hands are enough for my comfort And my mind for your liberation. While you rest like a goddess bathing in a stream I will write, I will paint, I will work, and I will speak of your immeasurable beauty. None will know of its truth. For how can I do it justice?

Your hands and my mind

Alexander Velazquez

Koto players at RONS spring

festival

Jose Gabriel Alvarez-Manilla Sanchez

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But I will be your hands so that you can be free to bathe. To Bathe in the waters of my mind. So that together, Intertwined we will remain. Wings caught up in the wind Wind held captive by the wing We are lost But liberated in the purpose of our love. Your hands are enough for my comfort. And my mind for your freedom.

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LIFELESS MEMORY Brandon Robert

It was the attention that was never given,and the failure to make the attempt.

Ambiguous emotions encapsulate the minds cacophony,leaving the restless awake like an optimists paradox.

It was I, who was never driven;I, who fed the hunger of my own contempt,

playing the shrills of a dissonant symphony; my mind devoured on the edge of the docks.

It was never going to mend,My life was a downward spiral.The crow cawed once, for it was time to goMy last embrace with the reapers face

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Wesley Jen

Lightweight Margot Rjaud

Just eat this, they sayYou like pineapple, dont you?Shoo, be gone, you cloud of grayI wont waste another second pretending to chew.The morsels of meatstain my brain.I cant be beat.They say the emptiness yields pain,but I dont mind.Something about the lightnessmakes the emotion and the strain harder to find.Swallow the clouds, Id do this.Its okay, good today.No one will be in my way.

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Good Church Folk Daniel Al-Daqa

So this hotshot sitting across from me gets cussin. I pull my hat down a little lower but stare at him from the shadow. Nothings stopping him. Not even the old lady on his right saying please. I end up having to tell him there are ladies present and that he had best tone it down. But hotshot doesnt take too kindly to that and comes at me quick and since Ive never been one to back down I have to come right back and we go on swapping skin until we get pulled off of each other and asked what the problem was. Through it all hes still cussin away about this and that and how he doesnt like me or my Chevrolet shirt or a lot of things not just about me. Just cussin away, though. I ask him if hes learned any-thing at all and he breaks free yelling and we kinda did it all over again.

Now, the next day my mom sees my faceIm home for church. Mark bailed me out. and she just shakes her head knowing darn well what hap-pened the night before but she also knows that its because thats how they raised me and Im proud of it.

Dont get me wrong Im the first to tell myselfIt has to stopBut those roots plant meright back in the same place

You should have seen the faces of the church folkOnly because theyre not too surprised.Pastor Doug comes up behind me and pats me on the back and Im sure he knows all about these bruises butwellhe still smiles

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Been a lot of times my Daddy told meTo keep my nose out of shit (sorry maam, stuff)that wasnt mine to deal with and those words do run deepevery timeIts just thatThats the only advice hes given me that I cant seem to fol-low.I mean, This is the same man who told meA job worth doing is a job worth doing rightSo I suppose its my initiative to do whats rightSo I suppose if you want to go ahead and pursue the life of a sailorIm just gonna do the same.

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Ishita Jain

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ANONYMOUS FRIEND Brandon Robert

Below the canopy of the trees, a man sat stillwaiting.Lost in thought, he reflected, longed, and waited.The brisk autumn breeze roared in his ears.Clawing at his face, the chill claimed refuge.

On a rugged, sturdy bench he sat;his mind sailed with despair.

Sneakily his friend did tell,beware the lying trail. Confused in love the friend does not care,for the heart, in pain, began to swell.

The wind, an anonymous friend deceived the heartdetaching the seams

Nisha Datt

While I was in Nicaragua, for about a week or so with Rutgers University on a Public Health/ Medical Brigade, we had an educational

lesson for the children and adults of the community. Our topic was dental hygiene. As I was listening to the educational lesson, I noticed this boy listening eagerly.

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Reality is Striped

Andrew Park

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momma bird blues Michelle Moncayo

when the night comes moaning all I see is my skim milk bones, skeleton tree swallowing a waning crescent glass of milk, waning, swaying, praying in Gsus. hollow whale wind, tell me how the blues sing.

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Im tired of thinking drinking moonlight out of measuring cups measuring the space between my ribs i walk like a rain soaked tin can man got a rusted spine tuned to a B minor and a hollow in my throat that I carved like a pumpkin with fingers sharp like picked bird bones - tell me why I feel like a momma bird without young to feed. oh whale wind some folks say the blues is a woman but the blues is but a momma bird - regurgitating.

Route 18 to Rutgers

Ronnie Mendoza

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Elizabeth, New JerseyMichelle Moncayo

They come in swells:flutterings of eyelashes, Ikea blue and yellow block letters,Gauzy clouds sheathed over the sky like charcoal tulle,

factories, and factories, and factories, and smoke;

inside she steeps her fingernails in corn making humitas for the morning crowd,the ones who live here but not here,who dwell in this place where smoke and fog stick to their skin like crushed velvet,dreaming of a place where the trees extend further than factories,whose first generation children are raised to speak Spanish and not speak Spanish,to forget and to remember,taught not to leave a trace of their past -

they close their eyes and begin again, and again, and again.

He works in a factory that manufactures Ecuadorian foodMy grandmother swims in the community poolcarrying the Andes rivers on the spider veins of her legsThe man with the collared shirts comes in every day and sings, table to tablepicking tremolo on his guitar,staccato notes falling sharply the way rain falls in the Amazonremembers sitting at his fathers dirty and cracked and calloused feetlistening to him play the malaguea;

I listen for the faint trace of the way I used to speak Spanish when I was five;things that barely leave a trace are hardest to find.

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Amy CaprioniWaterfall at Steamboat Springs

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Shining Arielle Bookspan

Shining armor

darkest skies.

searched for

brightest star.

obtain the world

genuine

illuminate your heart,

glow endless

gazing

stars envious

perfection

dream open.

Distance

effect of world

weightless

darkest days

looking up

supernova20

UntitledTed Spade

Oh down, the sudden trapsThat catch the sodden, sorry saps.Be they light and bright, or full of dread,They march unmarked across the mapAnd trod on all troops, purple or red.These traps, whose teeth are tighter in bed.

Down old stories, heard too oft.Beginning like fables, with words so soft,Of mountains climbed with will alone,Whose summits keep the dream aloft.Their rocks, that flay men to the bone,Are hidden with sultry, delicate tones.

Down in graves, unmarked the number,Where brave soldiers fell asunder.The nearer to fantasys fickle peak,The more deadly is the blunderWhich turns the strong into the meek,Takes their hope and turns it bleak.

Down your weapons, bloodied brothers,Spread the word to all the others.End this seeking out of war,For war does not reward its lovers.Fall into its traps no more,Find no peace in deeper gore.

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Untitled Ted Spade

That in the loss of Love, may Love be found anew.Not of another, or of God, but of Love.Love that lives in itself a fact,Love that triumphs over its own demise.In death it resurrects in knowledge and in wisdom,In wisdom and knowledge it spreads like the wind,Breezing without effort, moving on its own accord.Unstoppable, unthinkable to be halted.For it becomes a part of nature in its nature,A truth of truth in the face of lies it leaves.What we lose is shackles and without bondage we are freed.Freedom in mournful reconciliation.Saved in crucifixion.Love for all and Love for none,And one that no longer loves still lovesBut whose Love remains a lesson in Love.Taught not by fear or punishment,Though it could have been by whipping as painful,But by patience and understanding.The forever Love is learned and tempered like steelTo cut the heartstrings of all but only one more.A blade that cannot dull yet is too fragile to use but once,And again in terror and trepidation is used all the sameWhen the time comes and the one calls.For one for Love is many and singular.Love defies all things and supports all things,Love builds in destruction like no other.No other but God yet God is spoken for here.And while there may be no God there is Love,Which needs not what we think except its truth,That it is real and it is true even when it is false,When not even God can make it lie.

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Scott Severa

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GIVE IT TIME Brandon Robert

Just give it timetis what they say,the hills of green all gone astray.Water falling, soaking in the air,as the dew of morn hovers.

Youve got the passion and the drive.Twas known.Just give it timejust give it time.

These walls grew thick like the bark of the willow swaying in the wind.My skintwas thin: both fragile and delicate.Among the hills a pond was built:one of passion and mankind.

As the breeze tickled my nose, a chuckle within me surfaced.This place was home, this place was serenity.

In due time, alas, the life would alter.The plan would shape a new direction.Fortitude for lifes new beginning,like the ripple in the water.

Just like what was said, Whats next?Heaven knows but nothing in my midst will navigate me but me.

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Ill write my future along this mother willow,for she is my new guardianrefreshing my soul.To prove my worthI shall,in this moment of passion that puddles within.

As I look up at my secret space, I see and envision something far greater for me.The past woven a wrecked wrinkle, but Ive given time just as they said.

My dues are paid through padlocked lips,The tears have trailed beyond bittersweet bliss.

I have a future: now beginning.There is a place Ill call my space.I was confused, perhaps more distant twas all.But this passionate puddle has charmed me with grace.

The scene was splendidMy feelings untouchable.

Just give it timejust give it time.

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Amy Caprioni

Colorado Rockies

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