W

w e h e r
o d
w e o c m e
f r o m, w h e r e d o
t h e y grow,
the vines of reason, hieroglyphics,
the artifacts of tongues?
when does wax
of scarlet crayons melt away?
unstable bridge of islands –
neighbors now to foes.
honey saccharine
and sour distortion
without goal

Evolution 2.0

The serpents between temples
forge ahead through iron plummets.
The nerves, as mambas, coalesce,
branching death and life:
the paradigm of consciousness.
Tinged with oil, the earthly fever,
sick of plastic masochism,
threatens to destroy us,
who know little of death,
and, fretful, flee,
encephalize the cortex —
pressure cracks the stone to hatch
a hooded cobra
whose winged eyes and precise dance
may hypnotize, Awash replenish —
respawn birthed from a vortex.

Past the Rolling April Road

Past the rolling April road,
the ring-like river twines around the glade.
To source its flowing: both clouds
blue and bulbous overhead hurling, hurt,
then absorbing all again.
I’ve seen the rain befall in more scorched lands –
the sunshine state’s dry season
pouring deluge on the nous: gold wheat paths –
my visions sprouting from inertia’s lens.
The last of winters lingers angry without end.

Darknesia

I stayed inside, where there was less light,
and the doctor said I was suffering
from Darknesia, which made me forget
what photons felt and looked like,
even as rays graced the pastures outside,
even as cattle grazed on, teaching of life.

Symptoms dilated
wells of gravity
begging to become their coiling color,
the shrouding shine,
and always failing.

Perhaps, I realized, if man could near
the profundity without crashing
they would abstain their guzzling.

As the aperture widened,
they saw so much,
and all came to naught,
for between bodies was nothing but none,
and inside and outside my body was barely but one.

Distorting the stars’ vernacular
expanding the space
between (and within) words
between us, between worlds.

In the darkest, the pitfall,
the crippling
night always comes.

Tommaso’s Last Walk

The rosefinches, three,
awoke me, their beaks.
I blinked once for each:
wild ruby-stones perched.
The tac against glass
wrung cobalt inside:
my third, precious eye –
two others shut locked.
“They’re dying!” one voiced
of hir, lain outside,
who, bare, seemed my twin
with breasts of rose quartz.
Sweet syrup, salt, sweat,
welled-berries in lids,
her cherry-bombed lips,
and raisin dukes dry.
The noisome rind rot
called vultures and flies.
Wings: velvet-torn rags
crusading the clouds,
to rest over zhe,
who howled to the sky
of nursing from men:
precursors and cursers of them.
“Help it!” they sang.
But I, made of stone
like kingdoms, perforce,
and murals around,
I, still, fallen, stood,
and fell back to sleep –
oppressive the hours,
when light, like a rive!
hardened its curves.
The David so put.
Tommaso’s last walk

on wet cobble streets.
The firmament Light
here strikes only once –
his paragon dreams.

Pablo Vascan is a 20-year-old student at the University of Central Florida. Born in Houston TX, he was raised in Guatemala, and moved to Florida four years ago where he now lives. He studies film, but does not confine himself to one creative area; he is an artist who exerts his talents where ideas lead him, showcasing them when he thinks they are ripe enough to.