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glabella. THE FOURTH ISSUE APRIL 2K16
CONTENTS 2
Preamble 3
First Dreams of the New Year (A Dream Journal Poetic Sequence) 8
Rigor Pneumonic 10
Stux
(from p.11)
Submit to Glabella: ginoongcervantes@gmail.com Follow the Maker on Twitter @sicarlcervantes Visit sloppydasein.wordpress.com
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PREAMBLE I’ll be honest with you: the things you will see in this issue will not make much sense.
inquire). This is a passion project, and it would be great to share the spirit of people to the world.
When I began this project three months ago, what I had in mind was
So far, we’ve explored urban mysteries, profound religious
some kind of publication that could take its readers into a different world, a world within our world, into the mysteries of the subconscious mind. Thus, it was named “Glabella”, which is actually the space between your eyebrows—the place where the Third Eye is purportedly found. People use
experiences, and the minutiae of human life. Now, we’ll go deeper into the recesses of the human psyche. Into the strange, into the repressed, into the pleasantly confusing. Oddly enough, what is intimidating is often the most beautiful. In this issue, we will witness that beauty in spontaneous
different terms, but we know they mean the same thing. Is there really a difference between the mystical lands travelled during intense meditation (or out-of-body experiences) and the subconscious space explored during hypnosis? The pineal gland, found in the same place as where the Third Eye should be, is responsible for our dreams. We’ve been expanding ourselves to find profound meaning in far lands or outer space when it might also be important to move within the self to see truths we’ve been so eager to repress.
word salads, surreal art, and bizarre dreams. Welcome to the fourth issue of Glabella. -Carl Lorenz Cervantes, Editor
I was pleased when people started messaging me to ask if they could participate. Of course, anyone can participate (just hit me up to 2
FIRST DREAMS OF THE
NEW YEAR A DREAM JOURNAL POETIC SEQUENCE
by Stef Tran
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“My family lives in a giant black birdcage in a room where the walls are painted like a midnight sky.” January 2, 2016
January 4, 2016
I am sitting in a crowded campus student lounge with Danielle, and I accidentally left my backpack on a
Nine of the popular girls from school are living in my house. They rifle carelessly through my closets and
chair where a half-lion, half-man is now sitting. I am a little bit in love with the lion man. I squeeze past the other tables and apologize as I reach behind the lion man for my backpack, and when I face him again, he has cracked open in his paws a single perfect mango. Where did you get a mango in the winter? I
lounge on the top bunk. In the morning, I am the last person to wake up, and when I go to check on them, they’re all dressed and about to go out. Where’s everyone going? I ask, and one of the girls replies lazily, We’re going to church. I am surprised. Then another girl hands me a flyer, and I see it’s for one of
gasp, and he smiles at me, white teeth in a dark golden face, and says, I grow them, as he pushes it gently into my hands. My hands are shaking. I take the mango back to Danielle and tell her to eat it, that I can’t bear to have it. Danielle just says, No, it’s for you too. He’ll know
those inspirational youth groups, with singing and trust falls instead of praying, and I think, Ah, that’s more
if you don’t eat it. He knows everything, and takes out two metal
My family lives in a giant black birdcage in a room where the walls are painted like a midnight sky. We live on the second floor of the birdcage and our little black dog lives in a cave on the floor below us. I find our dog and pick her up and carry her in my arms, because I know her cave is dirty and I don’t want her to go back in there. One time I peered in at the entrance of the cave and saw the straw on the
like it. --
January 7, 2016
cafeteria spoons, one of them slightly bent. I look down at the two halves of the mango. One half has become overripe. The other still has traces of green. --
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floor and the deep tunnel leading away into the blackness and the owl-holes in the walls and I got scared and that is why I am holding my dog now. No, we cleaned it up, the cave is nice now, my mom says, come look, and I tell her I already did even though I didn’t because I am still scared of the cave no matter how clean it is.
the man stands next to a source of water and a drop of blood falls into the water, he will begin to change. Now the man is walking in a courtyard of stone fountains with the girl he loves. I used to be a little afraid of you, the girl says. I felt as
though you were always so far away, even when you were here. The man says, I didn’t know. The girl stands over one fountain, takes out a needle, and pricks her finger, letting a tiny drop of her blood fall into the water. It’s not enough, the man says. It’s okay. So the two of them sit on the rim of the fountain instead, dabbling their feet in the water. I was thinking about moving
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January 9, 2016 I am running up the down escalator in a mall. The down escalator is in the middle of a waterfall. The spray hits my face, soaking my sleeves as I run. The LED billboard above my head
announces,
CONGREGATION
IS
to Brazil, the girl tells him. Oh, the
THE
man says. Then the girl looks at him. But I’m not anymore, she says. At this point, it is obvious something bad is about to happen. The enemy’s arrow strikes the girl directly in the center of her back, and she falls forward into the fountain, her blood spreading in clouds in the
FREE.
Still running, I look down at my own feet. I am wearing plastic slippers, and my toenails are painted red. --
January 11, 2016
water. The man howls in rage and grief, but already he can feel his true power awakening for the first time. He is still howling as he rears up and becomes a towering pillar of storm and smoke.
There is a man who is a shapeshifter, and he has traveled far and wide taking on different forms. He is searching for something, but he doesn’t know what. The key to the man’s shapeshifting is blood. If
“The man howls in rage and grief, but already he can feel his true power awakening for the first time.” 5
“At this point, it is obvious something bad is about to happen.”
--
swing on jungle vines across impossible gorges. We set off the bombs and sail away on the plumes of fire they make when they explode. See, that wasn’t so hard, Sol says in my ear, at the end. I wonder why I need Sol’s help to be Lara Croft. I am still wondering when I wake up.
January 11, 2016 I am growing plants inside a rice cooker. There is a light inside of the lid. I press down hard on the lid with my two hands to turn the light on, pushing light into the greenness of the leaves.
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January 15, 2016
January 6, 2016
We are having our family Christmas party, and it is my job to take videos of everybody, but I can’t figure out how to work the iPad. I take one long video of everyone waving at the camera, of the presents under the tree, my goddaughter playing on the floor, but when I press the button
I am telling Sol I still haven’t finished the new Tomb Raider game, and he offers to co-op it with me. So I pull back my hair, put on my gloves, and become Lara Croft. No matter where I turn, Sol’s voice is there to guide me through the dark. Together, we 6
that is supposed to save the video, it deletes it instead.
Direction. They take a mirror selfie. They are happy.
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January 14, 2016
January 2, 2016
I find out Darra is secretly a drug addict, and that my mom is friends with her dealer. My mom and I run into the dealer when we’re out doing
The girl from next door and her brother have come over to our house to swim. I change my clothes in my dad’s room with the door open,
errands, and the two of them start talking, laughing and remembering old times. Sugar is the word they use. It’s your fault Darra loves sugar, my mom tells him, chuckling. The
listening for footsteps in the hallway outside. I time it so that I am pulling my shirt down just as the brother is passing by.
dealer shrugs, but he is still smiling. Then my mom asks him if there’s anything he needs. Two cans of Spam? she asks. The dealer thinks
Stefani Tran has a BFA in Creative Writing and does not enjoy waiting for the microwave to beep. Stefani Tran is roughly in her 20s and VietnameseFilipino, but listens devoutly to Irish music. Stefani Tran likes putting things on index cards, and will never say no to gift certificates for a bookstore near her. Follow her on Tumblr at stefanitran.tumblr.com, or visit her website at stefanitran.weebly.com.
about it for a minute. Three cans, he says finally, his hands in his pockets. And a bottle of Kikkoman. --
January 5, 2016 A brown girl meets a black boy in a church of mirrors. The black boy is the newest member of One
“There is a man who is a shapeshifter, and he has traveled far and wide taking on different forms. He is searching for something, but he doesn’t know what.” 7
RIGOR PNEUMONIC poetry by Rudy Matias
I The job grows like a hot hood. Doors talk like fast flowers. O, love! The dark sidewalk roughly drives the rain. Shop quickly like a noisy sidewalk. Where is the faceless guy? Why does the car grow? The dead job roughly hustles the worker. Death, exhaustion, and action. All cars desire small, dry corners. Life, desolation, and life. O, fie! How does the car eat? Anger, faith, and death. The hood stops like a misty street. The job shops like a rainy window. All doors sell hot, hot cars. Fast, small sidewalks roughly drive a fast, dusty window. All trucks sell faceless, noisy flowers. Damn, death! Girls, walk!
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II. The dead corner roughly hustles the corner. Love, anger, and death. Gab quickly like a dusty truck. Big, grimy jackhammers calmly get a cold, dark worker. The car eats like a small corner. Ooh, love! Hot, dead cigarettes roughly get a old, small door. Doors grow like noisy jackhammers. Why does the cigarette talk? Cold, rainy rains quickly love a rainy, rainy driver. Never sell a slum. Why does the worker shop? All sidewalks get dry, grimy rains. The hot hood roughly hustles the driver. Run quietly like a dead skyscraper. Workers walk like dead sidewalks. Dead, rainy corners quietly desire a old, old driver. All streets hustle rainy, small jobs. O, life! O, fie! Exhaustion, action, and noise. Where is the grimy rain?
Rudy Matias’ full name is actually Rudolf. He has had a tough childhood, being the butt of unfunny Christmas jokes all year round.
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STUX FROM THE COLLECTION OF STEFAN SCHWEIHOFER
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glabella. Thank you for being part of another Glabella issue. We’ve passed the three-month mark, which is no small feat. This is the fourth month that we’re doing this, so it’s pretty impressive, if I may humbly say so. (I honestly never thought I wouldn’t have enough motivation to get past the second issue, and yet here we are.) I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this issue, to those who shared their passions with me to share to the world. If you’ve been reading past issues, you’d notice that this is the first issue where I don’t publish something I’ve personally written. I’d also like to thank my followers on issuu.com for following me. Welcome to Glabella. Here’s a factoid: as of writing this, Stefan Schweihofer’s art is under the public domain license. Thanks for making my magazine prettier, Stefan. I wonder what the next issue will contain. -Carl
For more Glabella, follow: issuu.com/sloppydasein
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