Mark Young has a new book, Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, which is a collection of both text & visual geographies, a number of which have appeared in Synchronized Chaos. It’s available from Lulu. The URL is https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/some-unrecorded-voyages-of-vasco-da-gama/paperback/product-e748z2j.html?page=1&pageSize=4
SEIZE THE MOMENT!
As hands and feet lift from the ground,
The Sun wraps Night in its golden shroud.
In Ramadan, secrets are found,
As Laylat al-Qadr shines,
Moon-bowed… Seize the moment!
Live it bright!
Let moments merge in sacred light!
Verses stream in luminous flow,
To hearts that love, in whispers low…
As you strive, defeating desire,
You rise beyond, your soul so higher.
Angels murmur in hushed refrain,
You dissolve into the cosmic plane…
Blessed be Laylat al-Qadr, my Friend,
Blessed the night where hearts ascend!
Every gift from the Divine, so bright,
Is the crown upon our heads—pure light!
Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by YunusEmro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey.
THE BURNING BOAT
I had burnt my boat
When I crossed the sea
I was then alone
Only my shadow witnessed it
Now, the stink of burning only I can smell
The burnt mark is visible to those
Who have sparks in their eyes
I am carrying the sea and burnt the boat within me
My boat was burning
There on the sands of seashore
Since then with the every tide
Sea attempts to put out the fire and
Wash off my burnt boat
Even for the high tide, it’s not possible to do so
My heart is burning in separation of my beloved
It’s pangs are too intensive
My blanket cannot properly cover my body
To extinguish the fire
The sea is nothing but my vast body
My toes are touching the sea bed
My boat is my heart within – the Sun on the sky
Smokes come out all over in my mind
My hairs turned into ashes grey
By the heat of my burning heart
It seems, my heart can’t meet;
Can’t make reunion with my beloved
Till the sea of my body gets dried out
O, my Lord!
How long I will have to wait
To show you my burning heart
Alas…!
WOMAN, BEYOND THE INDEX OF BODY
Lake like eyes/ Scarlet coral-like lips/ Curly-curvy hairs
Attraction all four directions
These are mazes
Face and physical charms are curtains, indeed
A weapon to keep off you from the desired abode
A true woman lives in somewhere else
Beyond the index of her body
Sitting crouch like a recluse
Just like an abstract thing
Like a dream of snow-white clouds
Sometimes, similar to the moonless dark night
Dormant lightening, full of its potency
Extremely tough meditation is needed
To open her inner layers of heart,
Love is considered to be the genuine pearl of a woman
This can discover by proceeding beyond her body
Otherwise, nothing lies in the whirlpool of body
Man wants to overpower
The screaming body of a woman
But the body is a dune of sands/ a fair of desires
There is only mirage and mirage
Woman uses to be hidden,
Somewhere in her inner self,
Instead of, being found in her apparent body
Which is like an epic center of a live volcano
A man in his entire life
Uses to run after fascinating faces
Like those idiot men
Who on the surface of the water
Often, stare at diving and floating waves
With their curious eyes
Use to play, the whole day, with shells lying on beaches
Perhaps, they do not know
That the true pearls are senselessly lying
In the depth of a sea,
Where the breathes not much support the divers
To achieve such unknown pearls in the deep sea
Needed to wait till the lips of shell get opened
To get the original element of a woman
You will have to raise the curtain of deceitful face
You will have to step down
In to the concealed room of her heart
You will have to knock and knock again
At the tightly closed window of her soul
A woman is not a thing of luxury
Not a commodity of marketing
Not even a body of only bone and flesh
The true name of a woman is ——
Love, love, and only love!
Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar is a Consultant Editor (Urdu) in National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Ministry of Education, Government of India. He had been Principal Publication Officer in National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language in 2007. He has been, a member of Advisory Board of National Book Trust India.
He is a Multilingual (English, Hindi and Urdu) famous poet, short story writer and critic from India. He is Graduate with English Honours from Ranchi University. He has topped Jawaharlal Nehru University in Masters with Literature. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy for his Research Work from University of Delhi. He is Post Graduate Diploma holder in Calligraphy, Mass Media and in Book Publishing with Specialization in Editing.
Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar began writing his poems in English since lockdown in the period of Pandemic COVID-19. He has written more than 100 poems, participated in many worldwide webinars and published in various international anthologies, so far. His as many as 25 poems have been translated by many award-winning litterateurs into Polish, Indonesian, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, and Albanian languages. His poems are being published in several anthologies within the country and abroad. He has 20 published books of literature in his credentials, so far. He has won many awards and accolades for his outstanding intellectual and literary contributions. His poem ‘The Burning Boat’ contains mystic (Sufism) and metaphysical elements.
Lilies
In the car, flying on cruise control,
on this desolate stretch between anything,
everything a dizzy blur, the rush,
the rush, a violence to the senses,
a glimpse of swift efflorescence,
I know each petal is there,
placed as it should be, precariously
riding the hump of the ditch between
vast expanses of alfalfa and asphalt,
these daylily hobos, fast, vivid saffron,
tangled with flushed morning glories,
violet clover, pale blue chicory,
the eyes of tow-headed children,
and elegant, white Queen Anne’s lace –
when you break a stem, there’s
a sharp, unexpected scent of wild carrot.
In this fugacious instant,
somehow I know, I know these lilies
want my adoration, calling me,
stamens vibrating in long throats,
quite willing to share their joy.
Why don’t I turn around,
turn off the motor and
listen for just a little while,
their troupe crooning hue at the sky?
I’ll lie alongside them in soft
wheatgrass, and together we’ll
bide the gentler sounds of night.
Which destinations shall I neglect,
vague acquaintances or these dear chums?
When I think of them, alone, untended,
I want to acquiesce, relinquish
any passion to a high shelf
for someone much younger to find.
I can’t help this weird, bygone empathy,
doting, hoary around the fringes:
when the rain comes, cold and rigid,
will I fret over these blossoms,
lips pursed, pouting for lack of sun?
When the apprehension of winter comes,
inevitably comes in frost then ice,
will I mourn these lilies,
will I feel their dread,
will I rush to my beloved?
In the Snow
I regret neglecting
The egrets last summer
Mindlessly oblivious to
White against emerald
Viridian chartreuse
Stepping shyly in the marsh
And just yesterday
Snowing and snowing
I wish I’d spent
An afternoon peering
Through the window
(Debussy in my ears no
A Chopin Mazurka)
Blue-gray atmosphere
Obscurity on the horizon
A sky brimming with
Falling singularities more
Crystals than space between
I knew this beauty
Was infinitely transient
Considerably more pertinent
Than fabricating drudgery
My bloated memoranda
Tell me tell me
(I do not insist
A modest desire
A desperation nevertheless)
There must be a place
Where I might see
Egrets taking flight
In the snow
Noble
The name of the Noble is very famous,
The stir also varies, the quality is also full.
Noble -In the quality of the job & purpose,
“With the good will of the behavior of the use,”
Move in the pearl method.
To create a beautiful chain,
In the display of the chain, the rules of the chain,
The stars are also expanded in the thought,
In the description of magnanimous generosity,
In destiny in the inflamed shrimp,
In setting the example in infinity.
The family exemplifies the “Noble Family”,
In the mutual respect of each member of the family It will be possible.
Noble mentality, noble presentation,
Noble dedication,
Noble expression should create noble looking.
Noble’s touch in Smartness,
To handle yourself at the noble.
To keep yourself wrapped in the noble,
whole life lives in noble
Amb. Dr. Priyanka Neogi from Coochbehar. She is an administrative Controller of the United Nations PAF, librarian, CEO of Lio Messi International Property & land Consultancy, international literacy worker, sports & peace promoter, dancer, singer, reciter, live telecaster, writer, editor, researcher, Literary journalist, host, beauty queen, international Co-ordinator of Vijay Mission of Community Welfare Foundation of India.
Hwa-byung
Hwa-byung will make you
yell at your children
fight with your family
go all red in the face
leap from your chair
shaking knuckled fists.
This rising heart fire
takes hold of you:
poor and uneducated
a stuck-at-home wife.
Hwa-byung will ruin
your eating and sleeping
grinding on old grudges
seeping anger in rages
too long suppressed.
The rising heart fire
takes hold of men too:
frustrated, mortified
bad jobs with bad bosses
who don’t show respect
who reek of injustice
until you smolder inside.
Hwa-byung is Korean
for a mental disorder
that may afflict anyone
who withholds their anger
that builds in intensity
burns its way out
bursts through walls
tears down framing
explodes like a bomb
hollowing you out
in ways you don’t expect.
NOTE:
Once classified under depressive disorders, hwa-byung is a culture-bound condition found only in Korea. It was thought to be limited to disgruntled housewives with passive husbands and overbearing in-laws. It is now being diagnosed in male employees who are full of anxiety, nihilistic ideas, and regret about their lives.
No Joke
On lovely Lake Victoria
on the border with Uganda
three female students
at a missionary boarding school
began to laugh and laugh
and they couldn’t stop
and they didn’t stop
and more students joined in
and they couldn’t study
and they couldn’t eat
and they couldn’t sleep
and they couldn’t do anything
but laugh, laugh ’til it hurt
’til they were in pain and
crying between laughing jags
so the school closed down.
When school opened back up
the laughing started back up
so the school closed down.
Some girls arrived home
in their small rural villages
still laughing and laughing
and village girls laughed too
some boys, some adults
and it spread, and spread
to more than 200 people
laughing and laughing
for more than a year
and the experts blamed
the emotional dissonance
of a radical cultural shift
from tribal communities
to a modern way of life.
Laughter is said to be
the best of all medicines
but must always be taken
in a moderate dose.
NOTE:
The laughter epidemic was a mass psychogenic event that occurred in Tanganyika in 1962, soon after the country achieved independence. Schoolgirls brought the illness home to their villages and it spread wildly before disappearing.
The country is now known as Tanzania.
The Witches of Leroy
A pretty cheerleader fell down
and that’s how it all began
in the upstate New York town
that invented jiggly Jell-O.
She screamed and flailed about
cursing as if possessed
cuss words she’d never say…
she was not that kind of girl.
Her best friend suddenly ticced
convulsing, crazed, she ran wild
and sixteen other girls in town
swearing, thrashing, crashing
got rushed to the hospital
their parents hysterical
the ER in chaos
the nurses, doctors puzzled
as testing found no cause.
A rumor began to circulate
about a toxic spill
from a train derailment
but testing showed no toxins
on the high school grounds.
Erin Brockovich was invited
to speak and attract the media
declaring a chemical poisoning
with opinion taken as fact.
But why only teenage girls?
From chemicals miles away?
Spilled four decades prior?
Before the girls were born?
Time slid by as it always does
the parents demanding answers
accountability and recourse
long after their girls recovered
left for college and life away
from the town that created Jell-O.
NOTE:
Mass outbreaks of psychogenic illnesses have occurred in schools in many parts of the world. These events used to happen in convents and were once deemed satanic. Religious and shamanic interventions were employed when illnesses were medically inexplicable.
In the modern world, mass anxiety hysteria (acting crazy) and mass motor hysteria (sleeping sickness or convulsions) are social phenomena without identified physical pathology. Outbreaks are usually limited to the young and are believed to be triggered by issues in the community: emerging sexuality amidst social repression, poverty, dislocation, hopelessness.