A Dying Angel 


Timing is insufferable puppetry.
           
            Her cellular transmogrification            
in Tron stars and winding chutes of richoceting snowfall
in hourglasses of disco moons and drooling easels,
Soaked with the spider’s mandala.
         
The filigree’s weathervane neon above              
  a deserted cemetery-these
  are lattice, roomy and singes
      Rembrandt black and green
      from one flipping coordinate


In a symphonic
 
magnetite trance, her mandala’s 
 
vegetating jingo code 


            
under the duneflower’s tongue           


 
 
      t h e s o l e s e n s a t e s p l e n d o r  
                 
t h e p l a s m a d e w’s t o u c h
   
  in a crisp noon 
  
 That film in the desert with 
   her at a distance, broken in clown makeup
  these mirrored digital sifts
  reflect back  
 a mis en abyme angle, cracked 
  in lunar symmetry.
  
The crude moon’s communion
             jackal pale, sphinx eyed
  mercurial black spinning   
a chrome silhouette cinching




Time’s ether gases these cufflink
            reveries, green stones, the glass
 porch angels, cross legged
 on the choral villas 


The straw sun sounding
; the arrival, the moving yard sale
 her reflection the bought mirror’s whole
 
              
          
           The cube dreamt porch shingles
           splinter and wet 
           these diamond tattoo tears
           of  a djinn belly dancer, her stare
the mosaic of how voodoo
              suffer in these pixie sandstorms


           in  leveled chambers    
       
of oceanic catcalls
       These free digits and running    
in that hushed, aromatic shade


         
               
           Her rolling eyes  
 green and yellow                                                                                                                        
  planetary eyes,   
            narcotic stars
in dust, transit as Grecian peaches 
  centering in a dizzy star scab
             Her voice a score a planisphere between
shredded Euclidean angel tongue
 The smoked mirror’s unsung
The fractal singing sand dunes
                     
           Krenek’s flute guns
 
     
        
     I dreamt I traced you
Your simile a head in the Magic 8 ball 
On the alien bouquet of rose water UV shade 
On crumpled silkscreens, a faded Japanese smile
Eyes cinders in the windmills of diadem fortunes
The crypts of serrated light tombs  
 


Insomnia moons
Rotten marquee lights spilling
The pegged lights lit like Judy Garland’s 
black primrose trail 
 from her lap


She is chewing her movie jewels
in revolving chambers of yoga silk
Her yard line a ghost factory  
An echo and Hindu arms winding
    
Her hair gone up in ringlets
  
                            seaweed silk


of combed astral smoke


Sounding in a black box,


Sky marble and glass 

John Thomas Allen is from New York. His latest book entitled Lumière was published by NightBallet Press in 2014. His poems have appeared in Veil: a Journal of Dark Musings, Arsenic Lobster Magazine, Sulfur, Mad Verse, The Cimarron Review, etc., and he has a story in the anthology titled Narrow Doors in Wide Green Fields edited by R.W. Spryszak. In 2019, he won James Tate Prize for his chapbook entitled Rolling in the Third Eye,  which was subsequently published by SurVision Books in 2020 

Synchronized Chaos November 2016: Resilience in a Capricious Universe

Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

Welcome, family and friends, to November’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine. Sending honor and respect to the departed for those who celebrate Day of the Dead or Samhain, and prayers for abundance for those marking American Thanksgiving.

This month we acknowledge the unpredictable nature of our lives, and our world, and honor our ability to survive within it by toughening up or adapting to change.

Vijay Nair’s poetry shows us how friendship is not always true, as people can betray us. We can gain strength and learn from all experiences, and some lessons are best learned in solitude.

M. Spear’s poems form wry critiques of the ways we ignore and exploit each other and express personal determination to move forward as an individual.

Poetry from Michael Marrotti deals with learning to manage others’ self-absorbed behavior by recognizing it and distancing oneself.

Jenny Santellano gives a visual portrayal of depression and mania as a mental prison, trapping the speaker within the bars of fluctuating energy and moods.

Suvojit Banerjee offers up colorful imagery of poverty, violence, nuclear war, and slum life. The radiance and liveliness of Banerjee’s work contrasts with the shortened, limited existences of the people he mentions, highlighting the tragedies he depicts.

A short story from Michael Robinson, also set within a poor and rough neighborhood, illustrates how men and boys can also experience sexual confusion, feelings of lost innocence, and body shame.

Mahbub celebrates natural life and growth and human love, as we see through his gentle metaphor how these qualities persist through periods of loneliness and struggle.

Lewis Mark Grimes reviews Stephen Nawotniak’s children’s book Mubu the Morph, which encourages patience and tolerance by showing an anthropomorphized creature trying various activities and roles. Grimes, an admirer of children’s literature, sees this concept as a metaphor for sentient life in general.

Art from Rui Carvalho also plays with the idea of childhood, with an intricate black and white rendition of a fairy with a child’s face. Childhood is full of rapid change and events outside of the young person’s control, but also the capacity to adapt to new circumstances.

A poem from Christopher Bernard brings Dr. Seuss-like political humor to the American election landscape.

An essay from Donal Mahoney points out that plants we consider useless can be crucial for preserving life, such as the monarch butterflies who lay their eggs on the milkweed of Maplewood, Missouri.

Poetry from Mark Schwartz, replete with intellectual and literary references, depicts the author’s active mental life while his body is confined in a nursing home recovering from an injury. He advocates a kinder society where we nurture and take care of everyone, no matter how useful, or not, they may seem to those in charge.

Elizabeth Hughes reviews Rita D’Orazio’s novel Legend of the Coco Palms Resort, a tale of ghosts, memory, romance and suspense set on a Hawaiian vacation lodge, in her monthly Book Periscope column.

Joan Beebe showcases the intricate majesty of a wooden clock her husband carved. Time reminds us of the sorrows of impermanence and mortality, but can also be marked in style.

A short story from JD DeHart renders of the Biblical story of Job in a country farm town, from the point of view of Satan, the innocent man’s tormenter and accuser. In DeHart’s piece, the Devil inflicts great suffering out of curiosity and gives up out of boredom, reflecting a capricious universe.

Writing, creating art and communicating can be a means of resilience, of understanding and making something out of random or challenging circumstances. We thank you for reading the words of our contributors and allowing their stories to last and be heard.