After Reading a Play by Aeschylus Torn by the god between the rocks of the Aegean and the high wave of the Caucasus, she falls on the black glass of the stage – Io, beloved of Zeus, driven across the world, maddened by jealous Hera; turned, grotesquely, into a cow. Prophecy lies: there is no end to the voice of her suffering. The god’s love is the storm of the ten thousand eyes of Argus. He is blind as the sun in its munificence moving across the air exalted after pleasure. Humankind is a child of water made of stone. Their pain is darkness and silence. The mouth of a hero who knows everything and nothing buzzes with gadflies and ashes. Yet the woman’s cry is the daughter of generations. It reaches us, gnarled in a distant wind. It echoes long in the canyons of time. It does not allow forgetfulness or peace in suffering traced in a poet’s words wrought of gossamer and iron. _____ Christopher Bernard’s book The Socialist’s Garden of Verses won a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was named one of the “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021” by Kirkus Reviews. His two children’s books, the first stories in the Otherwise series – If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . . (serialized in Synchronized Chaos under the title “The Ghost Trolley”) and The Judgment Of Biestia – will be published in November 2023.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Bruce McRae
A Big Thank You
I would like to thank the bluebird
for introducing me to the concept of evil.
Also, a note of gratitude to that cat-thief
in Copenhagen for relieving me of my worldly bounty
(you know who you are).
Some of these pauses were first published
in the Giant Book of the Head.
Without the assistance of spectres
this line would never have seen the light of day.
And I want to take this opportunity
to mention the red-assed sprites
cavorting in my mind, and to also thank them
for their unquestioning support,
as well as the bent angels, their advice
being given freely, whether called upon or likewise.
Lastly, a big nod and wink to the blind horse,
for which none of this would have been,
or should have been, made possible.
Carrying On In The Same Manner
Nobody remembers how the universe ended.
Some aren’t even aware that it did.
“Imagine Creation’s Big Bang, but in reverse,”
suggested a prominent physicist,
time scattering like shattered molecules.
Time a monster with a lamb in its mouth.
Earth shaking like a ride at a fairground.
“Carry on as if nothing has happened,”
the constable talking in his sleep instructed.
“Things are in the saddle and they ride mankind,”
Emerson obliquely commented from the garde de robe,
unaware he’d been dead for many decades,
the cosmos reverting to its standard darkness.
Double Feature
An empty cinema, a few last shattered dreams going about
the business of expiring. You can practically hear the stars
in dialogue. You can sense the disbelief, suspended from
a spider’s web-strand ever since the advent of the talkies.
On the ‘silver screen’ is a fine powdering of laughter and
ashes. In the back row are two apparitions locked in a kiss,
quite oblivious to the Age of Reason.
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and broadcast globally.
Poetry from Precious Moses
Echoes I dreamed a dream in my dead sleep, But I dreamt not of my weightless limping cry. I dreamed of hope, on their palms they balanced the scenery, scenery of a better tomorrow. I hear many voices, Like its said a madman hears. I hear trees talking, Like its said a medicine man hears. Maybe am a medicine man, hearing, taking saps. For the voices are luring me to walk where springs and fountain unite in solitude. In the damp half light, dream wakes and the voices fade, now they become shadows that cling unto each other, but kiss the air only, only beneath the moonlight, where the waters tide blows them under. Fear squats at the feets of the faithful , And the sharp cries cut keen as knives. The souls of men are stepped in stupor, And pain shudder shoulders, even to the bones. The drunkard drink of the spell of beguilness And tonight men eagerly drink from the bottle of greed. But turn now brothers, turn upon your side Where we will settle to the sleep of the innocent. ©®Precious Moses Country:Nigeria
Photography from Isabel Gomez de Diego
Poetry from Duane Vorhees
THE HOW Your quality – how was it shaped? I was glacier before I was prairie, Your character – how organized? I was beached before I was tide, a grave before I was buried. Your proportion—how was it trained? I burned long before I was sacrificed. Your quality—how was it shaped? I’m the silence that amplifies the noise and the boiling part of the freeze. Your beauty—how ornamented? I’m the mute portion of my voice, still a prison after I’m freed. PARADISE UNFOUND Firework flowers bonfire the ink ocean. We too ignite as though comety sparks in the dark spacious nothings between stars. Attentive, like hero-shades bored with Hell, astronomer geckos crowd across walls to observe binary-system motions. We awake after a morningless sleep to the birdsong notes of a bamboo flute. We breakfast on mangoes and passion fruit from the wooden bowl on the wicker chair beside the bed. The hardwood floor is bare. The room is quiet and cool, as are we, till together goes interminable. Soon, palmtree shadows begin to revive. We smile and sound silently our goodbyes. And then I return to under the sun to dissipate the burn of my alone knowing full well it is invincible. Later, the beach exchanges bikinis for cruising wear and yellow lights erupt and eyes and spirits conspire to corrupt the sanctified romance of the harbor and adventurers penetrate borders and discover new springs of poetry PROPERTIES I wanted only a life unmortgaged-- how many stories I would furnish! When I took hold of my time, my mansion, I didn’t know how still I’d be transient. CIRROUSSESTINA Dust is the forgotten heart of my cloud, a child of the earth orphaned in the sky, a whisper of thunder before it's loud, an ambition too humble to be proud, as innocent as fleece before the dye. Soot is the forgotten heart of my cloud. No such elevation should be allowed, (they say) and nothing so lowly should get so high, a whisper of thunder before it's loud. Cloud-me may be alone or in a crowd, my composition ordered or awry. Smoke is the forgotten heart of my cloud. This shriveled world is covered by a shroud that shifts and gathers like unanswered Why?, a whisper of thunder before it's loud. I wish you too to live your life unbowed from your time of youth to the time you die. Sand is the forgotten heart of a cloud, a whisper of thunder before it's loud. HIGHWAY 14 I never went to Luxor though we once drove to Rushmore We loved the minestrone we ate in Minnesota en route to South Dakota. The skies were paved with zircons that she said must be diamonds. And I thought of Ramesses when we found Orion’s Belt, though eager for Roosevelt and Washington and Lincoln, Crazy Horse and Jefferson in all their granite glory. Milky Way spilt through the night like a Nile through vacant blight. This Hathor cowboy obsessed over sphinx and obelisk, so we detoured off 14 for benben on Silent Guide. My oracle realized when we crossed the Bad River toward the Six Grandfathers Up South Down West, North, and East that our stars weren’t carats, they were our fatal scarabs.
Poetry from Laura Stamps
Slug It’s coming up. The end of July. My vacation. Two weeks. That’s what I get. Not that I do anything. I don’t. Or go anywhere. Nah. Just sleep late. Binge watch anything, everything. Eat bags of potato chips (too many). Order Door Dash (too often.) A slug. Basically. That’s what I become. But now, but now. I have Amelia. And I’m thinking, thinking. Road trip. Dog parks. That’s what I’m thinking. You know. Visit all the dog parks in Georgia. Tennessee too. I guess. But only the best ones. Yeah. Only those. She’d love it. Amelia. She would. I mean. Let’s face it. Slugs. Eew! Anything’s better than that.
Laura Stamps is the author of over 50 novels and poetry collections. Most recently: “The Good Dog” (Prolific Pulse Press 2023), “Addicted to Dog Magazines” (Impspired, 2023), and “My Friend Tells Me She Wants a Dog” (Kittyfeather Press, 2023). Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Lover of feral cats, Chihuahuas, and Yorkies.
Poetry from Taylor Dibbert
On the Loose On neighborhood listservs, He keeps reading About dogs Getting out, That never Would have happened With his London, He probably Would have Had a Heart attack If that had Ever happened With his London. London It’s been A few weeks Since he had A good cry But the tears Are really Flowing now, He just Misses her So much. Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Home Again,” his debut poetry collection, is due out later this year.