Shopping A sky of pigeon gray. The sun a beautiful stain. Air without a breath. Crowds in motley, cheerful, insouciant: no one is worrying too much. A little girl falls and cries out, her white shoe behind her on the sidewalk. But her mother’s there: no tragedy, just a few small tears. I can smell oil, leaves, soft pretzels, grass. The day moves like a parent trying to carry too many presents. Several fall, and one or two are definitely lost, but, surely, there are more, many more, where they came from. _____ Christopher Bernard’s collection 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 “tales for children and their adults” – If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . . and The Judgment Of Biestia, the first stories in the “Otherwise” series – will be available in December 2023.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Borna Kekic
Birds of my land... The sun's rays wake up the birds the wind dries the raindrops the smells of the day, the city wake up alone my city is the most beautiful I know On the street laughter when it starts and the song when it reminds me to love you and you are all happiness You are the most beautiful everyone knows that The sun's rays wake up the birds the wind dries the raindrops the smells of the day, the city wake up alone my city is the most beautiful Because I know that... Borna Kekic is a poet in Zagreb, Croatia.
Poetry from John Tustin
I NEVER THINK ABOUT YOU WHEN IT RAINS ANYMORE I never think about you when it rains anymore except for tonight when I am for some reason. It could be the way the air smells a little like mold, only it smells good, not bad and it reminds me of some other time but I don’t remember when. I hope next time it rains I’ll continue my process of forgetting all about you more and more often but the rain has a way of getting in when it gets to falling heavy. I don’t know. I breathed you in for so long and it’s been years since then but I know my body hasn’t expelled all of you yet. I never think about you when it rains anymore except for tonight when I am for some reason. Water is getting in through the one window I’ve left open, over in the corner. I’ll get up and close it but not yet. Eventually. Not yet. THE RIVERS The river of your spine, the soft and gentle slopes of your body. The deep well of your belly, its rich sediment; the two burning coals that were your eyes, moistening and filling the room with steam. Your mouth when I was hungry; its dewy texture, its ripe flavor. Your breasts a cottony riverside when I needed to rest and bathe and drink. My hair damp with the evaluation of your flesh, my bare feet leaving wet half-prints on the floor beside the bed. Your thighs two more rivers flowing up and down and me swimming all along them a long time ago before this now-dusty valley, abandoned and long weary of metaphors, went dry. THERE ARE PEOPLE There are people who sit alone drinking coffee and they listen to every gulp as it falls down their throats and vibrates in their ears. There are people who smoke cigarettes and they hold them in a certain effete way, watching each puff of smoke as it emanates from their browning lips and rises up the room like a mist of vines. There are people who are content to eat alone in a brightly lit restaurant reading something on their phone while they eat french fries without looking at them. There are people who don’t notice when someone has entered the room and there are people who compliment anything that they secretly find unattractive or vile. There are people who drink and people who don’t drink anymore and people who have never swallowed even a single drop. There are people who think they love God and people who curse at the mention of His name and people who don’t believe he exists at all and there are people like us who don’t pretend we know anything about anything. THE TOMBOY She only lived around the block from us for a summer or so and I can’t remember her name but I can close my eyes now and see her as clearly as I could when we were ten years old and she played Army with us. She had short brown hair a little darker than mine and just as messily arranged on her head and she could and would do all the things a boy her age did. She played hockey and baseball with us and I had this enormous crush on her even though she dressed and acted and kind-of looked a bit like a boy. Never did I say anything or do anything about it, of course. I was ten. I kept everything to myself like most of the kids did. I tried to be on her team (or side when it came to Army) whenever she came out to play with us and no matter how fast she could run, how far she could throw or how well she could imitate the sound of a machine gun, she was still a girl to me. She had eyes like a girl. No boy’s eyes would ever make me feel like that. Her sweat smelled different than my sweat and when it sat in beads on her neck as she stood with hands on knees at second base with eyes squinting in the sun I knew that she was a girl and that I liked girls – especially her. She spat on the ground and scratched her short boy’s haircut while I snuck my glances, feeling many things – none of them confusion. YOUR DUSKY STEM! Your dusky stem! Your bright brilliant husk! Watching you bloom at night, My lovely evening primrose, Your petal soul so yellow, So delicate to touch, So indestructible in the wind That never stops blowing. You bring me your medicine And your certain loveliness Each evening that you open For me, just for me, only me. You black-eyed sorceress With your thighs that are Held by roots that love the earth. Your blatant purple stigma! Your anthers that shine! Your filaments glistening with new dew! Your sheltered husk that hides The seeds and the fruit That nourish me And your sepals that hold such beauty With an animal’s natural grace. You black-eyed mistress With your legs that shake But do not bend, Held by roots that love the earth.
Synchronized Chaos Mid-November: The World That Dwarfs and Outlasts Us
We continue to express sorrow over what’s happening in so many different parts of the world and encourage our readers to support people and the planet.
Also, we are hosting our Metamorphosis gathering again! This is a chance for people to share music, art, and writing and to dialogue across different generations (hence the name, the concept of ideas morphing and changing over the years). So far photographer Rebecca Kelly and English/Spanish bilingual poet Bridgett Rex are part of the lineup and more are welcome! This event is also a benefit for the grassroots Afghan women-led group RAWA, which is currently supporting educational and income generation and literacy projects in Afghanistan as well as assisting earthquake survivors. (We don’t charge or process the cash, you are free to donate online on your own and then attend!)
This will be Sunday, December 31st, 2-4 pm in the fellowship hall of Davis Lutheran Church at 317 East 8th Street in Davis, California. It’s a nonreligious event open to all, the church has graciously allowed us to use the meeting room.
You may sign up here for event reminders. RSVP appreciated but not required.
This issue draws us into a full sensory experience, surrounding us with places and worlds larger and more vast than ourselves.
Vernon Frazer’s pieces rumble with a smorgasbord of rhythmic and clanging instruments and sounds while Joshua Martin sends up a plethora of sonic syllables. Mahbub Alam stares and contemplates the beauty of nature and the Taj Mahal. Christina Poythress highlights through tactile details the rich nightlife within the world’s soil. Kathleen Hulser draws on mathematical concepts as metaphors for how life changes affect and circumscribe our lives.
Jim Meirose illuminates the sensory experience of playing outside on the grass on a nice sunny day while Lorraine Caputo wanders off trail in South America: evenings, out-of-the-way streets, and less crowded areas.
Rafiul Islam speculates on inter-planetary relations in a society where multiple sentient species inhabit multiple planets.
Bekzod Quodirov outlines ways to make ammonium nitrate safer and more stable as a fertilizer and an industrial tool.
Uruguayan countryside, fisherman, photo c/o Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Even our own, more human-scale worlds contain more detail that we often grasp at first glance.
Sophia Fastaia remembers the joy, wonder, comfort and danger of childhood, all in one birthday party.
Chloe Schoenfeld’s piece probes opposites and finding and befriending one’s shadow self. Pascal Lockwood-Villa surveys a vacation in the tropics through the lens of photos that reflect different dimensions of human nature.
Susan Hodara details the common sensory experience of drying off after a shower while J.D. Nelson observes daily life and snacks within a homeless shelter.
Philip Butera describes with sensory details the underside of a circus after the show, referencing the work of repackaging the illusion.
Duane Vorhees’ work explores coupling and fertility from several big-picture spiritual and grounded, natural angles. Aklima Ankhi describes the search for an intense emotional connection with a lover that goes beyond the fleeting happiness of the everyday.
Slavica Pejovic ponders love, closeness, completeness, and connection. Aasma Tahir rhapsodizes about the subconscious worlds of nighttime, romance, and the imagination. Kristy Ann Raines describes the intense emotional experiences of love lost and regained.
While our universe can be glorious, it can also be tragic, with forces beyond our control.
Ari Nystrom-Rice reflects on the fragility of his knowledge and sense of place in his world through the metaphor of a child’s toy boat exposed to the elements.
Nilufar Ergasheva illustrates the dangers of the winter season in rural villages, with cold and wild animals on the prowl, while Christopher Bernard renders appendicitis and surgery into poetry.
Mykyta Ryzhykh probes where we can find meaning and tenderness in a war-ravaged world where death seems frequent and life seems meaningless. Atagulla Satbaev shares how we delude ourselves into thinking love is eternal: time and death separate everyone. Michael Lee Johnson reflects on his own mortality and attempts to find eternal love in living death, rather than in the capriciousness of life.
Graciela Noemi Villaverde’s piece renders grief into somnambulant surrealism, a panoply of dream images while Alden Joe evokes the pain of lost love with imagery of tigers and predation. Suleiman Gado Mansir sends up a surreal dream sequence illustrating how our minds attempt to process the world’s violence.
Sometimes, we wonder what place we have in such a large world. Will the universe overwhelm and consume us?
Alma Ryan explores the season of fall with a meditation on falling, death, and the ways we let ourselves go. J.J. Campbell’s work turns solemn this month as he ponders various kinds of death and forms of passing away.
Zahro Shamsiyya reflects on the brevity of life and the need to savor the experience. Jerry Langdon reflects on the changing of seasons and the passing of a friend.
Gabriel Flores Benard shows the tragic ways continued abuse can shape a still-forming personality.
Even apart from mortality and injustice, everyday human psychology can be a mysterious and unmapped landscape.
Zosia Mosur illustrates how we sculpt and train and also harm and punish our physical selves.
Taylor Dibbert’s speaker speculates on what his midlife decades will bring, while Noah Berlatsky highlights the common human experience of procrastination and Shirley Smothers relates her efforts to maintain inner peace.
Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna laments that real life can’t be like the novels she reads. Azemina Krehic compares herself to a linden tree and wishes she possessed its strength, but finds herself instead in the tree’s biological complexity.
Yet, we as humans do not have to be passive in the face of such a large and grand universe. There are roles we can play, even as individuals, that allow us selfhood and transcendence.
Diyora Abdujabborova’s reflects on the value of women’s leadership and nurturing roles in Uzbek society. Anila Bukhari speaks to the earnest desire of girls living in poverty to get an education.
Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam collaborate on haikus that are translated into English, Taiwanese, and Igbo and highlight moments of people collaborating with nature. Nery Santos Gomez illustrates the joy she takes moving in unison while riding a beloved horse.
Daniel De Culla’s photography focuses on low-key ways we alter or adjust our environment: clothes, sketches, bushes we plant. Isabel Gomez de Diego illustrates moments where nature (small children and plants) integrates into our built environments.
Sayedur Rahman demonstrates the resilience and strength of refugees creating new lives in their new homelands. Jacques Fleury asserts his place in the world as a Black man, self confident even in spaces not created with him in mind.
Christina Chin and Paul Callus also collaborate on further haikus translated into English, Mandarin and Maltese that celebrate the mastery of crafts: cooking and painting.
Annie Johnson speaks to the transcendent immortality she finds through stepping out of herself to create art that will outlast her.
Mark Young reflects on the values and accomplishments of his Boomer generation in terms of shaping society while questioning the uses of similar government power today.
Z.I. Mahmud outlines Jane Eyre’s character growth and self-assertion in Charlotte Bronte’s novel while Shokirova Zarnigor Shuhratjanovna urges patience for people seeking the meaning of their lives.
Orzigul Sherova shares how she learned to draw on her fantasies as an inspiration rather than as a way to avoid achieving her real-world goals.
In Nahyean Bin Khalid’s take on a haunted mansion horror tale, his protagonist frees undead souls trapped in the home, but stays to become their caretaker rather than escaping, getting killed, or kicking the ghosts out.
Maja Milojkovic’s piece encourages us to heal and move forward from grief. Nilufar Rukhillayeva’s translation of Erkin Vahidov’s Uzbek poem points to a larger societal step forward, the passage of time and renewal that comes with the New Year.
Jaylan Salah reviews Daniel Radcliffe’s new HBO show The Boy who Lived, about David Holmes, his stunt double who became paralyzed after an injury on set and who worked with quiet courage and dignity to rebuild his life.
Even if our places in the universe are relatively small in the grand scheme of things, it matters how we fill our places because our behavior and choices affect those around us.
Rasheed Olayemi’s poem demonstrates how corruption at both individual and governmental levels weakens a country’s economy.
Daniel De Culla calls out the hypocrisy of people who focus more on looking good at charity balls rather than helping others, especially in wartime.
Mesfakus Salahin’s narrators are wise beyond their years in terms of their ability to love and respect and connect with other people. Salahin urges adult world leaders to hold to that level of maturity.
Elmaya Jabbarova urges the world to wake up and turn back towards life and justice.
Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa fondly remembers her low-tech but fun childhood visits to her grandparents’ country town, and urges compassion for those with HIV/AIDS.
Family, culture, love, and heritage can be vital to grounding us and giving us the strength to withstand a rough universe.
Aziza Gayratova expresses respect for her parents and the strength family love gives her to endure life’s injustices.
Wazed Abdullah reminds us of how essential love and caring is to life while Faleeha Hassan speaks to a mother’s wish to protect her son during wartime in her poem, translated by William Hutchins.
Shahnoza Ochildiyeva offers up a colorful paean to her native Uzbekistan while Yahya Azeroglu pays tribute to Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
Fahim relates a story of courage and loyalty among Bangladeshi soldiers at the country’s founding.
Finally, to come back to nature and the vast universe outside of our own species, Brian Barbeito reflects on the wisdom of nature to outlast humanity. He also considers how mysterious the sea remains, even after millennia of sailing.
Poetry from Erkin Vahidov, translated from Uzbek to English by Nilufar Rukhillayeva
New Year poem The human verb is surprised by surprise, There is no world without criteria. By measuring the stars, It also touches infinity. He is the owner, he is the slave forever To the beliefs he found, Don't say, even eterned, To the moments that happened. Collect hours from minutes, The days make up the months, He does not cry that life has passed, He celebrates the end of the year. Even though the wrinkles are increasing, As the years go by, Rejoice - more children, He rejoices - his age grows. It is a dream of endless There is a basis for hopeful faith: Man is immortal. Little by little It just goes to eternity. Erkin Vahidov Translator: Nilufar Rukhillayeva(1st year student of the Faculty of Foreign Philology of the National University of Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek)
Poetry from Mashhura Usmonova
Great birds
In the search of warm places,
Where are you going again?
Oh, cranes please get back,
And build the home of affection in heart.
Do not be afraid from the first fallen leaf,
Do not fly away, great birds.
Want to see a familiar face,
Birds like me whose hearts are burnt.
I follow you from behind,
All of you are leaving happily.
But remember I will wait,
Wait for you to come to me.
But I got upset from you, I have to say,
Listen to me hey, cranes.
One of your friends that has fallen from the row,
Is struggling, do not you see?!
And you, you are being just reckless,
Maybe it had the same intention as you.
The injured bird kept looking,
Looking long, from your back.
Oh great birds, great birds,
Burnt- heart- birds just like me.
Despite being unfaithful like humans,
Still, everyone loves you all.
Mashhhura Usmonova Zafarjon’s daughter was born on May 16, 2006 in Gallaorol district, Jizzakh region the Republic of Uzbekistan. Currently 16 years old. She has been practicing writing poetry since her 10 years old. Now, she is author of about 100 poems. She is member of the international organizations Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Argentina and India. In 2019, the author’s book of poetry entitled “Happy Childhood Message” was published. In 2022, the second author’s book of poetry entitled “Letter…” was put up for 26 countries under the Amazon online store of the United States. In addition, her works have been published in book collections of the United States of America, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Germany, Thailand, Canada, UK, Kenya and Moldova. She likes to read books and travel. Her future goal is to become a philologist.
Poetry from Shahnoza Ochildiyeva
Why I love my Motherland Why I love my Uzbekistan Let the wind tells about it. Take a deeper look at my motherland, It’s wearing a wreath from glorious history. Look for Ulegbek’s eyes there Who spend life staring at the stars in the sky In historical pages of my country All great beings are alive and alive. Maybe it is a childish love Let the world know its glory and fame. Namangan’s bright red apples And Samarkand’s baked shirmoy bread. I still have a smell in my throat Of sweet sumalak by my aunt Leads us right towards the dreams, A wish made in front of sumalak. Glittering on the nch of my country A bright necklace made of fame. Oh, friends, you will all see it too, Each necklace is a champion. Look at my lovely motherland It’s wearing an embroidered long dress Brightly different colours, Suits my beautiful country. Margilon satin is fine and tend The embroidery would adorn it fully Tying her waist with a decorative belt, Standing in body with full of beauty. Clothes worn by my Motherland Golden robe woven by Bukhara I think this is an another reason, Of the fiery and pure love of me. My country leads us in its hands, Thousands of kids, boys and girls. Towards a great bright future, All generations with enthusiasm. My country is lighting everywhere As a symbol of the brightest sun It’s dear to me as long as I live As my supposedly loving mother.
Ochildiyeva Shahnoza Abdivohid qizi was born on July 17, 2006 in the Republic of Uzbekistan, Surkhandarya region, Denov district. Presently, she studies at school number 49 in 10th grade.