Category Archives: CHAOS

Poetry from Farida Botayeva

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Middle aged light skinned Central Asian woman with shoulder length hair and earrings wearing a pink floral blouse and holding a book.

YESTERDAY WAS SO…

I was very happy yesterday

What happened to me today?

Yesterday my hair was a river,

And today, a knot like a heart?!

Yesterday was the sky, the sky

Today it is raining and cloudy.

Yesterday was a lifetime, a lifetime

Forget today like a dream.

Yesterday was full of heart,

Today it suddenly became a mess.

But a word became a sword,

There is no place to live, no shelter.

Yesterday I was alive too,

Today, it’s a stone.

I was a man, I was a man

I got sunburned today!

O friend!

No matter what you say, it’s today

Do not leave a knot in your heart.

The dream is long, the regret is long,

Can tomorrow find today?

Hey man!

Don’t hide what you say,

Say I love you, beg nolan.

Hearts are full of love,

Can tomorrow find today?

It’s beautiful when a flower blooms next to me,

I will put your eyes on my eyes.

If you don’t come, I’ll go myself

Can tomorrow find today?

Come, come with your mountain on your shoulders,

Come with your Khazonrez garden.

Come with sadness in your heart,

Can tomorrow find today?

Dear man, make your day strong,

A handful for every moment.

Live today, find strength,

Can tomorrow find today?

Farida Afroz (Farida Botayeva) was born on March 5, 1956 in the city of Kokan, Fergana region. She studied at the Kokan State Pedagogical Institute named after Muqimi. She is a member of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, a deputy of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Poetry from Christopher Bernard

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The Creation of Hope


Take a memory.
Add a thought,
a handful of questions,
and five tears.

Add the wings
of a mourning dove, 
a cruel caress,
a love, a lie,

a betrayed promise,
an aimless rage,
three sleepless nights,
and seven years.

Place in a pan, that,
each summer wide,
is ten winters long.

Finally, dust 
with a cloud of doubt.

Place in the oven
of a heart that is broken,

and bake for an hour
or a lifetime.

*

You will know it is done
when the stars are brighter
than when you began,

when the sea chants
to the sleeping hill

and blind with morning
is the sun,

when the birds dance
in the sky and shout
with castanets
gold and shrill,

when the snake slips
from its curdled skin,

and the chrysalis 
peels back to free
the Monarch’s brief,
painful beauty,

and you see an angel
cross the sky,
its wings transparent
as a dragonfly’s,

when, with the sun,
the old earth leaps
in the savage dance
of all beginnings,

and you wake, weeping
with a wild joy,
wondering where
your despair has died.

Take a spoon
of distant sigh,
silver whisper,
finch’s cry,

and feast on it,
o dearest love,

on the shortest day 
of the longest year, 
at the darkest hour 
of the deepest night.

_____

Christopher Bernard is an award-winning poet, novelist and essayist. His most recent books are the first two stories in the “Otherwise” series: If You Ride A Crooked Trolley . . . and 
The Judgment Of Biestia.

Poetry from Mahbub Alam

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Middle aged South Asian man with reading glasses, short dark hair, and an orange and green and white collared shirt. He's standing in front of a lake with bushes and grass in the background.
Mahbub Alam
Flash Flood

Some parts of the country are inundated
People and cattle are struggling to pass swimming swiftly
Trying their utmost to take shelter on a certain place
Those who fail life stops forever
A few of children and old people are snatched away by the current
The children are like the new flowers to the parents
The pain of losing the relatives
Ignites the suffering to the scale
Life is like a ghost without any certainty
Waves are falling on water, on the hearts to the every one
Some are defeated, some die to the last
The world appears to be a place unknown, hazardous
On the other hand some are collecting money for help
Foods and goods are thrown from the helicopter to the victims
Some are spreading their hands by boats to reach the necessaries
Feni, Cumilla, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Brahmanbaria, Chattogram, Rangamati,
Khagrachhari, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Sylhet and Cox’s Bazar are the districts
Where this flood kissed all the way
Where my love kiss is very negligible to them.
Ah! Flash flood….

Chapainawabganj,  Bangladesh
28 August, 2024.


Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.

Essay from Sarvinoz Mansurova

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I became the pride of my parents Mansurova Sarvinoz Khasan Student of Bukhara State Medical Institute I am the daughter of Sarvinoz Khassan, currently a 3rd-year student of the medical department of the Bukhara Contemporary Medical Institute.

I am the winner of the “Student of the Year” award. I am a participant in international conferences. I am the founder and head of “Noza Academy”, which was established for the purpose of ensuring employment and personal development of women and girls. The main basis of these achievements are the trust and hard work of my parents. “responsibility and pride.

From my father, I learned not to give up on dreams, to always move forward and to lead. From my mother, I learned to speak correctly, to study tirelessly, and to be responsible. I studied at a medical institute since I was a child. I dreamed of becoming a doctor.

Poetry from Brooks Lindberg

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Renegades:

The town ran out of graveyard. So they buried the dead in the air. But the night winds were so strong they blew all but the heaviest corpses away into the desert. So they buried the dead in their dreams. But this made sleeping unpleasant. So they ignored the dead. But they kept tripping over them during errands and chores. So they outlawed dying. But the town was full of rule breakers. So they lived with the dead. But this required shutting one’s eyes to see. So they forgot the dead.

A Treatise on Human Nature:

The only women with bulletproof smiles

are those who know

there are no bulletproof smiles.

All men with bulletproof smiles

have been shot dead.

Death discharges all debts

male, female, or other

but most the population

is alive.

Half the world knows

blonds are responsible

for most the world’s woes.

The other half

should meet more blonds.

The human heart

is a wine cork caught

in a kitchen sink’s eddy—

wild, undrownable,

governed by forces

not its own.

We cannot think.

So don’t. 

Brooks Lindberg lives in the Pacific Northwest. His poems and antipoems appear in various publications. Links to his work can be found at brookslindberg.com.

Poetry from J.J. Campbell

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Middle aged white man with a beard standing in a bedroom with posters on the walls
J.J. Campbell

——————————————————–

the end of this parade

i had a therapist tell me

that writing out my pain

would be a good thing

he was one of these fucks

that was never interested

in what i had to say

only wanted to make sure

the money was good

and people wonder why i drink

i feel like i can see

the end of this parade

that the light in the tunnel

is a fucking train and i feel

no desire to get off the tracks

i tell my mother there is

no reason to fear death

it is only the natural

conclusion of life

i don’t know how to be

a hypocrite on this one

i close my eyes and

accept the pain

i could care about

what comes next

but then again,

if i’m dead…

—————————————————

hoping to look cool

frank used to make

his saxophone howl

on a saturday night

i used to stand there

smoking a cigarette

hoping to look cool

putting pen to paper

when the moment

would arrive

there was a drunk

woman that took

my pen one night

i was hoping she

was going to write

her number down

on my hand

she threw it across

the street where it

got run over by

a car

i’m sure she has

kids now that bitch

about their kids and

all the school taxes

frank died a few

years later

and i haven’t been

back there in years

i did learn though

to hide my fucking

pen from the drunks

———————————————–

last nickel to my name

maybe love is a dragon

misunderstood and pissed

off about it

any delicate nature isn’t

tolerated anymore

as usual i am lost

broken and disheveled

last nickel to my name

a glass of scotch and

a clove cigarette for

that last reminder

of my youth

she was a snare drum

in a long solo from

coltrane

how she ever found me

will remain a mystery

i probably will never

get the chance to

read it

most likely

i am just a footnote

a chapter that some editor

will mark as not necessary

for the final edition

—————————————————

never cool enough to enjoy

two in the

morning

alone

it feels like

morning is

just another

reason to die

love is some

distant rumor

you were never

cool enough to

enjoy

once you got to

the second hand

of dead friends

you stopped

counting the

ones that beat

you to it

so many years

behind you that

the truth slaps

you and never

in the way you

would like

a cold reality

jack and coke

old reruns of

austin city limits

just hoping for the

right song to start

playing

————————————————

hoping for some kind of reply

i can remember the

quiet nights waking

up alone

thinking of you on

the other side of the

world

all the damn messages

sent

hoping for some kind

of reply

even a fuck you is

better than the waiting,

hoping

what good is this instant

society if you still believe

in smoke signals

the blinding sun and

a bottle across the top

of your head out of

nowhere

the average man

would take that

as a sign

i was blessed with

stubborn genes

i hope one day

someone can

appreciate that

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, The Rye Whiskey Review, Disturb the Universe Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy and The Asylum Floor. His book with Casey Renee Kiser, Altered States of The Unflinching Souls, was recently published by RaVenGhost Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)