Socrates You -- god of something we want & we lack – Sacrificed to a life of questioning & Generations before the Lord took His own Life for some odd strange answers. Look: What the hell do you see now, looking back? Thousands of academics answering Counter-arguments at symposiums, A talk . . . on an essay . . . about a book. The Forgiving God deals with all those Hymns Sung by all those armed, those willing to fight. But you deal with people equally right: Know-it-alls all full of propositions. People like you have started Religions. Not you. You just died to ask us questions. Snakes & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails Ignorance is not knowing anything & being attracted to the good. Innocence is knowing everything & still being attracted to the good. – Clarissa Pinkola-Estes. All this reminds me of innocent things made up of the pure Then of memory . . . a fish with a hook stuck in its gullet & frogs tied up to a bicycled string, a dog wanting, & waiting for a sign of the bone in my behind-the-back hand, only long enough for a feigned toss, & that dog chasing empty expectancy. “I was a little world made cunningly.” I feel younger, not un-knowing again, but the pain in the heart of attraction. Like innocent desire compels it. These thoughts are caught in a throat that is mine. & I recall that fish flopping madly. Sit on the barstool next to mine 2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells, 1 at a time, then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl. You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls. What breaks you down so much these days? It’s not the relentless February storms, dark mornings or icy nights, or 28 days that seem to go on relentlessly longer than May’s 31. What drains you so much these days is not persistent fatigue, insomnia or illness; it is not 4 sweating hours each night, the cigarettes, the beers, or sinusitis. It isn’t depression, your diet, or exercise, although your body never lies except when collapsing limply late at night. What drains it all from you these days is not the labor law autopsy photo, proving more than the other attorney’s drone as you listen to her on the speaker phone, & ponder the relatives of the anonymous one who fell head first into the wood chipper, now one-half biped, without chest or head. No. It’s much more simple, more right than any of these basic, tragic recurrences. It is something once rare, now become common. Hard working friends, like love alone did, are dying. 2 seats down she removes the clams from their shells, then tosses the clicking casings into the bowl. You watch her suck the linguine into her jowls, jealous. She is beautiful, you are alone, & you want to say: Please sit on the barstool next to mine . . . I want to see living . . . Available Space 9 planets – & not an Eros or Cupid among them. But we’ve still found 2 homes for Mars. Acquisitions The red-faced neo-conservative political pundit, a total hog, a local celebrity from public tv, walked into the liquor store, my liquor store, where I worked, & he asked for “good Scotch.” “I don’t know Scotch,” I said . . . honestly. “It’s an acquired taste,” he said . . . with a smile. I said nothing, but I certainly thought about acquired tastes. I thought a taste for love must be acquired, since one must acquire a lover. One can read the works of love, I thought, read special guides from the East, or one can simply listen . . . to one’s lover . . . & then act. One can acquire an equally inexpensive taste for books, for knowledge, using the library, & one can acquire a taste for poetry, or prose, learning the greats, or just learning the adequate, even, without ever dropping a taxable dime, or spending one’s Scotch-drinking time, learning, or even listening to the words of some other. One can love & love words. Is this acquired? Can one acquire a taste for generosity? I wondered, say, float some money to a friend, but later give one’s time to the holiday soup line, having grown into it? Is that . . . acquired ? Later, I imagined my customer, the fat-faced hog he is, with money, hating taxes, drinking Scotch. I imagined him finishing his bottle of top-shelf liquor, as I finish my own cheap beer, given my acquired taste for cheap beer. I imagined him later, red-faced, kneeling before the toilet bowl, throwing up a soul, tasting like top-shelf Scotch, unlike language, or love, but still, an acquired taste.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Ubali Ibrahim Hashimu
WHENEVER I THINK OF IT Whenever I think of it I see nothing but moon and star Cuddle each other in an orderly manner Lulling me with a cloying nectar That waters my tongue like fish in a river. Whenever I glance at it I recall its brightest teeth That outshine the light of sun And my heart sinks into its ocean To enjoy aquatic feelings resting therein. Whenever I get a chance to kiss it Peacock and peahen we will become To hyperbolize in realm of love And encase ourselves in girdle of affection. Whenever I think of it I bring back those memories When I smiled and cried out loudly For the untold stories I buried Which cage my soul in monsoon period.
Poetry from J.D. DeHart
Twists We are a tangle. He sees himself As master-at- Arms, twists The appendage Behind. Transmogrifies. Becomes the monster On the table From memory, from Lore. Dancer, statesman, Retiree, friend of toxic Masculinity. Who can understand Why anyone, who would Hurl stones through His windows. Foolish tire-waisted King of television, who Hides behind shiny metal Instruments of fear. Who hides. I used to think the Kingdom Of God was rolling in like A fire, And I had better roll with it. But couldn’t. It wasn’t me. I was a quiet Soul on a bench. An occasional tear. As though I could summon Another person inside, another voice that would Be more valuable. Gumption, you don’t have enough gumption To stand. Wrong, but how it wrung me. I had not yet found the right place To find footing yet, like slipping toes On the wet stones of a forest path. As though a shout was all I needed To prove myself – to whom? I worried my head Was too full Even with a sensing muscle inside. Such worries have so often proven False, reifying identity, Finding compassion where others find Fences And fences where others find welcome. I am who I am, perhaps created, I believe Created – angry, silent, bereft, doubting, Certain, confused, clear, seeing the steam’s Bottom on mud at once. Seeking. A creature of calm, not cacophony, But speaking, not only when spoken to. Who would rather read one Book I love That a thousand so-so stories. Who sits, listens, writes, Letting a thousand pasts and possibilities Ride by with a thousand worries Calling from the backseat. Awake. An Upside Down World, the floor a floor The cavern walls, Rising above, this is the cold winter world I discovered as a teenager when a new path Opened. Want to come to my house? I knew that invitation could lead to screaming Diapered trouble. Found that bit of fear inside That wouldn’t trade a moment for a life. Rising above, a tundra sky, welcoming Ice that will make you slide if you don’t watch It. Watch it. When will warmer Weather come? The climate is cold, Like standing in a stranger’s kitchen, like Bobbing heads of angry on the way Out the door. Like an earthworm heart. Like the blank spot next to another That won’t be filled. Anytime soon. No one’s Home because someone’s always hiding. Fuck it, I’m not hiding Anymore. Tired of traipsing Worries and woes behind me like a row Of babbling, honking geese. Bread is now baking in the oven, even If it’s not my oven. Anymore. Poison in the Yard The common morel, of course, populated our dinner table, popping up like – well, you know. We had a field guide with illustrations that were a little too imprecise for my liking. Glossy pages, the title might as well have been: How Not to Die Around the House. Decades later, as I approach middle age, I hear the phone ring, the static story buzz of how my father insisted he had found a safe one. Cooking it, liquid like blood leached out in the butter-laden skillet, nature’s final warning, and my mother tried to convince him. He insisted and, thankfully, made it through, a testament that even the memories that grow locally sometimes have death in the middle. Recluse No, not the brown kind, scrambling creature with legs and venom, fiddle belly. Such creatures are proof of the story of Lucifer to me, fallen from some ancient ago. Yet, recluse/reclusive, still. I think I know enough of fellow humans to suggest a modicum of reclusiveness can be helpful, the stirring of murmurs commonly drowned by the din, the steep mountain of self- acceptance, laden with barbs, packed with prevarications. Yes, rejected, I reject; refused, I refuse; distanced, I say now I am in my starry cavern. Don’t let my inner music dare to disturb. Stillville There’s a hollowed-out mouth in the rockwall of mountain, where the trappings of an old still are located. Visitors to the park gawk at it, some laugh, and some touch the marks of an alcoholic’s anger, wherever such scars can still be found. I myself was seventeen the first time I took a drink of some cheap wine from a Sam’s Club bottle and thought: What’s the big deal with this? Others swallow a drop and are caught. But I have been raptured by other invitations. A bit further up the mountain, you can look to your left and see a giftshop where items may be purchased to remember the days of yesteryear: outhouses, smokehouses, old women spitting tobacco into open containers with a pinging sound, like shelling beans. It’s the insecurity that comes from being born of such a place that makes me switch my code by adding my g’s to the end of words. But, of course, we all come from some hollowed-out story in the side of some grander scheme. The Paradox of Connection I’ve been told that men only want to gather and talk about sports or alcohol. Well, aside from bouncing a basketball back and forth with my Dad in the hallway of my childhood memory, I don’t know a damn bit about sports. Alcohol is lovely but sits in the back of my throat in the middle of the night. Each sip is a sacrifice of a moment of rest. I’ve been told that, as a man, my best bet at friendship with women will always end in some kind of desire for romance for one of us. Not that I’m insanely irresistible, but this is the When Harry Met Sally outlook on life. This is also one problem with a binary existence. Relegated to a digital space for connection, I marvel at how much human experience is captured in the click of a like, in the share of a post. Sometimes, someone will jump into the conversation. This is dicey. Don’t steal my thunder, man. Don’t jump in and subvert the post. This is the only fucking outlet I have. Connected with more people than ever before, that titular paradox is the inherent distance. But then sometimes, in a moment of masculine bonding, someone will surprise me over a bite: Have you thought about… Have you read… and my ears, were they as active as a dog’s, would settle back into a contented conversation.
Short story from Sherzod Komil Khalil
Dyunlekan was born in a place that is covered with deep woods. That place was still covered with white snow. Reddish-grey ground will be seen only in summer. What saw Dyulecan in the world is his father’s wooden cabin, green fir trees and nut trees, flannel dogs and deer that pull sledges, sky, cloudes and frog. He also knew polar fox, blue wolfe, brown and black bear and bogs of the thicket. Although his father, Mirgachan, told him about marvelous things of other worlds, he hardly believed that they existed. How could he believe the things he hadn’t seen? One day a helicopter landed on the thicket. As every child Dyulekan was surprised looking at helicopter. His hair was as brown as bear and his eyes were as blue as the lake. He was coming towards Mirgachan, Dyulekan’s father, also was hurried: “ –At last you came, Victor – he said. “ –Mirgachan, it has passed 12 years since we last met”, – a white man slightly beated on Mirgachan’s shoulder. “ – Where is your son, at that time he was a new born child. The time flies.” Mirgachan met Victor, when Dyulecan was born. This all because adventurous Victor fifteen years before visited this village and got lost in the wood. Fortunately, Mirgachan on the sledge ran into him. He took Victor to his wooden home and gave him to warm himself. He made healing tea by verdures and gave him. These were the reasons of their making friendship. Uncle Victor told him about the world, where he lived and Mirgachan wanted to go to that world. So, uncle Victor took him to Moscow. Mirgachan came back with a lot of impressions and would always tell about another world with pleasure. Because no one expect Mirgachan had been there. Uncle Victor lived a week at Dyulecan’s cabin. During this week Mirgachan took him for hunting on the sledge with dogs. Mirgachan also went for a trip on the sledge with deer. Uncle Victor was very happy. Near to his leaving, uncle Victor invited Mirgachan to Moscow again. “ – No, thank you,’ – he refused seriously, ”– I have been there. I won’t go again. Impressions which I’ve taken are enough for me to the rest of my life. Can my son Dyulecan go with you, if you don’t mind? I want him to have conception about another world. “ Uncle Victor listened to Mirgachan with a smile on his face and agreed to his offer. So, Dyulecan on the iron bird came to Moscow. To Dyulecan’s surprise, there weren’t any wooden houses. They lived as a flock of deer in the crowded square houses that reminded big stone boxes. Besides, there were glass building all around and they hang colorful lams everywhere. They shone day and night over noisy city. They cut the wood and build wide plains. They go in the cars, but not on the sledge. Just to please Dyulecan uncle Victor took him to places, where women have short hair like men’s and wear open closes. He saw uncountable new things like underground, internet, hypermarket, bar, disco clubs. They all were artificial and strange for Dyulecan. Because all people here talked using such senseless words as massage, “odnoklasniki”, “what’s app”, “facebook”, “office”. Dyulecan missed his own home. Because there people talked about sky, bread, wood and deer in his native language – tungus. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sherzod Komil Khalil was born on 13th September in 1982 in Kitab district, Kashkadarya region of Uzbekistan. He studied at Uzbekistan National University for Bachelor of philosophy from 1999 to 2003. Sherzod gained a master degree in Modern philosophy and history of the West from 2003 to 2005. He also studied for Higher Literature Course. In 2016, Sherzod Kamil Khalil’s book “Ileft Poetry” was published in the United States. His works have been published in more than twenty languages. Sherzod Kamil Khalil is the brightest figure of young writers of Central Asian literature.He currently lives in the Writers' Town in Peredelkino, Moscow. Now Sherzod Komil Khalil is a freelance writer
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
------------------------------------------------------------------------- where did it all go wrong i see my reflection in the window where did it all go so wrong? this woman wonders where i lost my smile i start telling a story about a bathroom floor and a horror that visits my dreams to this day she tells me the name of a great therapist i give her the names of all the drugs that never worked for me --------------------------------------------------------------- years of decay loneliness is a weapon sometimes a broken heart never heels these old bones have seen the horror of endless years of decay pain is the only companion that doesn't have plans in the middle of the day ------------------------------------------------------------ a kiss and a bottle of wine whispers in the rain long lost lovers realizing time can't be made up over a kiss and a bottle of wine it's that cold feeling of what could have been that haunts every soul that ever dared to love or be loved the scars come with the territory those that can't take the pain i would advise to learn to take the baby steps first love yourself sometimes, that is the hardest of all ---------------------------------------------------------- to deal with anxiety i guess the easiest way to deal with anxiety is to no longer give a shit be careful applying this to all aspects of your life most people won't understand and label you an asshole the joy is that other assholes will recognize you and give you that nod of approval look there, a whole new set of friends ---------------------------------------------------------- another morning appointment my mother hates the mornings about as much as i do yet here we are again another morning appointment, this time at the dentist she swears she only takes these appointments if they are the only time the place has i beg to differ and casually remind her of all the mornings she had to wake up early for work you are retired now you are allowed to enjoy it she tends to forget that and i wish i wasn't the one to have to remind her --------------------------------------------------- J.J. Campbell jcampb4593@aol.com https://evildelights.blogspot.com https://goodreads.com/jjthepoet J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He's been widely published over the years, most recently in Jellyfish Whispers, Dumpster Fire Press, Terror House Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash and The Rye Whiskey Review. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from Chimezie Ihekuna
Merry Christmas! ( The Phone conversation between James and Jane) Jane: James, it’s been over eleven months in the waiting for Christmas James: Jane, in as much as we’ve been waiting for this period to come; now it has. You know how time flies. Jane: You’re right! I’ve been waiting for us to meet. You know what James? James (sounding anxious): Jane, What’s that? You know I’m not good at guessing rightly Jane: Just guess…. James (a bit upset): Just can’t!! Jane: Okay. You know I miss you a lot. James (Indifferent): Yea. Is that all you have to tell me, Jane? Jane: So, what’s wrong with that? You know how upset I could be…when you sound that way James: Oh! I’m so sorry. It was never intended. Jane (jokingly): You’d better be. Anyway, apologies accepted. We are about being ushered into a season of love, merry-making and harmony. So, no need to harbor bitterness. James: I agree. You’re right! Will be great meeting you after missing you… Jane: I can’t wait to have my arms around your shoulders so tightly. You know what I mean James: You can say that again, sweetheart. I roger that! (Smiles) It won’t be long, honey. Just two weeks to the time. Jane: I will be on leave before then and before your eyes would twinkle, I’ll be with you, saying, ‘Merry Christmas!’ James: Jane, I’ll be glad to reciprocate this. I dream of seeing you…like now! Merry Christmas, my dearest Jane! Jane: Merry Christmas to my darling, James. Again, Merry Christmas! James: Got to go, Jane. Will call you back later. Jane (concerned): Hope no problem… James: Nah! It’s just that I got some other tasks on my work plate to attend. Hmmm…wished we could keep talking every day. Just have to go back to work. Merry Christmas in advance! Jane: Merry Christmas in Advance, darling. Miss you!!! (Kisses the phone) THE PHONE HANGS UP The End The Month of December Welcome to the ‘December’ month There are three other ‘’ber’’ months-September, October and November But the month of December is different It is a period for the season of Christmas; the celebration of the yuletide the month where the first day would be counted as a build-up to the celebration date-Christmas Day the preparation of gifts items, other presents, food varieties and several decoration tastes starts long before the December 25th deadline the month of December houses the ‘’Merry Christmas’’ celebration and paves way for the ‘’Happy New Year’’ wish.
Poetry from Henry Bladon
In the House of Insomniacs Freckled phosphenes flicker through paper-thin skin as corpuscles bounce onto egg-shell sensitivity. Salty eyes survey the scorched screen where fragmented images have been laid by hessian brushstrokes and monochrome shadows dance to throbbing visions in the hall of half-sleep. The distant screech of a lone owl befriends the anonymous night. Atonal phrases, reversed images, neologistic nattering magnifying words while ignoring the fine art of speaking, where permission to rest is withdrawn. Voices whisper noisome nothings as the sleep prospectors mindlessly mine another far-flung valley or scale another grey wall. Worthlessness I was walking along a winding tarmac path contemplating my own inconsequentiality and that I find it best not to dwell on a pointless search for purpose. It doesn’t matter to me whether existence is like an intergalactic vacuum. Am I any more important than tiny transparent spider? Do you know how the world ends? Is it with a cloud of honey-scented candyfloss? Maybe it just heats up so much we all melt. I could be an important politician. I could say something like “Imagine yourself in my shoes, I have all the power of the free world.” But actually, it makes me feel much better to acknowledge my own worthlessness.