Juneteenth Such a heart wracking event Bloomed yellow, green and red streams of gladness Ribbons around a geographic pole Unbridled dancing, hallelujahs. Once long ago when Texas was the last remaining stronghold of the Civil War black people toiled resigned in its fields Rattling horses Cleaning homes No one the wiser Not most whites Not blacks. The imbalance of nature hummed nicely As planned Though thoughts, wild thoughts Caromed with force and vigor around the cranium of mind. What color is freedom? What crack whackery brought that lone horseman to the capital His mount dusty, riding Sweat stains lining his neck and pits Didn’t ask for water Tied up his hoss Delivered his message: The General is coming! On Sunday, June 18, 1865 General Gordon Granger marched 1,800 Blue Coats into the island city of Galveston, largest in Texas, Critical seaport. On Monday, June 19, Granger issued General Orders No. 3. Lincoln told him, “Better read it out loud, Some of them don’t know how.” In fact he read it several times around the city At the market At the Osterman building, Union Army headquarters Over by the judiciary Down on the wharf . . . Two months previous, when Texas finally capitulated and was annexed by the Union Granger took troop command of the District of Texas. His first official act, read General Orders No. 3: The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. Another day at work in the life of a career soldier. A life-changing event for 250,000 enslaved black people … Didn’t know they had been freed two years earlier. Why so many? By the time General Granger assumed command of the District of Texas, the Confederate capital, Richmond, had fallen, the executive mentioned in the order – President Lincoln – was dead, and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery would soon be ratified. Is it possible to have a second independence? But the slaves weren’t free. The ex-Confederate mayor of Galveston flouted the Army, forced the freed people back to work, In point of fact, after New Orleans fell to the Union Army in 1862, slave owners in Mississippi and Louisiana and across the South effected their own trail of tears, a re-enactment of the Middle Passage, drove 150,000 slaves on a march to Texas, Deemed the best place to work the economic engine of slavery. Build America. Galveston was a hop and a sneeze from the Caribbean slave-trading islands Privateers and smugglers used it as an outpost for their operations. As long as the Confederate Army had control, there was no way to enforce Lincoln’s order. What turns black to red? Freedom came to Texas slaves two years later when the Confederacy finally surrendered Time enough to harvest two cotton crops When is free, free? Spontaneous celebrations broke out among the freed slaves Churches and homes, picnics and barbecues What is the inside of red? The color red became prominent Partly because it is the color of blood and Partly because it was a color of spiritual power among the Yoruba and Kongo peoples, Shipped to the Caribbean and Gulf Coast long after the slave trade was outlawed in1807. Red, a cultural reminder of the roots of the enslaved – Barbecued ribs in red sauce, Red velvet cake, red beans and rice, lemonade with fresh strawberries, strawberry soda bottled and shipped from Milwaukee. When does emancipation become freedom? ~ Sandra Rogers-Hare
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Christine Tabaka
The Last Seed My family glass & rust fragile & corroded crumbling at the touch Erased history shame & tears we continued on our path Sins elude the breakwater ocean swallowed all a repentant crossing Meals eaten in silence prayers said in fear no one dared to question The last tree has fallen I am the last twig sheltering the last seed No One Left to Hear Talk is cheap. Always cheap. Counting pennies for a dime. Actions play the mime, refusing to recite their lines. I buried a crucifix once, hoping to grow some faith. The ground opened up to swallow me. Hair tangled in knots like a fist pulling out roots of truth. Lavender speaks in soft whispers. What colors do you hear? Pennies tarnished and pitted. Chatter, chatter, chatter. The asking price for a word is an entombed relic. The cost of life, caged by lies, trapped without a voice. The prefix of time sits on shoulders of thought, not able to utter a syllable. Bound by convention, it sinks deeper beneath contrition, buried along with my cross. I Ask the Sky for More Standing still, alone, upon the hill / above the clouds. Dreams turn red / they burn through time. Time practices its lines over, and over, but cannot speak; muted to all who would listen / its tongue severed. I ask the sky for more / it does not answer. Thunderous silence fills my head. I stare into white light / blinded by your brilliance. I stand still, alone, upon the hill / above the clouds. You were so beautiful / your eyes so green. You slipped through barriers of reality. I climb even higher. Stars reach out to take my hand. They dance for joy / I join the dance. The end is near <I am ready>. Stepping off the galaxy, I fall into your vacuous night Finding the Truth of Who I Am there is no roof only a starry expanse reaching ever further beyond the dawn of man we trip over words light as feathers always searching for truth in the timelessness of tomorrow ideals do not equate as yesterday draws us back I was such a fool turning my face away reality played its little ruse a thousand years passed through our fingers riding imagination back home time does not change who we are unless we deem it so The Curse of Green Eyes Greed festers in my veins / seeping through my pores. Wanting what I cannot have. Always seeking more. Born with green eyes / the curse before me came. Helpless to my fate. Desire was my calling / envy was my name. I craved the peace I could not have, even that I wanted more. Nothing was for nothing, and everything was less. Time passed and light dimmed. Of memories, I have none. One emotion remains, the tireless pursuit of what I cannot have. To the very end of hope, a lust fills my soul. To quench the mighty thirst that bore me through this world. To calm the fire and know quietude just once. Gateway to Hell Standing at the gateway to hell. There is no going forward / no going back. Paralyzed / afraid to breathe. Encircled by a fire of hate & apathy. One small move, and we topple over the edge. A devouring vortex of horror sucking us in. Four years of uncertainty / two years in captivity. War caps off the dread. Fear of annihilation if we step too far. Where do we turn / where do we go? Darkness closes in all around. A world trembles. Can hell be far behind? Beyond our reach / behind our knowing / lies a place where we play games. Games of life and death. Foreboding stillness awaits the eruption of truth. A truth that stands alone. We are the makers of our own hell. We pave the path we trod.
Poetry from Mahbub
War and Love The world is exposed to this hammering And moulding the golden or silver necklace How beautiful and brightening! Everyday every moment the fighting people bleeding and dying How pathetic the role played! Although we perform our duty from both sides No caricature, no specialty before-after So touching the heart of others How loving the scenery of land and waters On the other hand the little bird flapping its wings Gasping for a little chance to live In the world it's very hard nut to crack The destination of peace and love. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 28/05//2022 Water Crisis Bangladesh is a land of rivers But they are crying for water If you cross them in summer or winter Its only knee touching once twenty years ago It was full to the brim I live in subconscious I die unconscious Dryness covers up my area Dams, dams and dams that tears the heart The world is open for all But some are victimized by the barriers in waters and land Can you imagine the problem in the subcontinent? I live in subconscious I die unconscious At times when water flooded us to the place Can you imagine? Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 28/05//2022 The World Attacked By The world is attacked one by one One by one -Corona Pandemic, Russia - Ukraine fight Israel - Palestine fight, China - India Fight Fight against hunger and plight from country to country We, the commoners try to get free from the clutch of the spoiled brains Control the markets for high rise price of the necessary commodities Standing before the shop look so high around the sky Eyes turn so big and red bright! And all seem to be dark at the time of paying the bill Fight within me on the land, in the ocean, hills and the place Where the children are learning their lessons at the institutes Only fight and death - death and fight. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 28/05//2022 Immunity All fades away! Hi immunity Lost your power of moving in body Just like the shooting star in the sky Twinkling once goes out of sight But we do have belief We must stand side by side so close Its patience that permits us to exist here from time immemorial Day by day our immunity dims away adding the earth One day I must see you with our loving desire I must run from one to the other-the loving bird How maddening the love between! O love, my dear love! Immunity must be regained one day in us. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 30/05//2022 Risk While swimming on the pond at my high school life in seven or eight grade I take risk of him for holding me on the back Spread my hands on water But within a minute or two I get tired Finding no way I wanted to escape The more I want to escape the more he wants to hold me so tight At last I stared my journey again on water Crossing the middle part of the pond At reaching point to the other side two or three yards left Losing all my strength, we began to take water Just at the moment a black boy standing on the bank jumped on Robust and strong enough to support us from going under water We revived, but the moment still I remember at times to take my shelter in love. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 30/05//2022
Poet Mary Mackey interviews poet D. Nurkse
D. Nurkse is the author of twelve books of poetry, most recently A Country of Strangers (Knopf, April 2022), a "new and selected." He has received the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Whiting foundations. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review and many other venues, and has been widely translated. He has taught poetry at Rikers Island and served a term on the board of Amnesty International-USA. He currently teaches in the MFA Program at Sarah Lawrence College and collaborates with Zephyr, his visionary dog.
Mary: Welcome to Synchronized Chaos Magazine, Dennis. A Country of Strangers is wonderful and very moving. I loved these poems in so many ways: in breadth, depth, and height; in subject; in beauty; in richness. This collection, which is a "New and Selected," brings readers thirty new poems and over 150 poems drawn from eleven of your previous books. How did you choose the poems for such a rich collection, one that spans well over three decades of your work? Did you pick your favorites? Select according to a theme?
D. Nurkse: I’ve worked hard all my life in this poetry labyrinth, and all the prior collections left out a lot. I’ve learned to have a Zen attitude. If a poem has intensity, it’s because a lot of companion poems were left out—it's representing more than itself. So the selection process was pleasurable for me. My editor Deb Garrison had her own thoughts but was very flexible: it was a good situation, I had a check on my impulses but didn’t feel constrained. My books tend to be thematic, and my first impulse was to preserve each theme and keep each collection distinct. Deb was more granular, thinking about individual poems.
Mary: What changes did you discover in your writing? How have you changed as a poet in the past thirty-five years?
D. Nurkse: Maybe I’ve gotten worse? I was a hardworking kid, for sure. But I have done books recently that are speculative, approached the poem in a way that’s more open to other voices, sui generis structures, themes like marine biology that weren’t always part of the poet’s palette. We’re all struggling with a permanent crisis—the world is imploding, the universe squeezing itself back into a dot of sound byte. How do we deal with that? How do we live with disaster without investing in it or denying it? That’s the background. In the foreground, poems take so much time to write that you’re not always conscious of style, just of endless trial and error. Judgments are for the critics who have detachment.
But there’s another side to your question: what did writing help me discover? Often, I found the poem taking the other person’s point of view in an argument, being tolerant of an adversary, being curious for no motive. Poetry is more generous than I am.
Mary: In the poems in this collection, you seamlessly combine the personal and the political, demonstrating compassion and understanding for those who protest injustice, and the poor and oppressed who cannot speak for themselves. For example the first poem in A Country of Strangers, “Order to Disperse,” is dedicated to your students and takes as its subject protestors facing armed troops. What makes it remarkable is that you simultaneously reflect on the beauty and fragility of life in lines that are lyrical and deeply poetic. In other words, your poetry is often political, but never didactic. How do you accomplish this?
D. Nurkse: Mary, you’re too kind. I really believe all our lives are political. But I deeply believe in the autonomy of the poem. We as a species don’t know ourselves. We’ve been organizing ourselves with the same brain capacity for 30,000 years, and all we’ve come up with is a handful of male narcissists with the ability to destroy every sparrow and butterfly in the world. I really believe in poetry as a thought experiment: a decoy self that channels its own emotions and creates a mirror in which we can see ourselves, maybe, at least for a blink. It’s important that that decoy self doesn’t have to be righteous, anti-bourgeois, and infallible. Otherwise we just intoxicate ourselves with our own convictions and we end up being Communist oligarchs or the kind of Christians who couldn’t forgive a mouse.
Mary: How has your family history influenced the poems in this collection? For example, I understand that your parents immigrated to the United States from Estonia in the 1940s.
D. Nurkse: My family history has been a huge influence. My parents both came through trauma and never visited that on me for a moment: that’s an immense accomplishment, and I will honor them for it as long as I breathe. They met on a boat out of Portugal in 1940, escaping Nazi Europe, and their lives have a sheen of precarity, contingency, that becomes more meaningful to me as I watch America now. There was a lot they wished they hadn’t seen that they didn’t want to talk about. That double negative made me a poet—the sense that there was another story behind people’s everyday words and actions, and it was full of danger.
Mary: How has your more recent, personal history influenced your new poems?
D. Nurkse: I’ve had several moments of deep sickness, those times when life is like a low door you have to duck way down to pass through, and you don’t know what’s on the other side.
Mary: There are mystical elements in your poetry that don’t lend themselves easily to words, yet somehow you find words to express them. Have you been influenced by poets from other eras and other countries? By poetry in other languages? By walks in the forest?
D. Nurkse: Walks in the forest, yes. Poets in other languages—Michaux, Apollinaire, Lorca, Alberti, Jimenez, Cendrars, Gabriela Mistral, Anna Swir. I taught in prison and inner-city schools, and there was a lot I could learn from the kids there. A little African American girl in Topeka, Kansas wrote “I’m just about average/but no two mirrors/show the same me.” That’s mysticism.
Mary: One of my favorites is the title poem “A Country of Strangers.” In it, you write of refugees from the “nation” of “Sheol” with its “limousines and shanties, padlocked granaries and empty fields, live wires strung in the rain,” and “our country” which is “poor too” and where “every inch of the border is sealed.” Could you tell us something about the circumstances that inspired you to write this poem?
D. Nurkse: I think you have ideas and graphic images: two very different sources, for poetry. I had the images in El Salvador—people uprooted, with their possessions sewn in canvas sacks, kids trying to save a pet. And the meditational idea is just the bemusement that we all die, and yet death doesn’t unite us as a species—we each feel it happens to everyone else. It’s a poem about “othering.”
Mary: Do you have a favorite poem in this collection?
D. Nurkse: “Caligula.”
Mary: Here is “Caligula."
Caligula
After Suetonius
Caligula ordered the night city illuminated.
Every stoop, porch, or balcony was a stage.
He made the senators dress as prostitutes--
tight silk skirts, paste-on eyelashes.
Up to a matron to wriggle into a boy’s shorts.
Marcus Severus, one-armed veteran
of our labyrinthine border wars,
had to hobble into the amphitheater
armed with a plume, and attack a lion.
A plume _ We were fascinated.
We were all players, who was the audience?
The Emperor chose me, me, me, and me,
and slept with us. He was passive
as a bedpost, but listed his demands
in documents we had to sign in advance.
Slaves--who had been stockbrokers
or insurance agents a moment ago–-
carried triremes on their backs to Rome.
Sails billowed above our seven sacred hills.
Would it ever end? We were enthralled.
Every breath was a saga
when you long to skip to the finale.
We no longer washed, brushed our teeth,
or picked a scab–just him, him, him.
It was Cassius Chaerea who killed him--
that silent tribune he called ‘pansy.’
The Emperor lay on his golden bed.
We were mesmerized. All we could do
was compete to reconstruct the portents:
headless chicken racing all morning,
kitten born without eyes, huge cloud,
tiny cloud, cloud like a fist...
For a few hours the Chronicler
listened and scribbled, but soon
he grew bored, we bored ourselves,
so began Caligula’s slow death--
Caligula who so often said of a captive,
‘make him feel he’s really dying.’
Now we’re helpless as always,
faced with twilight, a child crying,
birdsong, the breeze, our seven steep hills.
Mary: Why is it your favorite?
D. Nurkse: I think it speaks to authoritarianism, the temptation of our age, without letting the public off the hook. Why do we allow ourselves to become spectators?
Mary: Thank you, Dennis. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.
Anyone who would like to buy a copy of A Country of Strangers is invited to click here for a direct link to hard cover, Audible, and Kindle editions of this remarkable collection of poetry by D. Nurkse.
Poetry from Ivan Fiske
The Song That Keeps Us Alive - Breathing
six feet in St. Moses' graveyard
are bodies lurking in silence
housing a voiceless nostril
Covid-19 & Ebola have muted many nostrils
in my country/Mama Liberia
her streets are soiled with many bodies gunshots & rapists stopped from singing
living is hard
this means: we're to teach our nostrils how to sing
the same song repeatedly for longer without stopping
in the beginning
God implanted in us this song
in a way, our lungs will hold us alive for much longer
& in this world,
it's a sin not to sing - breathe.
let's get practical;
pause this second,
straw in a bundle of air
hold it in your mouth & nostrils
& blow it out gently;
this is another way to let out your pain
& this is how we sing,
this is how we breathe.
Poetry from Candace Meredith
Always In My Light Do not mourn over My body, my love For now I am a dove That takes flight Like a crow is to the dark I am to the light- The essence of being An energy that is unyielding - It was maddening to see you Lost, in a daze, always Having been lucid like My crutch when I leaned On you, too heavy to topple You were balanced, poised, And lean. My rock, my love, Keep your chin above your Slender beautiful neck I am now forever behind You, where you stand Ready to put up a fight. I love you.
Synchronized Chaos’ Second May Issue: Human Sensibility
“Matters of the heart make your world worth occupying.”
― Benjamin Percy, Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction
With the state of the world, we’re inviting Synchronized Chaos writers and readers to support various charitable and mutual aid- supporting projects, including efforts to support international writers and anthologies to benefit organizations. Please feel welcome to send in your writing, to purchase these anthologies, or to spread the word on social media.
Support Ukrainian Writers (listing of living authors from the country and their books which can be ordered)
Where to Donate Baby Formula (not literary per se but worth sharing anyway)
Snow Leopard Publishing’s call for short story submissions to anthologies benefiting different nonprofits related to justice and equality, care for veterans, healthcare, and wildlife/ecology.
Amazon wishlist for an organization led by Afghan women (nationals to the country who want to shape their own destiny free of warfare and imperialism and with equal educational opportunities and safety for all).
Beaupre Anthologies (seeking submissions of work related to indigeneity, neurodiversity, or horror, for separate anthologies).
This month’s issue attends to matters of the heart.
Abdulquadir Ibrahim Worubata’s work expresses sorrow at a deeply felt personal loss, while Ian Copestick renders the angry stage of grief, indignation at loved ones’ being taken. Aloysius S Harmon renders the extreme emotions of mourning in his grammatically understated piece.
The two protagonists in David A. Douglas’ short story dream their way into connection with deceased siblings, finding peace at last over their passing.
Sidnei Silva’s piece explores the varied and beautiful dimensions of rain and draws upon them as a backdrop for love between two people. Mahbub also turns to nature as a metaphor for romantic, familial and spiritual connection among people. and pleads for interpersonal peace and understanding.
Ahmad Al-Khatat’s work also cries out for an end to violence among nations and people groups, while also reflecting on love and insomnia. Steven Hill issues a lengthy literary clarion call for racial justice while Chimezie Ihekuna relates the story of an impoverished Nigerian boy determined to get an education. Pathik Mitra explores and advocates for gender justice in a creative short story while Kellie Scott-Reed probes the extent of our responsibilities to protect others in danger as well as our assumptions on the sources of the danger.
Allison Grayhurst’s poems speak of places where we find spiritual nourishment: through practicing faith, compassion, and mindful care of the land and its inhabitants through gardening. K.J. Hannah Greenberg contributes some gentle photos of animals and natural scenes.
Christopher Bernard pokes fun at the popularity-driven culture of social media to contrast with his low-tech, undying love.
Norman J. Olson describes his artistic creative process, most poignantly how his subjects become portraits of people he cares about, seemingly of their own accord.
Robert Fleming writes of love in an unusual way, in a piece where he juxtaposes romantic attraction and calculus. Another of his pieces links the earth’s rotation with that of a disco ball.
Jim Meirose contributes an intriguing tale that consists of internal dialogue and captures place, character, and time. J.J. Campbell presents a photograph in words of middle age and his speaker’s philosophical attitude towards his decline. George Economou reminisces about hazy past days of heavy substance use, old movies and ill-fated romances.
Steven Croft reviews William Walsh’s young male coming of age novel Lakewood and Federico Wardal offers up a preview of the historical film he’s creating about Cleopatra. Wardal’s intent is to portray the ancient queen as an authentic woman of her time with real human feelings and desires.
We hope you enjoy this month’s issue!