Clubbed clubbing A chick band dance- mix of "If You Could Read My Mind" slaps my face as I enter. De- sensitized, sanitized, stripped to the bone & machine polished to the point where the body the skeleton belongs to is barely recognizable. What would chaos do? Counter- productive. He held out his hand to entropy & had his fingers bitten off. Now he can no longer hold out his begging bowl, & the ground's too unstable to rest it there. Sometimes the results are pleasing A Swedish botanist found a cardigan amongst some neglected fruit trees. Trimmed in black, it bore a skull & crossbones insignia, & was buttoned up on the wrong side. She theorized this latter aspect might present a unique approach to a timeless prob- lem, how to fit round poems into square books. Your / expressions of / interest are most welcome That water festival is almost here. The property is known to contain pigeon lofts & new electoral reforms, a World War II flu vaccination campaign, & several 1800s stables. It's ex- pected some temperature records will almost certainly be broken.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola
AFTER PRAYER 24434. in my motherland, there is no silence after salaam— synchronized throes of supplicative frenzy. beads—rattling from invoking fingers & dropping from calloused foreheads; and behind you, there's always a hum from someone who missed God's call.
Poetry from Awodele Habeeb
POEM | WOLVES ON MY LAND Panic days and nights, As fear roams and rumbles my land, Causing tough tears from helpless eyes, Grieved groans from thirsty gullets And craving clamour from hungry stomachs, When all is embattled, Of the infestation of cruel creatures ---- Wolves. Black wolves. They everywhere parade in packs, With styles of superiority;of proclaiming leadership, And desperate hunts towards the weak. While the dreads of their detrimental feet, Tremble and torment the land into disharmony. Wicked wolves. During dawns and dusks do they appear, With their lowered noses to perceive preys, And the enraging echoes Of their howls shred the hearts, And the wailing woofs of their barkings Shudder away the dwellers' glimmers of hope. All ears too weary To persevere the grumblings of their growlings. 'Joint hands lift the load better', Asserted our asleep ancestors. So arise,my lands,all together! In bind,in bundle,in bunch, Let your souls awoken, With tied and tightened spirit of repulsion, Against the arbitrariness of their invasions, And tender your voices in consolidation, To silence their ascending crescendos. For my land is vast for promising plants to sprout, And not for wildness to tear into dismantlement.
Poetry from Joshua Martin
looping
sun swallow tailpipe imagine
if
you will (dis)engage
enough the
wheel had inspired
then blanched
waves thrust (had to)
(could not once
have) you still
if hollow
then
(mis)applied spot checking
wings to beating lids
overwhelm sun
swallow
numb & flickering combos
friction
fumes
ghosts casting plumage
trouble catching spores
of magazine dramedy
merging ratio cynic
worm hello empty
verbal plights fringe
an inherited zebra
transformational
anytime
think
free
feet
plain zapping wrapper
doubled
etc.
smoke
& smell
& confab
& twigs
son
thought
sorrow
slob
leveled
digging
doubt
that larval tongue
disposed
sharpened
in
come
heavier sword
yorn pencil
adverbs
twitch
damp
pitch
pretense
making coral slump
thin invested dowel
swear an elbow swoon
rubble
rabble
fading pretense align
dewy rolled naps
left cigarette soaked
hurry
fit a
bowl.
archive mint
gone long
femur flush
fresh park
trenched symptom
overwhelmed
chief | portal |
joke store evangelical
conversation
piece,
stiff upper
bridge,
insulin
gap [tape
me
aghast spun
]. beam
tower [change
of l,i,f,e
function
, crumbs ,
lust , calendar
. finish bu
z z e s
a w ,
link meta
Jaw [sold
enough recent
verbiage in
toward t
o o k
]. bolt blister
s a haste
.
Busted Structures
Repossessive nomenclatures
; The Machine
That Kills
Bad Breath
; (restless on the verge of
sickening zero gravity /
windswept gym
floating like
a NaKeD
trash isLAND).
Frontier
plastic
umbilical skin
; TaG , You
’ Re
It. Ooooooh
, had
met amphibious
un,
plumed (tidal
germinating
asphyxiation
cross
roads).
Taught crossing
angelic STRUM
, BoMb , tonnage
s
ew
er housing complex
romance.
Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is the author of the books automatic message (Free Lines Press), combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, Synchronized Chaos, M58, Don’t Submit!, BlazeVOX, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, Nauseated Drive, and experiential-experimental-literature. You can find links to his published work at joshuamartinwriting.blogspot.com
Poetry from Patricia Doyne
THE MAN WHO THREW TANTRUMS
Catsup bleeding down the wall,
shattered lunch plate on the rug…
The old man’s angry.
Sometimes he throws glassware.
Sometimes, yanks a tablecloth.
Meals spiral to the floor--
a sodden mess of fries and gravy,
cracked cups, pasta-coated flowers,
and one lone ice cube rolling to a halt.
Take that, you wimps!
That old man’s anger is fierce.
Smash! Crush! Crucify!
Call my lawyers! Sue the bastards!
Get revenge.
Like a child, he can be distracted,
but he holds a smoldering grudge.
Barr, the Attorney General
who hushed up Muller’s report
won’t knuckle under this time.
Finds no evidence of election fraud,
and tells the world on prime time.
Damn the man! You’re fired!
Firing’s not enough—
flings crockery
while minions cower.
This angry man refuses to lose.
Calls a mob to D.C.,
winds them up with lies,
ignites them with his thirst for revenge.
But the crowd’s not big enough,
not yet bragging-sized.
So he tells Secret Service to ditch weapons-
detectors, let everyone in.
“They’re not here to hurt me.”
The volatile man unleashes his mob,
says he’ll join them at the Capitol.
Plans a speech on the steps,
or perhaps in Congressional chambers
where Pence is receiving electoral votes.
But the Secret Service driver has orders.
Can’t guarantee safety amid an armed riot.
So the angry man lunges.
One hand grabs the steering wheel;
the other, the driver’s throat.
Furious. Desperate.
He needs to be there at the Capitol
to browbeat Pence, threaten Senators,
make them all submit to his army of thugs.
They need to see his power.
Driven home instead, he sends an angry text
naming Pence as enemy.
Rioters broadcast the text,
erect a scaffold,
go hunting.
Aides send many panicked phone calls.
Says the angry man, “Maybe he deserves it.”
This is the man with a nuclear button.
Hey—
that would yank the rug out from under those
traitors!
Then they’d be sorry.
This man is ready to explode.
Crazy-angry.
CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Behind the barricade, a crowd heats up;
seethes with fury, eager to lash out.
The young suit on the safe side feels their vibes:
tense—like an aimed bow, ready to fire.
Walking towards the Capitol doors,
he raises high a fist--a sign: I’m with you.
You’re Trump’s army, but you’re also mine.
And our side has the power. We will win.
The mob responds with shouts, and starts to push.
The doors, now closed and locked, hide dire
change—
a nation’s ballots have deposed their idol.
This cannot be allowed. Trump says he won,
and he speaks as a man chosen by God,
a golden man who favors billionaires,
is praised by evangelicals, and those
who trust his words and never ask for proof.
The outraged crowd becomes a forward surge—
smashing windows, clubbing cops, a rout…
They swarm inside, checking floorplan maps,
looking for Pence and Pelosi, armed and grim.
Congressmen who gathered to do their job
fear and flee. But look—down one long hall,
a suited figure sprints, hell-bent for safety.
Now they’re not his mates. They lust for blood.
The man who raised his fist to these rough troops
is running for his life. A video clip
preserves his panic for posterity--
with sound track. Lilting music cheers him on.
Poetry from Andrew Cyril MacDonald
Cheap obituary Shot nerves clasp undue cause wrested from the brain. They put to press makeshift scrawls their ill-bred worth. A sick greed for more knows which god trite errors played when night curtailed this conjurer’s show— some revolt four-squared slow to touch if matriarchy approves a loveless life indelicately owed this one fought for hinting trysts plausibly taled if funeraled loose. It breaks that fast naked words shape of etiquette outdone. Leave To wed these blithe earth plumbs— their end before they start. Now they shelter their wombs for fear they should be got un-groomed from shot-out fields civilization took, playing each in games their worth small lives little understood. Through dirt and sludge of needs made real they take these in duplicates of what enthrals if done as work forgives to come returned in left behind lost time their broke youth bid. Concert at Palestrina Light climbs the ground relic poises. It bribes in gain of loved one’s devotion pursed lips speak from, loud their faith enticing. Now it’s a truant kiss combative the notions flesh scrapes of unharnessed ambition patriots adore. Still, there is no mark here save that which chants freedom, our paled superstition restless becoming the postwar world. It’s the subtle involvement of a heart’s notes love gives to so that what she comprises are the scales of justice we hope for a concert outlining. Coma Our love formed of passion thrown to fevered pitch. It was of secret devotion, that surabundance involved prelude to a cause where bonds were just such purchase trite notions bled, exchanged for remission governance hid along our boredoms at death. Now to marrow it goes and quick along what traces each judgement slight errors trend of a séance attending we neat grow from— these, some mere throng contestant the peace against your bed, hand-held and endeavoured wishing you’d contort in. Our love formed of passion and this, here in end.
Andrew Cyril Macdonald considers the role of inter-subjectivity in poetic encounter. He celebrates the confrontations between self and Other and the challenges that occur in moments of injustice. He is founding editor of Version (9) Magazine, a poetry journal that implicates all things theoretic. You can find his words in such places as A Long Story Short, Blaze VOX, Cavity Magazine, Experiential-Experimental Literature, Fevers of the Mind, Green Ink Poetry, Lothlorien, Nauseated Drive, Otoliths, Synchronized Chaos, Unlikely Stories and more. When not writing he is busy caring for seven rescued cats and teaching a next generation of poets.
Poetry from Mohinur Askarova
My beauty The captive who won my heart, The secret in his eyes, The prisoner built in the heart, My beauty, my beauty. My heart is in the opposite eye, Sweet - in the word sugar, On the most beautiful face, My beauty, my beauty. One soul in my chest, Missed of my mum, What, I do this bad, My beauty, my beauty. Caesar, stubborn bad girl, I fell to your feet, knee, I can't live, you, My beauty, my beauty ✍Mokhinur Askarova You will never find me You can never find me, If I head away. Maybe then, my dear, If I go to your soul. Miss of my parents too, A person looking forward to my ways. To my childhood, You know how bad it is to look. You can't stop me, Your dreams say definitely . You're looking for my smile, You can't even make me friend . Without asking me to moon , Shame on you for looking at the ground. I told you, dears, You will never find me ✍Mokhinur Askarova Mohinur Askarova was born on May 13, 2006 in Jizzakh city. She won the III place in "World Talents" with her poems. In addition, she won the first place in the city and regional contests.