from time to time
i saw a lighter
and a spoon on
the nightstand
by the bed
she saw me
looking at them
and uttered she
only does that
from time to
time
i told her it
wasn't any
of my business
your life
your choice
she kissed me
with a tear in
her eye
i was her first
non-hypocrite
in a long time
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
falling in love again
i know i am running out
of chances of ever falling
in love again
i wouldn't say i'm desperate
but i know i can hear the old
soul in me growing impatient
the joys of being a loner...
but it isn't like they are beating
the door down to find me
one broken soul has stepped up
and thrown her hat in the ring
now, it is up to this broken
soul to actually pick the
fucking thing up
------------------------------------------------------------------------
have her way with me
the latest muse wants
to come over and have
her way with me
of course, the middle of
a pandemic and suddenly
i'm popular again
i have the luck of someone
that's been dead for years
and if this is the after life
i'm really happy i didn't
waste all that time in
church
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
surrounded by death
all these years surrounded
by death you can't help
but think about it every
now and then
and as much as i love
to die in my sleep i know
the chances get slimmer
and slimmer each year
the evil side of me wants
to die on the toilet like
elvis
oh, the fucking irony
the poet in me wants to
die inside the wife of
someone else
in reality, i'm sure it
will be by attrition
or right before i was
supposed to suddenly
be rich
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
in the arms of my first love
i had a dream last night
i died in the arms of
my first love
i know i should tell
her about the dream
but i'm not sure what
that would accomplish
all the miles between
us aren't getting closer
anytime soon
and knowing my luck,
when they do
i'll be too late
i know i am officially
old when my life
becomes lyrics from
a social distortion
song
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know better. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Black Coffee Review, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Black Shamrock and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
From the Pound Cantos:CENTO XXVIII
Poor old Homer, blind, blind.
A patron of the arts, of poetry,
& of a fine discernment. All
decked in green, with sleeves
of yellow silk, saffron sand-
al so petals the narrow foot.
Eyes of Picasso. Eye-glitter
out of black air. A titter of
sound about him, always.
Here stripped, here made to
stand. "It’s a straight ship,"
I said. The blue-gray glass of
the wave tents them. A black
cock crows in the sea-foam.
Some / comments on / the logistics of
She decided to paddle
there, to join a meeting
of opposing currents
engineered by a spiral
laser beam. The brix
levels were already good —
cinnamon sticks & slices
of apple. The local bikers
are joining on Saturday.
Even though
the jokes
weren't all
that funny
everybody
laughed
because
it was The
President
telling them.
Same old
same old
but with a
significant
difference.
This time
they were
laughing
with him,
not at him
like they
did with
the fuckwit
who was the
previous
POTUS.
to your scattered bodies go
This place is a rip off, a real
live example of campaign
momentum in action, on the
downward slide. A year ago
it might have been a ukelele
serenade, encouraging women
to talk to their doctors for free
about the ineffectiveness of
retention programs or fad diets
or maybe something about Jam-
iroquai. Now the promises have
no value, imagined or other-
wise. The candidate is bundled
up, the gifts have stopped giving.
JOE UP LATE IN A SEAPORT
Downtown seaport.
one in the morning,
bar closes,
Joe hears the shouts
of the drinkers
as they stumble out into the street.
New moon makes nothing clear,
gray clouds haunt the night sky,
boats rock, docks creak,
and, for human sounds,
it’s Joe’s cold breath
against the alcoholic choir.
The men
slowly struggle up the hill
to their homes,
their sleeping families.
Joe stands by the memorial statue
for all fishermen who died at sea.
The drinkers look elsewhere.
They don’t like to be reminded
what a storm on the waters can do.
Joe imagines it’s just like this,
with men, once the street lights
lose track of them,
vanishing in darkness.
Until it’s just him.
And a marble sailor gripping the wheel.
And that whiff of liquor,
tinged with salt,
intoxicating.
A DRUNK IN HELL
Stars are Basin Street
at midnight.
hung like rosary beads,
like the glow of cigarettes
in the mouth of the snickering moon.
I prefer it when the clouds roll in,
white and puffy
as used condoms,
heavy as mud on a coffin lid,
the dark dogs of weather
snarling through the grill
of a sudden rain shower.
Clouds gather like mourners
at the nuptials of death and booze,
of the sax solo
boiling away from a nearby club
and the passing taxi pissing water
down my pants' legs.
I'm heading home
in the wrong direction,
crashing through Saturday night's demented party,
a parade of one,
liquored up, beaten down,
a float that stinks of a hooker's breath -
you'd think life would know better
than to let me inhabit it.
Maybe I'll just crash now.
Maybe I'll drop
where I am and if no one finds me,
so much the better for them.
But there's always a cop,
always the cry of "Move on, buddy."
So I move on like the clouds,
so the stars can reappear.
They're not light, they're fire.
It's their job to burn a hole in me.
FLOOD VICTIMS
Anna's rolling in the mud.
Husband Dave scoops up large lumps of sludge
in his hands,
watches it slowly drip through the cracks
between fingers.
This is what you do
when the flood retreats
and the land's a sea of slush.
No dimples in a baby's chin.
No soft pink squeeze of flesh.
Nothing clean as a fresh white towel
or a pressed Sunday suit
or a bread roll and a pad of bright yellow butter.
Some people armed with shovels
try to dig the town out from under
this deep brown muck.
Why fight it, says Anna.
I battled the disillusionment of marriage,
the burden of children, the grind of two jobs,
and the river still overflowed its banks,
washed away all homes and cars and life before it.
Others pick through the dark caked graves
of furniture, food and family heirlooms.
Dave had nothing worth having,
now he owns a house of silt.
The arguments are buried.
The disappointments can't breathe.
So what if the town smells
like rot, mildew, decaying corpses.
Anna can live with the stench.
Dave can live with Anna.
READING A BOOK GETS ME HOT
kind of reading,
love-in-book form,
feel urged to utterance,
plunge my waterbody
into your fish-tank –
sex, notwithstanding deaths,
the critical mass of human endeavor,
on the countertop, in the aisles,
a lovely dove inside a man’s hands
as his face imitates the one who killed it –
sex, this American sex,
I’d step way out of line to have it,
devour everything in its path,
thrash like a drowning man
if it was air –
in human terms,
the liquid violence,
as a young boy,
stranger than Chinatown,
even in diminishment,
the loudest noise a guy can make -.
nerve and pulse
reach into the dark places,
a body far from home,
a blunt butcher
carving his way
into the interior
of a pink palace –
and it’s this book that
does it,
sears my hands,
steams my head –
who wrote it?
I did –
when was it written?
after I’m done -
DANCE NIGHT
Having started in thought,
I ended with dancing.
Not as embodiment
but because thinking
wasn’t getting me anywhere.
I hadn’t the patience
for old lovers.
Nor the mind for wondering
what went wrong.
And my limbs were crying out,
“Why not us!”
The results of the mental process
were as meager as hummingbird feathers.
And nowhere near as fetching
as the woman I was with.
Music was playing.
We stepped out on the floor.
My legs mule-kicked,
My arms flailed.
I shook my body
like interrogating a suspect.
And, all this time,
my head was bobbing.
But just for identification purposes.
Welcome to the experimental semi-monthly issue of Synchronized Chaos.
First of all, we stand with the people affected by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, as well as in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and everywhere else people are placed in harm’s way.
We encourage the readers and writers who enjoy our publication to write letters of support to be included in care packages to be delivered to refugees around the world by the nonprofit New Beginnings. Click here to write a letter online (anonymously if you wish) that will support and encourage a refugee family in their new home.
Also, PEN America campaigns on behalf of writers facing persecution for their nonviolent work. Click here to read and sign online petitions for different writers at risk. Also, the organization Free Women Writers is looking for volunteer editors for pieces they are collecting and publishing from women and girls in Afghanistan.
All are welcome to attend the Hayward Lit Hop, a multi-venue literary reading at 3pm Saturday April 30th, coinciding with and continuing after Hayward’s first youth poet laureate award ceremony. Several Synchronized Chaos contributors will read from their work.
Also please join us for the Audible Browsing Experience in Philadelphia March 24th at 6pm at Head House Books (our Association of Writing Programs (AWP) offsite event).
This month we reflect on our place within the larger forces that shape the world around us, but also our willingness to live as if our personal thoughts and creativity matter.
J.K. Durick writes of the tedium of suffering: war, death, disease, and taxes.
Doug Jacquier contributes travel vignettes focused on social and legal norms and the aftermath of transgressions.
J.J. Campbell observes the inevitability of various forms of everyday death and decay. Keith Hoerner conjures up images of remnants of people and places, probing the psychological effects of loss.
Ivan Jenson sends us humorous poems of star-studded dreams and downgraded expectations.
Aviva Derenowski references the pressure of too much familiarity, too much hardening of perspectives, that she found in her home country of Israel.
Lynn White reflects on what, and who, we choose to keep and toss aside, while Michael Lee Johnson explores aspects of the bittersweet life of a poet. Inseo Yang reflects upon the demise of an autumnal love.
Chimezie Ihekuna offers up advice for those who seek to become published authors. Santiago Burdon contributes a wry vignette about rendering one’s actual journey towards creative writing craft into actionable advice for teens. J.D. Nelson mixes up syllables into a technical concoction.
Jelvin S. Gibson rages at corruption and social injustice yet sings the praises of sunsets and poetic love. Mahbub also finds love in the gentle beauty of nature as well as in romance. His work acknowledges our human vulnerability and need to make the most of each moment.
John Culp experiences love as a pleasant distraction, something that makes each day smoother, while Aminanta Talawally captures the humble thoughts of a young woman whose first crush has inspired her to put her pen to paper.
Diah Youlo declares love for Black women, honoring their strength and courage and nurturing compassion. George S.K. Boakai, writing under the pen name ‘Compoze’, encourages us to embrace and express our feelings.
Jelvin S. Gibson shares a story of life change through faith, recovery from addiction. Michael Robinson’s work also touches on spiritual themes of salvation and redemption, and Arsi Rauf relates his reverent quest for the Almighty. Maid Corbic relates a fable of small-town justice, where even the darkest villain is not beyond redemption.
Remnants
It’s later than you think
or maybe sooner
they’re all that are left now
the letters waiting
ready
to be formed into words
must try to sort themselves
into words
that will never be spoken.
And the words already written
the manuscript
unread
ready
for a reader
who will never find them
never read them.
And the colours
of paint
and paper
fabric
clay
ready
to be put together
reformed into a beauty
never to be seen
or even imagined.
And the worn clothes still warm
almost
almost warm
already worn
stuffed into black bags
ready
to be worn
again.
All that remains
now
it’s later than you think
or maybe sooner.
Too late for them
anyway.
.........
Raining Tears
It’s raining again,
endless rain
or so it seems
the clouds breaking,
fracturing,
letting it all pour out
as I watch
feeling
my heart breaking
bleeding like the rain,
the raindrops of my heart
pouring out like tears of blood.
...............
Keep Your Hat On
There was a time when going out
was an occasion to be dressed for.
You could not be seen,
should not be seen
without your hat.
You would be ostracised,
talked about,
stigmatised,
left alone
shamed.
Hats were mandatory,
a smart felt trilby or bowler for the men
and a fashion statement of flounces or formality
for the women.
Even later
my visiting aunties kept their hats on
while drinking their afternoon tea indoors.
They left them on in cafes and bars,
it’s the generational norm
from the time when one knew
the dress code and conformed.
But not everyone did so
even back then.
Some were daring,
daring enough to go without a hat
and they still found company.
Others followed the code
and kept their hat on
but still sat on their own
the code didn’t admit everyone,
some were left outside.
Lynn White
He leaped out of the house into the street, to smoke and take in drugs, till one day he got addicted, nothing else matters to him apart from drug. His addiction to drugs led him into the street, he worked for people, cut grass, throw away garbage to support his hobby. After his encounter with Christ, he told his story.
My name is Junior Mata and I’m a drug addict. It was 3P.M., August. 4, 2021. I was in the western part of Paynesville, Liberia, accompanied by two friends who also had the same hobby, namely, Fedasco and Wilson. It was cold with a good atmosphere. I felt very sick and needed a fix as soon as possible. While we waited for our connection to buy drugs, my friends and I talked and exercised in an effort to warm ourselves up a little. As for myself I was very sick. Tears rolled down my face, mucus ran down my nose, I had cramps in my stomach and felt cold chills running up and down my body. Those were the symptoms that accompanied me for almost 8 years while I was addicted to drugs.
Those cursed drugs were destroying me little by little, and left me bankrupt materially, physically and spiritually. All of a sudden my friend said to me, “J. Mata, let’s go”. Here comes the hallelujah.
They were talking about the two youths who preached the words of God in the street and were about two blocks from us. I told them, “I won’t move from here, let God come, let the devil come, but I won’t move from here until my connection (drug supplier) shows up, and that is my drug supplier.
My friends took off, leaving me alone. I felt a touched on my shoulder, and when I looked sideway I recognized one of the youths. “God bless you”. His name was Ray and there were times when I had shared drugs with him. He was addicted to drugs as well, but on the occasion he seemed transformed. His clothes were clean, his face was shining, his hair was cut, and his greeting left me amazed.
I couldn’t believe it. Dozens of questions ran through my mind. I was really surprise at the change in this guy. It was a reality that I couldn’t ignore since he was standing right there in front of me.
He preached to me, telling me about the love that God had shown us through his son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross at Calvary, because of love and for salvation of all men. I told him that everything he said sounds beautiful, but neither religion nor church is for me. But, if this Christ you’re talking about is as powerful as you say, then pray for me and ask him to change my life. If he takes away my hobby, I’ll go to church with you. I remembered walking and reaching the pastor’s house. When we arrived, the pastor came running out to greet me, I was really very impressed with the love in which he did it with me. I thought about my past and how miserable my life had always been. No one cared about me. It didn’t seem to matter anyone if I was dead or alive. During this time I walked the street and lived alone in old abandon houses. I always felt sad and couldn’t care less about my personal appearance. Nobody was ever glad to see or interested in how I was doing. Because of this I was very impressed by the way the pastor greeted me.
This man of God wasted no time. As soon as he met me he began preaching to me. After speaking to me about 10 – 15 minutes, he asked me if I wanted to accept Christ as my personal savior. I answered him that the only reason I followed Ray was so that he could pray for me. The pastor had faith and confidence in the lord. He told me, to get on my knees right away because he was going to pray for me.
I got on my knees and the pastor and his family the two youths started praying for me. I noticed right away that some of them began crying and pleading to God for me. This really moved me and gave me the strength to pray for myself.
I promise God, saying, “Lord, if what Ray told me is true and if you can honestly change my life, or if there is anything you can do for me. I ask you please, help me, I promise to serve you and visit the church if you take away my hobby”.
I started feeling a sensation of health and life; it was something unexplainable. I don’t believe that I’ll ever have words to explain what I went through that day. I could feel how all my pains and vice symptoms, including smoking, regular cigarettes, completely disappeared. I felt that though my lungs had expanded and I could breathe freely for the first time in my life. What I was living in that instant told me that’s true, Christ lives and will gives life to all those who receive him. God performed a miracle that day, and free me from my sins and all of my vices. Praise his holy name! I stopped being a slave of the devil and was converted into a servant and son of God.
Sin and drugs are the beginning of the end, but Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. Come back to life, give yourself to Christ.
His story was sad, touching, and emotional, that people around could fell his pains and what he went through in the life of worthlessness. But there is time for everything, the sooner you realize the kind of life you live, the better for you.
Love at Sunset
In the place where the water meets the sky;
Is the love that surrounds us as ever time goes by.
In the place where the sea seashore meets the bay;
Is the love that abounds through the heat of every time ray.
No other hand,
Than his who rules on high,
Could wield the brush and spread such,
Bright array.
Love at sunset
Even in joyfulness,
Even in times we cry;
Our love will never stop,
But will keep on rolling by.
Upon the outstretched canvas of the sky,
Then draw the curtains of departing day.
Love at sunset
The sun may go down,
But at the end of the day,
The flaring shades of love will always have to stay.
I stand in silence,
Reaching with my eyes,
My love, you are beautiful,
I love the way you fall,
Softly losing space.
Love at sunset
Take down all your troubles,
And wrap up your regret,
Tie them to the rays of light,
The sun sheds as it sets.
Love at sunset
My secret lover
I want you only to myself.
How many times,
Have I come here,
And was thrown away,
Because,
I am beseeching from poverty,
With courage,
With my sorrow,
You left me up in your fall.
New Kru Town
Our hustling brothers,
Far from religion,
Have spit on Christianity,
And loose their focus with no heart of second thought
An unexpected death has arrested the sight,
And capture it slaves.
Why New Kru Town
A place that develop good seeds where the soil is useless,
An opal heart area,
A stubborn, lavish land
You who that have never loved her,
Will not understand
Earth holds many splendor,
But,
Others do not value,
And shake its hand away.
New Kru Town,
A part of our mother's land,
A place where robbers attacked religion in celebration,
A face to face place in the day
That turn to nightmare in the night.
A place where robbers intuit to stay,
See different saints come and go.
How many birds have I seen Perched,
Looking hurriedly here and there,
And they abuse the proud of Christian,
And take advantage of their religion.
New Kru Town
A place where ethically good that you do,
Do not talk,
Cause you may risk your head to blade.
A place where robbers making daily contribution
By chasing people with cutlasses in dead mood.
By: Jelvin S. Gibson
Pen Name: Inkbloc
A Poet, Teacher, Script writer,
Director, and an Introvert
