Fading memories I could remember When you left At noon, it was outside, at the portico My eyes soaked, rivulets streaming I held your hand, the same hand You used to rub my head and I lock My hands in yours-soft But at that moment, as I held you Perhaps with the weight of pain on me It felt rough as a sandpaper, why? Now I see you were tired, Tired of the ride with me Each time I reach inside my head In search of a moment’s memory of you I see you disappearing/fading away From my heart like smoke. But still I wait outside on this same Spot/waiting for you as a prodigal son It’s been two years now & at every knock and sight of Shadow at night, I scurry down Thinking it’s you. Still waiting Come to me, say you've stayed away For long Let’s make memories again There’s still a lot unmarked On our bucket list.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
the rules of any society scribbling poems in the rain like this poor soul that doesn't play by the rules of any society flicked cigarette butts, empty bags of fast food trash, and a cruel car of teenagers and the asshole dare of tossing piss he has seen it all nothing dares to ever come close to surprising him anymore school shooting celebrity death war in a foreign land he knows what it really is thursday -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- not made of sugar old bones screaming in the rain caught out in the elements without a jacket or umbrella you remember your father telling you you're not made of sugar you won't fucking melt as you got older, you realized he was full of shit thankfully, that fucker is in the ground it won't be long now, you will be as well at least parts of you i figure most of the body will be burned to destroy the evidence --------------------------------------------------------------------------- like failure is not the only option laughing at my perv switch as i watch a black woman walk back into the offices to go clean them should i strike up a conversation and see what happens or should i see if she just wants cash instead somewhere my mother is reading this and knows she has failed like failure is not the only option available to us all she just caught me staring at her that wasn't the finger i was hoping for ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- my answer to john fogerty yes, i have seen the fucking rain it hasn't stopped around here for nearly five days before too long, i'm expecting cats and dogs to start falling from the sky and between the drops i'm expected to shop among the masses like hell the less i am around people the better i feel and i know, i sound like the bitter old fuck that secretly wants it both ways so be it -------------------------------------------------------------------------- for days on end dark brown skin and enough curves to keep your imagination buzzing for days on end there's a certain way the hips shake that you know that a challenge is ahead of you but a certain body part is more than willing to not only accept that challenge but conquer that mountain and plant a damn flag on it
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is currently serving time in suburbia, taking care of his disabled mother. He has been widely published over the years, most recently at The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash, Misfit Magazine, Mad Swirl and Terror House Magazine. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from Stephen Crowe
The Salton Sea It’s said the Salton Sea is a drainage pond for the vast Imperial Valley- Breadbasket of the nation And just when I think I’ve seen it all… an old man in a tomato red tuxedo water skis passed a flock of pelicans. I go for a walk The water is receding from the beach like a shy girl in a disco tech. The lake will be dead in another 50 years White sand beaches are littered with the bodies of dead green fish. They remind me of dollar bills scattered in the snow Sea gulls pick at the bleached bones of a cat The hotels are empty and the palm trees have died eons ago. I thought I saw the skeleton of a dinosaur in the trash heap behind the Howard Johnson’s. Someone’s opened a fire hydrant and it’s pissing precious water down the road. The ancient body of a Winnebago sits in the lot across from a deli its tires are flat and someone’s spray painted “Earth First!” in blue paint across the back of the motor home. I think it was used in a movie once. Not far is a tavern Two bills get you a glass of cheap bourbon Not far is a peer A pile of bacon grease lies on the walk to the water the fat’s coated with blowflies Watch your step. My dogs investigate the dumpsters behind the Chinese restaurant. Somewhere out here there’s supposed to be a wildlife refuge. Captain Caveman just rode by on a Schwinn bicycle-- The sun falls behind the atomic mts. Good luck, good-bye from the Salton Sea
Photos from Texas Fontanella
Poetry from Fatihah Quadri
Playground Back then, we use to see a woman at the window, Who made sounds with her mouth to arouse our laughter; Our milk teeth cracking their surfaces like tiles on metals. Then we would jump closer again and again, a-thirsting another sound. We back-walked, and laughed at the window woman. You would say to me “Run, run!, she is sounding again” You and I laughed, legged footprints on the sand; Like old copies of a testament that unfreezes memories; Of fragile days, of clay-soaked Kanjami, of toy catapults, of the dark! At dinner time, Flashes of the window woman mirrors in our cornflakes plates. Longing stumbles through the threshold of our hearts like a flapping toucan. We swam in a pool of imagination that everything began to wear her sound, But we relocated. Today, we miss the playground, The window woman who breaded us with sounds that still echoes. We held each other, ran to the playground, Up the valley, we looked up to the window. But sadly, nothing sounded.
Fatihah Quadri is a poet, creative writer, and a literary critic. She is a member of HCAF (Hilltop creative arts foundation), Nibstears poetry cave, B.G.T( Black girl’s tales) and a member of Al faheedah press, University of ibadan. Fatihah is a Nigerian.
Poetry from Steve Brisendine
Motif II: Crash/Landing (A Semi-Tragedy in Two Acts) I. On the south side of Liberal, Kansas For some reason, we all know to gather along the old highway just north of where it meets the bypass; between them, a wedge of dry prairie grass anticipates dawn and something else. The plane comes in from the south: long, thin, white, unliveried. (Picture the offspring of a Concorde and a 707, its father’s nose and its mother’s wings, and you have it close enough.) Gear still retracted, it slides in and turns top, three perfect spins down the field without bending so much as one thin dun blade; there is no sound but breaths all drawn in at once. No flame, no laceration of aluminum skin, not so much as a cloud of honest Kansas dust; nose pointed back where it came from, the plane rests unperturbed, maiden-flight pristine. From somewhere in the crowd, a Panhandle-tinged twang: Well, that ol’ boy done ‘er again, didn’t he? Might as well go see what all he brung us this time. II. Manhattan, Kansas, on the street where Jim Roper lived Stuffed with burgers (eaten, as ever, standing in the kitchen), we walk north toward the football stadium, discussing the quarterback situation and whether threatened rain will hold off. Someone – probably Gary – brings up a years-ago summer solstice party, the honey-haired girl nobody knew who showed up in a toga and antler-danced with Jim in the living room. This is routine, ritual, sacrament, not to be disturbed by anything like that belly-flopping 747 two blocks ahead, plunging into low brick blocks where married students live. Impact now, an infrabass thump and rumble. A fireball races to consume families, tricycles, maples, all of us. It is red and orange and beautiful; I breathe in and am not afraid. Shawnee, Kansas, Which is Not Really Shawnee, Kansas: Dream II This is another in a long line of whole-cloth hotel lobbies on streets which both exist and do not: a tile-and-Formica spot on an off-map stretch of Johnson Drive (pick dumpy or retro and either will suit, depending more on you than on the place), and I’m trying to explain to Larry that I did (eventually) recognize the young Clint Eastwood and the older one when I ran into both of them at the coffeehouse in Union Station sitting at a table with either Anthony Hopkins or John Wayne – or occasionally but not always both, though why the Duke should resurrect for three-dollar drip is beyond me – and for some other unfathomable reason James Urbaniak, thin and vaguely dangerous, who smirked at all of us and left halfway through the conversation. Larry all the while fiddles with his phone, poking it with a little screwdriver, only making appropriate noises so as to seem engaged, so I walk out into a half-dawn of backlit plastic, oddly angled streets and lumen-polluted overcast. I suppose I might eventually find my way back to the map and home – that, or just go upstairs and fall into dream within dream, still in my clothes on forty dollars' worth of rented sheets. Don't press me for a clear answer; I am and will be asleep the whole sometime. Bonner Springs, Kansas, Which is Not Really Bonner Springs, Kansas: Dream II The stakeout is just beginning. I have time to go for coffee. The town’s heart is only a few blocks south; its buildings are taller than I remember, but this bodes well; somewhere in this tangle of five-story limestone, there must be a place. The sidewalk spans a ravine, brush-lined, hundreds of feet deep. There is no handrail, and the walkway is less than a yard wide. I take no shame in dropping to my knees to cross, but a man on the other side rolls his eyes and tosses a few dead dogwood branches to impede my way. No need; I am being called back. We have been made. Our target has seen telltale peanuts floating in his gutter. (He looks like a television character actor of some minor note, one who always seems to play a well-meaning but largely incompetent foil to the protagonist. I will remember his name someday, likely on my deathbed, and my loved ones will always wonder why those were my last words.) We will have to take another tack, so we roll back into the city along Kaw Drive. I see a coffeehouse, set back among trees on the north side of the road. We do not stop.
Poetry from Mahbub
Standing on the Bridge Standing on the bridge I look straight around the bending structure of the world To the end my eyes can't enter any more -going out of sight The mind steps there where the unseen lies I know all my loving dreams lurking there How wonderful reflection of the water! Brings out the unknown beauty and charm Right time to start the journey to the horizon The sky and the land kiss between The soothing light dancing with the colorful birds Suddenly the waterman sings out touching the heart "O ki Garial Bhai!" Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 12/06//2022 In This Hot Summer In this hot summer I turn back here again and again Under the large banyan tree Drink the cool fresh tube-well water And remove my fatigue By your hand made spicy lemon tea without sugar I walk through the green isle Emerge the oxygen of the body Sitting on the mound How wonderful the sunset reflecting on the river! In the hot summer morning I walk out to the lovely open field Observe the new light softening the earth Awakening with the chirping lovely birds Calling me back to the fondling childhood days In the hot summer night O disturbing sleep Keeping hands on the forehead Brood over the days passed And the days on to the rise. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 12/06//2022 Facing the Reality Nowadays we can't cry to see the death of our brothers and sisters Everyday every time it becomes natural - occurring death It stops our cry to see the misery of others Nowadays our heart can't respond like the past for love or sympathy Sympathy or empathy - Roles on the outer face of the body Humanity or the group of the humanity All lie in the hole No sign of light to remove the black spots on the corner of the eyes Every day it increases the line of the hungry children The deaths on the roads, on the waters, in the sky or by shooting, throwing missiles Adding the large amount of daily starving people Around us facing the new change to solve `Globalization' -the word I believe the reality How can I disbelieve my eyes, dear?! Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 13/06//2022 Love Breath What I do everything for you Your simple words of love Simply touches my heart I reach my goal - like the boat floating on water Your simple words of love Knock at the door I enter your room lying by you Charmed to what you say and hug I take my breath and lose myself in the world Where only you and I live. Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh 13/06//2022