I don’t have the strength to volunteer in the frontline
All I have
Is the patience to stay at home as much as possible
Is the perseverance to make do with whatever I have
Is the desire to learn something new each day to pass time
Is the contentment that I can be just safe in isolation
Freedom comes with responsibility
If I can’t do anything to help, I can at least try not to be a part of the problem.
Moon
If only the Moon is greater
A celestial with much power
All the planets swimming in milk
Warmed by Sun inside black silk
May your reflected light shine
Against the drunkness of wine
Uncover the hidden secret line
Each great ball that mutely whine
Open up each soul to perceive
Let no word nor act to deceive
Purge out anger and fear to leave
Shield against any evils to receive
Ambitious greed to seal away
No confusion led out to sway
Only compassion here to stay
If Moon has power in her ray
Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa was born January 14, 1965, in Manila Philippines. She has worked as a retired Language Instructor, interpreter, caregiver, secretary, product promotion employee, and private therapeutic masseur. Her works have been published as poems and short story anthologies in several language translations for e-magazines, monthly magazines, and books; poems for cause anthologies in a Zimbabwean newspaper; a feature article in a Philippine newspaper; and had her works posted on different poetry web and blog sites. She has been writing poems since childhood but started on Facebook only in 2014. For her, Poetry is life and life is poetry.
Lilian Kunimasa considers herself a student/teacher with the duty to learn, inspire, guide, and motivate others to contribute to changing what is seen as normal into a better world than when she steps into it. She has always considered life as an endless journey, searching for new goals, and challenges and how she can in small ways make a difference in every path she takes. She sees humanity as one family where each one must support the other and considers poets as a voice for Truth in pursuit of Equality and proper Stewardship of nature despite the hindrances of distorted information and traditions.
I often think about my faith and where it comes from in my life. It’s God’s grace that has been given to me.
We all have a place in God’s heart. I discovered my place at an early age. It was not only the circumstances of the inner city that led me to seek Him. It was something internal. There was a longing to be with Him. This was manifested by my experience of my foster mother Dee always speaking about God and Jesus. I only knew that God existed to me.
Now, 60-plus years later, my seeking is over. God is present in me. He was always there, and His Holy Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Finally, all the decades of knowing that I had been spared. Now, I have devotion to living fully in Him. The world no longer has me captured.
I turned to second Timothy 2-3, which gives me comfort knowing that I’m in Him and not the world of man. There’s a place and confidence of being saved to live in the Lord. Therefore, my faith and devotion have been sealed in my being. Each moment, I turn to Him because it’s always been natural to seek Him, and now I’m with Him here on earth.
May He be given glory for eternity.
To Everyone In My Life
As I reflect on God’s Mercy, there’s great gratitude and comfort, knowing that God’s Presence has always been with me. Now, knowing that my kidney function is declining, dialysis is a gift from God to extend my life. There’s nothing more for me than to be grateful.
I’m experiencing a renewed relationship with Christ Jesus as in childhood. It’s of great comfort to recognize that my purpose is to serve God.
I’m writing this while having treatment. The world is fading, leaving me to experience the greatness of creating. So, it is a blessing to have dialysis because it’s God’s gift of life to live.
The interview with Michael Poryes turns into a script
“No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” (Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder)
But the idiot who leaves a star, rest assured that a real star will never allow his return, I say.
Here is how my interview with the great Michael Poryes begins.
But it is certainly not a traditional interview. It cannot even be called an interview.
It could be defined as an interesting exchange of experiences, of work and life, where the theme of fame opens many treasure chests, often dramatic.
I therefore “transgressively” skip all the questions that I should have asked the immense screenwriter and filmmaker Michael Poryes and begin to talk about Billy Wilder, his daughter Victoria Wilder, who I met recently, my contact with Gloria Swanson and still on Billy Wilder, for me the number one director in the history of cinema.
An embarrassing statement, however, since Federico Fellini was my mentor.
Michael thinks of Billy Wilder’s films, he can’t remember the title of Wilder’s most theatrical film and asks me.
I : “The most beautiful film on the history of cinema and absolutely the most beautiful film in the history of cinema?” – I answer him – “… is “Sunset Boulevard”.
The film par excellence about fame, the theme of Poryes’ most famous work, the four time Emmy nominated “Hannah Montana”.
Poryes answers me by telling me that Hannah Montana deals with the theme of fame, which instead in “Sunset Boulevard” is fiercely the protagonist.
There is a common aspect between me and Poryes: we are both famous, with the problems of those who are famous and we both try to take fame away from our lives, invaded by fame.
Michael tells me that, coincidentally, his son, yesterday, made him understand how his life can potentially be controlled by his fans, since his information is everywhere on the Internet.
Hannah Montana fans are many and each fan wants to penetrate the life of their star, Michael Poryes, the creator of Hannah Montana!
What do fans really want from their idols? A vast and delicate topic this.
One of the goals of the fans, often linked to unawareness, is to deprive the star of his golden mantle that he shows off on stage, to, in the end, reverse the roles. But how? Just like in: “Les Bonnes” by Jean Genet, where the star is physically killed, his power is killed, his magnetism and seduction is dethroned, to absurdly reinforce his incorporeal icon, which is the only thing that matters to a fan. Atrocious. And this is what happened to me now: someone has penetrated my orbit and attracted by my magnetism towards my core, the “metaphorically” mortal clash is now underway. Who will survive?
At this point Michael talks about Miley Stewart , a teenager who wants to become a pop star. As her success grows, her friends start to look at her differently. And when she, because of her success, moves to Malibu, Miley wants to change everything: she divides her personality between being a star and herself and so creates Hannah Montana. Miley wants to be treated as herself. I reply that this is why I can’t live my life and Michael tells me that you never know if someone is treating you genuinely or treating you to get something from you or they are around you to show off to their friends that they are your friends and never treat you honestly.
Michael tells me that he has had friends since he wasn’t famous and they have never changed with him. And he asks me if it is the same for me. I reply yes, but mine is an unconvincing “yes”, since the energy of the few friends I have is captured by all the others who treat me for my fame.
Michael says that his career has had notable ups and downs, as he assumes mine has also been. Yes, my career has also had moments of glory and moments of oblivion, like the character of Norma Desmond.
And Michael adds that it is very difficult to navigate between people who are your friends, but who are also friends of your fame and people who are just your friends.
All this gets complicated when you are a teenager. You have to understand if your parents use you for the money you produce. I quote Amy Winehouse where the family does not seem interested in Amy, as a human being, but to be interested in her, as long as Amy produces money, so Amy, feeling useful, abuses drugs, to keep up with her shows, and then dies for this and for a love lived in this context. Atrocious. They talk about Lady Gaga and her mother, Sophia Loren and her mother, Cher and her mother. The theme again moves away from Hannah Montana, but the background on fame broadens.
I feel it is right to make known my dramatic relationship with my father, in relation to my fame, obtained, as with Miley Stewart/ Hannah Montana, as a teenager.
My father, a powerful lawyer, destroyed my friendship with Federico Fellini, forbade RAI TV, the Italian state television, from working with them, completely tore me away from my world of entertainment which for me was life, and I, in short, found myself alone, collapsed on the floor of my house in the grip of a powerful depression that isolated me from everything, everyone and even from myself, a depression fueled by my father for years, while Fellini called me for his films and my father tore those vital calls, as oxygen, from my life, because they would have given me back my fame, now in agony like me!
Michael is struck by this dramatic story of mine: because of my fame, my father literally rejected me as a son and punished me for no longer being his son Federico, for having become Wardal! Atrocious.
Only after my father’s death, little by little, without strength and disappointed by everything, I was collected out of pity by a great playwright who imposed me once again on the great stage and when I heard the loud applause of the audience, forgotten due to my long absence, I said to myself, with tears in my eyes, while the curtain fell: “Wardal, listen! You can no longer leave your audience, since it is the only one that loves you and will always love you! Courage, Wardal, you are not guilty of being Wardal! You see, they call you back for the applause! And then, Wardal return to the stage and be Wardal forever! ” .
I was sorry, really, to have vented with the great Michael Poryes, but it was inevitable: the themes of his Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana are so close to mine! Since long ago, now, forever.
Michael comments on how slippery our world of entertainment is, repeating that the anchor for him are true friends that Michael has because he is whole, intact: Michael has never been contaminated by his fame.
That’s why Michael has the same friends as always who have never changed with him, because Michael has never changed. Michael believes in friendship, where fame has no access. Another problem in our entertainment industry is people who want fame without wanting to study, without any preparation that deprives the possibility of believing in something and there is the absence of authenticity since, with my personal experience, I have often seen scripts presented as originals that were instead totally copied from famous scripts, never well read, that were authentic flops.
Another aspect of our entertainment world is that it always requires us to be reborn when we do not feel the need, to renew ourselves when we do not feel the need, to change when we do not feel the need and it takes a continuous “Metamorphosis” to sell, a “product” forced to be born?! A show that I am writing is called “Metamorphosis” and I will share it with Michael, since I know that he is an authentic artist, an authentic person.
A great and current initiative of Poryes is to have rewritten the story of Al Kamilah, immortalized in the non-fiction film: “Al Kamilah the miracle filly” by Angela Alioto directed by Christopher A. Salvador , into a children’s picture book . The story that has fascinated and still fascinates social media is that of a filly for which no one wanted to try anything to save her life and Angela Alioto, on the contrary, trying everything and believing in the miracle, after months and months of dedication and love, saved her life. The book will be released soon illustrated. Poryes believes in believing and, in my opinion, believing only takes place in genuine, honest, authentic beings and that belief can produce miracles.
Michael Poryes, recently becomes very popular also in Italy by Sky TV for his TV series called: “Home, Sweet Rome”, which broadcast by Max an enhanced streaming platform from Warner Bros has obtained in 2024 a huge success also in the USA. “Home, Sweet Rome” is a comedy that has totally interested the Hannah Montana audience, since like Hannah Montana it focuses on the teenager Lucy, played by Kensington Tallman, who changes her life and moves from California to Rome with her father and in with her stepmother, Francesca, who is an Italian pop star! The theme of fame reappears again, but it is less evident and everyone identifies with Lucy, immersed in a new life, in a new culture. Wonderful scenarios of the city of Rome open up with the irresistible glamour of Italian fashion and Roman life that my mentor Fellini immortalized with his most famous film “La dolce vita” and where the air of Fellini remains at the Trevi Fountain, in Via Margutta, at the “Canova” and “Rosati” bars in Piazza del Popolo where I used to go with Fellini and now it seems like I’m having a coffee with Lucy.
sponsors the 98th ANNUAL SPRING CONTEST (formerly Poets’ Dinner) Open to All Poets Entry Fee: $20
Awards Announcements During Program ON ZOOM Saturday, June 7, 2025, 1 pm to 4 pm Must Attend on Zoom to be Eligible for Awards THEME: INFINITY GUEST SPEAKER: to be determined
Poems must be original, in English, not have appeared online or in any journal or newspaper professionally published and not be previous cash prizewinners (Honorable Mentions OK). Winning poems may be included in a future anthology. 42-line maximum (not including spaces), any form or style. Up to four entries (4) per person; one (1) per category
DEADLINE: April 1, 2025 (POSTMARKED BEFORE MIDNIGHT; NO CERTIFIED OR REGISTERED MAIL)
Type entry on ONE side only of 8 1⁄2 x 11 white paper.
Type category in upper right-hand corner of each page.
DO NOT put your name or any identification ANYWHERE on any entered poem.
Send three (3) clear copies of EACH entry (with no illustrations).
Include a separate page with the following information (typed or legible): Name, Address, Tel no., Email, Title and Category of each poem.
Entry fee of $20 (check) made out to INA COOLBRITH CIRCLE.
AUTHOR MUST ATTEND ON ZOOM TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR AN AWARD. ENTRIES accompanied by ENTRY FEE should be mailed to: Contest Chair Aline Soules, 48 Danville Oak Pl, Danville, CA 94526. Questions? Please contact Aline Soules at soulesa@yahoo.com PRIZES: One POETS’ DINNER GRAND PRIZE: $100 — To be chosen from among the first three prize winners in each category. For each CATEGORY: Three Prizes — $50, $30, $20, plus three Honorable Mentions. Last Year’s Grand Prize Poem, Hermit Thrush, will be read by the author, Deborah Bachels Schmidt
AWARDS PROCEDURE: Winning entries will be announced ONLY on Saturday, June 7 and checked against the master list. If there is NO CLAIM, the prize will go to the next ranked submission. Judges’ decisions are final.
NOTE: The Ina Coolbrith Circle invites all those interested in poetry to its September 20th meeting on Zoom where winners are invited to read their winning poems.
Synchronized Chaos Magazine expresses our sorrow for the lives and property lost in the Los Angeles wildfires. We invite people to visit here to learn about how to send cards of encouragement to fire crews and to donate books to replace school library collections that have burned.
In March we will have a presence at the Association of Writing Programs conference in L.A. which will include an offsite reading at Chevalier’s Books on Friday, March 28th at 6pm. All are welcome to attend!
Contributor Eva Petropoulou Lianou shares the Caesurae Collective Society’s call for submissions of poetry about consciousness.
The anthology seeks to weave a fabric of poetic expressions that resonate with the theme of consciousness—exploring the mind, the self, and the infinite cosmos—weaving together poetic voices that reflect on what it means to be aware, alive, and interconnected. Submissions due February 10th, 2025,information here.
Also, World Wide Writer Web invites submissions of short stories for their annual contest. Information here.
Finally, contributor Chimezie Ihekuna seeks a publisherfor his children’s story collection Family Time. Family Time! Is a series that is aimed at educating, entertaining and inspiring children between the ages of two and seven years of age. It is intended to engage parents, teachers and children with stories that bring a healthy learning relationship among them.
This issue explores how we see and interpret our world through pieces that draw our attention to various focal points and take a closeup or wider angle view.
Some people zoom in on a particular place or image, using that as a meditation to begin deeper thoughts.
Sayani Mukherjee evokes an island’s lost grandeur through describing historical ruins while acknowledging the destination’s current reality. Student group 2123, from Uzbekistan, contributes a group reflection on their trip to Samarkand.
Dario creates a musical combination inspired by the complex culture of New Orleans. Kylian Cubilla Gomez’ photography focuses in on bits of play and whimsy in toys and in daily life.
Precious Moses draws on the West African iroko tree as a symbol of maturity and strength in hard times. Rahmat A. Muhammad expresses hope through the birth of a young sister in a world touched by darkness and pain.
Mashhura Usmonova expresses gratitude for her teacher and for education, which has allowed her to write as a container for her emotions.
Dr. Jernail Singh offers thoughts on poetry: how he appreciates cohesion and meaning as well as pretty language. Noah Berlatsky gives a dramatic take on the excision needed for the creative process. Daniel De Culla offers up a satirical and humorous take on writing generated through artificial intelligence as Texas Fontanella blasts the firehose of words and letters in our general direction. Jerome Berglund and Shane Coppage’s collaborative haiku include humor and clever twists of phrase.
Jacques Fleury poetizes about how knowing vital history can protect you from being erased by others’ fear or hatred.
Maria Miraglia, as interviewed by Eva Petropolou Lianou, speaks to the importance of literacy and education in world peacemaking efforts.
Loki Nounou calls out a culture of sexism in which violating women’s rights and their bodies becomes normalized. Narzulloyeva Munisa Bakhromovna highlights the critical need to stamp out global corruption.
Mahbub Alam laments the killing in Gaza and hopes that everyone who dies makes it into a better place. Graciela Noemi Villaverde also mourns the destruction in Gaza, personifying the land and culture into a living being to highlight its pain and beauty. Lidia Popa speaks directly to the heart and conscience of the world in her call for peace in Gaza. Maja Milojkovic revels in the beauty of peace, for Gaza and everywhere. Wazed Abdullah honors the quiet and dignified resilience of Gazans as Don Bormon affirms that the place will recover and heal.
Laurette Tanner charts and maps her journeys, hoping this wisdom will carry over into developing ways to lessen the suffering of the homeless.
Shoxijahon Urunov inspires us to protect the tenderness of our hearts. Nilufar Anvarova’s piece encourages us to follow our hearts and show kindness to each other. Eva Petropolou Lianou expresses her human vulnerability and desire for understanding and healing. Mesfakus Salahin’s poem speaks to love but also to mystery: how complex we all are and whether we can truly know another.
Stephen Jarrell Williams crafts haiku vignettes on the search for bits of hope and connection in a large modern cityscape.
Mashhura Usmonova expresses gratitude for her teacher and for education, which has allowed her writing as a container for her emotions. Raxmonova Durdona offers up a tender tribute for a caring and deceased uncle.
Maria Teresa Liuzzo’s poetry illuminates deep feeling: passionate love and the inevitability of human suffering. Mykyta Ryzhykh digs deep for meaning in a world littered with death as Orzigul Sherova urges readers to make the best use of their limited time. Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa also encourages making the most of life, holding onto faith and hope in a confusing world.
Scott C. Holstad explores themes of disillusionment, introspection, and the search for love and meaning in life. Tagrid Bou Merhi’s elegant words wander through a quest for identity and meaning in a seemingly empty world. In a semicomic short story, Bill Tope fears losing memory and mental capacity. J.J. Campbell writes of numbness, aging, and loss. He connects with others, but even these interactions are tinged with sadness, longing, and thoughts of mortality.
Audrija Paul tells the story of a heart broken when a person reads more into a relationship than is there. Taylor Dibbert describes a relationship that ended as impulsively as it began. Z.I. Mahmud explores generational family dysfunction in his essay on Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts.
Chris Butler’s short poems probe themes of identity and love and our relationships to nature and technology.
Alex S. Johnson proffers a mythic tale where a hero foils the unholy plots of power-hungry gods and wild natural forces.
Rustamova Muqaddas relates twists of fate on a hiking trip, the uneasy balance of humans and wild nature.
Joseph Ogbonna writes of the majestic richness of the Himalayas as Gadoyboyeva Gulsanam describes the power and transience of a rainstorm. Ilhomova Mohichehra conveys the joy of children playing outside on a snowy day. John Brantingham’s short story shows a couple re-evaluating how much they have in common while watching muskrats go about their business.
Mark Young’s surreal poetry touches on climate change, politics, nature, and job hunting, as Su Yun’s work explores time, nature, identity, and memory.
Duane Vorhees’ work addresses life, death, and the physical and sensual aspects of our existence with wit and humor. Marjona Jo’rayeva Baxtiyorovna offers blessings for weddings as Nate Mancuso’s tough and ironic gangster tale takes place in the world of calm seniors and pickleball. Alan Catlin presents sets of poems in three parts, each looking at aspects of aging, nature, and art.
Tom McDade braids vignettes and images from life together with artworks from different eras. Peter Cherches’ vignettes present character sketches of people on journeys, literal or emotional.
Reading this issue is a journey of its own, and we invite you to savor these contributions.
Touch
A mahogany of lost leaden high
The namesake kept its promise
The turbulence of sea horse runner
The silver disk is a little low tonight
For Baroque's touch of medias res
The high strung of novelty
The joyous currents of sea beds
Leaves me open stranded
In an Island of Mediterranean blue
I sing and hum the national green
The olive touch of Texas to Britain
Ghettos land in the islands of poverty
I skimmed a solistic touch.
