At This Point

His gray hair

Is really arriving

On the scene

But who cares

He’s thrilled

To have hair

At this point.

Taylor Dibbert is a poet in Washington, DC. He’s author of, most recently, “Takoma.”

HERE WE ARE

The FedEx driver’s Nazi haircut like

Elon sported not long ago startles me.

Barking at his phone, he waves and leaves.

Does he smile knowing he resembles

the dead Führer, evil incarnate?

Allied Forces fought as Ford sent Hitler

trucks, the damn Nazi. I pull behind a

beat-up Ford F-250 at Walgreens.

His license plate: Sons of Confederate

Veterans. No doubt also a member of

The Sons of the Confederacy. Walking

past, I avert my eyes so I won’t make

contact with the woman sitting in the

front seat disheveled her hair awry.

Does she believe this twisted reality?

Proud Boys, or another fringy brown shirt

group, native Neo-Nazi terrorists

masked & masquerading as Ice Men shove

invade shops, schools, & fields arresting

the innocent, ignoring our sacred

Constitution. Like the KKK, brave

when hiding behind a hood, cloaking them

from eventual prosecution. This

wicked underground emboldened by the

orange vitriol has crawled into the light,

wielding swords of bigotry and hatred.

Their plague of depravity strikes without

warning. Which Libertarian Trumpy

“friend” or Confederate kin would report

me to the Gestapo? No one is safe.

For, here we are, swimming in fascism

Mark Young has a new book, Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, which is a collection of both text & visual geographies, a number of which have appeared in Synchronized Chaos. It’s available from Lulu. The URL is https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/some-unrecorded-voyages-of-vasco-da-gama/paperback/product-e748z2j.html?page=1&pageSize=4

SEIZE THE MOMENT! 

As hands and feet lift from the ground, 

The Sun wraps Night in its golden shroud. 

In Ramadan, secrets are found, 

As Laylat al-Qadr shines,

Moon-bowed… Seize the moment!

Live it bright! 

Let moments merge in sacred light! 

Verses stream in luminous flow, 

To hearts that love, in whispers low… 

As you strive, defeating desire, 

You rise beyond, your soul so higher. 

Angels murmur in hushed refrain, 

You dissolve into the cosmic plane… 

Blessed be Laylat al-Qadr, my Friend, 

Blessed the night where hearts ascend!

 Every gift from the Divine, so bright, 

Is the crown upon our heads—pure light!

Shamsiya Khudoynazarova Turumovna (February 15, 1973) was born in Uzbekistan. Studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (1992-1998). She took first place in the competition of young republican poets (1999). Four collections of poems have been published in Uzbekistan: “Leaf of the Heart” (1998), “Roads to You” (1998), “The Sky in My Chest” (2007), “Lovely Melodies” (2013). She wrote poetry in more than ten genres. She translated some Russian and Turkish poets into Uzbek, as well as a book by YunusEmro. She lived as a political immigrant with her family for five years in Turkey.

THE BURNING BOAT

I had burnt my boat

When I crossed the sea

I was then alone

Only my shadow witnessed it

Now, the stink of burning only I can smell

The burnt mark is visible to those

Who have sparks in their eyes

I am carrying the sea and burnt the boat within me

My boat was burning

There on the sands of seashore

Since then with the every tide

Sea attempts to put out the fire and

Wash off my burnt boat

Even for the high tide, it’s not possible to do so

My heart is burning in separation of my beloved

It’s pangs are too intensive

My blanket cannot properly cover my body

To extinguish the fire

The sea is nothing but my vast body

My toes are touching the sea bed

My boat is my heart within – the Sun on the sky

Smokes come out all over in my mind

My hairs turned into ashes grey

By the heat of my burning heart

It seems, my heart can’t meet;

Can’t make reunion with my beloved

Till the sea of my body gets dried out

O, my Lord!

How long I will have to wait

To show you my burning heart

Alas…!

WOMAN, BEYOND THE INDEX OF BODY

Lake like eyes/ Scarlet coral-like lips/ Curly-curvy hairs

Attraction all four directions

These are mazes

Face and physical charms are curtains, indeed

A weapon to keep off you from the desired abode

A true woman lives in somewhere else

Beyond the index of her body

Sitting crouch like a recluse

Just like an abstract thing

Like a dream of snow-white clouds

Sometimes, similar to the moonless dark night

Dormant lightening, full of its potency

Extremely tough meditation is needed

To open her inner layers of heart,

Love is considered to be the genuine pearl of a woman

This can discover by proceeding beyond her body

Otherwise, nothing lies in the whirlpool of body

Man wants to overpower

The screaming body of a woman

But the body is a dune of sands/ a fair of desires

There is only mirage and mirage

Woman uses to be hidden,

Somewhere in her inner self,

Instead of, being found in her apparent body

Which is like an epic center of a live volcano

A man in his entire life

Uses to run after fascinating faces

Like those idiot men

Who on the surface of the water

Often, stare at diving and floating waves

With their curious eyes

Use to play, the whole day, with shells lying on beaches

Perhaps, they do not know

That the true pearls are senselessly lying

In the depth of a sea,

Where the breathes not much support the divers

To achieve such unknown pearls in the deep sea

Needed to wait till the lips of shell get opened

To get the original element of a woman

You will have to raise the curtain of deceitful face

You will have to step down

In to the concealed room of her heart

You will have to knock and knock again

At the tightly closed window of her soul

A woman is not a thing of luxury

Not a commodity of marketing

Not even a body of only bone and flesh

The true name of a woman is ——

Love, love, and only love!

Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar is a Consultant Editor (Urdu) in National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Ministry of Education, Government of India. He had been Principal Publication Officer in National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language in 2007. He has been, a member of Advisory Board of National Book Trust India.

He is a Multilingual (English, Hindi and Urdu) famous poet, short story writer and critic from India. He is Graduate with English Honours from Ranchi University. He has topped Jawaharlal Nehru University in Masters with Literature. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy for his Research Work from University of Delhi. He is Post Graduate Diploma holder in Calligraphy, Mass Media and in Book Publishing with Specialization in Editing.

Dr. Perwaiz Shaharyar began writing his poems in English since lockdown in the period of Pandemic COVID-19. He has written more than 100 poems, participated in many worldwide webinars and published in various international anthologies, so far. His as many as 25 poems have been translated by many award-winning litterateurs into Polish, Indonesian, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, and Albanian languages. His poems are being published in several anthologies within the country and abroad. He has 20 published books of literature in his credentials, so far. He has won many awards and accolades for his outstanding intellectual and literary contributions. His poem ‘The Burning Boat’ contains mystic (Sufism) and metaphysical elements.

Lilies

In the car, flying on cruise control,

on this desolate stretch between anything,

everything a dizzy blur, the rush,

the rush, a violence to the senses,

a glimpse of swift efflorescence,

I know each petal is there,

placed as it should be, precariously

riding the hump of the ditch between

vast expanses of alfalfa and asphalt,

these daylily hobos, fast, vivid saffron,

tangled with flushed morning glories,

violet clover, pale blue chicory,

the eyes of tow-headed children,

and elegant, white Queen Anne’s lace –

when you break a stem, there’s

a sharp, unexpected scent of wild carrot.

In this fugacious instant,

somehow I know, I know these lilies

want my adoration, calling me,

stamens vibrating in long throats,

quite willing to share their joy.

Why don’t I turn around,

turn off the motor and

listen for just a little while,

their troupe crooning hue at the sky?

I’ll lie alongside them in soft

wheatgrass, and together we’ll  

bide the gentler sounds of night.

Which destinations shall I neglect,

vague acquaintances or these dear chums?

When I think of them, alone, untended,

I want to acquiesce, relinquish

any passion to a high shelf

for someone much younger to find.

I can’t help this weird, bygone empathy,

doting, hoary around the fringes:

when the rain comes, cold and rigid,

will I fret over these blossoms,

lips pursed, pouting for lack of sun?

When the apprehension of winter comes,

inevitably comes in frost then ice,

will I mourn these lilies,

will I feel their dread,

will I rush to my beloved?

In the Snow

I regret neglecting

The egrets last summer

Mindlessly oblivious to

White against emerald

Viridian chartreuse

Stepping shyly in the marsh

And just yesterday

Snowing and snowing

I wish I’d spent

An afternoon peering

Through the window

(Debussy in my ears no

A Chopin Mazurka)

Blue-gray atmosphere

Obscurity on the horizon

A sky brimming with

Falling singularities more

Crystals than space between

I knew this beauty

Was infinitely transient

Considerably more pertinent

Than fabricating drudgery

My bloated memoranda

Tell me tell me

(I do not insist

A modest desire

A desperation nevertheless)

There must be a place

Where I might see

Egrets taking flight

In the snow