'Fist'
Somedays, my anger is like my fist
And believe me it's always clenched.
I'm afraid of opening my hands
'cause I might sprawl a disaster
Most time, I hold my tongue-tied
as best as I can
and believe me I try to stop my speech
and hold my breath
'cause if I didn't
I would have said
'Fuck you'
a thousand times.
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
a passion for life she has this listless look in her eyes i once saw fire, emotion, a passion for life that burned like arson the circle is closing death is inevitable only the lucky ever die happy the rest of us can only hope to find something that isn't too painful ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ pure fucking misery here comes the rain again a hot august thunderstorm creeping along pure fucking misery one of these days i'll be lucky enough to fall asleep in bed and never wake up again of course, that kind of wishful thinking hasn't got me anywhere i ever wanted to be --------------------------------------------------------------------------- hole in the world town i never understood why anyone would want to live around a ton of people whenever i travel south for one of my mother's medical appointments i see all the traffic all these overpriced houses the schools aren't any better and neither are the drugs i'll take my little hole in the world town and just be fine ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- this is my life now sitting in the car watching it rain insert random healthcare facility and any day of the week and this pretty much is my life now and i don't want to come off like i hate taking care of my aging mother or that my life would be oh so much better if i was the rich one instead of my sister the way the choices and consequences came down were how it was meant to be i accept that but i'd be stupid if i wasn't planning or at the very least, dreaming of what my life will be once death enters the picture ----------------------------------------------------------------------- like some math equation not sure how many times i'm going to know i'm ready to die for it to actually fucking happen even my patience for that is running out i wish this was like some math equation which would mean life would be the answer to this shit sadly, i know that isn't the case if only...
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is currently trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Beatnik Cowboy, Terror House Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, Misfit Magazine and Mad Swirl. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Poetry from J.K. Durick
Shooter Two
Today, another school shooting
imagine yesterday, the nineteen
children were being themselves
ready for school, and this close
to the end of the school year.
Imagine their plans for the new
free time. Imagine this morning
as they got ready for the school
day, their last school day. Now
imagine the young man who was
planning to do what he did and
having some goal in mind. What
was it – to kill a group of children,
or to shock us once more, or was
it some sense that there was fame
to be had in a mass shooting, or
was it an elaborate suicide, a very
public suicide, instead of just going
off alone to shoot himself. It isn’t
hard to imagine the aftermath for
this school shooting. We’ve become
used to it all, the news coverage and
all the politics of them – it’s election
time and this plays well in certain
parts of the country. We’re just getting
ready for the next one.
Shooter Three
At first his plan was to “kill everyone”
but that changed as he planned –
“everyone” would take too long and
take too many bullets, so his plan
came down to killing fewer people
but also killing a moment and a mood.
So there he was disguised and well
armed, well-aimed up on that roof
overlooking their parade, a sniper
like the military snipers he had seen
in movies, a sniper with his private
mission. After seventy shots wildly
shot from his perch, after seven were
fatally shot and thirty others shot, he
in disguise blended in with the fleeing
crowds, as if he were one of them. But
it didn’t take them long, first his picture
and then the scene, the picture of him
being arrested, driving the car they knew
he would be in. Now he joins the ranks
of recent shooters – Buffalo, Uvalde Texas
etc., a growing list of people and places. And
maybe they will kill us all, the “everyone”
he was/they were originally after.
Synchronized Chaos July 2022: Tension and Solace
Welcome to July’s first issue of Synchronized Chaos!
This month’s issue explores themes of tension and solace.
Are there unavoidable sources of tension in life, and is a life without anxiety even desirable? Where can we find solace and peace when we need them? Where do we need to maintain a certain level of awareness and vigilance?
Satis Shroff comments on the continuing human cost of Russia’s war with Ukraine. Steven Croft reflects on how soldiers and civilians endure the other armed conflicts around the world.
Jelvin Gipson expresses through a fable the need for wisdom to prevent endangering oneself or committing hasty acts of violence. James Whitehead’s poetry speaks to the impact of reproductive legislation and sexual assault on women’s lives.
Richard LeDue and John Thomas Allen highlight moments of humor and beauty found within hospital settings, where patients make the most of their encounters with illness and injury.
Ike Boat reports firsthand on a destructive flood in Amanful, Ghana. Stephen Jarrell Williams explores themes of society’s end and nature’s rejuvenation.
Closer to home, Yusuf Olumoh seeks comfort in the sea and solitude after the loss of his parents. Linda Crate describes the recovery of one’s self after an unbalanced relationship, while Scott Strozier illustrates the need for maintaining relationships and how they stay intact or fall apart. Shakhzoda Kodirova’s short story highlights the importance of maintaining our natural and human communities.
Andrew MacDonald’s poetry captures the moments that may seem fleeting or mundane, but which cement relationships.
Thadeus Emanuel comments on change and creativity in nature and in a writer’s mind, and how our creativity and relationships can be derailed by hypocrisy and deceit.
Candace Meredith’s short story illustrates the horror of not only the monster attack its protagonist survives, but of how she’s completely alone in her perception of danger.
Linda Hibbard expresses ambivalence about change and progress: will making things different make them better? Mahbub’s poems draw on dual meanings: bridges between the past and present, symbols that can represent multiple concepts.
Doug Hawley explores the limits, nuances, and paradoxes of personal and political freedom.
Peter Crowley humorously dramatizes various sorts of literal and metaphorical birth pains, looking at the cost of different sorts of creation.
Jason Ryberg contributes vignettes of middle America looking into the drama of ordinary life and little moments of grace or annoyance, while Peter Cherches dramatizes an unexpectedly familiar encounter with jazz great Mingus.
John Sweet shares the ways in which many ordinary people in middle America can become stuck in life, left behind in modern Western society.
Mark Young’s amusing poetry explores the different sorts of “deliveries” we receive in life while Debarati Sen waxes poetic about the joy and beauty of the plethora of words and figures of speech available to all of us.
Ian Copestick’s narrators simply check out of their ordinary lives, using whatever means are available to them. Jack Galmitz delves into a photograph of a man cooking at a barbecue who’s deeply engaged in what he’s doing.
John Edward Culp sends in a somewhat ineffable piece on transcendent travel by means of light, while Diana Magallon contributes a mixed media meditation on discordance. Alan Catlin’s Southern Gothic poetic landscapes, after Sally Mann’s visual art, immerse us in the murky history of swamps and American Civil War battles.
Jim Meirose relates a piece with humor, charm, and dialect while Nathan Anderson breaks language down to syllable and syntax and nonlinguistic symbol.
J.J. Campbell captures the wisdom and cynicism of older age, while Santiago Burdon’s tale of teen angst and athletic shoes humorously reminds us there are times to keep our mouths shut.
Gaurav Ojha also encourages us to quiet down. He says we’ll find wisdom when we stop thinking and speaking and directly experience and learn from life, whether a beautiful sunset or a dentist appointment.
Michael Robinson and Sayani Mukherjee reflect upon the spiritual solace and comfort they find through the faiths of their heritages. Chimezie Ihekuna’s poem reminds us of the spiritual meaning of Christmas as a holiday with a message we can reflect on all year.
Matthew Defibaugh and Christina Chin’s collaborative poetry presents images of gentle movement within nature. K.J. Hannah Greenberg’s set of bird photographs illustrate and comment on the variety of ways we as humans coexist with and treat other species.
Thank you for reading this first July issue of Synchronized Chaos. May it invite you to ponder, consider, and engage with the writers’ and artists’ work.
Poetry from Jack Galmitz
BUFFALO MEMORIES Steve was energy. No denying it. There it is in the photograph taken in his backyard; the mouth is tense as speaking consonants without vowels is his arms are sharp and his torso turns to attend or demonstrate stilled now by the shutter's click. There is motion blurring tending to the barbecue he is charged as a downed wire in a down pour. His guests sip Genesee beers gripped by the necks and chat of texts and signs and the many things.
Nonfiction vignette from Peter Cherches
An Autograph from Mingus Charles Mingus was my first jazz obsession. When I was an adolescent, my older brother Bart worked in the mailroom at Columbia Records and was often able to bring home swag from the label. I glommed onto Mingus Dynasty, the follow-up to the landmark album Mingus Ah Um. I was especially taken with the tracks that went beyond the jazz I was familiar with, the ones that had adventurous compositional structures, “Far Wells Mill Valley” in particular, which combined influences of classical composition with wildly swinging jazz. This wasn’t the somewhat forced and stiff “third-stream” music I’d later learn about, it was a consummate artist putting all his influences and resources at the service of his music. Mingus’ earliest recordings as a leader tended to lean heavily on his classical compositional proclivities, and then, around 1955, he took a wholly new tack, eschewing written arrangements for a looser approach, where he’d talk his band through arrangements in rehearsal, aiming for greater spontaneity. By the late fifties he’d started bringing both approaches together, along with liberal doses of blues and gospel, forming the style that would characterize his music for the rest of his career, a brilliant tension between the composed and the spontaneous, emphasizing the individual sound characteristics of his sidemen (something he learned from Duke Ellington, one of his mentors), creating a repertoire that drew upon a wide variety of influences to make music that was both eclectic and idiosyncratic. After hearing Mingus Dynasty, I started buying other Mingus albums, and then, in 1972, when I was just short of 16, I saw him live, one of my first jazz concerts. It was a New York homecoming for Mingus. He had been only intermittently active since 1965 and had just released his first major-label album in 8 years, back at Columbia after more than a decade, Let My Children Hear Music. The concert at Lincoln Center, like that album, featured a large ensemble playing new compositions as well as many of his career classics. It was also my live introduction to a number of other jazz greats who appeared as guests to help celebrate the return of Mingus, including saxophonists Gene Ammons, Gerry Mulligan, and Lee Konitz. Mingus and Friends in Concert, recorded that evening, is the first of a number of jazz albums to include my applause. From then until 1977 I saw Mingus many times, in concert halls and clubs. A Carnegie Hall concert in 1974, featuring a number of Mingus saxophone alumni in a jam session, was released by Atlantic. On Mingus at Carnegie Hall, the discerning listener can hear how much more self-assured my applause had become in just two short years. I caught Mingus at least one time each at The Five Spot, The Village Vanguard, and The Bottom Line, and numerous times at The Village Gate, where he had two-week or month-long residencies. Most of those times at the Gate it was Mingus with his tightest quintet in years, featuring tenor saxophonist George Adams, trumpeter Jack Walrath, and pianist Don Pullen. During those longer engagements other musicians, like singer Jackie Paris and trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, would often sit in. At The Village Gate, Mingus performed at the upstairs space called The Top of the Gate. Most of the time I’d sit at the bar—which was just outside the main room with the stage, but from which you could still see the band—because there was no cover, just a drink minimum (and back then 18 was the legal drinking age in New York). But one time a friend and I splurged for a table. We had arrived early and got great seats right by the stage. Shortly after we sat down, as Mingus was setting up, tuning his bass with his back to the audience, he let out a big, brassy fart. Next thing we knew, Mingus turned around and graced us with a big shit-eating grin. It’s the closest I ever came to an autograph.
Poetry from Nathan Anderson
Bodhisattva Projecting
Orgone
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
tempest
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
the spring has (rung (in the dietary removing (a cause and
not a grown thing (left-most removing (rightmost rightmost
rightmost (lapping at the silk (an order and order an order (
faster through the thread and colour (reacted in synthetic (
a hammer guide (a metal armament (less speaking and more
spoken (****************(outside in the distance (cold
cold cold (foundational without sighting (the spring on the
tongue (99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999 (alphabetical conniption (
less tragic than the one before (_________________(outside
and out of order (stupefaction to the modal interview (a clap
and the thunder has arrived (god and god and god (0000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000 (000000000000000000000000 (00000000
0000000 (except you are the same (a static and a deep hum (
found connection (found extraction (found reduction (growing
growing (growing (growing (sight gone (sight come (asterisks
against the climbing side (northern facing (eastern facing (.....
...................(it's good to be back (modular and entrapment (
floor design (wall hanging (get out of the town (sweet sweet (
tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttttttt (tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttttttttttttttttt (ah)))))))))))))))))))))))))
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Orgone
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
tempest
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
=====LESS=====
Carry (over_under) Carry
velocity speaking after tone removed and impulsed through the cataleptic normalised without synthetic movements and interrogation as scientific impulse drivers conscript and writhe in torpor now removed and collated into breakage and anticipation cast out and found without the forming and selective tired flashes of liability
this = skull
magnetic in the skyfall betterment longitudinal as ascetic entertainments re-modify entrapments known to fakir tempestuous and lotus shunting a speed so formal not antiseptic and renowned in thought and name so juxtaposed
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++
+++++++++
++++++
++++
++
+
solution breathes itself to life with transcendental
longing at magnetic height and muscle complexity
as selfsame as the honorifics embellishing through
mud brick anti-natal concluding only wake and
enterprising
Oratory Illumination (fracture)
illegitimate [phone as rung]
promulgated over this +
a shell to crack and take
abandonment so well
[phone ringing]
[phone ringing]
[phone ringing]
this colour comes in articulation writing sound through
causations known and unknown a crown atop the head
and breakneck pace
+running+
+running+
+running+
[the bell [phone]] has...
Oyster as Baptismal
explain
(explanation)
explain
(explanation)
+
+
+
vulnerable to this reciting
notation is the key
vouchsafed as
vouchsafed as
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
now the number is...
(,,,,,)
Bio: Nathan Anderson is a poet from Mongarlowe, Australia. He is the author of Mexico Honey, The Mountain + The Cave and Deconstruction of a Symptom. His work has appeared in BlazeVox, Otoliths, Selcouth Station and elsewhere. You can find him at nathanandersonwriting.home.blog or on Twitter @NJApoetry.