John Thomas Allen is 38, loves stained glass, and loves imagery for imagery's sake. He also enjoys giving single dollar bills to crack addicts at real carnivals, igniting charity balls for people who don't work, and entertaining strange strangers online. He admires the work of Peter O Leary, Bernadatte Meyer, and Mina Loy. The Carnival Tarot I was there the night the carnival tarot began In a glass mosque of magic satin flooded with fireflies winding the meditation boxes to a focus levels flooded without grounding To a focus level split in the screaming sonar whistles dew drops of dim deja vu, beads bodiless with worlds shed aflame echoes of billiard halls in their boozy spider glass echoes of hobo clown gangs split in galleys of long handed shadow echoes of orchestrated lightning in black boxes echoes of paint chips patterned after a decayed glass marquee in downtown LA The third eye all smoke and thus frying the Om… now with the dowsing snakes hushed buzz. The fleecing syncopation of All In All All At Once Before falling they’d seen ameythistine temples, rising tide of movie monsters eloped from the moving pictures in the singular monstrosity of self possession gravity’s cells swallowing each free breath of even air. In the EVP library’s soundscape, the voices freed the dead’s sound bytes inside holofoil crypts. The pale swan arms, bonding afterlives, braille echoes on the No. 5 pencil She sang the Hours with carnie ministers, crowned ghosts. The icons were flooded out with sound mirrors the body of a saw Refracting icons in the library’s reading room Howling and nude in caged specters of lightning, eyes smoked like a blue owl a dribbling decoy of light.
Poetry from Alan Britt
ODE TO MULES, CATBIRDS, INSECTS, AND GOD Interspecies friendships? They’re great, aren’t they? A bonding of pure affection sometimes unequaled in human civilization. A mule wearing a snorkel and goggles enters the high school convocation flopping rubber flippers against the smooth terracotta tiles. You gotta love that! [Yeah] *……* A catbird screeched high above a tulip poplar near the local middle school earlier today, then warbled hieroglyphs before entering our forsythia hedge and vaporizing inside its prickly branches. *……*……* I wonder if we pay enough attention to insects? We mostly complain about them, but they’re preoccupied day in day out with whatever’s required to evolve their DNA. Sounds a lot like us, eh? And what about lusty zebra mosquitos who just want to our be blood brothers? We shouldn’t overlook such things. ◄ ◄…..► ► What’s the last thing that goes through an existentialist’s mind when he smacks the windshield at 90 miles an hour? That’s right, God.
THE NIGHT JOE WATSON & I DOUBLE- DATED TWO BEAUTIES FROM THE THRIFTWAY SUPERMARKET I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer the Italian in a canary one-piece with poppy white collar. So, he picked Meg. I liked Meg. I liked Meg a lot with her tamarind arms, bronze legs, & eyelashes like dragonflies haunting my dreams, but, alas, I was mesmerized by the Italian Aphrodite broiled to perfection in a canary one-piece with poppy white collar. So, off the four of us cruised, two of us ending up below the spidery legs of the Lake Worth pier. That night kisses like wild bruises migrated from lips to necks to shoulders in the casual blink of a full moon’s penumbra tattooing hair, flesh, monkey blood, & bones. I told Joe, pick whomever, but I prefer the Italian in a canary one-piece with poppy white collar.
Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves Bonnefoy. Alan was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. He has published 20 books of poetry and served as Art Agent for Andy Warhol Superstar, the late great Ultra Violet, while often reading poetry at her Chelsea, New York studio. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.
Poetry from Ahmad Al-Khatat
Only Fragments Found I wonder how can I tell my child that we are humans? Everyone is pointing and shouting at The blacks, the Asians, and the Arabs. I don't understand who is inferior or superior. Am I lazy to remain silent? Like a warrior widow. Maybe I am insane to resist the awful travesty? Bush promised me that he is going to establish equal opportunity and peace for my country. Since the war started only fragments found Everyday is another kind of tragedy Nobody dreams of being a comedy Although, most of the soldiers are crazy. I learn about peace and not preferable race Undesirable faces must be wiped off the earth We are not corpses yet, we must record our existence The sadness and massacres must be in history books. If our stories are miserable then you can laugh at me If our memories are from the past then slaughter my life Those bullets holes on the wall of my grandparent's room, They will not be erased, hold my hand and let me breathe fresh air. 10/12/2021 Bleeding Heart Poet
Short story from Doug Hawley
Ageless Love The two teens were walking home along a forested country road. She looked at him and said “Duke, your fly is open.’ After looking around and not seeing anyone, he zipped up. “Sandra, you’ve got pine needles on your skirt butt. I’d be pleased to wipe them off.” They had made a slight detour on their way home to a place in the woods which they thought of as their spot. As they approached her place she asked “Do you suppose your parents know?” “They either expect or know, but I’m pretty sure they don’t mind. My mother made sure that I respected girls and very pointedly insisted I carry condoms after she heard some of my end of our phone calls. I don’t know what I said that clued her in – mothers are mysterious. My father saw us together once and said ‘That Sandra is a fine girl. You couldn’t do any better.’ What do your parents think?” “My mother gave me the talk too. I mentioned that you had been walking me home. She gave me a look, but didn’t get nosey.” As Duke dropped Sandra off at her place, the parents made a big deal of inviting him in for a coke. Despite the seeming innocence of the treat, he felt like he was under a microscope. An old man woke up in his sickbed from a beautiful dream mumbling “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine” and first looked over at the picture of a young couple on the headboard at the opposite side of the double bed, then at the medicines lined up on his end table. “Sandra, I had another one of those dreams. This time we were in high school a few years before we got married. People thought we were too young, but we raised two fine children and stayed together until death did us part. I should have been the one who parted, I miss you so much. It isn’t the only dream. Sometimes I dream about us watching one of Jeff’s baseball games, or Betty’s dance recital. I give you most of the credit for how they turned out. We must have been good models; they now have fine families of their own. The grandchildren don’t mind hanging out with granddad, or if they do they hide it well.” “Some of the dreams aren’t as good, but I always wake up from ones in which you start to show symptoms. That was hard enough to take the first time around.” “The kids try to fix me up with someone from time to time. I know they thought they were being kind to a lonely old man, but the memory of you is better than any woman. When I did go out a few times, the dates were driven off by my talking about you.” “The dreams have helped me survive. I took up painting and have gone to community college classes. I volunteer in the local park, run a wheel chair at the hospital and teach a class on writing so I don’t feel completely useless.” “The hospice people say we won’t be separated much longer. Expect me to join you in about a week.”
Poetry from J.J. Campbell
J.J. Campbell (1976 ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Mad Swirl, The Nerve Cowboy, Terror House Press, The Rye Whiskey Review and Horror Sleaze Trash. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ with a little umbrella snowflakes in the air and the smell of a never-ending winter piercing the gray skies i used to love this shit the weather perfect for a fat guy fashion show now, arthritis and back pain run my life i could fucking use a sandy beach and a drink with a little umbrella right about now ------------------------------------------------------ the beautiful dark souls wondering where the black angels are the beautiful dark souls meant to take me on a wild ride and conquer the world that soft brown skin still dances in my dreams kisses me gently on a private beach in some tropical land clues me in when privilege rises its ugly head hopefully, i still can be a lucky soul --------------------------------------------------------- a russian conspiracy against me i am convinced every woman i meet online is part of a russian conspiracy against me the first one that i figure out is actually real and not part of that mafia i'm going to surrender to and let life finally start to breathe of course, by the time that happens, death will be the more likely scenario ------------------------------------------------------------ madly in love with me my former muse likes to think that she used to be madly in love with me anytime she would tell me that, i always wondered if she knew she was talking to me of course, it's my own damn fault for allowing a beautiful woman to use me for as long as i did thankfully, i woke up before the gun found the inside of my mouth ---------------------------------------------------------------- in over forty years of life a cloudy, damp valentine's day perfect for someone who hasn't had someone really love him in over forty years of life these are the days where suicide is a cliche drowning sorrows in alcohol is a waste of time and there isn't a porn out there that adequately takes care of all the pain i'm sure someone else has it worse off than me that's little consolation anymore
Art from Richard Chetwynd
Richard Chetwynd taught writing and literature at Emerson College for 30 years, is the author of several chapbooks and a full-length collection of poems, Heroic Age, as well a collection of short stories, Turkey & Peacocks.
Synchronized Chaos October 2021: After Some Thought
Welcome, readers, to October’s issue of Synchronized Chaos. Each of this month’s submissions comes from a place of considered perspective. Whether through the craft or the subject matter, these authors show they have taken some time to reflect on what they have to say.
J.K. Durick considers our warming climate as an example of how we are sometimes late to realize what is truly important.
John Hicks’ descriptive narrative poetry reflects on the dislocation of Vietnam War service through a soldier reading a newspaper on his day off. In his second piece we ride with his speaker on a crowded bus with various local people to visit a Thai temple. Robert Thomas contributes a rich tale of watching the centuries-old Palio horse race among different neighborhoods of Siena, complete with characters, history, and local color.
Jeff Bagato encourages us to step back from our human productivity, take a lesson from the cycles of nature and rest for a season. Oona Haskovec turns to withered grape leaves for an extended meditation on navigating age and decline with grace. Jack Galmitz also contemplates the passage of time in pieces with natural scenes as backdrops to the pageant of our lives.
Mahbub laments tragic deaths in his country through balladic poetry, concluding with a few shorter pieces reminding us of romantic love and nature’s beauty. Chimezie Ihekuna’s collection of screenplays catalog his various thoughts on how to build and sustain a relationship and marriage.
John Culp makes a bold statement on the triumph of his love while Lorraine De Mauro reviews Michael Robinson’s poetry collection From Chains to Freedom, a celebration of his surviving a harrowing life. Ian C. Smith relates stories from an older man recollecting his rough youth after the loss of his father, time in prison and hitchhiking.
J.J. Campbell proffers his signature witty, jaded view of life and would-have-been relationships.
Randall Rogers muses on life and human nature while conveying a healthy skepticism of social institutions. Z.I. Mahmud, in the monthly installment of his thesis on the works of Charles Dickens, explores how the author satirizes corruption in high places. Santiago Burdon posits a child’s questions to force us to re-examine the founding myths of American society.
Christopher Bernard offers up a dramatic section of his “Ghost Trolley,” an all-ages tale with a children’s sensibility that illustrates the eternal conflict between the lust for power and the instinct towards compassion. Ike Boat promotes a children’s literacy program in his native Ghana.
Jaylan Salah interviews Egyptian film director Amir Ramses on his passion for artistic representation. With an attention to detail that some may call ‘bossiness,’ he illustrates the harshness of societal judgement, the power of residual memories, and the everyday journeys of characters unlike himself, including women and Jews.
Some contributors go beyond meaning to craft language itself like a cinematic work, creating an atmosphere and sensibility with words.
Joshua Martin joins strings of words, giving a simulacra of meaning while suggesting the presence of a fanciful ‘speaker’ and ‘mouthpiece.’ Mark Young juxtaposes snippets of sense and conversation, then ends with a statement of loneliness while J.D. Nelson contributes an inventive set of wordy experiments.
Santiago Burdon speculates on what fame and success mean to a writer, while Hongri Yuan (translated by Yuanbing Zhang) brings us back to a place far removed and more glorious than our personal quests for recognition.
We hope you enjoy this issue as food for thought with the changing seasons.