The Temple of Dawn

You are speaking today

People call you Wat Arun Rajawarana

Look like the same built in 2^nd reign of Chakkri Dynasty

The river Chao Phraya, the most resilient and silent witness of you

Standing just on the west

Thousands of people come every day from any part of the world Visit your excellence

They see you, read you, love you and enjoy the beauty of you

You bear the glorious sight as if it were the wonder of the earth

How gorgeous the art, how fascinating the work

We, the people can’t but charm

The gods inside and beside symbolizes the heart so respectful

In the temple beside you, many come to bow down to the gods

And take mercy from Bhikku

Some are busy to eat and buy

How high you are!

How high the mind the people bears!

I lost myself for a while where I am!

I think and walk around

Suddenly one called me, ‘Excuse me’.

Bangkok, Thailand

27/09/2018

Grand Palace

This is the Grand Palace where the king lives

The temples and memorials so busy and religious

Loved by all, live in honor

It’s your palace; thousands of people built this and that

Within 1782-1785 time-limit 

The rocks and metals brought from various countries of the world

 Now many tourists daily come and visit

They read and see the myth

O the king of Thailand, you live in the palace where I not

The palace where I live larger than you

Do you know the name of the palace?

You do have also

You can see your own

I can see my own

‘Heart’, unseen but vast in region

Decorated with so much flowers and fragrance

That can cross the border easily visible or invisible

Made of mud but reach the world of stars or beyond

Then we both live in the same palace.

Bangkok, Thailand

30/09/2018

The Orchids

I reached the world of flowers

Here and there everywhere flowers and flowers

So nicely arranged that make any one charmed

The shrubs and cactus, over the head, the shade of love

Welcome us as you love and love

I wandered and sat, took water and coffee

With so many snaps I came back

Open my sights and vividly you seem to appear

What a nice experience I got!

It’s my adventure in mind live for long

When I’d be no longer here you’ll speak with me

With glorious sights and scent of the orchids

Bangkok, Thailand

30/09/2018

The Nongnooch Garden and Resort

So many flowers, so many cactuses and cactus families,

So many elephants, such colorful leaves

I can’t describe all but the world we deserve

It scents the love desired in heart

Love for you and the earth

New brand of vehicles and the welcome moods of the elephants

I got lost in thought

Tiger plays the role of a cat not to devour

The sights and seen make one’s mind always refreshed

And there is a nice environment for lunch

With the silent beauty of the garden and the pond

There may be chirping sound of birds in the silent charm

Can enjoy the theater and the elephant show with much interest

The theater shows the culture of the people

And how obedient the elephants!

You will ever be in mind

O Nongnooch Garden!

O Garden in my heart.

Bangkok, Thailand

25/09/2018

At My Balcony Sight

This is my balcony, my little world

A new sight still to observe

The two little cats surrounded by shreds and leaves

Lying together lost by their own

Not only a sight, a philosophy, a guide to me

What a peaceful moment they pass!

How deep they fall in themselves!

Touching warmth, a love to live

I see and see

Revolves my heart to lie by you

Want to sleep so sound, intoxicated

O love, please —–

Tears roll down from my cheeks

Why don’t we keep away the turmoil fights within?

Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh

19/11/2018

The Girl From Copenhagen by Glenn Peterson is a memoir of his mother, Inge. This memoir is very interesting and is a first hand account of when Hitler occupied Denmark and her life during WWII. She was born and grew up on her father’s farm in Denmark along with her siblings. She went to nursing school but had to give up her nursing career when she began experiencing severe edema in her ankles. She then went on to become a bookkeeper at the largest ship builder in Denmark. She met Bob Peterson at a dance in Copenhagen. After only a short time she left her life in Denmark and set off to America to marry Bob Peterson. This is the story of a small family living frugally, but very happy. This memoir will keep the reader interested from the first to the last page. I personally, found her account of life during WWII extremely interesting. This would be a perfect gift for someone you know who loves historical books or for your own home library.

Glenn Peterson’s The Girl from Copenhagen is available here.

The Spitting Post by Jason R. Barden is a fantasy filled with more twists and turns that will really keep the reader on their toes. When you think you have it figured out another twist pops up to keep you intrigued and wanting more. The Spitting Post is about an insurance adjuster named Vincent Carpenter whose ten year marriage has crumbled. When his wife takes off to meet her lover, he decides to follow her. A car careens out of control coming at him. When he comes to, he does not remember his name or what has happened. He finds himself in a bizarre place. Then his nightmarish journey begins. He comes across a beautiful woman he knows as the Green Maiden. Then in order to find her he must go through terrors and nightmares to try to reach her. If you love bizarre fantasies that will intrigue your imagination and keep you guessing. This is the book for you. I loved it and found it hard to put down until the end.

Jason R. Barden’s The Spitting Post is available here.

SeaCity Rising by Elika Ansari is a wonderfully, delightful book about the lives of sea creatures that live in a pond in a city called Sea City. An old turtle is the King who has a daughter named Princess Dolores and also raising his niece Lenore. Babak is a timid little frog, the only one in the pond. Dr. Goldberg is a goldfish and a genius that is always inventing all kinds of things.

One day Babak takes a walk and walks a bit too far to the Dark End, the SeaCity dump. He finds a piece of paper with a dire warning written on it. Some of it is written in Dot, the language of the water Deities. Babak decides he should take it straight to the King. The King decides that he should send someone to look for the Old Woman beyond the sea for answers. Since most of the SeaCitians cannot live on dry land Lenore, Babak and Dr. Goldberg, the goldfish is selected. Dr, Goldberg invents a kind of bowl that allows him to move about on dry land.

While they rest, Babak discovers Princess Dolores has come along to be with Lenore. They meet many delightful land creatures on their adventure. This is not only a cute book for children but also contains a message of the importance of taking care of the earth and forests. Young children and elementary age will enjoy the story of these sea creatures and their adventures. I absolutely loved it.

Elika Ansari’s Seacity Rising is available here.

About Elika Ansari:

Elika Ansari is a writer, social scientist and humanitarian professional. She currently works in what has been recently described as ‘the world’s worst refugee camp’ in Greece, and as such she has had the (mis)fortune of hearing many touching stories about hardship and perseverance. She tries to focus her writing on globally relevant issues with the hope of one day making a difference through the stroke of the pen (or click of the keyboard), however small that may be. She loves writing anything from essays and articles to children’s fiction, and she does not shy away from the occasional rants about society’s downfalls. Ansari has published 100+ reviews, articles and short stories, and her debut children’s book, ‘Seacity Rising: A Tale of Unwatery Adventures’ is due to be published on June 6th, 2019 by Black Rose Writing.

Welcome to the New Year! In this issue of Synchronized Chaos, we focus on the continual journey of co-evolution.

Elizabeth Hughes reviews Robert Cohen’s If God Allows, a novel where an American ‘party boy’ and advertising executive adapts to the restrictions and possibilities of life in Jakarta.

John Middlebrook’s poems also illustrate adaptation, how people and stories evolve over time. People figure out how to handle changing physical and economic conditions as what was once real life fades and expands into misty legend, and modern people lament how their own leaders never quite live up to the ideals of yesteryear carved into stone.

Gregorio Stephens’ piece on working at a Bob Marley festival also points out hypocrisy, highlighting the difference between honoring an inspirational leader and using his memory only to benefit oneself. To him, the slide away from ideals represents adaptation in a negative sense.

In Henry Bladon’s poem, characters draw on the language of others to both reveal what they want to say and to conceal what they can’t, or won’t, communicate. He shows how we can adapt words and concepts to our needs, but also the dangers of letting formal language get in the way of honesty.

Daniel DeCulla sends us mixed media artwork exploring our complex and mutually co-evolving relationship with nature. Some of his images suggest anthropomorphizing nature, while others reflect being reclaimed by it.

Jeongeui’s newest artwork conveys how she appreciates beauty in nature while hoping for human love and the beauty of being in a romantic relationship.

Mahbub’s poems also celebrate the psychological renewal, connection and rest we can find in both natural environments while on vacation and in steady romantic relationships.

Abigail George’s poems reflect the search and longing for romantic love as well: the relationship that never quite happened despite many commonalities, the questions over whether one is too complicated to be loved.

More pragmatic in intention, Chimezie Ihekuna’s monthly relationship advice piece urges married people to move with the current into a new season of life, focusing their energies and time on being spouses to each other.

In Mark Young’s poems, rather than focusing on individual relationships and psyches, we step back and look at both historical incidents and modern technologies from a broader perspective. What would have happened if one person had done things slightly differently? What will future excavators surmise about the purpose of our artifacts?

In J.J. Campbell’s poetry, ‘it is what it is.’ There may not be any overarching narrative, personal or even cultural. Events happen, seemingly without reason, and people are adrift and alone in the world. We seem to lurch into nothingness, yet while never quite giving up on the search for meaning and love.

In Jeff Bagato’s poetry, speakers resist oblivion in various ways: creating digital identities, building objects as a distraction, even lashing together sticks to form a raft in a rushing current.

Donna Dallas’ poetic narrators are souls on the edge between night/day, life/death, the land/the ocean. As with Jeff Bagato’s speakers, Dallas’ characters go to great psychological and physical lengths to assert their existence as they move from one phase of life to another.

The contributors to this month’s issue join with this publication’s editors in raising our voices, using our words and pictures and minds to take part in natural and cultural co-evolution. And we invite you as a reader to join all of us in our journeys.

FYI: Our co-editor, Kahlil Crawford, is designing a special issue for this February with a theme of ‘Philosophy.’ You’re still welcome to submit whatever work you would like, just think and mention, if possible, how it relates to philosophy of any sort.

Signs of the wise Marie Curie’s gentle brilliance (for my parents, Gerda and Ambrose Senior) This is not a suicide note to remind the cruel world about me, about my name. The boy with the dark hair has already moved on with his life and forgotten all about me, and oh, did I forget to say that nobody loves me, that I’m a gifted stranger to most boys, and mostly men, older men, with beautiful wives and them children, their children. And of course, because of my endometriosis I cannot have children. Love me, I’m difficult. Hate me, I’ll submit. I’ll do your bidding. The bathwater is cold, but I wash his back in circles. I promise I’ll only talk about the abuse if you’re bad to me. I’m some kind of chef too. I keep marking time, score after score after score, drawing up lists, ingredients, because life is an adventure, and I’m lovesick and all alone. If you give me all your affection and support, I promise I’ll keep my distance, and I promise I won’t make a scene, or talk about my auditory hallucinations. All you have to do is bake half-truths, tell me ochre, that you’re fond of me, that you love me, that you’ll go quietly, and then I won’t speak about death to you, won’t speak about death, not wanting to live quietly-cute. You are in my blood, and I am in your blood. I sigh, I cry, I’ll watch you leave, I’ll watch you say goodbye. You’re gone, you’re gone, some kind of unkind, gone. You are body and mind and mine and nothing short of a walking and talking and armed miracle, you have my heart, you have my brilliant, brilliant heart. Now we don’t write and we don’t even talk. Now we have absolutely nothing to say to each other. Once we were lovers, once we were friends, and sometimes, just sometimes I used to say to you, “Let’s get married.” You always thought I was wise, sweet and innocent. Always told me that you weren’t the marrying kind. The origins of the X-men, leaf falls to the ground, and symbols of radical feminism (for my parents, Gerda and Ambrose Senior) Most people live in between the married and the single life. I want death. I want life. I want my life to be celebrated in death. I just expected you to say something else. I am life. I am death. I am a solitary figure, staggering to reach you if you’d let me. You don’t call me on the telephone, and even though it is raining men I don’t admit addiction. I want to be free, and that is all a single woman wants is to be free, independent, acknowledged, loved, but it is impossible for you to love the public me, all the administration of me, my cruel and cool and bewitching persona. I’d probably love you, if you’d let me. I dream of a dream house of love, a family and children, and I’d dream I’d be a wife, and a lover, and mother, that’s what I’ve dreamed since childhood. You’re perfect, and I’m imperfect, and you’re lovely, but my approach is a family affair. I’m a scorekeeper, but unloved. You keep all your passion for your girlfriend like when you eat her meat, and sink your teeth into her cooking, and her heart, and bare wrists, and ankles, and dark hair, and her all positive, positively-loving, her positive-outlook on life, I say I’ll take you there, but you don’t care because you have it made with your it-girl, feeling- girl, and she makes eye-contact with your mother when you say my name in their presence, and they roll their eyes heavenward, and I’m a joke. I get that. I understand that. That you’re not mine anymore. You’re too comfortable, and I’m an emotional slob. I don’t want to drag you down. I want to uplift you. I’m too late, that’s all. And filled with half-truths and dark thoughts of cave-dwellings, but you know me better than I know myself. That suicide is on my mind again, that I’m lovesick, and after you to save me. The atmosphere here is of a wedding. On mourning, the paralysis, the gift and curse of grief (for my parents, Gerda and Ambrose Senior) I’m lost, lost, I’m lost, I confess. In a minute I’ll be gone. In another minute I’ll belong to the past, escape the present. I’ll be stripped bare. I’m a stranger to man, and I’m a stranger to woman, and all I’ve ever wanted was to be in your arms, and be loved forever. But, this relationship, or whatever it is, or was belongs to the past, and I’ll count myself forever holy amongst the stars, and the passing of time, and the illustration of dust, and the interpretation of prayer. And all I ever wanted was you, dear boy, dear man, dear finite space, and biological gap, and psychological warfare, and a wish bone to lead me home, and universal sanctuary, and a university degree, and a high school diploma, and now, and now I have none of these trivia, none of these things that makes the woman, that marks the career woman. And I have a mother, but she abandoned me at birth because my father loved me more, and my sister despises me, and my illness, my disease, my Christianity, my radical feminism, and most of all me. I’m an extra, I’m a starlet-harlot, I’m a monkey who does not want to behave, but I’ll only behave in your arms, except that position is filled. It is nearly midnight, nearly turning-point when I’m near-death, near-life, and in death I’ll be extraordinary and in life I’ll be extra-ordinary. And if I ever get married, I promise to submit, I promise to obey, I promise to love in sickness and in health. I am in a tunnel fast approaching another bright light, another nervous breakdown, and was I really so difficult, so different to love, and you tell me in a thousand different ways of how much I’m impossible to love, and the hallucinations, and the insomnia leave me bleary- eyed, and I look you straight in the eye, I want to try and make eye-contact with you, but you look away because you love another, and I don’t binge-drink anymore, I’m no criminal mastermind, fuck my intelligence, I’ve never slept with a married man, I’ve never fallen for a woman, and even though I feel as if I’m a statistic, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t love me anymore and I find it all so difficult to be on my own, and I can’t bear the loneliness, I can’t face you with another woman on your arm, and you say I look like your daughter, and then I find it difficult to breathe, to look away, because all I’ve ever wanted was you, and you tell your secretary to tell me to fuck off and leave you alone. You’re work, and I love your superstar personality, you were my sweet escape, once my sweet embrace, and now because of the Sylvia Plath- effect you want nothing to do with me, because of the mania and the euphoric-high, because of the unstoppably catastrophic blue- depression I guess I’m no good for anyone, but especially for you. I’m a saint walking on water, I am Saul of Tarsus, I am Paul on cocaine on the road to Damascus. I am the finite apostle glowing. I’m swimming, my body like velvet, head above water rooting for all daughters, and then drowning. Body-surfing, and then head sinking beneath the vibrations of the waves, drowning again. You have genie-daughters, while I have none. The lunar-phases of endometriosis saw to my infertility. I have had orphan-abandonment issues in the past. You have had abandonment issues in the past. We’re both orphans. That’s the one thing that we have in common. I can’t bear the rhetoric, the dogma, you can’t bear the church. We should be lit in love, life-falling for each other but we’re not.

And if we Forget

poured into a bottle

of souls

I drank

I laughed

I survived

I swam to an island

laid on the beach

naked under

God

I whispered my sins

to the ocean

in vein

I danced along the sand

gave in to Satan

again

and again

I discovered

later

a heart

meaty

I bit of it

sipped the blood                                       

from the cup

born again

into breasts and

soft pale skin

I wander

in search

of the

bottle

I was bled

from

Virgin Abyss

When I look out onto Song Shang Lake

just prior to sunrise, the bats flutter their wings wildly

to get the last few morsels of food

as the stress of daylight

sheds frenzy into their flight

I sit and wait for the day to open up and suck me into that vacuum

we call life

I watch the darkest sun glower over me

I wait

the lake is still as death….gray translucent

morphed into charcoal trees that surround it

the place before the world

eerily naked and primal as if a snark or a dragon will creep out

It’s the place before me

before mind

where I go empty

into the void of the lake

to seek those souls

who lure me with glimpses of

what will come to pass

but I can only see it through murky waters

Cheap Thrills

Touch me

tell me I’m not a mute

I raised kids for Christ sake

the world was my apple

and I bit of it but

I never took the time to

actually taste

I wanted

but there wasn’t

enough

time………

and if I’m dying

and cannot taste

let me watch your mouth move

with brilliant teeth and

satin tongue

let me see those lips

dull pink

soft like a breath

buried under full beard that

covers a perfect cleft……

give me the good of it

I go out knowing

it was not in vein

I studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly.  I am recently found or forthcoming in The Opiate, Anti Heroin Chic, Quail Bell Magazine, Pacific Review, Beatnik Cowboy and Bewildering Stories among many other publications. I currently serve on the editorial team for Red Fez.

Deception 9

As a married man or woman, I can still keep company with bachelor or spinster as friends.

 Does the assertion “forward ever, backward never “ring a bell to you? Have you read an expression that reads “Upward will I ascend, downward will I never descend “? Are you familiar with statement: “dream big “? If you are not familiar with any of these, there are salient expressions pointing at the need to elevate or graduate from one stage of life to the other that would have been a part and parcel of you.

 At your work place, you were the only person given promotion from your current designation to one of the most enviable position of the company you work with, would you still keep an intimate company with your colleagues that you were the same level with? What is anticipated, the interaction between you your colleagues? Of course, painful to say, it is going to be on a low key! This is because your attention would giving your all-in – all to the challenging and highly contested designation you are presently occupying interacting more with your colleagues at the same level for the sake of synergy and continuity.      

You and four of your friends have just finished high school and are seeking for admission in a college or University. Along with your friends and to your surprise, you were the only one given a latter of admission to study the course you applied for.Of course, your challenge would be primarily centered on personally equipping yourself; physically, materially and academically and socially. No doubt, you we get to meet people in the University from different backgrounds, make friends with them (based on evaluation of compatibility, depending on how mature you are) and do certain things in common on and off-campus activities, whether good or bad .       Although, depending on schedule, you will get to converse with your yet-to-be admitted friends, such conversation will certainly not be pronounced compared to your stay (with them) as an “admission seeker” Primarily your concern will be more centered on association with your level or course mates.

What if you still decide to keep on intimate relationship with those you left behind as you were elevated promoted or admitted into a University?     A question you may ask. Consider this question: “can twenty friends be in a place or state for twenty years”. If they do, such situation shares a similarity with stagnant water. It stinks after a long period of time. In the same vein, such friendship experiences stagnancy, social decay and as they say “familiarly bring contempt”. There is no moving forward.

 Before you got married, you were a bachelor or spinster, probably flanked by friends who were (at the time) yet to get married. Now, you are married and most of them are yet to settle down, would it be appropriate to keep an intimate company of still-bachelor and still-spinster friends?   It is anticipated you associate yourself more with those who are of the same relationship status as you. In fact, it is expected you keep an intimate company of like- minded friends who are married.  Viewing your current relationship status, what should be of immense importance to you are things that will certainly improve, edify and add flavor to your marriage rather than (trivial) matters associated with bachelors or spinsters. Hence, the reason you keep an intimate company of married friends rather than unmarried ones. Otherwise, you will be stagnating the meant-to-be thriving marriage.

It is therefore left for the unmarried ones to be inspired and challenged by pulling the bull by the horn towards matching the castle of marital convenience and be on the same level of marital interaction as you.   Sincerely, if you are married, how would you feel if your husband or wife still keeps an intimate company of bachelor or spinster friends?

A Bleeding Screen of Need

Where we once used words

we now send a swarm of electrons

buzzing across hyperreality, wood bees

aerial dogfighting in futile clumps

to simply say me me me

and mark an ever widening aura

of territory in the saturated

air; static grows thick

locked in mortal combat

for the numbers, the handshakes,

the fleeting flow of friends

across a bleeding screen of need,

careful not to fall off the flat edge

into the pit of the unknown—

a nobody who cannot conjure electrons

to save their life—a life is not a life

unless digitized and tossed upon

the flipping tides of lore

The Pieces Fail to Fit

Waiting for the kitchen to clean itself,

I pick up my old rubber band ball

and stretch a loop or two, massing

it into the bowling ball size range—

it takes a lot of loops to grow an inch,

but it’s just a matter of adding it all up;

another dozen bands makes another layer,

but the clock won’t stop,

and the kitchen won’t clean,

and this life won’t live itself,

or perhaps it will, but one day at a time

won’t satisfy a man who needs to shore up

some vague shelter against his end time,

pieces fallen outside the box and fit together

balanced by no real logic,

and the monument I make thus

is all the monument I’ve got

Salamander Tides

Leaky boats bob

with every tide;

any wave that rises

fills the shell.

Bailing, whether you

like it or not,

becomes the only

way to float

Logs pull together

as a raft, so dead trees

rise again, this time

to move free of land,

roots abandoned,

cast off like a rind,

like leaves,

like memories

of a time before

these floods

A salamander sheds his tail

to escape the dog,

slapping its muzzle

like a lick of shameful fire

smoking to conceal its flight

A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music and glitch video. He has published nineteen books, all available through the usual online markets, including And the Trillions (poetry) and The Toothpick Fairy (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.com.