Poetry from David Boski

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Dinosaurs Too

 

 

you used to download porn on LimeWire

using a dial up internet connection,

watch wrestling when the WWE was still the WWF,

use a Zenith VCR to record movies

off of your gigantic television set,

own a Walkman and after that a Discman;

there are kids out there who have forgotten more

about technology than you have ever known,

you get tired for no reason,

your hangovers are much worse now,

it takes you longer to piss,

and you have grey’s in your pubic hair;

you can’t get up without having a cup of coffee

or two or three,

sometimes your back hurts

and

according to WebMD

you’re completely fucked;

plus,

you’re old enough to be

a father —

to a teenager,

and one time a woman

at a bar replied

‘wow that’s old’

after you told her your age

but that’s ok;

cause one day

she’ll be a fucking

dinosaur

too.

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Elizabeth Hughes’ Book Periscope

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Nisha Singh’s Bhrigu Mahesh

Bhrigu Mahesh is a detective novel. it is very intriguing and grabbed my attention from the first chapter. Bhrigu Mahesh is a private investigator, he has taken on what was thought to be an accident in the death of Malthu. He agrees to look into the death for his mother. Malthu has died in a place called Senduwar that is filled with superstitions of bad luck and death. This is definitely a must have for the readers of mysteries. A good mystery is one where the reader cannot guess who the murderer can be. This is definitely a great mystery.

Nisha Singh’s Bhrigu Mahesh can be ordered here from publisher Book Venture. 

 

 

 

 

 

Love, God by Deborah J. Simmons-Roslak and Linda J. Orber
Humans are always looking for and created to be loved. People will let us down in some way or break our hearts. God will never let us down. God will always be there for us and guide us. We may not always receive the answer we want or, it may not be in our time frame, but, we can always count on God doing what is right for us. Love, God is an excellent book that explains God’s love for us. God has unconditional love for us and will always be there. This book teaches us how to be still and learn to listen. It teaches us how we can learn to live in peace in our hearts and minds. This is an excellent book whether you have been a Christian or want to learn to quiet your mind and restless soul. I very highly recommend it. This is a book you can read all the way through then come back if you want to look up a passage or paragraph to meditate on.
Clem Masloff’s The Amphibiots
Ranid Rolis is a researcher who has been hired to do research in the Salamandrine Archivum. In his research he comes across evidence of a secret sect. The sect now wants to hush him up before he reveals anything. The Amphibiots is an intriguing and exciting scifi book. If you love scifi/suspense this is definitely a must have for your home collection. I enjoyed it very much and highly recommend it. It’s the perfect book to read on these rainy and cold nights.
Reaching Out to Kindred Souls by Rosa Mae
Reaching Out To Kindred Souls is a very sweet and endearing book of poetry. It is written in a very unique way. In the back are pages added for the reader to write their own thoughts, poetry, sketches or doodles. Although each and every poem is very good, my personal favorites are ‘My Ray of Hope’, ‘Blessings of the Night’, ‘The Burden’, ‘The Healer’ and ‘Precious.’ This is a must have for poetry lovers. If you have not really read poetry books before, this would be an excellent one to start out with. It would also be absolutely great for a gift for someone you know. I absolutely loved it and know you will too.

Elizabeth Hughes

Poetry from Rajnish Mishra

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Recipe for happiness

 

I realized it late, but not so late as not

to feel it in real time. I knew it. I was

happy that afternoon. I was happy

after a long time indeed. What made it happen?

 

Nearly one hundred gram of groundnuts,

roasted and whole. Shelling to get the nut

is an important ingredient of happiness. Guava,

medium sliced pieces, say, ten to twelve

 

pieces per guava, the core eaten by my

two and half year old. The winter sun shining mildly

and warmly, rays falling over me and over

my folding cot, and a thin red shawl, as I

lounged, as the cover against sun burn, the shawl

from my past that my mother gave to my wife.

 

 

 

 

Thou shalt…
I have managed to stay alive; yes,
till now.
So, I should know.
I’ve lied a thousand times,
and one.
Not liking it sometimes.
Done it well every time.
That gives me the right to preach,
to pontificate, even.
What do I tell my child?
Should I ask her never to tell lies?
Then how will she survive in this world?
Should I command her to tell lies then?
It increases the chances of survival,
indeed.
It’s settled. I’ll train her in the science,
or arts,
of hypocrisy, corruption, lies and deceit.

 

 

 

 

 

Define ‘friend’

 

Definitions are often inadequate, sometimes misleading;

necessary too. I tried to define “friend”.

 

I miss you my friend.

To you I never needed to explain

the stupid puzzle I sometimes am.

 

You knew the streets and alleys of my mind.

You proved it many a time, telling me of many

a secret passage, and many a dream I dared not dream.

 

There hasn’t been any after you,

none with whom I talked about my darkest,

deepest fears and brightest hopes.

 

I’ve managed well without you.

I am not alone, and mostly

am not lonely, but sometimes, like this evening,

 

I feel like I could use a pair of ears, set into a head

that understood what I spoke,

and did not need explanations.

 

Wistful thinking! You’re gone.

Not dead, just gone.

You changed, I changed; we changed.

 

“A friend is one who you cannot forget or flush out of mind.

He is as much your part as your past is”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How time flies!

 

Today I plucked the first grey hair from my nose.

It surprised me:

one more step

towards old age.

 

It threw my mind back

to the day

I’d seen the first gray hair on my head,

the grey hair that remained the only one

for many years as it stood as the end of a phase.

It affirmed life.

 

This one confirms death.

 

How time flies!

 

 

 

 

 

Silent house

 

Return when there’s no one there.

Go home, when it’s empty of sounds.

 

It’s strange.

I’d never imagined how silence stings, stinks.

 

Whether it’s felt for a moment,

or life.

 

Rajnish Mishra is a poet, writer, translator and blogger born and brought up in Varanasi, India and now in exile from his city. His work originates at the point of intersection between his psyche and his city. He edits PPP Ezine. 

 

Synchronized Chaos January 2019: Connection

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Happy New Year! Welcome to January’s issue of Synchronized Chaos. Our theme is Connection – how we connect with each other, with ourselves, and with the larger world, or not.

Ryan Flanagan’s poetic speakers encounter and notice bits of the physical world: entrails, sweat, earwax. His humor stays grounded in, and stems from, reality. While less humorous this time around, Mahbub also grounds his experiences of the intangible (romance, social disintegration) in terms of physical images. Acts of selfishness sully the bright green of the Bangladeshi flag, while the passion of a friendly soccer game played on green grass enhances our experience of romantic love and interpersonal connection.

Along with connecting to the sensations and objects in our personal worlds, we can identify with pieces of the broader social culture and relate that to our own lives as a kind of language for our experiences. Michael Robinson’s sensual and tragic essay describes his admiration for Sylvia Plath as a fellow writer and as a human being, at a time when he has a tenuous grasp on reality. Along these lines, Gabriela Carolus shares a proud tribute to Michelle Obama that conveys both the author’s and the subject’s self-respect.

Chimezie Ihekuna speculates on the different socio-economic classes within human society and what it takes to belong to one group or another. While Carolus, Robinson, and Mahbub take bits of the larger social world and incorporate that into their personal thoughts, Ihekuna starts with the large scale society and explores where individuals might fit. 

Several contributors share the experience of glimpsing bits of other lives and other cultures, or imagining them as an exercise in creative empathy. In a second piece, Michael Robinson, who grew up in the inner city, writes of the death of a farmer and the impact that has on the man’s family. Melanie Browne’s pieces describe international exchanges, often on a small scale between Uber drivers and passengers, or in someone’s mind when they learn about or think of someone who lives elsewhere. Norman Olson also contributes an imagistic travel memoir, where what stands out is not the big moments where he sees national landmarks or world-famous art, but the vignettes where they encounter inauthentic Chinese food and passengers twerking on a Caribbean cruise.

Some writing here reflects moving in and out of connection. D.S. Maolalai’s poetry explores how and when a couple flows in and out of balance and relationship with each other, and Gabriela Carolus’s second piece reflects on forms of news coverage of poverty that inadvertently alienate and dehumanize the world’s poor. Abigail George’s poetic essay explores the complex relationship she had with her mother and how it has informed her future romantic relationships. Elizabeth Hughes’ monthly Book Periscope column illustrates the tension between relationship and alienation with two titles: Emory C. Vaughn’s Life by the Drop, a narrative about the rising drug problem in the American South and the resulting violence, and then Ann W. Phillips’ The Lady of Esterbrooke, about a happy couple’s love for each other and for the land and the animals where they live.

J.J. Campbell’s poetic speaker brings up the concept of robots taking over human tasks in a set of poems where he seems to be isolated watching the world go by from afar. He seems to feel a tenuous connection to the universe, as he senses that he will be replaced someday, even if not yet. He is caring for his mother, though, so perhaps he has found some form of human bond.

We hope you will find something with which to connect here in these submissions. Please reach out to a writer and leave a comment on their piece – you have the chance to make someone’s day! 

 

Poetry from D.S. Maolalai

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We’ll talk later.

 

we get up

to alarm clocks

like children clawing the duvet,

but we have no children

to make waking

any better

than it is,

and we don’t talk

as the coffee boils

and the microwave

heats our oatmeal.

I wait for you

to be done in the shower

so I can get in myself,

shaking cold

in boxershorts,

sitting on the bedspread

bottom.

 

no need

for conversation

in winter

early on – we’ll talk later

when we get warm

and have something

to talk about. right now

just cups of coffee

and feeling the carpet

for my watch

and work id. making sure

I have a phone in my pocket

and that you

have enough change

for the train.

 

outside the window

dark sits

like a wolf

waiting to devour

and sometimes mist

comes down from the rooftops

and tears around us

like toilet paper

stuck

to our shoes.

at the train

I kiss you quickly

and watch

as you run

away. empires

have fallen

with more attention

shown them. the bottoms

of your shoes

flash white

against grey dawn

and frozen leaf-puddles.

 

On form rejection letters.

 

and what?

as if I

were some statue,

standing still

to be shot in the dark?

me, here, drunk,

manic at the midnight computer,

looking (I imagine)

like a picture

of what poets think

modern poetry

is?

I,

who have never appeared

in Kenyon

or Granta –

am I to be slapped

and put outside

like a cat? – in the sea

are creatures

who live forever;

some clone themselves indefinitely,

others never die at all. ants

are small

unchanged scurrying things

scattering like coffee beans

dropped on a tile floor – why

should it be me bent over

when I receive

another form letter

with my titles

copied in

saying

NO?

 

Bright green.

 

I’d spent the whole week

trying to convince you

that london

was flying

with wild parrots.

 

like bright birds

in distant trees,

our time fled

before we could

get close to it. but we got drunk

and went to comedy shows

all the same,

independent theatre

and english

folk music. trying out

markets together

and looking at art. there had been something

to us

but we’d lost it

and ourselves

in our time apart.

 

3 day

weekend visits

like bringing the dog home from the vet

only underlined our cowardice

at not ending things

all at once.

I put you on the train

in golders,

kissed you

in the monday morning,

cold

as blue rocks.

and I went to the park

to put some time in

before a night shift.

 

and the trees

were full of parrots then – bright green

and alive,

moving

in couples

against dark

london

colour.

 

An evening with my girlfriend

 

and dinner

born out an argument;

see

I made a joke

about one of her friends

who is in the middle

of another of

her breakdowns,

just as I have

many times before.

but this time

she didn’t laugh

or agree with me

she’s nuts

and the carrots were cut

with a weight like steel pistons

and the stovetop

licked hot

and fast

as an angry dog.

 

I offered help

and was told

I could just

fuck off

out of it;

watch tv

or go play on my phone,

just get out of her fucking

kitchen

you fuck.

 

plates coming down

with a planecrash

and frogs going splat out of cooking pots.

wine spilled

like run from a sewage pipe,

the cutlery

a declaration of war.

 

it was delicious though,

the potatoes done

just right,

but cleaning up

is something I still have to take care of.

 

 

Morning to Wednesday.

 

the thing is

the whole bay is sheltered. no interesting

formations of rock

brought in

by collisions

with storms. you move along,

trudging,

halfway between

a straight tideline

and a razor edge

of sea,

balanced on the part

where the sand stays walkable – dry enough

to take your weight

without being so loose

it blows.

 

a mile ahead

the seagulls

crowd on lobsterpots,

and a little closer

the dog

had found a crab. she jumps in circles,

barking at it, unsure of what to do. the crab

makes progress, doesn’t snap,

just walks slowly

toward the shoreline.

better this

than last time – she found a dying jellyfish

and threw up

in the car

driving home. and the flat sand

 

could convince you

you can see past her

from morning into

wed

 

collection forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019. He has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize.

Travel vignettes from Norman Olson

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From Touring with the Chinese to Twerking with the Caribbeans –how we roll

by:  Norman J. Olson

 

back in the beginning of October (2016), our two Chinese friends came to spend some time with us in Maplewood, Minnesota,…  we did some local site seeing, driving to Taylors Falls, for example to walk along the St. Croix river and see the beginning of the fall colors…  we walked around Beaver Lake (across the street from our house) and spent time visiting and working on the yard, cutting brush, and getting ready for winter…  it was very interesting to learn that most of what we consider Chinese food was said by them to be very Americanized with added salt and materials that were prepared differently than they would be in China…  anyway, we traveled with them to California, flying to LAX on October 11 and renting a car…  we drove across the desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas…

since they like to travel cheaply as we do, we made great traveling companions…  we stayed at Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas for three nights…  our friends are younger than us by a lot and they enjoyed going out in the evening and sleeping in while we did our usual Las Vegas activities with Mary spending some time in the casino and me finding a quiet corner to sit and draw or read…  we saw the sites including walking on the strip and finding an authentic Chinese drink stand on the strip and seeing the seedy street performers downtown…

then we spent a whole day driving to Three Rivers, California where we spent two nights in a nice lodge a few miles from the entrance to Sequoia National Park…  we spent the next day driving up the mountain and walking among the giant Sequoia trees…  Mary and I had been to Sequoia Park last spring but it was really cool to see the amazing giant trees amid the colored foliage of the brush and small trees of autumn, without the snow…  I asked one of the rangers about the drought and he said that while the drought and a beetle infestation was killing a lot of the pine trees, the sequoia trees should be okay unless the drought lasts longer than another 25 years…  as in their long lives, these trees had experienced many climate fluctuations…

the drive up and down the mountain to 7000 feet where the big trees grow is very spectacular with switchbacks, hairpin turns and long vistas looking out across the valley to the jagged soaring snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains…

the next day, we drove back up to the big trees and across Sequoia Park to Kings Canyon National Park…  in Kings Canyon, we found the second largest of all the Sequoia Trees, the General Grant tree…  in a lovely grove of enormous trees…  it was raining lightly and we could see ribbons of mist going through the branches of the trees a hundred and fifty feet up…  and the old trees seemed to be loving the rain…  I felt like I could almost hear them purr, there was such a feeling of calm among the ancient trees in the misty rain…

we then drove down to the Central Valley and stopped at a fruit stand…  driving through groves of citrus and other trees and vegetable fields…  we stayed a night in a nice cheap hotel in Fresno and found a Chinese restaurant that was not very authentic, but we all agreed that it was good…  the next morning after eating waffles at the hotel’s free breakfast, we left for Yosemite…  we spent two nights in a kind of rustic hotel just outside of Yosemite…  we drove into the valley and saw all of the amazing sites of Yosemite, El Capitan, Bridalveil Falls, Half Dome and the other enormous granite cliffs and peaks which make Yosemite such a scenic wonder…  we parked and walked on the paths back into the woods for a closer look at Bridalveil Falls which is an enormously high waterfall with sprays and mists of water coming down to make a small creek…  Yosemite valley is flat and easy to tour by car and with a bit of walking in the woods makes a very nice day for tourists like us…  the next day, we drove back through the valley and then up to Glacier Point where you look down from a three thousand foot granite cliff over the Yosemite valley and out across the surrounding mountains…  it is an enormous and spectacular view…

the next morning, we drove across the Central Valley to Carmel by the Sea just south of Monterrey on the California Pacific coast…  Carmel is maybe the prettiest town in the USA with small but expensive homes going up the hill from a lovely beach…  there is an area of expensive shops and restaurants and we found good Chinese food…  we stayed there two nights…  we drove into Monterey one day and had a wonderful seafood lunch at a fancy restaurant looking out on the bay were we saw a whale arching through the water and had a great meal…  then back at Carmel, we sat in the shade of one of the weird old trees on the beach until the sun dipped into the ocean beyond the foamy surf…  then walking through that lovely town in the warm evening breeze…  it was very nice…

we then drove down the coast through the Big Sur region with its massive cliffs tapering down to the crashing waves of the Pacific…  there were lots of places to stop and take photos and I wandered if the vista had somehow faded from being so often photographed???!!  then after a night in a nice hotel in Lompoc, we drove on past Oxnard, where my brother was during his time in the Navy and across the Los Angeles Megopolis to Riverside where our oldest daughter and her family live…  the next day, when our daughter and her family went to work and school, we drove into Los Angeles to do some site seeing…  we drove through Beverly Hills and Bell Aire, looking at the massive estates of the very rich and wound up on Hollywood Boulevard, just looking around before going back to Riverside…

this was the week before Halloween, and our Chinese friends had to move on, so we said a sad goodbye to them at the Bus station in Riverside…  they were wonderful traveling companions and in spite of our difference in age, we had a terrific time driving around California and Nevada site seeing with them and I hope that like us they enjoyed some of the enormous beauty of this amazing part of the planet…

after a few days watching our grandbaby and a weekend getting ready for Halloween, we had a great Halloween with our grandkids…  then Halloween night, we drove into LA and dropped the car off to catch the red eye back to MSP…  that week we arrived in Maplewood Tuesday morning, spent a few days with our other equally wonderful grandkids in Duluth, Minnesota came home on Friday, had breakfast with our son and his wife on Sunday and on Tuesday, November 8, we got on a flight to Miami…

we spent the night of the 8th in a cheap hotel by the airport and after a few hours sitting by the pool enjoying a truly lovely evening, warm with that light spicy breeze that you only find in Miami, we retired to our room to watch the election returns…  yikes!!!!

anyway, the next morning, we took the shuttle to the cruise pier and boarded a beautiful ship called the Norwegian Pearl…  the ship is decorated with painted vines and flowers along the bow and on the superstructure and is a largish ship holding  when full some 2400 passengers…  (for comparison, about 80 feet longer and twelve feet wider than the titanic…)  this was a cruise that we had booked a couple weeks before because it looked like fun and the price was right…  it was a theme cruise and the theme was Caribbean music and dancing, so there was a line up of djs and artists in those genres…  we are not great dancers, (too old and fat for one thing) but, we love to meet new people from different backgrounds and in general love music, so there we were, two old fat white folks on a ship full of young black people, mostly from the islands…

we had a wonderful cruise…  we both agreed that it was one of the friendliest cruises we had ever been on and hearing the music and watching the young and fit dance and party was fun…  as usual on a cruise, we spent our two sea days on the Promenade deck drawing and reading…  the weather was gorgeous with temps in the low 80s and a light breeze…  the sea was very calm and this huge ship sailed calmly through the small waves as we sat in the shade and breathed the lovely sea air…  the itinerary included, one day at sea, one day at Ocho Rios and a final day at sea…  so four nights and three full days on the ship…  during the day in Jamaica, there was a huge party on the beach put on by the Caribbean music people with free booze and a huge stage with massive speakers and an all day program of djs, artists and Jamaican instrumentalists…  apparently at Caribbean music parties like this, it is the thing to pass out spray bottles of paint and for the participants to squirt each other, so with all the red paint flying, we were all painted and powdered too…  Mary and I found a picnic table in the shade and read our books while the party rocked on…  the water was lovely and I spent a long time doing the back float hearing the base pounding through the water… my old white polo shirt splotched with red dye is my souvenir…

on the beach as elsewhere, the people were all very friendly and kind to us and the few other oldsters around and we even got a few demonstrations of what we called “the booty dance”…  which seems to involve a species of twerking that sometimes becomes pretty graphically sexual…  at the beach party, this very muscular white guy was on stage with an enormously fat black woman and they were doing the booty dance so energetically, that he wound up holding her up with her legs around his back while they simulated sexual intercourse until they finally tumbled to the stage with the guy flopping on top of this very large woman to the enormous applause and cheering of the audience…

on the way back to the ship, a Jamaican woman talked us into letting her and her friend braid one small braid into my short beard and three into Mary’s equally short hair in exchange for a damp $20 bill…

back in Miami Sunday November 13, 2016…   it took a bit of doing and about twelve hours in the Miami airport to get a flight home, but we were back in Maplewood about 1 a.m. Monday morning, tired and ready to spend some time at home…  the cruise was a lot of fun and the people were so beautiful and kind to us…  it was an altogether amazing experience and I got three nice drawings…  it is still fairly warm in Minnesota with highs in the 40s and low 50s so I had better take advantage of the nice weather to get the rest of my leaves mulched as it is supposed to show on Friday…

Trees

by:  Norman J. Olson

from gigantic trees

laughing softly in misty

California rain

to gnarled cliff edge pines

of Big Sur, trees

follow each other through

the gray

tangles of my brain…

this planet carrying its trees around the sun is my home for now

the palm tree in my daughter’s yard…

the cedar tree in my son’s yard…

the lilac in my other daughter’s yard…

i sometimes think that love looks

something

like trees…  with branches like ink drawings,

tangled and complex

now it is time to mulch the

leaves from my own maple and oak

trees…  i thank “whatever gods

may be” for my luck

and for my trees….

my dad loved trees…  may he rest in

peace…

Elizabeth Hughes’ Book Periscope

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Life by the Drop by Emory C. Vaughn
Life By the Drop by Emory C. Vaughn is a collection of short-story like chapters where the author relates how drugs are taking over Georgia through farmers and others. He tells of the violence the drug industry can produce. He emphasizes that not only do drug gangs commit violence against each other and those caught in the crossfire when they illegally import drugs into this country, but also fund acts of political terrorism. He describes how the drug trade leads to all kinds of crimes and how people ruin their lives through the drug industry. This is a quick read and would be a perfect gift for you or someone you know.
The Lady of Esterbrooke by Ann W. Phillips
The Lady of Esterbrooke by Ann W. Phillips is a delightful Christian romance. Some people think that a Christian romance book would not by any good since there is no sex or other things in it. This is simply untrue. This novel is delightful, romantic and can show that romance and dating can be done without going all the way or having dirty talk. This novel keeps you interested and is perfect to curl up with a cup of cocoa and a warm blanket on the cold winter nights. It is about Marla and her father who live on a plantation in South Carolina. Her father runs the plantation. Marla takes care of the animals along with holding an office position. The Bridwells own the plantation and have a son, Lance. Lance and Marla fall in love and this book follows them through their first meeting, dating and marriage and through their Christ filled life. This is a perfect example for young people to know that it is possible to save yourself, man or woman, until the wedding night. It is a wonderful story and had me laughing and crying throughout the book. This would make an absolutely perfect gift for Christmas or anytime just to say thank you to someone special to you. I very highly recommend it and will definitely read it again and again.