For Love

Mavis always knew, even as a child, which side of the bread had the butter. A future valedictorian, she was smart, in both her studies and in her life, and was always prepared to seize an opportunity when it came along. Which was why, when Brad Travis, the best player on her high school's football team, finally began flirting with her from afar in study hall, she knew that time was of the essence. She acted. She thought she might be in love with the boy, though she knew him only slightly. Love was the most important thing of all, she thought. So she'd strike while the iron was hot. She walked over to where he sat.

"Hi, Brad," she said demurely, biting her lip and batting her long lashes outrageously at the unsuspecting jock. Somehow, a pen managed to work its way free of her notebook and plopped at Brad's feet with a little click. Brad promptly retrieved the errant pen and presented it like a trophy to Mavis.

"Here ya' go, Mave'," he said, like a friendly puppy.

And so it went. Within minutes the student athlete had been manipulated into asking for Mavis's phone number. When she gave it to him, he fecklessly slapped at his pockets, but, turning up no writing instrument, gratefully accepted the very pen that Mavis had dropped only moments before.

"I'll call you," he promised, as she made her way back to her seat.

. . . . .

On their first date, a movie, of course -- Brad loved movies -- Brad confided to her that he wanted to fall in love, serve in the Marines, and be an auto mechanic, in that order. "Love," he intoned gravely, "is the most important thing there is." Mavis smiled; knowing she'd found her soul mate.

The couple dated for two years and were, against all odds, selected King and Queen of the Prom, Class of 1968. Mavis had gone on the pill two weeks after their first date; but that was fourteen days too late, practically speaking.

After the birth of their baby -- christened Mary after Brad's mother -- Mavis and Brad continued with their high school courtship and careers, despite -- or perhaps in defiance of -- the rampant disapproval expressed by the parents of their fellow students. After graduation, the young people were promptly married in a modest civil ceremony. Times were tough for both families. They opted to live with Mavis's widowed mother, Ellen.

"Mom," said Mavis one afternoon, "Brad wants to take me to the movies on Friday; can you watch Mary?" Her mother, an indulgent grandma, nodded and smiled. "Thanks, mom." It would be their last date before his enlistment.

"What is this movie you're so set on seeing?" asked Mavis as they made their way through traffic to the theatre.

"The Green Berets," replied her husband.

When they walked out of the theatre and into a December snowstorm, Mavis turned to Travis and blurted, "I don't want you to join the Marines!"

Travis frowned. He had this all planned out: after high school he would join the USMC, as had his father before him, serve three years, and attend college on the G.I. Bill. No one in his family had ever gotten an education and Brad certainly didn't have the resources to attend college on his own. What other option did he have? Flipping burgers? The job market was tough. They looked for their car in the driving storm.

"But, Mave', we decided," he protested. "You know that tomorrow I have to head out to Parris Island." The South Carolina training facility was a 16-hour bus ride from their home.

"But, that was before I got a glimpse of what the war was about," she came back at him. "Why didn't you tell me what it was like?" she demanded petulantly. They found their car and climbed inside.

He shrugged. "My old man made it through three years of service in WWII, and he came out without a scratch," he pointed out.

"I don't care," she snapped. "I don't want you to go!"

"But I enlisted already, the day after graduation. It was that or get drafted. If I don't report, I'll be AWOL, and they'll arrest me."

Now Mavis broke down in sobs. "Mary will never know her dad," she said tearfully.

"She knows me already," said Brad.

"But she's a baby; she doesn't know what a good, kind, loving man you are. She can only learn that as she grows older with you. You're all about love," she told him.

They sat in the car long into the night, discussing their possible futures, till at length Mary glanced at the clock on the dashboard and said, "Mom will be crazy with worry. Let's get home."

That night they made ardent love, as if for the last time.

. . . . .

All through the ensuing 18 months, Mavis Travis was alert to all news pertaining to the war and the military, particularly the Marine Corps. She watched the nightly news -- particularly Walter Cronkite on CBS, since he, like her, was against the war. She read comprehensive articles in Time and Newsweek and even subscribed to the New York Times. She cried at stories of love lost, and when Brad received his inevitable deployment to Viet Nam, Mavis cried again. Mavis and Brad wrote letters almost constantly. Eagerly she'd tear open the featherlight blue envelopes his letters came in. She could sometimes tell they had been opened by censors, but she thought little of it.

"I'm lonely, Mave'," he'd mourn. "I miss you so much!" One day Brad wrote something which frightened her. "If I don't make it back, as a man, a whole man, you find somebody else. Mary needs a father, and you need a husband." Had he been injured?" she wondered wildly. In the news every day were accounts of men returning from Viet Nam as mere shells of their former selves. In 'Nam, Brad was a "tunnel rat," who explored caverns and tunnels and unleashed a hellish inferno from a flame thrower to incinerate the "enemy." And he summarily shot to death "gooks" with his M-16. he wrote her.

Brad was ambivalent about his job, at best. "Like Ali says, 'these North Vietnamese never done nothin' to me," wrote Brad, referencing the former heavyweight boxing champion, stripped of his title and presently in court for failing to report for active duty. While Brad was abroad, Mavis enrolled in the local college, studying pre-law. She got an accelerated course of study, due to her perfect marks on her admissions test. She could finish in just two years.

. . . . .

At long last, Brad's tour in Viet Nam concluded and he went to Hawaii for R & R. Mavis got a letter from him, postmarked Honolulu and with a return address that read: "The World." She was so happy she could have cried.

Everyone was relieved and glad when Brad returned home. He had about 18 months remaining on his enlistment, but he would spend it stateside. As she sat with family in the Travises' living room for a celebratory dinner on Brad's first night home, Mavis regarded him proudly. He seemed fit and alert and happy and so her anxieties were allayed. It wasn't until they spent their first night together in bed that her fears came back.

"I can't do it, Mave'," muttered Brad, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

"What is it, baby?" asked Mavis, running her hand over his well-muscled shoulders. "You still thinking about the war?" She was determined to understand, to be of help to her man.

"It's not so much the war itself," said Brad.

"Then what is it? Do you feel guilty being home while your buddies are still in Asia?" Mavis had read a plethora of books regarding soldiers' reactions to returning home after active service. In college she was also taking a degree in psychology.

Brad hesitated for a long moment, before he said, "It's more someone."

"Um?" Mavis didn't understand.

"Lien. It means water lily," he said warmly, his face suddenly lighting up. "I met her at Chu Chi." Mavis stared at him. "I was so lonely, Mave', and she had lost her husband in the war. I...we, fell in love." Her hand fell away from his shoulder.

All Mavis's dreams and expectations and hopes came crashing down upon her. Her husband, for whom she had prayed every night and lighted a candle every Sunday, and who had fathered her child, was in love with another woman. She fairly swooned.

"There's more, Mave'," said Brad. How much more could there possibly be? she thought bleakly.

"There's Lieu," he said. "She was born two months ago. She's my daughter, Mave'," and he grinned stupidly, unaware of the toll it was taking on the woman he'd promised to love forever and above all others.

When Mavis didn't respond, he put his hand on her shoulder, but she was too stunned to shake him off. "I want you to meet them," he went on, oblivious to her pain. "I'm petitioning the State Department to allow them to immigrate. It's complicated, but I think we can swing it. Eventually." They didn't make love that night, nor for most nights after that.

. . . . .

When he got out of the Marines, Brad went to a trade school on the G.I. Bill and became an auto mechanic. Mavis, meanwhile, finished her undergraduate degree and enrolled in law school and was an honors student. Their lives went on apace, but it was never quite the same after Viet Nam. Mavis knew that Brad tried, but he wasn't the attentive husband and lover she had known before the war; his heart just wasn't in it. They had no more children.

"Brad cheated on me, Mom," Mavis told her mother one spring afternoon. "He fathered a child by another woman." They had had this forlorn discussion many times before. They all still lived together at Ellen's house.

"Men get lonely in war, honey," murmured mom. Ellen's father had died in WWII and she held soldiers in high esteem.

"I got lonely too, but I never cheated," remarked Mavis crossly.

"You just have to forgive him, baby," said Mom. "It's what love is all about." Mavis sipped her coffee and said nothing. "You graduate tomorrow!" said Mom buoyantly, changing the subject. "You'll be a lawyer!" she exclaimed.

"If I pass the bar exam," Mavis corrected her, with a little smile.

"You aced every test you ever took," Ellen reminded her with a twinkle.

"We'll see," replied Mavis, thankful anew for her mother's unfaltering love.

. . . . .

Mavis, Ellen, 13-year-old Mary and Brad stood at the gate for international flights at the airport, expecting two long-awaited arrivals. Mavis glanced at her husband of 12 years; he seemed anticipatory, edgy. He didn't look at her. Suddenly the huge aircraft deplaned. Mavis recognized Lien and Lieu, from the hundreds of photos she'd seen, even before Brad did. They were petite and beautiful, but seemed so small, so vulnerable. At last they caught Brad's eye and as they entered the concourse, he rushed up to them, swept them both into a warm, loving embrace. Mavis swallowed. It was as if they had never been parted. The love that the three of them shared was manifest and nothing more need be said, she thought.

Ellen turned to her daughter. "What'll happen now?" she asked.

Mavis shook her head. "I don't know."

Suddenly Brad signaled for Mary to join them, and she did, relishing the idea of a younger sister and curious about the strange little woman accompanying her.

"You know," remarked Ellen, "this never could have happened if you hadn't negotiated with the State Department on behalf of Lien."

"I'm an immigration lawyer, Mom; it's what I do. And it knew it was what my husband wanted -- to have his family back."

"You did it for love," said Ellen simply.

Mavis only nodded and continued to watch the welcoming ceremony -- and the expressions of love -- at the gate.

Aweary  

Aweary with the dirt 
that amasses at the doorsteps of multiple nations,
the trash of treaties, conventions, and dialogues
in assemblies that spew out noisome speeches,
the tedium of eloquence 
that has been evolving since the extinction of Dinosaurs
and other pre-historic creatures,
when heavy clubs and hand-held rocks 
gave way to more refined ways of resolving 
territorial grievance. 


 
Terrorized

Terror now runs in our veins
like electric currents that are ordained
for the God-forsaken and the condemned insane.

We daily anticipate the predicted forecast
of tremors, volcanic eruptions, or some devastating gales
that bring everlasting perdition in its inevitable wake.

Our homes have become gossamer 
in the breath of raging warfare.
Stars are dragons to be heeded 
and clouds are ominous bearers of pain.
They have injected terror into our brains, 
each nerve resonating to a parody of the end of times, 
prescribed to every indignant homo sapien.


 
2024

It is only the second of January
and I am already bed-ridden,
unable to move a limb or lift an eyelid. 
I had mumbled something on the phone 
that made my brother nearly have a car accident. 
The search for a doctor immediately commences 
since I rarely fall ill. 

Nausea makes it impossible for me to suck 
a single sip of my favorite drink. 
I feel my grip on life fast loosening, 
but there is no white light beckoning 
or a flower-strewn tunnel 
at the end of which stands the welcoming dead. 
 
The mask-less doctor is reluctant to pinpoint the culprit.
‘Is it the new Corona?’ I faintly ask. 
2024 has just unwrapped its miscellaneous gifts.


 
If They

If they condemn ongoing butcheries in the Holy Land,
they are instantly accused of hate crimes,
of embracing anti-Semitism with a godly might,
but fortunately they happen to be Semites
and there is no way they could turn against themselves.

If they speak against the atrocities of Zionism,
they’re branded with the ugliest forms of racism,
but they are not the ones who inherited an apartheid 
that persecuted the Irish, red, and black.

If they invoke the help of Almighty God
to send Archangel Michael to battlefields
to support the persecuted in an occupied land,
fanaticism is the final verdict.
  

MEMORIES OF YOUR TORMENT!

After crossing the road of our love
We met leaving far behind everything
How about walking to the no man's land
Hardly do we know each other though
I feel as if I've got my soulmate in you
Days go by; nights don't seem to glide
Memories of yours do torment me a lot
The world has reduced me to this state 
Sitting and clutching my wounded past
Cause you're so close to me, you know
But I think you're out of my reach now.


 NOTHING IN MY HAND!

I wish your presence when I am awake
Always in my dreams if I shut my eyes
I've recorded my world in your name
For the first time in my life you came
My eyes were wet while laughing
Nothing in my hand; me empty &  lonely
Your entity you know essential to me
My palm lines aren't perfect though
It is clear you've accepted me as I am 
There was loneliness in my heart and
In your presence I feel heavenly bliss.


THE DUST OF GRIEF!

At times I think of my uneventful life
Just a garland of thorns sans peace 
What I have found is the dust of grief 
When I did desire for the cold touch
Out of nothing only cold sigh in my lot 
Sorrows made my heart more sombre 
You left leaving a couple of moments 
None has time to hold my numb hands
Even my shadow is very often apathetic 
This is my life and why should I be afraid 
Of sorrow for it's mine, my companion.



YOU BECAME MY PRAYER!

I'll give away my life, even lose all my wins 
Whatever be the cost, you're my everything
Beyond all my limits and boundaries 
Now I'm broken after giving everything 
I'm no one; you've become my destination 
Great things God has given without asking 
Otherwise atheists like me won't get God
My desires 've met you as you became my prayer.


Dr. Prasana Kumar Dalai (DOB 07/06/1973) is a passionate Indian Author-cum- bilingual poet while a tremendous lecturer of English by profession in the Ganjam district of Odisha. He is an accomplished source of inspiration for young generation of India. His free verse on Romantic and melancholic  poems appreciated by everyone. He belongs to a small typical village Nandiagada of Ganjam District, the state of Odisha. After schooling he studied intermediate and Graduated In Kabisurjya Baladev vigyan Mahavidyalaya then M A in English from Berhampur University PhD in language and literature and D.litt from Colombian poetic house from South America. 

He promotes his specific writings around the world literature and trades with multiple stems that are related to current issues based on his observation and experiences that needs urgent attention. He is an award winning writer who has achieved various laurels from the circle of writing worldwide. His free verse poems not only inspires young readers but also the people of his generation. His poetic goal is right now inspiring others, some of which are appreciated by laurels of India and across the world. Many of his poems been translated in different Indian languages and got global appreciation. Lots of well wishes for his upcoming writings and success in future.

He is an award winning poet and author of many best selling books. Recently he was awarded Rabindra nath Tagore and Gujarat Sahitya Academy for the year 2022 from Motivational Strips . A gold medal from world union of poets France & winner Of Rahim Karims world literary prize 2023.The government of Odisha Higher Education Department appointed him as a president to Governing body of Padmashree Dr. Ghanashyam Mishra Sanskrit Degree College, Kabisurjyanagar.

Winner of "HYPERPOEM " GUINNESS WORLD RECORD 2023.Recently he was awarded from SABDA literary Festival at Assam, the highest literary honour from Peru contributing world literature 2024. Completed 200 Epistolary poems with Kristy Raines of the USA.

Books.

1.Psalm of the Soul.
2.Rise of New Dawn.
3.Secret Of Torment.
4.Everything I Never Told You.
5.Vision Of Life National Library Kolkata.
6.100 Shadows of Dream.
7.Timeless Anguish.
8.Voice of Silence.
9.I cross my heart from east to west. (Epistolary poetry with Kristy Raines)

LOVE 

We love things which look beautiful 
Or things which are useful.
And when things lose beauty 
Or turn useless, 
The love evaporates.

But men and women 
When fall in love,
These benchmarks of 
Beauty and utility
Turn irrelevant.

Love like hope springs eternal 
In human heart 
And stays 
Even when cheeks lose glow 
And winds lose their blow.

Offspring is loved by the living species 
But when parents grow old, 
Or if some accident 
Breaks a child beyond repair, 
How long can love be stretched?

Animals are loved only so long 
As they give milk.
Or they have enough strength 
In their knees to pull the carts, 
Before being sold out to the slaughter house 

Love of this land has its limitations 
Even men and women who love
Sometimes find it a burden 
And rush to the courts. 
Who carries a relation reduced to a carcass?

Earth is a different type of mother 
And God a doting father 
Who call to their embrace 
Voyagers whose boats were broken 
Before they could cry "Eureka".


Dr. Jermail S. Aaand
India 

Anatomy of the Lemon: Placenta

First, a confession: I have eaten many of them. Countless.
Lemons are one of my favourite childhood foods,
and like oranges, I eat the columella for completion’s sake.
Completion? You ask. Well, it wasn’t OCD.
I looked up the anatomy and learned:
I eat lemons, pulps, placentas, and all.

Anatomical emphasis for frugivores: lemon is 0vary.
Not O like Orange but 0 like 0bl0ng, pr00f that
fruit is font and font is anatomy and anatomy is destiny.

Leafing aside the fallopian twigs, knotwithstanding arborisms…
The peel I rarely eat (they get ground up into cookies or icing or composted)
the 0rgan in the 0vary (((0))),
(note the nested hierarchy 
((I could have said ovarian organ)) 
Aristotelian qua peripatetic)
the 0rgan that seeds explaining stuttering wh00psie daisy-yellow uh-0

Lemon w0mb dissolves tooth enamel, the reversal of Freud’s V. dentata,
contributor to my adult dental erosion.
How could I have not known?
Ironically, lemons dissolved, drip by acidic drop, my baby teeth, too slowly to see.
They fell out before they fell apart.
Witness! The false security from not living the recurring nightmare of teeth falling out.
Watch! The geological parallels of sleepily grinding Alps into Appalachians,
revealing sedimentary mineral layers and geode cavities.
As always, childhood is one step faster than fate, 
	(lemon-eating kids getting away with it)
adulthood is always one more step further into it,
	(we live with the consequences of eating delightful acids)
and both blindfolds of age
 are both sides of the same 0blivi0us unseeing desire for lemons.

For me, the lengths of lifetimes were measured in teeth.
The hourglass that flipped from one stage to the other
was a yellow 0.



Amoeba is an Astronomer

under whose microscopes we sleep in stabbing light
-Marc di Saverio (2020). Crito Di Volta, 31.

Amoeba has spent hours measuring 
the distance between illuminator and aperture. 
Pseudopods akimbo, trying different contractile vacuoles
as lenses, the protoplasm imagines formulae.

Amoeba has to explain gravity.
Gravity makes no sense to a creature with no up, down, or direction.
But there is a “below” now, unlike the tumult of pond scum.
The illuminator proves there is such thing as “direction”
and beyond that, Amoeba cannot see.
The between-space between slides, though, 
has different textures of dimensionality than pond scum.
There are limits where the light of the illuminator
begins to glare against two transparent boundaries.

Amoeba, and the rest of them, let the light shine through.
Their bodily images become artworks on the upper slide.
Images of themselves pass through the glass transparency.
Amoeba decides that the slide sky has constellations
describing life on the slides. The life can organize themselves,
even organize each other, and create narratives out of their images.
Amoeba is the opposite of an astrologer:
what happens inside the world determines what is written on the sky.

The opposite of illuminator is oculus.
Oculus changes distance, and does so all-of-a-sudden.
Amoeba’s endoplasmic flow and search for prey
are two ways to measure velocity.
Amoeba wishes for parallax.
What is between the slide and the oculus?
Maybe there are two spheres, illuminator and oculus,
nested between them is a crystalline horizon.
Amoeba is an Aristotle.
Amoeba lives for van Leuwenhoek’s cosmology, Galileo’s imagination.



Birds Look at the Time

My spade is the earth
and my hands turn the spade.
Five minutes of sunlight
turn my shadow five minutes east.
Clouds cast shadows.
Castes of birds fly between tree tiers.
My spade turns over,
more dirt turns over,
another brown bird hops near me
and peers into the dirt.

Sap of deadly nightshade on my hands.
I remember not to touch my eyes.
Clouds shade me 
but can’t shade me from pollen.
Intermittent sun must change 
the colour of my eyes
but I cannot see it.
My spade is on the ground
beside some dirt
and I am not yet done with it.

Every bird has black eyes today
but somehow manage to reflect me.
From where is the black in their eyes reflected?
My eyes are also not mirrors
But I see the birds and they look at me.
My spade is on the ground beside a brown songbird.
The songbird looks at me and does not sing.
Another bird flies over me and sings,
Although it does not look down at me.
If they are waiting for me and my part,
they must be satisfied with me picking up my spade
and turning over more dirt.


Terry Trowbridge's poems have appeared in Synchronized Chaos before. He is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first two writing grants. 

DEFEATED

At the break of dawn, when the night melts 
And light finds its way,
The slumbering soul thinks of you.
At the middle of the night, when the world tries to be silent,
This insane soul thinks of how to feed the hunger of your absence.
When the pink evening lights diffuses, and it gets darker,
The fire inside this unruly being burns down every single memory,
The tears freeze in a silent snowy dusk.
Still the buried dreams returns again and again,
In this mind. 
Still the soul thinks that there is a return from the final destination of life. 
And one day,
This story ends,
With the burial of this unruly soul. 

Ghost Town

He got on Tinder
Thinking there 
Might be some
Awkward moments
Or mildly 
Exciting times, 
Or things
Unfolding in a
Notable way
But he must 
Be doing 
Something wrong
Because it
Turns out
That there’s
Not a lot
Happening
On Tinder,
At least 
Not for him,
Who knew
That looking
For love in 
The wrong place
Could be 
So uneventful.



Taylor Dibbert is a writer, journalist, and poet in Washington, DC. “Rescue Dog,” his fifth book, was published in May.