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.
Poetry from Prasannakumar Dalai
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)
Poetry from Dr. Jernail S. Anand
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
Poetry from Terry Trowbridge
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.
Poetry from Audrija Paul
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.
Poetry from Taylor Dibbert
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.
Poetry from Mykyta Ryzhykh
*** gold fish and the sun is gone *** father is looking for fish among the scales *** here is a flower sleeping and no one knows what a morning hurricane is *** the taste of coffee fades to the tip of the tongue the thick of time is braided into the morning shabby hair *** night sensors go off scale the bride covered in blood is happy and smiling bed full of tender flesh the moon is full of light the stars are naked and bashful was published in Pulsar Poetry Webzine *** black flower braided into white braids was published in Password *** children's town no one to fix the toy was published in Password *** birds without beaks ask for a drink was published in Password *** my imaginary finger shoots into the temple was published in Password *** death vector math lesson finished was published in Password *** i want to die be a hyacinth was published in Password *** We slept with you in the crack of a cut hand Not a single air bothered us with its presence All clouds and trees were covered with a veil of nakedness The weapon itself also hid in the anal slits, apparently there it belongs Finally you raised your finger up and I realized that I was dreaming I wake up in the silence of the graveyard hidden under the bed I wake up I sleep I fall asleep I invent your finger Thrice tied to the lord I come up with a finger I teach my brain to live again was published in Pulsar Poetry Webzine *** I love the stone for the fact that he is steadfastly silent I don't like people because they die little birds kiss the glass of the universe the world is a torn book in the hands of a child was published in Perceptions Magazine *** the sky eats birds on the horizon the bird shrinks to the size of a dot the sun shines like a question mark what will happen next? was published in Perceptions Magazine *** the snow is back the bird is looking for a home among the old newspapers was published in Perceptions Magazine *** spring thunder in the belly of nature nature is our mother was published in Perceptions Magazine *** Unborn Jesus cries because he will not be crucified was published in Perceptions Magazine *** orange joy in the snow small trees are shivering in the cold small children die in a warm bed was published in Perceptions Magazine