Poetry from Theophilus Adeyinka

Posted on by

Try Smile

                     When you labor from dusk to dawn

                     Sleeping only for some hours till morn,

                     When you watch your hands tremble from cramp

                     And cold sweat makes your cloth damp,

                    When a trace of grin darkens your face

                     And in gloom blues you seek solace,

                     When you watch vain results pile:

                     Still from within, try a smile.

 

                     When for a thousand life pays a buck

                     And you feel nothing seems to work,

                     When you lie on the brink of desperation

                     Seeking your way through strong meditation,

                     With closed eyes, yet seeking, all you can find

                     And thousand thoughts flood your pale mind,

                     As fickle fortune ease you where you lie,

                     Invictus you are, when you smile.

 

                     Against the fierceness of a million raging storms,

                     And the cataclysm raining down to burn,

                     Against the future that seem very bleak,

                     And the fiascos making your bones creak,

                     As the moon reflects in perfect radiance

                     Against the damp night in sweet defiance,

                     The bitterness that engulf you like bile

                     Can you courageously fight, with a smile.

 

                     For I know a smile can:

                     With the fury of ten thousand swords

                     Pierce through the marrow of mocking words;

                     With the warm Aura of the sun

                     Draw you positive people for your sun

                     With the attractiveness of a maiden

                     Get you prompt help for a farthing;

                     Cause you to sing while tackling the thing

                     And do what you thought you couldn’t.

  Continue reading →

Poetry from Vandita Dharni

Posted on by

1. Unrequited Love

Lonely teardrops flow through my eyes,

dampening my aching heart

that beats only for you beloved

as we are drifted apart.

A restless thought gnaws at my mind_

When will our restless souls meet?

 

The trepidation of uncertainty

numbs my senses.

As I feel a kiss of your breath,

a rapturous joy envelops me

drowning me in a tumultuous ocean,

flowing through my being.

 

My feelings are tearing me apart

like the waves that treacherously depart

from the bed of the sifting sands.

Haunting thoughts of you that lie deep within

linger on unabatedly.

I ponder, I brood, I moan.

 

A warm silence palpitates and sweeps

through the flickering, aromatic candlelight.

I pause to wonder_

Could you be thinking of me too?

The magical moments of our love enshrined, revisited.

The passion of our love unrequited.

  Continue reading →

Synchronized Chaos June 2017: Connect The Dots

Posted on by

pixelateddots

Welcome to June’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine.

This issue illustrates that to a point we can choose how to interpret the world around us. As with a children’s connect-the-dots picture, the facts of life may to some extent be established, but we have some say over the connections and conclusions we draw from them.

Poet Vijay Nair draws once more upon classical Greek mythology, with a homage to the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, where a man creates and falls in love with a statue of an idealized female figure. In the same way, we all create and embrace our own ideals, as we come up with our own concepts of what is beautiful and important to focus on in life.

Some of this month’s writers are sincere in their appreciation for the world. Joan Beebe’s poetry celebrates birds in flight, stars in the nighttime sky, and the world after sunset, with a wish for humans to act with care towards each other in light of so much natural beauty. Mimi Mathis honors veterans from World War II in a piece inspired by oral history interviews she conducted.

Their genuine words contrast with the cynicism inherent in Michael Marrotti’s short story lampooning an over-the-top writers’ workshop and J.J. Campbell’s more serious poetry that provides small snapshots of people with broken lives.

Mahbub’s poetry selections this month remind us of life’s impermanence. We aren’t going to be here forever, and neither are our loved ones, so we may as well choose to make the most of the time that we do have.

Elizabeth Hughes, in her monthly Book Periscope review column, shows us the writing of a woman who has done that. Darrah Perez, an author and performance artist from the Wind River Native reservation in Wyoming, has given us three collections of poetry and prose that describe her journey through life as she overcame addiction and other obstacles to be able to impart wisdom to others.

Elizabeth Hughes also reviews Joe Klingler’s new suspense novel Tune Up, about the young female San Francisco police detective Kandy and her older Inuit partner Qiqig’s work on a homicide that intersects with the story of Mylin, a talented violinist. Crime solving inevitably involves ‘connecting the dots.’

J.D. DeHart offers up thoughts in the form of little vignettes reminiscent of paintings, slices of life from unusual angles. We see calm strength through a gorilla keeper’s eyes, opened minds as a family comes to full understanding of their mother’s life and stature, self-critique as a person realizes that archetypes of people in distress speak more to his own need to rescue than to those others, pity for those whose human foibles are recorded electronically for posterity – and children, once grown, who take control and begin creating their own stories, shaping their own mythologies independent of the fairy tales of previous generations.

We hope that this issue helps empower you to develop and act upon a worldview that energizes and inspires you.

connect_the_dots

Poetry from Mimi Lou Martin

Posted on by

A Tribute to World War II Veterans

and To All of Those Who Know

By Mimi Lou Martin

There are those who know

Listen to them and look into their eyes

They understand true courage, duty, and the pain of sacrifice  

Wrapped in innocence they journeyed into darkness, not knowing if it would take their life

They put service before self so future generations wouldn’t have to take the same perilous path   

Years may dim memories but not their valor and the deeds they did for you and me  

Listen to them, look into their eyes, they all know the price paid for being free

There are those who asked not that their life be saved, but that they may be calm to complete their assigned duties and save others that day   

There are those who know what hunger and starvation looks like and how it feels to move lifeless soldiers out of the way     

Look into the eyes of those who know how the green grass turned blood red 

And then tell others who don’t know   

Tell them to look at the stars and stripes and listen to those who know  

Then give thanks and say thank you to all of those who know

Poetry from Vijay Nair

Posted on by

 

01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mannequin

Truly unfair,

Calling her a mannequin

Eyes are useless

When mind is blind

Absolutely no desire to fit in

Marionette, better than animate

Tangible her zest was in a daze

 

Caged in the display,

Where she was in a cloister

Clothed her a stola with Limbus

Cloaked her cosmos with clobber

Closeted motion still an attraction

 

Fuelled by drama led to

Attend the performance

Can’t stop watching since

Enraptured me her charms

Evoked memories in

 

 

She my Aphrodite

Deity of  beauty,

Goddess of  love,

Cult of pleasure,

Nubile of procreation,

Love is composed of a single soul

Inhabiting in both of us

 

My life a ceaseless search of love

Marvelled at her, saw luscious

Manifested myth, towards lust

My emotion on the crest

My most beloved in trust

Mainspring of my psyche

She a best, no expiry date

 

©-Vijay P Nair-2017

Poetry from JD DeHart

Posted on by

 

Gorilla Keeper
He is master of the dark shape
with the round gray stomach,
and the tendency to charge.
He is like one of them, with large
knuckles.
When he speaks, there is the peace
of trees and shade.
The calm of working with great
creatures of strength.
 
Girl with a Munch Face 
She is the screamer who I imagine
standing at the open mouth of a bridge,
figure trying to leave the rest of the world
and all she knows behind her, the sign post
of familiarity dimming in the distance
I imagine the smell of family life
and common voices fading quickly
She is the elongated face and I wish I could
offer a rescue, not because she needs it
but because I need to rescue someone; simply
put, it is my sensitivity, the desire to hold up
a leaking world that is probably more
in a position to help me instead.
Full Height 
She used to sit in the corner
rocking in her old-style chair,
an antique they brought in so
she could play her domestic role,
pretending to know how to knit
the results were knotted
chunks of twigs and twine
they, in turn, pretended they might
one day attempt to wear
while she cradled herself
back and forth, the family thought,
My, how tiny
but then she began to flail
her arms one day and burst
the chair into splinters
and revealed her true height.
A Study of the Tantrum 
of course, now we record
them using the variegated
lenses we carry on our person
but I remember a time
when a being could thrash
and shout and the only
evidence was the casual
eyewitness or security cam
I even recall a time when,
to my ultimate Chagrin, I myself
engaged in a small tantrum
and thankfully there was no one
to hold it up like hieroglyphs
on our digital cave wall.

Elizabeth Hughes’ Book Periscope

Posted on by

 

It Never Happened by Darrah J. Perez

darrahneverhappenedcover

It Never Happened is the first volume of three memoirs consisting of poetry and the story of Darrah J. Perez. How she became spiritual and how that has led her to a better place in her life. I liked both the poetry and her story. I really believe that others can use the wisdom from what she has learned through her mistakes in her earlier life. I really enjoyed reading the first volume and am looking forward to starting volume two. It Never Happened is very deep and thought-provoking. It will keep the reader interested and will want to continue reading all three volumes. I highly recommend It  Never Happened.

It Always Happens by Darrah J. Perez

ItAlwaysHappensDarrahPerezcover
It Always Happens is the second book in the trilogy of poems and stories by Ms. Darrah J. Perez. In the second volume, she shares more of her story of addiction and overcoming the addiction and abuse she has been through. She enlightens us with her wisdom from the Creator than has led her through this journey of sharing her knowledge and wisdom. Her poetry is very deep and will touch your inner soul. My favorite poems are “Karma Has a Message”, “It’s Never Goodbye”, and “A Saddened Heart”. Ms. Perez writes with the wisdom of someone who has been there and shares that wisdom with her readers. I believe we can all take something and learn something from these books of her life. I highly recommend reading them and look forward to reading the last book of the trilogy.
It’s Forever Happening by Darrah J. Perez
It’s Forever Happening is the third and final book of poems and stories of Ms. Darrah J. Perez’ life. This is the perfect ending to the trilogy. It wraps up the first two and comes to its final conclusion. My favorite poems were, “Life Has A Wavelength’, “My Heart Beats for You,” “Any Which Way the Wind Blows,” “Fighting To Survive,” “Home of the Greats”, and “A Dear Angel’s Time.”  Although all of Ms. Perez poetry will touch the reader in some way, these were the ones I particularly liked the best. In this final book she has some excellent advice in the stories. Each one will touch the heart of different readers in many different ways. Thank you Ms. Perez for sharing your deeply inspiring stories and excellent poetry with us. I highly recommend all three of the volumes.
tuneupcover
Another best seller by Joe Klingler! Tune Up is a new Qigiq and Kandy thriller. Qigiq and Kandy were introduced in Klingler’s earlier novel Mash Up. Qigiq (Ki-jeek) is a detective rom Alaska on loan to the SFPD. They are caught up investigating a suspicious hit and run on an older woman in Chinatown. They need to find out who did it and why someone would target the older woman. This leads them to a much more complex world of crime with twists and turns that will keep the reader on the edge of their seat until the last page. Mr. Klingler’s writing is very smooth and filled with excitement in every page. The reader will want more after reading Tune Up. I look forward to reading the following books in the series when they come out. I very highly recommend Tune Up by Joe Klingler. This is a book that will not disappoint.