Protective 

Oh my fucking God

I hope you know 

I truly love you 

Had your...

Physical and mental attributes 

Listed and ready 

To make a mockery out of 

As I roasted you alive 

Despite you hurting me 

In ways no one ever had before 

I still can't bring myself 

To say these things to you 

Invisible girl 

No one ever noticed 

 It killed you 

And when they did notice 

They drove by and barked at you 

Well baby if you think that was traumatizing 

Then the things I could say about you 

Would make you want 

To take your own life 

Of course you're not reading this 

You ghosted me and 

Don't give a fuck how much it hurts

Yet here I am 

Trying to save your feelings 

One more time 

Just in case you ever look back

From the beginning till the ending 

All I ever wanted was to make you happy 

So I don't want to say anything 

To make you sad and upset now

Just in case you ever remember 

That I exist

God’s heart is a Giant Tear: June 1, 2022

I was sad to see Louie’s close, I thought to myself.
At Lands’ End, today’s destination journey.
A place where I can find myself again.
One of the most beautiful sites in the world.
Where the ocean meets the land.
I come here to ground myself and breathe.
This is where the butterflies flutter and lizards sprawl, as families saunter,
near swallows and chickadees, pelicans, and gulls.
Ocean waves leaping and lapping.

Today whales are reported, by a woman with two tawny and white dogs.
She lets my Bella sniff her dogs, while she tells us of the whale spouts sparkling near the surface. “Now I see!”
I see the blowing just at the surface. Some spouts shoot up out of the waters,
others just to the surface. You can see the pod is swimming around the very blue waters.

The Golden Gate Bridge stands so tall and proud amidst the 1000-year-old Cypress trees!
Three young girls, led by a mother, stand on the large cement wall bench to take a selfie.
All giggles, for today we have a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The cars look like matchbox cars.
These are just some of the things our children taken away too soon, by angry teens, barely men, bearing arms.
Shooting at our children, Killing them!

Now, these children will never see these things I see.
Lost to us before they had a chance to choose where, they would journey,
on a free day like today.  June 1, 2022.
The birds chirping; sounds to me, “Please, please, don’t shoot.” 
Over and over. Yes, here at Lands’ End.
Over and over, they sing it again.
I look up to the clouds.  I see God’s arms caressing, admiring, perfectly, tiny babies in the clouds created by He.
He admires each one before they are sent here.
Yet, these days, God’s heart is a giant tear.
 

Apocalypse Not Now

Things don’t look so grim to me at this juncture,
the roving blood goons with veiny neck effort 
and pillows for fists,
believing there is strength in numbers
just as Vegas and the warring armies have taught them,
that fear can be mastered like an obedience school dog
off the chain,
and concealed weapons if 
that fails.

Myself, I prefer a pair of mating ducks in the inner harbour.
Male with proud felt green head.
The female by his side and the young ones in tow.
Or a leaky faucet that refuses to fall in line.

Staring out of windows, I see windows staring back
at me.

Underwear friends 
with spider veins for legs
so you know the fangs of pet store tarantulas 
are real.

 
The Public Has a Right to Know Nothing
	
that is why it is the public 
and the rest of it is 
private,

but such blanket statements 
from the blubbery populist blowhole
go over exceedingly well with 
the idiot masses

which is why that fabricated argument concocted 
by marketing 
as to whether a Crisper was a chip
or a cracker

did so well
according to the people
down in accounting.

 
Axiom Reel

cut the room
cut the floor 

spark an axiom reel

hard the hat
hard the landing

tell that bloody 
pilot Turbulence 

to land this role 
nobody wants 

or ever 

asked 
for.
 
The Hunt for Hairy Movember

I have grown over four inches in the past calendar year.
All horizontally.
My white whale of a belly swelled and distended 
and alcoholic 
as though some handsome shoe polish messiah 
could be cut right out of me.
	
I have been practising my breathing.
Inhale then exhale, seems simple enough.
No more difficult than the divvy up of pub grub
chicken wings on the fly.

While Norway tracks me down.
And Japan readies her harpoons.

I was never long for this world, 
but this is getting 
ridiculous.
 
Duty Free

Quite simply unaccustomed to safe-cracked whistles, 
all stock yard light shows 
of the immersive disk drive blow up 
queen shaved down into one final
ball of incendiary thunder
under silly perched aggrandizement, 
and knowing what I know now, 
I would have never sat in the airport 
that long
in plastic blue bucket seats 
watching clean shaven men drag their 
entire lives behind them,
rushing to catch connector flights
onto places with other blue
bucket seats.
 
Kicking Cans

Kicking cans around long enough,
there is always the threat of botulism.

Explain this to your schoolyard bully 
and they will punch you in the head
a little extra 
for making them feel 
stupid.

There is no advantage to being smart
until you are out of school and 85,
old enough to just not care 
anymore.

The world will always be stupid.
With or without you in it.
 
15 Bucks

for a working DVD player 
seems quite the deal
and we drive down to this 
apartment complex
along Mississauga Avenue
and sit in the parking lot
waiting for the boyfriend
to come down.

Some young kid is smoking by the entrance, 
so we get out and approach.
Asking if he is the boyfriend 
and he says he is.

And he hands us fifteen bucks from his right pant pocket
and we give him the bag.

As we drive away,
the missus tells me she is glad 
I came with her.

It is the first of the month 
and the squirrely junkies 
are looking to 
score.

And I tell her it reminds me 
of buying drugs back in the day.

Strength in numbers,
I get that.
 
Ghost Shows

I’ve seen those ghost shows 
where the orbs of light fly into people,
I am not some hermit.
I have a local cable service provider.

My shrink does not believe in ghosts, 
so I do not believe in ghosts:
go along to get along, right?

And I am sane as folded towels in the shape of dying swans.
I have not laughed at my own armpit farts 
in years.

A learning curve, sure there is.
If you are intent on learning.

Don’t the blowjobs of university wind tunnels 
seem way too easy?

                                                                                               
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle though his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Synchronized Chaos, Literary Yard, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Sirens

When the branch snaps I feel it in my head
dry an orange gorge up licking air from blue
eyes my feet score sleep tones from bird alarms
the minute earth turns over the rock I’m clinging on

The underside of my day drones green deep in
gnash safe breathing the ties I’m on the wheel
against singing flames crush on black wood
cat on the deck snorts upcoming traffic hills

There’s no thrill to balk at in crumpled-up sun
slices tops of trees of grin juiced by my own blood
for the bugs mist down the middle difference between 
my gut and its cousin full with disappearance on the lawn

Your depth horns reed pages into stitched skin
the branch I’m on means holding it to my bones



A pox

In the pinched morning hours thoughts have teeth
that hound with heat blossoms on his gray skin
swallow the creak of a half-broken fan
turning air over to watch what crawls beneath

He rewinds his gaze to savor his salvation
vacated sky streaked with blue boils over
green that clouds the streams with sharp hair
half scalped and left behind to gum the ignition

He’s not going anywhere, at home with tight sighs
breathing in the memory of cleaner Springs
coiled, turning over, saved for the usual fangs
where he bleeds the lake of everything that dies

There’s a sun rolling over calculated hills
There are blankets to cover up what kills



Your hymnal

On her wedding day a white dress full of ashes
blows down an aisle lined with sawdust pews
The music silences everyone and is itself mute

Empty churches possess a psychology
that only the dead can read
This is one way I won’t exist
This is a picture of me, silent dust

another way to save her
They say when he was young he was so thin
they feared the wind would blow him away

and it did, after they’d rubbed him smooth
Empty hymns press a threnody
into my hands, describing how the water whispers

how the boat mutters as it launches in the dark


The goddess of love

With late Spring in my nose the sun through sawtooth leaves
in a chain linked with birds an ivy steps over my open mouth
hums blunt lust of toads when I brush your nipples with cum
to the pond to silence lillies to leave light stains on the surface
popping errors off on trees with latent rise your warm is skin
to my pit in which chills wound an implied gust of wishes

Witchcraft in my noise the stun you thought on me for loaves
over my open mouth talks to mulch you to cover me in chains
runs front of most blood you draw across my thought to strum
along with broke clouds my moving very fast upon culled dust
loping rubs boots to be a parent to the rocks live on us meal
widens as your wise arms siphon freckled with stuffed eyes

Your rain bows only for the planet turns
intravenous sunshine is a goddess of love

Sex

I’m you

His Fairytale Wedding 

Rome wasn’t into Shakespeare. He studied English for the sole thrill of contemporary post-modern theory; his forte was apocalyptic endings  and zombie slaying. Post modern theory delved into the whole psyche of the nightmare behind the phantom. He could relate to the whole neglected inner child for a while until he found his true calling; he became an EMT. He saved lives. He breathed life into the defibrillator when a cardiac went into remission; his heart regained a natural rhythm at the tips of his fingers. 

Rome found Julie that way. She was beautiful behind pale features and charcoal dark hair. She penciled her eyes in black and wore a corset. The woman behind the mascara and the exquisite red lips flatlined. He could not feel a pulse. He put the oxygen to her moist lips and shocked her heart. Her mother stood near by… 

“She’s using that stuff again.” She said with a face as morose as a renaissance portrait. 

Julie coughed. Her voice returned to her almost dead ambition: She used crystal meth to get high off toxins. She said she used to get by; to get off other things that were displeasing like abusive fathers and mothers. 

Rome didn’t leave her side in the hospital. He was off the clock and stood by her side; she melted like chocolate to a candle stick when she saw him. Rome was muscular, tan, cut and reminded her of a golden bronze statue. A real Roman God. 

“We almost lost you.” He said aside a mother who cried.

“I’m sorry darling.” Her mother Marietta said, “I’m sorry for all we’ve done to you.”

“She used to hit the pipe.” Julie confided to Rome. 

They left the hospital together holding hands and the horizon was like a pink cloud against a purple sky. Around Julie the earth was incandescent like walking among the clouds. 

He finally told her, “I used heroin.” He was sincere. 

“How did you get off?”

“He found me dead. Like I found you.”

“Who?” 

“My father.” 

Rome was from a dirty and sinister past of users.

“It runs in the family. My uncle was a user.”

They had their entire life in common. 

Beneath the early dawn of a rising sun they walked into another horizon of indigo and fuchsia. 

That was when they were becoming golden like emanating something celestial within the light.  

He said his farewell to her and explained, “if our lives were a fairytale I wouldn’t need to convince you that you needed saving…”

His words became a silence like a truce - she then knew it was her - it was she who needed to save herself. 

All he could do was point the way and she knew; she kissed him and entered the golden gates of recovery where she found herself a therapist and a bit of candy like licorice to take the edge off. 

Together again, they fantasized, consummating in marriage beneath the turquoise sun and rain that fell like lemons.

Welcome to June’s issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine!

A recent book from civil rights activist Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, encourages people to develop understanding and respect for people different from themselves through a process of she describes as “breathe and push.”

This involves continually challenging yourself to grow and become a wiser and more caring person and then “breathing” by reflecting and resting to replenish your energy.

As she says “What if this is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?”

This month’s issue deals with characters and places who are “breathing” and “pushing,” growing and becoming. They are caring for children and pets, gaining understanding of the world and becoming more fully themselves, grappling with mythos and legacy, exploring imagination and consciousness, mourning tragedies and resolving to move forward with hope.

Harlan Yarbrough’s young couple and their child navigate an asteroid-caused disaster in a story that seems an allegory of parenthood in a turbulent world. Raising a small child can resemble an isolated, survivalist-type experience in some cultures, as parents retreat into the domestic sphere to focus on their child’s needs. Although the larger world continues to affect them, sometimes the small family simply waits it out until the smoke clears.

Chimezie Ihekuna also writes about parenting in an essay that acknowledges the commitment and care of parents of all genders.

Laura Stamps’ speaker raises a dog and humorously relates how she prefers him to a human companion. K.J. Hannah Greenberg’s second collection of photographed animals seem rather peaceful, contemplating life in the sunshine.

J.J. Campbell’s speaker has finally found love but battles the insecurities of middle age. Santiago Burdon writes of a mother who experiences the dreary weariness of some days of parenthood, as well as a city that has lost its luster and become harsh and angry.

Christine Tabaka writes of various sorts of endings, yet, as her other pieces suggest, these can also be catalysts for spiritual transformations into new discoveries and ways of being. Candace Meredith relates a piece from a person who has passed away, encouraging their loved ones to remember them and continue to live.

Film critic Jaylan Salah interviews Egyptian filmmaker Ahmad Abdalla, whose work focuses on people and cities in the complex state of growing and becoming who they are. Poet Mary Mackey interviews poet D. Nurkse, who discusses his sources of inspiration for his new book A Country of Strangers and how poetry can resist authoritarianisms of various kinds.

Sandra Rogers-Hare educates us on Juneteenth, the day when a last holdout of American enslaved people in Texas learned of their emancipation.

Ike Boat describes the grandeur of a majestic urban hotel within his native land of Ghana. Listen to more about the Asempa Hotel here.

Selene Ozturk’s essay explores the mixture of Roman Empire and American Western metaphors within the architecture of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts and the idea of rugged, yet enduring grandeur.

Pascal Lockwood Villa’s futuristic story also harkens back to Old West metaphors to explore what it means to be human through a discussion between a robot sheriff and a female human convict.

John Edward Culp asserts the reality of human consciousness in his heady, yet forceful poem while Andrew Cyril MacDonald comments on our human psychologies within a digital, consumerist age.

Sidnei Silva crafts words and letters from her subconscious to reflect and memorialize the music of Vangelis. In another take on music, Jack Galmitz honors a recorder player who breathes out a melody amid the wildness of nature and society. Also, Ivan Fiske writes of the song of our spirits when we breathe and re-center amidst the world’s tragedies.

Renwick Berchild’s poems show how our whole world – cathedrals, whales and other ocean creatures, birds, pottery kilns – is telling us stories, inspiring thoughts and pieces.

Mark Young wends his way through a surreal path of the imagination, navigating territory in a quest reminiscent of the work in J.D. Nelson’s subterranean word forge.

Michael Robinson’s pieces relate his journey of spiritual growth and contemplation, finding solace in Christ’s love. Sunday T. Saheed explores life, death, heritage and legacy in his lyrical poem. Steven Hill reflects on how each moment of our lives is in a way, a “loan” and should not be taken for granted.

Chukwuma Eke Pacella comments on the complex inner psyches of boys and men as well as women in thoughtful meditations on gender and human equality. Anderson Moses probes our relationship with our bodies in pieces that touch on heritage and spirituality.

Mahbub writes of various kinds of afflictions and dangers our world faces, but reminds us of our potential for acts of kindness, such as his rescue from drowning in a pond as a small child.

Salim Yakkubu Akko renders the psychological dislocation of grief over a violent nation in crisis (Nigeria) in a stream of consciousness poem, while Bruce Roberts and Leticia Garcia Bradford and Sheryl Bize-Boutte and Patricia Doyne and Ann Pineles also grieve with more linear and forthright pieces over shooting deaths in another nation in crisis (the United States).

Finally, Aurora Brown’s haikus resound with a clarion call of hope.