Lē‘ahi


 

Southside Oahu, littered with tuff cones:

Koko Head, labia minor,

Punchbowl, the hill of sacrifice,

Diamond Head, point of the ahi fish, all

grand promontories—extinct volcanic craters.

 

Rules and restriction translated to challenges,

saucer-shaped Diamond Head called me;

outside the renowned Fire Control Station,

its new and aged military facilities prohibited

all access to taxpaying civilians—daring infiltration.

 

Sneaking into the naturally fortified crater, eluding

camouflaged guards—real or imagined adversaries—

I stealthily advance; my body clothed in red trunks and tan skin,

blend into tropical surroundings, melt, into plentiful vegetation

encircling the cavity’s inner rim, entering the military mystery maze.

 

The apparent sound of bullets buzz by,

pierce the dense, dank, jungle undergrowth,

expose themselves as culex quinquefasciatus brown mosquitos

vicariously breeding in stagnate water—feasting

on a liquid banquet from my exposed legs and arms.

 

Damp, corroded chambers cut in the cavity resemble

Alcatraz cells: steel beds hanging from rusted chains,

ascend 560 feet from the floor past bunkers where

solid concrete walkways shift to a natural tuff

severe switchbacks negotiate the interior crater’s sheer slope.

 

The rugged trail morphs into steep, stone stairs through a

225-foot tunnel to a fortification that one directed artillery

fire from batteries beyond; reaching its pumice plateau,

approaching a mammoth navigational lighthouse,

I scan the Oahu’s sandy shoreline from Koko Head to Wai’anae.

 

Historical playground for humpback whales,

oblivious the area doubles as a coastal defense vista.

tropical trade winds brush my face, activating imagination

while the capacious, comforting, cacophony

of Kanaloa’s waves crash like rhythmic pahu far below.

 

**********************************************
 

Bing Thieves

 

Campbell fertility

fruit cannery pioneer

Santa Clara gem

I long for fruitful harvests

silicon wasteland reclaimed

 

Ripe cherry orchards decorated the valley

like Christmas Tree ornaments, round, red,

eye popping orbs drew visitor’s attention

away from migrant farm worker camps

or miserable wooden boxes—an excuse

for a home—enjoyed by a cheerful few.

 

And yes, these orchards offered adventure,

growers aimed two barrels, shot rock salt

in our butts as we ran from their groves,

buckets full, bandito mystique undeniable,

dire warnings from our parents

school authorities—all elders ignored.

 

Best times never knew the worst yet to come

as stainless-steel chains uprooted tree trunks

tar and concrete smothered fertile fields,

and children grew up dodging street traffic

gathering in malls, frequenting cyber cafés—never

swaggering, searching, pilfering full-grown fruit…

 

**********************************************
 


Cracks of Light

 

Our empty hearts     once filled

with unflinching     alacrity,

agitated overnight     we stood

by oil radiators    metal accordions;

cast iron dragons     as discolored

as seasoned     crêpe pans

heated our     hands while we

embraced     common sense

depression;      huddled together

like snowed-in     hostages

sharing their     communal discomfort

in sweaty     submission,

our restless     blues cut through

a hauntingly     sober silence

like a machete     blade slicing

dense jungle      undergrowth

incessantly     screaming out

for social    emancipation

when      disunity and whimsy

displace     crude manners

dwarfing     responsibility:

lockdown     solidarity.

 

**********************************************



Tilt-a-Whirl Madness

 

Lock yourself down, hold on tight

you met the height challenge

cork shoe lifters shot you up

two inches & ruffled hair made

you appear gigantic, in control,

ready to spin like a stuntperson

make centrifugal force your own

gravitational pull your companion.

 

Fold brazen arms behind padded

lap bars, secure yourself & strangers

who ride sheet metal thrillers & share

danger’s safehouse; youthful mouths

missing teeth laugh & scream

like delighted children escaping

tides that grasp ankles as they

scamper from surf to dry sand.

 

Quartz lights flash perpetual chaos

in motion as the platform rotates,

seven swiveling cars test fortitude

resolve, & moxie, daring bold riders

like yourself to sidestep carnival sawdust

spread on the floor, eerie remains

of motion sickness for those out of sync

victimized by Tilt-a Whirl indifference.

 

 

**********************************************


Tipping Point Snapshot

 

Cars roll down the inner-city gullet

vehicle lights flashing as dawn’s early rays

part mist & unveil crosswalk shadows;

 

old school skyscrapers jut up towards heaven

protect flying rodents—portrait ready pigeons— 

that nest below stone-crafted window ledges—

 

scarlet scavenger eyes fixate on pedestrians below

looking for careless hands fingering croissants,

& street vendors dropping hot dogs & soft pretzels;           

 

drummers begin beating empty 5-gallon cans

under concrete bank porticos; audible rhythms echo

miles up and down Broadway, rebound off structures;

 

street singers & mimes soon join in the fray

destitute but happy, many homeless yet carefree,

hats & guitar cases welcome unlikely prospects

 

as the strip begins to buzz & people shuffle

in line for blocks awaiting Starbucks to open,

fuel & task soul-fed inspiration with caffeine;

 

meanwhile, escorts saunter home, recline

on their own beds—sleep uninterrupted. Restful.

Free of twilight visitations when overweight patrons

 

pin them with passion’s pretense allowing groans

to rise & fill voids like subway grate updrafts

decelerating wind as noisy as traffic horn banter

 

Manhattan minstrels, hucksters, & saints

approach tipping points, regain equilibrium,

& embrace yet another good morning’s night.

 

 

How everything turns away…
~ W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”

to its small purpose, the plowman’s hands holding
reins and plow, the shepherd’s gaze upward
inventing stanzas for the month of June.
The lowlands are pasture, the terraces arable.
Stouter to the myth Breughel has seen
the far-away world of fate close to his world.
The local and contemporary eye
has pictured that as this in terms of home.
Green is the sea under a thawing sky
as unlike Greece as Shakespeare’s Rome and Rome.
A partridge clutches to a waking vine stock.
Columns accent the city far below
with its harbor awaiting the ship that may be expensive
and delicate, gliding on a stiff breeze.


 
Palirunus Marginatus

Not everything red is a lobster.
But the part of us fed to love
pried from our armor and prominent claws
is easily imagined all buttery succulence.
Instead it refuges further beneath the surface
in a different ocean without grammar,
spiny and recessed. It has shed its defenses
though remains distinctive with hair-tenuous
antennae precisely watchful enough
to sound us from its other side of the world.


 
With Seaweed

Dreams are dreams only—once woken from.
Everything ran slower in that sluggish
element where your hair floated freely
with the seaweed and love became a salty
buoyancy of smiles and stinging tears.

I was subsumed with the acorn barnacles,
sea vases and the translucent baskets
of Venus’ flowers, learning my sessility
under the hover of dead man’s fingers that clothed you,
a spiny carpet of urchins at the bottom of my feet.

There you were: Belief made you, in entries
of the log books of sailors from flooded
explorations, in your blended topos of history
and myth, topmost human yet by
our day’s thorough fathomings no more than tale

and so there I dreamed, dimly yet surely
aware of my natural shores, little by little
insisting I must breathe as speech
intoned beyond words to the single unbroken
high C beyond me in the pressure of my hearing.

 
Conch

I kept
turning away
to become
the staircase I climbed
from the bottom up
spiraled by the encompassing
element,
hoist
up my mast
for a Hindu ceremony’s
music of the spheres,
my door given way
to this riddle
of speaking mouthless
from an exterior
I unfolded at one with.

Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship. His poetry has appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, Everse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, Ibbetson Street, The Concord Saunterer, and Poem. His second book, On Earth As It Is, will be out in early 2022 from Cervena Barva Press.

Ancestral Ideas

Early in our lineage the handy man,
Homo habilis, sees in his mind’s eye
a useful connection between his hand
and an egg-shaped basalt cobble milled
by a river’s turbulent current long ago.

He fits it to his hand and swiftly strikes
another stone which produces a flake,
a thin sharp-edged chopper or scraper
easily seen as a tool to cut trees or meat, 
to scrape bark or the hide of an animal.

Striding through tall grasses of the African
savanna in the bright sunlight, Homo erectus,
holds steady the image of his hunting fellows,
taking a grazing zebra bachelor by surprise,
by their combined effort like a pack of hyenas.

They circle around under shady acacia trees,
hearing casual snorts and the switching of tails;
a lame one flees too late and is killed with clubs.
A runner, having returned to camp, brings others
with handaxes, cleavers, and growling stomachs.

Tonight, around a cooking fire, they feast while
two babies fuss suckling their mothers’ breasts.
Not enough for them but more since siblings
died. One mother clicks her tongue; the other,
blows air on her infant’s face to bring on sleep.

Pinkish streaks at the horizon announce dawn.
Lanky men emit a sliding sound, eeeennaaaa.
Sleepy youngsters stir in the dust while women
search the ground for bones that their children
can break for marrow when they feel hungry.

Men slink down a slope to a muddy watering hole.
Birds burst upwards in fright. In the night a pig has
been killed while it drank. Would there be remains
for scavenging? Only a muddle of animal tracks are
found. The group will have to search elsewhere.

Into the hot sunshine this sweating group of
early humans find it pleasurable to lope over 
the wide savanna. To their minds no horizon 
is too far. They move toward the blue rise of
mountains in the distance, hoping to find caves.

Blue-colored horizons mean many days and
nights spent looking for carcasses. Savanna
grass gives way to scrub trees and succulents,
the latter becoming a reliable water source.
They meet other groups of roaming strangers.

Babies who fussed under acacia trees are now men.
Their deceased mothers left for predators or buried
in shallow soil. They carry memories of white-haired
Biftu who gave names to each in the small group to
organize them and enable members to communicate.

Succeeding this migrating group come others who
slip through horizon after horizon, over endless
surfaces, imagining what a difference a wooden
shaft would make fitted to a long sharp blade of flint.
Groups split apart, seeking alternative ways to live.

Homo sapiens emerges as intuitive, if not conscious,
aware of a companion’s motives and life’s potentials
around them. They thrive on the northern edge of the
African continent, adapting to variable environments,
learning from their experiences and positing “what if.”

By the seaside their outlook is flat and blue as sky.
They walk through a vegetal corridor and find a land
northward, not as luxuriant as the Ancestors had known.
Caves become dwelling sites, but here they encounter new
inhabitants who have moved from icy valleys in the north.

Stockier, with a heavier brow, Homo neanderthalensis
competes with the African immigrant for lynx and foxes,
pestered by jackals and hyenas. This singing cave dweller
of the Levant crafts small flint points with gripping fingers
and his sharp-edged burin carves on delicate bone or antler.

In open-air sites men design a core stone for specialty flakes.
Fishes, hippos, small cats and bears along with wild cattle are
butchered. Women look for bedding grasses, nuts and seeds. 
The two competing groups realize that combining their efforts
to live make sense so they begin to cooperate and interbreed.

When Elisav loses her daughter other women cry with her and
fold the child’s knees into her chest. A niche in a rock formation
is found in order that her closed eyes look toward the northwest.
As an intentional act of affection a red deer jawbone is placed
on the girl’s pelvis. That night mothers hold their children close.

Later, offerings of fallow deer antlers and wild boar mandibles
to the dead are incorporated into a simple ritual using words of
a rudimentary language. Competition arises when a neighboring
family shows deliberate intent to use the same burial ground. The
original group, claiming ownership, drives them away with stones.

With heads full of ideas and increasing physical skills, combined
groups, not liking a crowded landscape, disperse east and west
and proliferate along the way. Their progeny establish a variety of
races and cultural traditions. At long last successful groups beget
you and me and generations of space travelers seeking the moon.

Thus, humans evolved using an ancient cognitive toolkit that went:
I am preverbal. I am a figment embraced by imagination. I am the
moment of eureka. I am the prize of consciousness. I AM AN IDEA.

							

empty gift


last class before Break
a girl took a scrap 
of thick purple paper
trimmed it square,
folded it to a cube,
let fall a teardrop of glue,
snipped a strip of scarlet ribbon
and tied up the tiny box
with a frilly bow

Merry Christmas  she said

near twenty-years
of its fading on my bookshelf, 
I’ve admired the handiwork –
never tempted to open it
of course
because I watched it made
and know there’s nothing inside



shoelace

                       one end reaches too far from,
the other too near, the eye – a simple fix,
should be – but these shoes were my father’s
and I find he laced them with a trick
no doubt for better holding 
– so I just make one loop too large
          one too small
and rush out the door

slower is faster  he’d say
trying to show what worked
     what lasted
as I pulled away

     till his care couldn’t 
keep me close
and I became a loose end
               out there dangling
tripping up the unwary
and trodden upon in turn



snowman

     there he is again
in late moonlight 
this early morning –
was he there all night?

when he first showed up
     plump and smiling,
overturned basket
     a troubadour’s hat, 
stick arms raised,
    coal eyes glowing –
I didn’t have the heart to tell him
     wrong window,
the ice-princess has moved –
and next night there he was

     I let the joke go months too far:
his youth spent,
he’s sunk in on himself,
     a mere grey heap now,
head a twisted skull,
     hat just hanging,
one eye drifted south,
     face a fixed grimace,
          mouth one long cry,
     arms askew
as if he long forgot 
     what they were reaching for 
– oh, to call back the cold season
          that left him behind



hermit crab



     star by star 
          the moon steps back      
tugging away night’s blanket
     wave by wave
     
     he scuttles safe home
like a seabed bat
     by sunrise	

what does he do all day
     hidden like an answer
in the coiled question
     of his old snailshell –
     sleep and dream?  pray and plan?	
          tend his tender flesh?
while the sun’s giant feet
     tromp the sand
and seagulls wheel and jeer

Voyages

It all began on a sea-voyage to Egypt during my teenage,
where I fell in love with the Pharaohs and their ancient heritage,
with the eye of Ra and the ankh which their deities held,
with the pyramids,
that I even contemplated becoming an Egyptologist. 

Next came a flight to Algeria where most people only spoke French. 
My inability to communicate made me appreciate lingual skills,
thus an enhancement of the language brought me translation thrills
of Les Fleurs du Mal and other Baudelairean gems.
 
My own odyssey to Melbourne and Sydney was fraught with hardships.
I thought the status of an immigrant was nigh to that of an explorer like James Cook,
so in the valley of humiliation I learned what it is to be caught 
in the labyrinth of employment agencies and social benefits.

My journey through Caledonia was the most inspiring of all.
I became enamored with kilts, with tartans, with the bagpipe’s call,
with the Sun-Cross that dangled from my left-ear’s lobe,
with the Celtic twilight that permeated my academic work.
 
Middle Age

He dwelt on his receding hair,
the sluggish pace of a healing wound.
He monitored each wrinkle on his face,
camouflaged the fast-greying phase
with a reddish beard
and a trendy, golf headpiece.

We argued about our difference in age
to no avail,
and though my visage had borne no trace
of corrosive time
or the passage of numerous days,
I assured him that my heart was a sage
with the blows of events that do not discriminate
between the infant and the far advanced in years.

I sat and pondered over my ill-chosen mate.
I though maturity would come with the lapse of decades,
but that was not the case,
for our love began to crumble with every physiognomic change,
and from his facial topography of my fate,
I knew the dissolution of our bond was a matter of weeks.
 
Confidantes

My first confidante was a school classmate,
who also resided down our street.
Our golden hours were when we sat beneath
their huge Christmas, pine tree,
and in the glow of tinsel, bells, and crimson beads, 
we poured into each other’s ears
our life-long dreams.
She wanted a glamorous husband. 
I desired something more unique
that would take me somewhere beyond the ordinary.

My second confidante was a fellow flat-mate,
who was nearing completion of a postgraduate degree. 
She intimated her wish to marry her current date
simply because she dreaded becoming an old maid.
I told her the idea had never crossed my mind
although I was her senior by five years.
I was only planning a future career
after the completion of my Ph.D.

My third confidante was my first intimate relationship,
a man whose date of birth preceded mine by two decades.
I confided in him my inability to love again
for monogamy was my inherent trait.
He said seeing other women would not alter his esteem for me.
I disagreed
and left him wallowing in his own creed
of genteel promiscuity.

The Sanity of Doubt Filled Dreams

She wears crimson lips /	
	like poppy petals 	dancing on a breeze.

Her house falls down around her, as she picks through 
	pieces of her dream,

no opening left 	to 	fill.

She has nothing to do right now,
	so, she wades barefoot into the sea.

Waves crest above her ankles /
	as she sinks slowly into wet sand.

The white, and red, and gray of her		reaching
	for a prayer.

Gulls cry out, forsaken,	as she loses her mind,
	and softness closes in. 


When the Child Within the Child Has Parted

Go backwards forty-nine years:
I am the child / that carries a son within my shell.
He does not know that he exists / he was not meant to be.

A mindless act, not planned / chalked out on a blank board.
My vacant childhood / locked in a discarded box, fighting 
for latitude /suffering seeped out. I rebelled my torture / 

choosing freedom, only to be caged by my own witlessness.
I ran away to hide / wanting to adult. I did not know how 
to resolve pain. I perpetuated the sin that I tried to escape.

Wanting love, I could not shelter the lie. Tearing down walls / 
I braved conclusion. Torn from my screaming frame, 
I let them take you away. The fire left within me burned 

through my weak flesh. I bled out all sanity / needing 
to hold you in my arms. Two broken souls / both children.
A turbulent future opened its hands and we fell out.  

Tangled roots / intertwined we grew apart. 


Voices Inside My Head

I wash my sins down the drain,
with the taste of you on my tongue.

Your bitterness fills me 
with loathing for myself.

Broken bed.
Broken chair.

I am splinters, strewn about the floor / 
discarded confetti / last year’s party.

I try to grasp thin air,
while breathing in blue / or was it purple?

Trying to hold on to what sanity I have left.
The golden dawn is too far away to reach.

I curl up in an empty soup can / to be recycled,
with used up guilt and broken dreams.

I wonder – 
did you ever think of me / did you ever care?
The voices grow louder / I cannot shut them out.


Solitude of Mind

You invaded my body	     never giving me a chance to resist.
There was no escape - no place to hide.

Silent echoes slowly sinking into a clouded pool of dreams.
Captured, alone, released. 
	We sat upon empty promises. 
We carried fingerbowls of restitution - not owning anything 
	but our remains.

Subscriptions of lost forevers     drift above the realm of facts.
	We do not know what we cannot understand.

Years stole away the joy of future hope, aging past our own design.
How could you be so cruel?  

We walked into a grayness that would not allow the sun.
	Time counted out each step     we had no choice.

We are here now - ravaged by distant loss.
	My body decays in increments with each breath. 

Alone, I sit with my desires 	there is no turning back.
	You have dismantled all that is left of me. 

There are no answers - if there be questions.
For in the end, 
	we die alone.


The Dying of a Mighty Fortress

The castle stood a thousand years, bowing to 
the sun. Turrets rose above clouds, piercing 
heaven’s realm. Stone by stone we plummeted
to earth. An abandoned shell that lost its soul
to the sheering wind /whistling through vast 
emptiness. Its throat had lost the taste for 
blood centuries ago. We used to be so strong. 
Now a place of curiosity. Its heart no 
longer beats. Sky falling all around, as 
daybreak pulls open tattered curtains, & 
ancient walls crumble into dust. Imprisoned 
within these screaming rooms are countless 
ghosts. Tales of knights in armor & ladies 
veiled in silk, echo through vast halls. 
Stories no longer told. Ravens perch on high 
sills, overseeing their domain. I stand on the 
precipice calling out your name. A wayward
gust swallows my voice. Once a monument to 
greatness, the ages claim their derelict prize. 
“To be or not to be,” a tribute to the past. 
Time rules all things with an iron hand. 
Nothing is powerful enough to last forever. 
The castle weeps a final tear. 

BIO:

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is the winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020 and 2021,” published by Sweetycat Press. She is the author of 14 poetry books, and one short story book. lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking. 

Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: Sparks of Calliope; The Closed Eye Open, Poetic Sun, Tangled Locks Journal, Wild Roof Journal, The American Writers Review, The Scribe Magazine, The Phoenix, Burningword Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Silver Blade, Pomona Valley Review, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Fourth & Sycamore.

Welcome, readers, to Synchronized Chaos December 2021.

First of all, we invite the authors among us, and other book-lovers, to spread books around the world. Refugee Reads, a project launched by a mother and her young son in Texas, is collecting books that a local resettlement agency will offer to people who have recently moved to the United States. They ask for new books, so you are welcome to order books to send to them or mail them copies of your own books. Alternatively, Books for Africa accepts gently used books (up to 15 years old) which they will ship to various African countries. They have more specifications on what genres they’ll accept (no violent thrillers or murder mysteries or cookbooks or Western-centric titles) but are open to used titles in good condition.

This month’s contributors reflect upon where we stand in time: remembering, reminiscing, imagining their future or the world’s future, pondering mortality and immortality. Or just wondering what would happen if we stepped for a moment out of time’s moving stream to take stock of where and who we are.

Michael Robinson writes of a dream where he felt at peace, happy with himself and his place in the world. Isabella Hansen chimes in with her own dream, contemplating the timeless moon with her mortal consciousness. Hongri Yuan, in poetry translated by Yuanbing Zhang, imagines eternal life in a supernatural realm of perfect orderly beauty, with the energy of a teenager.

In contrast to immortality, Mike Zone’s superheroes carry out their dramatic acts of strength in the shadows of their own impending deaths. Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal’s poetic speakers consider their physical humanity and the incongruity of someone violently attacking fellow vulnerable humans. Mark Blickley illustrates the poignant indignities of aging while lonely J.J. Campbell takes comfort in wishfully enhanced memories and Gaurav Ojha reflects on life with the full awareness of death.

John Thomas Allen ponders the aesthetics of a broken roadside sign while poet Mary Mackey interviews fellow poet Andrea Carter Brown on her new book September 12, about the United States after the September 11th attacks.

Stephen Jarrell presents a vignette of coming of age in a small town, while J.K. Durick ponders trees, leaves, family heritage, and aging and Doug Hawley considers the culture of Portland, Oregon before and after his arrival. Abigail George reflects on how as an adult she would love to reconnect with and rediscover her deceased mother.

Z.I. Mahmud finishes up his thesis on Charles Dickens’ literary output, highlighting themes of change and redemption. Chimezie Ihekuna’s screenplay collection Christmas Time also celebrates hope and redemption through stories of several different families, and the hero of Abdulloh Abdumominov’s short story finds peace at the New Year by deciding to forgive a friend with whom he had a small argument.

Christopher Bernard’s young Ghost Trolley hero figures out how to re-integrate himself into his ordinary world at the concluding installment of the tale. Hazel Fry laments lazy storytelling that deprives female characters of their strength and agency while Michael Reich critiques the false comfort manipulated media narratives attempt to bring us. Jaylan Salah interviews artist Danielle Shorr on topics that include how the media presents and discusses female artists and society’s treatment of abuse survivors.

Mahbub’s poetry evokes romantic love as well as international spiritual and historic tradition, connecting our humanity to something greater than ourselves. Starlie Tugade’s lovers pass each other by like passengers on separate trains, as one of her characters is unable to open up and receive the other’s love.

Linda Hibbard warns of the future ahead of us with climate change, while Henry Bladon’s nihilistic pieces semi-humorously question our fears and concerns about our present or our future.

David L. O’Nan pays a tribute to a musician whose art he considers timeless, while Ike Boat announces the launch of the novel Berganda by Dennis Mann.

J.D. Nelson sends in more of his playful, near-imagistic words, while Alan Catlin’s words, ideas, and iconic names flow into each other in his pieces. Mark Young’s images hold together with swathes of color and an internal logic, and meanwhile, Rus Khomutoff invites readers on a wild surrealist adventure.

We wish all of you happy reading and a happy New Year!