The Bookends Review

Names. You’ve got this thing with them. The names of plants, rocks, native species. Concrete details have become a favorite pastime.

Vehicles, clouds, chemical compounds.

You file names away in no particular order but know right where they are when you need them. And you will. Need them.

Architecture, muscles, functions.… ...continue reading

Hope slips through fingers
like time spent waiting
often just a tick ahead,
visible, but elusive.
Or it hangs back like a stopped clock
no longer viable.

Hope survives fire, preserved
beneath blackened structures
housing every possession.
It resides beneath blankets
of the terminally ill until handfuls of dirt
hit casket lids.
It drips down the sides of chilled
liquor bottles and heroine needles
passing through moments, days, years of addiction.… ...continue reading

Ever since congress passed the bill mandating all school children and their teachers carry a firearm, performing mass shootings had become increasingly difficult. This known solution, the ubiquity of firearms, plagued the twenty-five-year-old Roger Walker. 

He sat in his jeep outside the Milton Karen Academy, which was a prestigious blue-ribbon school for grades kindergarten through high school. Roger held the cold, metallic semi-automatic that rested on his lap. Just last month, before the mandate, when he canvassed the school, it looked peaceful and easy. Now, it gave off the feeling of breaching a military base. He knew he had to stay clear of the gymnasium since it was turned into a shooting range when gym class was replaced with shooting class. … ...continue reading

             Abiquiu, New Mexico

I return to Leopoldo Garcia’s home gallery
where, this damp morning-glory morning,
he wears overalls and one tennis shoe.

Yesterday his litany of augurs, acrylic and clay
flowed like red nectar.  Hummingbird
in his studio, I bring a gift of poems. 

Leopoldo paints with a hole in his heart
pierced by a priest darker than a cassock.
He grieves for the children gone forever,

mica tears grafted on flat masks, tiny
eyes, round mouths. Nearby his studio
a weathered red and white figure… ...continue reading

            I see him during the day. His back to the street, on the edge of the curb, he’s positioned as far from the building as he can be while still under the scaffolding. On sunny days the wooden planks shield him from the heat. When it rains he moves inward, far enough to protect himself from getting drenched, but not so far as to disturb passersby. There are two battered shopping carts beside him, each filled to the brim with obscure items wrapped in plastic bags. He’s dressed in black, layered according to the dictates of weather. Often I see him comfortably seated in a chair. Sometimes he’s reading a book. At mealtimes, he unfolds a small table, places plates and utensils, and eats. He doesn’t look at me when I walk by, doesn’t solicit, doesn’t confront.… ...continue reading

Our summer was as the city’s. Beautiful and provisional. The river looked beautiful and seemed to glow in the Sun’s light. I followed the river’s flow with my eyes until I couldn’t any longer, losing it to the horizon. It looked as if it eventually met with the Sun at the horizon. The bridge loomed up ahead, tucked under a seemingly cloudless blue blanket. The sky’s eye appeared to look at us like a concerned parent, watching us as we made our way towards the steps that would ascend us to the bridge.

“How’s it look?” She spoke almost excitedly. “Beautiful.”

“Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“Beautiful.” She now stopped and looked at me. She looked gorgeous even though she was veiled with a hat and sunglasses.… ...continue reading

Cristina Deptula is the executive editor of Synchronized Chaos Magazine. A former science and technology journalist, she enjoys discovering how people think and how the universe works. When not writing or editing, she loves to hike, read novels, and sip coffee.

Please describe your website and your duties as editor/writer.

Synchronized Chaos Magazine accepts submissions of writing and visual art of all genres from around the world. We then determine the theme for each month based on what we have received, tying all the submissions together into some sort of cohesive theme. While this has on occasion required some creativity, it has also brought our team together as we brainstorm and encouraged the contributors to come back to the site and read everyone else’s work.… ...continue reading