Indunil Madhusankha, from Volume 4:2

Indunil Madhusankha (B. H. I. Madhusankha) is currently an undergraduate in the Faculty of Science at the University of Colombo. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet, and content writer. He explores the miscellaneous complications of human existence through his poetry by focusing on the burning issues in contemporary society. Moreover, Indunil’s works have been featured in several international anthologies, magazines, and journals.

Madhusankha's poem "The Lamentation of a Mother" appears on pages 41 and 42 of the latest volume. Below is an excerpt:

We had dreamt of a grand wedding ceremony for you
of sublime calibre
with the accompaniment of music
Yet I heard the smoothing rhythm
of neither the violin nor the piano
only the deafening cacophony of brownish iron horses
that they called a respectable gun salute,
and the lachrymose craws of the participants

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Read Madhusankha's poem in its entirety today in Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2!

Laura Hulthen Thomas, from Volume 4:2

Laura Hulthen Thomas heads the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan’s Residential College. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Cimarron Review, Epiphany, Nimrod International Journal, Witness, and Novella-T. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and received an honorable mention in the Nimrod Literary Awards. She is a contributor to Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them, an award-winning collection of stories by noted Michigan authors. Her short fiction collection, States of Motion, is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press in Spring 2017.

Thomas has an excerpt from her short story "Adult Crowding"— from the aforementioned forthcoming short fiction collection, States of Motion —running in the latest volume of Synesthesia. Below is a preview:

      Tammy pulled the turn indicator.  “You ever hold your breath, Mr. Jerrell?”
     “Come again?”
     “When passing a cemetery.”
     “I used to do that.”  Mr. Salisbury fidgeted with his lap belt.
     “I still do.”  Tammy caught her breath the moment the Gold Star fender drew parallel to the town cemetery’s iron fence.  Her slender fingers gripped the steering wheel.  Her knuckles, smooth, fleshy half moons, flashed white.
     “Let’s breathe through the intersection, Tammy,”  Jerrell suggested.  But Tammy held her breath through a roll past the stop sign.  Her cheeks pinked.  Her lips tensed in a pout.  Her thighs flexed under her tight jeans.  Jerrell fastened a stare on the windshield.  No future in noting stimulating changes in a little girl’s physique.  He covered the instructor brake, checked for any cars barrelling through the intersection, blessedly none.  “That’s a rolling stop, Miss.”
     Tammy breathed, a moist whoosh that blended with the air vents’ hum. “Sorry, Mr. Jerrell.”  The glove box rattled over the uneven pavement in front of the Brilliant Ford dealership.  Tammy white-knuckled the center line to avoid the broken asphalt.
     “You can’t observe traffic safely if you don’t bring the vehicle to a full stop.”
     “Especially if you don’t breathe.  Stupid little kid trick,”  Mr. Salisbury muttered.
     Tammy shot him a furious look in the mirror.  “It’s not.  The souls of the dead can ride right inside you on your air.”
     “So, I breathed.  Why don’t I have dead people in me right now?”  Mr. Salisbury said.
     “Who says you don’t?  Didn’t kids ever hold their breath in your day, Mr. Jerrell?”
     Somewhere along the way Jerrell’s youth had become your day to the young people.  “Proceed for a half mile.  No, I never did hold my breath,”  he added when Tammy glanced at him, a brief, sidelong disappointment.  He’d always felt something was dead inside of him, anyway.  And the town cemetery, beautifully manicured, populated by regular funerals and cheery blossom sprays left by the adoring living, was a damn safe sight, in his opinion.  He’d welcome in any dead so well loved.
     “Aren’t you religious?”  Mr. Salisbury piped up.
     Tammy chose to ignore Mr. Salisbury by keeping her gaze firmly on the gentle curve into downtown.  Good call.  “Start slowing down past First Lutheran,”  Jerrell instructed when the familiar gold-tipped spire glided into view.  “The posted limit there is twenty-five.  Take a left at the four corners.”
     “Your mom taught Sunday School, right?”  Mr. Salisbury had decided on a persistence he never brought to bear on mastering his driving skills.
     “So what?”  Tammy flicked him a brief, dismissive glance in the mirror.  Braked mildly at the four corners’ stoplight in the heart of town.  Lucky Drugs and the tavern stood opposite one another on Michigan Avenue.  The home decor shop where Ethel used to buy her Hull Collectibles was long gone.  So was the Kresge.  A bank and an optometrist occupied those storefronts now.  Tammy eased into the left turn lane next to a silver Volvo.  The driver, a real Ozzie Nelson type, glanced doubtfully at the lurid Gold Star decals.  The company mascot, a cartoon car with rubber balloons for wheels and a blubbery grin, filled the passenger door.  Garish funhouse mirror stars splashed the side panel.
     A real circus to announce the student drivers.
     “Left blinker, don’t forget,”  Jerrell reminded Tammy.  She dutifully pulled the turn indicator.
     “So, you believe that souls rise to Heaven.  So, in that case, there wouldn’t be any souls of the dead left on Earth to get inside you.  So, why hold your breath?”
     “Not everyone gets to Heaven, Ace.”  Jerrell couldn’t help defending Tammy’s superstition, harmless and cute.  Just the type of girlish habit that would fill her with youth and hope forever, make her a beautiful and kind woman to love.
     “So we’re talking zombie-souls here.”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Read Thomas's remarkable piece in Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2, and look for States of Motion in 2017!

Glen Armstrong, from Volume 4:2

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch), In Stone, and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cloudbank.

Armstrong has two poems running in the latest volume of Synesthesia: "The Call of Cthulhu" and "Beauty Is as Beauty Does." The following is an excerpt from the former:

These are the darkest
nights imaginable,

but nights, darker,
still full of ill-considered
pleasure, wait in a vast beyond

for the chance to uncurl.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Navigate your way to pages 27 and 28 of Synesthesia Literary Journal 4:2 to read Armstrong's work in full today!

Carlos A. DeJuana, from Volume 4:2

Carlos A. DeJuana is a husband, father, native Texan and long-time resident of Washington, DC, where he works for the State Department. He had a prior career as a foreign correspondent for Reuters, with stints in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. He has written poetry on and off since high school, and had some of his previous work published in the Rice University student literary magazine University Blue and in riverSedge, a literary journal published by University of Texas-Pan American.

DeJuana has two poems—"Fleeting Everlasting" and "The Fall"—running in the latest volume of Synesthesia. Below is an excerpt from the former:

Gently
I lift my daughter from her seat,
careful not to wake her
from the battle she fought
so valiantly against
the eventuality of sleep.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

"Sleeping Child" (1990) by Nick Payne

Find the rest of this poem, plus DeJuana's "The Fall," on pages 24 and 25 of Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2!

John LaMar Elison, from Volume 4:2

John LaMar Elison is a second-born librarian currently working in Marin City while crossing the bridge every morning from Oakland. He writes and fights and bathes by candlelight. His poetry may be reminiscent of letters from prison, but John has never served time.

Elison contributed his poem "Capturing a Comet" to the latest volume. This poem previously appeared in Mt. San Jacinto College's Flight 2009. In Elison's own words, "A poet’s honor and burden is to attempt to find Truth and preserve it in print. This [poem] is my humble attempt to be a part of that tradition." Below is an excerpt:

because truth, like the other truly intense things in life,

is too powerful for words

               in the moment

try giving a soliloquy with a blade between the ribs

too brief for comment

you can't interview the storm

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Open the new volume of Synesthesia Literary Journal to page 22 today to read Elison's remarkable piece in its entirety!

Holly Day, from Volume 4:2

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota since 2000. Her published books include Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Insider’s Guide to the Twin Cities, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, and The Book Of, while her poetry has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.

Day had one poem, "The Horse," published in the newest volume of Synesthesia. Below is an excerpt:

there were eventually too many miles between us
to let it die
where it fell.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Open Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2 to page 21 today to read Day's poem in its entirety!

Cristina DeSouza, from Volume 4:2

Cristina DeSouza is a physician and poet living in Phoenix, Arizona. She is entering her fourth semester of Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry. She writes both in English and on Portuguese and often composes her poems in both languages. As a physician, she is an internist, and as a poet she prefers free verse and imagistic poetry.

DesSouza contributed two poems—"Identity" and "Spring, 1968"—to Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2. Below is an excerpt from the latter:

Rejected by your birth parents,
you were a transplant
injected into other people's lives.

Given for adoption immediately,
you never knew your birth mother's lap.

Yet, the voice you heard "in utero"
haunted you everywhere

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Navigate over to Synesthesia Literary Journal Volume 4:2 to read DeSouza's two gorgeous poems in full today!