Welcome to November’s second issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine!

First of all, we encourage you to come on out to Metamorphosis, our New Year’s Eve gathering and benefit show for the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan and Sacramento’s Take Back the Night. This will take place in downtown Davis, CA, at 2pm in the fellowship hall of Davis Lutheran Church (all are welcome, we’re simply using their room as a community space). 4pm Pacific time is midnight Greenwich Mean Time so we can count down to midnight.

The theme “Metamorphosis” refers to having people there from different generations to speak and read and learn from each other, challenging us to honor the wisdom of our parents and ancestors while incorporating the best of the world’s new ideas in a thoughtful “metamorphosis.” We’ve got comedian Nicole Eichenberg, musicians Avery Burke and Joseph Menke, and others on board as well as speakers from different generations.

Second, our friend and collaborator Rui Carvalho has announced our Nature Writing Contest for 2022. This is an invitation to submit poems and short stories related to trees, water, and nature conservation between now and the March 2023 deadline. More information and submission instructions here!

This month, our issue focuses on themes of strength and vulnerability.

Sreya Sarkar’s piece exemplifies this theme, comparing women protesting for change in Iran to the tendrils of a vine. While tendrils may look weak, they can eventually tear apart greater structures and claim a space.

Many other contributors draw upon nature for inspiration.

Channie Greenberg photographs staircases in different locations, many of which are becoming overgrown and reclaimed by plant life. J.D. Nelson creates small poetic snapshots of natural scenes.

John Culp probes the nature of love and intimacy through sharing his feelings about a rose in a vase on his windowsill. Mesfakus Salahin plumbs the depths of human emotion and bodies of water. Debarati Sen poetizes about poetry through floral metaphors while observing the change of seasons into fall.

John Grey writes of love and nature and incorporates modern science and climate change into old style pastoral poetry. Jim Force interposes haiku onto photographs of cracks in the sidewalk, places where the vulnerability of physical materials shows through despite our intent in their construction.

J.D. DeHart writes of nature, virtual reality, and his quest to figure out who he is and how he can most effectively live as a teacher and mentor.

Other pieces are more fanciful, yet still touch on the complexities of our world and our natures.

Bill Tope depicts a wild acid trip in psychedelic detail, yet suggests the dreamer is aware is experience is unreal.

Alan Catlin looks to his mysterious and foreboding dreams for inspiration, recollecting a conversation with a recurrent personage. Fernando Sorrentino depicts a friendship between a researcher and a mythical animal, suggesting coexistence with nature.

Nathan Anderson mixes up characters and text on the screen for artistic effect. Christina Chin and Uchechukwu Onyedikam create a collaborative haiku set, playing off each other to build scenes of nature and human culture.

Daniel De Culla’s earthy, risque piece entertains with bawdy humor.

Some pieces address personal and historical grief, loss, and remembrance.

Andrew Cyril MacDonald evokes scenes of mausoleums in his work, structures fading into memory along with their occupants. Naziru Sulaiman mourns his recent ancestors lost to a war of aggression, bringing them back the only way he can, in poetry.

Santiago Burdon presents a brave child who uses logic to confront his parents’ prejudice against Jews. Bill Tope presents a scene of raw suffering in a Nazi concentration camp. Cora Tate relates a tragic tale of a community leader who sought peace only to die from law enforcement brutality.

J.J. Campbell’s poems portray stagnation and the long shadows of trauma. Santiago Burdon shows a drug abuser turning to substances to distract himself from the desolation caused by his addiction.

Chris Butler’s short story highlights the trauma of sexual violence. This act strikes hard enough at the personhood of both victim and perpetrator that it colors their views of everything in the world surrounding them.

Other writers look at the social, emotional and psychological ways we can struggle or find our power.

In another piece, Sayani Mukerjee explores the cultural mythos of women as simultaneously beautiful and dangerous in a modern way, using metaphors from human society along with the natural references.

Jaylan Salah critiques our harsh criticism and disgust for women in film or popular culture who have “issues” or public meltdowns. She suggests that feminism has tried so hard to make women appear confident and competent that it has become difficult for women to acknowledge the human weaknesses that make us all real people.

Oona Haskovec wrestles with the human tension between loving our bodies and wanting them to change. Lorelyn Arevalo’s sensual poems convey the physicality of emotion, whether love or self-hatred. Amirah Abdulrahman mourns the limits of poetry to express feelings and change reality.

Vyarka Kozareva illuminates the drama hidden within ordinary life: clothing, birthday parties, holiday decorations. Chimezie Ihekuna continues with his semimonthly Christmas countdown.

Chris Daly’s readable, humorous poems about workaday life, taxi driving, and pigeons in San Francisco also capture the everyday, this time as something to enjoy.

We hope this issue will be a source of reflection, growth, and pleasure now and in the weeks to come.

We Rushed

 

to the sound of broken

water and crashing streams.

 

A thundering knock

at the door, early morning. These

are the pools we stepped in.

 

For too long I’ve spent too much

time puttering on things that just don’t

 

matter, trying to peddle my goods.

 

Time to stop applying a metric

to my faith – good, better, best –

 

Just be.

It’s enough.

            Really.



 

Gaming the System

 
Forget the trees

Outside my door a moment.

 

I was seeing the bright colors

 

Of future worlds by the time

I was ten. In the films I watched, I met

 

Cities and skyscrapers.

 

Batman saved my reading life.

 

In the video games I played, I found

The ability to hop into new worlds, and leap

 

Over unfamiliar obstacles.

 

In those days, we had to level up,

You started back at the home screen if you

 

Stopped the game. No re-spawning.

 

So, my days were spent trying to beat

A boss – then starting back at square one,

 

Over and over.


How many days, wrapped in blizzards,

Did I spend navigating a digital character

Through a video snow.



 There is Space

 
where space should be.

This poem is not about

rockets, I assure you.

 

There is a wondering

absence where there really

 

is not absence. Am I

 

an arm, a mind, an interconnected set

of thoughts and instruments

 

            moving ensemble

 

what is my motion

            my e motion

 

what is my work

            life, work life

 

the continuation, the

            meaning.

 


 

I Have Tried

 

too long to brace verdant reality,

bunching up worries into an

easy-to-follow guide,

 

warnings whispered on websites,

 

and more time, time

to linger longer in the quiet,

stillness of the waters that pass,

decorated with litter.

 

Now, I linger again in the

stillness of this time, unsure

of where the world goes from

here. Hopeful. Realistic.

 

Almost a year ago, I lay

on my back as I do today,

different purposes, new reasons,

 

lack of reason.

 

I thought of what would

be ahead, framing moments

of trust

 

in unseen figures. A constant

hope.

 

Weeks earlier, I accepted

a new path that would

come to reality.

 

I try to know myself,

thinking, reading, believing

in bright promises ahead.

 

I sought connecting

as I wait for warmer

weather.



 

Others See Me As

 
warrior

mentor

soul friend

collaborative writer

Appalachian scholar

supportive

attentive leader

one with kind eyes

 

dependable

covenant partner

educator

sincere

 

one who invited

healing.

 

I am only one person

making a way

in the world,

 

mindful of footprints,

seeking

true words and actions.

 


New Pathway



beginning of a forest,

dogs trotting ahead in the path,

 

fresh air adjusting leaves

like ornaments around me,

 

warmth of summer

years ago, remembered again

 

point of a branch, and I know

I’ll return here soon

 

again and again, and never leave

as I once did.

 

Preserving the silent world.



 

There is

 
a space where

space should be,

 

there is a wondering

absence where they really

 

is no absence. A hollow

that is filled but still echoes.

 

Am I an arm,

a mind, an interconnected set

of thoughts and instruments

 

for making syllables and other

sounds.

 

What is my motion

            my emotion

 

what is my work

            life, work-life,

 

where are those boundaries

now?

 

the continuation, the meaning,

            as days stack up.

 

I want to be a better

teacher, a voice that’s honest

 

a clear teacher of teachers.

 

 

INTERPRETATION

Of course,
We all could condone any vitriol 
Spilt on the rifts of the long hibernation.
The flesh seems fresh than conjoined
For those who want to believe it.
You see it banal from the space
Between your index and thumb.
The night is blank sentence,
Projected perfectly onto the medulla oblongata
Where 
The vector of light pokes the horizon
To trace the core of the cross.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

The top layer swanks creamy
Decorated with an arty-farty cut lemon body
Ornated and candied,
More aesthetic than functional.
Nobody knows and wouldn’t ask
If some hours ago
The acid juice splashed its hangman’s pink skin, 
Innocent,
Seeking dormant wounds
To nip.



ADVENT

I try to imagine my curbed ego,
The marking commas, the restrictive brackets.
I knew the coin’s been already thrown
For a voice which grammar has many cogent rules.
The new beginning would be inky,
Far from all those pastel-painted frames
With empty rooms fostering pastorali
In stuffed poultry hearts.
The real blood never puts artless colors on its pride.
From the chandelier fell too much of words 
Keeping silence about the profit of being mortal.
I tried to discern the salt in the wound, bugs on the face
Worn promises, Holly knowledge. 
I regret losing my taboos in remission of sins
But the new me still has time to slip into my old 
Long haired coat
Because the snappish winter is coming close.         



REVIVAL

Morning is tiptoeing over to the window
Like a cat
Descending the tree of wishes
Head first
To see all ghosts off
Too modest in their self-knitted hats
And backs heavy with the weight of the tenderness.
Interjections wait woven into the soggy day.
Lungs implore more oxygen.
Movements set a Morse code rhythm
Flirt with coffee steam 
Dance under the wind’s baton
On the garnished with fine mica flakes pavement.
From the crowd’s sleepy orbits 
Protrude huge, perplexed, yesterday‘s question- marks.



CORROSION IS IN FASHION

We are charming in ochre, scarf-styled,
Radiating that exceptional dress sense
While fall is parading its paradigms.
The warmth of gold is already proven
Out of time arguments
When the taste for art mimics the lack of logic 
In the global language.
Sometimes we wonder
If the closed societies undergo attitudinal changes.
In fact, silk on wool presents fond delusion in rainy days.
That world’s hurly-burly,
A storage of nonsense we use to feed scraggy wars
Pretending that they’re somewhere far
In order to satiate our nonchalance 
And quell any inner disturbances.
Happy hypocrites we are
If believe in the grace of the swan neck
Garlanded with luxurious plumage.
Beneath the camouflage— the wormy throat. 

The Comeback

The big trucks roll in and out
all day and the gulls on the dump
don’t know them any more from St. Francis. 

There are hundreds of them 
fluttery and imperturbable
orgying on the donations
of 400,000 citizens.

Ugly on the ground
they look like overfed pigeons
with skinnier legs if that’ possible
& with heads like Edward Everett Norton 

but when they spread those long wings
there is a grace the eye does not resist.

There are so many
that it’s scary at first
but they don’t give a shit
(hopefully) about visitors,

another truck comes in
they swirl about
in their somewhat flipped out fashion
this set up being too easy

and maybe you start
feeling a little flippy too.

The garbage men get two holidays
a year which they make up
the following saturdays.

The birds have been there
for years.




Archimedes at the Wedge


two sumo size guys sitting with
the great stillness of the huge
another somewhat noisy somewhat
sizable guy with ugly hair & no definition
big lower lip many years at the beach
one other large mostly muscled
guy with the best hung-over drawl
about the tangle of the last few
days’ parties and these gentlemen
misshapen to various degrees are
deferred to by the trim and the
less seriously physical.

off at a distance families demolish
boxes of donuts. a dreamy woman
almost gets sucked to her death,
a guy with stitches shows up. one of 
the sumos has disappeared but one 
shoots across a short high left face
half his body out of the water
holding up the world.



Terminal Island 
(a fond look back) 

The sailors come from off the sea
The porno movies for to see
I take them there for a small fee
Because I am a cabbie, a cabbie.

They also go dive-hopping
And on suitcase-buying sprees.
$4.10 into town, or if you have
5 horny greeks, $4.50,

or 3 insane Bostonians,
their wives with season tickets
to arthur fiedler (whose dead,
I think), $4.30.

But I like it out there.
The driving is fast and reckless,
The air feels good.
The ships are platonic,

The ship’s whores doubly so.
The company supplies the tires,
The sea provides rumor
And inference.


Nude beach

When you come over the bluff
And look down into the cove
It looks like sand
When you get there
It turns out to be millions
Of small rocks
Which leave red marks on your ass
Which look like sunburn
From a distance

Loudmouths and quiet lookers
With salty dried-out hair
Girls with stones for eyes
& tits that are pointy
guys dive off rocks
and try to keep from being
sucked by the current
into the cave
flesh everywhere

but not a stiff prick in sight
people stand on the side and shout
to the divers
“stay on the surface”




beach at trouville 1873


the sand is behaving itself
the smoke is beautiful in the clear air dress is formal, boater for the men buss & parasol for the ladies no one is lonely or trying to get picked up

marriages have reached the here-we-are stage, the hair is dark, not grey the beach socially is just being discovered and the feeling is somewhat like a movie set 
la mer is vaguely paid attention to less than say boats on it

we are all fairly fucking cool thank you later our teeth will be pulled and freudian psychology revealed with a national twist and a slight yawn

but now it’s the morning of light the sand is being so good the heels are clicked together hard to tell shape of ass under those large skirts but the waist is a general guide the weather is perfect and it’s the most perfect day of a fairly perfect year

tahiti in tails a cole porter level of charm
there is no food and the wine is not in sight the wind is excellent
there are no numbers or letters visible (being in the picture they cannot see the artist’s signature

but if they could they wouldn’t change a thing)
of course everywhere is a seminal dream as we existing prove we’ve only lost the charm the style the clothes the light and control of the sand

Insides of mausoleums
i
Shapes shifted
blue (turquoise endeavored)
to the favorite bar
our constant devotion what
stumbles across them the
distant voices once heard if
hereafter recollected,
existents of a higher plane
every body talks of—
this no man’s land
a graveyard
sought for if retrogressive.

ii
Type doors
to faded sepulchers
spectraled silhouettes align with,
bundle what light makes
(ancestral, important)
in tombs
windows encase them,
cutting the distance to climb of
their paradise eternal
a squared room
contorts it.

iii
Sky’s throw
the distance that covers
closed sets of harvest
(once and for all)
if consequents of choices
stand tall to accuse of
some Other’s vision
this room stocks it while
perennial graces
alabaster
herein triumphs.

Andrew Cyril Macdonald considers the role of inter-subjectivity in poetic encounter. He celebrates the confrontations between self and Other and the challenges that occur in moments of injustice. He is founding editor of Version (9) Magazine, a poetry journal that implicates all things theoretic. You can find his words in such places as A Long Story Short, Blaze VOX, Cavity Magazine, Don’t Submit, Experiential-Experimental Literature, Fevers of the Mind, Green Ink Poetry, Lothlorien, Nauseated Drive, Otoliths, Synchronized Chaos, Unlikely Stories and more. When not writing he is busy caring for seven rescued cats and teaching a next generation of poets.

Gladys always said, “Beware of what you dream. Ignore those visions if you must, but remember, these things have a habit of coming back to haunt you.” I don’t know what she based this kind of assessment on but, more often than not, she was right. Not long after this warning I had a dream that Gladys and I were in grave danger in some dark and threatening place. She died but I did not. Unfortunately, I ignored the dream. 

After she left, I began seeing all kinds of people I knew who were dead. She said this might happen. Most of them were illusions or cases of mistaken identity. I wondered about the others.

Once the rain began, it was impossible to see the path forward or back. After a while, even up and down were getting confused. I felt as if I was in the up-escalator dream where all the stairs had stopped moving and all the lights in the tunnel had gone out. The air was stifling.  It felt thick and smothering like a wool blanket that scratched the skin and burrowed its way into your throat. There was no point in trying to move. There was no place to go. Awake. Or dreaming.

Weathered stone.  The way is blocked by weathered stones. Not exactly like a wall. Like what? A path where stones grew instead of grass or weeds.  Stones that had sharp, ponied edges. Peaks sharp as knife blades, slippery with moss and mold that glowed in the incipient moonlight. These weathered stones. That moaned as they grew, aching as they cut through the gumline of the earth like teeth with nowhere else to go. 

The shy is septic. An open untreated, suppurating wound too long left to fester.  The fluids formerly trapped inside are leaking out like rain.  I’m sliding on the black ice that covers everything the rain has touched.  It’s like walking on sheets of motor oil, something that is both solid and frozen at the same time but impossible to move on.  If I don’t relocate, I will adhere to where I am. Become a misshapen ice sculpture in a greasy downpour. Waking up here is unthinkable.

Cento Derived from the Titles of ‘Erasure’ Poems by John Dorsey

Taken from the Work of Everette Maddox

I can see morning

Good things

Autumn trees

A row of lights

Railroad tracks

Oh world

For years you have noise

Frozen morning

A small yard

Dogs barking in some poor home

It’s all puddles

Neon bar

My boxers drink Gin

My sister dubbed the booze

Get drunk

Falling off a bar stool

Stay drunk

I can’t pour piss

Sweating comfort

I ain’t drinking orange juice

Everybody dies topless

I watched dog days

Hot Pearly Gates of the Confederacy

I threw the whole telephone book

Clouds brooding ah yes

My friend kissed my ass

I’m near an old radio

Murderous rock n roll

Heaven, hell, or Birmingham

The last day

When I was a kid I got invited, to my buddy Marty's Bar Mitzvah, it was for his thirteenth birthday, his parents were throwing him a big party, to celebrate a rite of passage, ya see Marty was a Jew.

I told my parents and was so excited, the Bar Mitzvah was at 
Shedd's Aquarium Downtown Chicago, my Old Man said he didn't care, if it was at fucking Disneyland, I wasn't going, and forget about being friends with Marty, he didn't want him hanging around, ya see Marty was a Jew. 

I was more than disappointed, I was righteously pissed off, the only reason he had for not letting me go was because of his religion, ya see Marty was a Jew.

His family didn't seem to mind that I was a Christian, you're telling me that's why I can't go, what's so bad about being a Jew, my mother put in her two cents worth, did you know Jews don't believe in Jesus, what does that have to do with anything, why does it matter, maybe Jews don't believe in Bigfoot, it's not a logical reason, 

I knew somehow in some way Jesus would get involved, why in the hell would Jesus care if Marty was a Jew, and there's more pressing world issues Jesus should be attending to,   

hold on here just one minute, you both have your facts mixed up, you don't want me to be friends with Marty or go to his Bar Mitzvah, just because of who he doesn't worship, Marty is a Jew

Yet we go to church every Sunday, except the Old Man, 

and pray to Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, and both of you should be grateful he did, because what I'm about to say, you may find it hard to believe, I guess you forgot this Messiah named Jesus, or maybe you just never knew, I read it in the Bible, so I'm sure it must be true, ya see Jesus just like Marty,

was a Jew.