First, some announcements. Tao Yucheng invites the winners of the poetry contest he hosted earlier this year to contact him at taoyucheng921129@proton.me. He’ll send out the prize money this month. He also announces that no one person won the Honorable Mention (there was a tie among multiple pieces) so he will automatically enter those pieces in the next competition, which will be at a yet-to-be-determined date this summer.

Also, contributor Mykyta Ryzhykh has a new book out, Tombboy, from Lost Telegram Press.

“In his book, as in books of poems written in poetic forms and free verse, language moves through a pattern, and the basic organizing unit is the line. In tombboy, the line may be a syllable, a sign, an image, or even a dot… Readers may rightfully assume that many, even all the poems in tombboy are anti-war poems… yet it would be inaccurate to infer these concrete poems are doctrinaire, or purely political. Nor are they autobiographical. But they are personal, intuitive, original, and memorable, each with something to show…”
– Peter Mladinic, author of House Sitting, Knives on the Table and many other books

“tombboy is filled with an experimental spirit, combining fearless phrasing with satirical madness. The result is a fascinating examination of the human condition… it seems there are no limits to his masterful creativity. Each page of this book will grab your attention. tombboy deserves a prominent spot on your bookshelf.”
– Roberta Beach Jacobson, editor of Five Fleas Itchy Poetry and smols poetry journal

Tombboy is available here.

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Welcome to Synchronized Chaos’ mid-April issue: A Chorus at the Threshold. This issue presents a chorus of voices singing, speaking, sometimes whispering, at different types of thresholds. People of different ages and backgrounds come together in this issue, each sharing thoughts, observations, and feelings at points of shifting and transformation.

Some of these thresholds are deeply interior. Adalat Gafarov Izzet oglu’s poetry is contemplative and reverent, with a focus on spirituality and the search for meaning. John Culp speaks to self-discovery, love, and finding one’s own rhythm in life. Duane Vorhees’ poetry forms a cohesive meditation on struggle, distance, and the human effort to bridge impossible gaps—whether spiritual, emotional, or existential. Mesfakus Salahin’s piece highlights self-exploration in times of solitude, as Maja Milojkovic laments the increasing unwanted loneliness caused by the setup of much of modern life. Mahbub Alam probes the highs and lows and capacities of human nature, highlighting the need for empathy and compassion. Prasanna Kumar Dalai’s poetry is romantic and melancholic, expressing deep emotions and longing. Poet and physician Anwer Ghani suggests that despite our attempts to conceal our emotions, they can still be sensed and felt.

J.J. Campbell’s writing touches on his inner shadows: feelings of isolation, the desire for a simple, authentic life, and the pain of his loneliness and inner demons. Ana May likewise writes from the doorway between suffering and transformation, insisting that pain must be faced if it is ever to yield meaning. Fhen M.’s eerie poem recollects the legend of G. Bragolin’s Crying Boy painting surviving house fires, meditating on trauma and memory. Thi Lan Anh Tran depicts the complex, multilayered social and psychological effects of both romantic love and war. Amina Kasim Muhammad’s poem illuminates how people rebuild after the loss of a loved one, growing around rather than overcoming grief. In David Sapp’s vignettes and Eva Lianou Petropoulou’s scenes of personal and public tragedy, ordinary life itself becomes a threshold where loss is transfigured through memory and grief into reverence.

Other voices gather at the threshold between childhood and adulthood. Yeon Myeong-ji and Hamdamova Dilzodaxon Halimjon qizi craft scenes of family love, care, and loss. Their work, and Jacques Fleury’s return to his father and their childhood treehouse, all stand in that tender doorway between then and now. Sarvinoz Bakhtiyorova depicts the impact of remembering one’s past and how that can shape one’s identity. Here, affection survives distance and the past remains startlingly alive.

Nature, too, shifts throughout this issue, with pieces about seasons and the liminal spaces between dreams and reality. In Stephen Jarrell Williams’s idyllic vision, the act of learning to fly becomes an awakening into another mode of being. Elaine Murray’s visionary reflections on natural landscapes, Charos Ismoilova’s gratitude for the sunrise, Ananya Guha’s pensive thoughts on seasonal time, Graciela Noemi Villaverde’s vision of a world where humans protect and care for the natural world, Joseph Ogbonna’s song to a nightingale, and Brian Barbeito’s dream journey scenes of birds, constellations, and moonlight all invite us to the threshold between the visible and the unseen. Sayani Mukherjee’s luminous piece on the sacred mystery of existence completes this movement, reminding us that existence itself is a continual process of change.

History and heritage form another vital threshold in these pages—the place where inheritance meets the present moment. Dr. Jihane El Feghali’s tribute to Lebanon, radiant with resilience and memory, stands beside Ilya Ganpantsura’s portrait of Pushkin, writing in a nation poised between autocracy and intellectual freedom. Abdulaxilova Sevara’s meditation on Yusuf and Zulayha reveals divine and human love, earthly devotion blended with spiritual transcendence. Eva Lianou Petropoulou shares the tale of miraculous holy fire burning the day before Easter in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Lan Xin acknowledges the shared humanity and commonalities within the heritage of the world’s people, finding harmony within global religious teachings, and Bhagirath Chowdhary echoes that sentiment in his poem. Mohizoda Xurshiq qizi Roziqova discusses Uzbekistan’s legacy of teacher-apprentice training in the trades as Shokhida Nazirova highlights the Uzbek government’s investment in youth education, athletics, and personal development. The works rooted in Uzbek heritage further remind us that culture survives through crossings: hand to hand, teacher to student, voice to voice.

The chorus also rises at the threshold leading to justice.

Sim Wooki confronts racism and colonial power, while Patricia Doyne and Manik Chakraborty write from the brink where historical violence and oppression not only cast a shadow upon the present, but continues to this day. Alan Catlin and Stephen House stand at the moral threshold of witness, asking what it means to remain human before scenes of suffering, ecological damage, and collective harm. These are works that refuse the comfort of distance. They ask us not merely to observe, but to consider the ethics of paying attention.

Elsewhere, the collection turns toward personal thresholds of growth and development. Axmatova Maxliyo Ag’zam qizi discusses challenges in ESL education. Satimboyeva Risolat Ilhomboy qizi compares AI technology to the human brain as Adkham Mukhiddinov outlines how integral calculus can function in economic analysis. Khamidova Shahzoda Kholbozor qizi’s poem extols the promise of Uzbekistan’s next generation as Tursunoy Akramjon qizi Umirzaqova highlights the potential power of computer technology to improve traffic flow and safety. Ibroximova Hayitbon Mirzoxidjon qizi explores another potential role for AI in education, developing individual study plans. Yoqubova Barnoxon Baxtiyorjon qizi suggests ways to harness digital technologies in preschool education. Yunusova Robiyakhon Khayotbek qizi discusses challenges and opportunities for new technologies in the financial services sector. Charos Yusupboyeva outlines the promise of online education for remote areas. Doniyorbek G’ulomjonov and Tillayeva Muslimaxon Yashnarjon qizi examine the evolving role of technology in education, Saitkulova Fotima reflects on how living standards and education have greatly improved over the years in Uzbekistan, Axmatova Maxliyo Ag’zam qizi suggests ways to improve language students’ writing competence, O’rinova Diyora outlines methods for improving language learners’ speech, Kurbonova Mohinur Abdumuxtor qizi discusses challenges in translating idioms between English and Uzbek, while Rakhmonova Gulzoda Sodiq qizi stands at the threshold of a career in medicine, drawn forward by compassion, intellect, and personal resolve.

Jernail S. Anand looks at compassion, care and the consequences of individual actions. Mykyta Ryzhykh highlights the dissonance between our ideals of gentleness and innocence and abusive human behavior that falls short of these ideals. Asalbonu Otamurodova’s reflections on boundaries offer another kind of threshold: the necessary line where care for others must meet care for the self.

Art itself becomes another form of threshold, creating space for various ideas and sensibilities to meet and overlap. Noah Berlatsky considers how even a weathered, broken artwork can convey meaning, how the breakage can become part of the work. Doug Hawley and Bill Tope’s joint short story humorously compares an ordinary couple with historically famous idealized sculptures of people, finding in favor of the average, imperfect, but real, married couple. To’lquinay Ubukulova points out creative people’s current dependence on technology of various sorts. Jerrice J. Baptiste’s poems and paintings of women highlight their individuality, strength of character, and connection to the natural world. Juraeva Aziza Rakhmatovna interviews Croatian writer and poet Ankica Anchia, illuminating her love for her nation and birthplace as creative inspiration.

Ummusalma Nasir Mukhtar celebrates the power of writers to move society forward through their creativity, as Bill Tope explores his personal literary motivations. Ri Hossain analyzes themes in his own poetry, highlighting his combination of materialism and surrealism and how he renders urban realities through free verse. Gionni Valentin’s fragmented thoughts, images, and reflections explore themes of creativity, self-discovery, and the human condition. Kandy Fontaine describes post-Beat poetics, defined by inclusivity, community, focus on embodied and lived experience with living writers, and rejection of hierarchies and trophies. Patrick Sweeney’s tiny poetic fragments touch on art, identity, nature, history, and relationships. Joshua Martin’s poems combine lexical debris, media fragments, bureaucratic residue, and historical ruin, while Mark Young’s fragmented transmissions emerge from different frequencies of reality.

What binds these many works is not sameness, but shared arrival. Each piece stands at some edge—of understanding, of memory, of identity, of survival—and from that edge it calls out. The result is a true chorus: not a single melody, but many voices meeting in resonance.

Chorus at the Threshold sums up this collection because every page invites crossing. Between sorrow and wonder. Between history and dream. Between the self we have been and the self we are still becoming. Yet, many of these doors remain open, so that the thoughts and impressions in one “room” carry forward along one’s journey or can be remembered.

May you enter these pages with openness, attentiveness, and the quiet recognition that something in you may emerge changed.

children die and we buy phones
children work in mines in africa
to mine cobalt for mobile phones.
do you have a nice mobile phone?
i do and will update it soon.
children work in mines in africa
and are forced to slave for pittance.
as a kid did you have to work in a mine?
i never had to either.
children die while mining cobalt
for nice new mobile phones:
children die and we buy phones.
Buy. Phones.
Children. Die.
(repeat).

a petrol and planet hypocrisy
fill it up again and again
places to go and roads to drive on.
full tank in and exhaust spews out
into the air it goes and blows.
and yes we go to fossil fuel rallies
for we care about our environment.
we limit plastic use and love the trees
and always recycle our rubbish.
but again and again we fill up our car
as we have all those places to go.
so is care for the planet and fill it up
a petrol and planet hypocrisy?
you tell me as i know nothing
(but i do know what i’m feeling).

Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain for 4 years. 

Archaic Torso of Apollo

After Rilke

 

He has no head. He has no eyes

to pin us with his godhead. But his torso

is itself a gaze in which there grows

from inside, like a covered lamp, a fire.

 

Without that rising surge, divinity

would not ravish you, nor would a lip

trace the gentle curve of thigh and hip

to the shadowed center of fertility.

 

Without it, the stone would seem a broken thing,

chipped, cracked, dead, a stone,

and would not glisten like a wolf’s dark mane,

 

and would not from its remnants blaze and singe

you like a god. Of all its parts, there is not one

that does not see you. Your life must change.

The world feels so loud sometimes,

So alive that you forget you’re running out of time.

Not today. Not tomorrow. 

But someday, grief shows up one morning and just moves in. 

And love?

Love stands by the curtains.

Not handing out comfort to everybody.

Just watching. Waiting.

Seeing what you actually need. 

This isn’t a biography I’m trying to list its  dates.

This is just a heart that kept going after it got broken.

A soul that figured out the ground is cold,

But still decided to sit in the chair anyway,

Behind the curtains. 

This isn’t really about the chairs or the curtains.

It’s about how still you learn to be,

To sit in your grief without letting it crush you.

Like no matter what cracks underneath,

That chair holds.

Except, death… 

We call it the uninvited guest,

A weight that settles in the hollow of the chest.

Death is the one crack that swallows everything.

No sounds.

Just a hole that takes the sorrow and the love both at once. 

But here’s what I’ve learned:

Death took the person,

The creative mind,

The talented hands.

But it didn’t take what they left behind. 

Grief teaches you something If you let it.

Not right away. It beats you up first.

But eventually,

It shows you how to pay attention.

How to hold things tighter without squeezing too hard.

How to sit in the quiet and still find something worth making. 

Maybe we don’t get over it.

Maybe we just learn to build around it.

We take the loss and turn it into something.

A poem, a meal, a small kindness,

Or a minute of patience we didn’t have before. 

And when the poem forgets it’s a poem

And becomes a room,

It becomes a room where loss finally takes off its coat.

Where love doesn’t just visit anymore,

It sits down to stay.

Where grief and gladness walk in together,

Like they always do, and for once,

They don’t have a single thing left to ask. 

Except…

What does the poem say about us?

It says we are the ones who need it.

We’re the ones who take these little black marks,

These little arranged scratches on a page,

And we make them bleed.

We make them bleed with our own blood.

We make them sing with our own throats—

The ones that get tight.

The ones that crack.

We make them hold everything we cannot hold by ourselves.

And then… somehow… we can.

Because we are the creatures who build bridges out of breath.

We are the ones who go looking for our own faces in the ink.

We let the poem teach us death.

Not by lecturing.

Not by explaining.

But by showing us how to live. 

And it’s not about filling the hole.

It’s about learning to live around it.

Knowing it’s there.

And still… still creating.

And maybe, that’s enough.

Amina Kasim Muhammad is a Nigerian writer and spoken word poet with a deep passion for storytelling. She finds herself drawn to the way stories can transport readers to different worlds and how ideas can be shaped and shared through the power of writing. Valuing her pen and book as essential tools of expression, she is also an advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Amina is an active member of the Minna Literary Society (MLS) and Open Arts Kaduna, where she engages with fellow creatives and contributes to the literary community. Her work has been published; one of her poems appeared in Synchronized Chaos Magazine.  You can connect with her on Instagram: @meena_kasim. 

Way of Origami

I fold

fold paper in

fold into myself

fold my hand

a Royal Flush

folded from me

when I fold into myself

I create these things

and imbue meaning

into them 

through

my writing 

and you believe this

because you finished

reading me

Property of Doctor Yes

A white boat made of wood,

wood refined into something they call paper.

It sits on a wooden river

colored a rich caramel

with a white background.

It has no sail

so isn’t permitted movement

Why is it there?

Because it allowed me to write this

A Game of Sudoku

They speak wrong numbers

a syntax line,

an error column,

a diagnostic fault of reality

warring over my way of thought

moving through my straw head

of full entry and brain matter,

whispers of shape with no end.

Like the quiet, you want nothing

because something is missing.

I Am Content

I eat when hungry,

I drink when thirsty,

I sleep when tired.

What more could I want?

That’s how I know 

I’m trapped.

Mount Olympus

And then boom

a drywall with holes from butterflies

and a leaf with ostrich eggs

the skeleton lay

an ant caught in his joint

looking at Life

her heavenly skin

a green away from him

he explodes into ash

is reborn

a rose bush

with no

thorns

Gionni Valentin is currently is his UD2 year at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, NJ.

Holy Grail

Each afternoon, between Gomer Pyle and Big Ten Theater, the pantry door opened to a small altar and a humble gray amphora, the cookie jar Grail of my Oreo eucharist. My arm disappeared into the dark, wide mouth womb eagerly to the elbow. My small fingers fished for six. There was a compulsive comfort in the number, and with blackened teeth I’d sit before the TV transfixed in ritual, gulping a glass of Nestle’s Quick.

After Mom stopped cooking, cleaning and comforting, after Dad lost the house, the business and confidence, after thrown curses, clothes and coffee, a hysterectomy, psych wards, divorce, therapy and thirty years, my mother sent the forgotten vessel on some well-intentioned birthday errand. She’d glued the broken lid to contain the cargo of my childhood pain. For a while it was on exhibition, an empty antique sitting upon a shelf. I brushed my teeth obsessively after each occasional cookie.

Today I’ll reap and rejoice in a quiet little catharsis. With hammer and shovel, I break and bury the jar in my backyard. Today, I can see my wounds as a sliver slices a finger. What I once thought brought solace, now appears brittle and sharp. Blood fills my hand and drips wet, warm and sticky into the earth. This new grave is moist, fertile and sweet.

Saint Francis

I was canonized, or nearly so, in Ogunquit, Maine last summer on vacation. At dawn, along a granite edge, a collision of continent and ocean, gazing at the Atlantic’s implacable crush upon the shore, I sat in a deck chair cupping a croissant and five-dollar latte (no vow of poverty quite yet).

However presumptuous, a passing fantasy, I thought of myself as Saint Francis. Ridiculous. (On my pilgrimage, a tourist charter to Assisi, I only recall the charming Giotto frescos there; no birds congregated in the basilica; however, I wasn’t paying attention.)

I wasn’t blessed with a martyr’s beatific vision, no celestial seraphim. I was more attuned to inconsequential sparrows flitting about my feet in unassuming feathers, in browns, grays, the drab shades of friars’ habits. Unlike the brash gulls, sparrows, humble, timid and admittedly and prudently so, were terrified of the sea.

My Fioretti: I’d like to believe they gathered for my sermon, my wisdom, my eloquence. Surely, I would allay all fears; so, I mimicked their small chirps, but they cocked heads skeptically.

Graciously indifferent, they skittered, too busy with pecking and scratching, a miracle they listened at all.

Weapons

When Vietnam took all the boys and splayed them on the evening news, a boy, like most boys emulating most men, but especially in uniform, I was smitten with TV shows on World War Two, diluted versions without the gore, without the complications of falling red dominoes.

After failing at catch, Dad tried again in a trifecta to win my affection. Dad fashioned a wooden machine gun (my deadly 30 cal.) to mow down Nazis in Normandy. Keenly, I provided the “rat-a-tat-tat.” However, screams and morphine were not included.

Dad built a cannon from a board and a pipe, artillery on wheels pulled behind my tricycle, a barrage devasting for the Hun. However, my little howitzer was mothballed, rusting when I began riding a real bike. Undeterred, Dad bought more lumber.

Dad spent hours (I was not around) on the envy of all the other boys. An ace over France, I sat in the cockpit of my Spitfire shooting Messerschmitts from the sky. However, trouble was, it lacked altitude. I never left the driveway, never wore my parachute.

Dad was on yet another sales call and I was home alone when I took a hammer to my grounded fighter. After the crash, it never flew again.

Before I Die

An artillery shell stirs my flesh with mud and soldiers divide my limbs among dogs. Just before I die, I’ll taste the softness of my beloved’s lips and a ripe, sweet, summer peach, not bitter plastic tubes or pain-killing pills. I’ll listen to the house finch and the wren but not the television getting in a final commercial, nor one last bit of Mozart’s brilliance.

My body glides in perfect, choreographed grace over steering wheel, dash, through windshield glass, my blood painting car hood and pavement in sweeping, expressionistic gestures. Just before I die, I’ll gaze upon a pale blue sky filled with the warm light of morning. I’ll not look up to a clean, white ceiling and harsh fluorescents flickering; I’ll inhale the humid breath of Spring or the pungent decay of October; I’ll not smell disinfectant on cold stainless steel.

I’ve lost my speech; my right side hangs as limp as a nursing home prick, but I manage half a smile when I’m told my heart has worn too thin. Just before I die, I must hold something in my hands: my grandchild’s face or my son’s graying head; I’ll dance one last time upon the forest floor amidst Mayapples and sassafras; my feet will never reach the clean tile beneath an iron bed.

Why Can’t We Say “No”?

Why is it so difficult for us to say “no”? It’s an interesting question. Throughout our lives, we often believe that we are living for ourselves, when in reality, we may be living under the expectations of others without even realizing it. Naturally, we all have our own needs and desires, but so do the people around us.

If we fail to set boundaries with others—if we cannot say “no”—we will continue to live under their demands. This is not just an unfortunate situation; it can be deeply harmful. Let me tell you this: learn to set boundaries with the people around you, even if they are very close to you. Until you define those boundaries, you will gradually become a prisoner of others’ expectations, because they will always continue to demand more.

Only when you stop living for others will you truly begin to live for yourself. I once read in a book: “If you consider burning in fire to be natural, you will turn into ashes and come to believe you deserve every suffering.”

Be courageous. At this point in your life, your primary responsibility is to be able to say “no,” not to wait passively like a sacrifice. Never forget this. Living under the pressure of others’ expectations will only harm you and slowly extinguish your self-confidence.