Welcome to July’s first issue of Synchronized Chaos!

This month’s issue explores themes of tension and solace.

Are there unavoidable sources of tension in life, and is a life without anxiety even desirable? Where can we find solace and peace when we need them? Where do we need to maintain a certain level of awareness and vigilance?

Satis Shroff comments on the continuing human cost of Russia’s war with Ukraine. Steven Croft reflects on how soldiers and civilians endure the other armed conflicts around the world.

Jelvin Gipson expresses through a fable the need for wisdom to prevent endangering oneself or committing hasty acts of violence. James Whitehead’s poetry speaks to the impact of reproductive legislation and sexual assault on women’s lives.

Richard LeDue and John Thomas Allen highlight moments of humor and beauty found within hospital settings, where patients make the most of their encounters with illness and injury.

Ike Boat reports firsthand on a destructive flood in Amanful, Ghana. Stephen Jarrell Williams explores themes of society’s end and nature’s rejuvenation.

Closer to home, Yusuf Olumoh seeks comfort in the sea and solitude after the loss of his parents. Linda Crate describes the recovery of one’s self after an unbalanced relationship, while Scott Strozier illustrates the need for maintaining relationships and how they stay intact or fall apart. Shakhzoda Kodirova’s short story highlights the importance of maintaining our natural and human communities.

Andrew MacDonald’s poetry captures the moments that may seem fleeting or mundane, but which cement relationships.

Thadeus Emanuel comments on change and creativity in nature and in a writer’s mind, and how our creativity and relationships can be derailed by hypocrisy and deceit.

Candace Meredith’s short story illustrates the horror of not only the monster attack its protagonist survives, but of how she’s completely alone in her perception of danger.

Linda Hibbard expresses ambivalence about change and progress: will making things different make them better? Mahbub’s poems draw on dual meanings: bridges between the past and present, symbols that can represent multiple concepts.

Doug Hawley explores the limits, nuances, and paradoxes of personal and political freedom.

Peter Crowley humorously dramatizes various sorts of literal and metaphorical birth pains, looking at the cost of different sorts of creation.

Jason Ryberg contributes vignettes of middle America looking into the drama of ordinary life and little moments of grace or annoyance, while Peter Cherches dramatizes an unexpectedly familiar encounter with jazz great Mingus.

John Sweet shares the ways in which many ordinary people in middle America can become stuck in life, left behind in modern Western society.

Mark Young’s amusing poetry explores the different sorts of “deliveries” we receive in life while Debarati Sen waxes poetic about the joy and beauty of the plethora of words and figures of speech available to all of us.

Ian Copestick’s narrators simply check out of their ordinary lives, using whatever means are available to them. Jack Galmitz delves into a photograph of a man cooking at a barbecue who’s deeply engaged in what he’s doing.

John Edward Culp sends in a somewhat ineffable piece on transcendent travel by means of light, while Diana Magallon contributes a mixed media meditation on discordance. Alan Catlin’s Southern Gothic poetic landscapes, after Sally Mann’s visual art, immerse us in the murky history of swamps and American Civil War battles.

Jim Meirose relates a piece with humor, charm, and dialect while Nathan Anderson breaks language down to syllable and syntax and nonlinguistic symbol.

J.J. Campbell captures the wisdom and cynicism of older age, while Santiago Burdon’s tale of teen angst and athletic shoes humorously reminds us there are times to keep our mouths shut.

Gaurav Ojha also encourages us to quiet down. He says we’ll find wisdom when we stop thinking and speaking and directly experience and learn from life, whether a beautiful sunset or a dentist appointment.

Michael Robinson and Sayani Mukherjee reflect upon the spiritual solace and comfort they find through the faiths of their heritages. Chimezie Ihekuna’s poem reminds us of the spiritual meaning of Christmas as a holiday with a message we can reflect on all year.

Matthew Defibaugh and Christina Chin’s collaborative poetry presents images of gentle movement within nature. K.J. Hannah Greenberg’s set of bird photographs illustrate and comment on the variety of ways we as humans coexist with and treat other species.

Thank you for reading this first July issue of Synchronized Chaos. May it invite you to ponder, consider, and engage with the writers’ and artists’ work.

harmony in the midst

of an orderly universe

. . . earth's chaos



invisible

from outer space


Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh





lonely night 

how long this cold

winter river



train leaving

for home



Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh





boarding

the same train . . .

different destinations 



a cluster of felled branches

in the olive’s shade


Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh





a few strands of hair 

caught on her lips

golden field season



her sequined gown

blows them away



Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh





uneasy night

the whining horse  

in a haunted barn



the old nag telling

his fate 



Christina Chin / M. R. Defibaugh

Once Upon a Time
   An Adventure 

"Liquid Light - "
    where the light transitions 
      from unvectored
        to revectored 
Time is not measured.

 This allows travel
    without Delay.

     Being where 
  Already 
exists.

&  I AM 

Lost the journey,
    This Once.

Once Upon a Time 
   An Adventure

Best Medicine


Sometimes making someone laugh

is the best you can hope for 

on cafeteria sandwich and soup

Thursdays, when the promise 

you were promised

has gone quiet as a bad joke.


It’s those silent moments 

where your thoughts heckle

every choice you made,

as if you can never be

right, and your only choice

is to hide behind a smile,

hoping no one notices

what you leave in those empty bottles

most Friday nights.

so my flowers could flourish

despite the fact i watered the flowers of our friendship, there was never any growth; everything remained half-dead and half-living; i got exhausted of being the only one to put any effort in so eventually i stopped—you said you didn't miss people, but you soon found that you did miss me; it was too late

—i tend to give people more chances than they deserve and you were no different in that regard, but i wasn't willing to wait around anymore until you were able to give me time and attention; i have no affection left for you—so when you clawed so hard and so often after i told you we were no longer friends for a friendship i have to admit that i felt nothing but disgust, where was all this effort before? you weren't there when i needed you, yet i was expected to be there at your beck and call when you needed me; friendship isn't supposed to stunt your growth and be traumatic but trauma was all you gave me

—looking back i realize you were a narcissist because nothing that ever happened was ever your fault, you were always the victim even when you weren't; and i got tired of being your punching bag—for my own personal growth, i pulled out every root of our friendship so that my flowers could flourish once more; i am sorry that you miss me but i don't feel guilty for leaving you behind any more. 

-linda m. crate 

with all your need

they say
growth is
moving on,
but when you move
on without them they 
will insist you cannot cut
them out;
as if they weren't the ones
that left you bleeding
with the scissors in your
back—
you gave me scissors so i cut
the ties that tethered us
in togetherness,
and you have no one to blame but yourself;
i needed to grow 
so you could not be hanging on the 
vines of all my flowers
crushing them to death with all of your need.

-linda m. crate 

bigger and better plans 

remember that promise
you gave me?
gave me a false sense of security
as i was under the assumption
we'd grow old together,

but that was just a lie you 
told to keep me tethered to the
many tongues of your lust;

growth came after you abandoned me
and married the woman you cheated on me with—

one autumn day i woke up and the agony
was gone,
i could bloom and live and be again;

rediscovered my magic and reclaimed my voice
and danced in my muchness once more—

every day i grow more and more 
into who i was meant to be,
and the universe had bigger and better plans
for me than to be the wife of someone
insincere and untrue.

-linda m. crate

but i do regret

they want to take credit
for your growth
when it was all your effort,
and they didn't do a damn
thing to better your life;

so many say forgive and forget
and there will be no regret—

but i do regret giving people
more chances than they deserved,
some people didn't deserve my
forgiveness;
and thought they could simply use
me over and over and over again—

the key to growing is ignoring what they
have said about me,
and though sometimes i get angry they take
credit for my efforts they're going to think what
they want to and so i keep growing toward the sun
and let them wilt alone in the angriest
of suns.

-linda m. crate 

no longer stained 

you wanted a damsel in distress
that you could dress in any garb
you thought could make you shine
in the best light, but instead you
found a warrior in a dress;

now you paint me the villain of your tale
but you've never been a hero to anyone
not even yourself—

when the illusion fades, they won't love you;
because they have fallen in love with 
the mask of you who they thought was you
who i  thought was you before you revealed 
your true nature to me—

glancing over my shoulder i am not sorry
that you are my past and will never be my future,

but if i must be the villain then i will be the one
that wins; i will be the one that they will love
and they will say that you deserved your end—

i will just be grateful that you name no longer
stains my heart.

-linda m. crate 

without a prayer 

you are without a prayer,
the moon won't save you;
she is my mother and she knows
how you tried to shatter my light

until only darkness remained—

i think she hates you more than i
ever could, her grudge is somehow
hotter than the sun and colder than the
coldest of rains; and if one of us
must go down she says it's going to be you—

there was a time i would cry at the thought
of you being left lone in the darkness,

but now i see that perhaps it is everything
you deserve because of all the darkness you've
brought others; all of the magic you have
destroyed and all the magic you tried to—

i have refound myself and claimed my magic,
and i know that you've made me a villain in your
narrative so let me destroy you in my chaos.

-linda m. crate