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.
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.
First, a few announcements. Sandra Tabac invites poetry and art submissions for an international Hands of Love anthology.
Also, The Arab Poets Forum has recently published the book “Alphabet of Pain… Letters Bleeding Meaning”, a remarkable poetic encyclopedia featuring 212 poets from around the world, presented in two volumes spanning 800 pages.
The cover artwork is created by Iraqi visual artist Nada Askar, and the cover design is by Lebanese artist Layla Beiz Al-Mashghariya. Several Synchronized Chaos contributors, including Taghrid Bou Merhi, Mirta Ramirez, Eva Petropoulou Lianou, Dildora Xojyozova, Binod Dawadi, and Kujtim R Hajdari, are published in this collection.
Now, for this month’s first issue, Where Memory Meets Tomorrow.
Image c/o Yana Ray
This issue is beautiful, rich, and international. There’s a strong throughline of memory, devotion, identity, and renewal running across continents and genres.
For this month’s first issue, we are proud to present a collection of voices that span styles and topics, each offering a meditation on what it means to live, remember, and hope.
Vo Thi Nhu Mai opens with a heartfelt tribute to her mother, honoring the quiet love and lifelong dedication of a teacher. From Uzbekistan, Orzigul Ibragimova calls her people forward with intelligence and determination, while Namozova Sarvinoz Erkin qizi explores the nation’s ongoing transformation toward an eco-friendly, energy-efficient future. Sevara Abduxalilova reflects on the legacy of Mirzo Ul’ugbek, the great Central Asian astronomer whose vision still resonates across time, as Botirova Gulsevar Muzaffar qizi honors political leader and poet Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur, known for promoting education and national development. Munisa Islomjonova celebrates her native Uzbekistan through verse.
The power of words themselves comes into focus in Harinder Cheema’s celebration of poets as messengers of peace and inspiration, echoed by Soumen Roy’s prayer to poetry as a source of healing and transcendence. Jamoliddinova Dilnozaxon Mirhojiddinovna discusses how countries and social groups form communication and speech traditions. Olimova Shahina Botirjon qizi discusses strengths and weaknesses of different methods for teaching foreign languages. Hamdamova Sevara Saidmurodovna outlines modern philological theory about the power of language beyond literal meaning. Türkan Ergör sharpens her focus to highlight the pain of a world without trust and truth. Rev. Dr. Jitender Singh speaks to human unity across race, color, nationality, or creed. Manik Chakraborty and Mesfakus Salahin and Mahbub Alam each issue urgent calls for peace, reminding us of our shared humanity in a fractured world. Graciela Noemi Villaverde depicts the pain of words felt but never sent. Christina Margeti speaks to war and childhood, what humanity destroys and what we strive to protect. Faleeha Hassan reviews Saudi directors Meshal Al-Jaser and stars Adwaa Badr and Yazeed Al-Majioul’s film “Naga” (Purity) which, through the tragedy of a betrayed and rebellious young woman, shows the weight of a society imploding upon itself as it punishes the existence of femininity. Asadullo Habibullayev brings violence down to a smaller scale, reminding us that how we treat each other at the interpersonal level matters. At the same time, poet Nilavronill decries how poets have failed to stop the world’s violence with their words.
Themes of love and devotion weave throughout the issue. Sandro Piedracita reflects on the distinction between selfless love and possessiveness, while Eva Petropoulou Lianou honors the tender, enduring bond between mother and child. Nazokat Jumaniyozova offers a moving elegy for her grandfather, and Danijela Ćuk pays tribute to Eva Petropoulou’s tireless support of fellow writers. Saparboyeva Laylo Xajibay qizi relates a folktale-like story of grief, justice, fate and renewal. Joseph Ogbonna expresses his spiritual devotion in the Easter season and his thanks for Christ’s humble sacrifice. Maqsudova Anora Alisherovna’s poem urges heartfelt sincerity and reflection when people observe Ramadan. Sarvinoz Bakhtiyorova relates the tale of a now-adult son who sacrificed his own body for his mother. Jahongir Murodov expresses his tender care and respect for his mother. Xojamurodova Nigina urges sensitive souls to continue loving and not lose heart in a brutal world as Ms. Kim Sun Young shares how longing for a lost love is persistent, like a weed in her heart and Do’sanova Dilnoza Xolmurod qizi reflects on heartbreak and regret.
Other contributors turn toward time, myth, and the natural world. Ananya Guha evokes deep, mythic landscapes, while Sayani Mukherjee and Lan Xin draw on the imagery of spring—its motion, memory, and rebirth. Ankica Anchie Biskupović finds unity in flowing water, and Elaine Murray immerses herself in nature’s quiet revelations. Ms. Koo Myongsook reflects in stillness on a mountain as a metaphor for life. David Kokoette’s desert journey and Duane Vorhees’ meditation on absence and longing remind us of the inner landscapes we all traverse. Maja Milojkovic laments the steady decline of her powers due to old age. Aziza Jorayeva expresses heartbreak, loneliness, and grief. Dr. Prasanna Kumar Dalai speaks to autumn, night, longing, and confession. Siyoung Doung expresses the mystery of our existence and the beauty of finding small moments of beauty and meaning. Dr. Tomasz Laczek urges us to make the most of the lives we have and live for something that matters.
This issue also engages with contemporary life and its tensions. Abdumaxamediva Gulchexra looks at the positive and negative effects of American cultural influence on traditional Uzbek culture. Patricia Doyne sharply critiques the current U.S. administration, while Bill Tope employs satire to confront its institutional excess and brutality. J.K. Durick reflects on individuals navigating vast, impersonal systems, even systems invented for fun, such as professional sports, engaged yet estranged. Peter Cherches plays the absurdist blues for us in his poem that’s equal parts exile ballad, street song, and darkly comic cabaret. Christopher Bernard kicks off the first installment of his children’s story Otherwise, with a mixture of philosophy, mystery, and middle-grade energy.
Artistic memory and cultural reflection round out the issue. Mark Young presents his signature altered geographies, while Brian Michael Barbeito revisits the world of hockey through personal recollection. Mykyta Ryzhykh captures the intensity of first awakenings—moments that divide life into before and after. Jacques Fleury offers a haunting vision of beauty, resilience, and power embodied in a goddess who still fades from view while he can only watch. Ms. Im Sol Nae looks at death not merely as an ending, but as a transformation, a communal aesthetic experience.
Together, these works form a tapestry of voices, which are urgent, reflective, and deeply human. They remind us that across distance and difference, we are united by our search for meaning, our capacity for love, and our enduring hope for renewal.
John Biscello’s No One Dreams in Color begins as an artistic mystery and gradually morphs into a tone poem. The novel speculates on the nature of dreams and reality, the psychological effects of loss and grief, and the creative, and destructive, power of stepping out of consensus reality into the surreal.
Loss provides an emotional backdrop to the narrative. The main character finds himself strangely comforted by an indie film entitled Wendigo after the loss of his mother and his first girlfriend, then travels from Brooklyn to a small New Mexico town to find out what happened to the filmmaker, who has gone missing. He interviews an eclectic assortment of characters, including past girlfriends and artistic collaborators of the filmmaker, finding himself immersed in the town’s culture and mysteries. One mystery is that many other people have strangely gone missing throughout the town’s history.
Gradually, the story becomes less and less linear and more focused on images: a dancer in a torn leotard, a young teen on her bike with her face painted like her favorite fantasy character, a woman from imperial Russia perennially dancing in a disused ballroom. Time itself becomes fluid, shown through a bar’s clock that never tells the right time and by the main character completely forgetting a large part of his year. This reflects the way grief and loss warp our experience of time and memory, but also suggests that delving deeply into the surreal, into one’s own psyche and creative process, can cause you to “disappear” into your own world, away from those who love and need you.
Dreams, and the motif of sleeping and waking, play a major role in the tale. They are the first clue this novel is something more than realistic fiction: a woman and her boyfriend work at a facility dedicated to recording and analyzing dreams. The woman suffers from insomnia and can’t dream, while her daughter moonlights as a superhero while sleepwalking. Her boyfriend, a higher-level researcher, is privileged to be able to observe some of the recorded dreams, and observes that they might involve some of the same cinematic features as early film. We see dreams linked to art, amid an atmosphere heady with wine, weed, and talk of Borges, Jung, Bob Dylan, and the Beastie Boys.
The woman’s daughter loves comic books, which the book suggests may be our modern version of a cultural mythos. Her dreams are often nightmares of werewolves: not all dreams are sweet. Near the end, she sneaks out at night and burns down the dream laboratory, believing she’s acting at the request of a figure in the dreams. This highlights the destructive potential of losing control of oneself in the dream world, but could also suggest that dreams and the subconscious resist full, rational explanations.
Yet, the dream researcher’s character seems positive and thoughtful, not a stereotypical “mad scientist” or someone depleting dreams of their magic through over-analysis. He shows sincere compassion for his girlfriend, even when she wants to end the relationship, and is motivated to study dreams because of his genuine belief in their importance and beauty. He makes one of the most powerful statements about the dream-world in the entire novel, that perhaps when we go to sleep, we should shrug off our waking world as “just a dream.” His scientific study and other characters’ artistic endeavors and deep personal experiences seem to all have value in helping us understand ourselves and our world.
Children, and relics of childhood, recur throughout the story. Wendigo’s major scene consists of a man looking at photos of a little girl, and in later scenes, a boy in a party hat celebrates his birthday and another girl plays a fanciful game of hopscotch. The main character connects with his own childhood in ways both endearing and off-kilter. He eats peanut butter sandwiches in his hotel room as he did while a boy, writes a horror story about children playing hide-and-seek, and wakes up sucking his thumb after dreaming of a sexual encounter. No One Dreams in Color suggests through this motif that keeping some of one’s childhood imagination may make you as strange and unpredictable as charming, but that it may be essential to artistic creation.
A legendary monster in the tales of some of America’s Indigenous people, the Wendigo is linked to desolate winter landscapes, destruction and cannibalism, and being lost and isolated. In the imaginary film within this novel, a woman is slowly consumed by a winter landscape, while the male lead also loses himself to confusion and perhaps grief. This is perhaps a dramatization of the risks of entering into the level of private, sustained thought needed to create original art.
Yet, the novel still points to the vast power of the personal and shared cultural subconscious to create beauty from raw materials. The title, No One Dreams in Color, reflects the dream analysis lab’s observation that dreams appear black and white on their screens while dreamers can remember vivid colors. Our imaginations fill in much of the richness and texture of our dreams, creating the reality that we see around us. Through the continual motifs of philosophy, art, literature, mythology, and music, Biscello suggests that this may be as true of our waking as of our sleeping hours.
No One Dreams in Color was a rich, textured, and thoughtful read!
