he looked at the map of the stars, a map he had gotten from a National Geographic book. he had affixed it to the wall and tried to remember it. he couldn’t remember the constellations though, not the way other people did. he was terrible at geography of the earth, and apparently could not remember the sky either. but still, he found that he liked the stars, and the whole idea of it. why not? what other posters were there on the wall? it was difficult to remember. Jim Morrison. The Silver Surfer. outside then the rain and the wind, the fall leaves sometimes twirling around as if guided by a spirit. nobody ever home, or hardly anyhow. emptiness. and no trouble there either, no bad people per se, but no good people either. nothing. a certain emptiness. perhaps it was because the past was over but the future had not really begun. open the window. let the night air go through the screen. sometimes angelic light or feeling. feeling. and actually sometimes the bad. what they call the Old Hag Syndrome, where a being sat is on your back and tried to steal your soul. she arrived twice. had to be fended off with will power. the first time she called his name. but was it real? or a medical thing that sometimes happened to people when they slept. music. soft music. plush carpets w/nightlights. the real stars out there, beyond the poster of such. but not as of late in those long nights, because the cloud cover made for an opacity. memory. nostalgia. ghostly. it wasn’t really eating, or sports, dating, or money or music or drawing or travel. what was it? sometimes something in the words read or written. sometimes that if something had to be picked. yes books. and the wind. books and the wind inside the night. the tarot often said the third eye was open. interesting. he wished no harm upon the ones that wished harm upon him. yet, the diviners say much trouble arrived for them. the wind goes through vines, over and around the old graveyard, and atop plum trees. the wind comes into the room and rustles papers, makes a pen and pencil to roll. friendship w/the night. prayer meditation vision mysteries. a group of deer must wander up the path. to appear just then in the dawn, in the very first inkling of the dawn when the light arrives so suddenly and has been borne and born, travelled and birthed. day was okay. night more spacious, wild, its capricious winds and restless clouds, its electric eclectic ephemeral ethereal dreams and the fall rains against the windows in the witching hour.

The Green Jalapeno On My Tongue

I think of the man who was very briefly in my life. I don’t want to think of him but I do. After all this time he comes into view but this time he is saying goodbye. The relationship doesn’t feel quite as magical for him anymore. It’s twenty minutes past one in the afternoon. It’s raining. There’s a chill in the air. I give up wondering who he’s with, what food he’s eating, if he still does his laundry and irons his shirts, or if the young woman in his life does everything for him, like the cooking and cleaning in his house. He was always interested in property and in having plenty of space around him.

You are a newborn. I count your magic digits. Your nose, lips, eyes and mouth are a requiem. You have eczema. I was unemployed. Across the valley’s face you came home. I did not expect you. I did not help paint your room a bright sunshine yellow. I regret that. This bundle. The science of sinking flowers. Magus visiting on a floating ship. Milk-fever on your brow. You cannot speak my name yet. One day you will hate me and say I hurt your feelings. This will happen as a self-aware four year old. I will feel ashamed of myself. I shouted because I was afraid. Afraid you were going to hurt yourself. I did not speak when you turned your head away. I felt afraid. You’re a good psychologist at five. You tell me a baby will make me happy. I believed then in hope like a girl. A man enters the picture when I am thirty-nine. The man I think I am going to marry. It doesn’t work out. In reality it doesn’t but in my head it does. I can hear something that draws my interest as I try to fall asleep. The dogs move in the dark. Their silent maneuvering was disconcerting to me at first. The one walks behind the other. 

Then it is the art of serving and helping during Covid-19. Everybody thinks it’s the apocalypse. I don’t think of anything but of getting out of this tiny isolation room they’ve put me in. Now two years seems like such a long time ago. I shit in this room and everyone can see. I pee. Everyone can see. That is not lost on me. My paternal grandfather came from Saint Helena. I was a guinea pig. When I was in the normal ward, whatever normal means, the male nurses could see us showering and would just stand there and watch. They had to. To keep us safe because of safety matters or matters of safety. 

The aftermath of the promulgation of the Group Areas Act in post-apartheid South Africa should be a matter of every South Africa’s interest. Might I add it is very much a disquieting Jungian path. 

To a sister in Europe that I feel as if I’m learning these things much too late. The things I needed from you. The things you needed from me. You needed someone to listen to you. Well I needed that too. It has come much too late. 

I conducted an interview with water in the swimming pool. The droplets of rain feel like ice on my skin. Underneath I am surrounded by giant tap roots and blue trees. A safe blue forest. I can live here forever like I did in high school. I was baptised in the swimming pool hitting forty by an Apostle Harmse. 

My mother’s face falls. My father interprets this as both cunning deceit on her part and lovely. Joyce Carol Oates frightens me. The way her mind is engineered to think. Her conditioning. Of this I am certain. Gravity. The leaf falls. You are something that I have lost and that will never be returned to me. 

I know the wildflowers of pain. It sucks. I know how to live in the moment. Sometimes it is cool to live in the moment. To wait for the eclipse of this sweet reversal of fortune. The edge of this knife-jab-twist in my sobriety. You, the gorgeous saint of a man who was very briefly in my life, I think have sufficient world peace now. The peace that you were longing for. That I could not give. 

I am trying to get my ficus plant to hit the ceiling. It means I will win a prize. The universe will just hand this to me and say, “This is your consolation prize for never having got married. Never having those children.” You never think of me anymore. This of course comes as no surprise to me and why should it? It’s been years. Nearly half a decade. 

I wonder how your coffee tastes in the morning that the woman now in your life makes for you. Does your lady make it for you in the exact same way that I did? I wonder how your doctoral studies are going, are you thinking of teaching again, taking up that vocation? You told me that you would only do it for the money. You also told me that you would only teach overseas. 

I wonder if you’re still inventing robots in your garage. After all this time, I still know pain. I am still writing sad poetry and books about the woman who never gets the man, who never quite gets it. Love or the domestic affairs of the heart. My parents are still alive. My father is eighty now, can you believe it! He outlived his university contemporaries. 

A very young child’s toys covers a mat. My brother has had a daughter since I saw the man who was very briefly in my life last. The child’s mother works at a fast food restaurant during the day. I take care of her daughter with my mother and brother’s help. The child is my consolation prize. It’s not raining so hard anymore. 

I joined a film forum. I have a film that is in production. Life is good. It should be good, right? But I keep telling myself that the man was my twin flame. That we were meant to be together. There are others, but what exactly does that matter?

What’s a Cambodian sunrise like? What was a Cambodian sunset like? What was life like now so far away from everything you’ve ever known, what you grew up with? I just wanted you to know that I still think of you sometimes and that when I am older than I am now I will probably still think of you. My tears, a forest of tears, are falling now but I have no idea why I am crying.

I sit in a darkened room drinking a woody cup of tea that nourishes my spirit and I think of my sister far away in Europe locked in a battle for her own survival. I think of my brother falling out of love with the mother of his daughter but who he still sleeps with. I think of my mother whose beauty has never faded, my father who still has all his mental faculties intact. The man who was very briefly in my life has faded from view. Once I walked victorious but now this man is in love with another. I still long for those inescapable moments where he held onto me so tight as if he would never let me go. My being and his were interwoven. It gave me courage and now nothing does. All I want are answers to my questions. Why did the relationship come to an end, why could he not love me, marry me, why could we not make it work, why did I fail to hold him captive and why was I so easy to replace?

Children are in my life now that have replaced the man’s absent love. My brother’s children. A son and a daughter. I am growing older, past the marrying age, past the age of having children. I dream of having a past in which the man is non-existent. Then I won’t have to think of him anymore.

There’s a sweetness to the day, to this light pouring into this winter’s day and the cold, pouring into my limbs and the whistle of the boiling kettle, pouring into this simple meal for a financially inept individual, an individual who finds it difficult to save. I bite into a green apple, make a face at its tartness, its sourness and chew. I swallow the apple and feel calm. The still air composes itself anew at the open windows. I watch a bird fly into the window and compose itself anew and fly off again. I get up and close the window and the thin net curtain in the sitting room. I remember a thin woman called Althea from high school who I didn’t like. I wonder what her children are like. If her husband makes her coffee and breakfast in the morning. She is a doctor now. She’s done well for herself but I remember how she used to make fun of me and pretend to speak like me. I remember her friends of Indian descent. How they seemed clever at life, had all the right moves and always aced their tests. With their high test scores, good looks, fathers who were an amalgamation of dentists, doctors, pharmacists, and business-owners who drove minivans or posh sedans to drop them off they seemed to have it made in ways and means that I did not have it made.

I think of feeling numb. Coming home in the afternoon after school and having no friends, nobody to speak or communicate with. I would wait for the arrival of my younger sister and brother and mother. I would sit in the front of the house and listen to CD’s. I wasn’t frightened of loneliness yet. I didn’t have words yet for that altered state of consciousness.

It is winter but it doesn’t feel like winter yet. It’s still warm outside. I feel hot under the blankets and kick them off me. I have regret on my mind that comes to me in waves. Regret becomes this kind of a personal attack on my sobriety and I think back to what the loss of the man meant in my life and the hours it took to produce published and unpublished manuscripts. Both were significant losses. My brother thinks he is in love but he has experienced much sadness in his life. The kind of sadness that is windswept and forlorn, torn between the wildflowers and the beating heart, the sun and interplanetary alignment. I want to ask the dark shadow of the man looming over me in the shower, in the garden, in my childhood bedroom, in the kitchen, in the lounge who he loves now but instead I lose my nerve and light a menthol cigarette instead. I blow the smoke out of my mouth, bite my bottom lip, and chew my fingernail, and stare out of the window remembering when he held me close and told me that he would never let me go. But he did. He did. Whether it was because of my chronic illness or disability or my poor mental health or my weak, limited thinking I will never know but what I do know as I stare into the past and into the eyes of this illusion that I had loved and given my heart to is this. I wish him well. Yes, I wish him well. I play Erik Satie and as the music fills this room I wish that the man is happy and in love with life. That after all this time he has found what I could not give him.

I write to his mother. I still write to her even though her son is no longer in my life. I still write sad poems about the end of our relationship. The end of this tragic yet significant love affair. She writes back. She is full of wisdom and spiritual insights. She tells me to move on with my life and forget all about him but it takes me a while to do this. It takes me years. I even find myself dreaming about him sometimes. In one dream we attend church together. In another I drove around looking for his house. I listen to Hillsong. His favourite band. I sing along. I lift my hands and sing and do praise and worship and then I think of him flirting at church, flirting in the workplace, in high school, in bars and clubs. It makes me feel better to think of him as the villain and myself as the victim. Sometimes I do think of how he has made me happy and then I smile and start to cry when I think of how I called him “Husband” and he called me “Wife”.

I made a bottle of milk for my niece. It’s the children that are important to me now. Other mothers’ progeny. My father and I watch cartoons with my niece. My father sings and does actions. I drink lukewarm coffee. My heart aches for something that doesn’t exist anymore. A love that might have been. It gives rise to a feeling of indecision. The clock ticks away while I sink into a lounge chair while light fills this room.

MARY

Mary had a little lamb.
It gave her indigestion.
And everywhere that Mary went
she had to use the restroom

LEPIDOPTOURISTS

Folding these my genitals into the soft privacy of the parched cocoon. Careful, Lust! Do not disturb that gentle dust. Lightly, precisely, park your eternal lips against my forever mouth, fasten firmly in place. Yes! Twin thoraces fixed just so! to allow free articulation of limbs in the moon's easy breeze, And, now, our skins unzip along spines, splurge toward the distant vacuum beyond the edge of the sheet, until your wings purple lurid under the lunar fluorescence iron themselves indistinguishable into mine (soft-yellowed).
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. More leaves in someone's unremembered book. All, the rest, is settled. Only our eyes bulge up, multifaceted and questing, from the petrified flatland. Until mourning dawn shakes again the pin loose and fossils rewake.

WHAT YOU WILL

You intruded my soul--
the whirlwind
amidst my feathers,
the typhoon
among my waters--

Some might call it love and, some, religion
but I’m satisfied to call it passion.

And then our thread despoiled,
the balloon
discovered fetters,
our garden
became our desert.

Wild/still. Static/ecstatic. Push/and/pull.
Anarchy/enchained. -- Call it what you will.

HERBERT’S REVELATIONS

Ancient George Herbert
--an only poet
known for piety--
when he was dying

was able to put
out another tome,
TEMPLE: SACRED POEMS
AND (it said) PRIVATE

EJACULATIONS!!
Oh, what a volume!
--The hypocrisy
of pious clergy

and their secret sins!
Exposé I sought.
But this was not that.
Just more holy din.

Honest George Herbert,
patient preacher-poet,
proved his piety
even when dying.

AMANUENSIS CUNNILINGUS

My tongue is your servant
you keep at your desk
to dictate to fingers
the words from my mind

in praise of your beauty,
in praise of your worth.
If only my body
consisted of tongues.

My tongue is your serpent
you keep for your cleft,
whose electric tingle
wiggles and entwines,

for love and in duty,
and promotes this verse.
If only my body
were made out of tongues.

Ladybug’s Journey To The Moon 

In moon’s soft light, a starlit harbor fell,

Across the beaches, I did bravely dwell,

Of mermaids dreaming, on the rocky shore,

My solitude’s cliff, a letter life implore.

I challenged tides, the ocean’s depths I’ve seen,

A swirling chaos, a nature’s vibrant scene.

The fire yearns to cross, the wind to softly blow,

Across the landscapes, where gentle breezes flow.

“In time,” the wise man said, “the curve pursue,”

Upon the waves, your destined path renew,

Until the dunes, you find your resting place,

Incandescent lady, with your artificial grace.

Tonight I’ll stay, no sleep will claim my eyes,

This dream’s embrace, I won’t let it pass by.

One wish remains, a touch, a face so near,

Life’s hand to hold, dispelling every fear.

The road is long, the search may cause alarm,

But my heart’s compass, keeps me safe and warm.

First, here’s an announcement from contributor Frank Blackbourn, who asked us to share in our publication:

I hope this message finds you well. I’m reaching out on behalf of a woman in our community who urgently needs support to avoid eviction. She is a neurodivergent artist and mother who started a small Etsy shop to support her family by selling unique items that promote acceptance for the LGBTQ+ and ADHD communities.

Right now, she faces a critical challenge. Her only means of transportation—a van she relies on for her business and income—broke down, requiring $1,700 in repairs to fix both the suspension and antilock system. Without this van, she can’t attend events, make deliveries, or earn enough income to cover mounting bills. Every day the van sits unrepaired, her financial situation worsens, bringing her closer to eviction.

The impact of this breakdown has been devastating, and she now faces the immediate threat of losing her home if she can’t get back to work soon. By supporting her GoFundMe, you’re helping her cover these essential repairs, restoring her ability to work and allowing her to keep her family safe and housed.

Her GoFundMe link is: https://gofund.me/fec95926

Now, for this month’s issue, the Thin Fabric of Time. Many cultures mark a time to remember ancestors or deceased loved ones this time of year, believing the veil between life and death was thinnest at this time. Modern physics draws on fabric as a metaphor for space and time as fundamental dimensions of the universe.

This issue’s contributors address cultural memory, family heritage, grief, life and death, and the different generations.

Federico Wardal describes a new museum of antique relics that will open up in Egypt.

Jeff Tobin evokes our inextricable human connection to the past and to personal and cultural memory. Terry Trowbridge recollects the strong and competent women of past Saturday morning cartoons while lamenting his own human weaknesses.

John Grey speaks to our human powerlessness in the face of our own natures as well as the external world. Yet, despite this, we can still believe we are the centers of our own universes.

Xavier Womack’s poetry advises a person to heal the generational wound of not loving oneself. Rubina Anis shares her paintings of women of varying ages standing together.

Dilnura Kurolova celebrates the treasure of friendship. Azemina Krehic draws on contradictions as a metaphor for the irrational beauty of romantic love. Mahbub Alam expresses how love can create its own likeness to heaven here on Earth. Stephen Jarrell Williams shares a simple but elegant poem on spiritual and divine love. Closer to Earth, Noah Berlatsky waxes clever about a clumsy but perfect love.

Duane Vorhees presents near-operatic musical and poetic images of sensuality as Eric Mohrman gasps out miniature vignettes of romantic tension.

Janet McCann reviews Chuck Taylor’s new collection Fever, observing not just the sensuality of the work, but the many restrictions and ‘prisons’ in which the mostly male narrators find themselves and what that says about modern masculinity and men in love.

Philip Butera uses an unfinished painting as a metaphor for a fleeting love affair, highlighting the tragedy but also the inevitability of its bittersweet ending. Taylor Dibbert’s poetic speaker once again sets off on a jet plane after a harsh divorce.

Sabrina Moore reviews Brian Barbeito’s collection Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through, drawing out themes of nostalgia, grief, and the search for meaning.

Ozodbek Narzullayev reflects on a passing school year with nostalgia and wishes to stay in touch with classmates. Sevinch Shukurova outlines various types of sentence construction. Z.I. Mahmud churns Indian and Anglo-Saxon cultural iconography together in a cauldron of speculative fiction that ends in effusive praise of Shakespeare.

Dennis J. Bernstein and Jeffrey Spahr-Summers collaborate on artwork surrounding themes of chance and gambling. Sarang Bhand, Marjorie Pezzoli, and Christina Chin present group collections of haiku and renga, three different takes on several themes.

Maftuna Yusupboyeva celebrates the literary contributions of Karakalpak Uzbek poet Berdak and his place within Uzbek folk and working people’s culture. Marjonabonu Xushvaqtova rejoices in her love for books and reading. Aymatova Aziza celebrates the cultural treasures found within libraries.

Yolgoshova Sevinch offers her love and praise for her native Uzbekistan as she would to her parents.

Marvelous Monday expresses a cultural group’s proud resilience despite poverty and injustice. Komron Mirza laments social and moral decline around him, yet resolves that the world is not yet ending. Rasheed Olayemi Nojeem laments corruption in his country’s judicial system while Jake Cosmos Aller decries the cultural ugliness of hate and authoritarianism. Christopher Bernard highlights the difficulty of choosing among political leaders with imperfect agendas and ideas.

Faleeha Hassan’s short story highlights the strength of a couple keeping their dignity under grinding poverty. Howard Debs’ poem comments on the reality of food service and on those who see the work as a game or a photo-op.

Dr. Jernail S. Anand reminds us that poets and cultural creators are as human as the rest of us, and urges people to be strong yet flexible, like water.

Doug Hawley relates his participation in a medical study on his capacity for balance. Cristina Deptula reviews Jennifer Lang’s new memoir Landed: a yogi’s memoir in pieces and poses, highlighting the quest for personal identity and space at the heart of the book.

Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa speaks to aging and learning from life as time passes. J.J. Campbell does the same, in his gruff and hardcore manner.

Giulia Mozzati-Zacco captures the scattered thoughts of a young woman nearing her death.

Mark Young conveys moments when the surreal enters our ordinary physical world. Maurizio Brancaleoni highlights humorous moments of life surrounding Halloween/Day of the Dead.

Patrick Sweeney proffers glimpses of the world and culture through sentence fragments. Texas Fontanella plays with words and syntax to craft prose. Saad Ali pairs original haiku with lesser-known historical paintings.

Later, Texas Fontanella plays with verbiage and syntax through disjointed text messages. J.D. Nelson highlights tiny bits of urban and wild life during fall. Rachel Bianca Barbeito crafts tender portraits of gentle puppies.

Turgunov Jonpolat outlines his volunteer work in climate ecology, made possible through an international educational collaboration. Muhammadjonova Farangizbegim Ma’mirjan discusses technology and gamification as ways to effectively teach the natural sciences, including ecology. Anna Keiko writes of psychological and ecological dreamtime and awakenings and the need to protect the environment.

Sayani Mukherjee recollects a languid and happy day in a small country village. Wazed Abdullah praises the steady presence of the stars. Maxliyo Axmatova reflects on the warmth, growth, and renewal brought by the sun.

Ahmad Al-Khatat speaks to the memories that live on in the minds of exiles from war, even on bright calm sunny days. Azemina Krehic reflects on the human cost of war and other violence to Bosnian women and girls.

Maja Milojkovic shares her hopes for peace among the world’s nations and peoples. Eva Petropoulou Lianou speaks to our universal human desire and need for love and mercy. Mesfakus Salahin describes the spiritual and human unity made possible through universal love.

Abigail George grieves over the loss of life in Palestine. Iduoze Abdulhafiz’ prose evokes the human trauma unfolding in Gaza. Jacques Fleury reviews Duane Vorhees’ poetry collection Between Holocausts, which grapples with that vast historical trauma. Daniel De Culla laments the grotesque tragedy of war on this Day of the Dead. Alexander Kabishev evokes the gross devastation of war through a tale of the death of a zoo elephant in Leningrad. Nuraini Mohammad Usman uses onomatopoeia to render digestion into poetry while urging world peace: making dinner, not war.

Ivan Pozzoni evokes the dark history among the beauty of his home Italian island. Alan Catlin describes varying levels of grief underlying a peaceful and beautiful place. Tuyet Van Do laments the human tragedies caused by recent hurricanes in the southeastern U.S.

Anindya Paul harshly evokes the loss of innocence in his poetry. Rukhshona Toxirova outlines ways for physicians to show compassion for patients at a tender age.

Isabel Gomez de Diego crafts images of childhood: a visit to a maritime park, a family photo with a young brother, dressing up for Halloween. Kylian Cubilla Gomez presents photographic scenes of nurturance: squash cultivated in a garden, children’s toys, Russian nesting dolls.

Stephen House grieves over and remembers his deceased mother. Graciela Noemi Villaverde grieves for the loss of her mother’s gentle spirit. Lan Qyqualla draws on a variety of ancient Western myths to lament the loss of his wife.

Nurullayeva Mashhura’s tragic tale of a neglected grandmother reminds us to care for our elders. Rahmiddinova Mushtariy offers praise for the nurturance and teaching of her father. Ilhomova Mohichehra comes to realize how much she values and respects her father as she grows more mature.

Michael Robinson recollects the loving fatherhood he has found from God in a piece describing his Christian salvation and personal journey from wanting to die to having a fresh new life.

Fhen M. crafts a vignette on a comfortable porch, a liminal space between the interior and exterior, inspired by change and transition.

Brian Barbeito speaks to the poetic and mystical meanings he finds embedded in each season, with wisdom in autumn and winter.

Chloe Schoenfeld captures the aftermath of a festive event, the small chaos after the elegance. Seasons change and time passes for us all, and no “mountaintop experience” can last forever.

Jacques Fleury shares wisdom from a teen dying of cancer to motivate us to live with passion and joy. Mashhura Ahmadjonova reflects on the whirlwind passage of time.

Mykyta Ryzhykh depicts a ghostly ship where all the mariners have turned skeletal, forgotten even by history. David Sapp also comments on our mortality and how others will eventually lose our memories in the swirling fog of time.

Before that happens, please take some time to savor this issue of Synchronized Chaos and honor each of the contributors by letting their voices be heard.