The sun 

Light shines in the sky
Makes the word happy.
People are happy
When the sun rises in the morning.

Crops keep alive,
People are centuries old 
When the cloud comes down.
When the sun rises in the morning.

It lights up the word,
Governs the whole body 
Rooster is thick.
When the sun rises in the morning 


Maftuna Rustamova.
Bukhara region 
Jondor district 
Ravot village.
30 school
8-"a" class.

JUST STUPID, I GUESS — OR BLIND —OR INATTENTIVE — OR…

“So, Jean — (somebody), I said, “do you believe in love at second sight? I mean — Rum toddy, Waitress, for her; I’ll have a screwdriver — going dateless ‘s obscene! Dumb! Big crime to do! Shouldn’t I have realized the very first time?”

VAN/ITY (for Natalya)

The happy inconvenience of forced reliance on these, the sole tools I own

for prying below your oh so frozen golden skin,

The patient persistent application of these blunt lips, this inagile tongue,

trying to learn entire the inarticulate soul hiding within —

peeling it away     layer    by     layer  

from the long & blonde cool slim softvanilla Ukrainy icecreamcone

lying frostdelicious  beside my pillow.

I (reluctantlustily) Bonaparte after you Kutuzov: 

who hawkodineyed watch for every movement upon your flanks and

          (engaging not, engaging, not) withdraw, withdraw

                   withdraw apace,          another pace—

all communication broken, 

knicking off my van/

    /                (engaging not, engaging not)

    /

    /                                till

    /

    /                                                    suddenly

    /

    /

    / confront we                :Borodino                     

    /

    / frontal attack into your center

    / bodies blood contorted everywhere

    / ferocious punishment on either side

                                  /

                        The c/ity of tsars ash against stars and ice

and our dreadful painful slow long extraction begins. 

FISHING WITH A LINGUIST

I never claimed my German was good

but I can conjugate worm and hook,

and I can understand your language

by knowing of your hopes and anguish,

of your cathedrals and your ruins.

We all communicate in Human.

I’m not fluent in Russian or Greek,

but I practice my Reason and Grace.

PEOPLE LIVE IN CIRCUMSTANCE

Prophets

coffin fears.

They undim the years

and make futures clear.

Each instant starts new infinities and we want to learn our world before it leaves and the present in constant process of departure is all of time we possess and we want to change reality we say but won’t imagine others until prophetic language speaks itself and inertia is the prophet’s strongest weakness.

Poets,

clothed in words,

are philosophers

who live as paupers,

ambassadors of imagination, and their hands acting as mankind’s tongues make

the machinery that molds humanity and their chisels read our marble’s manuscript to free its sheltering angels. The poets’ sort of characters presses their texts on the stubborn world’s soft tissues.

Healers

seek to cure

the pains of the world,

improve the impure

with powders potions pellets promises prayers prophylactics and prosthetics and redeem the work of their harbinger barbersurgeons, barbarous locks smiths, who balded us while tonsured ones whittled our natures away.

Teachers

reach our minds

by opening blinds

to show us our signs

bright enough to darken our sight, reveal our oceans’ icebergs, use their mistakes instincts and stimuli to instruct our eternal youth eager only to grow old.

Scholars

caulk the cracks

in the walls of fact

caused by careless lack

of application as their brains’ gray boredom yearns to learn about all the abouts to catalog and diagram and quest to close the gap between the sag of our intellect and the stretch of actuality, but our tired libraries strive for arson because we know when nothing is left all will be understood.

Rulers

view their role

as plugging the holes

in their fated goals

and they deploy their troops their laws their clubs their crusades their mobs and their parades to advance their cause of making the patch of our earth a carpet for their comfortable feet and leave us as shirazless as Shiraz. We say we need rulers to draw our lines straight but the rules rulers impose are intended for us ruled ones only.

Soldiers

know: to kill

they must always drill

and harden their wills

to deform enemy stones into tombs and they expect command and stratagem to stand up their haughty uniforms against opponent motley and bayonet resistant pacifists.

Judges

budge the law

from hammer to saw,

from justice to fraud,

they are the chaste prostitutes who should always be on trial for verdicts that sentence abstinence with masturbation and we must prepare to wear our loudest scarf to their dockets their gallows and their guillotines.

Prophets live in confusion, poets in fantasy, healers in contagion, teachers in ignorance, scholars in mystery, teachers in ignorance, rulers in entitlement, soldiers in destruction, and judges in wickedness.

WHERE DO THESE, OUR CASTRATI, GO?

On the march–

the rag, the drum, the bugle’s linger.

In the church–

the wine, the crumb, the seedless singer.

By the curb–

the road, the thumb, sundrunk and cindered.

Remnants of sacrificial souls.

…

Unemployed, Dating, Self-Esteem Issues

I wish I was naked with you,
but when I am naked with you
I wish I was invisible.

But you might find me by touch,
so I wish I were room temperature.
But you might find me by smell
so I wish I was sleeping in your bed for a week beforehand.
But you might find me by sound
so I wish to hold my breath for as long as it takes
for you to fall asleep waiting for me to come back
from wherever you think I vanished to.

But when I reappear, I would have no present
and you would think I had gone somewhere and returned empty-handed
and that empty-handed sheepishness
is why my self-esteem is so low.

That is why I am not answering your phone calls.


Disney women of the 1980s

The women of Disney’s Saturday morning cartoons were not princesses.

They lived serious lives and were empowered, but somehow we have forgotten them. We should remember three: Gadget Hackwrench, Rebecca Cunningham, Sunni Gummi.

Gadget Hackwrench was a S.T.E.M. gearhead who maintained an airship. She soldered spy equipment. She could drive, off-road, every vehicle that fit a mouse. She dressed in mechanic’s coveralls and was the only Rescue Ranger who wasn’t obsessed with their own image.

Rebecca Cunningham was a single parent who ran a shipping company. She owned a plane. She masterminded supply chain management, international trade regulations, and her daughter’s PTA. Her main employee was a man who starred in a movie without a single female protagonist and she was uncompromisingly his boss. And she did all of these things on screen.

Sunni Gummi infiltrated human castles and posed as a princess, boy crazy and a bit servile to a blonde rich girl until she learned some Hawthornian lessons about life. She became a talented squire, and devised plans on behalf of teenage girls that outwitted politicians, patricians, and her own favoured brothers. She was a savant flute player. She fought with monsters, bare-fisted.She fought with men, naively, but unflinchingly, a pawn played by an older human princess to deflect the violence of Machiavels.

But she represented more than a throwaway piece because no mere pawn could do these things in an urbane world and return home to a rustic family of druids and Gnostic secrets with dignity.

They are not prissy movie princesses. The role model women of Disney were everyday women of Saturday morning.

Let’s talk about working class breakfast cereal and break the chains of royal popcorn. Let’s ask where these women vanished to when we went to college.

Why did we stay silent about their absences when they were replaced in the 1990s by shows named after men like Squarepants, Doug, and other Nickelodeon disappointments?

Why did we let our fascination transfix us on the vapid Disney instead of the empowering one?


Two Magics 

Your fairy godmother has a spell to give you an enchanted pizza topping in your suburban driveway. She throws sparkles over a semper vivum.

It stretches and inflates into an egg on a stem. Voila Bipitty bopitty artichoke. A prince steps out of his Range Rover with a Vessi in his handcasting chill. 

Netflix looks around.


Terry Trowbridge has appeared in Synchronized Chaos before. He has some grant funding from the Ontario Arts Council and hopes that more poets can benefit from their programs in the next cycle (and Terry votes).

A Shining Star

A shining star up in the sky,

A distant light that draws the eye.

Through darkest night, you brightly gleam,

A constant guide, a whispered dream.

You dance on high, so far, so free,

A spark of hope for all to see.

In silent skies, you always are,

Our faithful, glowing, shining star.

Wazed Abdullah is a student in grade nine at Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh.

Of Sonnets and Skyscrapers

I wear this sonnet like a borrowed coat,

Stiff in the shoulders, seams pulled tight,

But stitched with threads from centuries ago,

Where ink met quill under a candle’s light.

I try to walk its lines, the measured pace,

Yet find the iambs don’t quite match my stride—

We’ve outgrown gallant rhymes and studied grace,

In favor of the blunt truths we can’t hide.

Now cities hum with digital confessions,

Algorithms dance in place of stars.

We measure worth in data and impressions,

Our loves reduced to avatars and bars.

Still, I patch this form, frayed though it may be—

Let it hold the sum of what we see.

Roots and Wings

I was born with roots buried deep,

tangled in the soil of a place

I never chose.

They said, grow where you’re planted,

but the earth felt like chains,

pulling me down

when all I wanted

was to fly.

You see, no one tells you

that wings come at a cost,

that to lift off

means leaving something behind—

a house,

a name,

a past.

I’ve felt both—

the pull of ground

and the ache of sky.

Each promises something the other can’t give,

each holds a piece of me

that the other can’t understand.

And now, I sit between them,

torn like a tree split by lightning—

my roots reaching down

while my heart looks up,

waiting for the courage to choose.

Maybe that’s the lie

we tell ourselves:

that you must pick one,

that you can’t grow

and fly,

that to be grounded

means losing the air,

and to soar

means forgetting the dirt.

But I think

we are both—

roots in the earth,

wings in the sky—

always tugged between where we come from

and where we long to go,

never quite free,

never quite still,

yet whole

in the longing.

Storms, Oaks, Roots

The sky cracked like a bell on the last night of autumn,

cold biting through the marrow, every bone humming.

We live like this—between breakage and bloom,

roots deepened by storms, reaching, always reaching,

downward into soil heavy with rain.

Oaks stand because they must,

holding what the earth gives—grit, flood, wind,

gathering strength from what tries to tear them apart.

We, too, are carved by what we survive,

the lines on our faces tracing the years of drought and plenty.

Pain sets its teeth in us, but still we grow,

hope rising stubborn as new shoots through cracked stone.

There’s no music to it, just the slow rise,

a kind of weathering in silence,

until we learn the language of roots,

how to drink deep from what remains.

Bruised but upright, we live as oaks live,

accepting the storms, holding tight in the wind,

and somehow, finding growth even in the breaking.

No Longer Here in Body, But …

You left in the middle of the night,

the house sighing in your absence, the door ajar,

as if you might return to fill the space again.

But silence consumed your place,

and we’ve learned to live with that weight,

growing larger by the day.

Your boots still by the hearth, worn thin with the miles,

carry the imprint of where you’ve been—

fields turned to dust, rivers that swelled and sank.

I trace the scuffed leather, hoping for something left behind,

a sign you’re still walking somewhere,

beneath a sky we both knew.

Absence doesn’t stay quiet,

it grows loud in the smallest things:

the kettle that doesn’t boil,

the coat never worn again,

the tools untouched, rust creeping in like autumn frost.

You are no longer here in body, but—

you remain in the turning of the soil,

in the way the wind presses through the trees,

in the stones you laid by hand,

one by one, until the walls stood solid.

We keep moving through the days,

because that’s what you’d want—

but the earth knows what’s missing,

and so do we,

every footfall a memory of where yours used to be.

Walking Your Field

I walked your field today, the one you tended

with hands thick from years of toil,

where earth clung to you as if it knew your name.

The furrows are softer now, untended,

but still they hold the shape of your labor,

your will pressed into the soil.

The air held a quiet weight,

a heaviness that comes from things left undone,

the half-mended fence,

the stones you set aside for later.

I stood where you used to stand,

looking out over what remains—

and what’s lost beneath it all.

I remember your boots sinking into the mud,

each step deliberate, as if every grain of dirt

mattered. And it did,

to you, everything mattered—the smallest seed,

the rainfall, the lengthening days.

Now the field feels like a question,

asking how long we can hold what we’ve lost,

how much we can grow without you here

to shape the rows, to tell the seasons when to start.

I plant my feet where yours once stood,

but the earth feels foreign, unfamiliar.

Still, I walk, because that’s all I know,

wanting something to rise from this,

like the crops you coaxed from the barren land,

year after year, with only your hands and hope.

Jeffery Allen Tobin is a political scientist and researcher based in South Florida. His extensive body of work primarily explores U.S. foreign policy, democracy, national security, and migration. He has been writing poetry and prose for more than 30 years.

Judge Santiago Burdon offers his new collection A Charlatan’s Aphorisms for review. Please contact us if you’re interested and we’ll put you in touch with him for a copy.

This is a Best of Collection of both past and new poetry by Judge Santiago Burdon. They were selected by dedicated readers and past publishers. Some have appeared in his books “Not Real Poetry” and “Tequilas Bad Advice Poetry With the Worm.” Judge Santiago Burdon’s poetry is a sophisticated slap in the face. The imagery induces you to clear your throat and shift your weight from one side to the other. Santiago doesn’t waste his words in an attempt to make you comfortable. As a poet he delivers defined grit and structured devastation. He speaks in the language of gasoline fumes and stale cigarette smoke. Always honest and fearless, never apologizing. Know that I am a fan.”

(Jack in the box popping out on the cover of Santiago’s book)

Now for our second October issue, The Shared Human Imagination. In this issue, we look to and draw upon our own creativity and love and that of the many who came before us.

Lilian Dipasupil Kunimasa reflects on life’s complexity and on the overlap between poetry and music. J.J. Campbell’s curmudgeonly poetry explores age, loneliness, music and regret. Murrodillayeva Mohinur mourns her rejection by false friends as Ilhomova Mohichehra celebrates the refuge she finds in her dreams. Umida Jonibekova writes eloquently of clouds and rain.

Diana Magallon crafts visual poetic pieces on the movement of the ocean. Dilnura Qurolova highlights the importance of ecology and environmental awareness. Brian Barbeito probes the worlds within worlds in out-of-the-way corners within nature.

Raquel Barbeito’s visual art stylizes nature-based images. Kylian Cubilla Gomez’ photography presents images of cultivation, humans carefully sharing space with and working with the natural world.

Ilhomova Mohichehra revels in the natural and cultural beauty of her Uzbek homeland and also her native region of Zarafshan. Nodira Jorayeva celebrates Uzbekistan’s rich and noble history as Mahliyo Sunnatullayeva reflects on the cultural heritage of Uzbekistan. Rajarbona Sarvinoz looks to ancient Uzbekistan, outlining Central Asian historical leader Amir Temur’s aqueduct engineering. K.C. Fontaine relishes the rich Latin culture of Chicago’s Logan Square.

Otayeva Dinora highlights the dignity and importance of the teaching profession. Rayhona Sobirjonova offers up praise for a respected teacher as Saydinqulova Elenora Olimovna presents solid life advice in the form of a letter to a friend and classmate. Barnoxon Ruxieva celebrates Uzbekistan’s well-developed education system, in particular its Barkamol Avlod children’s schools.

Bardiyeva Dilnura evokes the poetic beauty of the Uzbek language. Charos Toshpulatova outlines the importance and unique value of sign language. Abduvahidova Farangiz compares and contrasts physical books and e-books. Nathan Anderson describes the finely crafted musical language of Sanjeev Sethi’s poetry collection Legato without a lisp.

In a piece of literary analysis, Z.I. Mahmud discusses how Philip Larkin’s poem Whitsun Weddings depicts social and ecological changes in England after the First World War.

Mark Young probes an imagined world in a fresh set of his “geographies,” digitally altered photos integrated with visual art. J.D. Nelson peers at the edges of his world through a fresh set of monostichs. Jim Meirose sends up a quirky story on pleasure and its aftermath. Jake Cosmos Aller depicts a fanciful wild night whirling and drinking through the solar system.

Fhen M. speculates on how the element of mystery attracts us to Magritte’s paintings. Soren Sorensen shares a sunset image and a metallic melting clock, perhaps Dali-inspired.

Stephen Jarrell Williams sends in gentle vignettes of hope and faith while Mahbub Alam describes love as one of humanity’s lofty aspirations.

Mesfakus Salahin considers his psychological complexity and fallibility in light of a great love that leaves him humbled. Duane Vorhees reflects on memory, love, and the ironies of life. Lan Qyqualla draws on history and memory in his poetic vignettes of love and connection. Ivan Pozzoni orates in English and Italian on human history, love, beauty, and tragedy.

Michael Robinson speaks to the peace he found through a relationship with Jesus.

Xavier Womack offers love and respect to a spiritual mother figure embracing the world. Leslie Lisbona reflects on the death of her mother and the empathy she finds through a classic novel and the broader human imagination.

Rukshona Rasulova celebrates her deceased grandmother’s long and loving life as Murrodillayeva Mohinur contemplates her mother’s steady love. Maknuna Oblaqulova honors her parents and their love. Iroda Abdusamiyeva mourns her deceased grandmother and celebrates her life. Orinbaeva Lalezar Azadbay reflects on losses in her life, especially her dearly departed parents. Taylor Dibbert reflects on his deep love for his departed dog.

Holy Henry Dasere laments some universal struggles of young womanhood as Graciela Noemi Villaverde highlights women’s determined struggle for equality and safety. Hilola Abdullayeva discusses ways to psychologically support people recently released from jail and prison.

A. Iwasa reviews activist and anti-fascist professor Josh Fernandez’ memoir The Hands That Crafted the Bomb as an exploration of how to take youthful brash exuberance into adulthood. Dr. Jernail S. Anand warns us about the danger of words to ignite hatred and violence, how the computer keyboard in the wrong hands can be more dangerous than a bomb.

Ahmad Al-Khatat’s poetry evokes sorrow over the loss of love and human experience as well as life in wartime. David Sapp speaks to how ordinary people react to global tragedies as Alexander Kabishev continues his grisly tales of the brutality Russians suffered during the siege of Leningrad. J.K. Durick explores new poetic ways the world could end.

Eva Petropoulou encourages the world to choose peace and tolerance as Daniel De Culla urges the world’s people to end the shameful tradition of hate. Mykyta Ryzhykh laments environmental destruction, war, and a personal heartbreak in his poetry. Pat Doyne pokes fun at Donald Trump’s style and ethics in her poem of warning.

Jacques Fleury urges us to get beyond our fear and welcome the “other,” those unlike us. Bill Tope’s poems highlight the pain children went through before we understood learning disabilities and neurodiversity.

Childhood is a time of adventure and wonderment. Isabel Gomez de Diego’s photos show a small child experiencing new spaces: a ship preserved on land with a carved mermaid on the prow, a park train with a red caboose.

As we grow, we try new things, sometimes get disappointed, learn, and move forward. Panijeva Dilnavo Shukurvna celebrates the youth of Central Asia and expresses her wish for her generation to thrive and triumph. Rukhshona Rasulova urges brave and dedicated work towards our goals. Orzigul Sherova highlights the importance of motivation in reaching one’s goals. Alex Stolis’ poems draw on addiction as a motif and speak to waiting, hoping, and being stuck.

Dilbar Koldoshova Nuraliyevna’s poetic speaker reflects on how her heart and intentions were pure, even if her goals did not work out.

Maja Milojkovic encourages us at any age to embrace blessings in our lives, with the understanding that they are temporary.

We hope that this issue will be thought-provoking and a blessing in your life.