destined
a tall thin man
dressed in a tatty floral frock
shuffles along these streets each day
i pace down them too
on trodden grime
we separately seek our own reasons
for these solitary rambles to anywhere else
but our current this in now
weeks of passing each other
without word spoken
no nod or flick of friendly smile
no wink or silly boyish smirk
just numb private loping
and it unhinges me
pulling me deeper
into my pulsating core
of constantly wondering
what and why
yesterday
as our paths collided
on a muddled corner of maybe fate
i glimpsed a reservoir of tears in his milky eyes
i’m sure he heard the plea for answers
screaming out of mine
today
i can’t face him
entwined in his inane crawling
or tread those confusing roads to naught
i can’t move from where i hide
wallowing in the realisation of existence
and i’m disturbed by him and his input
to my distorted analysis
for i know as i gulp at a gritty breath
we are both destined
to experience what we do
ongoing
until our end
death-songs
slaughter equals
what the fuck
is going on
without compassion
i’m no sage
just ardent vego
in this
killing mess
i cry when i see sheep
in a truck
stare hard
loathe reality
catching fish
is like a murder game
of swimming beauty
lost forever
cooking flesh
smells
like replaying
death-songs
no argument
for sake of hard words
flesh takers don’t listen
won’t notice
so we tolerate
their catching and killing
and breeding more
living meat
for in their accepted
butchery
we are the freaks
never them
unless and though
there’s nothing wrong with having a mouse on your head
unless an eagle sees it and swoops down to grab it
a run of relationship breakups isn’t so bad
though if they’ve taken your money it’s terribly upsetting
getting lost in a storm can be quite exciting
unless it’s below zero and you’re trapped in the snow
being totally broke is not the end of the world
though it’s extremely grim if you’re starving to death
camping alone in the jungle is a fabulous adventure
unless being stalked by a hungry tiger
not remembering who you are is no big deal
though it becomes complicated when filling out forms
never having a poem published means very little
unless you’ve spent your life trying to get poetry published
old age is natural and is just how life is
though it’s quite disappointing if you have never felt joy
as dying sits before us we attempt to avoid it
unless you’ve been waiting for the end of the journey
unless and though
can be used in countless ways
though it’s best to experiment with how
unless devoted to what’s correct
Stephen House
Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright and actor, including two Australian Writer’s Guild Awgie Awards, and a Greenroom Best Actor nomination. He has had 20 plays produced, many commissioned. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council and Asialink. His chapbook “real and unreal” was published by ICOE Press. His next book is out soon. His poetry is published often, and he performs his acclaimed monologues widely.
If Not Ocean
Aggravated by some sort of storm
she pulses,
not woman nor sand.
I can’t tell, these days, what
woman looks like
or what her soft, seagrass stomach
should feel like in my palm
moving between the lines that tell me when I’ll die –
I mean, dictating my life. I shouldn’t
ask these questions.
What is a woman if not fluid
that drips through our fingers
and finds its way back under the waves,
gazing up, sea glass eyes, at mother planet?
Who will touch me again?
Who decides what body I will have
now. And in what hands.
Who is a woman if not malleable?
This feels nice –
Imagine, pale turquoise aquarium silk
that never struggles
or fights
or snags on jagged fingernails.
This is woman.
No,
is this living? Is this
a mammal’s biography – or the unborn eggs
of a polluted grandmother shark,
neck tied in plastic,
or is this a shell abandoned on the beach?
Is this the right kind of solidity?
Hazel is a sophomore in creative writing at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. They have work published in several literary publications, including Synchronized Chaos, The Weight Journal, and Parallax Journal, and have performed their poetry at the Youth Art Summit in San Francisco and 826 Valencia. When Hazel is not writing, they can be spotted cuddling their three cats, holding their python, feeding their tarantula, or rescuing insects from being squashed.
The Truth Has Scars and Needs a Coat of Paint
He has a personality the size of mainland China. A heart twice that size, if either could be quantified. Everyone he knows loves him except the one he loves the most. She tells her friends, "Why would I love him? Look how much he does for me now. How could he do more?"
Each day he wakes up dreaming she'll return. Each night he knows his dream has not come true. He hopes for better the next morning.
His friends don't want to say anything. They know that if they did he would be sad. The truth has scars and needs a coat of paint. Why won't anyone do something? They've all learned to tell themselves, "He has to want this change of heart; we can't do it for him." Same convenient excuse for those who face a drunk and lack the courage to confront. Convenience and comfort keep the world complicit.
One morning on a whim he glances in the mirror and recognizes a young face hidden behind the wiser eyes. He feels the urge to protect that child and learns he is inside him. The child begins to cry. The man he has become decides to rescue that innocent smile and polish it to match this moment.
He leaves the house, and people notice a different expression in his eyes. Freed of shackles, freed of myth, as if a rehearsal for another life, the same life that he almost lost.
He stops dreaming and begins to forge another dream, a softness, a younger self. A loved one from his heart.
Transition
She had a Rottweiler aura and a hostile resting face. Arrived late to the virtual meeting and proceeded to declare her territory. Others heard politely and mildly deferentially as she grabbed at what she did not understand. As if by instinct, an unspoken bond was formed among attendees who began to find things to admire in one another. Afternoon, replete with sunlight, overtook accumulating syllables that fell into a distance giving comfort. The center of attention shifted to a shared place where faces progressively read other faces and began to change into a unified resistance to the frightened one hoping to frighten them while gradually becoming irrelevant.
Martina Wore Her Oboe
Martina wore her oboe. It was her jewelry that set off pale silken fabric that further set off her labored cheeks that puffed out when she played. She expected the antagonistic fibers and the inevitable travails of sewing the reed and winding the red wire to hold it, knowing it would fray within a week. Just like her nerves that knew the drinking habits of her paramour, a lug who failed to bow to woodwinds. She had a trio that rehearsed together and performed beyond the metronome that unified their heartbeats and the fingerings. The man she was supposed to love would count the measures and the moments until cocktail hour that followed her performances. She knew they were not made for each other, nor was she made for the routine that overtook whatever life she might have had.
Her Bigness
She knew everything about everything and nothing else. She lectured on how to treat succulents and keep them alive. She did not train for marathons but knew all that runners should do. She preferred to stand back and reveal her expertise over taking action. She wanted a promotion and had supporters who saw in her a kindred mediocrity that made them feel safe. She had her windows done, her nails, and she bought shoes because she weighed too much to be stylish. She routinely cheered for dictators, feeling very much in common with their lonely lanes as people undeserving expected help and would not get it.
Babysitter
Once we were deemed adults, we visited her in the wooded home. She took us to her studio of wool with sections sorted by color and geometry. All those quilts had come from what she had collected here. She was usually hard at work stitching together warmth. Then as if by virtue of a sudden recess, she took out a vast collection of tiny wind-up toys that tocked along and bobbed their heads atop the table. She laughed loudly, revealing at last her favorite recreation. We laughed, too, disbelieving the level of pleasure she derived from hearing the little automatons moving along with no incentive needed, just that burst of battery fuel and her laughter and eye light.
Sheila E. Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Her most recent book is Golden Milk (Luna Bisonte Prods, 2020). Reporting Live from You Know Where won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition (Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland), 2018). Also in 2018, Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory.
Welcome to the experimental semi-monthly issue of Synchronized Chaos.
First of all, we stand with the people affected by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, as well as in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and everywhere else people are placed in harm’s way.
We encourage the readers and writers who enjoy our publication to write letters of support to be included in care packages to be delivered to refugees around the world by the nonprofit New Beginnings. Click here to write a letter online (anonymously if you wish) that will support and encourage a refugee family in their new home.
Also, PEN America campaigns on behalf of writers facing persecution for their nonviolent work. Click here to read and sign online petitions for different writers at risk. Also, the organization Free Women Writers is looking for volunteer editors for pieces they are collecting and publishing from women and girls in Afghanistan.
All are welcome to attend the Hayward Lit Hop, a multi-venue literary reading at 3pm Saturday April 30th, coinciding with and continuing after Hayward’s first youth poet laureate award ceremony. Several Synchronized Chaos contributors will read from their work.
Also please join us for the Audible Browsing Experience in Philadelphia March 24th at 6pm at Head House Books (our Association of Writing Programs (AWP) offsite event).
This month we reflect on our place within the larger forces that shape the world around us, but also our willingness to live as if our personal thoughts and creativity matter.
J.K. Durick writes of the tedium of suffering: war, death, disease, and taxes. Caleb Burphy laments injustice in the criminal legal system.
Doug Jacquier contributes travel vignettes focused on social and legal norms and the aftermath of transgressions.
J.J. Campbell observes the inevitability of various forms of everyday death and decay. Keith Hoerner conjures up images of remnants of people and places, probing the psychological effects of loss.
Ivan Jenson sends us humorous poems of star-studded dreams and downgraded expectations.
Aviva Derenowski references the pressure of too much familiarity, too much hardening of perspectives, that she found in her home country of Israel.
Lynn White reflects on what, and who, we choose to keep and toss aside, while Michael Lee Johnson explores aspects of the bittersweet life of a poet. Inseo Yang reflects upon the demise of an autumnal love.
Chimezie Ihekuna offers up advice for those who seek to become published authors. Santiago Burdon contributes a wry vignette about rendering one’s actual journey towards creative writing craft into actionable advice for teens. J.D. Nelson mixes up syllables into a technical concoction.
Jelvin S. Gibson rages at corruption and social injustice yet sings the praises of sunsets and poetic love. Mahbub also finds love in the gentle beauty of nature as well as in romance. His work acknowledges our human vulnerability and need to make the most of each moment.
John Culp experiences love as a pleasant distraction, something that makes each day smoother, while Aminanta Talawally captures the humble thoughts of a young woman whose first crush has inspired her to put her pen to paper.
Diah Youlo declares love for Black women, honoring their strength and courage and nurturing compassion. George S.K. Boakai, writing under the pen name ‘Compoze’, encourages us to embrace and express our feelings.
Jelvin S. Gibson shares a story of life change through faith, recovery from addiction. Michael Robinson’s work also touches on spiritual themes of salvation and redemption, and Arsi Rauf relates his reverent quest for the Almighty. Maid Corbic relates a fable of small-town justice, where even the darkest villain is not beyond redemption.
DETECTIVES RABSQL IN FOREST ACTION
The trail shows the events of two characters, a rabbit and a squirrel, loyally trying to open up to all that is happening around them because they do not like injustice.
The owl's nest is ruined and he assigns them them the task of finding out who the culprit is. Through the fog, they go find the culprit, with a lot of effort and happiness.
The wolf who is a villain likes to have everything and to sneak up in the middle of the dark when everyone is sleeping to take valuables and settle them somewhere far away so that no one sees them.
But the truth cannot be escaped, so with a little luck everything is revealed. It is really joyful that the villain on the quay realizing his mistakes, apologizes for everything and gives back what he stole. And on the quay, everyone is happy for the rest of their lives.
In a forest next to a strong waterfall where squirrels were often curious, one stood out in particular. She always wore a colorful suit on, not fur like the others, and she wore it proudly. She solved all the problems that happened in that forest and was often a judge for the final outcomes of the villains. She was always ready to help everyone in need, especially because after years of research, she decided to open her own space and thus employ another animal next to her as a collaborator. Her name was Charlotte.
She believed that she was a special person who gave the world the most beautiful colors, but that her talent could not have survived if she had been best friends with a rabbit named Michael. The two of them were really great personalities and they often gave their best to help everyone even when they were not on duty.
All sorts of people came to their detective office and invested money in them. They often did not want to charge for their services, and they were rewarded for their work. On the walls, one could really see an enormous number of plaques praising their efforts. One case they fondly remember, and it kind of read like this.
An owl nicknamed Shadow entered their office. She was so upset because her nest had been destroyed by a wolf in the surrounding forest where she lived. She cried that she was supposed to bring her children to a party, and now they didn't even have a home. She wanted justice as soon as possible, but also to finally put an end to that thief who often stole other shelters in that place, but also unfortunately killed chickens and ate eggs from other hen mothers.
What intrigued our detectives in particular was that they had never met such a person in the past, because they were sure that they had finally solved all the things around them. They may have declared that the end was certain, but they insisted that the problem would not arise again. And everyone was shocked when they find out about this news, because it is impossible to hide something in that place. By spreading information from each other, our villain began to be paranoid for sure, because he thought maybe now he had the advantage and they'd never catch him. And that gave him confidence because he is now popular. With his gray fur and big eyes, with a little bigger stomach and with a spoon and a knife in his hand he was ready to take everything under his wing.
Our brave squirrel and rabbit were preparing for this, both mentally and physically. They knew who they were dealing with. This wolf had caused problems before, but they didn't know how to react. Since they were little they'd wanted to save the environment, victory, justice and reconciliation. They wanted a place for their children, for the whole world. They put on their leather coats which Master Randy had sewed for them a few years ago before he retired.
They carried with them all the necessary things, as always; in his pocket he had a laser with which many animals were lured and successfully caught in trouble, a lamp to illuminate all the villains who were insolent to the environment. And a few tiny spy glasses, mirrors and more little things. And they set out on a journey when everyone was asleep, somewhere in the late hours, a journey of no return.
Knowing that they were in a difficult place, they wanted to hug for the last time. Because, after all, the wolf was ready to take both of them down. They were risking both their lives for the sake of the people. They parted reluctantly with tears in their eyes and set out on a new path, a path of history and glory. They prepared in a radical way, with a parade of songs of their own that they have created in their heads. Knowing that the world is now under their feet and that they are on a great challenge, they slowly looked for our villain.
They wandered for several hours through the streets without a goal, looking for any clear sign or symbol that led them to their final destination. The wolf's place was very villainous, where he stole all possible things from other animals without any shame. He was of the opinion that everything that was unscathed was his to take and that he would go further, into some new battles without a goal. He heard, as well as others. And he came from the middle of Russia, to the cold parts of us here in America to rule that area and to plant in everyone's head who is now the boss in the woods.
After a long time, our searchers for the villain came to an important trail, which was fresh. That encouraged them to keep looking for a goal, gave them hope that they were not left without a trace. And just when they thought that everything was fine and they finally had a reason to rejoice in something, the damn rain came and temporarily stopped them near the tree canopy, where they quickly got ready to rest due to extreme fatigue. A rest that may have been dangerous, but the squirrel and rabbit heroes trusted their instincts and decided it was best to take a temporary break.
With this news, they came back to the office the next day, where the owl was asleep from waiting for at least some results (she demanded that it be investigated immediately). Maybe that's was enough for the first night, which was turbulent and very much built on flimsy evidence, a little rain and the smell of a bakery that lured people nearby where they ate something after a lot of searching.
The drunken heroes thought that they had to work harder to solve the owl's mystery and that they would find the culprit, even though only one person was suspected, the wolf. He was the only one who ate other animals.
Police even started calling for dodo forest birds. Eighteen o'clock came the next day and everyone stayed in the houses under lockdown. The sky brightened, the evidence hid under the darkness of the general window, and the heroes had nothing left to do but continue on their way, even though they did not know where they were going. They asked the citizens of the animal town where they'd last seen the wolf and where. And no one had the answer to these questions, because the last time he came in a dream, so that no one could hear.
At the place where they stood for the last time, they said something in silence, whispering, until they heard some banging. Running through the bushes and through the forest full of burdock and moss, in the gloomy dark, they came to one house. They smashed that door, which had not been reinforced with steel, and found the wolf preparing to continue knocking down everything he wanted. And it was so strange to see him in the day! Justice was served.
The wolf was brought to the center of the city so that all the animals could find out what kind of villain was in their area, but also to sing a couple of songs to him because no matter what, they loved him. Growing up, they knew he'd been left to fend for himself. The happiest of all outcomes would be that he admitted he'd made a mistake and apologized to everyone and swore to the public that he'd be a better man and that others supported him to the maximum.
And as if from a fairy tale, our villain wolf started to give back to everyone what he stole. This caused tears and great applause, because they knew that anyone who does bad things can change overnight only if he has the will. And he thought, and still thinks, that stealing was in vain. He was given the opportunity to share with all the living things everything he dreamed of, in harmony and unity.
And our heroes were finally able to retire and realize that life is beautiful. The animals taught that peace and harmony is the goal of everything. They had mutual happiness and satisfaction at the end of everything, because the world is wonderful when great love reigns in it. This has been talked about and talked about, but the most beautiful thing is that this story is still passed down for generations, as rivals can be good friends and colleagues in this forest paradise, which brings gentleness and peace of mind.
Maid Corbic
Maid Corbic is from Tuzla, 22 years old. In his spare time he writes poetry that is repeatedly praised as well as rewarded. He also selflessly helps others around him, and he is moderator of the World Literature Forum WLFPH (World Literature Forum Peace and Humanity) for humanity and peace in the world in Bhutan. He is also the editor of the First Virtual Art portal led by Dijana Uherek Stevanovic, and the selector of the competition at a page of the same name that aims to bring together all poets around the world. Many works have also been published in anthologies and journals (Chile, Spain, Ecuador, Bosnia and Herzegovina, San Salvador, United Kingdom, Indonesia, India, Croatia, Serbia, etc.) as well as printed copies of the anthology of poems “Sea in the palm of your hand“, Stories from Isolation”, “Kosovo Peony” and others.
The Architect of Love
Autumn has me in solitude.
I dance over slaughtered maple leaves and find
A pond of sea salt under sworn season, where
Love plays by water.
My pale pacific is merely occupied by you—
Waves are crafted upon your presence.
Though, tiny heart of mine laughs it over
There mustn’t be any means I am in love,
Or believed so...
Until the ginger in your eyes write Us,
Vivid flames melted the winter, and
Sweet liquor canceled the world.
We always failed a goodbye.
Though, everything perishes one day.
Few seconds pass, and a promising bridge slides.
Midst sunset, horizon lures,
Shall we dance?
Words of phony fill the air with a sure.
Springs of past live eternal only if to be left
A lesson from the cherry-scented tango is all
I bear, and the abandoned cries in red-ed eyes
It is a reprimand for printing a blurry blueprint
Inseo Yang is a novice writer attending Idyllwild Arts Academy at Idyllwild, CA. Though her work has never been published before, she aspires to write a poetry anthology in the near future that inspires others to recognize the value of writing for making changes in the world.
e e starr
ship + egg = PLANO
way away
buy/oh
bio
nic
bio
me
wheat 1-2
ironed axiom
purr-ce
droughty
sinking have
mirror ROM. talking room
the breeze, a shuddered NOM
moore
walter-schick downes
a moon
amon-raw
bio/graf
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poetry has appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His poem, “to mask a little bird” was nominated for Best of the Net in 2021. Visit http://MadVerse.com for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado.
