Flying Island

Stillborn Love Song by Norbert Krapf I love you when the dusk thickens, evening falls in every direction, and the dove coos ever more forlorn. I love you when October air turns crisp and smoke rises like the breath of angels from the chimneys. I love you, stillborn sister, when everything turns so quiet the only sound I can hear is the settling of snowflakes on branches above my head. I love you most when All Souls Day returns and the veil between your world and mine lifts and your spirit breath drifts back down to earth and touches these lips waiting for your kiss. Bio: Norbert Krapf, a Jasper, Indiana, native, was Indiana Poet Laureate 2008-10, received a Glick Indiana Author Award 2014 (Regional), and held a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis 2011-12 to combine poetry and the blues. His latest of 11 poetry collections is Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet's Journal of Healing (ACTA Publicatio

Anna’s Lament           And all at once a strange idea came to her: what if he had           ceased to love her?  Leo Tolstoy,  Anna Karenina To swim under iron and count, each day, the ways I am alone. No matter his touch, or not, no matter silence to my words. My nature, coreopsis, coreopsis in a world of stone. Too soon depleted, I choke on dried petals, drink morphine. Who knows such wounds, ignominy and a lost son? Wooden ties taunt, “What for?” and promise something new. I drop the red bag, drown my sullied body in an iron sea.             —by Wendy Vergoz Bio:  Wendy Vergoz is an assistant professor of English at Marian University. Her poems have appeared in  The Christian Century and Anglican Theological Review , and her poem "Unfinished, A Found Poem," written after 9/11, was read on the first anniversary of the attacks at churches in five different states. Vergoz participated in “Arts Kaleidoscope: Art, Poem

At the End of the Day by Barry Harris At the end of the day innovative, outcome-focused, out-of-the-box 21st century stakeholders stop ignoring the elephant in the room and just put the moose on the table. They know who they are: spot-on team players who step back and look at the big picture. The good, the bad, the ugly avoid a cross-functional disconnect to leverage a six sigma project that speaks to our vision which will then   transform the organization. Long story short, they will move the needle, aim high, pick the low-hanging fruit, take this sucker into the sky and land it on the Hudson! Bio: Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center . Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. A graduate of Ball State University with a major in English, Barry was founding editor of Tipton Poetry Journal, which has been published in print and online versio

Girl After Jamaica Kincaid By  Charnell Peters Always wait until the grease gets hot and test it with a pinch of flour; put your hand down close to the pan and don’t be scared of getting popped; it doesn’t matter what the label says, I mix these cleaners all the time and it works on everything; please do not mix those cleaners ; don’t scratch your cornrows, because they have to last; if you ruin them, you better do something with that head or no boys are going to like you; use a folded rubber band to hook your jeans when you’re too fat to button them; save all your clothes because you might be skinny someday; don’t have high hopes for being skinny one day; your ankles are so ashy you could start a fire; put some lotion on and the thick kind too; you better eat all that on your plate; you better wash the bathtub when you get out; you better keep out of his way; help me fold these clothes and fold them right too; don’t just ball them up and call it good; sweep up the kitchen floor;

                                         Sex Pistols—We Are All Punks!      by George Fish No, God won’t save the Queen    Though David Cameron might try to    before he gets his proper comeuppance from an outraged public that finally wakes up to the fact that it got hoodwinked    even of its own willful blindness and volition    But Johnny Rotten sang it well and properly, “We’re your future!”    whether you like it or not    In the ‘60s we shouted, “We are all Vietnamese!”    In the ‘80s and ‘90s we were all punks    In 2015 we are outcasts, low-wage robots who work our asses off and can’t make a living Yes, we are Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Arthur Wilson and Tamir Rice    and also Bernie Sanders, John Brown and Eugene Debs    ' cause we know you can be old at 25 and young at 75    it’s a matter of an open mind and open heart    No we’re not “pretty/pretty vacant/and we don’t care”    we care deeply    so we thank Johnny Rotten, Sid

The Last Tusked God No Longer Heeds the Prayers of Its Believers by Michael Brockley You seldom speak of the sins of the president with the five o'clock shadow. About sabotaged peace talks. About the lies cataloged in the library of the POTUS who smuggled missiles and bibles to Tehran. Later this year the last elephant will stumble into its birth beneath the shadow of Kilimanjaro. No matriarch remains to scatter the bones across the red earth in grief. Where does the tusked god find refuge when bees no longer pollinate the pomegranate trees? When the night call of gem frogs vanishes into the desert of Noah's fire? You read about the orgasms of presidents. About the demise of the Whig Party. You think about the times you were rescued by dogs. The final miracle of a god during its last gasp of compassion. You're thinking of fireflies. Of luciferin and the science of cold fire. Last year you read four books on economics and realized how your country has descended into p

The Altar in the Kitchen by Norbert Krapf The pink carcasses of rabbits and fox squirrels shrivel in pans of salted water in the sink. Sometimes cleaned bluegill, sunfish, or catfish settle in round bowls of water. Baking pans of rhubarb, blackberry and apple cobbler cool on the north window sill. Ball jars of peaches jiggle in boiling water on the stove to winter in the cellar. The kitchen is our Grand Central, the table our stark altar, and the priest, the farm girl who gave birth to us, feeds us, nurses us back to health, prays over us in storms. Bio: Norbert Krapf, a Jasper, Indiana, native, was Indiana Poet Laureate 2008-10, received a Glick Indiana Author Award 2014 (Regional), and held a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis 2011-12 to combine poetry and the blues. His latest of 11 poetry collections is Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet's Journal of Healing (ACTA Publications, In Extenso Imprint,

Red Coast by Luke Samra Summer lasted from July To the amber October skies I'll take care of your roses While you are gone How can you forget Those shadow chasing  Sunsets I had you blushing  Like a sunburn She carries herself  Gracefully with me to the coast The beach is just one big bed Bio: Luke Samra is a graduate of Marian University with a BS in Management. He is a tennis player and a musician.