Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 6.21 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have three contributors this month in poetry.  These three poems invite you into abstraction while also grounding you in everyday scenery, showing you where our environments meet nature and art. We hope you enjoy this issue and don't forget to submit your poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction (link in the tab above). We publish new issues the last Friday of every month. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors POETRY Laurel Smith: "During the night" Roger Pfingston: "Miss Tindall in a Time of Drought" Tony Brewer: "Top Tier Haiku" Follow us! Twitter: @JournalFlying Instagram: @flyingislandjournal  

    During the night                         Another fall, hip fracture: a new surgeon aligning bone and metal, charting a course for your 96-year-old frame on a vague sea, more dream than distance with markers     aimed to carry you    home, only you’re no longer  sure what home means: not the farm where you rode a pony and fed chickens,     not the house where you raised children and lost your mate, not the well-appointed rooms of your single life.   Wait: some forward motion, some backward drift, youthful hands supporting your back, calm as a mother with her small child,  something said softly then a door closed.  Journey and     dream confused, tangled like this too thin sheet wishing itself a sail, homeward bound. Laurel Smith lives in Vincennes, Indiana, and happily participates in projects to promote literacy, the arts, social justice, and public health. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including Natural Bridge , New Millennium Writings , English Journal , Tipton Po

      Miss Tindall in a Time of Drought Making their rounds, the twins appear to see what’s up.         On her knees, trying to save  the garden, she picks mint for tea,     crushes a leaf for their noses.         She shows them how to               deadhead daisies and zinnias.           When their mother calls         they leave without a word, leaving her to lean back  and rest, watching them go,  bright shorts and sneakers,  unlike last week’s sweet goodbye  when they handed her the sky  scribbled with rain and folded   like mail. She studies the hole  in the forefinger of her right  glove, wondering with a sigh  what it is she does that she  might do otherwise. Roger Pfingston is the author of Something Iridescent , a collection of poetry and fiction, as well as five chapbooks, the most recent being What’s Given from Kattywompus Press. He has poems in recent issues of I-70 Review , Sheila-Na-Gig , Main Street Rag , Innisfree Poetry Journal , Hamilton Stone Review , and Valparais

Top Tear Haiku      after Ethridge Knight garbage truck backs up tuesday morning 6 AM early chirping bird two used syringes dandelions in mown grass their seeds blown away parking lot puddle mirror, mirror in asphalt ocean of ego his crooked smile on the same side of my face photos of my dad Tony Brewer is executive director of the spoken word stage at the 4th Street Arts Festival and his books include: The Great American Scapegoat (2006), Little Glove in a Big Hand (2010), Hot Type Cold Read (2013), Homunculus (2019), and The History of Projectiles (2021). Tony has been offering Poetry On Demand at coffeehouses, museums, cemeteries, churches, bars, and art and music festivals for over 10 years, and he is one-third of the poetry performance group Reservoir Dogwoods.