Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 4.26 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by Martha Sherick Shen , Daniel Thomas Moran , Thomas Alan Orr , and Robin Gobetz ; creative nonfiction by Susan Pines ; and fiction by Sally Harvey . Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers

A Poet’s Hymn One day a tree grew    until the ax drew        blood and the tree became pulp                       became paper                         became poem                 became crane and flew away.   This flat life        thin as paper wings words                a poet's hymn and when folded fast          by fertile hands:                   a frog                     an owl                         a crane   to fly away on bended wing         to seek    at   Least 10,000 words of peace          no voice will utter     save on soaring wing          a silent prayer               a wish to sing.   And so transformed       i fly this once flat life         has died   in peace as she who wings her words  a feast       and folds her hands     and then         became a sign of hope:            an origami crane. Martha Sherick Shen is native to Iowa. Born into an  academic family, she was labeled a slow learner years before dyslexia was understood. She did not read until she wa

The Giant That Fell on The Man            26 Dec 2019—Hiker Killed by Falling Giant Redwood in Muir Woods Two hundred feet  is a very long time. Four feet across, by an application of π , must be a full dozen  feet round, more rings than an Indian wedding. Subhradeep only desired  a long walk along that path,  that courses an untroubled way thru Muir’s red-hearted cathedral. The tree, having survived  the saws of ten thousand lumberman, the campfires of great armies of Boy Scouts, and the cacophonous horrors that  attended the second millennium, Wished only to remain plumb,  long enough to reach a few  more branches, up and up thru the ancient shadows, to prospect  for the Gold of California suns. In the end, it was only the  weight of raindrops, and the insufferable consequence of time, meeting a man who had a tender curiosity about a place of giants, who took five steps too many, or maybe five steps too few. Daniel Thomas Moran , born in New York City in 1957, is the author of sixtee

Night Life in Fountain Square Midnight passes. He sees the dance begin, this pale young man, blue-haired, tattooed and pierced, watching the doe and her small mottled fawn with a possum, sprayed by the Fountain’s mist. He marvels at the lean coyote, shy gray shadow loping down the Avenue by moonlight brighter than the urban sky. The summer drought has drawn them now toward rippling water to relieve their thirst. This hip young man of the galleries, clubs, and lofts, aware perhaps that he is blessed, and just before his giddy wonder ebbs, for the first time hears the rustle of trees, and lifts his baffled face to feel the breeze. Thomas Alan Orr writes and raises Flemish Giant rabbits on a farm in Shelby County, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Sun, Hobo Camp Review , The Milk House , Twin Bill, and Northwest Indiana Literary Journal.

The Dinner Party At the typical dinner party  you may discover  that a singer or  a painter can garner  guests’ attention  with a respective solo or  some color photos, but if you’re asked,  do not admit that  you write poetry  unless  you want to see  countless sets of eyes suddenly shift to admire  the detritus of meats  and cheeses scattered  about the charcuterie board,  an unmistakable sign  of marked disinterest,  a party’s unenviable  equivalent of a collective cold shoulder. Robin Gobetz attended Missouri State University. She’s a member of the Indiana Writers Center as well as a poetry group. She resides in Indianapolis, IN.

Waxing and Waning Daddy stoops next to me and chews on an unlit cigar. “Do you see the man in the moon?” He points to the bloated white orb ruling our south side Chicago street. I make out lopsided eyes, a nose, a mouth. Daddy calls out, “Hello, Mr. Moon.” Looking back at Daddy, I echo, “Hello, Mr. Moon.” Then Daddy lights his cigar. The smolder skews my nose and twists up to the sky. --- At a glance, you know whether the moon is waxing or waning, growing or receding from full. It’s a matter of which side of the moon is lit on its silent, perpetual passage from wholeness to invisibility.  --- Some years later, Dad shakes me awake. “Men are walking on the moon,” he says. My two younger sisters and I spin around him like satellites and into our living room universe. My polyester nightgown scratches the pimples on my back. I study the pockmarks on the lunar surface, inches away on TV. Astronaut Neil Armstrong bounces off the ladder and says, “That’s one smal

                                                                                                                                               Tick Tock   “Topic?” I asked my mother.   But she remained silent. She’d always been the talking   topic genius. Now I was. “Snickers,” I said. “Put them in the freezer, then slice them really thin,   thin as skin, and let them melt in your mouth. Like holy wafers.”               “Good,” Mom said instantly smiling. “Now take half the holy wafers, shove them in a   Twinkie and microwave them for fifteen seconds.”               My mother and I pretended to be “fat buddies” when we played “Fatso.” Suddenly she   snarled. “I’m sick of hearing you hold forth on fixing-it-slowing-it-down-what-we-should-try. I   have my own plans for my life. Cashew-chocolate-fondue. Your turn.”               “Fatso” had been one of our favorite Michigan cottage games ever since we saw the   movie “Fatso.” We replayed the same