Flying Island

Today (July 2) would have been the 86th birthday anniversary of Richard Pflum, a longtime fixture in the Indianapolis poetry community. He died on March 15. Several friends and colleagues honored him by submitting poems. Dick, as close friends called him, was a founding member of the Writers' Center of Indiana (now Indiana Writers Center). He ran the semi-monthly Poetry Salon, a feedback group for poets, and emceed the monthly An Evening With the Muse, which featured a guest poet and an open mic. He loved to frequent open mics in the city, often garnering respect from spoken-word artists. His collections of poetry include  Richard Pflum: A Dream of Salt (Raintree Press), A Strange Juxtaposition of Parts (Writers' Center Press, Indianapolis), The Haunted Refrigerator and Other Poems (Pudding House Press), Listening With Others: Poems Under the Musical Influence (The Muse Rules), and Some Poems to Be Read Out Loud: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press). Besides poetry,...

Time Spent with My Father by Rosemary Freedman 26 bluegill were placed on my stringer and entered into the fishing contest. I was six. They snapped a Polaroid of me with that smile wide as a canoe, my small fingers holding up the line with my fish shining like silver Christmas ornaments and taped it to the bait-house wall. Now at 50 I recount that story with the joy of someone who had won a Nobel Prize—only to have it pointed out that I had cheated by scooping the fish out of water with a Styrofoam cup. The shiny tiny dinosaur-looking creatures gulping for breath like fat diabetic chain-smokers telling the last chapters of their stories. And what happened to the other children? Those line casters who patiently waited and caught nothing? Perhaps they stared at my tackle-box prize the way women stare with envy at designer purses they will never own. It was true, I was a cheater. I thought my father loved taking me with him, d...

All Memories Are Really Half Memories by Rosemary Freedman All memories are really half memories; a pie without the smell of the pie. A photo of you fishing without the sting and swell of mosquito bites. The lake with small granite colored waves and we cannot recall the name of the boy who drowned there, or even that he drowned. We think back and see all the clear faces, but they were never really clear, because the sun was almost completely blinding. And this is how it is, our brains on perpetual auto-correct, fixing the broken half-faces. Correcting all the flaws. Tricking us. Sometimes we wake up and all that is left are uncorrected proofs. The half face we could not see is filled in with the imperfections, or left empty to show what never was. Sometimes we see just a blur. The photo someone took when putting the camera into their purse. The memory we did not pay attention to— like that one girl who sat alone in the cafeter...