Flying Island

Windy City Hybrids (3 poems by Gerald Sarnat) Make Love Not Book Punkinhead roughrider for Chitown’s Yiddishkeit Mob on the illiterate immigrants’ turnip truck circuit wrangled a killing but no living wage playing havoc with landsmen ’s thin paychecks. Me I was raised on the Southside where till age ten I sold papers and numbers at a newsstand corner of 71 st and Jeffrey where Teddy paid moi in Marilyn Monroe nudie calendars that my Mom threw out. Barely survived Depression/ WWII/ Holocaust after which Pops moved us to the Golden State and there his core values evolved toward shady real estate while the mogul’s scion morphed into a granny glasses hippy. During college I returned to the old Chiraq hood -- Avis wouldn’t rent me no car-- for sorta peace rally at the old corner where Steinways’gone, Walgreens’ still there but most of the drugs were sold by gangs. Battle of the Flavors Back in the course of my paren...

My Lost Saints by Mary Redman Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes, waits in my shoulder bag. His ceramic image clothed in robes of cream and green, a walking staff in one hand, a frozen flame affixed to his forehead. I pull his five-inch likeness from its nest of tissues, lipstick, and chewing gum, turn him over to pull a coiled paper slip from his hollow insides, inscribed with the carefree wish of a sixteen-year-old girl. I’ve come to trade that wish for a prayer—I whisper a bargain to God and Jude— to spare my father’s life. A nurse beckons. I follow past the waiting room chairs to his dim bedside—alone, perhaps to say farewell. Fear wells. Here my childhood’s potent guardian lies powerless, enmeshed in a network of tubes and wires, pinned against a white hospital bed, set at an obtuse angle for his comfort, or the nurses’ convenience. His looks betray unthinkable pain, little awareness of my presence. Eyes ...

Ambulance Graveyard by Thomas Alan Orr Where the highway bends toward sunset, before the bridge and along the river, no lights flash, no klaxons wail. They sit abandoned, these chariots of mercy splashed with blood-colored rust, now slipping into the silt like a patient going under – a fifty-nine C-10 Suburban strewn with empty vials and I-V bags, a newer Kenworth on its final run when a tractor-trailer bashed it in. Crows like mourners gather atop the hoods as though on coffin lids. Offer thanks for service rendered, the gift of succor in distress, just as the foreign visitor said, amazed, “ In America the ambulance really comes!” But these will come no more, bereft of precious human cargo now, though haven of a different kind, home to skunks and coons and river otters leaping scattered tires. Wild blackberries grow in the grill, feeding squirrels, mice, and birds. Life prevails. Two kids salvage an old chrome horn that...

From Bleachers by Mary M. Brown We do not sit on grass much anymore, seldom on the slopes of river beds or among clover or dandelion heads. We do not sit on the saddles of horses, almost never settle on the benches of row boats or canoes. We rarely sit in circles now, or scattered in trees, or face to face, knees bent, eyes close-focused or closed to every thing but inner sunrise, the burning ball of our own singular light. About the poet: Mary M. Brown lives with her husband, Bill, in Anderson, Ind. She’s a Hoosier not by birth but by long residence and disposition, and she enjoys proximity to all six of her grandchildren. Retired, she taught literature and creative writing at Indiana Wesleyan for many years. Her work appears on the Poetry Foundation and the American Life in Poetry websites and has been published recently in Christian Century, The Cresset, Quiddity, Flying Island, and Justice Journal. ...

Sonnet for the New Immortals by Dan Carpenter Full lives, they lead Fine food, craft drink In the gym by 7 By 9, on the links For variety, a run Maybe 20 miles’ biking Or 1,000 by air To prime mountain hiking Concerts & football With choicest of seats With perfect friends With perfect teeth Yet – my modest lot against theirs shan’t be measured. They don’t read and they don’t worship; they wander a desert. About Dan Carpenter:  “I'm an Indianapolis freelance writer who has published poems in The Flying Island, Poetry East, Illuminations, Pearl, Xavier Review, Southern Indiana Review, Maize, Tipton Poetry Journal and elsewhere. I have published two books of poems, The Art He’d Sell for Love (Cherry Grove, 2015) and More Than I Could See (Restoration, 2009); and two books of non-fiction, Hard Pieces (Indiana University, 1993) and Indiana Out Loud (Indiana Historical Society, 2013).”

Editor's note: Robert Belfour was born Sept. 11, 1940. He died in 2015. Hill Country Blues by Norbert Krapf for Robert Belfour Robert, Robert, they say you are gone. They say your spirit is gone, way gone, but your music plays on and yes on. You grew up in northern Mississippi Hills. I grew up in southern Indiana hills. I never hear your song without a thrill. On the sidewalk outside Cat Head Delta Blues I stood peering at your face and your shiny shoes as you sat playing the hypnotic Hill Country Blues. Brother, brother, how you laid down that groove. You laid down that ancient mesmerizing groove that was anything but slick, light, and smooth. Somehow I hear a horse clomp, clomp, clomp. I see and hear an old horse clomp, clomp, clomp when you play your eternal Hill Country Stomp. About the poet: Former Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf's most recent poetry collection is Catholic Boy Blues, which was followed by the r...

Pond by James Owens I trick the scum to life with a pebble, and wonder, haloed by the water's trouble, will this carp, cynic and fat by its drain, still nudge among these slimy stones when I am perfected to naked bones, softening beneath the caustic rain? The wind, for only answer, harries a rattle of newsprint into the trees. Rutting dragonflies twist in couples, green as rotting bronze, and kiss their doubles. Bold again after a minute's quiet, the fertile frogs yell themselves hoarse by scraps of garbage, a discourse on their tadpoles' choreography. Old car batteries seep and bubble. The slow carp oozes through mud, mud-fleshed owner of the lower sludge, easing past broken bottles to draw little prey within the vacuum of its jaw. About James Owens: His most recent collection of poems is Mortalia (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poems, stories, and translations appear widely in literary journals, including public...

Judgment by Dheepa Maturi I know the angle from which to pull the threads from my skin. I know how to twist and anchor them on shards of my bone, how to unwind my organs and entrails — and thoughts — how to weave them all into jagged tapestry. It takes practice, but I've been doing this for awhile. You do not notice as I spiral my arms and fling the cloth. You do not notice as it descends over your face, torso, feet. At last, I can comprehend you through the underbelly of my organs, through the kinks in my dermis. You aren't kind, and you don't love me. Your words stretch and distort around the edges. I don't feel your pulse or your breath, but I see you. About the poet: “I am the director of a nonprofit fund in Indianapolis and a graduate of the University of Michigan (A.B. English Literature) and the University of Chicago. My poems and essays have appeared in Every Day Poems, Tweetspeak Poetry, A Tea...

Truck Stop Dog by Thomas Alan Orr Wingo lounges in the grass under tulip trees near the Ready Go truck stop along the interstate near Indianapolis. He’s headed for Denver (only he knows why), waiting on his ride. Here comes Toledo Jake in his big Kenworth T660. Wingo jumps aboard, head out the window, tongue lolling, wind tearing at his ears, Jake shifting into high gear, wheels whining. The open road is all that matters. West of Abilene, Jake is on the radio checking highway patrol with a tanker out of Bismarck, a flatbed out of Tulsa. Wingo slurps Cheerios and milk in the sleeping berth, content. They cruise into the pit stop near mile marker two-sixty-five and Wingo is out the door. On the knoll, a pretty cur wags her tail and off they go, Denver deferred, Jake shouting, “ Adios, hermano!” He sighs and gazes wistfully after Wingo, chasing love on the open road. About the poet: Orr's most recent col...