Flying Island

A Wordy Sonnet by Jo Barbara Taylor He finds his words in ink drawn with pen, wordy landscape by Monet, still life of Vermeer, a portrait painted in wordspin wording the scene with pigment, palette knife. Iamb here, trochee there, word- smithing watchwords for a poet's eye and ear, the writer draws his sword, fences. Verb and noun, footwork to word the image clear. Jousting beckons the word-shy muse. The poet sketches, wordplay in tone and shade, discovers rhyme and meter in crossword clues. Words become ballad, ode, aubade, or sonnet, fourteen strokes, words emerging. The work of art comes in rewording. Jo Barbara Taylor lives in North Carolina, but is an Indiana farm girl at heart. Her poems and academic writing have appeared in journals, magazines, anthologies and online. How to Come and Go (Chatter House Press 2016) is her fourth book. She leads poetry-writing workshops through Duke Continuing Education, chairs the workshop committee f...

All Fools' Day by Michael Brockley You stare at your backyard through your patio window while drinking chai and thinking about a woman you last saw five years ago. It's April 1. The spirit of your white German shepherd still scampers after red squirrels and digs at the chipmunk dens beneath your deck. You sip your tea. The spice arouses your palate. You can hear your late shepherd howl at train whistles as the ghosts cross McGalłiard Boulevard. Your body sang to you while you sat beside her in the theater where a man took midnight walks through Paris. Where an actor found redemption after his fall from grace. Your chai is still warm. The woman will be bicycling through Key West now. Anticipating an afternoon sharing key lime pie with a man who resembles the French actor whose name you can never remember. In your disheveled yard, a cardinal perches on the lee side of a red maple to begin his spring courtships. Your dog sleeps in the peach tree's shade. Five years ago, sh...

Best of Both Worlds by Rosaleen Crowley Whether the sun shines or the wind blows You'll find me on an airplane going home Maybe you’ll find me on a boat or a bus Whatever the object of my transportation I'm on my way. Driven by love or fear of losing ties My vein is pumped and my heart is full, After soaking in the views and renewing senses My mind returns, and then it's time to reverse the sojourn Back again, my other home awaits. Two worlds exist and I experience parallel lives The hairdressers, the coffee shops, Friends and family equally shape me Except for sea and sand, my days are similar Mirror images of self and self, my world is my world. Rosaleen Crowley 's Irish heritage inspires her love of water, trees and open spaces. Her interest in poetry and drama influence her passion for painting.

Volunteer by Casey O’Leary If I help out at the nursing home, I see G.G.  once a week, so I deliver laundry, hanging cheap cotton button downs in identical closets. Raspy  barks overpower my shy whispers in conversation; thankfully old people sleep a lot. I nudge doors open with my  breath stuck in my throat, quickly stuff faded white t-shirts  into plastic drawers with trembling fingers. I bear witness  to the slow slide of aging, drool inching along wrinkled skin,  labored breaths marking the minutes. The laundry is light. My heart does the heavy lifting. From Casey O'Leary: "I am a poet and playwright living in Indianapolis. My play All Is Forgiven was produced as part of the 2017 Short Play Festival at IndyFringe, and I blog at afterthecloset.com. I work as a children's librarian in Mooresville, Ind."

Lost in Art by R E Ford “ I'm a broken man,” he says with a slur. “ You're coming down to go places,” she holds his hand. She's fragile too. Wavering stars in the corridor of poetry— I read the words and studied the music. It made me feel too indifferent and distant. People talk, I don't because I'm somewhere in between places caught off guard by the people who don't know the words that shatter the margin of the self, he thinks. “ I'm trying new things, not because I want to or care to, but because when the beaten down-ness of life got me, I lost it,” he says as she pulls him closer. She holds his hand. “ Good men suffer, great men get lost in trying to become something bigger than the talk of the town,” she kisses him. R E Ford lives in Brownsburg. He just published his first book of poetry, Justified Dreainess (The Nymphs Lit, 2017.) You can find some of his work on his Instagram page. ...

Dig by Jo Barbara Taylor       Cathédrale Sainte-Bénogne       Dijon,France Outside the simple sacred church, an open pit. My first archaeological dig. July sun throws shadow deep in the hole. Diggers in khaki shorts and dungarees pick, sift, brush in consecrated dirt with tiny tools like children ply to shape a sandcastle on shore. They squat, sit, kneel, pick, sift, brush, and wash. Each exposed layer, down, down to 500 A.D. visible as circles on a stump, tells the story of basilica, abbey, cathedral in dust, shards of pottery, in bones. The sweet smell of sautéed onion floats from a window across the street, anoints the pit. When evening shadow darkens the pit and the aroma of butter and onion reaches the sixth century, the pickers and sifters climb the scaffold, pass each layer of the plot, all the while adding a new chapter. Now I am a character in the story, doing the same. Jo Barbara Taylor ...

The Rainy Day by Keith Welch The rain on the roof                   The rain helps hide drums a soothing rhythm.          us from the soldiers. It's a good day for                      all our belongings are sodden reading or perhaps a nap.         and heavy- the mud slows us. I curl in my armchair                 Our food is wet-in two days with book and teacup.               it will be exhausted. The rain rolls off the                  Maybe the rain will extinguish roof, down the gutters.              our burning houses. My eyelids are heavy; it's          The river is swollen; many will a good day to stay in....

Running in the Dark by Maureen Deaver Purcell             Even on a mildly bad day, my father, a good German Catholic boy, would never think of disrespecting a priest. But this time the priest created a very bad day. My mother had described to the priest the person her husband became when he got drunk, and the Father dared her to prove it. He and one of his priest pals got it into their heads that they would have my parents over one evening and then get my father the drunkest he had ever been, just to see if it was true – that he was a bad drunk. On the night of the experiment, in his stupor, Dad broke a chair. I think he tripped over it. Afterward he fled the rectory and drove the block and a half home while our mother lingered to discuss the situation with the priests.             My brother and I were sitting in the living room watching television that night ...

How to Love Someone with Bipolar Disorder by Becky Armoto Every January morning, we’d eat breakfast from our wedding-gift waffle maker, shivering like abandoned children (and we were children) in our heat-controlled apartment, where frost decorated the inside of the windows in snowflakes. Wrapped in quilts, we sat on an old futon that doubled as both our couch and our bed. So broke and so in love, we believed entire diamond-bright galaxies revolved around us. How could we have known my six-month depression was more than homesickness? Ten years later, we found ourselves in marriage counseling, sitting across from each other like war generals. I looked at the Nativity set on the end table where cold, hard, chipped baby Jesus stared at nothing. I stared back at my husband and said, “I can’t love you anymore.” In spite of this, he carried me through the day to day realities of child-caregiving, shopping, cooking, bill-paying, and washing laundry as I lay in bed. Now, ten more years hav...