Flying Island

                                       Jack-O'-Lantern Jack of all trades, of shivering, shriveling Indiana summer days & nights, the jagged mouth spews forth orange shadows-- grins syrupy candy corn sweetness, the hollowed head a  luminous void, its moist, fibrous, pulpy rind a house for a blackening candle stub--flickering Cinderella, her askew        ballgown petticoats reeking soot & ash--hot molten striptease of dripping wax, the jack-o'-lantern a leering promise of plump, uncouth        autumn days--pumpkin seeds spilling into meat grinders of the fairy-taled imagination. Hiromi Yoshida , one of Bloomington’s finest and most outspoken poets, was a semi-finalist for the 2018 Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize. Her poems have been published in The Indianapolis Review, The Asian American Literary Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Evergreen...

Pausing for Beauty Clawing at leaves to spread and hasten their drying before shredding, I can’t help pausing to marvel at the colors of their demise, a crazy quilt enhanced by the wetness of dew: maple’s red, green’s tenacity, Bradford pear’s purpled curl among the honey locust’s gold, kaleidoscopic sassafras, even the nasty mulch of the early fallen, their oily hues glistening in the tines. What a glorious dying off is this, so unlike flesh and bone’s pale palette. Roger Pfingston is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards. His most recent chapbook, What’s Given , is available from Kattywompus Press. New poems are appearing this year in I-70 Review , U.S. 1 Worksheets , Innisfree Poetry Journal , Dash , Passager and Front Range Review .  

Book-Burning They were convinced, and set about           destroying things That were not pure. They had no doubt           the fire would bring A better world. But soon they found           what is conveyed In books and manuscripts is bound           together, laid  Like corner stones. The more they burned,           the more those who Could still remember sought to learn.           Though they were few. Jared Carter ’s most recent book, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in Morgantown, West Virginia. His collection of new and selected poems, Darkened Rooms of Summer, is available from the University of Nebraska Press.

  The sky is falling Once, the sky dove down and devoured this town. Filmy green light at dusk and the sound of sirens slicing air. The sound is circling, looming. I’m breathing hard now, please let me in. House of straw, house of sticks, house of brick. Under the pressure of breath, it gives. Bramble of branches, bended bough. Trash and broken glass. Carrying kindling in their arms, they insist this is a table, this is a bannister, this is a home. Amy Ash is the author of the full-length collection of poetry The Open Mouth of the Vase , winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award and the Etching Press Whirling Prize. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and collaborative writing have been published in various journals and anthologies. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Indiana State University, where she directs the Creative Writing Program .

 Congratulations to the following writers, our Best of the Net nominees: " Hey, Moon ," by Doris Lynch " Harbinger ," by Susanna Childress " My Favorite Pen Pal of the Deepest Strokes ," by Distinctly Unique   " After the Fire ," by Hiromi Yoshida " The Photographer Considers His Mother's Gift ," by Roger Pfingston "Summer Solstice on the West Coast of Ireland," by James Green       About Best of the Net Anthology: The annual Best of the Net Anthology is a project of Sundress Publications . This project continues to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices who are publishing their work online. This anthology serves to bring greater respect to an innovative and continually expanding digital world in the same medium in which the work was originally published.

September Sunlight glows low through my windows, a changed position from high summer light, the golden hour that casts a robust yellow glare across roads, signs, rearview mirrors, blinding reflections surrender to sunsets sooner each day. Hummingbirds fatten for long flights, summer solitary they share nectar at last. Dry cornstalks stiffen in fields, waiting for harvest. Leaves fall to the ground. Pumpkin spice scents, apples ripen into cider amid bushels of fall festivals, perennial as forget-me-nots. Lylanne Musselman is an award-winning Hoosier poet, playwright, and visual artist. Her work has been published in many journals including Flying Island, The Tipton Poetry Journal , and The New Verse News , among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of five poetry chapbooks and a full-length poetry collection, It’s Not Love, Unfortunately (Chatter House Press, 2018).

Fountain          for Linda on her 77th birthday Hot summer nights after parking on the levee to watch and listen to the slow glide of barges up and down the Ohio River, Dad drove up Main Street, sometimes stopping to get fresh donuts or vanilla bean ice cream cones at Lik’s, but almost always to Garvin Park. Sis and I tussled to stand on the drive-shaft hump in the back seat to be the first to catch the glow. One hazy night she tried to convince me she saw it from as far away as the Woodlawn Theater. But always, when we crossed the train tracks at Maxwell Avenue, it glistened at the end of the long tunnel of giant elms that lured us in. Dad parked in the Braves’ stadium lot, stayed in the car with Mom, as we leapt from the back seat and raced to the fountain that flowered, hissed, and danced above us. As we edged up step by cautious step, first a slight chill,  then a fine mist tickled our faces.  Closer and closer, it pricked our hair  and the b...

Piano bench The only music we ever heard was the symphony of voices during Sunday family pasta dinners, clinking dishes in the sink, cabinet doors slapping shut. So, the piano and bench posed a question for years in the living room. Who sat there to play? Instead, they got piled with books, picture frames, flower vases. It wasn't until the old lady passed and her grandson hauled both of them away that the piano bench divulged its secret—scores of music she once played. Long ago in the dusty past her fingers danced waltzes on the keys. Her smile lingered in the pages at odds with the dour duty of feeding husband and family. There was a different gaiety once in that house, not that there wasn't laughter all those Sundays, but something she enjoyed enough to learn was stored away and forgotten in that bench. Until it was moved, the lid flopping open in the bed of the truck, and the wind picking up the yellowed sheet music,...

All This Chaos Bricks are flying and folks are crying, cursing  at cops who barricade the streets and chase fleeing protesters with tear gas and faces masked and buddy sticks raised with arms aloft, seeing that the straight blue line pushes forward against the masses they perceive as unruly. Lest we miss the point of all this chaos, the injustices pile up from time immortal and grievances are rife with grief and tears. Mothers have sobbed into dank, dark spaces; wives and offspring have cursed their losses, cried and begged for God’s saving graces. Marjie Giffin is an Indianapolis writer who has authored four regional histories and whose poetry has recently appeared in Snapdragon, Poetry Quarterly , Flying Island , The Kurt Vonnegut Literary Journal, The Saint Katherine Review, The Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, Through the Sycamores, The Blue Heron Review, and the anthology The Lives We Have Live(d) . One of her plays was produced in the I...