Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 3.22 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have three contributors in poetry. The three poems in this issue of  Flying Island  reflect on varieties of injustice and human exploitation. Martin DeAgostino's "Sweep" speaks to the unnatural sorrow of political oppression and sexism. Tom Probasco's "Cleaning Out the Shed" recognizes that racism arises ironically from the deep spiritual darkness of the oppressor. And Steve Faye's "The Experiment" reminds us of the need to acknowledge the unique humanity of another, beyond any other purpose or agenda. We hope you enjoy this issue. Send us your submissions. Submissions info can be found in the tab above. Looking forward to reading your work! Thank you for reading, Flying Island Poetry Editor & Readers POETRY Martin DeAgostino, "Sweep" Tom Probasco, "Cleaning Out the Shed" Steve Fay, "The Experiment" Follow us! Twitt...

    Sweep Except for a heron I was alone at the river The water rippled like crumpled foil shiny and bright I shuffled a little watching the heron watching the river A small wake formed a V around its long still legs Ceaseless, insistent it made me think of the sweep and current of history its turns and eddies I saw Caesars vying for power drone strikes and keening women I saw the violence of men toward women I saw all of those things but the heron saw none It knew only the river braided and flowing that joins another that joins another that joins one more that runs to the sea Martin DeAgostino is a Midwest native who has lived in Indianapolis for 20 years, reading much and writing a little. It's been a good way to live.

Cleaning Out the Shed It was made of wood and held the coal that warmed the thick-walled brick building there beside it on those grounds, the one-room school eventually changed into an oil-heated house. We came when I was fifteen months, from Dayton out to the country, east of Xenia on Hoop Road. Moving as many were and would, away from advancing colored, a word most white polites used then. The shed was dark, housing for lawn mowers, tiller, tools and pools and cats and mice and sometimes rats when the felines were fewer and tamer and fed from a can. The shed was dark, even with the bulb above the bench turned on for seeing good enough in the shed. The shed was dark and usually not so you could play in there and not have it show on hands and pants. A good place to hide, make a haunted house, hear rain and put the balls and bats and my Flexible Flyer. And sometimes still certain beams of light, in certain places on certain days, bring me back to when we cleaned the shed. When my father...

The Experiment The stethoscope is cold making goose flesh on your abdomen: it was a       time of shivering.  Why is it that climbing on the examination bench, too many people       looking on, answers no questions, only makes you want to clamp       hold your eyes. They seem to have found something they wanted, the answer to why they       wanted you, but now they carry it away on a tray. A syringe, again a syringe, one day withdrawing something, the next day       injecting something.  Some thing changes in you.  Something you       were goes away. They said, Put on the gown, Dear.  Put it, do it, what the doctor said,       Dear.  There's a dear.... But the gown does not enclose you, it does       not hide what you want hidden.  That has been taken from you. Now all the samples of you spin in a c...

  Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 2.22 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have four contributors in poetry. We hope you enjoy this issue. Send us your submissions! There are a few more days of February fee-free submissions for Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction. Looking forward to reading your work! Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors & Readers POETRY Bethany Brengan, "Reader Desperately Seeking Poem" Matthew Miller,  "87 Jump Shots" Carl Boon,  "Assume America" Charlotte Melin,  "North Short Triptych" Follow us! Twitter: @JournalFlying Instagram: @flyingislandjournal Are you a writer who is from the Midwest or has close ties to the Midwest? We'd love to read your work. Submissions info in the tab above.  Support the Indiana Writers Center!

Reader Desperately Seeking Poem I. I am looking for a long-term  fling. I am looking to throw  you against the silences; I am looking  to be flung  into the center of Merriam-Webster, and to climb my way out, assay over Titmal . I am looking for you to start with a whisper, a rattle, a buzz, a breathy  death-shake, and then whisk  me away to a mythic field of lambs with phosphorus mouths. And after I have tumbled out of the vehicle,  lost my way, and been found, filthy and panting, you must bear me back to the closing  ratta-tatta-tat , crescendo-ing  into hot, fluffy blossoms over the top of a popcorn bowl. And finish—confusingly, inevitably—  by flinging all the kernels into the sky, for misshapen stars, fourth-degree kisses. II. In return, I promise to press flesh against page, my fingerprints against your lines, your open spine against my breasts, the rhythm of my in-and-out  to the blues of your stillness. . . . I pr...