Flying Island

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 5.22 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have three contributors in poetry. We hope you enjoy this issue. Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? Send us your work! Submissions info can be found in the tab above. Links to each piece in this edition below. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Poetry Editor & Readers POETRY Becca Downs, "Peace Offerings" Aydin Akgün, "White" Cloe Watson, "Flash" 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!

Peace Offerings it’s early enough windows still black I see myself when I flip the switch so quiet I can hear faint buzzing of kitchen light heat cranks on, down the street a dog barks to be let inside I can’t hear the door but it’s quiet again and I imagine her at the foot of a man outside the wind presses its face to my kitchen window, envious of steaming coffee and my gentle aloneness– I can’t see him  but I know his scent, feel his cheek on mine I’m reminded of doves how they’re never late, not really, and the odor of olives rotting, shriveled on a branch half-forgotten, perhaps in a box in my closet. I stand at the window so long my face fades with pre-dawn black, morphs into a fence,  a small tulip tree budding like a teen, a garden plot waiting. Becca Downs is a poet, freelance writer, and MFA candidate with the Mile-High MFA program at Regis University. Though currently residing in Denver, she lived in Indiana for 30 years and still considers herself a Hoosier at hear...

White The Kodak smile of my mother,  the evening drink of my father,  the milk moustache of my baby brother,  the painted walls of the small kitchen,  the sheepskin rug of the living room,  the pressed collar of my uniform,  the broken chalk of the classroom,  the round buttons of my first suit… And then, the bright surprise on the x-ray, the large tumors on my spine, the cotton sheets of the hospital, and finally, the shroud,  that misty shroud that covers it all  before everything turns black.  Aydin Akgün was born and raised in Izmir, Turkey.  He graduated from the Lycée Saint Joseph in Izmir and moved to the United States in 1995. He received a B.A. in both International Relations and French from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2000, and  an M.A. in Creative Writing in both poetry and fiction from Johns Hopkins University in 2009.  He lives and works in Washington D.C.

Flash  Your hands on my first digital camera, your nails so round and soft at the capture.  What am I then? Ripped ballerina tights or a half-released bun? Just don’t let me see. I want you to do it, girl—he showed me what bodies can do, and now, my hands don’t belong on anything. I am 11, and already I wish to fracture the universe with a flash. Let us be Then, let us be  the arm you used to shoulder me into the frame, into you. You can’t imagine what parts of a man can be stored  in a silver box. That insistent arm of yours has kept me alive. Cloe Watson is a graduate of the MFA program at Bowling Green State University. Her work has been published in Blue Unicorn , The Windsor Review , Oakland Review , Grand Little Things , The Racket Journal , Wingless Dreamer , Beyond Words Literary Magazine and Defunkt Magazine .

    Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 4.22 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! We have four contributors in poetry. We hope you enjoy this issue. Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? Send us your work! Submissions info can be found in the tab above.  Links to each piece in this edition below. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Poetry Editor & Readers POETRY James Green, "Passage to Egypt" Joel Showalter, "Letter from the Parking Lot" Angela Williamson Emmert, "Handprints on the Walls of Ancient Caves" Robert Manaster, "Late Season Slump" 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!

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night,  and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. Matthew 2:14-15 Passage to Egypt A Jewish husband and his teenage wife scurry like prey into an alleyway and steal along the shadowed side, then splay against a wall while spotlights slice the night. She grips her newborn son against her chest as he begins to stir, and soldiers near.  Against the night she feels the weight of fear, in darkness sees its face, then bares her breast to nurse the child so he stays silent while the soldiers pass and leave behind a bearded man and bride alone to find  a passage to an Egypt with their child while armored trucks and tanks in columns roll  through Mariupol.  James Green is a retired university professor and administrator. He has published five chapbooks of poetry and individual poems have appeared in literary journals in Ireland, the UK, and the USA. His website can be found at www.jamesgreenpoetr...

Letter from the Parking Lot One of the sparrows  near the dumpster  doesn’t see me until I am too close, and he  startles, in a paroxysm of feathers and gravel, propelling the tight fist  of his body skyward,  hurtling, missile-like,  up and over my right  shoulder. And I too am shocked, stopped mid-step, not by this blitzkrieg action, but  by a reflex that rises in me, quick as any  creature’s: to reach up  and block the unseen  arc of this bird’s flight. I find myself wishing for a baseball mitt— me, who hasn’t swung a bat in twenty years, who as a kid was always sent to the outfield, where I could do the least harm—today I want the chance to pluck this line drive out of midair, not for some crumb of redemption, no, this limbic impulse feels deeper. Perhaps it is  that old, original urge: to capture those who have          what we do not, to fix  the moth to the mounting board...

Handprints on the Walls of Ancient Caves Was it a grandmother’s  work, an old woman  gathering the children at the wall, their lives ever expanding like lungs  taking in air, blowing stone  on spread fingers covering  the wall in crushed ochre,  a field for hands, a world  formed around them, held open?  The grandmother paints to live in the space made of children’s hands.     * A baby riding in the crook  of one arm and a toddler  escaping the other, I am in  love with myself, my body  flawless for the hunger  of a child, for the pain  of a child awake and lonely. I have grown nerves  to probe the dark corners of a cave or a living room.  I tingle, push my finger into the mouth of a child, scoop out the lucky penny, metallic scent and a glimpse of the small ochre tongue.     * The front door opens. The house takes a breath, sighs when they leave. Ochre but for the placing ...