Flying Island

Selections from A Year of Mourning by Lee Harlin Bahan, translator 279: Madonna If birds sing mournfully, or wind in summer coaxes faint applause from emerald leaves, or raucous, coruscating riffles murmur beside this flowering, lush bank that gives me somewhere cool to sit, consider love, and write, I realize I see and hear her, buried yet radiant and alive above, providing all my sighs a distant answer. “Why pine away before your time?” she says, sorry about the state she’s found me in, “Pain needn’t stream from your unhappy eyes “for my sake.   Day became unending when I died. The instant my eyes seemed to close, they opened to the light that shines within.”                                                 —Francesco Petrarca,                                                     Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 299: Villon Where did the forehead go that with a slight twitch sent my heart this way and that? Where are the beautiful eyelashes and the stars

[I dreamed you were dreaming of me] by James Owens           —after Andreea Ghita I dreamed that you were dreaming of me I was at once full of deer and foxes don’t come near I cried to you over my shoulder, laughing, but my arms were already moving through sleep that you refused to disavow too late , you said don’t you see, on my back arched into spring, their claws have twisted, seeking my mute blood . Bio: Two books of James Owens's poems have been published: An Hour is the Doorway (Black Lawrence Press) and Frost Lights a Thin Flam e (Mayapple Press). His poems, stories, translations, and photographs appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Superstition Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Cresset, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Stinging Fly. He lives in Wabash, Indiana.

The Rumor by Jennifer Lemming                  For Ezra Pound and his Cantos He took the murmur and ramblings that he overheard, and with his wistful and precise exclusion left only a trail reduced to the faint wisp of a rose petal on the wind or the bitter, spicy perfume of the chrysanthemum blossom, trying to distract himself from the echoes of the ghosts of gladiators marching in the crowd at the train station. Pound was alone in Rome with the Lovesick Blues, wearing blue suede shoes, walking and waiting along the Tiber River, waiting for his personal Caesar. He paused along the boulevard of not yet broken dreams. Wanting something he may not be able to have, falling back again on his poetry, his lover-words. Already at the end of his long walk the decision stay in Rome where Pound thought to follow the shadow of Caesar until he lost himself in rumor. Bio: Jennifer Lemming lived in Indianapolis for 14 years during which she won fir st place in th

  Harmonic Convergence of the Prose Poem Indianapolis, 2018 by Tracy Mishkin   Ten thousand prose poets, fans, and groupies converge at the Crossroads of America. David Shumate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fogging the Monocle , keynotes the Convention Center. Just months since Indy hosted Super Bowl LII Below and Andrew Luck fired a frozen rope to Fleener for the win. Is the prose poem by nature a revolutionary genre? In Shumate's hands, it is liquid anarchy. We've seen poems on tractors and football helmets. The reunification of Korea via prose poem diplomacy. The Theory of Evolution declared fact by the Southern Baptist Convention. In three months, Time magazine will call 2018 "The Year of the Prose Poem." For now, we're happy with an autographed Robert Hass t-shirt and a copy of The Rooster's Wife . Bio: Tracy Mishkin is an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn't Make It to McDonald&

Bashō’s Pantomime Blues by Christopher Stolle I  –  Snap blown wind smothers night— moon cannot hibernate like honey: bare thy bees. II  –  Crackle snow bleeds on tulips— cold crystals undercover hues sleeping: wake up, spring. III  – Pop step toward memories— anguish lingers quickly: break through this verdant March. Statement: “Poetry is what I write when I can’t find any other means by which to express myself. I still write almost all my drafts by hand because it forces me to consider each word carefully. I’ve been writing poetry for more than 20 years, and I’ve published poems in more than 50 magazines and three anthologies. But I still continue to desire to share my poems with people everywhere. You never know what difference you might make in someone else’s life—all because of a few lines of poetry.”

Night Sky at Lake Abanake by Nancy Pulley We awoke at 3 in the morning walked out after rain to see the black sky and stars all over as if some God had stumbled with a treasure chest. Straight from sleep, I rose up into the vast map that slaves used to steer themselves to freedom. My head still wrapped in mist, the mystical road stretched above me. I tried to open my eyes wide enough, to open my mind, to waken the sleepy spirit,   bring light down through the lens of understanding, suck it into the black hole of consciousness, name the glorious, the lucid, the spectacular common light that beams forever overhead, exists as I want to exist; vast, at the edge of knowledge, far from normal. I became dizzy and at the same time as centered as I would ever be, confused about my place in a dazzling universe, yet eager to start some ray of light across the inviting darkness. Bio: Nancy Pulley is a graduate of Indiana Central College—now the University of Indi