Flying Island

Punk Rock—A Love Song by George Fish raw a raging torrent angry defiant dissonant a highfalutin word—cacophonous a rampaging storm of music in three-chord rock format basic, crude, beastly an out-of-control wildfire showing society as nothing but a dumpster fire! angry and dispossessed myself, no wonder I love it! moved as I am by punk bands I’ve heard and seen live Sex Pistols, raging protest, defiance of a corrupt society they sing, “God save the Queen, the fascist regime, we have no future” and they are right in this, the gig economy with no secure jobs, only debt and despair Joan Jett delicious birthday retort to a shitty boyfriend, “ You need a trick, baby, buy it!” and in-your-face, “I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation” Ramones, of course magnificent variety over the course of years Detroit-to-Indy Ricky Rat Pack surprising harmony and lyricism also Indy, Hispanic punkers Fastid

Congratulations to the following Flying Island contributors who are nominated for inclusion in the  The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses XLIII . These selections appeared in 2017 in the Flying Island, an online journal of the Indiana Writers Center. The four poetry nominations are: The night before the inauguration, by Kristine Esser Slentz (May15, 2017) http://flyingislandjournal.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-night-before-inauguration-poem-by.html The Farm Wife, by Shari Wagner (June 5, 2017) http://flyingislandjournal.blogspot.com/2017/06/three-farm-wife-poems-by-shari-wagner.html Going Deaf, by Mary M. Brown (July 31, 2017) http://flyingislandjournal.blogspot.com/2017/07/going-deaf-poem-by-mary-m-brown.html Truck Stop Dog, by Thomas Alan Orr (August 23, 2017) http://flyingislandjournal.blogspot.com/2017/08/truck-stop-dog-poem-by-thomas-alan-orr.html The fiction nomination is: Pyramid Scheme, by Jim Powell (Oct. 27, 2017)   http://flyingislandjournal.blo

Dear Gladys by Amy Genova I’m sorry. Sorry mother named you Gladys. Sorry you were so beautiful. A Great White Pyrenees standing six feet on hind legs when largess of paws draped over my shoulders. Every day after school, you watched for me from my second story bedroom window. The stars of your eyes soaring in their field of snow. Black stratus of widow’s peak spanning a forehead, broad as a fleet. I am sorry for your pink tongue. That you had papers, but not litters of snowballs wagging round your feet. Mother fixed that. I am sorry stepfather adopted you. That we lived in a yard-starved townhouse. I loved to bury my hands in your galaxy of fur. Sorry, your big heart trembled when stepfather came home. Mother named you Gladys. After the divorce, they turned you over to a farm. I’m glad. But I’m sorry too. Amy Genova has been published in a number of journals: The Bad Shoe, 3Elements, R.E.A.L., Spr

The Scuffle by Andrew Hubbard Who would believe A coyote would slink Onto our front porch On a mild November night? Our husky flew through the door In a mixture of outrage and fury. They were matched in size. My dog had indignation going for him (And that’s not a small thing), But speed and ferocity Were all on the side of the coyote. The death bite was not far away When I got there with a handgun And shot the interloper twice through the chest. He laid down and died Spraying blood across the porch, His wicked teeth chomping, His eyes blazing violence Until they dulled and closed. Our boy only had light cuts On his lips and muzzle And one on his shoulder. Easy to dress, but he shivered And whimpered until my wife Found a codeine pill from when They pulled my wisdom teeth. Even then he cried in his sleep All night long. And in the morning He climbed into my lap And buried his face in my armpi

Home by Chandy John You fool yourself into thinking That the place is yours You possess the land and time The little restaurant on the corner Where the ladies smile at you The eight minute drive to the airport The bookstore owned by the local author The time, the space, the clear blue skies The sweet fall air The blush of purple on the bluffs at sunset But when you betray it by moving on All of it moves on as well As if you were never there   From Chandy John: I am a a pediatrician, researcher and author whose prose, poems and fiction have been published in Sojourners, Phantasmagoria, JAMA, The Pharos, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of General Internal Medicine and The Michigan Alumnus. I live and work in Indiana, Kenya and Uganda.

Amulets by Bailey Burnette We sit in these wine-stained, burgundy wingbacks, Cloaked in the velvet security of affinity, Unaware of the transcendent grit held hidden in your back pocket. With Black Magic in our cups, too much sugar, and the occasional Sigh of familiarity, destiny, I see someone new in you. I feel power in the touch as your gift falls into my palm, As though they had craved to feel my skin after all these lives, To smell my musk, alluring in its warmth and potency. The scent Of us. Brilliance permeates our space; it lingers, and we feel. We see, through hazy filters of mist and illusion, our ghosts among the coffee splattered wood floors and acoustic musings of artists, The other in rose-tinted petticoats, walking. You wave a fan as Soft dampness rests on your flushed cheeks, and I whisper a slow-motion drama. Pale, pastel earrings adorn my ears; and you touch them. An ephemeral twinkling, seizing our mystic, sealing it into a

by Jim Powell The mansion’s owner Mr. Harris is checking my work again, fourth time today. This safe room my boss Settle and I are building for him. He gauges the vaulted doorframe, the drywall hiding steel like smooth limestone masked the rough blocks of ancient pyramids. Harris sneers at me like I’m some pharaoh’s slave. He’s into Egypt big time, like I was in middle school. Glass cases show off his collection—figurines, amulets, painted potsherds. But downstairs there’s another secret room—reached via a panel in the library—that Settle built last year to protect precious, and my bet illegal, artifacts. I’ve snuck in there though its chill creeps me out. Papyrus scrolls, golden scarabs, god-headed staffs, a mummy’s sarcophagus—without the mummy, thank Isis! On one wall that crazy old artist Taft (he who newsworthily drowned in the estate’s pond) painted a mural with the god Horus’s head replaced by Harris’s own hawk-like face! The man is obsessed—with Egypt and himself.