Flying Island

Pull Me Home     There is no seed left  in Mother’s maple. No leaf left to fall. No root I haven’t stumbled over sticking from the sod. There is no word to call down lightning, no thunder in the cloud, no rain on the horizon, no train to pull me home. There’s no need to look higher than the silo. There’s no balm for these hands left bleeding till they’re dry. I walked hard, so hard all through the night, determined to pull myself home. There’s no stone, no sunken ship beneath the rocking waves. No buoy I can cling to, no solid place to stand. I’m tired, but I’ll tie myself to a gust of river’d wind and wait for seed or leaf or reaching root  to pull me from here to home.   Jenny Kalahar is a used & rare bookseller, novelist, and poet in Elwood, Indiana. She edits and publishes Last Stanza Poetry Journal. Her poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies. The 2022-2025 Poetry Society of Indiana Premier Poet, she also leads Last Stanza Po...

                               Congratulations to this year's Flying Island Journal Best of the Net nominees! Also a special thank you to our editors and readers for all their work for the journal. Winning entries will be announced near the end of January, 2022. For more information on Best of the Net, visit: http://bestofthenetanthology.com/ POETRY "During the night" poem by Laurel Smith https://www.flyingislandjournal.org/.../during-night-poem... "Rainwater Hair" poem by Steve Brammell https://www.flyingislandjournal.org/.../rainwater-hair... "My Shame is the Bowl of Duck's Blood Soup" poem by Natalie Solmer https://www.flyingislandjournal.org/.../my-shame-is-bowl... "Racket" poem by Amy Ash https://www.flyingislandjournal.org/.../racket-poem-by... "The Dolls of 2020" poem by Jenny Kalahar https://www.flyingislandjournal.org/.../the-dolls-of-2020... "P...

      The Dolls of 2020 Even the dolls have turned white-haired at first from shock  and then from unending at-home grooming, no judging eyes upon them  except through edited electronic captures Even the dolls in the background of video chats and meetings have given up their fine dresses for comfort, and even the dolls on shelves are dusty and have lost companions in the virus But we will return one day to collect them under our arms, bathe them in communal rivers, clothe them in designer frocks, and let them wander  on their plastic legs from their houses, hair trimmed and dyed  any unnatural color of their choice, walking stiffer among the crowds, breathing laboriously without their masks Jenny Kalahar is the author of fourteen books and the editor of Last Stanza Poetry Journal . She lives in Elwood, Indiana with her husband in an old schoolhouse full of books. She is at the helm of Last Stanza Poetry Assn. and the publisher for the Poetry Society o...