Flying Island

Head Up           by Manon Voice ... shoulders back. Don’t tell them how you struggled to get out of the book laden bed impoverished with broken poetry hooks ringing over your head a quarter widowed wine glass you took with an antidepressant and the taste of your own salt. How you fed the dog and didn’t yourself. How you barely breathed in the shower And clothed yourself in war black because it was easiest to hide in. On the way there was no song somber or sultry enough for the trip, everyday how you survive the loneliness of the driver side the overwhelm of that much control between the breadth of your hands. Don’t tell them how you count miles as the making of a life and numbers grow on you slowly edging you out of risk. Don’t ask yourself “W here have you been? ” after all the “good mornings” and dirt coffee taken with emails. No one after noticed how your legs hang from the desk chair nor ever touch the floor,...

Three poems by Norbert Krapf: Meeting My Grandson in Regensburg A whole Popo cupped in a hand a tiny heart beating against my chest and puffs of breath kissing my neck, I look down upon an innocence asleep and would live long enough to love and protect and sing it forever. Cheerios in Bed in Berlin You are in bed in Berlin and smiling brightly as you hold a yellow box of American Cheerios your Colombian mother bought you as special treat. In the next frame your head is tilted and thrown back, mouth wide open, as you salivate your circles of O oats! Little things delight you the most. Little man who savors what is small and not always easy or cheap to find, you readily give yourself to showing how deeply you appreciate what comes your way. Your smile is your expression of gratitude, your thanks come out baked half German, half English, and your Love is expressed Wuff-oooh! You don't want to be anywhere else. Your favorite munchies are in ...

Restless Night drags to a close. At dawn, the hospital is waking. with equipment clatter ,  hallway chatter,  meal cart’s squeaky wheel, breakfast on a tray-table,   meds being fed,  doctors rounding patients, bed rumpled, alarms  if I get up, staff rollover  at 7. I sit up, note  where I am, wish I were home. I  look out the window   as molten gold explodes on the horizon, fills  the seams in the landscape, blankets the hospital, sucks  all the air, overflows all boundaries, slops  over the edges,   spangles  the earth. – by Ed Alley From Ed Alley: "I woke up in the hospital after treatment for pneumonia. This poem resulted. I've always been fascinated by words, what is said, what is meant, what is left out. Poetry challenges me to go deeper into words, to make them come alive."

Winter Mornings on 17th Street by Samuel T. Franklin The sky tumbles to Earth and shatters to ice. Snow folds like colorless oceans and shifts, greedy, across the trees. The creek shines clear and clean as wiped porcelain. A man in dark wool studies the frozen currents, drops twigs and pine needles on the ice and tries to conjure some prophecy of spring. Wind slips subtle as a thorn through jackets and gloves. I do not know this city, and the ravens are quiet. The man in dark wool stands, hopeless, the twigs piled at his feet, burned by invisible fire. Samuel T. Franklin is mostly from Indiana, by way of Clayton, Terre Haute, and Bloomington. His first book, The God of Happiness (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), was published in 2016. He can be found at samueltfranklin.wordpress.com.

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://flyingislandjo...

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.