Flying Island

Emptiness Bound To Bloom “Emptiness is bound to bloom, like hundreds of grasses blossoming.” - Eihei Dōgen, “Sky Flowers” This morning I drew a card that told me to leave a little space when I eat a meal and all day I thought about leaving little spaces. In my stomach. In my heart. In my day. I left a little space in my to-do list, space for a pause that let the bamboo print on the shower curtain remind me how my mother loved the clumps growing in the yard, how it sheltered my dreams and stories, and how itchy it was to touch the papery sheaths of the culms. Bamboo survived closer to ground zero  at Hiroshima than any other living thing. Within days of the blast new green sprouted. I thought of the ground zero of my son’s death. How I move in a little space around it. How I try to be bamboo. -Zann Carter Zann Carter writes poetry and short fiction in Terre Haute, Indiana, and then works with fiber arts to get out of her head and back into the body. She co-hosted a mo...

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 8.29 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by Nancy Botkin , Harold Shaefer , and  Verna Austen . Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers All images are sourced from the Canva library from various artists. 

Last Stop This summer I can’t look at a bathtub drain without thinking of death— water circling the small dark holes. I can’t listen to a shopping cart with one faulty wheel. I’ve had enough of hospital beds with their machines  and monitors and HD TV screens flashing nature’s scenes—lavender fields, majestic mountains, waving wheat—meant to soothe. The clouds are building castles like nothing’s wrong. White water cascades over jagged rocks hatching the plan it’s always hatched.  Every cave is an anthem, a waiting room, an open mouth with no name. - Nancy Botkin Nancy Botkin's poems have appeared in previous issues of Flying Island Journal as well as in Poetry East , The Indianapolis Review , december , The Laurel Review , and elsewhere. Steel Toe Books selected The Honeycomb as their 2022 chapbook prize winner. Her full-length collection, The Next Infinity , was published by Broadstone Books in 2019.

Poetry Club What I want in a poetry club, Bactine and bandages for everyone.  I want fist fights to erupt, nouns thrown hard as a punch, upper-cut adjectives to stagger metaphors, chairs tossed at lack of rhyme, cat calls at over reliance on simile, raspberries to blat loud over unpronounceable words, sneers, with middle fingers attached at awkward turns of phrase, verbal abuse for lines that leap into your lap like bad dogs with muddy paws, stanzas that float like bees and sting like butterflies. Kicked shins over the improper use of  the semi-colon; members are to stack poetic sounding words  on their shoulders like Pringles,  dare someone to knock them off. Nobody leaves without a bruised ego, or a proud new shiner, the stamina to go a rondelet. This won’t be a tea party but a knockdown drag out  bard room brawl. - Harold Shaefer Harold J. Schaefer , (pen name, H. John Schaefer) writes poems, fiction and essays. He earned a BA in Fine Arts and English from In...

How To Clean Out Your Brother’s Car After He Dies Take a deep breath. Find his keys from the pocket of his leather jacket, your tote bag, and go to his parking spot. Open the door and sit inside. Feel the seat fabric against the back of your legs and smell the vanilla air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. See the halls cough drops he always kept in the cup holder and put them in your pocket. You will never use them, but keep them on your nightstand in a little heart shaped cup. Open the glove box and put everything inside your tote bag. Notice the CD's he kept here. Put them all in the tote bag. You will listen to the Frank Sinatra one that night. Start the car to push the button of the CD player to see if there is still one inside. The Doors. Of course. Turn the car off and find the empty case in your tote, place the CD inside, and snap it closed. Put it back in your tote. Notice his winter gloves tucked above the visor, take them. The leather scent reminds you of him....

Dear Flying Island Readers: Welcome to the 7.25 Edition of the Flying Island Journal! In this edition we publish poems by Margaret Fisher Squires , James Engelhardt , Daniel Lockhart , and Mary Ann Cain . Inspired to send us your fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction? For more info on how to submit, see the tab above. Thank you for reading, Flying Island Editors and Readers All images are sourced from the Canva library from various artists. 

Mercy of Errand I walk into the co-op grocery carrying two empty tote bags and the weight of the world. The weight of my clients’ fears and pain, their failing marriages and troubled children, their parents’ cruelty and indifference.   The burden of knowing that my friends and family  and body  ageing  will become burdensome. The pressure of worrying whether the money will last as long as our bodies do. The crushing rush of despair as democracy’s weaknesses and climate change engulf us, our damaged body politic   too puny and confused to lift  even half-filled sandbags into place. I run into friends. When is the next trip to the lake? Whose album release party comes up next? Did you know that  to remove the smell of skunk from your dog you need baking soda and laundry soap and at least a gallon of hydrogen peroxide? I eat lunch. Sweet pulled pork, creamy ravioli, lima beans with raisins, a rich...

Never Just a Game she tells me as we sit at the table,  the board before us a map of choices, a rack of identities to try on  and take off like a coat once loved, now thread-bare, pockets loaded  with memories like stones. Do we play against each other or the game? Easy enough to place my pieces wherever I want, sweep everything aside, but desire is hottest when it’s thwarted the tension building with each move weighed,  considered—the flirting comment,  the quick look down, a glancing touch butterfly soft along the curve of back. Almost the story of when we met,  the story we take with us like a scarf through meetings with friends, colleagues,  the familiar piece we can display and say,  Why, this unlikely thing?  We’re trying out new paths new ways to test and rest against the other, to find this small success or that as territories shift and pieces web their way across the board. We choose. And each choice tangles  with the others unt...