Flying Island

Manifest Destiny by George Kalamaras Feel free to induce me. Press your breath against my breath. Stick your finger down the lorikeet’s throat and expel the sleep medicines. Ask me for a blanket and I will produce a thread. We can each hold an end and vibrate a song in praise of pioneers. The Conestoga part of my heart can only let you in a little. I will gladly feed you beans and lard, watch the flames pony-prance untamed       shadows across your face. We have the same connective tissue inside our more-than-private bodies. It resembles a very long river, difficult to cross. If I were an antelope, you might be a prairie hare. If I a sheep, you, an Australian cattle dog. We have known one another throughout many incarnations. One time I came to you as lightning, you, the fierce, almost-soothing rain. Bio: George Kalamaras, Poet Laureate of Indiana, is the author of seven books of poetry and seven chapbooks, including Kingdom of Throat-Stu...

words away (in three parts) by Ryan Frisinger words away once upon a time, i moved down south, met a girl who never shut her mouth, so i finally had to kiss her words away. words away, pt. 2 we crossed the world in maps and pictures, goddess shrine was my bedroom fixture, book of poems and telephones, we were never more than words away. words away, pt. 3 until, the ghost and star of both tattoo and heart pointed north to where a happy ending, happiness in need of mending, happy that it’s finally ending are only words away. Bio: Ryan Frisinger is a professor of English, holding an M.F.A. in Writing from Lindenwood University. He is also an accomplished songwriter, whose work has been featured in numerous television shows, such as America's Next Top Model and The Real World . His non-musical writing has appeared in such publications as Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, The MacGuffin, and Punchnel's. He resides in Fort Wayne, India...

Kinnell at Butler U., Feb. 6, 1989 by Dan Carpenter Perfect poet’s presence      Galway limp white dress shirt dull brown hair finger-combed raking his brow heavy hands and gentle voice a seamy-faced Gus Hall drunk on angels I drink in his beauty for free in a lecture hall packed with lit students under duress           signed in        penned and I contemplate the abstract and the concrete along a straight diagonal line –           at the far end Kinnell       pawing his glasses           singing of swifts and frogs rescued           when one has been a long time alone . . .           at the near end      a row ahead of me       ...

by Keith Krulik             We all have obstacles to climb, personal barriers or demons to get over, physical or mental challenges to overcome. These are the things that build character, that turn followers into leaders. The question I pose is this: How much can you endure before you cease to build character, before you don’t build into a leader and are yourself destroyed? How much can you take?             When my headaches began over two decades ago, I felt my body as a blanket, a thick, heavy quilt. I hung on a clothesline as Evil stood beside me, wielding a baseball bat, inflicting pain every few seconds, over and over. Back then the pain was just beginning; improbably, it seemed less intense as now. Over time and the continuous beatings, the blanket has worn thinner.   In those eight thousand days, I have transformed to a thin sheet, something even a homeless pe...

Crow Hour in Bloomington IN by Hiromi Yoshida That dreaded hour when they start flocking together—ruffling their black rag feathers, debris       of the long winter days—scattering across the greying sky—intense with needless       exclamation (raucous cacophony), heedlessly dropping scatological calligraphies like Jackson Pollock scrawls across the sidewalks of Tenth Street leading to       Crosstown in Bloomington IN. Bio: Hiromi Yoshida has been described as one of Bloomington's "best writers" by Christopher Harter, editor of Bathtub Gin, and as one of Bloomington's "finest and most outspoken poets" by Tony Brewer, co-founder of Matrix organization. Winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards, Hiromi Yoshida's poems have appeared in Borderline, Evergreen Review, Bathtub Gin, and the Matrix anthologies of literary and visual arts.