Flying Island

A Wednesday Night in Bloomington, Indiana by Sarah K. Ginter             It was the fall of 2009. Jackie and I decided to initiate  our  senior year at Bluebird, famous for their Wednesday night cheap beer. Jackie played "You Get What You Give” by New Radicals on her phone, and we sang and let the Bloomington street lamps lead us there, twirling over cracks all the way to the back of the line. We paid the $5 cover, and I winked and said, “I’ll get the first round.” I paid the whole 30 cents for two beers, and we weaved through groups of guys and girls standing and laughing to reach the stage. Jackie stopped to say hello to her friend Ryan who stood with a group of guys she knew too. She introduced me to Ryan, and I smiled looking around. When there was a break in the conversation, I leaned in and yelled in her ear, asking who the boy in the Birkenstocks was. “Andy,” she said then grabbed him and brou...

Falling, a field guide by Laurel Smith For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters, caution and prudence? Fall in! Fall in! —Mary Oliver Fall like the hands off a clock, knowing your new name for the hours will alter the caliber of darkness and light. Fall like a star, so fast so far you imagine the sky as song, words and tune so true you can already sing it by heart. Fall like a stone into water, ripples and shadows, minnows and yellow leaves: better than a wish, this stone with nothing more to desire. From Laurel Smith : I live in Vincennes, Indiana, and happily participate in projects to promote literacy and the arts. My poetry has appeared in various periodicals, including Natural Bridge, New Millennium Writings, Tipton Poetry Review, Flying Island, English Journal, JAMA: Journal of the AMA; also in the following anthologies: And Know This Place, Visiting Frost, and Mapping the Muse.  

Father's Day by Gerard Sarnat It had not occurred friends regularly do choose this day each year to send greetings and often books more than on my birthdays or other good times which is just fine with me to have that identity when I am out in our world where lost brother LCohen or now PRoth (will Dylan predecease?) show us how to find wisdom creativity. Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, has been nominated for Pushcarts and authored four collections: Homeless Chronickes (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), and Melting The Ice King (2016), which included work published by Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and in Gargoyle, American Journal of Poetry (Margie), Main Street Rag, MiPOesias, New Delta Review, Brooklyn Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Voices Israel, Tishman Review, Suisun Valley Review, Burningwood Review, Fiction Southeast, Junto, T...

New Mercies Unseen by Matthew Miller I Sometimes, when harvesting the garden’s cabbage or kale, you notice a small cottontail cowering, cornered within the grapevine. Though you have no weapon, he does not trust your intention, and burrows out into the thorns. II In a nest beneath blueberry stems, twisted and sparse like a hollowed out spaghetti squash, a kitten shivers, born naked and blind. You stop the spade well above his head, slide over to transplant strawberries. It’s mercy he never sees. III There are sometimes, also, when you are sipping dark coffee at sunrise, eyeing the quiet rabbit. He nips grass nestled in the asphalt cracks. Like a mystic praying alone, he pulls sweet shoots from this rough road, ears up and head bowed low. Bio: Matthew Miller teaches social studies, swings tennis rackets, and writes poetry—all hoping to create a home. He pretends his classroom at Bethany Christian Schools is a living r...