Flying Island

Jaynie by Jared Carter Under the bridge, not far away, lived Jaynie Dean, Who had no other place to stay except between Two railings stuffed with random rags and cardboard. Sacks, Containing clothes, and plastic bags filled up the cracks. Content to have a place to call her own, she froze One night. A trash truck came to haul away the clothes. Jared Carter ’s most recent book is The Land Itself , from Monongahela Books in West Virginia. He lives in Indianapolis.

San Souci by Mary Brown I am a large quiet bird I am a newly washed window opening onto the loveliest fog I am a comma, a saga that needs no hero, a long movement adagio a mime, silver faced and unphased I am a loose, gauzy gown I am a giver unable to begrudge anyone anything, sweetly disabled by the others in this roomy moment I am petals unfolded species unidentified I am an elegant cursive ink looped in coos Slowed, I yearn only for what I already hold, arms unburdened I am a casket, a pocket, a cup I am a coin unspent content just to be saved Mary M. Brown lives and writes in Anderson, Indiana. She taught literature and creative writing at Indiana Wesleyan University for many years. Her poetry appears on the Poetry Foundation and American Life in Poetry websites, in Plough, Third Wednesday, Quiddity, JJournal, and many other journals and magazines.

Farewell Fanfare in B Minor by Tim Heerdink  All the horns blow simultaneously in tune for the ones being marched to a still moment. Let the singers serenade with their swan songs while the majority pray that wood can triumph over flame. The Sun shall rise on the very last day, waving its rays to welcome Earth and its terminal inhabitants. Hell, the birds may decide to whistle as well in rejoice. I’ve heard one network has an orchestral broadcast set to play Nearer, My God, to Thee when the sky begins to fall. It’s also been said that a band used the same hymn to calm the doomed who couldn’t escape the Titanic. Someone must have taken note and thought it not their time to depart. Surely, there’ll be others running from Death or glued to the silver screens as often is the case, watching overpaid suits quickly lose their thought process as pools of perspiration mixed with tears blind them from the present. There’s no hiding from the dark angel forever. Instead of joining i...

Hiroshima & Nagasaki by Hiromi Yoshida The flash The crash The ash. Decimation was instantaneous—skeletons etched upon asphalt, shadows sick with radiation vomited skyward curses— The True Man hanging from the over-blossoming tree of public panic unlynched. Bio: Hiromi Yoshida teaches American Literature for the award-winning VITAL program at the Monroe County Public Library. Her poems have been published in literary magazines and journals that include Indiana Voice Journal, The Asian American Literary Review, Evergreen Review, and The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society.