Flying Island

L’Ancien by B. Childs-Helton I bring to bear whatever I can find – old potsherds, empty casings from some long-fought war in secret latitudes outside the official theater of sanctioned shadows on the ancient walls where the painted prey brought down perpetually is signed with a red hand long disappeared, magic sown with salt where the land is silent but the rocks are resonating underneath the insouciant sun that greens a disguise of grass and hides in the wheel of ghosts in some other sky. My voice is smoke because I have turned to sparks and incidental ashes like the rest, unable to remember what to say but singing anyway in borrowed light. Telepathy by B. Childs-Helton If I were reading someone’s mind right now (assuming that a mind is like a book, enough that its usual job is to sit unread), the leery owner might pretend real hard that whatever page I’m reading is either blank or trivial enough that n

Today (July 2) would have been the 86th birthday anniversary of Richard Pflum, a longtime fixture in the Indianapolis poetry community. He died on March 15. Several friends and colleagues honored him by submitting poems. Dick, as close friends called him, was a founding member of the Writers' Center of Indiana (now Indiana Writers Center). He ran the semi-monthly Poetry Salon, a feedback group for poets, and emceed the monthly An Evening With the Muse, which featured a guest poet and an open mic. He loved to frequent open mics in the city, often garnering respect from spoken-word artists. His collections of poetry include  Richard Pflum: A Dream of Salt (Raintree Press), A Strange Juxtaposition of Parts (Writers' Center Press, Indianapolis), The Haunted Refrigerator and Other Poems (Pudding House Press), Listening With Others: Poems Under the Musical Influence (The Muse Rules), and Some Poems to Be Read Out Loud: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press). Besides poetry,