All Over the Place: For the Hope and the Need

By Michael H. Brownstein

–For Tika

No one wants to read a poem about dead pets,

a dog scratching its way to a fresh dug hole,

its throat punctured, its heart and thorax crushed.

No one knows why the magic leaves the mind,

why words stop forming to end a rhyme,

how images fade into cloud-work and night skies.

Acting Citizen: All Night Long Radio

By James Knudsen

“Hello?” I muttered into the telephone receiver. My voice sounded like I had just woken up, because I had. I had just woken up because it was the middle of the night.
    “Could ya turn down the radio?” the voice on the other end implored.
    “Of course.” There was no reply, just click.

Adventures in Greece: Part 2 [Final]

Edda Hofer & Ed Rogers
around 1976

Diving and More

By Ed Rogers

Back in Athens, we took a room in a hotel, and I placed the vase on the window ledge along with the clothes that had been close to it. Later we bought a small plastic bag to slide the vase into.
    We called the couple we had met on Hydra and made a date to go out for dinner with them. They said they would take us to a Greek restaurant called a bouzouki. We met them at 10 that night. They explained that Greek people go to work in the morning and close at noon and reopen at four in the afternoon; therefore, they eat late at night. It was a very large restaurant, with a roof that opened. We watched the moon set and the sun rise overhead. Before the war, singers in a bouzouki had been paid by the number of plates that were broken. If the singer moved me to stand and dance, whoever was at the table with me had to break the plates we had eaten off of. At this place, you could buy a stack of plates but were not allowed to break the ones on your table.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 34. Evergreen Park

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Shelley knocked on Bobby’s door at 8:00 Monday morning. Getting no answer, she went to the lobby. The night desk clerk was filling out his paperwork, getting ready to go off duty. “Excuse me, I’m looking for my partner. We checked in Friday night. He was in room 346 and I was in 348.”
    The clerk looked at his call sheet. “Yes, here it is. He had a 6 a.m. wake-up call. At 6:15 he showed up here dressed in running attire.”
    Shelley’s alarm bells went off – too much time had gone by since 6:15. She rotated the call sheet and noted that two others also had a 6 a.m. wake-up. “So, you haven’t seen him since he left for his run?”

Highways and Byways: Equilibrium

By Maik Strosahl

A friend of mine passed recently after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer. I met her in the 8th grade, but we really hadn’t been in contact since graduation until after our 30-year graduating class reunion.
    I had a dream about a year ago that I was there when she passed. It troubled me for hours until she posted something on Facebook and I knew she was still there. I wrote this poem on the truck while waiting for some proof of life from my friend.
    I know her pain has ended. I know her struggle has been a hard one, but her smile and laughter and the way she tried to be positive throughout the whole ordeal have been an inspiration for all who knew her.
    We will all miss you, Velvet. Thank you for your strength, your presence, your friendship.

Adventures in Greece: Part 1 of 2

Edda Hofer & Ed Rogers
around 1976

From Salzburg to Greece

By Ed Rogers

Around 1976, my soon-to-be-wife (Edda Hofer) and I took a trip to Europe. Edda came from a very old family in Salzburg, Austria, which even has a statue of her great-great-great grandfather in its town square. Her mother, who was a twin, married a doctor who had been a member of the SS [the Schutzstaffel, a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler] during the Second World War.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 33. Tony Gets In

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Tony walked under the overpass and headed toward a truck stop across the street from the Roadway Inn. A couple of trucks were parked at the fuel pumps on the east side of the building and one faded green pickup truck was at the pump on an adjacent side. Inside, two men sat in a booth eating. Tony guessed them to be the drivers of the trucks. Behind the counter was a woman in her late forties whose name tag said “Sally.”
    Tony took a seat at the counter and lowered his backpack to the floor. Sally smiled and removed her pen and pad from the pocket on the front of her apron. “What can I get you, honey?”

All Over the Place: The African American Student Poet Writes His Poetry, Finally

After New Madrid County, Missouri, Integrates Its High Schools

By Michael H. Brownstein

When the poet of Marston, Hayti, Lilbourn was sent away,

the teacher sentenced him to alone time without

pencils, pens, paper, books or a window for daydreaming.

He pretended to tattoo his poetry onto his skin –

each blemish a key word, each scar an image,

each time away a memory carved into

the next day and the day after that. Words are easy

and over time he learned all of them by heart.

His poetry was the poetry of the living.

Then the county opened its schools to everyone,

equal treatment, equal encouragement, equal everything:

Susan’s Stuff: retirement

Detail from painting

By Susan C. Price

i include my notes as commentary.

My Chat with Harry Truman

Harry S. Truman in 1961

By Brooks Carder

It was the summer after my freshman year in college. My mom worked for a company founded by a friend of Harry’s. He found out from my mom that I was reading Churchill’s history of World War II and he thought I should meet Harry.
    Truman was very much as portrayed by Stuart Whitmore. When I arrived at the meeting at his library in Independence Missouri, the staff apologized genuinely that he was to be about two minutes late.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 32. Wayne and Banks

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Tony and Wayne worked out a way to contact each other– they’d use dead drops, and phones only if absolutely necessary. Tony told Wayne not to contact him unless he had real information, and if Wayne didn’t hear from him, he shouldn’t worry.
    Wayne exited the freeway heading into Decatur, Alabama. It was one of those cold days that show up frequently in January. He stopped the car along a street and Tony got out, patted the top of the car, and loudly proclaimed, “Keep in touch, mate. We’ll have a large number of beers when this is over.” He turned and walked away.

Highways and Byways: Fresh Papers

By Maik Strosahl

A few years back, a friend of mine interviewed me for an article in the local paper. I wrote a short poem to be included with the article, but always felt there was more to be said on the subject. I was a newspaper carrier for five years in Moline, Illinois. During the winter, I always found it interesting that the bundles were warm when I slid my freezing hands between the copies. I imagined this was because they were “hot off the press” and used that to build the short poem. That poem appears in paragraph 5 of this expanded prose piece that hopefully shares one of those cold snowy days in the life of a paperboy.


At 38^th Street and 5^th Avenue we waited, braced away from the whistle of winds as they whipped down the straightaway, hidden in the evergreen wrapped round twin pines – salvation amongst the thorny branches where we looked out for the truck to arrive.

Boldt Words & Images: The Great Jane Mudd Painted My Portrait as It Rained Outside in Columbia, Missouri

By Bob Boldt

Before she turned on the light, the splatter on the studio’s

rain-clattered skylight gave the room the appearance of

an aquarium.

Jane’s quotations from art history were pinned everywhere,

wallpaper clipped from the pages of art magazines and

old postcards from Paris. Vermeer’s maid gazed

on Dora Maar. Picasso ogles a Lautrec dancing

to catch a sidelong glance from Paul Gauguin.

They made the small studio
seem both crowded and vast.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 31. Shelley Adams

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Shelley would turn 30 in June. She had had a number of affairs, some with boyfriends who were keepers and some who were throwaways, but there had been a disconnect with all of them. She had never found anyone she wanted to live with and had given up on the idea of marriage. She loved being in law enforcement, she liked the power it gave her, and she was damn good at it. Being with Blake’s team was a dream job for her. She was not only able to use her brain but also work with people who appreciated her input. And her skills as a sniper, which she had honed in hopes of getting out of undercover work, had already proved their worth.

All Over the Place: Dear Dad, Happy Valentine’s Day

By Michael H. Brownstein

[I wrote this in ’88, published it in the Chicago Tribune.]


Every year I ask my 6th-grade students to write a valentine to someone they love. It’s an enjoyable activity, and they have a lot of fun with it. They write to their mothers, of course, and sometimes to their friends, but they never write to their fathers.

Poetry & Portraits: Puzzle

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Puzzle
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on December 12, 2015]

I read too much. My second husband used
to make inspections of my bedside drawer,
then catch me at the sink: You’re fifty-four
for God’s sake, Marianne, why start on Proust?

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 30. A New Home

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Blake met with the team the next morning and told them of the new arrangements. Peter wasn’t that happy about being separated from the others but Mary appeared relieved. Ms. Hunt was nowhere to be seen, nor was June. Blake couldn’t help but smile when he remembered his encounter with June the night before. He would love a rematch but doubted it would ever happen.
    “For now, everybody will work from home. I don’t want to start a new case until we’re settled somewhere else. I’m hoping that won’t take long, but if it does, then we’ll find a way to work around it. Peter, it’s going to be up to you and Mary to keep us updated. Plus, we have the June Killer and two more cases that need our attention.”

From “The Scratching Post”: Get over it!

By Ken Marks

[Originally posted on The Scratching Post, February 11, 2017. Republished here by permission of the author.]



Few insults are as infuriating as “Get over it!” It’s on a par with “Oh, grow up!” It labels you as someone who is so childish, deluded, or simple-minded that you don’t grasp the facts of life.

Highways and Byways: Sleep, Mama, Sleep

By Maik Strosahl

I was thinking of my mother while driving the other day and promises she extracted from me long ago. She is still alive and kicking independently as she approaches 80. I remember when we were visiting a nursing home, she became very serious and asked that I never put her in a place like that. This poem started with that conversation, then incorporated a friend of mine’s experiences with her mother-in-law’s dementia. The final element that brought about this poem was when we had to put down a pet due to old age and illness. It made the mind wander. Although this is an older one, it has been one of my favorites through the years, even if it is a bit macabre. [Previously published in 2008, when The Flying Island was a print journal; the poem doesn’t seem to be in the journal’s online archive.]


She made me promise—
said if I really loved her,
I would spare her
the lonely shadows
that swallow the mind,
sweeping the halls clean
long before the current tenant
has had a chance
to pack up and move on.

Correspondence: About the country

Conspiracy theories

Edited by Moristotle

[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]

Headline from a Kansas native: “Kansas City won [the Super Bowl] in a landslide.”
    The game was rigged. There were massive scoring irregularities. We have hired Rudy Giuliani to represent us.
                            —Q you

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 29. The Showdown

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Blake drove to June Warner’s house. He had given some thought to confronting her in the parking lot of A.P.S., but then he thought better of it. At home, she would be more at ease and less likely to fire him on the spot.
    It was 6:15 when he pulled up. The late November sun had set, but the streets lights lit June’s house just fine, and there was no sign she was home. He took out his phone but then remembered that his number was blocked. Not wanting to be in her way, Blake parked across the street by the curb and settled in for the wait. He wondered how much the big homes lining the street cost. Each house had a beautifully manicured yard, and the third house down had hedges shaped like animals. He thought about walking down and snapping photos of the hedges, but in the dark somebody might shoot him, and, anyway, at that moment, June pulled into her drive.

All Over the Place: Black and Women History

February and March

By Michael H. Brownstein

Now that African American History Month is here and the Month of the Woman (March) is soon upon us, it’s time to give credit where credit is due. White people write the history books; it’s too bad African American history books are written by whites as well.
    Yes, Harriet Tubman did free slaves and, yes, Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. And that’s the problem. Hilliard Brooks, 22, was shot and killed by police in 1952 when she refused to give up her seat – three years before anyone had ever heard of Parks. Children going home from school were arrested often for not standing to let white people sit. A grandmother and her grandson spent time in jail when they refused to give up their seat.

As the World Turns: Whatever Happened to That Fairchild C-123 of the CIA?

By Ed Rogers

The country of Nicaragua has seen its share of war, and the CIA has been in the middle of it all. In my book Boystown: The Cocaine Highway, I tell of my characters flying guns into the mountains of Honduras and drugs back to the United States. That story took place in the mid-sixties and all with the knowledge of the CIA.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 28. No Joy on the Homefront

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Within minutes, the sound of sirens filled the air. It seemed like hundreds coming from all directions. They didn’t park on the street but raced across the open grass of the park until they were stopped by the tree line. Their lights turned night into day. It looked as though every cop in Memphis had shown up for the party.
    The medics from each of two ambulances ran into the clearing. Two men stopped at the dead man next to the crying woman while the other crew, a woman and a man, ran to where Wayne was propped against a tree. Blake and Rainbow went toward the medics who were bent over the killer. Blake told Rainbow, “Get out your phone and take pictures of all this before they fuck up the scene. You can bet we’re going to be questioned.”

From “The Scratching Post”:Change

By Ken Marks

[Originally posted on The Scratching Post, February 4, 2017. Republished here by permission of the author.]



I recently came across this provocative quote by Mary Shelley:

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Highways and Byways: The Sandhills

By Maik Strosahl

I remember hating Nebraska in my younger years. I did not find anything of interest in the landscape. Funny, now that I drive professionally, I find many things that catch my attention. Now, Nebraska has turned into a treasure trove of inspiration. Here is a piece from the road inspired by one of those stretches of highway on the western side of the state I used to find boring.


Over the shallows of the Platte,
the Nemaha, the Dismal,

clouds descend into the sandhills,
wings spread, landing gear

touches down in water,
skidding across the surface,

Boldt Words & Images: Good Evening! Good Evening!

By Bob Boldt

Imagine dollars in my hand 

meaningless as November leaves.

Money, like all the precious, leaves first.

None would prefer freezing

over the warmth of the last flaming Bible.

Rudderless, captainless, shipless, wreck,

I wander like Tyrannosaurus before me,

watching his fiery, July 4th, slow-motion descent.

BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 27. End Game II

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Blake came out of the building to find the other five waiting for him. “I see the gang’s all here. What’s the plan?”
    Wayne held up his GPS tracker. “Each team has one of these, and now we need to find our targets and attach them without getting caught by the drivers.”
    Blake took Wayne’s tracker in his hand. “It’s larger than I would have thought.”
    He handed it back to Wayne, who turned in over in his hand and said, “It’s the tracker’s magnet that takes up space.”