Fall/Winter Issue: Relaunch I (Live on November 4, 2021)

 Flowers & Vortexes
Online
A
Creative Magazine

Relaunch Issue

I

ISSN: 1932-8753

John Grey

 

Sailing Home

At twilight, by the shoals,

light rain, the kiss of heaven,

the dark sea of clockwork,

horizon, a bobbing orange line,

our boat catches the freshened breeze,

tiptoes home on foam.

Some stars where clouds no longer drip,

a lapping at the sides, a liquid whisper,

your face, sepulcher-white, 

but as alive as new birth,

my hands turning sails,

playing string music with the air.

This is one journey of many,

seeping with myriad images,

some sharp, others indifferent 

to their own shape,

toward shore or away from it,

with company 

or setting my heart’s compass 

to your magnetic absence.

Home, where the sea and sky 

blend as one,

home, where we last left ourselves,

up the hill,

dry, well-lit, and warm.

Connections:

Mary Bongat-Libby

Elemental Is

her way, a sway 

so fluid, so mesmerizing. 

So scrutinizing: her gaze

as a raven’s eyes channeling

from crystalline skies. 

Silently she sings love

songs, moving her lips

like a rain cloud or perhaps the moon

a title wave’s cool breeze

fading inland softly into a storm.

The heat of the earth 

dissipates 

off her wings

lifts like the wind as she 

folds her hair behind her ears.

You could say she has a way 

a sway so fluid and mesmerizing.

Weather Patterns:

Michael Lee Johnson

 

 

Freedom School, I Exiled in Time

 

 

Chased by this wild, I was a black wolf of time

freedom extinguished me-

I died on borrowed time,

I died on hashish,

I died on snorting cocaine,

I died on the “H” man, heroin,

LSD, acid passed around hallucinated me

into Disneyland without my house slippers.

I nearly jumped 18 floors without hemp,

straight down breaking through plate glass,

Jesus invisible was my invincible Superman.

I nearly died listening to 

American Woman, Guess Who,

they feed me downers for my overdose.

I nearly died in a small room

balling an unknown little bitch from Montreal.

All those little pills in dresser drawers, yellow, pink, and red.

I nearly died, Yonge Street, with hippy beads,

leather purse, belt, fake gold chain, and small pocket change.

I went the way I didn’t know where to go,

searching for heaven ending at the entrance

to hell’s gate, Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Let me fluoresce, splatter red on the asphalt

of my exiled heart.

Let me follow the freedom school, 

Summerhill, England, free love.

 

 

 

(Note: Rochdale College was patterned after Summerhill School-

Democratic “freedom school” in England founded in 1921

by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school

should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around.)

(Concrete) Jungle Cat:

Am Tracked:

Brick Wall Flower:

High Road:

Traveler:

Robert (Bob) Findysz

Beware the Polar Vortex

On a quick family visit to Chicagoland, I arrive to shovel paths and stay to retool my plans. After grumpy skies dump plow loads of lacy-fine white on roads and driveways, a wobbly polar vortex shoves temperatures to Siberian lows that I never faced while growing up. Airlines recommend avoiding the region; but, I remain.

Playful children, kept out of school for fear of over-exposure, throw boiling water into the air to watch it freeze -- cemeteries, Lincoln Park's zoo, the Art Institute and deep dish pizzerias also close to encourage guests as well as workers to stay home, warm.

Mail which claims to come rain or shine, heat of day or gloom of night remains undelivered. Highways are asphalt ghost towns. Salvation Army soldiers visit the homeless camped out on arctic streets, the luckiest seek shelter in warming centers.

As life in the Midwest suddenly halts like a high speed Chicago & Northwestern train wreck, the media cannot report enough about the weather or how to cope with its conditions. I can trust this big-shouldered place for extremes to test my resolve.

Together Yet So Far Away:

Entry Way:

Signature:

Promises:

Editor's Note:

I went through tons of submissions for this issue. 

I found some really good pieces. But they were sent 

so long ago that most of the ones that I chose had been 

picked up by other publications. This is, of course, a reflection 

of my chaotic and stressful personal life. However, I vow, as the 

editor of this publication and the print publication to come, my vision,

Full Moon Journal, to make seeking out, reviewing, (rejecting what 

doesn't belong), accepting and publishing the best photography and creative 

writing, a priority from this day forward. We'll do this one, with up to 

three times as much content four times a year. And Full Moon Journal 

we'll shoot for twice a year. So. Keep creating and inspiring. Writing and 

waiting for the perfect shot.         Our Art is the Essence of our Humanity.

                              

Editor, James Eric Watkins

Flowers & Vortexes, Creative Magazine

Promise of Light Publications 2021

Bios:

Robert (Bob) Findysz

was born in Chicago but moved to the suburbs before first grade. After finishing graduate work at the University of Chicago in the late 60's, he moved to Israel, settled in Jerusalem, started a family and was drafted, relocating to a nearby kibbutz sometime later. Bob spent forty-some years teaching English as a Foreign Language to Israeli high school and university students. On sabbaticals and other leaves-of-absence, he pursued alternative ways of making a living as well as studies, academic and otherwise. And, he has traveled often within the country and abroad. Bob also putters in his garden and works with ceramics. After a lifetime of helping others to write, he retired and is now writing for himself. He published for the first time in the January 2017 issue of The MOON. Since then his poems have appeared occasionally in other literary journals and anthologies, electronic and hard copy. His work was recently included in arc29.

Dave Brooks had served as an inspiration for many years with his style. He lives in Canada is awesome.

Mikey Webb lives in California and, well, is a fornicator. He’s an excellent photographer.

Mary Bongat-Libby also lives in Cali and is really cool. She was instrumental in Promise of Light Publications in the past.

Micheal Lee Johnson has over 200 poems published internationally and continentally, and is really cool.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon.