​The Flying Dodo
ISSUE 7: April 2023
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Stories Infinite
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We all are stories in the end;
Some cherished, some nurtured and some forgotten.
The world’s is a stage set
for thrill, adventure and uncanninness,
perhaps, some roles enthrall the audience from the front
while some roles are played behind the curtain.
Some etch their names on the pages of history,
while some became history;
some call it destiny
while some call it a debacle.
A fascinating folklore brings the radiance of
great men being immortal:
Is it applicable to folks who are known as legends?
Or the rest of people are just comfortable
to accept the darkness that life brings
till the last ride of breath.
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Ali Ashhar is a poet, short story writer and columnist. He is the award-winning author of poetry collection, Mirror of Emotions.
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Aphrodisiac
Who are you?
Petal-soft flesh of luring hues.
You sip on the pulp of each ripened moon
and move with such gentle pace.
An art for which I never had eyes:
your slithering torso in distant light.
You birth a strange anticipation
Who are you?
Forbidden dawning
lest you are washed by the dew of morning
away into a drunken memory
perhaps, a hazed dream
far out my of curious reach.
Akleyiaha R. is an emerging twenty-one year old Afro-Trinidadian poet whose work can be found or is forthcoming in Dipity Literary Magazine and The Bibliopunk. She has been writing since the age of twelve. She is a passionate writer who uses her words to explore the human condition.
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our voice
is winging its way
around the globe
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Barbara Anna Gaiardoni is an Italian pedagogist, author and doodler. Currently, she publishes Japanese poetry in the international trade journals. Her motto is: I can, I must, I will do it.
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The road and my car and the dust
I drive west. sunlight rises
and shines against mirrors;
blacks all into brightening
silhouette. the shoulders of buildings
and cranes still as horse heads
look out from their paddocks
at dawn as things happen
on hills. ahead, a man crosses – I'm paused
at a traffic light. a tram gives a hiss
and pulls up in alongside me,
quiet as sunlight which creeps
from the east like a spider. reminds like finger
pushed into a shoulder
on the road and my car and the dust.
DS Maolalai has been nominated eleven times for Best of the Net, eight for the Pushcart Prize and once for the Forward Prize. His poetry has been released in three collections, most recently Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019) and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022).
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middle of the night
reaching for you
before shyness wakes
kissing in the car
I shift your hip
into drive
hurrying
to her house, then
taking our time
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Jon Petruschke is a psychotherapist who resides in Portland, Maine. He has a book of poetry – Dream Haiku: Poems from Nights and Naps, and is at work on a second – a collection of haiku erotica.
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Death
Darkness—
it fills my soul
as the certainty of death
eats me alive and
swallows me whole.
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Miranda Clarity is an emerging poet who has been writing poetry since age 12 and is now getting her poetry published to spread messages of truth, peace and beauty during these turbulent times.
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Enter September Exit
In my kitchen I am hunting
tense and swinging
shoulder aching as I go high
clearing my space of pests
She comes in and says - It’s sounds vicious in here!-
I am wielding the weapon she gave me
Later, my son compares me to a dragon slayer
and I find I am actually gripping a grail
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Michael C. (pn: cm ellis) lives in Texas. Their affair with poetry has been wildly inappropriate and deeply embarrassing for all involved. They also really like pistachios. You can find them here, https://linktr.ee/poemsandwhiskeypod
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Speak to me in tongues, in line for the waterslide
Sure as summer welcomes new bodies,
I have become much the linguist in these most
physical of transactions, concocting a set of demands
that none shall ever meet as you speak to me in tongues,
in line for the waterslide, our bodies not so much young
as prematurely dying; that lingering flu you had four seasons ago
never really wavering and my wheezing asthma worse than ever
if we are pulling Hindenbergs back down out of the
flaming banana bread sky –
I see your older sister is a hit with the raffish
chest hair boys playing at the eternal keep up;
what adventitious jugglers we become, of hearts and Time –
tell me that floral torrent of a diary you keep each night
will not become the hulking flagship
of such flagrant betrayals.
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Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: The Pangolin Review, The Flying Dodo, The New York Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, Setu, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
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Determining the Artichoke’s Place
megaflora
mesoflora
microflora
watermelon
artichoke
pea
childhood
responsibility
retirement
watermelon
artichoke
pea
craving
disciplining
overlooking
watermelon
artichoke
pea
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Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, namely. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis.
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