In an ongoing series, the editors, former contributors, and readers of Eclectica have been invited to write a poem containing four pre-chosen words. The words for this issue are drown, summon, dissolve, envy.

If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the new words are funeral, impartial, reputation, and footsteps.

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(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole poem)

Ghost Bike at Ravenswood
 
Summer evenings she'd summon
me to the TV to see some local son's
body being recovered from a pool.
 
Jack Murphy

 

Waiting for Judgment
 
I send the dog out
into night's waters.
"Swim mutt," I tell her
 
Jude Goodwin

 

Two Word Poems
 
Gullies are tracked with yellow-footed wallaby trails,
steep ledges overhang caves filled with telling/
Aboriginal rock art: a direct link to custom and place.
 
Barbara De Franceschi

 

Circe in the Upper Peninsula
 
The air is at eighty and climbing,
and swimmers brave the cold
to pose on ice floes in bikinis.
 
Jennifer Finstrom