Special Feature — Word Poems

Poems containing the words velvet, carnival, window, and pregnant.
Includes a special invitation for the next issue.

 

Two Poems

There are ways to die
that are unbloody.
Ways that don’t leave bloated
corpses floating on the face
of a glistening lake

Julie Nondorf

 

After the Plow

Dust dancing on echoes,
dry coughs, wordless prayers
that crumble like clay

John E. Eddy

 

Street Scene

Sleeping between these white sheets,
during a visit from my dead father
I see his strangely young face
with slicked black hair.

John Hanson

 

Stroll

(haiku)

Scott Thouard

 

Two Poems

he walks to the fridge,
searching for the milk to splash on the small
of her back, the sheets are milky wet

Allison Daniel

 

After the Gold Rush

With herbal skill, she charmed him:
sewed forget-me-nots into his pillow,
infused his stew with bloodroot
to encourage deeper ties

Glenda Cooper

 

Two Poems

my only voice, the gravedigger’s song,
atavistic rhythms of
cold steel against dirt,
sending prayers up

Oren Shafir

 

Coop

tattooed by leghold teeth,
pelt matted with the muck of swum rivers,
she bench presses

Mitchell Metz

 

Two Poems

hair,
soft and blond
as sun-bleached tassels
on summer corn

Allen Itz

 

Modern Astronomy

Looking through a telescope
of my own invention,
I struggled to plot
your precise orbital periods

J.T. Chan