(These are excerpts—click on the titles to view the complete poems)

 

Special Feature — Word Poems
Poems containing the words thorn, meander, expel, and conceal.

 

Three Poems
 
hawk sees as
God sees
 
Alex Ward

 

Two Poems
 
The backyard's an overturned cup, full
of insect hum, earth's murmur and spin.
 
Antonia Clark

 

My father's first job (in Canada)
 
Life can only catch its breath thrice, and then
It totters on heavy feet, a drunken uncle.
 
Bojan Pavlovic

 

Two Poems
 
If there were voices to follow,
you'd need a dozen languages, and they'd be
fading in and out
 
Ray Templeton

 

Words Never Spoken
 
Old grey kangaroo
hunches beneath sparse shade.
 
Barbara de Franceschi

 

Incubus
 
he fastens boa to bicycle wheel, newsprint
to truncheon, handball to garbanzo can
 
Lisa Mullenneaux

 

Two Poems
 
My words swirl
like smoke in my mouth.
 
Anindita Sengupta

 

Two Poems
 
Forget the bullhorn, the kitchen fire,
the champagne flutes lurid
with gasoline
 
Katie Tunning

 

Two Poems
 
It wasn't the television
drooling relentless channels.
It was us
 
Hemant Mohapatra

 

Inside
 
I am a vacuum of sorrow
and suddenness.
 
Jami Macarty

 

Adam's Lap
 
Let me shine this apple on my breast.
It has the glossiest skin
I've ever seen.
 
Cat Dixon