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

 

Special Feature — Word Poems
Poems containing the words nightfall, command, water, and spur.

 

My Insomnia
 
There's sand in my ears, rotting sea kelp
wound through my forgotten hair.
 
Dianne Oberhansly

 

Three Hellenic Sonnets
 
A wise king surely would have been aware
How battles bleed both families and states
 
Peter Bridges

 

Three Poems
 
The thin sweater smelled of Falstaff beer
And his breath of Prince Albert tobacco
 
John McKernan

 

Second Date
 
I didn't know how to stop
or even if I knew how
if I'd want to.
 
William Fargason

 

A Week into the Fall
 
the snail heads resolutely back
over the rhythm of the terrain, reading
topography as only a snail can
 
Sean Mahoney

 

Two Poems
 
After an early morning fire, the porch is a shipwreck,
crumbling dry bread. Smoke stains the house
like a daguerreotype.
 
Jennifer Van Orman Yurges

 

Five Stages of Grief
 
He handed my daughter Katie the leash
like a teacher handing back
a failed assignment.
 
Bob Bradshaw

 

Questing After the Color Blue
 
They set out on their separate paths,
one with a bucket, one with a cage
and the youngest empty-handed.
 
Marjorie Mir