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 borrow, phone, lost, and nothing.

If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the new words are mirror, demand, rain, and settle.

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

Two Word Poems
 
The dead shrew flips from cat's mouth
to air, able now to fly without feathers
 
Judy Kaber

 

How To Stop Time
 
All so you could see
the far-off river, the town where everyone
you knew lived.
 
Christine Potter

 

Text Message
 
my thoughts drifted like a beetle in a backyard pool
to a friend I'd heard nothing from in months
 
Sara Pirkle Hughes

 

For Nothing at All
 
He could do all those happy things
I was no damn good at
 
Steven Deutsch

 

Banana Bread
 
Degrees of blandness slip into the ritual,
stomach gurgles
in the shed of so-called muck
 
Barbara De Franceschi

 

Turning Over
 
Here we are again,
lost in a white flurry
 
Miriam Kotzin

 

Word
 
Staring at a whiteboard, trackless
frozen tundra, the inside of an avalanche.
 
Raymond Byrnes

 

Crazy Triolet
 
I'll be your all-or-nothing, your phone-a-friend,
your caution to the wind, your whoops-a-daisy.
 
Antonia Clark

 

A Phone Call from the Grave
 
Out of nowhere, we smell fresh gardenias
& roses. Few days later someone dies.
 
Sharon Mathews and David Mathews

 

I Confide in the Goddess Circe about My Divorce
 
Circe doesn't scare me, even standing in the middle of my apartment.
 
Jennifer Finstrom