e c l e c t i c a
p o e t r y
e c l e c t i c a
p o e t r y
(These are excerpts—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
Poems containing the words zip, orchestra, shrinking, and truth.
Do Not CC a Poet Eleven Reasons You Want to Hire a Hit Man
This list of reasons belongs on
the back of a parking ticket
or a napkin from the Blue Bear
Shoshauna Shy
Telephones and computers
have begun
speaking in tongues
Stephen Bunch
Then hornets nested in the cab,
and made me a pedestrian again.
Russell Rowland
a tangle of bones,
white puzzle pieces scattered by critters,
bleached by sun and prairie drought
Jerry Krajnak
You made
our early death as appealing as a siren.
Juan Pablo Mobili
Trust me—you're gonna look fabulous
when I'm done
Jill Michelle
I aim to be a writing miscreant, a rock in search of a window.
Metaphors are easy, but an ocean without waves is just a patch of rain.
Marbybeth Rua-Larsen
One year, she crocheted an entire home for her home—
a second skin blanketing her apartment.
Svetlana Litvinchuk
I bought a stove today—didn't mean to—
I only wanted to replace the plastic knob
that melted in the fire my husband
started when I said he had to go
Hilary Sideris
Years later, after her death:
dog barking,
ghost moth on steps,
water flashing over grass.
Jim Zola
You are just a breath:
a small contraction
of the winds of fate.
David Sahner
I'd send the ball
into a hole that coughed
up points.
Kenneth Pobo
In the crumbly moonlit nest, a grumpy cuckoo squats,
squawking. It is that old usurper, selfhood. Remove it.
Brian O'Sullivan
God Have Mercy on America God Have Mercy on Me
This is the third time, man,
I have to ban you for a year.
Riley Richards
My dreams in bare
daylight: an abandoned
dovecote on a pole
in grass.
Kristen Keckler
When you don't always
make enough tips
to pay the stage fee
Shelley Stoehr
Living things, unless they die, digest themselves to transform.
Corrine Noel Knapp
Two Poems
(Spotlight Runner-Up!)
Your hair reeks
of silt and river water; I wash it in a plastic basin; my fingers dig
out the dried mud; the soap foam turns lead-colored
Phillip Shabazz
At that present moment, when that moment
Was present, the books I read were
the presence in which I lived.
Ken Holland
Notice how the maple
moves in the sun
Sharon Rose-Kourous
Tagetes patula (French Marigold)
I once somersaulted in my bathing suit
right onto a bee which stung me in the middle
of my back, piercing me permanently
Jenny Isaacs
I'm not love-sick,
I miss myself.
Denise Gilchrist
It's 4 AM and my suede coat is soaked in pee
when you asked for a cup of water
(then another) I said yes
Airrion Blackstock
Unfortunately,
this poem came close
but didn't fit our needs.
Yvonne Morris
