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 wax, deadly, click, and parachute. Below are the resulting selected poems.

If you would like to participate in the next special poetry assignment, the four new words are Dos Equis, dispense, tomb, and album. Send your poem to editors@eclectica.org by June 1, 2002.

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(Click on the titles to view the poems)

Four Word Poems
 
Tonight the wind goes
canyoning through earth's
spaces, chambers of the heart,
corridors of breath.  
 
Taylor Graham

 

Three Word Poems
 
It drifts lazy as nimbus without need
of a parachute. It waits behind gauze
curtains that lift in the breeze.  
 
Patty Mooney

 

Two Word Poems
 
The little once-shelled saints
flutter fast as moth-hearts
as they lay their hands on my pasty
brain and speak in tongues  
 
Tara Brever

 

Row Your Boat
 
the click
of hammer against metal
becomes the clang
of your deadly
morning alarm  
 
Amy Crane Johnson

 

The Witch's Doll
 
It is not he,
this doll that you hold. It is the union
between you, the deadly bond burning,
an umbilicus of fire.  
 
Jennifer Finstrom

 

Tandem
 
ring over knuckle,
bride over threshhold,
every room baptized til our house
glows home  
 
Laurel K. Dodge

 

Holes
 
In the room
where they fold
parachutes,
the girls have
to cut their nails  
 
Michelle Cameron

 

A Muse Ing
 
One right click
and the parachute of my soul
opens in a city confined
within the muse of a web page  
 
Shelly Reed

 

Two Word Poems
 
I sit in 2E, flying somewhere over Cuba,
thinking about Lombard's safe, good marriage,
Gable gathering her headless body and bringing it home.  
 
Julie King