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

 

Special Feature — Word Poems
Poems containing the words mutant, polar, temple, and shrimp.

 

What I Owe
 
When I was a child, I gave
you my loud hand and only kept
the silent one.  
 
Norton Hodges

 

The Lost Seed
 
Wistful, the wind fans
sand onto faltering feet.
They drag north of the Sahara,
lured by a pitiless mirage.  
 
Molara Wood

 

Isuikwuato II
 
If I should tell her how long my bags have been packed,
she may not believe me, for nobody counts as wealth
the chicken that doesn't return to the coop at dusk.  
 
Nnorom Azuonye

 

Two Poems
 
Come down to this field,
brush a handful of the bounty,
you won't feel any wavering, any edginess  
 
Davide Trame

 

A Poetic Tour of Natal, Brazil, Or, What the Travel Guides Fail to Tell You
 
What to wear:
Avoid hydraulic transmissions
wrapped too tightly
to reveal plunging necklines.  
 
Allen Hope

 

00:00:01
 
She
is run,n,,nning out
side. She is
running out
of time.  
 
Dave Smith

 

Self-Interrogation of a Third Wife
 
Each night I jump sheep in and out of pens,
a sleepless garbage hauler who must deal
with unrecyclables  
 
Arlene Ang

 

Barker
 
yes, yes, I was there, fifteen, crazy,
smoking reefer in the speedway
bathroom  
 
Tim Peeler

 

Waltzing Above Pepino's Marble
 
We moved a special way in the cemetery—
in three-quarter time, knees bending
like Strauss had a hand in the mourning
racket  
 
Patrick Carrington

 

Palm Trees in a Big Blow
 
I wait with great excitement
for my first sea storm to show.
It shall be like God
and Louis Armstrong
marching down the streets  
 
Stanley Noah

 

Four Prose Poems
 
Today, I've scratched four times that I'm aware of, sheering off who knows how much skin. I've added x many nose blows to my total.  
 
Mark Cunningham