On "Mosey Is As Mosey Goes" by Jeanne Marie Beaumont, "Lover Who Never Was," by Penelope Shuttle, and "Occurrence on Washburn Avenue" by Regan Huff **

I'm taking a break from the online stories to highlight three really great poems, scattered at different locations across the Net. Each one is quite different but speaks to me in some way. The reason I don't feature more poetry is probably that, for me, it seems to come down to such a personal taste. And yet, with these three, I can't help myself.

Beaumont's poem is a work of technical vibrato, working the alliteration and the occasional rhyme to full effect in simply declaring a definition. I love how this poem becomes the definition itself in its very sound, slowly wandering toward its point. Read the poem here at Pool Poetry.

Shuttle's poem is one that works on a more personal level, speaking to that ideal that rests within each of us. In that she is able to capture that, to write about it, I love it. (It reminds me, actually, of a joke that used to go around a former workplace. A few coworkers of mine--or maybe it was just one coworker--used to talk of starting a virtual boyfriend service. He'd leave messages, send flowers, make dates, but he's always fail to show up. I suppose the idea was to give people who wanted to be dating someone--but not someone real, not someone with faults and eccentricities--a chance to have that special someone, and the ability to more easily turn down those unwanted dates.) Read it here at Poetry Bay.

Huff's poem is more of a narrative, but a short one, a very short one. It does what a good narrative poem can do but what a short story technically can't (though that doesn't stop many from calling such things stories, even if they're really just vignettes). That is, it explores a single moment, a moment of wonder. It doesn't present a conflict to resolve--it merely lets us bask in that single instant. I love the repetition in the last line, the way it shows off the glorious repetition in the moment itself. Read the poem here at the Beloit Poetry Journal.