Okay class. Listen up. Here’s a list of inbred
contractions that absolutely must be included:

-A camera walking into the picture frame.

-A series of thoughts that arrive on a conveyor belt.

-Rusty nails absorbed in steely concentration.

-Banjo lessons held inside a Trojan horse.

-A pocket handkerchief with a wrinkled brow.

-A vase wearing a double-breasted suit.

-Algeria being put into the cargo of a plane.

-Omaha being denied a life insurance policy.

-A lovely sonnet you can fold in half.

-A bullet about to break-dance on a snowflake.

-Glass used in a slipper with no real consequences.

-Someone else’s face staring from your autobiography.

————

Maurice Oliver spent almost a decade working as a freelance photographer in Europe. Then, in 1995, he made a lifelong dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months, recording his experiences in a journal instead of pictures. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in The Potomac Journal, Circle Magazine, Bullfight Review, Tryst3 Journal, The MAG, Eye-Shot, The Surface, Wicked Alice, WordRiot, Taj Mahal Review (India), Stride Magazine (UK), Retort Magazine (Australia), & online at subtletea.com, undergroundvoices.com, friggmagazine.com, tmpoetry.com, zafusy.com, girlswithinsurance.com, & interpoetry.com (UK). He lives in Portland, Oregon where he is a tutor.