Julene Weaver

Challenges to Ars Poetica

1
a black painting—one tiny burst of light
it is impossible to move from the couch

        the sink hole couch—the painting we stare into  day after day

the drone of voices from the television fills our senses
our body fluids are sucked into the     vortex hole
the house sits on a city street                 like a pot hole
we can barely dance             even if we try

2
this house is loud
bowling alley hard wood chamber         hall for drums

        Cadillac House for bass A Hall to honor the 45

rock n'roll     rap zap
this house shakes

        uncontrollable  how loud can accelerate

a master bedroom with a BIG bed
we must dance rotund            jerk    uncontrollable

        willed, we sing enthusiastic

ordained, we do not sit still   there is no John Cage alternative
shake out the door
scream, scare the daffodils
on exit                 you fall

3
this is the house of political unrest
long views      craft lives     deep
into ills to heal               silence greets us

        we sit   look at the sculpture

the art         we can cry when moved
quiet is proof  art counts

        a simple picture                a sailboat

an abstract to relieve us       from the scene of the murdered woman
she is in Mexico dead           this is a mixed bag house

Jason Alan Wilkinson

The Moon-Riven Twilight

Is a crystal
feathering here
moth-burrowed vellums
gather insouciantly
down its long corridor

Piano music and wet skin
frame cavernous dreams
rendered cataracts

Glass blossoms hewn without ceremony

Colour unmade,
stippled from apprehension
from lasciviousness
darning a subaqueous ladder of hues
,flashes transcendentally

Imagined ‘scapes form vagrant kingdoms
where stile and crooked bough
along sinuous tracts
linger inchoate
charming the eye

Discarding tarragon cellophane
chrysanthemum beads
for loose chimes
their scented aria
through exiguous fronds of breath
lovers throb in timbreless delirium

A pale offering exhumes the dusky path beyond
scabrous lots disembodied
windless

The night is a phoenix
pruning the billows of Time
caught between meadows
lighted by gems.

Jan Ball

Three Olfactory Separations

                    1.

I know you must go
But take these fragrant mangoes
To eat on the train.

                    2.

When you left Friday,
I sat on your closet floor
Smelling your soiled clothes.


                    3.

Although you have stained
The pillows with your hair-oil,
Your scent remains dear.