Sarah St Vincent Welch # a number

I thought I had a minute to go
to midnight but it was half an hour
that sounds like good news
even though we've been trumped
what could be better than
sculptures
dear friends
words images memories
stories
visits planned
a new year

Robert Verdon, #373, detritus

mountains turn to sundials

on a plain’s vast stage

tiny against the cosmos

a caterwauling school recorder band

the neat young woman

throwing up outside the post office at 7.30 a.m.

a pulse of electricity

flowing down a thinning wire

glowing hot.

Kerri Shying R - # 143 Choose a battle

     Choose a battle

 jiggling bags of ants
    play on thoracic
ups    down  near  elbows buzz
     far bigger  beehives
medication    anti-wheezes
    stay to render
           havoc
           Jesus

Kerri Shying R # 142 - Ocean Baths

Ocean Baths.

Blarking off   the penguins of
 the pedestal    prepare
to mate    oh lush
oh lovely
 from this far away

young people     playing then
 remember living    in those bodies
now    the seagulls squabble for
 a chip    behind my other
ear    right here

the fear
 can everybody    see
my rear

Jan Dean # 28 David Bowie's Thighs

David Bowie’s Thighs

So long, so lean

so fresh and so lean, lean

anonymous says.

I want to join in the dream

of clean and preen, so it seems.

Taken out of context, a Facebook

homage to David Bowie’s thighs

could easily reflect cloth tied

as a napkin for a child, a tea-towel

or a scrap of leftover cloth

for a POW, refugee, St Sebastian

or Christ at Golgotha. Without

his wondrous face, mismatched eyes

voice of voices, and opulent moves

who’d know?

Mikaela Castledine #334 Crow Baby

Crow baby learns to fly

mother backseated closes her eyes

father has his foot on imaginary pedals

both caw contradictory

instructions

all three lurching off down the road

Béatrice Machet # 303 Lungs

#303

Breathing needs neither mouth nor nose

but

a gentle puff

a tender rocking swell

this awareness this feeling could lead 

somebody to realizing one might be living

in the universe’s lungs

respirer n’a besoin ni de bouche ni de nez

mais 

d’un souffle délicat

d’un tendre bercement

cette conscience cette sensation pourrait mener

quelqu’un à réaliser qu’on pourrait peut-être vivre

dans les poumons de l’univers

Béatrice Machet # 302 Eye's Will

# 302

dates and calendars among which

you lose yourself

a maze of faces into which

you feel at home

an itinerary made of moving lights and

slight whispers then

nailed by sunbeams

on a wall

a still moment at dusk

a semblance of repetition although 

no repetition could ever be rehearsed except

in an eye’s will

dates et calendriers au milieu desquels

vous vous égarez

un labyrinthe de visages dans lequel

vous sentez chez vous

un itinéraire de lumières mouvantes et

de légers murmures alors 

cloué par les rayons du soleil

au mur

un moment immobile du crépuscule

une semblance de répétition bien qu’

aucune répétition ne serait jamais répétée sauf

dans la volonté d’un œil

Béatrice Machet # 301 In a Crowd

# 301

Shoved in a crowd

jostling

fighting one’s way through

in the so much

ignorant hurly-burly of

language power

yet

this feeling

that could dawn on me

the true word

what I look for is seeking for me too.

Bousculé sans la foule

à jouer des coudes

se frayer un passage

dans le brouhaha ignorant

du pouvoir que la langue possède

pourtant

le sentiment que pourrait

se poser sur moi

la parole vraie

ce que je cherche s’enquiert de moi aussi

Magdalena Ball #16: Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace

            “It was just a laugh, just a laugh
             It's whatever you say it is
             In split infinities” Radiohead, “Decks Dark”

The road was empty that evening
the last one
split infinities

all I could see were those eyes
like a white tiger's
penetrating blue
all your wildness held in check

when they arrived at the zoo
it was armageddon

shouts from the shore
the band played loudly
we thought, for a New York minute
that it was a celebration
all going to be okay

but it was just a diversion
two paths diverging
each leading nowhere
winding as DNA, a double helix
twist back to the start

there’s a whisper in the forest
that outdoes the endless trumpets
whip-poor-wills
nightjars, singing in the softest
most mournful whistle
invisible as their bodies
hidden in foliage
it’s still there if you focus

a corruption of politicians
in diminishing returns

the indelible burn of footsteps
on soft plants
riparian zones, fragile soil

I say this not to hurt
only to remind you of what
you mustn’t forget

Michele Morgan #326 iomrall súl

Govett-Brewster and
Len Lye: a
front for illusion

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is New Zealand's contemporary art museum and home to the collection of modernist filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye

Lucy Alexander #88 Fish

My mother was a fish

who never slept

with her eyes closed.

She wished to speak

but her teeth were sewn in

tiny rows her tongue a swallowing device

she leapt from the water to show me love

her back curved velvet scales

her eye a glinting silver disk

and everything she loved

scratched into the bones of her skull.