New Poetry by Claire Roberts

After Gustave

Here is the horizon 
Dark blue
Followed by a faint line / stretch of 
White
And the imperceptible point between
Where they don’t meet /
Touch but are laid out 
Side by side

These are also sunlit
Clouds rolling as
A wave does under
The surface of 
Water

Above the…
Spread out like 
Cloths 

Crystal blue then
Dark over the depths
Or under the shadows of the 
Clouds before it turns
Sand coloured over / toward 
The revolving
Storm breaking 
With sunlight

Culminating / until 
A thin blue stripe advances / 

Overlaps the
Sky  
Announces this is paint.


- Claire Roberts 2019

New Words and Images by Wayne H. W Wolfson

Narrative Sixteen

 Lucy had that way of looking both beautiful and tough that let me know that I would not be any good for her. At least not as promised by the end of countless movies. 

 I was looking for a hanger for my jacket as it deserved better than merely the back of a chair. 

 She was in the other room. I had said water would be fine but I swore that  I heard the pa-pop of a cork being pulled, echoing the cadence too of a thousand French waiters hitting three fingers against puffed out cheeks and  pursed lips in acknowledgment of their approval and that they will get on it right away. 

 Motion creates the illusion of accomplishment. Sharks are over achievers. Something caught the corner of my eye.

 I had no idea where the light switch was and so decided to stand still and wait to see if it made its way into the strip of night sky that was spilling in through the ill placed window. 

 She came in holding two glasses. With a laugh:

"What are you doing?" 

 The light.  A long centipede slowly crawled along the horizon line where floor meets wall. 

 It was all yellows and oranges with spots of molted black. There was a wet reddish piece of meat in its mouth which is managed to continue to carry. 

 I shuddered and rapidly slapped both my shoulders in confirmation that nothing was on me.

 Lucy too was transfixed.

 "I cant believe I used to smoke those things."

- Wayne H.W Wolfson 2019


For further information about Wayne's writings and art, just click on the link below.

www.waynewolfson.com

New Poetry by Karen May

Dreaming in Music

I wake sometimes

to a dream of music

the notes play

and laugh in the dark

and just for a moment

let themselves be read

like clear and shining words

lined up along the stave 

like the sudden illumination

of a foreign tongue.

But then the score elides

and their keening begins.

What is it that they grieve

as I drift between

the land of words

and music’s seas? 

Do they sing

elegies for wisdom

laments for learning

a grim coda to virtuosity? 

Do they cry

of the blue dance of the depths

stilled, last chords 

fading, words failing? 

Do they sing and sing

of all the light

that might have been.

- Karen May 2019

Karen May writes poetry, sometimes combined with art practice. She grew up in remote areas of Australia and has worked in universities, NGOs and Canadian foreign affairs. For a long while now she has lived in the Southern Tablelands and Canberra.