Poems and Art

Lava hot night
by Andy Cook

Last night,
minutes before bed
Thalon told me that Lava burned down
Bill is charred, dead

Lava hot night
breaking the silence of a saturday night
with plasma screams

Lava hot night
goodbye Seed's dog
goodbye space of creation
goodbye possesions

Lava hot night
Steel and old wood
concrete and beer bottles
engine parts and paper mache trees

Lava hot night
glass and stone
sculpture of bone

Lava hot night
burning tree covered in ash
from art of the past

Now today
biking to see
with my own eyes

Black remains
shrouded in a rainbow
as Joe and I watched

The water above
hot cars next to Lava
steaming still in the cold sun

It’s over and it’s just begun
Lava hot night
and cool Lava day

This will not stop you
art will find a way

A seed was born
on that Lava hot night, I tell ya........

Andy Cook 2008

My heart goes out to Bart and his family, Stuart,
Scott, Seed, Aron and Hallie and to everyone who has
been greatly affected by this loss in the art
community. The Lava House has been a haven for many
artist and musicians striving for a new future of art.
This is a great loss felt by all.

__________________________________________________

C'EST LAVISTA
K.CastlemanS.



Silence on a dead end street

Muffled coughing accompanies a television screen

Open spaces scattered dark and light

Art awaits the deadly night


Squeal of tires and muffler rumble

Lost in his torpor Bill takes a tumble

Cigarettes amidst scratch offs just any other night

Graveyard of tools and remnants of trash litter life


Warnings and close calls avoided aplenty finally ignite

So many ill gotten ideas and issues ready to set alight

A spark and ember becomes a raging flame

Terror and hysteria overshadow any shame


Frantic efforts run asunder to quell the nights inferno

Each and every artist frets and fumes really wanting not to know

Straight through...there's no road back or way around furious forces of nature

Hearts and minds with empty hands knowing that now we only have the future

- K.CastlemanS.

__________________________________________________

THE RED LETTERS OF LAVA HOUSE
-Carol Conaway

The big red letters - LAVA - in LAVA House once announced a name,

Proclaiming the Louisville Assembly of Vanguard Art.

LAVA, hung on an exterior wall, boldly marked their home,

Until a blazing holocaust made its furious arrival known.

Losing support as greedy flames consumed the tree-sized beams,

Tons of iron machinery and gears crashed into the abyss.

As the furnace of flames brought the LAVA House down,

Dreams of the artists crumbled like the fallen walls.

But, do you know, the big red letters of LAVA survived,

Incredibly, unbelievably survived though all else was lost.

The letters of LAVA clung to the only wall left standing,

A wall that once had appeared to be the most fragile.

Perhaps an angel of mercy protected those letters,

Revealing that the LAVA House did survive.

LAVA’s red letters announce a future yet unknown,

A beacon of hope and courage to dreams rising from the ashes.

ANTI-GRAVITY
K.CastlemanS.