Mark Drago kicks off the JSTOR Poetry Challenge with his raven poem.

1. 
   JMartin 2008 04 11 at 11:47:28 pm

   Shamans As Neurotics

   Shake that rattle, Joseph Campbell—
   icaros compact disk!

   Our mescaline trances
   co-opted as dances,
   Axis Mundi a fab wine bar:

   now ten percent necromancing,
   ninety performance art.

   The jaguar mumbles,
   tapir to doze stumbles,
   his ankles crossed like tired Lab.

   Last week’s favored pour a pinot—
   Vine of the Very Dead.

2. 
   R. Mildred 2008 04 12 at 7:28:19 pm

   Cryptic Fen Productions presents:

   The White-Necked Raven,
   In steel hulls sang;
   “Aishi of Norway
   my brave, bold few,
   out in the Deep
   shall forge futures anew”

   But few futures are pretty,
   and this one was grim,
   for few could have guessed
   the new men that Union would bring.

   These cold eyed crews,
   and the taped fed children did fly,
   ‘tween lone stations and mass
   where in near-C battle many would die.

   For the Company Fleet,
   cruel vaned monsters all,
   Did fight for illusions
   and the Company’s Rules.

   But unknownst to Mazian,
   Union, Stations or ships
   the Company itself
   decided to renege on its bets…

3. 
   Sven DiMilo 2008 04 13 at 8:35:09 pm

   Brown-blotch’d
   Rear-fang’d
   Cat-eyed, her pupil a vertical slit
   By day she hides
   A silent, nocturnal hunter…of what?