The Promenade Since your death, I have imagined you flying above me like a bird desperate to take a shit on my head. My grandmother used to say, "When a bird shits on you, it's good luck." Fuck that. You flying above my head is not how either of us wanted this to go. Neither is me flying above you, hence why I don't have as big a smile as you like I am seasick from all this flying around, the air an ocean, you my anchor. You were always my anchor, you know, the one I could trust. I know I could trust you not to look up my skirt with me flying over you. You were too concerned with the art in things: the muffled language you hear while flying over a roof or past a window with just a bit of wind blowing against your ear, the language in church bells, not the choir, the language in all music, not just in voices. But here you are, not flying for once. Though mountains ground you, I know you want to float out of them, like a coffin not buried deep enough, like a coffin in flooded land. Though you might want me to be your flag, bearing a message to other travellers on their way to the underworld, I don't know what to say to them except that poetry is in that voice of yours deeper than the lowest note on the pipe organ in a glowing church. That voice of yours keeps me awake at night. I hear you. I hear you. I swear to G-d; I hear you. I should have known that something was up when I answered the door to you wearing a tuxedo. I didn't even know you owned one. Look at that smile; it's like you're completely oblivious to the fact that you are dead, like you are completely oblivious to the fact that you haunt me. As much as the grass likes to forget that it dies every winter, as much as the church bells would like to forget the space between their ringing, as much as the cemetary would like to forget what it feels like to swallow a body whole, it would lift me higher than you have me right now to forget you. Liz Marlow Liz Marlow has an MFA and an MBA. When she is not collecting degrees, she enjoys looking at art and writing about it. One of her first memories was walking through the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with her father. Her poems have appeared in The Binnacle Ultra-Short Edition and Deep South.
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The Pianist and The Poet
Seymour Bernstein barely blinks when he talks, his eyes as at ease in the light of the world as his hands, poised over the keys when he asks us to mark how the note hovers in air after it’s struck so that even its final hush finds accord. He touches his student’s arm with a gentle continuum, in perfect concordance, urges her heart closer to Bach, reminds her to listen, to breathe, like my poet friend Amy says in a poem: “Listen. The high kiss of finch grabs a thread of air.” This is a transport, rapid as half of a breath “as if ears were satellite dishes on stems”. She teaches too and waits as long as it takes for her students to hear. She knows what that means, how it helps to blend the word and the sound of the word so the ear and the brain work together. “These tiniest bones hear us think.” Yes, listen to the hush that carries the sound. Judith Bowles Editor's note: This poem was inspired by Ethan Hawke’s documentary about Seymour Bernstein, Seymour—An Introduction, and Amy Young’s poem “Ossicles.” Scroll below to read Amy's poem. The Ekphrastic Review was absolutely delighted to hear from Amy Young, who generously agreed to share her poem, too, as well as from Seymour Bernstein, the subject of Judith Bowles' poem and the documentary movie by Ethan Hawke. Judith Bowles lives, writes and gardens in Washington D. C. She has an MFA from the American University in short fiction and taught creative writing there. Two of her stories were selected for the Pen Syndicated Fiction Project. Her poems have been published in The Delmarva Review, The Innisfree Journal of Poetry, and Gargoyle. Her book, The Gatherer, was published by WordTech Communication’s Turning Point in November of 2014. The Ekphrastic Review turns two next month- wow! It has truly been an incredible journey. Today I'm asking for a small favour. Very small. In honour of the amazing poets, writers, and artists here who share their creative gifts with the world, please take a moment today to show their work to a wider audience. That's it: just share The Ekphrastic Review with your Facebook or Twitter friends. You can choose any post you like, or use this one. If you are finding yourself on this page because a friend shared us, welcome! Take a few moments to scroll through and read some brilliant writers, all responding to art. Click on another month in the archives, or enter a writer's name in the search box and discover someone new. The writers and artists whose work fills these pages have made this project into something truly special. Thanks for spreading the word! Collaboration
for Christoph Niemann and Françoise Mouly When I was young I saw a photograph of a fence after an earthquake where its man-made border was interrupted as one half was heaved forward and one half was pulled back leaving a large gap like a warped spring—a latch that can’t quite be forced close or like someone painting a line down the right side of a large and invisible street fell asleep and when they woke up they accidentally resumed their drawing on the left side instead—the width of a street—a common ground—a public right of way owned and maintained by the city—now left unconnected and you couldn’t see where the earth ground against itself sliding or where it rippled like a blanket being shaken because there wasn’t a mark and wasn’t a rift-- wasn’t a scar in the grass—and I always associated this image with earthquakes so much so that now the New Yorker’s cover illustration reminds me of an earthquake fissure the leafless cherry branch like lightning slightly off-centre and striking upon the left-hand side of the page where trefoils blossom pink and loose petals drift back and up and I think how the artist’s editor was right to change the background colour of this dark crack canyoning up the beautifully clean white—too obvious—to a new version of a branch drawn black against black—unseen-- and the flowers float seemingly at random… Jennifer Met Jennifer Met lives in a small town in North Idaho. Recent work is published or forthcoming in Nimrod, Harpur Palate, Zone 3, Juked, Tinderbox, Rogue Agent, Sonic Boom, Gravel, Sleet Magazine, Weirderary, Bombay Gin, and Moon City Review, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, a finalist for Nimrod’s Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and winner of the Jovanovich Award. Her chapbook Gallery Withheld is forthcoming from Glass Poetry Press. See more at www.jennifermet.com. Editor's note:
Some of you have asked about my trip to Tunisia in April. You can read a bit about my experiences by clicking here for my new Wine and Art column at Good Food Revolution. Enjoy! Lorette Take Magritte for example. He sees an egg but paints a bird. He paints himself ogling the egg while painting the bird. He pictures himself eating the egg while dreaming the bird. In another life the bird returns. She is nothing but a hole in the bird-shaped sky. And Magritte? He’s green as a feather. He’s an apple an inch from your eye. Take me. I see him painting a pipe. He writes, “This is not a pipe,” under the painted pipe. I write within the poem, “This is not a poem,” though it must ring true if it curves, has a clapper, and isn’t a bell. Take Magritte again. I see him in a room with his painted brush and comb. He writes, “This is not a room; this is not death; this is not about a poem.” Paul Fisher This poem was first published in Mannequin Envy. Paul Fisher lives in Seattle with his wife, Linda, two bossy cats and a five-pound poodle. A former visual arts teacher, he is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Oregon Arts Commission. His first book, Rumors of Shore, won the 2009 Blue light Book Award, and his second, An Exaltation of Tongues, is forthcoming from MoonPath Press. His poems have appeared in journals such asThe Antioch Review, Cave Wall, Crab Creek Review, Cutthroat, Nimrod, and Switched-on Gutenberg. Paul believes lyric poetry has as much in common with painting as it has with prose. Go Slow, Leonard Cohen
I had a dream Leonard Cohen was my first and I was his last. Go slow don’t hurt me, I whispered. Go slow don’t kill me, he warned. He taught me why the yellow dog howls when the pink rose blooms in the dark of night while the rain runs in rivulets down the window. He showed me that sometimes I would be the dog, sometimes I would be the rose. But both of us were always the rain. And to go slow. The end would come soon enough. Tricia Marcella Cimera This poem was inspired by listening to Leonard Cohen's last album, You Want It Darker. It was first published in Autumn Sky Poetry. Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere. She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website. Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox. |
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