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Theory of Un-nest A bird in space is God’s prosthetic finger, gold as the flake in His eye, as the quick of His nail, as the phallic anti-gravity of His yearning. A bird in space is wings melted to breast, gold as alchemical steam, as a nail biting to clap one world to another. A bird in space—a theory of un-nest, gold-black, like when the sun charades a black hole, a nail turned crayon in morning ozone. Laura Page This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Laura Page is a graduate of Southern Oregon University where she studied English and Sociology and was the recipient of her program's Herman Schmeling Award for non-fiction writing. Her work has appeared in many literary publications, including Red Paint Hill, The Minola Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and KIndred. Her chapbook, "Children, Apostates" is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press
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The Allure of Self-Destruction We assume we’ll recognize Death rattling in his raven cloak, pointing a finger bone our way. What if he is sometimes a SHE who changes clothes faster than a model? Addicted to parties, Death nods at advances, reaches with sharpened claws for a light. Casts a spell with her wand of smoke – ashes to ashes, lust to lust. Before the crowd clears, she’ll lure someone to follow her home. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. Artistic Hands: Two Triolets I. As clay made flesh, hands left and right can sense in life the sad and glad but mad they might clench fists to fight The clay made flesh, hands left or right with pens and pixels also write commingled hands are seldom mad As clay made flesh, hands left and right reach the lives of sad and glad And fleshlike clay, hands left and right can echo life that’s sad or glad and mime they’re mad, fists clenched to fight The fleshlike clay, hands left and right with kiln-fired fingers ghostly white might mesh with flesh with neither mad And fleshlike clay, hands left and right echo lives of sad or glad II. As clay made flesh, hands left and right and fleshlike clay, hands left and right can sense in life the sad and glad can echo life that’s sad or glad but mad they might clench fists to fight and mime they’re mad, fists clenched to fight the clay made flesh, hands left or right the fleshlike clay, hands left and right with pens and pixels also write with kiln-fired fingers ghostly white commingled hands are seldom mad might mesh with flesh with neither mad as clay made flesh, hands left and right and fleshlike clay, hands left and right can reach the lives of sad and glad echo lives of sad or glad Ralph La Rosa Editor's note: This piece was written in response to the Rattle Magazine Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2016- a work called Clay Hands, by Heshani Sothiraj Eddleston. View it at the link below: http://www.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EC16Aug.jpg The poetry of Ralph La Rosa has been published widely in paper and online venues. Recent publications include the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas (Kelsay Books) and full-length Ghost Trees (Kelsay Books). I Have Loved You Since the World Began, by Lorette C. Luzajic. By purchasing this small work, or any other of Lorette's small collage paintings or photography prints at Etsy, you directly support The Ekphrastic Review.
Ekphrastic readers and contributors save 25% now and forever on Lorette's small artworks at Etsy- just enter the coupon code EKPHRASTIC25 at checkout. Click image to see that particular work. Click here to see store. Many thanks. Behind the Scenes
is what happens when sateen alphabets slide down the gelatinous cells in your brain and reach the knobby bulb of the presynaptic terminal –called synaptic bouton –to ferry across the junctional ports, giving birth, as a result, to a murmuration of thoughts, a word you utter, or simply an alphabet, on which you chew, for the entire course of an afternoon. Draw your attention, then, to the E, A and K tumbling down the notch the word-mountains make. Alphanumeric trees rise from stony waists and burst in blossoms of wild acanthus. There are roots too, growing deep and muscular into the pit of the rock, where vowels bleed like oil, and rosy O’s spend afternoons eating honeycombs and rye. Wings of nouns and prime numbers flutter and flap, ruffle and beat, wrestle, tug, yank before the feathers leap off their warm hooklets. Volcanoes simmer with boiling J’s. Birds of flight and endless night eat husks of L’s, necks of 5’s, nails of E’s, following endless dives, whipping splashes, heady roils, after which, is born, a verb or a soluble adjective in the intercession of speech. Tanmoy Das Lala Tanmoy Das Lala lives in New York City with his partner Eric and a pea plant. His works have appeared in several online journals. His blog is tanmoydaslala.blogspot.com When Blue Seemed Like a Good Idea
I’ve never been good at opening hearts or talking to strangers or simply making my own bed. Some might call this sky blue, but they wouldn’t be from around here. Will you move in with me? I asked her before lattice and fencing, on the stoop with cigarettes and soft breeze. If you paint the damn thing, she said, and laughed. She’d left her husband for a bad tattoo and a grungy rock band. She left me too. On that ladder, giddy with a colour from Miami or some old cartoon, I was shouting to the street. The fence was too low, and the dog ran away. The flowers never got planted, though we’d made a list. If you’re like my neighbours, you’re shaking your head and calling it an eyesore. I got a tattoo to match hers. Working long hours, warping permanence into a blurred design that could mean anything. I put up the lattice after she left. Spring on its way. Have you been to Miami? I could tell you why she left, but when I look back, I still see her bare arms rising toward me when I came down the ladder and hugged her in blue, the reckless music of our cartoon laughter. Life itself can make our eyes sore. I don’t know much, but fading is a part of it. I’m not climbing back up there to scrape and prime and start again. Jim Daniels Jim Daniels is the author of numerous books of poetry and fiction. “The End of Blessings,” the fourth short film he has written and produced, is currently making the rounds of film festivals, and his poems and the photographs of Charlee Brodsky were displayed in their show, “Beyond the Obvious,” at the Robert Morris University Art Gallery last year. Very exciting! Regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, Robbi Nester, is the editor of an anthology of ekphrastic poetry.
Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees features poems inspired by the photography of Beth Moon. It's published by Poemeleon, and you can read it by clicking here. The Starling Cut-out comic strips rainy afternoon squiggles smears of lipstick photos with marker-blackened faces stray feathers spilled paint-- I have given up these shreds and shards these puzzles pieces these fragments of finger pointing self-guided self-aimed missiles missives on my failures. Instead I will unite them quilt a bird with a humour-lined face a wingful of white-hot sun a body coloured with waterfall- curtained haikus and opal eyes whose lustre shifts between twilit forest midday ocean desert sky devoured by stars. The canvas opens to catch my starling fling it out to corners splash it in the centre its sheen flashing purpose. Taunja Thomson This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge. Taunja Thomson: "My poetry has most recently appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic and will be featured in the September 2016 issue of Halcyon Days. Two of my poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Award: “Seahorse and Moon” in 2005 and “I Walked Out in January” in 2016. I have co-authored a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry which has recently been accepted for publication and have a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWriter" The Prophet
The man in the hat points to the sky tells the lady it’s going to pour frogs better open her umbrella. Creatures don’t fall from the sky only rain I’m not worried she says haughty-like. That’s why I’ve got a crutch and no leg answers the man in the hat I paid no mind to warnings now look. Oh dear says the lady and hurries on. Tricia Marcella Cimera This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. 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. The Siren and the Poet
Resting his head against the flames of the Siren’s tresses, the poet is beside himself. Who better to instruct him on the art of voice, so enchanting, sailors could not resist. A mermaid’s tail replaces the wings of myth. Pearls grace her neck. The poet’s embrace lifts her from the ocean as if he must pull from his own depths the music of longing. So like this Muse of the Lower World, the poet sets sail across time’s turbulent seas to discover , in spiritus, the right music and words to connect beauty, love and death. Jane Ellen Glasser Jane Ellen Glasser’s poetry has appeared in journals, such as Hudson Review, Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review,and Georgia Review. In the past she reviewed poetry books for the Virginian-Pilot, edited poetry for the Ghent Quarterly and Lady Jane’s Miscellany, and co-founded the nonprofit arts organization and journal New Virginia Review. She won the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry 2005 for Light Persists and The Long Life won the Poetica Publishing Company Chapbook Contest in 2011. Her seventh poetry collection, “In the Shadow of Paradise,” is due out from FutureCycle Press in 2017. Her work may be previewed on her website: www.janeellenglasser.com |
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