Bathsheba
Blame it on the desert air that drew the moisture off her like a slip or the moon that spotlit her hair and the creases under each ass cheek or the power of a glimpse of sponge on crook and fold and dimple. Once watching, he could no more let the ritual be than leave a psalm half-composed. Even the rug’s roughness, the cold of stone weren’t hers to own in the city of a king. So he trained his focus on her skin, ignoring the flat rooftops beyond, and self-doubt lay under wraps like the curve of a waist beneath a kaftan. Sarah Carleton Sarah Carleton writes, edits, plays the banjo and raises her son in Tampa, Florida. Her poems have appeared in Houseboat, Burning Word Literary Journal, Avatar Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Bijou Poetry Review, Off the Coast, Shark Reef, Wild Violet Magazine, The Binnacle, The Homestead Review, Cider Press Review and Nimrod. She also has work upcoming in Silver Birch and Chattahoochee Review. This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Pacific
We see no face, see no emotion, yet the scene is poignant and carries a sense of urgency. I feel: desperation, sadness, alone, heaviness, fog, mist, darkness. The sand is on the beach yet it is on his shoulders. He is looking at the water yet he is walking under it. He is awake but is trying to run in his sleep. It is daylight, yet it is dusk. I feel like snatching the gun away. Then I see myself standing there. Robert Thiessen Robert Thiessen worked at General Motors for forty years, most recently as a millwright. He is now retired. These pieces for the 20 Poem Challenge are his first poems. Stop Remember these colours neons punctuated by occasional blacks pulsing psychedelic eye candy signaling a brief vision of delight meaning no more than the sugars melting on your tongue Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has had many publications in journals, including Earth's Daughters, Caketrain, and The Evening Street Review, among others. She has only recently discovered the vibrant poetry communities on the internet, where there is so much to explore and enjoy. This poem was written as part of the ekphrastic 20 Poem Challenge. Framed
i n. A Petri dish is a shallow cylindrical glass or plastic lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells. confined by the arch of circular form each life cycles endlessly, growing evolving—attempting to be different: the scent of rose rises from one, a prickle of spine another, a sour taste with a third, a vibratory ping is emitted by the fourth and ah the fifth flashes-flashes-flashes ii n. An abyss: a seemingly bottomless chasm. or a profound difference between people or hell conceived of as a bottomless pit. an aperture created to school light circles, mouths the white, eats the assumption of nonexistence without sight—pupils open and close retaining images of what might. Backward we fall circling round the drain pitted against a pocked foreground of tactile white—holed up iii n. Pointillism a technique of neo-impressionist painting using tiny dots of various pure colors, which become blended in the viewer’s eye. the flat edge lies as round it rims, fluctuating to gray, charging the white to glow—shadows caste by bump-ups that raise gray tones. Candy shots that dot dance, vibrate-- all, that’s Universal portrayed, boxed in a rectangular frame Deborah Guzzi This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Deborah Guzzi is a healing facilitator specializing in Shiatsu and Reiki. She writes for Massage and Aromatherapy publications. She travels the world seeking writing inspiration. She has walked the Great Wall of China and visited Nepal (during the civil war), Japan, Egypt (two weeks before “The Arab Spring”), Peru, and France (during December’s terrorist attacks). Her poetry appears in Magazines: here/there: poetry in the UK, Existere - Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review, Hong Kong, China, Eunoia in Singapore, Latchkey Tales in New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, mgv2>publishing in France, RedLeaf Poetry, India and Travel by the Book, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, Sounding Review, Kyso Flash, The Aurorean, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Liquid Imagination, Poetry Quarterly, Page & Spine and others in the USA. Her new book The Hurricane is available now through Prolific Press. Pacific An ocean paradise lurking behind it, nothing. Why go there? I knew the end was here. My hopes are ebbing. My money gone, a romance broken. That last blast of a gun would shatter the peace of the gentle waves. That’s not what I wanted. I long to disappear among the confusion of colours that I knew swirled below the ocean’s surface like a Peter Max painting, vibrant with neon blues and reds and greens and oranges, shades of a life I’d known. I feel strangled by despair and yearn to be rescued. And then the phone rings. Michele Hyatt-Blankman This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Michele Hyatt-Blankman began writing stories and poetry from a very early age, beginning a lifelong interest in both. She expanded her interests to journalism at Marshall University, where she was a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Following years in public relations and copy editing, she now spends time at home with her husband Jon, a retired school teacher, trying to keep her four cats out of trouble. She is also a proud mom of two sons, Richard, 31, and Joshua 29, living in NY and Texas, respectively. Vacuum-Packed
Through the lens of this powerful microscope, an eyelash comes to life, becomes a teeming multicoulored universe, creatures unaware of me until this moment, as I have been of them, though they’re as close as my own eye. Robbi Nester This was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Robbi Nester is the author of an ekphrastic chapbook titled Balance (White Violet, 2012) and other poetry collections. Her work has been published widely in journals and anthologies, including Cimarron Review, Broadsided, Silver Birch Press, Poemeleon, and Inlandia. Aftermath “Art is vice. You don't wed it, you rape it.” Edgar Degas Was I ever so green, some fluorescing sprig trusting the violence was finally over, even while its threat lingered, even while purpled gallows hovered a breath above abraded planes. Home was an invention in the horizon, a mazy history divided, always divided, by contrasts, the warring nature of elements. Is it any wonder that I naively granted an unclear cleaving, like clouds spreading or thighs parting when they’d only sought direction. Damn his oiled water. I can barely look. Light recasts chasms with deceitful romanticism; Was I ever so invisible, insignificant, a snowy pebble cloaked by too explicit a dark. We are all no more than cherry-picked landscapes, marked panoramas, manipulated compositions, views bludgeoned by epic cycles: break and heal, heal to again be broken. Cyndi MacMillan This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Cyndi MacMillan poetry has recently appeared in Grain Magazine and the Fieldstone Review. Her verse, short fiction and novel-in-progress resentfully compete for her attention. She lives in New Hamburg, Ontario, home to North America’s largest working water wheel. Coffee and family allow ideas to percolate. BATHSHEBA
beautiful vulnerable hijacked abused afflicted URIAH honourable disciplined faithful loyal selfless betrayed deceived manipulated murdered DAVID lazy lustful abusive manipulative adulterer approached self righteous confronted convicted afflicted repented confessed supplicated forgiven praised proclaimed Robert Thiessen This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge. Robert Thiessen worked at General Motors for forty years, most recently as a millwright, and is now retired. His works for the 20 Poem Challenge are more or less his first poems. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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