Mamá
is your first language. What is country to you? Everything is Mamá. Mamá is brave to leave Méjico, to taste a sharp language on her tongue. For you, English will be as easy as growing. Sleep, Bebita, while Mamá dreams. 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.
0 Comments
Growing Pains/Pain Glow
older life older skin spots appearance you sleepless peepers age in lines and crows-feet lines frozen movement improvement a dermal trough hollow half a syringe weighty jowls face technology kick-starting process you the neck elegant Botulinum skin papery-texture chin peaks atrophy lips mouth chin up injections process acid experience thicker under eyes don’t worry - hyaluronidase Crystal Snoddon This piece is a found poem sourced from pgs 25-27 of November 2016 Canadian Living Magazine article on anti-aging procedures. It was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Crystal Snoddon is addicted to words, and enjoys both reading and writing to make some sense of the world. Previous and forthcoming publications of poetry can be found at SickLit Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, The Quarterday Review, Poetry Breakfast among others. Splayed Like a Butterfly
She would no sooner thigh gap than splay the butterfly. she’d face a wall as soon as a window because a sky is a wall too, just bluer. And splayed like knees to the sun. And butterfly like bricks with eyes. Laura Page Laura Page is a graduate of Southern Oregon University where she studied English and Sociology. 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. Light Leaving Who is this for? The question is always the same from every person approaching the grave being silently dug as the light is leaving the sky. The answer is always the same from the nun with the folded hands, although her face changes for every person. Sometimes she is their mother, sometimes not; she is always someone they once knew. She replies, It’s almost finished. 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. We Need to Talk About Heaven I shift awake to insomniac moon of cat's eye apatite keeping its lonesome vigil. Fire opal shimmer of dawn punctuates the night. Loosely scribbled letters in black ink urge We need to talk. Her Sunday School watercolour called Heaven remains on the fridge-- a black cross entrance to remembrance blue, streaks of butter cookie yellow glimmering glow of angels, dollops of slipper pink the good souls carried away like wildflower blossoms on the wind. We meet under a barren camperdown elm, the blackbirds startled into flight. Unable to find words, I take her photo from my coat pocket. The elm contorts, it's broken silhouette bent over us, weeping, as if a crucifix redeeming us, as if to keep us from being spirited away. Rebecca Weigold Rebecca Weigold's poems are forthcoming or have appeared in BlazeVOX, The Tishman Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Winamop, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and others. In 1987, she founded and published The Cincinnati Poets' Collective, which featured the work of national and international poets for nearly a decade. Her writer's page can be found on Facebook at Rebecca Weigold--Poet. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Exhibit
Everything nestled in her tool box, tubes of cobalt blue, orange de Mars, Indian blood, vine black, Venetian red, Mars red, simple white. The brushes cut to fine points. Her simple three line sketches in a black book that captured erosion and cliff in soaring. The thin blade knives that smeared mist into river, vulvas into petals, antlers into sky. I with my Oxford English Dictionary. All the raw words settle in with their histories and antique usages as I try over and over to make the sound of fall rain on gold leaves. Tricia Knoll Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet more vibrantly familiar with the shades of green and brown that make up the northwest forests than the adobe reds and Mars rock colors of New Mexico. Her two poetry collections focus on this landscape she knows the best. Ocean's Laughter (Aldrich Press 2016) focuses on change over time in a small town on Oregon's north coast. Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press, 2014) looks at interactions between wildlife and humans in urban habitat. Website: triciaknoll.com The Rest
Badass nun digging a grave, arms strong enough to slug harassers. God, make me like that half-habit-clad babe who pulls soil at dawn after breaking the surface with a pickaxe, her hair in a rag. Tough as nutshells, flushed and pretty, her face lit by the sun, she leans down and delves in—unlike her cucumber-cool supervisor who keeps wimple clean and counts beads while posing on a fallen marker. My girl draws back with a shovel full of dirt —brawny dancer, ready to fling it farther-- Oops, I missed, she says (no apology) then scoops out and tosses another brown pile. Sister Tidy shakes out her skirt, dislodging beetles, compost and gravelly bits, and directs a fed-up look at Millais, mouthing, No rest for the immaculate. 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. |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you. Join us on Facebook:
Tickled Pink Contest
March 2024
|