Stiff
No one can be more grave than he. Dressed funereally, his features obscured by that business of history, which holds him in his place. Still, he keeps his footing, remains upright. His team leaders, Newton and Adam, have left him here as a caution to others, suspended him with his hands and arms tight and down. His failing became his fate: want. He sees his mistake every day, right there in front of his face, green and Too Late. Lavina Blossom This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic challenge on Magritte's paintings. Lavina is a painter and mixed media artist as well as a poet. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including 3Elements Review, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Kansas Quarterly, The Literary Review, The Paris Review, Poemeleon, and Prompt and Circumstance. She is an Associate Editor of Poetry for Inlandia: a Literary Journey. And she teaches visual art to seniors.
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Sometimes at the Beach
there’s a feeling of being at the centre, in tune with the rhythm of the waves and the larger rhythm of the tides. Laid back, looking up, in full contact, warm sand all up and down The cloudless sky and the long flat horizon, nothing man-made. Bankers and business men in long serious overcoats are distant notions. Only the sand is real, and the sun-bleached driftwood, the occasional gull whose harsh cries call out the sky. Charlie Rossiter This poem was written for the Surprise Challenge, ekphrastic poetry about Magritte paintings. Charlie Rossiter's popular poetry podcast can be heard on the first and third Fridays of every month. http://www.poetryspokenhere.com/ Get his free ebook, Poems People Like, here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39347 Displaced
Lonesome, possessing the accoutrements of wildness, yet stuck against the parapet. A permanent sentry. Nothing to hunt. Savagery dried up, the wings accompanied by arms that have taken their place, His fleshy feet sweat in leather shoes. The nails on toes and fingers he keeps clipped short. His fur: reserved for head and groin. This jungle: pale green cement, well lit by an orange haze of sociability. King in a foreign domain, well suited to the times, a mind clean and bereft of improvisation and surprise. Lavina Blossom This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic challenge on Magritte's paintings. Lavina is a painter and mixed media artist as well as a poet. Her poems have appeared in various journals, including 3Elements Review, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, Kansas Quarterly, The Literary Review, The Paris Review, Poemeleon, and Prompt and Circumstance. She is an Associate Editor of Poetry for Inlandia: a Literary Journey. And she teaches visual art to seniors. Delusions of Grandeur People like to believe they are more than just the body, with its insistent hunger, larger than the animal urge. Hands, after all, serve the mind, whether plotting an arc or sculpting a stone. But we are composed of the same stuff as a star or a redwood, subject to the same laws that govern a mountain or a cloud. What is art without the body? Without the material, the sensory, there could be no art, no artists. So in the image, the glorious torso is headless, the smallest part of the body. It rises out of the much larger pudenda, origin of all making. Robbi Nester This poem was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic poetry challenge on Rene Magritte. Robbi Nester is the author of three books of poems--an ekphrastic chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012), and two collections of poems: A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014) and Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017). She has also edited two anthologies--The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014) and an ekphrastic e-anthology, Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees--celebrating the photography of Beth Moon, which is accessible at http://www.poemeleon.org/over-the-moon-birds-beasts-and . Robbi has published poetry, reviews, essays, interviews, and posts in many journals, anthologies, blogs, and websites. A full list of these is available at her website, http://www.robbinester-poet-and-writer.com. On Magritte’s The Voice of Blood
"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." René Magritte I think we should listen more to old wives and their tales. Learn how not to get caught in a storm (of fear), not to enter the (wrong) doors, how to avoid the falling stars (or catch a ride). How to let go (and know) when trees are silent they are free. The voice of blood is captured in the geometry of trees and the lie of open windows. Meandering greys bend in moonlight’s fortune-telling whispers. Listen. There is no color without light. Listen to the moonlight shape our monochromatic truth. Listen, old wives, to our prayers for fairytale endings ever, ever, after grey is washed in morning, graffiti of the light revealed. Lisa St. John Lisa St. John is a high school English Teacher who has occasionally published poems. Her newest endeavors include a memoir in progress and, of course, poetry. Her first chapbook, Ponderings, can be purchased at Finishing Line Press. She lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley of upstate New York where she calls the Catskill Mountains home. Lisa has published her poetry in the Barbaric Yawp, Bear Creek Haiku, Misfit Magazine, The Poet’s Billow PKA’s Advocate, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Chronogram Magazine. The poem “There Must Be a Science to This” won The Poet’s Billow’s Bermuda Triangle Contest and “Mowing the Lawn” was shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize and later published in Fish Anthology 2016. She also has several travel articles posted on GoNomad.com. When she is not reading or writing longer pieces, Lisa enjoys thinking out loud on her blog, Random Mind Movements. http://lisastjohnblog.com Fanning the Flames
Let the city burn, for I carry you with me, saving you from its bellicose sky and empty streets. Together we’ll watch the flame of slate-faced burghers, those who never gave us the time of day. We’ll cross their final bridge, leaving nowhere behind. You will open to me, petal by petal. Others, though curious, will never see my face. Devon Balwit This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic poetry challenge on Magritte. Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). More of her individual poems can be found here as well as in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Inflectionist; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, and more. What He Sees is your body broken layered like a set of nesting dolls each one diminished less and less complete the smallest at the center closest to whole an armless headless torso the body’s core rising from the shell of a pelvis that rises from the cradle of your sex both offered and infolded given the lead magnified and closer than any other fragment daring us to notice what is missing- the hands, the face the voice Mary McCarthy This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic challenge on Magritte's paintings. 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. René Magritte: The Unexpected Answer (1933) Later you will wonder how I locked the bedroom door from the inside. “Open up!” you’ll yell. Try the knob, barge in without an answer. For the rest of my days, I’ll relish imagining that moment you find the room stripped, empty as your heart. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic challenge for Magritte. Alarie’s latest poetry book, Waking on the Moon, contains many poems first published by The Ekphrastic Review. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. One Viewer’s Response to Emily Carr’s Red Cedar That is one mighty leg jutting out from beneath her flouncy green skirt! All sinew and ropy muscle, it supports a woman of lofty ambitions — and heaven help the man who stands in her way! Bill Waters This poem was written for the Surprise Challenge, ekphrastic poetry on Canadian paintings. Known primarily for his Japanese-style micropoetry, Bill Waters also writes ekphrastic poetry, found verse, book spine poetry, and all manner of short prose. He lives in Pennington, New Jersey, U.S.A., with his wonderful wife and their two amazing cats. Canada? Boring? What If? The artist asks “What if daily life in Canada is boring?” an impossible question, it’s too complex, and so to parse it I ask myself “if I were a province, which one would I be?” Alberta comes to mind. I’m thinking mountains and nature when I say that, not oil fields and pipe line conservatives. The same way I envision Yellowstone grizzlies and bull moose, not gun-toting white supremacists when I think of Wyoming. Then again there are the coastal provinces, and I’m big on the ocean. I could be a mix of big city BC -- Vancouver and laid back little Nova Scotia. But back to the question Canada? Boring? What if? It’s too much. My big city friends wonder if daily life is boring where I live here in small town Vermont. I could tell them, but that wouldn’t be the answer. When it comes to big questions the only answers that count are those you find out on your own. Charlie Rossiter This poem was written for the Surprise Challenge, ekphrastic poetry about Canadian paintings. Charlie Rossiter's popular poetry podcast can be heard on the first and third Fridays of every month. http://www.poetryspokenhere.com/ Get his free ebook, Poems People Like, here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39347 |
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