Walk With Humility

These are the footpaths of
parallel souls
similar, seeking their
separate goals,

knowing that moments of
need unforeseen
loom as insistence that
strength intervene,

gift to be given by
angel ordained
bridging a crisis by
balance sustained

felt as the glisten of
summoning faith
hollow but shimmering
seen as its wraith.

These are the waves as they
shattered on rock
breaking complexity
gone from the clock,

lingering vestiges
captured in art
lifeless as pieces of
meaning apart.

This is the legacy
shouldered as bond
history forms with the
future beyond,

journey eternally
passage of hope,
courage entitled to
dream and to cope,

sharing the trial and
error of truth
dimming the innocence
left in our youth,

sterling as wisdom of
peace that regales
failures that billow as
wind in our sails.

This is our destiny.
Wake from our night.
Walk with humility
stumbling on Light

seen as awareness of
infinite Grace
offered and given its
time and its place.

Portly Bard

Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent...
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.

Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.

The Art of Disaster

The war with Iran has given me cause to reflect on the history, philosophy, and art of disaster, and The Raft of the Medusa by the French painter Théodore Géricault, is widely known as the work on the theme. Like Picasso’s Guernica, it depicts a specific event which takes on an eternal and universal meaning. Some read in it a metaphor for Modernism, and others see it as symbolizing the human condition. Still others understand it as a discourse on the state of Western painting at the moment of the birth of the modern museum, and the transfer of works of art from the walls of the palace and church into the public sphere. 

Let’s begin with the fact that the star of the 1819 Paris Salon was Ingres’s Odalisque. It is difficult to think of a picture that contrasts more strongly to Ingres’s tranquil, neo-classical, indulgent and indulging Odalisque than the painting which Géricault purposely hung high over the passageway at the salon, and presented under the title, Scene from a Disaster at Sea. 

Visitors to the exhibition quickly identified the story which had dominated the headlines three years earlier, a horrific story about the shipwreck of La Meduse which ran aground onto a sandbank in the ocean. The survivors left without lifeboats put together a raft, and when it became clear that they were adrift at sea with no hope of rescue, some killed themselves, others died of hunger and thirst, and some grew drunk with despair. The survivors slowly lost their humanity. On their fourth day at sea, in the freezing water and with no sign of rescue on the horizon, the survivors began to consume the bodies of those who had died. When they were finally rescued by a passing ship, only 15 of the original 149 survivors remained.

Gericault’s creative gambit here is amazing. He structured the painting based on the flood scene in the Sistine Chapel and invited the carpenter who built the raft and was among the survivors to reconstruct that same raft in his studio, just as in the psychotherapy clinic, the reconstruction of a trauma is akin to the creation of a work of literature. Except that in this case, the patient wasn’t a passive victim but the one who directed, produced, and performed all of the roles. You can see the same logic in the movies of Quentin Tarantino, when the Holocaust, or slavery, or the murder of Sharron Tate are reproduced, but with full control and a sense of redemption. Tarantino murders the Nazis in Inglorious Bastards in the movie house. In this way art, as a retelling of trauma, becomes a site of redemption. This is apparent in the fact that in Gericault’s painting, there are no wounded, and even the corpses look fairly healthy.

The siren wakes us at 5:00 in the morning. We gather up our sleeping child and descend three flights down into the shelter. Our building trembles above. For two years now we’ve felt like Roberto Benini in Life is Beautiful, producing a lifelike semblance of a game for our daughter, going down to the bomb shelter and then back upstairs without letting on, for even a moment, a sense of the horror. 

The disaster has been postponed. It will truly appear in our lives when, like the survivors of the Medusa, we lose our humanity. Maybe we’ll rejoice in the deaths of others, maybe we’ll eat corpses, maybe we’ll create beautiful art from disaster, and hang a beautiful disaster in the salon. And perhaps, as Walter Benjamin prophesized, we’ll start to enjoy the aesthetics of our own destruction. In the meantime, we are Gericault’s pupils. Ingres’s Odalisque and the comfort of Netflix are not for us, nor are paintings of heroic battles and the government’s propaganda. But neither do we turn to Goya’s regions of depressing realism and engravings that portray the horrors of war. We remake the disaster as a painting, a song or a column in the newspaper, while our true mission is to take control of our lives and stories and preserve our humanity, to feel sorrow for each and every death, to love life and protect our little girl.
 
Jonathan Hirschfeld
Translated from the Hebrew by Janice Weizman

This essay first appeared in the 13.3.26 edition of Ha’aretz.

Janice Weizman is the author of The Wayward Moon and Our Little Histories, which was named a finalist for the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Her writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Ha'aretz, World Literature Today, Consequence, and other places. Born in Toronto, she has lived in Israel for over 40 years.

Terribly Alive
 
I.                   
When the dark cloud looms up just beyond the wing of the airplane, I think of the painting. Above the Clouds is an unusual painting for Georgia O’Keeffe, depicting bare shapes of clouds as seen from above, floating in a blue pool of sky. It departs from the sensual desert flowers for which she’s known in both subject and style.  This sky, my sky outside the plane window, is angrier than O’Keeffe’s. It is swirling and purple blue and the plane banks away from the clouds, trembling in the updrafts. I fly several times a year – sometimes multiple times a month – but I find flying terrifying. On this day, I grip the armrests as my stomach drops out from beneath me.  The painting’s sky is welcoming, or at least benign, the sky equivalent of a small gold Buddha or a sleeping cat. I imagine that O’Keeffe must have loved flying, must have found the loudness and the light and the cloud-tufted sky soothing. 
 
II.
I used to dream of exploring the sky.  When I was a child, I went through phases of information obsession. First, penguins and seabirds like puffins and boobies. I watched videos of emperor penguin babies taking tentative steps out from beneath their parents’ bellies. I learned to identify rockhoppers and fairy penguins, to distinguish the king from the emperor. Then it was marine life; anemones and sea stars. I lingered in tide pools in the Pacific Northwest – where we lived for a time – watching the sway of the anemone tentacles and the darting of tiny fish around tiny coral and unseen predators. Then came space. I stacked and read books full of nebulae and planets, particularly enamored with black holes and the unknowns of deep space. I was certain I would be an astronaut. My uncle introduced me to science fiction and I read all of the space opera I could find, burning through Asimov and Clarke, Bradbury and LeGuin.  I envisioned my adult self as a fearless, brilliant astronaut, solving the grand mysteries of space and time. I loved to imagine myself floating through a spaceship in a mylar suit, the stars and planets whooshing by outside, framed by porthole windows, the Earth a blue marble floating in the deep black.
 
III.
O’Keeffe was in her 70s when she painted her clouds.  Some historians say that, despite an initial fear of flying, when O’Keeffe began traveling via airplane around 1959 she found herself transfixed by the view of the clouds from above. She painted several versions of Above the Clouds each version growing larger and more abstract. The final version was eight feet tall and twenty-four feet wide and could not fit into a museum to which it was sent for an exhibit.  According to a description from the Art Institute of Chicago, O’Keeffe said of one of the paintings, “[s]uch a size is of course ridiculous but I had it in my head as something I wanted to do for a couple of years.”  I wonder whether, if she would have lived longer, if she would have kept painting larger versions, whether she would have ultimately painted something approaching the scale and scope of the sky itself. I wonder if she painted out of love or out of something more like reverence.  I wonder if the painting that I hold in my mind’s eye when I fly was created to quell her own fears of hurtling through the air. 
 
IV. 
Aspirations of space flight run in my family.  My mother, a teacher throughout her career, dreamed of being an astronaut.  The story told in my family is that my mother applied immediately when NASA announced it would be sending a teacher into space in the 1980s.  She too dreamed of floating weightless in a space ship, watching the Earth grow tiny through a porthole window.  She says – seemingly without regret or resentment – that her pregnancy with my younger sister caused her to withdraw her application.  She remains sure she would have been selected if she had not withdrawn.  Ultimately, a teacher from New Hampshire, Christa McAuliffe, was selected to go to space.  In 1986, she joined the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  Seventy-three seconds after takeoff, the Challenger broke apart mid-air. The news coverage of the tragedy is among my earliest memories, perhaps it planted that seed of doubt in my mind whether the sky was safe.  Not so for my mother. In recent years she closely follows the endeavours by various billionaires to send private citizens into space.  She still hopes to spend time among the stars. 
 
V. 
O’Keeffe was 42 when she discovered New Mexico. Disillusioned by both her marriage and her home in New York City, she sought the uninterrupted blue skies and red rocks of New Mexico. For twenty years she spent months at a time there, and in 1949 she moved permanently.  I picture her alone there, among the rocks and sky.  She painted in her sprawling mid-century modern house or on the cliffsides.  She worked in the garage until the nights grew too cold and outside unless the sun burned too hot.  She found home there; she found inspiration.  She said of her adopted home, “[Taos is] a high, wise, sage-covered plain. In the evening, with the sun at your back, it looks like an ocean, like water. The colour up there is different . . . the blue-green of the sage and mountains, the wildflowers in bloom. It's a different kind of colour from any I'd ever seen … The world is so wide up there, so big.” I picture her flying each year across the country, taking deep breaths and deep comfort from the blue sky above, the white clouds below, and the mountain home waiting for her at the end of the journey.
 
VI. 
I once told a lecture hall full of 200 strangers that I was afraid of flying. My last year of college, a psychology professor asked anyone with this fear to raise their hands.  It’s supposedly a common fear, but mine was the only hand that went up. I explained to my entire psychology class that the fear emerged in my twenties after a particularly turbulent flight between Syracuse and Chicago.  I explained that I can somewhat relax during calm flights and mostly cannot relax during turbulence.  I explained to this room full of possibly impressed, possibly horrified, classmates that a cocktail of Xanax and wine seemed to help, some of the time. I felt breathless, my heart pounded, and my voice shook the whole time I was speaking. Telling my story to that giant classroom felt how I feel on an airplane flying through an ice storm.  This fear – then, today – it feels like a failure.  It feels like I, an otherwise independent, successful and intelligent person should be able to get it together, to reclaim the calm I once felt above the clouds. It feels like an incongruous fact about me, one that doesn’t quite line up with the image I otherwise project in the world.  Nearly two decades after the fear appeared in my life, it hasn’t gone away, and I still feel those ashamed, lecture-hall sized butterflies when I have to admit the fear.
 
VII. 
O’Keeffe striking out to the west to find a place of her own has always struck me as terribly brave.  In any era, it is a challenge to leave behind the world one knows to see more of the rest of it, but in the early 20th century, for a woman alone, it would have been especially fraught and lonely. For O’Keeffe, however, it resulted in discovering a home, in finding contentedness.  She said about her time in New Mexico, “Living out here has just meant happiness. Sometimes I think I'm half-mad with love for this place.”  She reflected in later years that when spending time at Ghost Ranch, she felt “terribly alive.”  
 
VIII.
I, too, had to wing west to find a place where I felt “terribly alive” and “half-mad” with love.  I’m a bit farther North than O’Keeffe was, in the foothills of Boulder, Colorado.  I lived in Colorado as a child, visited frequently after my family left, and then lived here again immediately after college in my fledging adulthood.  The mountains are home.  The last time I visited before I began making plans to move here, I cried from happiness and relief when the plane shuddered down onto the ground and the mountains loomed into view, and cried again when my plane took off back toward the East, this time from sadness.  I began making plans then to return.  Part of that effort was trying to absorb some of the fearlessness of O’Keeffe, to set out on a journey that would mean professional risks and the potential for loneliness.  Part of it was a craving, after nine years in the intense culture and dense concrete of Washington, DC, for blue skies and wide vistas.  I wanted to be able to see for miles.  I try to put myself in O’Keeffe’s headspace when I fly; I literally hold her painting in my mind’s eye and try to focus on the calm.  I did the same when I journeyed west, trying to hold O’Keeffe’s fearlessness in my mind, trying to think of the journey as coming home, instead of winging off into an unknown sunset.  
 
IX.
Georgia O’Keeffe started her days at sunrise, watching light pink the sky alongside her dogs and a cup of tea.  After a walk along the paths encircling her property, she painted until the sun set behind her iron red hills. I’ve read that often in the evenings she would take long drives through the desert, winding through the cacti and the cattle. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ritual.  Rituals transform ordinary acts into prayer.  I have long observed a strict pre-flight ritual.  I arrive at the airport early; with at least enough time to get through security and then have an hour to wander before my flight.  Ideally, I will have time enough for a large glass of wine at the airport bar and a perusal of the books in the airport bookstore.  Somehow, I find those moments truly pleasurable, reading a good book in a quiet pocket of an airport bar with the hum of travelers around me, a heavy glass of wine in my hand.  During that pocket of white noise and calm, I can start to look forward to getting back home; to my long drive from the airport back up into the hills.  
 
X.
The mountains ground me.  I feel most present when I am trekking through the dust and rocks, hiking in the foothills or mountains with just my dogs and the bluebird sky for company.   Sometimes the feeling is directional.  My internal compass and my restless brain are calmed when I can be sure which way is West, because I can see the hulking Rocky Mountains out that way in the distance.  I feel a kind of breathless awe when I sit near the ocean, and a kind of excited, nervous energy when I walk the sidewalks of large cities. Both are environments that I love and long to visit, but the mountains tether me.  I feel rooted and at home so long as I can see the hills from my window, or – if I’m in the mountains – if I can see the lights of the valley splayed out below.  Even while I’m still aboard a plane, banking and trembling on a descent toward the runways, once I see the mountains come into view out the window, my pulse calms, my hands lose their white knuckle grip on the armrests, and I can turn the volume up on the music in my ears and watch the mountains as they grow bigger and the ground as it grows closer, and I can breathe.  
 
Cara O'Brien

Cara O'Brien: "I am a former newspaper journalist and current tech-startup lawyer and writer living in the foothills outside of Boulder, Colorado. I have been writing my whole life, including writing poetry from the time I could write sentences, studying journalism and creative writing at Syracuse University, and these days in my free time and in writing workshops. I am currently working on projects including a collection of poetry and several personal essays. When I’m not writing, I can usually be found hiking with my rescue dogs, Petey and Copper."
 

At last, we have the finalists for the Heaven Eleven Annual Ekphrastic Marathon in July. And the results are a wild surprise: the winner of both the poetry and the flash categories this year is the same person!

What an amazing experience it was to connect virtually and create with writers all over the world. It is an incredibly intense experience every year, to write fourteen drafts of poetry, flash fiction, or other forms, in a single day!

The goal of the marathon is to complete the marathon and be part of the experience.

Writers had the option of polishing or revising their drafts after the fact, and submitting five to the contest portion of the event. 

The editorial team has been busy ever since the deadline, reviewing an incredible array of stories, poems, CNF, and more, responding to an exciting variety of artworks. We read all entries blind, and discussed our favourites together. It was a challenge to come to a consensus for some of the works, and others were voted in by all of us. Many works were difficult to leave out as well. Ultimately, we had to decide, and created a finalist file that was only a fraction of the wonderful works created in this experience.

For the flash fiction category, Sandi Stromberg chose one piece from the finalists. Kate Copeland chose the winner in the poetry category from the poem finalists. Sandi and Kate chose their respective winner independently of each other and independently of my input, from the finalists we all chose together. They were still choosing from documents without author names.

The Ekphrastic Review reads blind for some events like the marathon, and leaves names in tact for other situations, such as the bimonthly challenges and general submissions. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. In this case, the finalists were a huge surprise, as many authors had several works chosen as finalists, some placing in both categories. 

Another big surprise was that our double winner is a first-time marathon participant, and new to ekphrasis! We are thrilled to welcome this amazing new talent to our pages.

A huge congratulations to everyone who was part of the marathon. Well done! I know many of you have placed stories and poems from the experience and love seeing them out in the world of journals. 

And a huge thank you to Kate and Sandi for your hard work and dedication to our wonderful world of writers.

love, Lorette

And  the poetry winner of the Heaven Eleven Marathon is Chantal Emmery, for "Deep Surrender."

Chantal's poem is first up, below, and then the finalists follow in alphabetical order by author.

​The flash fiction finalists are announced in a separate post.
​
**

Dear Ekphrastic-ers,

Thank you all very much for joining the Heaven Eleven Marathon and for submitting your stunning pieces!

It was an enormous pleasure and honour to read your writings…whether in traditional form or in a more unconventional way.

I use these words deliberately...this year’s Marathon winner chose a classical artwork to wrote an original, layered and intelligent poem to. I noticed myself returning to this poem many times, reading and reading it again, and I kept enjoying the rhythm and imagery, the arrangement on the page as well. 

With no further ado, the winner of Heaven Eleven's poetry category is Chantal Pankratz. Congratulations, you have written a remarkable poem!

And congrats to every single one of you for being such fantastic wordsmiths. Hope you will marathon with us again next year;  hope you will join in at our Ekphrastic Challenge and Ekphrastic Events too.

Be well, Kate Copeland 
Curator-editor, The Ekphrastic Review 

​
POETRY WINNER!!!!

Deep Surrender
  
1.
You, God of that other-world
Guarding the gate called sleep
 
Thought-hounds barking their incessant un-necessities 
Your turntable echoing a single tune with maddening frequency
 
Such ludicrous severity you carry yourself with, guarding ridiculous fictitious fantasies 
 
Your coveted prize is an overflowing waste-bin of half told stories with no beginning middle or end, absurd unfinished drafts of astounding anti-clarity
 
And within those nonsense peaks and valleys
Renewal
Healing
 
What do you gain by refusing me to rifle through that incendiary pile before it takes flame? I have no offering to please you, waiting in half-waking. Why withhold my blessing?
 
Stand up and finish me if you insist I shall not pass
Sitting Impervious
Make the manner match the mask
 
But there is no death, hovering above that deep surrender
Instead, a parasitic draw on life
Rendering incomplete both wake and sleep
 
Why do some meet slumber with such certainty, like old friends at ease
And I, a stranger  
 
2.
The beast bellowed, voices cracking like a whip.
 
I have three minds about you girl
 
You reek of rotten privilege
By comfort you have turned your birthright sour
The industrious do not utter pithy complaints such as these
Sins of sloth have disturbed nature’s effortless order
 
Yet we have seen you exhausted in mind and body, and still unable to enter here
Does my master refuse you for another iniquity? Doubt, or gluttony? Pride? Envy
You covet your neighbours bedrest and forfeit your own
 
I want what I am owed
 
You dare interrupt me and humiliate yourself imagining the master in your debt?
 
I want to hear what he says
 
It is worse than we thought. Not sin but stupidity. Naivety. You think you will find the key
to that gate? It is yourself you cannot escape.
 
 
3. 
Enough, he said, and the hounds resigned
 
You think me a villain 
Withholding that precious nectar, keeping you from dreams, frivolous as they may be
 
You have forgotten the midnight wake
Despised the one who hears branches break in darkness
Smells smoke on the air
Senses the shifting of atmospheres
 
You have forgotten the genius found in the fulcrum
It is not blessing nor curse, not certainty
Careful now, not to dismiss a stranger, who notices what the belong-ed cannot
​see
 
Then tell me, how do I guard against madness?
 
Now child, you have dreamed of the key worth seeking
Search for the place full of strangers, where genius and madness are found coexisting
Where the sun tells time, and the moon gives enough light for the wakeful to write by

​Chantal Emmery

​Chantal is a life-long journaler and word-lover attempting to live off-grid. Ekphrasis is a wonderful new medium to her, and she's excited to dive in.

Hiraeth
  
I miss those slow autumns when trees soften
to umber and gold after a late-August
cooling. Where one can walk through leaf-scented air,
the softness of decay and loam. Scarves billow,
shoes dampen and a light smokey fragrance wafts
from a woodfire in the house ahead. The sense
that someone is home, but who can know the lives within?
Perhaps a pipe, slippers, a thread-worn chair, 
a dog at feet or cat on a windowsill. A book of poems 
open, the clatter of a dropped pot in the kitchen, clomp 
of footsteps coming from upstairs, and the dog suddenly barks. 
Softness, the slow softening of autumn, late afternoon light. 
Where I am, summer fires and drought, cedar trees thirst
and pines are decimated by beetles, new limbs green
fire-burnt trunks. Imagery to poetry is the slow cooked soup
warming on a wood stove. English country house,
hiraeth for what never was. 
 
Yvonne Blomer

Yvonne Blomer has published a cycling memoir and six books of poetry, most recently Death of Persephone: A Murder. She lives on the territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people and has edited three water-based, eco-poetry anthologies, Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice is the latest. She is a huge fan of ekphrastic poetry and teaches this form and many others in immersive and inspiring poetry classes on zoom to poets across North America.

Trafalgar Square
  
Paint a scene
in butter cream
pinks and blues,
a white circle-smudge of sun
on a lemon-yellow sky.
 
We travel to London’s
Trafalgar Square
where heat has me shoeless. 
Sandals hang from my right hand, 
as I step into the frosted blue fountain,
feed the soft birds, slow dance
under Nelson’s melting column.
 
The day’s sticky with summer’s swelter
as pedestrians drip like lit candles.
There is no place to go
no flowers unwilted in this tourist town.
This whipped scene a reverie
of human warming’s
long burning celebration.
Oh sweet, torched meringue; oh scarcity.

Yvonne Blomer

Yvonne Blomer has published a cycling memoir and six books of poetry, most recently Death of Persephone: A Murder. She lives on the territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people and has edited three water-based, eco-poetry anthologies, Sublime: Poems for Vanishing Ice is the latest. She is a huge fan of ekphrastic poetry and teaches this form and many others in immersive and inspiring poetry classes on zoom to poets across North America.

 
The Silence of the Wild
 
Sometimes the silver threads of a giant moon
would weave through the branches of the trees.
After winter had denuded the beech trees
and the sweet chestnuts, together with the swifts
the first green hues would appear, make promises
of a rich summer and fat green leaves covering
the world, and silence the clearing,
and only the woosh of the swifts, the sweet
voices of the goldfinches, and the hoarse calls
of the woodpigeon would interrupt
lazy thoughts of waves lapping, boats bopping,
and tanned young skins glistening with sweat,
boisterous under a southern sun.
 
But it was autumn, the glory of fall,
that entranced us with its glorious generosity.
Gold, russet, ochre, the gentler sun 
of another dying year, the threat of another
winter clad in the finest crinkly coats with wings,
dancing to their death on the soft floor
of a moist bed made from the first heavy rains.
 
And we knew then that soon the long sleep
would prepare us for another new beginning
but this time would come without us. 
Like the swifts, we had to leave, yet,
unlike the swifts, we would not come back.
 
Rose Mary Boehm

​Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, short stories, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her poetry has been published widely, mostly in US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a several times Pushcart and a Best of Net nominee. All her books are available on Amazon. A new full-length collection, My Father’s Sky has been published in July of this year. Her earlier collection, Life Stuff, has just received a five-star rating from Reader’s Choice Book Awards and is a bronze winner. See more on her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

​Puppets in a Cosmic Game
 
Each star holds a string connecting us to eternity,
just like the Nazca lines, earth’s patterns
are maps for the stars to know their paths,
for mankind not to lose the way.
The divine alchemist mixes sacred elements
of life and transformation:
 
women, wombs, woods, water, whirling mists,
the sacraments of men and beast,
of cloud and land,
holy geometry, life-giving mystery.
 
Rose Mary Boehm

​Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, short stories, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her poetry has been published widely, mostly in US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a several times Pushcart and a Best of Net nominee. All her books are available on Amazon. A new full-length collection, My Father’s Sky has been published in July of this year. Her earlier collection, Life Stuff, has just received a five-star rating from Reader’s Choice Book Awards and is a bronze winner. See more on her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

Caesura
 
Streaked with shame, lines are drawn
in her skin. Rouged images blush her cheeks
in the same way grass looks greener
from one side or another. But as she broods
something else comes to light: the road ahead
is like the path behind, paved with renewal
and second chances. Maybe she is not who she once was,
or thought she was. Maybe her thoughts wander.
Even the bench on which she sits, stands,
is evidence of her new perspective.
Don’t shit where you eat interrupts
the tranquil blue and orange hues of this scene
constructed by the other. A decision will be made
but not now. It doesn’t need to. Only when the sun begins to set
will she go home, and even then, she may not
have her answer. But she has thought, and in the thinking
is trying, is not alone, is on the cusp of
something.
 
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum 

Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum is a writer, teacher, filmmaker, and publisher from Wasilla, Alaska. She also plays music, paints, and podcasts. Learn more at caitbuxbaum.com.

Shreds of Purple
 
A scorching sour lemon summer day in Guangzhou. Holding Ah Ma’s sweaty hand. Ube ice cream dripping lilac pearls on Ah Ma’s dress. The taste of cubed purple yam swimming with tapioca beads in coconut milk on my tongue. A sea of jacaranda periwinkle blossoms around Lake Anosy. Ah Ma’s shopping cart filled with plum-coloured yarn on sale at Target. Silver knitting needles clinking like ice cubes cracking in boiling water in her humid Pittsburgh apartment. Ah Ma’s fingers braiding fringes of the scarf I wore in college. Yellowed photos of her and Ah Ba standing in front of cherry blossoms. The smell of blueberry soap she left in the middle of a folded blanket. African violets on her windowsill, wilting to brown. A topped-over glass on the table, spilled prune juice spreading like bruised veins. Burnt crusts of eggplants at the bottom of a pan with a broken handle. Her mattress stained sepia-brown.
 
As if resting peacefully 
not a care for
my shredded heart

Christine H. Chen

Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared in The Forge, SmokeLong Quarterly, Time & Space Magazine, Fractured Lit., and anthologized in Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2023, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions among others. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Read her stories at www.christinehchen.com or @CSquareH.bsky.social

Miscarriage
  
I drowned in the blood that
was not at all like water, more 
like thick paint, waiting for
the artist's brush to lift it to linen
canvas, spread it thick, thin it
at the edges with turpentine
which is all I could smell when
I rose to see my daughter spread
across my thighs and my sheets
and puddled in a pool beneath
me. How was she ever going to 
crawl to cry to sing to climb to die
an old woman in a house in the
mountains surrounded by her own
children. How could I keep myself
above water, when I couldn't kick
my legs, when I could only spit
this red water, this vermillion
paste touched with black 
back into the air? So there would be 
no baby, no small body to come through
me to hold swaddled in soft cotton,
only this relief and bigger than that
a painter’s pot filled with guilt and no
canvas on which to write. 
 
Joyce Hayden

oyce Hayden is a teacher, writer, and visual artist. She has led ekphrastic writing classes in both university and private settings since 2006. Her essays can be found at Al Jazeera English online. Her poems have been published in many journals and in her chapbook, The Lost Handprint. Find her at joycehayden.com

Dream-Naked
 
Our language is weather. 
Overcast 
now translated into 
slant of sunlight, wisp 
of high cloud above 
the earth
where storms shelter 
their own. I’m not
ambivalence or 
subtlety. You no heavy 
lifter as in move 
the feather from over 
there. But, boy, can 
you do rain—like 
flip a switch from 
blinding buckets to 
not one drop. I want 
to talk about 
this kind of truth 
and all the unsung 
songs in our river. In 
the end it’s clear I’ve 
been swimming dream-
naked all my life 
to get to you. 

Annaliese Jakimides

Shaped by her first-generation-American family in inner-city Boston, followed by decades raising her own in a small northern Maine town, Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and visual artist. Cited in state and national competitions, more than 1,000 short works—prose and poetry—have appeared in magazines, journals, anthologies, and audiobooks, on radio and stage. Recent or upcoming publications address liminal space, transformation, and obsession. She lives in Bangor, Maine. annaliesejakimides.com.
​

So Grateful You Thought of Her on the Other Side         
                        
1. Thank you for looking out for my mom in the weft and warp of the nexts. More fragile than I remember. Maple and cinnamon her country, now so unnecessary except to her, feeder of the folds, these years later still looking for fire.
 
2. She comes from an altar boy, sand nuns, tea cozies of control and slap, obedient love, sorrowful mysteries.
 
3. First an angel. 
 
4. Aren’t we all?
 
5. She grew white peonies and a vine of scant red roses in a rectangle of blood, fluffy clouds afloat in a dirty sky, small yard and blue curtains.
 
6. What does looking out for look like there in the afterbreath and what do you say to each other? 
 
7. I am your common denominator, here still with ocean swells, pots and pans, the chipped bone and blackened river stones, now bead-stitching a whisper of moonshine into your hair, a painting on canvas with white silk, sorting begun. 
 
8. Pouring myself into, day breaks.
 
9. Not long. Or longer. Time relative. Could be soon.
 
10. Fugue rising.
 
Annaliese Jakimides

​Shaped by her first-generation-American family in inner-city Boston, followed by decades raising her own in a small northern Maine town, Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and visual artist. Cited in state and national competitions, more than 1,000 short works—prose and poetry—have appeared in magazines, journals, anthologies, and audiobooks, on radio and stage. Recent or upcoming publications address liminal space, transformation, and obsession. She lives in Bangor, Maine. annaliesejakimides.com.

The Colours of My Bruises Poke Through Skin
  
The colours of my bruises poke through skin, 
your first five-fingered smack across my face. 
Yellow remnants, pain’s diary within. 
 
That first one stunned me, gesture from my kin, 
landed me on the floor, your smile so base.
The colours of my bruises poke through skin.
 
Don’t anger me, or your fist will begin. 
I don’t know your triggers, what moods to trace. 
Yellow remnants, pain’s diary within. 
 
My son remembers cupboard’s darkness, pinned, 
crack of spine ‘gainst fridge’s metal surface. 
The colours of our bruises poke through skin
 
Raw egg cracks with ease, my gloves are kidskin. 
Your yolk spills, wielding butcher knife in chase. 
Yellow remnants, pain’s diary within. 
 
And you, my husband, divorce shows your sin, 
Your ego now bruised, you slink in disgrace. 
The colours of your bruises poke through skin
Yellow remnants, pain’s diary within.
 
Barbara Krasner

​Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet whose recent ekphrastic collections include Poems from the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press), The Night Watch (Kelsay Books), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press), The Wanderers (Shanti Arts), and the forthcoming The Appropriation of Brueghel (Shanti Arts). Her ekphrastic work has also appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Metphrastics, The Light Ekphrastic, and elsewhere. She serves as host of The Ekphrastic Review's Book Club.
​

Life’s Passage
​ 
Even now it speaks to me –
the rough assemblage
of taffeta torn ocean,
black pupil stare of space.
The blue of a bruise,
windswept, white atmosphere 
of forgotten days.
 
The moon, a tinselled silver
heart
beating through it all.
 
The indigo hue of dreams, seas,
irises drowned by desire.
The precision of longing – 
stars an array of merry dots.
The Divine just a jumble
of random, criss-crossed thoughts. 
 
And the kintsugi gold line
of travel – 
speed of light, of love.
The way of wounds, of words,
of wondering,
path lines of imagination. 
 
Call it alchemy, epiphany.  A cosmic aptitude. 
But we can make believe our own worlds  
true. 
 
Siobhán Mc Laughlin

​Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Co. Donegal in Ireland. Her poems have featured several times in The Ekphrastic Review and in other publications including Drawn to the Light Press, Reverie, Hive, The Poetry Village, The Waxed Lemon and The Honest Ulsterman. She is a fan of ekphrastic poetry, haiku, and reading and writing poetry whenever the opportunity arises!

​Self Portrait with Striped Blouse
 
 Shadow becomes me. 
In the subterfuge of night
I dream, defy day’s brazen light
with inhalation of liquorice dark. 
 
A raven’s wingspan blots out the moon.
A tree’s gnarled branches
reach upwards in a silent scream.
The day’s embers
smoulder at my feet.
 
I slice a pomegranate, ruminate.
Its juice runs like blood,
scarlet as a gaping wound,
forbidden as light. 
 
Siobhán Mc Laughlin

​Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Co. Donegal in Ireland. Her poems have featured several times in The Ekphrastic Review and in other publications including Drawn to the Light Press, Reverie, Hive, The Poetry Village, The Waxed Lemon and The Honest Ulsterman. She is a fan of ekphrastic poetry, haiku, and reading and writing poetry whenever the opportunity arises!

Summer Palace (Haiku Series)
​  
Marshmallow moonglow
Summer demands a softness
The sweetness of love
 
Incandescent moon
Even buildings are blushing
In sunset’s fierce pink
 
Flamingo pink heart
How can I hide love from you
When the moon giggles
 
A love beginning
And my world fills with petals
The moon conspiring
 
As the world softens
Everything is rose pink now
From my heart to yours
 
Siobhán Mc Laughlin

Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Co. Donegal in Ireland. Her poems have featured several times in The Ekphrastic Review and in other publications including Drawn to the Light Press, Reverie, Hive, The Poetry Village, The Waxed Lemon and The Honest Ulsterman. She is a fan of ekphrastic poetry, haiku, and reading and writing poetry whenever the opportunity arises!

Hope
 
The leaves are singed off all the olive trees
and the grove is a field of ash.  
 
The children no longer startle awake to the air sirens. 
They curl into each other like a litter of fresh kittens.
 
My breasts are shriveled and I have nothing 
to offer but the hum of my hands on their backs.  
 
I carry a crust of pumpernickel bread
and three clementines in my jacket pocket.
 
I have learned that I can make a feast
out of the most meager of provisions. 
 
Beneath my striped blouse, I keep a vial 
of dirt from our garden.
 
I tuck a packet of marigold seeds 
in the pouch of my brassiere. 
 
There will come a time when the sky is not 
replete with fireworks that crater every breathing thing.                        
 
There will come a time when the earth
will, once again, nudge marigolds to seek the sun.  

Marianne Peel

After having taught English for 32 years, Marianne now nurtures her own creative spirit.  She’s spent three summers in China, teaching best practices to teachers.  She has three full-length collections of poetry from Shadelandhouse Modern Press: No Distance Between Us (2021) and Singing is Praying Twice (2024).  She has a third collection from Act of Power Press:  Untamed Arabesque (2025).   Marianne’s forthcoming full-length poetry collection, Orchestra of Belonging, will be published by Accents Publishing in 2027. ​

Disintegration
 
head floats… head bursts… red tendrils pour out… rope-like hair brings thoughts and memories…  billowing and flowing blood dress covers my white porcelain body… sinks beneath the dark waters head bursts… rose petals bloom and flower… merge with wild thoughts under the surface… wild thoughts escape from my head… cloud bursts in the dark… press your body to mine… find me… find my mouth… press your lips to mine here in the dark water… my body is heavy in its dead red lead dress… I let it sink… the halo moon overhead adorns my expanding red cloud head… white shoulders… bare breasts gently bobbing… hands out-stretched to welcome the dark thoughts of heaven or hell… I get to choose where I go… dark water velvety smooth like my red dress enfolds me in its dark caress
 
take my hands
take me dark 
water lover
 
Laura Peña

Laura Peña is an award-winning poet born and raised in Houston, Tx. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher as well as a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has been published both in print and on-line journals. She has been a workshop presenter at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, Tx. and People's Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, Tx.. One of Laura's annual traditions is to write a poem a day for August Postcard Poetry Festival and has participated in the fest for the last 13 years. Laura has performed poetry for Invisible Lines at such venues as Notsuoh, Interchange, Avante Garden, and The Match. ​

Between Heartbeats
 
the outside world flickers
in gilded reflection, 
 
inside the shop,
she commands 
with siren voice,
 
her gown of the finest Flemish wool,
her brows deftly plucked,
 
she points with one elegant hand,
he nods
 
his desire as sharp
as the goldsmith’s file,
 
he aches to remove her gown,
to free flesh held by fortress fabric--
 
he wills her fingers to pick up the ring.
 
A handsome couple
the goldsmith thinks, as he weighs and measures
 
wondering which is heavier—gold or a lifetime? 
 
Merril D. Smith

Merril D. Smith is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet from New Jersey. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Her second collection is Held Inside the Folds of Time (Jane’s Studio Press, 2025). Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social;  Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org  

Re-souled
  
The city of angels called to them
 
their Oklahoma soil 
wind-scattered, lives shattered,
death-dusted--
 
even their old car
with moans and sighs,
succumbed somewhere
in the mournful mountains.
 
The brothers walked then
in patched boots, blistered bodies,
splintered souls near broken,
 
mocked by billboards
and indifference
 
they kicked-up illusions
in California dirt
continued
 
dreaming of an oasis,
resurrection.

Merril D. Smith

Merril D. Smith is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet from New Jersey. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Her second collection is Held Inside the Folds of Time (Jane’s Studio Press, 2025). Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social;  Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org  ​

Celebration

it was the time when wisdom
surged in from the west
vanishing everything in its path

I had left a blue boat in the bushes 
I would return years later to retrieve it
beneath a coral sky and a pasty white moon
 
I was a youth when I hid the boat
so that now going back many years later
it would be nearly impossible to find
 
there were hundreds of blue boats
all the same
no one could know if the boat I hid
 
was the boat I had now chosen
or just some random boat
lying there entirely weathered
 
gunnel deep
in the murmuration 
of surf

​John L. Stanizzi

John’s books are Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Chants, High Tide-Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Hallelujah Time,  POND, Tree That Lights the Way Home, Sundowning, Feathers and Bones, and SEE. His new collection, Entra La Notte, will be out next month. Johnnie is a former New England Poet of the Year, a Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and he received a Fellowship in CNF in 2021 from the CT. Office of Arts, Culture, & Diversity. He took first place in The Ekphrastic Review’s Ekphrastic Marathon in 2024. He is currently among the poets nominated for the honour of Connecticut Poet Laureate.​

​ 
The Lifespan of a Monarch
 
The fall of Saigon--everyone remembers the ‘copters of the roof.
People like ants, like roaches, scaling the sides of embassy walls
scratching, clinging, willing themselves straight up the verticals, 
bedrolls and blankets, babies in baskets tied to their backs.
Marines wielding machine guns, swatting mosquitos, 
swatting people back, back 
from the blades that swung through the air, 
cutting the thickness, cutting off their escape.  
 
I remember instead our last night together, a hillside hotel with a view of the jungle.
It rained all night and the windows were open. The floor, the bed, your hair 
were drenched. We were both crying.
 
We curled together in the wet bed and watched butterflies 
light briefly on the ceiling, then fly away.  
 
Cynthia Storrs

Cynthia Storrs writes near Nashville.  Educated in the US and UK, she has served on the boards of Poetry Society of TN, Poetry West (CO), Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Committee, and Pikes Peak Arts Council, which awarded her a grant for promoting poetry in the region. She has been published in anthologies, magazines, and on-line. She has also published academic articles on bilingualism, biculturalism, and acculturation. Cynthia loves art history, theatre, landscape painting, and chocolate. 

The Story of Charlotte
 
Charlotte was a harlot, born the month of May.
In certain circles, she was stardom
in others, deep dismay.
In her left hand, a suitor, or patron, if you will
in her right, a lily, to remind them she still
held the cards of their temptation
but with money in her purse --
enough to pay the baby
enough to pay the nurse.
Upon her head, a too-big hat
that always entered first.
 
Her ruby lips spoke little, in front and behind
the scenes. She let their secrets bury themselves
as they justified their means.
A tender-hearted broach 
clipped to the velvet near her breasts
so she might not forget
how a certain lover 
loved her best.
 
Her later years grew cloudy
as the tint had left her cheeks.
The years had turned to months
and the months morphed into weeks.
She told the younger ladies
don’t give your heart away
until you find the only one
who decides he wants to stay.
 
Charlotte was a harlot
they piled lilies on her grave--
raised theirs hats and glasses
to all the love she gave.
 
Rebecca Surmont

Rebecca Surmont can’t get enough of the short summers, living in MN with her husband and dog. She writes mostly when it’s not summer. Her written work has been in publications such as the new anthology ICE Out Minnesota Writers Rise Up, The Mackinaw, RockPaperPoem, Last Leaves, The Orchards, Amethyst Review, Hare’s Paw, Steel Jackdaw, Eunoia Review, and Crowstep Poetry Journal. She works as a leadership consultant.

​Still life before an open window--
 
blue trees, newspaper cuttings, 
mediocrity, pipe, pink
& green beveled glass shard 
(triangular like a sail), 
frayed ribbon (from Christmas, most 
likely), broken easel, sadness
(left over from Christmas, most 
likely), photo of a man 
with a dog, philodendron
(drooping), poetry slivers,
lipstick napkin, detail of 
a Dutch painting (an eye), thoughts
of an evening walk under 
anonymous skies, kind moon.
 
Taunja Thomson

​Taunja Thomson is co-author of Frame & Mount the Sky (2017), a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry, as well the author as Strum and Lull (2019) and The Profusion (2019).  She is a lover of animals, art, trees, surrealism, black and white movies, walking in autumn rains, feeding wild birds in winter, playing in spring mud, & bat-watching in summer.  Her first full-length collection of poems, Plunge, was published by Uncollected Press in 2023.

At last, we have the finalists for the Heaven Eleven Annual Ekphrastic Marathon in July. And the results are a wild surprise: the winner of both the poetry and the flash categories this year is the same person!

What an amazing experience it was to connect virtually and create with writers all over the world. It is an incredibly intense experience every year, to write fourteen drafts of poetry, flash fiction, or other forms, in a single day!

The goal of the marathon is to complete the marathon and be part of the experience.

Writers had the option of polishing or revising their drafts after the fact, and submitting five to the contest portion of the event. 

The editorial team has been busy ever since the deadline, reviewing an incredible array of stories, poems, CNF, and more, responding to an exciting variety of artworks. We read all entries blind, and discussed our favourites together. It was a challenge to come to a consensus for some of the works, and others were voted in by all of us. Many works were difficult to leave out as well. Ultimately, we had to decide, and created a finalist file that was only a fraction of the wonderful works created in this experience.

For the flash fiction category, Sandi Stromberg chose one piece from the finalists. Kate Copeland chose the winner in the poetry category from the poem finalists. Sandi and Kate chose their respective winner independently of each other and independently of my input, from the finalists we all chose together. They were still choosing from documents without author names.

The Ekphrastic Review reads blind for some events like the marathon, and leaves names in tact for other situations, such as the bimonthly challenges and general submissions. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. In this case, the finalists were a huge surprise, as many authors had several works chosen as finalists, some placing in both categories. 

Another big surprise was that our double winner is a first-time marathon participant, and new to ekphrasis! We are thrilled to welcome this amazing new talent to our pages.

A huge congratulations to everyone who was part of the marathon. Well done! I know many of you have placed stories and poems from the experience and love seeing them out in the world of journals. 

And a huge thank you to Kate and Sandi for your hard work and dedication to our wonderful world of writers.

love, Lorette

And without further ado, the flash fiction winner of the Heaven Eleven Marathon is "California Summer," by Chantal Emmery. Congratulations, Chantal!

Chantal's story is first up, below, and then the finalists follow in alphabetical order by author.

The poetry finalists are announced in a separate post.

**

After much deliberation—having enjoyed the many fascinating pieces of flash fiction—it was a simple phrase in an epistolary piece called “California Summer” that grabbed me. After “Hey Ma,” Eddie, who signs the letter, writes, “I figured I’d get it all out at once to limit the carnage, and so you’d only have one letter to burn.” A high bar, but the writer clears it with a roller coaster of emotions, present and past. Told through the sometimes faltering, sometimes strong voice of a young man out in the bigger world, through specific detail and imagery, we receive revelations, one after another, until the deepest one reaches both Eddie’s and the reader’s consciousness.

Sandi Stromberg
Editor, The Ekphrastic Review

FLASH FICTION WINNER!!!!!

​California Summer
 
Hey Ma,
 
It’s exactly like they said it’d be here - hot and dry and full of beautiful women. I’m missing you and the family. I figured I’d get it all out at once to limit the carnage, and so you’d only have one letter to burn. I’m not coming home. Home is a mask, and the suffocating heat of it clinging to my mouth is worse than this California summer. 
 
I didn’t come here to find a beautiful woman. I’m in love with a man I won’t name, except to call him earnest. I know you’ll be shocked, so I might as well say that this man has shown me a kindness to rival your own - that’s saying something. I’m grateful to you and Pa for everything. You’ve taught me an iron work ethic, and how to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan. You’ve shown me about responsibility, paying my dues, and connecting with the divine. You raised me to tell the truth. I’ll tell it as plainly as I can - I am responsible to love this man. 
   
And since we’re being honest, I’ll mention that I was asked to play a small role in a movie. They needed someone who knew how to break a horse. You taught me that too. And break was never the right word for it anyway. You showed me what it meant to earn the trust of a mustang. You didn’t raise your voice, so I didn’t raise mine. And I’m telling you, he came to me like we were old friends and the producers were all beside themselves and I said you can thank Mrs. Wakefield for that. I’ll have changed my name by then, when you see that horse on the screen (if Pa is feeling frivolous). 
 
Give all my love to Hank and Nellie. I hope they know it breaks my heart to be so far from you all. And next time you ride Opal, when you get past that crest on Munson where the sky opens up to forever, think of me. That’s what it feels like for a mustang to be free even though he’s got a weight on his back.
 
Lovingly,
Your Eddie

Chantal Emmery

Chantal is a life-long journaler and word-lover attempting to live off-grid. Ekphrasis is a wonderful new medium to her, and she's excited to dive in.

Still Life
 
Apollinaire, Matisse, Metzinger—all pale in comparison to Picasso, Juan thinks. He smokes, looks out the window. Sees other windows. Trees. Looks down at the stack of magazines before him, a jumble on the desk. He smokes. Wonders what the daily paper brings, but won’t look at it. Is thinking about Picasso. About what they will call Cubism. About the kaleidoscope of feelings he has for the man who made him. Realizes that can be two people. Realizes he himself is both a man and an artist, and these are separate, yet the same. His eyes blur. He doesn’t cry, he loses focus. He refocuses. Unfocuses. Paints like this, on and off, in and out of consciousness it seems. The triangle, he decides, is the perfect shape. Rectangles open like the pages of a book before him. There are railings and grates, bars to keep him in, and let him out. A wave of emotion. Another green, another blue. Red. Aside, some frivolous oranges and yellows to keep the dark at bay. To invoke, and provoke, wonder. Lines. Leaves. Shards. He feels like he will never be enough. Has chosen the name Grey as if to challenge the colours on his canvas. The life he lives. The life he wants to lead. Only he doesn’t want to lead. That is for Picasso. For the future. Le jour du compte. El día del juicio. One day at a time. Today he paints. And smokes. And speaks in the way only an artist knows how.
​
Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum

Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum is a writer, teacher, filmmaker, and publisher from Wasilla, Alaska. She also plays music, paints, and podcasts. Learn more at caitbuxbaum.com.

​Even Gods are no Better than Bachelors

Cerebus, great guardian of the Underworld, stood and searched the distance, all three heads growling.

Pluto sighed. “Calm down, boy, no one approaches today.”

Cerberus’ central head turned to the God and whined.

“It is yet mid-summer; she will not return until the first cold winds of approaching winter.”

Pluto was in something of a funk, even for him.

Cerberus’s right head growled again.

Pluto waved his hand. “Go play with Tartarus if you must. I am content here.”

Cerberus’ heads looked at each other as if they did not believe him. His left head snuffled as if in question.

Pluto sighed again. “Fine, I suppose i have not been taking care of myself as well as I could.”

Cerberus approached his master and used two of his heads to nuzzle Pluto’s leg.

“She would not put up with me on a day like today, would she?”

Cerberus answered with a single sneeze.

“Ah, Prosperina, how I am lost without you.”

The God stood and stretched.

“Alright Cerebus, let’s find your ball.”

Cerberus immediately brighted up.

Pluto looked himself up and down. 

“Perhaps I should put something on beyond just my crown…”

Cerberus barked happily and lumbered off to find his ball.
 
Brydon Caldwell

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. A lifetime of creativity and flirtation with the written word has finally coalesced into writing that he’s proud to put out into the world. His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, The Fib Review, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies.

​Camouflage Collaboration
 
When Jamie appeared at the end of my checkout lane, her face pinched and eyes burning, my stomach rolled over. 
 
She chattered the whole way home. “I don’t know how he got in, Mom. He doesn’t move when I push him, just stands there in the middle of the living room. The furniture’s a wreck. I didn’t know what to do!” By now her face was a soggy red mess. 
 
“Don’t worry, we’ll work it out.” I patted her hand. My stomach rocked and rolled.
 
When I saw him, my first thought was that he was orange, not gray. I always thought they were gray. You know, with wrinkles and big eyes. This one was orange, but big and powerful. 
 
Jamie and I tried every scheme to get him to leave the living room. I explained that it’s not possible for us to live with an elephant in the room. But he refused to speak. He just stood there, big and bold. 
 
I had an immediate problem. My friends were coming over with a bottle of the good stuff, and they couldn’t see this stranger taking root right where my coffee table used to be before it lay in splinters on the carpet. 
 
Jamie is a smart kid. Much smarter than her grades show. Her grades are a result of all that stuff that went on in the past. So it made sense she was the one with the idea. “Mom, remember that dance year everyone was Minnie Mouse? You said you couldn’t find me at first because we all were in pink polka dots and the stage was lit with pink spots all over the curtains and floor.
 
I saw where she was going with that idea immediately. She gets her brains from this side, natch. 
 
She ran to the paint store while I prepped the room, protecting the remaining furniture by covering it with old sheets. 
 
When Chels and Britt walked in at nine that night they oohed over the brilliant orange living room. They loved the ink dots on the walls, the floor, the old sheets, and of course on the visitor who just would not leave. They saw the orange and the dots, but nothing unsettling. We sat at the kitchen table, and Jamie joined us for once. About ten minutes in, Jamie kicked me and nodded toward the doorway. Our dotted gatecrasher’s head was poking through, his trunk wiggling toward Britt’s ponytail. 
 
Luanne Castle

Luanne Castle’s hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, is a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards Her story, “Garden Seasons,” was selected by Diane Seuss for Best Microfiction 2026. She has published four award-winning poetry collections, and her ekphrastic flash and poetry collection Hunting the Cosmos is forthcoming from Shanti Arts. Luanne lives with her husband and two cats in Arizona along a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. https://www.luannecastle.com/

Lost
 
After bribing Charon to bring me across the Styx with a bundle of Ah Ma’s vintage jade bracelet and a 24K gold chain necklace, I encountered the mighty God seated on an obsidian throne while the three-headed Cerberus was growling at me. I expected Pluto to be a bit more impressive, not as some talking copper statue reduced to a sickly green patina. “What do you want?” he roared. I explained that I didn’t get to say good-bye to Ah Ma, wanted to see her, ask her for forgiveness for letting her die alone. I pleaded with him, knowing that I was no living hero nor was I dead yet to make the journey, but could he make an exception? 
 
He threw his head back and let out a cavernous laughter, Cerberus cackling with him while advancing slowly towards me. I slipped three sponge cakes made with a sedative and imbibed with honey from my crossbody bag and threw them at the hound whose three heads gulped each cake. “You’re a real fuck-up aren’t you!” the God said, wiping tears of laughter, “Your mother’s not here, dumb ass!” 
 
Of course, what was I thinking?! Ah Ma never believed in gods, heaven or hell, let alone gwei-lo gods. Or had I simply gone to the wrong Underworld? I slapped my forehead: I should have gone to Diyu, where souls were judged, their deeds weighed, and maybe reincarnated. If Ah Ma knew how I messed up looking for her, she’d shake her head, scold me, told me how she’d always been right about my sloppiness. By now, she might have already drunk the reincarnation tea; her past life memories erased. I was too late. Again. And if she wasn’t reincarnated, then would I want her to be disappointed in me, again, for having searched in the wrong place of all places!
 
Pluto was still roaring with laughter. I tiptoed slowly backward; echoes of the snoring Cerberus reverberated in the dark tunnel.
 
Christine H. Chen

​Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared in The Forge, SmokeLong Quarterly, Time & Space Magazine, Fractured Lit., and anthologized in Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2023, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions among others. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Read her stories at www.christinehchen.com or @CSquareH.bsky.social

Tunnel of Love
 
Denise hated the idea of the Haunted House ride but went ahead because Harry insisted. As a little girl, she’d had nightmares in camps when her friends used to tell ghost stories. “C'mon now, it’ll be fun!” Harry said. Denise was so charmed by his British accent, his mane of red hair, and the freshness of the relationship that she agreed. 
 
They sat on a pumpkin-coloured carriage which made her feel like Cinderella. Maybe she should just relax and stop being so serious. Maybe her mom was right. “You’re too uptight!” her mom had said when she’d broken up with her first boyfriend because he’d told her if they got married she would stay home and cook for him, “Sometimes, you just have to let the boys be boys. You’re not getting any younger, you know.” 
 
The cart lurched forward in the dark and she gripped her purse hard for fear of dropping it in the dark. Harry was excited. He kissed her on her cheek. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, Denise thought. As soon as they entered the tunnel, Harry snarled and made all sorts of ghoulish sounds. “Please stop doing that!” she begged him. Ghostly white shapes surged on the walls. Suddenly, a skeleton dropped from the ceiling and Denise yelped when its plastic phalanges touched her forehead. The air was stale and stuffy, pierced by squeals from the fair goers in the carts ahead. Harry guffawed when Denise jumped and screamed as a vampire rose to her right, fake blood dripping from its fangs, and Harry dropped an ice cube on the back of her dress. 
 
At the end of the ride, when she was again bathed in the safety of the daylight, she turned towards him, and said, “Goodbye, Harry, I hope you go to hell!” in the politest voice she could muster.
 
Christine H. Chen

Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar before settling in Boston where she worked as a research chemist. Her fiction has appeared in The Forge, SmokeLong Quarterly, Time & Space Magazine, Fractured Lit., and anthologized in Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2023, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions among others. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Read her stories at www.christinehchen.com or @CSquareH.bsky.social

The Seamstress
 
Untitled, by Jacques and Charles Biederer (Czechoslovakia) 1920s
 
Attired in the clothes my mother wore, stitched to the very contours of my head, my hips, my heart and soul. She fashioned me couture, polyester couture, sewn with parasitic thread, woven with her disposition, disappointments, fantasies and dreams; her every hope and every scheme, embroidered on so fine I cannot tell what’s hers or mine. Where does she end and I begin?

Mother donned me in unyielding cloth of bright and cheerful cleverness, intellect and talent. She left no room for me to breathe complaint. She sewed my ruby lips to a smile that would taint relationships with men whom I’d beguile. And they, thinking I am real, turned their heads while I would steal their hearts and wallets too. It’s what my mother used to do.

But I am not my mother, and once I came of age to know this attire so ill-fitting, I found a seamstress-sorcerer whose enchanted scissors cut through the cloth so it would fray and, over time the girl my mother made of me simply fell away. 
​
Karen FitzGerald

Karen FitzGerald is a genre-fluid writer who’d never heard of ekphrastic writing before stumbling upon The Ekphrastic Review in 2021. Since then, under the tutelage of Lorette C. Luzajic and Robin Gabbert, her adventures in the world of art and artists have provided her the most thought-provoking learning experience of her senior years.

​Looking Inward Towards Grief
​
He knows I abhor funerals, especially one for our only child.  He said I should have worn my black dress,  not my striped blouse, because it looks like a prison uniform.  Why not? I am held captive by grief, so I think it's the perfect top.  My arms feel like lead, and every breath is a strain.  I prefer to stay home alone, with my thoughts.  What's wrong with hiding from the world?  Illness took our precious daughter away from us. The doctors said there was nothing we could do. Well-meaning friends send fruit baskets filled with fruits and fresh purple grapes, but I have no appetite.
​
He knows I am contemplating moving out of the house, even after our expensive renovation, like the custom magenta curtains in the dining room. There will be no more entertaining. The house feels as empty as our backyard with the lone tree out the window. I don't know why it stopped growing. I am stunted like a tree, ambling around in slow motion, with nowhere to go.
​
He knows enough to leave me alone, pondering what life could have been had Abby lived beyond four months: giggles, rolling over, crawling. Those dreams have ended. He knows this is our worst nightmare. And maybe we will wake up soon enough under a more welcoming moon. Until then, I lie awake at night and see her empty cradle in the corner of the room. It will have to go. In the end, though, it's Abby's tender moments that will never leave us—her sweet smile, sparkling eyes, and her tiny fingers cradled inside our loving hands for eternity.
 
Brenda A. Jacobsen

Brenda lives and writes by the beach in Norwalk, CT. As a trained writing facilitator through the Amherst Writers Association, she has studied at the Westport Writers' Workshop and with Kathy Fish. Works published: Thorn & Bloom, Gone Lawn, Journal of Expressive Writing, Pathos to Play Anthology, Flash Flood UK, Wordrunner Chapbook, forthcoming in Words and Whimsy. She is the founder and facilitator of the Purple Sofa Writers. Follow her on Insta @brenpiper and Substack: @brendaliceinherpalace

​ 
Connectivity  
         
My two sons each have maplike birthmarks wrapped from back to belly, on the right side, both angled in exactly the same way. These two sons are biologically as unrelated as sons can be—one cut from my uterus, the other brought home on a plane from Ohio—and yet their bodies carry this anomaly. Their only physical similarity as they grow into men, their brown stains becoming darker, brewed coffee fingers laying up their backs.  
 
              Shape of time
              Come to test whether it’s true 
              Remembering the remembering
              Words to keep everything alive.
            
The doctor measures their marks—one son’s when his ruptured lip is bleeding onto the white paper bedding after he collides with the hardwood steps leading to the deck with the maple tree that grows through its centre, where the chickadees boisterously cluster, where over time we will widen the hole little by little for the sturdier and sturdier trunk, making sure no child foot slips through. 
 
The other’s when he chips a bone in the middle finger of his right hand skateboarding with a new batch of chickadees. He spends hours over many days patiently standing on the deck by the birdfeeders, a scattering of seeds on his sleeves, the tops of his shoes, until the birds learn to trust him and his outstretched hands, the delicate forearms, his bony shoulders. Even when he wilds around on his board, they stay nearby waiting for him to still.
 
Harmless, the doctor pronounces. These marks. Something about size that says, watch, look out, pay attention. Or not.
 
Henry had the exact same dark map, back to belly, same size and position, and when he rolled to his left and I rolled up against him, my right arm draped onto this mark he never saw, the one my boys have carried since birth.
 
I could have told him about this mark, that it’s like my sons’, but then I wonder why I would have said that. Would he think, what a strange thing for this new woman in his life to say? We were new, and of course I would notice after we stripped off our clothes, sometime through the reaching and touching, the exploring and braving into each other. The breath. And surprise. The settling down. The beauty of his body by mine. On mine. In mine. 
 
But then I forgot it just like I forgot my sons’ until much later—years later, losses later, now later—remembering the remembering of how unusual it is that all three of these unrelated men, unrelated except through me who loves them all fiercely and unconditionally, have this mark on their bodies, this same exact mark on their bodies. One dies young. One too early. One survives the most impossible impossibilities.
 
              We begin in water, the slush of tongues
              Leave in the dusk where joy and sorrow mate 
              They come from a family of no graves
               In the afternoon, in the sun, I remember.
​
Annaliese Jakimides

Shaped by her first-generation-American family in inner-city Boston, followed by decades raising her own in a small northern Maine town, Annaliese Jakimides is a writer and visual artist. Cited in state and national competitions, more than 1,000 short works—prose and poetry—have appeared in magazines, journals, anthologies, and audiobooks, on radio and stage. Recent or upcoming publications address liminal space, transformation, and obsession. She lives in Bangor, Maine. annaliesejakimides.com.

The Yellow Butterfly 
 
It looked perfect on the vacation rental website. A “treehouse in the mist,” they called it. He needed the respite; a weekend away seemed like the answer to his recent angst. Stuck on the next chapter, believing his shitty first draft would never transfrom into the butterfly he thought it could be when he started writing. 
 
And then this, a puddled floor and an unmade bed. Of course, one never knows what to expect when traveling, but this was too much. He pulled out his phone to call the owner of the place and tried to modulate his voice to sound like the calm person he always strived to be but never quite could. It was then he saw a yellow butterfly with black dots fly in through the open window. The most beautiful one he had ever seen. And while he pondered his next steps and before turning around to return to his car, he watched the butterfly hover near his head as though to tell him not to worry - about it all. 
 
Jennifer B. Kahnweiler
​
Jennifer B. Kahnweiler is a poet and the author of five nonfiction books, translated into eighteen languages, including the bestseller The Introverted Leader. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, she turned to poetry during the pandemic — first as a lifeline, then as a lasting practice. She received the 2021 Natasha Trethewey Poetry Prize from the Atlanta Writers Club, and one of her poems has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in The Avalon Literary Review, Constellations, MacQueen's Quinterly, San Antonio Review, Open Door Journal, The Quill, and The Ekphrastic Challenge. Love and Tomatoes, her first book of poetry, will be published in 2027. ​

​Last Ride
 
Suzy had grown tired walking around WeirdWorld Amusement Park that day with her boyfriend James. She knew he had hoped for it to be fun and felt how encouraging he was buying her cotton candy and soft drinks. But any good emotions had been failing her since they made the long circuit of the bumper cars, Ferris wheel, air flyers, and other famous rides. Then James pointed out the Tunnel of Love.  “Couples seem to like this one,” he said, nodding towards a pair getting into a Tunnel car. “Why don’t we go on it?” 
 
“I dunno,” Suzy said in a weary tone. “We’ve gone on plenty of rides already.” 
 
James smiled. “It could be the fun we’ve been missing.” 
 
Suzy sighed; her boyfriend’s smiles had a way of winning her when nothing else did. “Alright, let’s try it. But this is the last one.” When the next red car came for riders, James and Suzy went and got in comfortably side by side and were drawn into the tunnel.
 
The shadowy inside of the Tunnel of Love made Suzy uneasy from the first. Isn’t this supposed to be bright and cheerful?, she asked herself. She thought, like many, of love as a sunlit and welcoming place. She imagined a room in shades of pink. A garden. But now from the side of the tunnel leapt a skeleton, shaking on a rod. Suzy let out a cry as her heart leapt. Mercifully, the car rolled on just passing the sweep of the skeleton’s hand. But it left her wondering what had she and James had gotten into taking this ride. 
 
Around the corner, the two neared a pale spot of light. It seemed nothing until they discovered a ghoul of a man at its edge. The skin on his head sagged in drape-like folds ready to roll off his face. Suzy jumped back from the figure as the car swept past the corner. Before another fright could come, Suzy pressed herself against James and clasped his hand. She had never wanted his comfort as much as now since knowing him. “Don’t worry, Suzy,” James said, pressing back on her hand. “I’m right here to keep you safe.” 
 
Moments later, a skeleton dropped from the ceiling and landed directly before them. Suzy hollered her worst. But James kept close at her side without flinching.  The skeleton was yanked away on its wire as if in answer to his act of confidence. Suzy breathed a sigh of relief and bowed her head onto James’s shoulder. How good that he’s here!, she thought. 
 
Suzy was that sunk in relief now she failed to note the robot in the straw hat who winked at James near the ride’s end. But James got the robot’s hint. The ride for love had given Suzy ample reason to long for him just as he had been hoping all day.

Norbert Kovacs

Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published art-inspired stories in The Ekphrastic Review and Worthing Flash. His website: http://www.norbertkovacs.net.

​Einstein’s Theory of Alternate Universes
 
The past is present and the present is past. While I write, Great-Grandma Bryna plays with the head curls of her latest eynekel. Grandma Eva makes her stuffed cabbage with raisins in white sauce. Grandpa Max watches the fights on TV. While I’m sleeping, my mother wraps her hair with toilet paper, secures it with hair clips to keep her salon coiffure. While I’m standing graveside, butterflies flap a portal into existence. I pluck a pinch of salt from the box in the tenement kitchen and season ancestor stew, let my bubbes and zaydes taste the present while I dig deep with my ladle to sample the past.
​
Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet whose recent ekphrastic collections include Poems from the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press), The Night Watch (Kelsay Books), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press), The Wanderers (Shanti Arts), and the forthcoming The Appropriation of Brueghel (Shanti Arts). Her ekphrastic work has also appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Metphrastics, The Light Ekphrastic, and elsewhere. She serves as host of The Ekphrastic Review's Book Club.

​How It Began
 
What stands out most for me on that class trip is not the Pennsylvania Dutch pretzel factory or seeing the horses and buggies, the bonnets and hats, beards and overalls. What I remember most is stopping at a service area on the way home. In my home-sewn pink culottes, white pantyhose, pink checkerboard blouse, I stepped onto a concrete parking space block. I stared at the pinks, purples, and oranges of approaching dusk. It might have been April. A slight wind blew through my long brown hair. Someone approached me from behind.
 
It was you. I don’t remember what you said. But it seemed to me that you singled me out of all the students. I was just a freshman. You were the teacher. But it was a moment. Like you knew what I was seeing out there in G-d’s canvas and it meant something to you, too.
 
Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet whose recent ekphrastic collections include Poems from the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press), The Night Watch (Kelsay Books), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press), The Wanderers (Shanti Arts), and the forthcoming The Appropriation of Brueghel (Shanti Arts). Her ekphrastic work has also appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Metphrastics, The Light Ekphrastic, and elsewhere. She serves as host of The Ekphrastic Review's Book Club.

Robot
  
In Malá Strana’s underworld, Marketa holds her own, buying lilies of the valley every day from a kerchiefed, gold-toothed old woman near the train station. This small act of kindness Marketa does for herself, not knowing the long day ahead of dressing and undressing, of giving her body over to the whims of korun and mustached men in pinstriped suits. Each day her face grows thinner, more angular, preferring to spend her few coins on flowers instead of sausages and beer. Her eyes narrow to dark slits while she piles her wavy hair on her head, her locks her singular beauty, that and her breasts that she announces with the enameled heart pin Tomasz gave her years ago. Each day becomes a series of mechanical actions. She repeats, robota, robota. Work, work. She fingers the brooch and remembers saying goodbye to him at the train station, he in his infantry uniform. Then she still had choices. Then she had her pick of the flower shop and the track to take. As she passes by a gold stucco residence on Říční Street, heading toward the Vltava River, an artist looks up from his easel, sees Marketa. He picks up his brush, angles the bristles on his canvas, and murmurs, robota, robota, inventing a new word for an emotionless, mechanical being.
​
Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet whose recent ekphrastic collections include Poems from the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press), The Night Watch (Kelsay Books), Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press), The Wanderers (Shanti Arts), and the forthcoming The Appropriation of Brueghel (Shanti Arts). Her ekphrastic work has also appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Metphrastics, The Light Ekphrastic, and elsewhere. She serves as host of The Ekphrastic Review's Book Club.

Happy Family

My parents’ shadows reach back toward me as I crouch behind the curtain. Partially hidden in my usual spot in its voluminous folds I watch all of their performances every night and every matinee, from  my secret place in the black velvet drapery folds that are the backdrop for their dance. My spot is where the two sides come together and I can peak through without being seen and although it is the same each time I see it, I revel in watching the lights shine on them from the coloured row of lamps on the catwalk.  In these lights they seem to be lightly swaying, their bodies moving in concert with the tunes amid a profusion of happy colours, the light making their bodies lightly visible beneath the costumes to me, standing behind them. IS it the same effect for the audience? I wonder… Yes, happy colours indeed, for I think my parents are happiest when they dance together, the spotlight fixed on them, making them the centre of attention for the audience in front of them—and for me, behind them, though I do not think they realize I am back here, watching each and every step they take.

The coloured lights add interest, I’ve heard them explain, help the audience follow the rhythms of the music. I like those too. Besides just watching, I listen to music and move my head in time with it. At last, the fiddler’s notes announce to me (who knows the program well) that the final minutes of onstage time are arriving and I carefully slip out from the velvet curtain’s grasp and scamper quickly to the family dressing room, where I am supposed to be waiting for them with my homework. I heard the music stop. Applause shakes the little theater all the way to the backstage rooms. I smile. Applause makes them happy. I picture them taking a bow with the spotlight still on them. More applause. Then, steps. The musical intro for the next act plays as the door handle turns and my mother and father push themselves into the room. They are already arguing over who made the missteps that caused them to receive only one curtain call. They hardly notice me. I marvel that the joy of life, the strong love of being and moving together exhibited on stage has been snuffed out by the backstage air. I drop my book. Both turn and glower at me. “Did you keep your grubby little paws out of the stage make-up?” Mother hisses.

Father looks at me appraisingly: “Did you practice the steps I showed you earlier today? You have to start thinking about an act of your own or joining us on stage—we need the money. Show biz kids need to pay their way.” Father tells me. “You do want to dance with us, don’t you?”

I stand up and move my feet to their music—it’s always in my head. I don’t say anything, but of course, I want to dance with them. On stage, under the lights, is the only place we can glow as a happy family.
 
Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta is a writer and story performer whose poems, essays, books, and articles have appeared in many journals, including Silver Birch Press, The Ekphrastic Review, One Art, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and for the Pushcart Prize. Her collection of poems, Feathers on Stone is available from Main Street Rag.

What the Audience Does Not See
(a Flash CNF)
  
Just as a magician does not reveal secrets of the disappearing coin that can appear from behind your ear or how to saw a lady sawn in half, so the actors and stage designers keep the secrets of their craft “backstage.”

These elegantly drawn screened-off room that are the preparation place for the Japanese theatre of the 1850s are not so very different from the places I have stood, waited, worked, rehearsed my appearances in plays and for solo performances—these are the places where the seed of magic that will bloom onstage is cosseted and prepped for presentation.

I don’t need to read Japanese to understand what is going on—I know. See there the ones who are standing, already in costume, running lines with one another? Where should I place the accent, one might be saying: Is he dead? Is HE dead? Is he DEAD? 

Look, see the room where the make-up artists are turning ordinary faces into madmen, ingenues, sirens, or clowns?  And the room with all the notes fastened to the wall? Is that the prop master’s place?  These notes then likely instruct when to put out each item and where it must be placed in order for the appropriate actor to find and use it. Or are these the notes of the director, final bits and pieces of his direction for that person running lines, for the costumers, set designers, or for all of them?
 
In some of these spaces, those who are in charge of the scenery are reviewing their last-minute changes to the backdrops, checking the equipment for stage effects.  Several rooms for them. And what about the one who will communicate with those making music (if there is music used) so offer the proper tone to the action or keep the tension at peak during breaks of scene or Acts?

All of this is there—and when the bell rings or buzzer calls, or gong calls all to attention that it is almost showtime, their magic duties over, these rooms will again trans form into simple spaces and the magic will reside on stage, to be revealed as the curtains pull back or lights illuminate it, that sacred space, where sets and scrims, and props and music will join in with  the actors to transport the audience into a world apart from their own, where the seeds cosseted by creativity and imagination in that backstage space will bloom and the aroma of its beauty will carry the audience into a new and different world—for at least as long as the play lasts.
 
Joan Leotta

​Joan Leotta is a writer and story performer whose poems, essays, books, and articles have appeared in many journals, including Silver Birch Press, The Ekphrastic Review, One Art, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net and for the Pushcart Prize. Her collection of poems, Feathers on Stone is available from Main Street Rag.

​The Brain and Imagination
  
The artist explores through an abstract motif how the brain works. In this collage, I see a portrayal of the randomness of synapses and links that determine the brain’s workings, and in particular, the imagination. Luzajic enhances the wide scope and indefinite character of the imagination by her use of a wide variety of coluors, textures.
 
The dominant yellow cloud-like shapes can represent cores of synapses, while nerve connections vital to the brain’s functioning, appear on the lines that drop, like streamers, elongating nerve impulses, assuring that connections between ideas are made. In contrast, yellow polka dots may allude to Yayoi Kusuma’s conceptual world order. Luzajic’s elongation of dots  (blue, white, pink), may suggest the explosion of knowledge that arrives with the synoptic pulses, random as they may be.
 
The interplay of white O’s and Xs, along with plus(+) signs, alludes to the brain’s use of logic, as in a chess game, for solving problems. The brain’s left side, reputed source of logic, is here intertwined with the more artistic sensitivities of the right, so that this colourful collage expresses the transformation of imaginative impulses to order and beauty.
 
The feeling of the artwork is one of pulling down. Gravity draws down the lines, the yellow and white extensions suggest, paradoxically, rootedness and mobility. This is part of the unpredictable pulsating of nerve cells. Even the black scribbles here and there, and numbers at the bottom and upper right, suggest a randomness of synaptic behavior, as well as scattered components of creation.
 
The sky in the background clarifies the working components of nerves. It can remind us that some aspects of nature are more stable than the apparent spasticity of the nervous system. The cerulean blue comprises a stable background to the constantly moving, shifting, pulsing together in this collage, without overwhelming it.
 
Beauty is not a simple line, though William Hogarth made much of that in his 1753 treatise on The Analysis of Beauty, where he argues that the “line of beauty” is serpentine. Beauty is more complexly represented in this 21st century work. The vertical lines, suggest, in addition to elongated nerve impulses, rain showers from clouds. These strong aspects of nature on earth enhance the complexity of creation.  
                                                                                                                                                            
Luzajic also alludes to order in this seemingly erratic creative process, by laying down under yellow and white objects vague structures of blue, green, black, grey, hot pink, even yellow and black stripes. She thus exhibits simultaneously randomness and order, predominantly vertical, that forces our eyes to move up and down. As noted earlier, there is also an irony that can be said to mock the more erratic routes used by brain waves to create new ideas, revelations, and possibly transform old ones.                                                                                                             
 
The title Stumbling on Light suggests the unexpectedness of the brain’s creativity, as difficult to hold down as the yellow and white clouds. The revelation light can offer is unexpected. A rainbow is a good example; it shows us many of the component colours that make up light. Light changes almost every second, so “stumbling” on it suggests a special moment of insight, awareness, and perhaps, a mystical revelation..
 
Discover the light.
Pulses animate the brain
All that we can imagine.
 
Mary K. Lindberg

Mary K. Lindberg, poet, author, musician and performer, explores links between art, music, dance, literature. Her most recent publication is a poetry collection, Dance of Atoms, (Oakledge Press, December, 2025). A chapbook, The Tang of Glue, appeared in 2006 (Puddinghouse Publications). Prize-winning poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, Gallery&Studio, Blueline, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. Broadcasts on NPR-WNYC. Grand Prize Winner, Dancing Poetry Contest (2021 and 2026); Poet of the Month, United Poets Laureate International 2021, 2023. Enjoys challenges of ekphrastic writing.

​
Ironing Day
 
Sophie’s muscles bulged in her thin frame, rippling like sleek creatures under her skin. Laundry was hard work. She always thought Monday’s washing was the worst part of the week—the weight of wet sheets, the wringing-rolling, the steamy heat that made her sweat even on cold days, the harsh soap on her hands, the bleaching, the drying—a day that seemed longer than twenty-four hours. But then came Tuesday, ironing day. The routine was pleasant at first but soon came tedium, muscle aches from the standing and repetition, one blistering burn, then another. Worst was fear. With every touch of iron to cloth, she worried she’d scorch a customer’s clothing. She couldn’t afford to pay anyone for a ruined shirt, a damaged dress, a mistake. A welcome puff of air made the frayed curtains dance for a minute. She looked up. Outside shacks as time-faded as hers hunched like beaten dogs. The sun set, and still she heated and reheated irons on the stove, ironed-out wrinkles, wishing she could do that for her life; wished she could make it sparkle as if after rain. A fresh world. A fresh start. Someone else to wash and iron.
 
Merril D. Smith

Merril D. Smith is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet from New Jersey. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Her second collection is Held Inside the Folds of Time (Jane’s Studio Press, 2025). Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social;  Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org  ​

Moon in Scorpio 
 
This is not your month. Take heart as the days wither and do not look ahead of your immediate tasks. Life unfolds where focus takes you, and the time for the interior is now, when the moon is in your breast and only you know its quiet and fullest burn. The inner gaze of desire pushes outward, a river of temptation like witch’s brew. Do not drink lest you be carried away, your final vision, a lover’s hand never reaching your face. 

Rebecca Surmont

Rebecca Surmont can’t get enough of the short summers, living in MN with her husband and dog. She writes mostly when it’s not summer. Her written work has been in publications such as the new anthology ICE Out Minnesota Writers Rise Up, The Mackinaw, RockPaperPoem, Last Leaves, The Orchards, Amethyst Review, Hare’s Paw, Steel Jackdaw, Eunoia Review, and Crowstep Poetry Journal. She works as a leadership consultant.

​
Exchanging a Pawn for a Queen                                                                                         
  
It wasn't just a chess game. The winner got the Princess. She had no choice. Even though she was educated in the Royal Court, her silence was rewarded. Her wisdom not so much. At least, she would get the man with the most intelligence. That was one small consolation. Hopefully, it would also be the one with the most wealth. That's the only goal any female in the Royal Court could attain: an intelligent and wealthy man. And kind. That goes without saying that they all hoped their husbands would be kind. If her husband was kind, wealthy, and intelligent, she could potentially continue her education. Anything was better than sitting with her ladies-in-waiting, endlessly weaving, spinning, and sewing. She was an artist and wanted to perfect her talent. Carving was her passion but there had never been a female carver in the Royal Court before. She had to settle for painting when she had any free time, away from the prying eyes of her chaperones. But what she really wanted to do was carve sacred symbols on the palace walls. If only, if only, she silently pleaded, eyes focused on the board while her mind drifted with the breeze that she felt coming in from the window. 

She hoped the Prince of Memphis would win. The other Prince was from Thebes, an area with more traditional requirements for women. Memphis was said to be more progressive in their view of women's roles in the court. Besides, the Prince of Memphis exhibited a more regal behaviour, sitting with legs tucked sideways and no signs of discomfort on his face; whereas the Prince of Thebes slouched casually, almost disrespectfully considering the gravity of the situation. At the moment, the Prince of Memphis was in the lead. 

She sat very still to ensure she didn't inadvertently cause any distractions. Her legs were tucked up to her chest, her manner submissive and her hand ready to cover her mouth whenever she felt the need to gasp at a foolish play. She could see her ladies-in-waiting peering anxiously around the doorway. The minute the winner was declared, the Princess would be whisked off for her bridal preparations. Nobody, except her ladies-in-waiting and chaperones would see her until the morrow when she was presented to the winner in front of the alter. Then, as soon as the Priest pronounced them as man and wife, they would be escorted to the bridal chambers. The marriage must be consummated immediately, in front of each family's designated chaperones. After that barbaric task had been completed, the party could officially begin.   
     
"Checkmate," was heard loud and clear. A cheer went up in the hallway. The Princess stood gracefully and bowed submissively towards her Prince. Her heart fluttered. She had struck gold. The Prince of Memphis had indeed won. Not only was he intelligent, but he wasalso incredibly handsome. Her knees weakened as she thought of how his hands would feel on her body tomorrow.
 
Martha J. Urquhart

​Martha J. Urquhart loves to experiment with different styles of poetry, both traditional and contemporary. She has been writing sporadically for decades. She writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and novels. She enters different contests to challenge herself by writing according to specific themes using different methods in different genres. Martha's goal in her third act of life is to have fun launching her writing career.

​Transformation Flight 

Three days of fasting and chanting for this trial flight and now Russ stood at the laboratory’s atrium window, looking out over the river, ready for the mission. He clutched the “borrowed” transformation mask, a powerful bird, a Protector, according to his anthropology people. This was the only one of the six transformational masks that their agents had stolen from a university warehouse that would even communicate with him. It was also the most powerful. The other masks resisted positioning on his head. One mask had even cracked in his hands. How ironic that Protector was the only one that had chosen him, which was the way it was supposed to work. A beauty, with red markings and a powerful, hooked beak. Years of dabbling in ethnic spiritual practice were about to pay off for him and his team. Wars happened at all levels. 

The mission was to surveille invading troops without triggering enemy satellites. Hopefully, he could communicate well enough to guide the bird to what he needed to see. It would be a bonus if there were other powers.

His experience with paratrooping paled compared to flying with Power Beak—that was Russ’s name for the mask. Even knowing he was physically standing in the laboratory atrium overlooking the river, he could feel every dip and rise in the bird’s flight. He could hear the other heartbeat, hear the bird call out. To whom, what? Other birds? He could not hear any members of his team standing by to intervene, if needed. That screech could be a problem. But Power Beak was in command, for now. Patience, he thought. 

He cleared his mind of everything except images of the enemy. The bird flew over nests in the treetops, some with hatchlings. Russ spotted an enemy flag. Thunderbird showed him a family working in their field, no uniforms or identifying markers.

The flyovers became increasingly grim. A prison camp paving over a wetland. Ragged tents along a river, refugee encampments. A school still burning, children huddled outside, adults frantically scrambling to rescue anyone inside. Russ was seeing things he already knew about, nothing to report about the enemy here. This mask was not responding and he had lost track of time.

But with a swoop and a turn, Russ could see his lab and the window where he stood looking out over the river. But the river began rising, actually exploding, forming its own channel around the lab. He could hear the bird’s heartbeat over his own screams. His last breath caught the thunderous screech of the bird and lightning striking the lab.
​
Rescue teams recovered the headless body of Col. Russell Bates from the laboratory two days later. The mask has not been found.

Jane Vogel

Jane Vogel's work can be found in Blue Lake Review, Storm Cellar, The Bezine and the 2025 marathon collection in The Ekphrastic Review. She is a retired physical therapist, currently writing about themes of home, shelter and community. Jane lives and works between the Minnesota Twin Cities and the Arizona Valley of the Sun.

On the West Cumbrian Lowry Stop in Angry Dan’s Lakes Limerick Trail

He gives life to community walls
with the murals he brightly installs
where a limerick sings
as the music it brings
to his art that provokes and enthralls

such as this on the pale of a wall
once the market that many recall
in the Lowry work known
for the chill of its tone
in far drearier shades of appall

he deemed fit for the likes of the lot
so content to be all they were not
as the waifs in a mix
of industrial sticks
to be used like the pens from a pot.

It's but one of Dan's five that remind
the beholder of gold left behind
when West Cumbrian charm
so beloved will disarm
eye and mind it sublimely inclined.

But he brings to the young a bit  more
whom he teaches with gifted rapport
to use limerick skill
as the wit and the will
to embrace what they learn as their lore.

​Portly Bard

Note from Portly Bard:

I was immediately taken with Dan's work when I came across it.  

Though even a diligent child can do a limerick admirably to pleasant effect, writing in such a compact form masterfully with genuinely mature wit and charm is deceptively challenging.  Taking effective liberty with the expectation that the universal familiarity of such a form creates is even more demanding.  And to Illustrate well done limericks with complementing visual simplicity, tone, and wit truly rarifies what is already an incredibly difficult accomplishment.

But what really made Dan's impression so chiseled was reading about what he does to make sure that the public is engaged  --  rather than enraged  --  with his work.  It is typically commissioned in the name of the community it graces, and with Dan's unique interaction, it becomes welcomed education and cheerfully adopted transformation.

I almost instantly imagined these two signs on Dan's "storefront" windows:

Angry Dan's Limerick Art

For their humour and wisdom at heart
I give limericks life in my art
as aesthetic delight
in the rarified sight
that a mural done right will impart.


**
​
Angry Dan's Maps

I do maps that not only provide
the clear aerial view you're denied
but that also as art
become images heart
can recall as delightfully eyed.

Portly Bard

Daniel John "Angry Dan" Ryder is a renown British poet, illustrator, and street artist, which in his case means both an exterior muralist and a travelogue cartographer.

He has curtailed professional musicianship to enlist his poetry, painting, and personable rappport in creative interactive community recognition and celebration.  He is best known for his well placed, eye-catching, thought provoking exterior murals that illustrate clever limerick poetry he adapts to community character and history with remarkable insight and wit in the spirit of the kindred folk music with which he is so familiar.

Learn more about Dan here:

www.angrydan.com
www.instagram.com/angrydan

Portly Bard: 
Prefers to craft with sole intent...
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.

Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.

​Hen House 
 
He has gone, the rooster perched on the centre console of his pickup truck. The hen house sighs. She signals her relief by undressing. Hangs the stiff flag of femininity out the high window of her throat, its genderless shadow greening the rough stone wall of the tower. A coop now, a pink shell, but for roosts, tossed to land upright in zig-zag across false felt. Cue excitement: Some game is about to begin. A bloody ball rolls outside two slick ones, whiter, rounder, harder than eggs. Laid not by golden hens, bobbing, in pairs, beak to beak; but disgorged by the gray sack he left behind. Chicks hatch in twosomes, liminal in the green bluing to black sky. Objects are out of proportion. Feelings flare. 

​Mushroom Hunters

Across the prairie, heath, any arid wilderness, we are faceless now. All semblances of the real cracked, peeling, revealing the bald agony of grief. We were mushroom hunters, stems sturdy and dirt-clung, fissured black caps dressed with earth. Our buckets, trash bags, pockets overflowed with morels, to butter-braise for dressing eggs, steak, salad. Metaphor, too, for your riven brain, gaps widening where the webbing no longer held. Remember we, a twosome. Father-daughter, bulb-clove, mushroom-spawn. We floated through landscapes beloved, tending toward one another. My hands are yours now, spotted, wrinkled. My wrists ragged, root-torn to desert, burying my head in white peony petals; the bushes under which we’d find our fungal delight. 

Camille LeFevre

Camille LeFevre crafts poetry and creative nonfiction, and teaches writing workshops on art and place, from her home on the unceded lands of the Hisatsinom, Yavapai, and Apache in Northern Arizona. Her essay, “Body Topography,” published in The Dodge, was selected for the 2026 Best of the Net Anthology. Her first poetry collection, Sandstone and Kin, will be published in Fall 2026. Her work also appears in Poets for Science, wildscape.literary, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Metphrastics, Fugue, Unleash Literary, Electric Lit, Brevity Blog, and other publications. She’s thrilled to have her work, once again, in The Ekphrastic Review.