Atelierwand (1872) after Adolf Menzel The centerpiece is a young woman’s torso bathed in light. On a dark old wall plaster flesh hangs from hooks in half-shadows-- a menagerie of dismembered brittle white cast, rows of death masks and ashy pale heads, eyes peacefully closed. The centerpiece is a young woman’s torso washed in cold light-- firm right breast, nipple sharp to an old man’s face-- ash left breast by a muscled chest hung in shadows. Scissors hang on pointy spikes with calipers and tangled wire. A gray German shepherd head looks to the floor. A left hand palm turned out delicately catches light. Andrés Castro This poem first appeared in Glasschord. Andrés Castro is a PEN member/volunteer and he is also listed in the Directory of Poets and Writers. He recently launched a blog for new and not so new practicing poets: https://thepracticingpoet.edublogs.org
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On Considering Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters
We’re pretty much done with winter here Though today the rain showers have turned The whole place into an ice palace no one Really appreciates unless one has the luxury Of looking outside from the inside where Almost all of us are, at this moment, taking Note of the few skaters outside without Skates, some leaving earth for only a brief Time, then returning without having seen Any of the heavens, just a slight slip that Takes the whole body out of what keeps Us all grounded until we step on the patch That will catch so many unscheduled lifts Only to be returned briefly, a second later, Arriving not upright but at a slant, not feet Landing as we are accustomed to, but our Already sore back will be the first to reach Earth, and none will consider any laws of Gravity that keep us here, and not up There, but soon, we will watch the skaters Attempting to regain poise as the feet Slip on even more of the place no one Should place a foot, but then, this is Where we are, for now, and then we turn To the kitchen to warm up what’s left Of homemade soup, and warm bread, And pretend that it’s really no different Than any skater who looks out on a Medieval pond seeing those who are Gliding, and those, sadly, who are not. DeWitt Clinton DeWitt Clinton recently retired after teaching 30 years in the Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He continues to write and publish short creative non-fiction and poetry in a variety of national and international journals including works published in 2016 in Wise Guys: An Online Magazine, Negative Capability, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Verse-Virtual, New Verse News, Peacock Journal, and Stark: The Poetry Journal No. 1 which featured a “shortlisted” poem for the Wisehouse International Poetry Award. After Vermeer A brow lost in thought while making lace. Bread brought to life as if someone were expected right about now. The point in a music lesson when radiant light falls on a rug-draped table, say, or an open-mouthed woman reads a love letter. Privacy unfolds in the intimacy of a room. A spiritual calm as milk is poured, its white bounty. Richard Waring Richard Waring’s poems have appeared in the Ars Medica, Comstock Review, Chest, Sanctuary, Contact II, Dark Horse, the American Journal of Nursing, Mothering, Inward Springs, ParentSource, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and other publications. He has been anthologized in The Pocket Poetry Parenting Guide, Rough Places Plain: Poems of the Mountains, and the Unitarian Universalist Poets: A Contemporary American Survey, and has appeared on Phone-A-Poem and the cable TV show BookBeat. His first book of poetry, What Love Tells Me, was published by Word Poetry in 2016. His chapbook, Listening to Stones, was published in 1999 by Pudding House Publications. He is a senior layout artist for the New England Journal of Medicine. Stripped He tries taxidermy animals first, but the wires that shape their batting make a poor substitute, for bones, not all armatures artful. Better are road kill, dead but inexplicably whole, able to partner blooms without shame, skeletons as graceful as stamen and anther. The animals seem stunned to stillness by their exposed joints, as naked as Adam and Eve before God’s surgical gaze. The artist chooses not to return to them any colour, finding in their hinges decoration enough. Embarrassed by lack, they cede the focus to their rooted cousins, finally humbled by stem, leaf, and bloom. Devon Balwit Devon Balwit is a writer and teacher from Portland, OR. She has two chapbooks forthcoming--'how the blessed travel' from Maverick Duck Press and 'Forms Most Marvelous' from dancing girl press. Her recent work has found many homes, among them: Oyez, The Cincinnati Review, Red Paint Hill, Timberline Review, Sow's Ear Poetry Review, Trailhead Review, and Oracle. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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