Buzzards Bay
1 The smell of salt water and damp soil marbleize the calm pools, bend the neck bone and I fall into a dense wind, a weightlessness, a whistle that deteriorates smoothly like the matted hair of sunbeams, disc-like, on my cheeks. No grit, no trauma, only a lifeless warm wave, a wound of islands like pleasant gashes in the flat flesh of the sea. Caw to the swaying limbs at dusk, a coolness meeting a silence. Caw to the mist drops whispering onto our silk arms. Caw to the crumbling rocks beneath our toes; a family that tears the body into lines we cannot hear. Somewhere there is a metal railing and a concrete slab and a cackling bird’s talon plays a toy piano. Somewhere here is the curvature of the earth like a smile in the palm of my hand. 2 The ocean is a fist colliding with the burn hot sand. Birds tearing down the edge of a rushing wind. Birds sliding down the sweet slope of a mountain. It’s cool to the south away from the sun today underneath the still tall trees. And as the whipping winds eat away at the earth and fling debris into the water, as the whipping winds lift and flick droplets of water onto our sun slammed faces, I am flat and empty. Not in a bad way, but the bird, I hear its beak ripping from its face. The feathers disintegrate and rain down from somewhere violent. Did it lift that fish from the waves? Is that the sound of suffocating? Can we dive into the nearby pond now? Bryan Edenfield Bryan Edenfield was born in Arizona but has lived in Seattle since 2007. He is the co-founder and director of the literary arts organization, Babel/Salvage. He also hosts and curates the Glossophonic Showcase, which airs live on Hollow Earth Radio semi-regularly, and co-hosts and co-curates the Ogopogo Performance Series at the Pocket Theater. He has a degree in philosophy and history and works at an art museum, so don't worry.
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The Reader
The red counterpane sets off the white cat with the orange eyes. I have a cat with those eyes and orange striping through his white fur. He gives measured looks, just like this cat. The woman with her blue book and cool blue eyes looks like me, or rather, her expression is mine when I get interrupted while reading. It says, Go away. The white cat on the red counterpane doesn’t purr; nor does mine. It says, Go away. But I can’t go. Her blank-faced blue book fascinates me. I must ask the question The Reader hates. What are you reading? Tricia Marcella Cimera Tricia Marcella Cimera is an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places and elsewhere: The Buddhist Poetry Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Jellyfish Whispers, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones and Yellow Chair Review. Her poem “The Swear Poem” is included in the Chicago Poetry Press/Journal of Modern Poetry’s Poetry of Protest edition (JOMP 19). Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois/in a town called St. Charles/by a river named Fox. Enigma
For H.W. It is true that I have sketched for their amusement and mine, the idiosyncrasies of fourteen of my friends ... The Enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed ... Through and over the whole set [of variations] another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played ... – Edward Elgar, 1899 The letter in which he said this is lost and the fourteen friends are all dead so they can’t tell us what it meant even if they knew in the first place. There remain only the ghost-hunters tracing spectral counterpoints which weave in and out of variations, walk through walls: counterpoints like Auld Lang Syne, the Dies Irae, Farewell and Adieu to You, My Fair Spanish Ladies, and Elgar’s own Black Knight with its identical intervals: pairs of falling thirds divided by rising fourth as the chorus sings “He beholds his children die” – as if shared by all true friendships, weaving in and out of variations, is an unheard Elgarian unconscious, an enigmatic farewell and adieu, a dark saying of grief. Jonathan Taylor Jonathan Taylor's books include the novels "Melissa" (Salt, 2015) and "Entertaining Strangers" (Salt, 2012), the memoir "Take Me Home" (Granta, 2007), and the poetry collection "Musicolepsy" (Shoestring, 2013). He is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk. Dora Responds to Picasso’s “Portrait of Dora Maar Sitting”
Pablo knew me so well – how my body always disappointed me with its soft edges, how I hated being round as this world but so small. My breasts always agree with each other, holding less mystery than even this equatorial waist which has never proved inviting enough to filter beaches into being. And my dull hair is not thick as any great thought – the kind that barely fits in your head no matter its shape. My eyes I had always loved; but now I see what I was missing: the new right one’s perfect circle is wide enough to see the end of everything and fear has become a distant memory because I’ve found the diamond of my left eye is hard enough to cut through reality itself until imagination is all that remains. Robert Wynne Robert Wynne earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University. A former co-editor of Cider Press Review, he has published 6 chapbooks, and 3 full-length books of poetry, the most recent being “Self-Portrait as Odysseus,” published in 2011 by Tebot Bach Press. He’s won numerous prizes, and his poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies throughout North America. He lives in Burleson, TX with his wife and 2 rambunctious dogs. His online home is www.rwynne.com. The Paris Commune
(Inspired by Maximillien Luce’s A Street in Paris) I. A Paris Street (27 May 1871) On another day of smoke-sick pigeons, she knew roads were lines of power made into roads. She knew roads must, at times, be blockaded, while one stands perpendicular to flying bullets. Then abruptly, a force knocks the glasses from her eyes. A sudden, sharp pain steals the day’s adrenaline. Everything becomes a mistake, everyone becomes a stranger rather than enemy or friend. She forgets the mission that charged her fate, until the smell of urine brings back the street she lies in. A dog keeps silent in the alley as she closes her eyes and her limbs fail at feeling. II. The Cemetery of Père-Lachaise (28 May 1871 to present) Algae and bones remain while the years grow vines within the gates outside the city where she last remembers another’s eyes above her. Her hometown stops by her gravestone. They remember her as a child, before she went away. They raised her while her mother worked the Paris nightclubs that remain nearby. The smell of summer quickly turns to winter. Again, she misses the feeling of living through the cold. It takes a half a centery of paratactic events before Einstein frets about spooky action at a distance, reacting to small progress made by the dim world seeing the whole tapestry entangling ghosts and quantum physics. She tries to forget about separate concepts like forever and places like the city of light or the times she wore red lipstick. She’s reminded the entropic blending of things is her friend, but can’t forget about the one who brandished an eagle amulet before saying to her, you know we fight not for power but for liberty, equality and fraternity-- almost and slowly, she thinks Joe Hess Joe Hess received his MA in Poetry from Miami University and his MFA from Ashland University. You can find his work in Marathon Literary Review; appearing soon in Lime Hawk Literary Arts Collective, as well as the upcoming anthology by Shabda Press entitled Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands. A Thin Line
What is it for this white woman to sit in a cushy seat looking at a screen to become prickly uncomfortable watching images of some of her kind doing violence to others who are her kind but not the same skin colour? I hold my partner’s hand after credits close as if the end gives permission to make white quiet snuffling noises rendered speechless. 2 I go home, pace. Sleepless. I search the web for images to give voice for broken noises in my body. Drinking coffee I find Kiefer’s sculpture “Breaking the Vessels” his take on the tree of life. Three tiers of books of invisible words in a precarious balance fragile, gray papers between glass sheets, some angled eventually fall to the ground, shatter like spirits that move in and out of me. 3 Near morning I find Kiefer’s painting, “Athanor.” A figure lying on the earth looks up at the vastness of the night sky, a communion of the thinnest line of light from chest to starry heavens. Catharine Jones Catharine Jones is both an artist and a poet. She is actively engaged in workshops and writing groups including Rhino Forum, Serious Play with Alice Goerge, and Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has been published in Poetry Cram and The Journal of Modern Poetry, and a professional journal "Psychological Perspectives." The Collages of Richard Leach
Ekphrastic Review: How essential is text to your collage work? Richard Leach: Very essential! Parts of words, even single letters, can add to the composition. A few legible words in a phrase are often what makes a piece feel finished to me. The phrase may be understandable but taken far out of context, or it may be nonsense - either can do. The collage is a small airplane going down the runway, and when the text is added, it lifts off! ER: In what ways does poetry inform your visual work? RL: I'm a poet as well as a visual artist. For me the two forms complement each other. When I'm writing poetry I'm trying to be understood - to be clear even when the poem is surreal. When I make collages I work much more intuitively, and I'm not trying to make the work understandable in the same way that poetry is. ER: What about the combination of words and images do you find intriguing? RL: Something I like about the combination of words and images is that by putting them together I can make a piece that feels like it almost but doesn't quite make sense - like what the piece means is on the tip of your tongue but you can't say it! ER: Who are a few of your favourite artists and poets? RL: One of my very favourite collage artists is Fred Free of Brookline, Massachusetts. I discovered his work online seven or eight years ago and didn't get it at first. But the longer I looked at it the more I did get it, and I came to like it immensely and find it inspirational. Robert Motherwell is a 20th century favourite. A favorite poet who was also a visual artist is Kenneth Patchen. I have spent a lot of time with E.E. Cummings and Langston Hughes. I read a lot of current poetry in journals and books and like a lot of it. Tony Hoagland when he is at his best is very good. Mark Strand, who died in 2014, was great. I just discovered and began reading Naomi Shihab Nye last year. And I think Bob Dylan's lyrics, from when he began writing through the present day, are outstanding poetry. Visit Richard Leach at www.richardleach.deviantart.com. In the Place Where We Are Always Alone
We stare out the window into winter’s blood, where the river’s surface smokes with cloud and snow. It runs through us all, secretly foaming downhill from forest to sea. Every day it churns and boils, tearing the tenuous banks, crushing white rock into sand. Here we are always alone, cast back on ourselves, wanderers dismissed from a gleaming hall. Even in our loneliness, we sometimes see into its streaming heart, our eyes turned inward, ears attuned to currents and the quick movements of fish. Turtles crawl slowly through frozen rushes and fibrous reeds. Midnight now, and the sky burns violet, another river to hold us in this silent place. Its music can only be the song of detritus and farewell. How it runs from us, as if daylight would drain from our veins and darkness disgorge us into ice and wind and storm. Steve Klepetar Steve Klepetar’s work has appeared worldwide, in such journals as Boston Literary Magazine, Deep Water, Expound, The Muse: India, Red River Review, Snakeskin, Voices Israel, Ygdrasil, and many others. Several of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize (including three in 2015). Recent collections include My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press) and Return of the Bride of Frankenstein (Kind of a Hurricane Press). His new chapbook, The Li Bo Poems, is forthcoming from Flutter Press. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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