 Vawdavitch, by Franz Kline (USA). 1955. Temple Gate "Even in your Zen heaven we shan’t meet." Sylvia Plath, "Lesbos," 1962. This is the first gate that opens to my garden that leads to my temple Enter you will be offered tea by the ghosts of the suicides sitting in the plum trees singing you’re late you’re late but keep walking There are many gates of black and white to study like a critic or to pass through In the museum of heaven we may not meet Tricia Marcella Cimera Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Her work appears in many diverse places — from the Buddhist Poetry Review to the Origami Poems Project. Her poem ‘The Stag’ won first place honours in College of DuPage’s 2017 Writers Read: Emerging Voices contest. Tricia lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox / with a Poetry Box in her front yard. ** Vawdavitch by Franz Kline He knew where the dimensions meet, where dark invades the light; had seen the stark assault of harsh on soothing, the offensive by powers beyond our control. He had seen and he had rendered, his vision translated into violent brush strokes, put on canvas with ‘strident confidence’. With his sharp and rapid attack on our comfortable world, he forces us to reconsider our blind. amoeba-like passing through the contaminated waters of our limited lives. Rose Mary Boehm A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of Tangents, a full-length poetry collection published in the UK in 2010/2011, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals (online and print). She was three times winner of the now defunct Goodreads monthly competition. Recent poetry collections: From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949 : A Child’s Journey, and Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back. ** Forty-Thousand K Short Note: as per Artsy.net, as of 2012, the record high auction for Franz Kline’s painting Vawdavitch was $40 million at Christie's. A wise old owl once sat in a tree where nobody noticed him winking at me when he waved his right hand to attract my attention (I know—it’s a wing; I inferred his intention) and then with the other he stretched out a pinion which swept left to right across all his dominion-- though now, it would seem that my mind wasn’t right for in looking around there were no trees in sight; just chairs filled with people, some raising a hand, others nodding quite clearly, increasing demand for this bird front and center, much wanted by all, so intent on possession that none heard his call when his deep, owlish voice cried out “Who will it be?” If I’d had forty million, it would have been me. Ken Gosse Ken Gosse prefers writing light verse with traditional metre and rhyme filled with whimsy and humour. First published in The First Literary Review-East in November 2016, his poems are also in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years, usually with a herd of cats and dogs underfoot. ** Extreme Unction Limp and lost in the vast Olympic night Javelin seeks the heart of an enemy, finds only limed collegiate grass. Net screams foul when ball slaps it. Kayak paddle captures racket, shoots rapids on the Colorado. They survive. Crampons secure, ropes tight, carabiners locked, peak and crevasse compete for sky. Afternoon shade splatters the field. Referees ponder: First down? Touchdown? Ground round? Ball rockets past hole, past green, past fairway, city, state, universe. Par is beyond the course. Violins ask to play through. The game so fast hoops run down the court, floor slats loosen, fly away, drive up the price of free throws. Booze, cigars, humiliation—dark swaths propel the ball on the meat of Mantle’s bat, of Marris’ bat-- even the Babe’s. Ref’s hand and arm chop violently behind his leg. Slashing so mighty the puck hides, trembles in the net. Skates shiny sharp as death. Pitch askew, the goal is chaos. The foot of God, not His hand, is required. Breath in patches, jersey splashed with sweat, the finish line is there, or there, or there, or there… . Winning/losing, soft/shrill, black meets white meets black meets white. One day it’s all gone. We disappear into dark, into light, not even a pebble remembers us. Charles W. Brice Charles W. Brice is a retired psychoanalyst and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), and An Accident of Blood (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, SLAB, The Paterson Literary Review,Muddy River Poetry Review and elsewhere. ** At Last I need nothing more than this white canvas large housepainter’s brush and a can of black paint in this scarcity bare as any saint’s cloistered cell without distraction or elaboration I discover freedom each broad sweep of black redefining white in these limits the key to limitless infinity breaking and reshaping space my arm like god’s on the first day pulling new worlds out of the dark Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. She has had work appearing in many print and online journals, and has an electronic chapbook, Things I Was Told Not to Think About, available as a free download from Praxis magazine online. ** Aggression Muzzled Aggression muzzled can't be tamed. The soul restrained remains inflamed. The blunted blades of teeth denied will sharpen gnawing deep inside, becoming fiercely angled eye and ears erect to hear the cry that postured terror strikes in those who fear the will it might impose if ever loosed from reason's rein to wreak what now it's forced to feign, content to merely contemplate the vengeance that would compensate the liberty so long withheld and by such brutal means compelled. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. ** Kline’s Headframe Headframe over a mine that could only be coal from where I started in Pennsylvania and left for a steel town in Colorado. The line down a cable to where a woman can scratch with pick in the hard earth, gone the superstition that her blood brings death. She digs for silver in Leadville before she becomes Baby Doe Tabor. I combed tailings for gold in Victor. Brutal work—when Dempsey swung fists in a nearby bar. Walk up the bed of narrow gauge through Phantom Canyon that brought coal from Florence to fuel cages of men with yellow fever down the shaft. Even hay fields of Kansas have the body of Vawdavitch, the up and down bob of wells that pump oil from the sturdy left side of the hoist. Kyle Laws Kyle Laws is based out of the Arts Alliance Studios Community in Pueblo, CO where she directs Line/Circle: Women Poets in Performance. Her collections include Faces of Fishing Creek (Middle Creek Publishing), So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press), and Wildwood (Lummox Press). Ride the Pink Horse is forthcoming from Spartan Press. With six nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. ** A Beautiful and Brutal World The geese take off, wings whoosing against the white afternoon - skyward into the wind, dipping and alighting in the field near the Chevrolet dealership, blasting announcements for the Service Department. This new place for cars next to the traffic circle, expanding on all sides, has SUVs that look like they are smiling broadly. Near the intersection a man is holding a sign for help: anything will do in black letters scrawled big enough to be read. Disguising the mess of his life, he is grasping and reaching into a landscape of cars with drivers who gaze straight ahead. Meanwhile, one of the geese, head up and seemingly guarding the feeding flock, turns his head, like he is pointing at the man, his bicycle propped up against an orange cone. Whoever we are, this abstract environment expands us. We feel like the bicycle, like the geese, like the idling cars waiting for admittance. Nancy Wheaton ** Safe House startled like an owl, beak clattering in alarm, not knowing if harm would come taken in dark, awoken- then, as drugs wore off, then the unknown men on top never seen day, money, phone, could mean escape, clean sheets, warm baths, no-one demanding she leave herself- even when she did not know where she was Cleone T. Graham Naturalist, poet, and painter, Cleone Graham exuberantly explores the forests and coasts of Maine and New Hampshire. ** Not Understood Is this what it all boils down to? Even though you have stated it boldly in black and white, you have never intended to be understood. After all, being understood can be a risky business. Not understood, you are then not held captive to any specific interpretation that may raise speculations of autobiographical references (if those are things you abhor) or any other inconvenient scrutiny bordering on loss of privacy. In the book, The Madman, Kahlil Gibran wisely pointed out that "those who understand us enslave something in us." Has this ever resonated with you? I often wondered. Not understood, you can be at liberty to navigate between what you referred to as the positive negative spaces of your creation, your paintbrush responding with sweet authenticity to your secret ruminations, everything else being inconsequential. You may have painted a series of riddles but it is impossible to overlook the aura of enigma you have painted about you during the course of your brief career. Your altar of abstractions know no lack of offerings and especially of late....some have been generous. This I have understood. Ellen Chia Ellen exchanged her corporate heels for paintbrushes in 2007 and had since embarked on a journey from Singapore toThailand as a self-taught artist. When she is not painting, Ellen enjoys going on solitary walks in woodlands and along beaches where Nature's treasure trove impels her to document her findings and impressions using the language of poetry. ** My Black Spot A treasure island mark on a palm for which mam says she has blankets in the airing cupboard. For any metal crashes we might hear from the busy A one. A grey metal bridge over the spot I trundle my Raleigh bike to meet with crystal set Duncan, bright as the guards on his new bike. An overgrown cottage with walls like broken teeth and shattered windscreen glass meets me at the footbridge bottom. There is no blood, only what's left after the event. On return footbridge is now flyover, black spot removed. folk fly by too fast. My old home is a turn off. into village quiet. A place folk glance at On the way elsewhere. Paul Brookes Paul Brookes is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks are The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018) Forthcoming Stubborn Sod, illustrated by Marcel Herms (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018) Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. ** I pace the street trace black lines around the block like a Kline.my past stacks up, chords through my mind.it’s only when I feel ghosts breathing do I do so myself.breathe.let the ghosts’ pasts complain.let me listen silent.it all[the colour]fades into monochrome.the cracks break&invade.or I invade them.sink into a past, not-mine.where what I did is irrelevant.when abandon meant a good thing. the sidewalk pushes back up at me at the exact weight I push down.we, like a team, encircle squarely.it’s not until I feel the ghosts do I feel the most settled into my awe.this city layered two-by-two with pasts.poets. artists.screaming do what you feel, damn the torpedoes.damn sense.like termite trails, pure creation traces these sidewalk lines—and I-- I’m with them.lock-step.trailing closely the urge.letting my own history die within their favor.permission.I am the mission.treat kindly the ghosts, a thing whispers. let self sink into the hard concrete.let the simple walking guide.be unto the city as it begot you. I feel this response.approval by the street lights & taxi screams.let this be my witnessing. Darren Lyons Darren Lyons is currently a creative writing MFA candidate at The New School. His poems have recently appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Chronogram, and The Inquisitive Eater. A poetry/painting project of his was featured on The Best American Poetry Blog. One of his short stories and another poem were published in the 2016 and 2017 editions, respectively, of Stonesthrow Review. ** Getting There rushing up a bridge a cloudy day at gunpoint violent stroke ivory black geometry the palm the hand I’m not done yet getting there time’s structure a gash of metal pipe vertical becomes diagonal seeing through a window the coal blue black childhood orphanage what hangs could be a father figure a child’s crude game or the knife’s gesture as it kills Jessica Purdy Jessica Purdy holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Recently her poems have appeared in The Plath Poetry Project, The Light Ekphrastic, The Wild Word, and Bluestem Magazine. Her chapbook, Learning the Names, was published in 2015 by Finishing Line Press. Her books STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House were both released by Nixes Mate Books consecutively, in 2017 and 2018. ** This is what remains of the barn after the fire-- aroma of barbecued beef, smell of spoiled milk. A haphazard array left upright citizens to bear witness an electric act of natural cleansing. Father too old to climb, replace lightning rod blown off during wild winter winds; too prideful to ask for assistance to get on top of things. At any cost, we should protect all mothers bearing milk and immunities. They bear the bounty-- nourishment of their species. If struck down, we lose. Yet my sisters and I stand here in Spring, thankful for rebirth, and one less asset to bear from an antiquated existence. Jordan Trethewey Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His work has been featured in many online and print publications, and has been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com or https://openartsforum.com. ** So-Called Abstract The door opens on its side and closes on its side. You can disagree, but there is no darkness deeper than the self. A weapon inexplicably cast at a right angle only makes sense to the flesh it pierces. I understand your fear, Franz; portraiture is an opera of glass, but even the most abstract artist can be identified by his hairline. When a bridge is constructed from a pile of branches be careful you aren’t looking for hidden meanings in the cracks. The light seeping through is nothing more than a sequence of shapes. Understanding gives way under our feet like feathers. The canvas is losing its integrity, slashed one too many times by the paint. Crystal Condakes Karlberg Crystal Condakes Karlberg is a middle School English teacher. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at Boston University. Her writing has appeared in Mom Egg Review, The Compassion Anthology, Scary Mommy Teen, and her poem, "Winter Whale" was recently selected as the winner of Folded Word Press' Solstice Series 2018. ** Overcome by Art She really doesn’t get abstracts, but this Kline froze her in her tracks. Vawdavitch? What’s that? Sounds like a place in Eastern Europe. Menacing, full of misery, from the snow she can feel under her thin shoes to the charred fence with no sign of home. So much violence in the brush strokes! She imagines trains to Auschwitz or Birkenau shuffling past this scene. Remembers Daddy, who parachuted into battle, but found liberating death camps the worst horror of war. She smells the stench of the cattle car, sways back and forth, struggling to keep her balance. A blinding light! “Ma’am, Ma’am. You’re okay. You just fainted,” says the medic shining a flashlight in her eyes. Alarie Tennille Alarie’s latest poetry book, Waking on the Moon, contains many poems first published by The Ekphrastic Review. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. ** Landing on the Other Side My bones are white under my skin (also white-- but different, not bleached or hard--) and yet you answer by asking for eaten words, invoking crow-- (according to legend, once white too)--bearing omens, consumed by riddles. How far will, then what?—the black bird, the human, arms outstretched unfeathered above waters that drown the questions, quench courage. Spinning children of the moon!—(all shadows with the same skin--) What light lays bare, its absence enshrouds. Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on the blog she does with her friend Nina: https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ and see more of her work on her website: http://kerferoig.com/ ** Brushstrokes Up and across my monochrome cage Runs the dull ache that darkens life’s rage Competing with troubled thoughts The pain of my past that jabs at my wrist Is guided by fears that are part of the list That voice the sound of despair My memory is tinged with anger and rage And something to do with being that age Where you should not shed tears I channel the cries of my former strife As angular form that’s now part of my life That repairs to the broken thoughts Now that I know I have something to say People will know that this is my way To repair a damaged soul Henry Bladon Henry is a writer based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing and writes all types of fiction. His work can be seen in FridayFlashFiction, 50WordStories, thedrabble, ID Magazine and Writers’ Forum, among other places. He also runs a writing support group for people with mental health issues. ** The Emotion of a Painting: The Final Test Is this the text of a bold Japanese print maker? Or a drawing, perhaps, of a child of four gone magic-marker-wild, luxuriating in the strokes of his unpracticed hand? Marked by a child’s reckless glee? (I could show you my son’s paintings at four.) No, this Vawdavitch hails from Kline of Wilkes Barre, a place mere miles from my old Pennsylvania homestead. What drew me to his abstract message? It was the awareness of his anger, and perhaps my own; a warning that this anger must be treated with care, lest it consume us. In his virile strokes I saw the touch of Pollock, his seeming randomness. I saw the foreboding: the deep-dark, coal blackness against the white, Kline’s life robbed of a father, later a mother, and then a wife. While subways rumbled and smells of fresh rye bread pervaded the room, my friend’s Pollock hung in his foyer, at the end of a long kitchen. Haphazard, I’d have said in those days. But now I read more into these abstracts, Kline’s included. The premeditated strokes bespeak tumult, the chaotic artistic lives of New York’s 1960s, “flower” songs, Viet Nam, feminism, perverse sexual freedoms already erupting, the careless disregard for babies. In this Vawdavitch, the anger serves its purpose: the vindication for fatherless Kline, of all that wasn’t, but could have been. Carole Mertz Carole Mertz enjoys the lessons she receives from various artworks and the challenge of placing her reactions into comprehensible sentences. She has recent work at Dreamers Creative Writing, The Ekphrastic Review, Eclectica, Front Porch Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Mom Egg Review, Quill & Parchment, WPWT, and elsewhere. Born in Pennsylvania, she now resides with her husband in Parma, Ohio.
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The Ekphrastic Review
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April 2021
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