The Ekphrastic Review
  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact

Still Life With Onions, by Peggy Landsman

7/16/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Starry Night Over the Rhone, by Vincent Van Gogh, (Netherlands) 1888.
​
Still Life With Onions
 
Van Gogh ate his paint
worked quickly
and died
 
he was so sloppy
so hungry
 
he couldn't wait to free his palette
cover his canvases thick
 
he couldn't wait for chrome-yellow love
infinite night-sky blue
to dry
 
he had to lick his light fresh.
 
as I cut onions into chunks--
never delicate, translucent slices
 
coming down hard at irregular angles
gouging the board
mixing wood splinters in
 
I think about the unusual way
I'm told I have with a knife.
 
I bet Vincent tore into his bread
left his teeth marks in wedges of cheese
completely neglected on countless occasions
to clean up after himself.
 
and what's wrong with big chunks of onion?
the savage charge of having to eat?
 
eyes burning, tears streaming
I see through it all--
 
the last temptation of light.

​Peggy Landsman

This poem was first published at Liberty Hill Poetry Review.

Peggy Landsman is the author of a poetry chapbook, To-wit To-woo (Foothills Publishing). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press), Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes (C&R Press), and, most recently, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology Of Subversive Verse(Lost Horse Press), SWWIM Every Day, and Mezzo Cammin. She currently lives in South Florida where she swims in the warm Atlantic Ocean every chance she gets. https://peggylandsman.wordpress.com/
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture

    ​​Find a writer, artist, or poem, etc. by searching here:
    PLEASE SUPPORT US
    Join us on FB and Twitter!
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact