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Las Meninas
the point of the painting to which the eye is drawn sends backpackers hiking mystics in search of what is real and what is false as if they were oak framing the painting cutting lines around truth as if by being still we could witness brush strokes and splinters and by using reason reason there is a point at which we know the smudge is on canvas, not on the lens through which we see Las Meninas a mirror is a garden gives back light not caught in colour a garden growing daughter the daughter caught curious she let herself laugh we see her without her knowing without letting herself ourself be known, we see garden grow not at all always same dressing always same glass of water always same not seeing same not sure of self indefinite the garden's upper third framed by frames, paintings he finished before paintings he let stay growing stay unfinished let stay not let go the slant third unseen comes into view step back the garden step back the taste of self grows in the garden stop seeing a garden see a mirror instead Phillip Barron Phillip Barron's first book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing, won the 2015 Michael Rubin Book Award and was published by Fourteen Hills Press. Elsewhere, his writing appears in New American Writing, Brooklyn Rail, Janus Head, Orion, Saw Palm, and Radical Philosophy Review. He is a member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and served as the 2012 editor of Squaw Valley Review. Ekphrasis: The Mowers (When Hearts Beat as One)
There are times you long for the sepia'd world. The gentle shift of the swinging blade cutting cleanly the tall, falling grasses rhythms aligned: your pounding heart, salty rivulets running to the point of your clockwork elbow the sound of her labouring breath behind you tall backed, beautiful in her gathering beautiful in her releasing the sweet smell of the ripe and fallen hay beautiful in the glance over your damp shoulder and catching the air around her alive with dust, pollen every mote afire in the low, late and golden sun and you, cutting cleanly when this is all the work there is to do in the world to swing true, keep your rhythm cut cleanly, gather quickly hearts beating, ahead of the coming, the darkening the ending sky. There are times we long for our sepia'd world but do we ever know it when we are in it. Ryan Warren Ryan Warren lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry and other writings have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Lost Coast Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Mindful Word, Anchorage Daily News, U.S. 1 and Plum Tree Tavern. The Guardian at the Gate
Spawn of the arcane, glutted, she sprawls upon the sands of mythos. As victims, star-crossed lovers, outcasts, we have all seen the traces of these nether lands. Sphinx-like, besotted, she lays among the bodies dashed. A pixie smith has cast her silver chains, retained her inside this mystic plane, stained her hide vintage rose. Among the cards on the table, it is plain; she purrs. Do you know what she knows; guess, a riddle she poses. Protection sought from life's trials is at her command. But, few coupled or single have journey past her grasp. Unknown, to the unschooled, their senses unused, banned, Christendom, the sacred fecund grail has miscast. From Hatshepsut's visage, bound to Sekhmet she's sworn beware, beware The Chariot's card once it is drawn. Deborah Guzzi Deborah Guzzi is a healing facilitator. Her new book The Hurricane is available now through Prolific Press. Her poetry appears in Magazines: Existere - Journal of Arts and Literature in Canada, Tincture in Australia, Cha: Asian Literary Review, Hong Kong, China, Eunoia in Singapore, Latchkey Tales in New Zealand, Vine Leaves Literary Journal in Greece, RedLeaf Poetry, India and Travel by the Book, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, Sounding Review, Kyso Flash, The Aurorean, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Liquid Imagination, The Tishman Review, Page & Spine and others in the USA The Song of the Lark
Red light is a song, string solo, fiddle melancholy; somebody’s sunset waltz tipped arrowhead, let the shaft fly. Dull circle plod of seasons—grow and die, and grow, and die, and oh, and eye, and you, and I-- tunnel vision. Look up sudden! Rough as furrow, always-bare feet, grabbed and shook hooked look look! -- There’s a horizon, and a shade of redgold sunhold never seen before. The string pricks, the bow skips, and here I am, come home to myself, this stupid joy, this buzz- numb hope, struck dumb with singing, singing. LeighAnna Schesser LeighAnna Schesser is the author of Heartland, forthcoming from Anchor & Plume Press in June 2016. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Mothers Always Write, Rose Red Review, and Kindred, among others. LeighAnna earned her M.F.A. from North Carolina State University. She lives in Kansas with her husband and two children. She writes at leighannaschesser.wordpress.com. Baptism of the Neophytes
Weight of water, heavy as light: as if light, liquefied, tear-streamed down his face, made his knees two pale fishes. Head submissive, hair a net awash with weighted light, the way it seems to travel both over and through―water on and in, merging and drenching, seen and unseen, Holy Ghost embracing the adopted son. What is wet is alive—thirst, primordial birth. Our cups runneth over. The mirroring face of the waters, eye of the world, breath-fogged, Spirit-breathed. Void and firmament, chalice on a stem. To ripple the still surface of substance seeming solid, but with infinite give. Novice, naked and neck-bowed, be submerged in the grave of the Christ, receive his blood, blood-brotherhood, blood washing away blood- guilt. Enter the floodwaters in the gut of the Ark. Be born eternal in a second womb- water. Harbor the bloodbeating heart, the heat, holy, holy—drink it down like water-mixed wine. Wine was water, once, and was made new. So you. Hold your finite breath—dive deep. LeighAnna Schesser LeighAnna Schesser is the author of Heartland, forthcoming from Anchor & Plume Press in June 2016. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Mothers Always Write, Rose Red Review, and Kindred, among others. LeighAnna earned her M.F.A. from North Carolina State University. She lives in Kansas with her husband and two children. She writes at leighannaschesser.wordpress.com. Monet’s Garden
A garden is not what you think… Elizabeth Philips Bad day, fevered, queasiness running the length of my body like long wet spider threads. I imagine being back in Giverny, bending over a Japanese peony breathing out instead of in, dying into pale red folds. It’s a June day, yellow, and buzzing, with a faint whiff of pike rising off the water lilies. Bent over that peony, feeling small like Toulouse-Lautrec, his nose buried in a dancer’s skirts. From the vantage point of a bee I’m a surrealist in an impressioned garden. The lime trees across the way are relieved they don’t have to give bloom to me. And the sky is the last blank page in a coffee table art book. A sick man means squat in Monet’s garden: petal dropped petal lost. p.s. colourful as it may seem this is an example of negative thinking, a waste of technicolour and sweat better to dream about jesus jumping out of a birthday cake of someone named veronica swallowing my house keys imagine if I’d been feeling positive picasso and his blue machete would have wrecked the place all those self-pitying flowers severed from their stems Barry Dempster Barry Dempster is an award winning poet, short story writer, novelist, editor, and writing instructor. This poem is from his book, The Burning Alphabet (Brick Books, 2005), which was a finalist for the prestigious Governor General Awards. Used with permission of the author. The Night Watch
Walk with me through the night. Too long have we been disacquainted with it, too long have we been blinded by LED screens and peep show signs. I want to know silence again. Besides, I haven’t seen the moon in ages – and you could be my excuse. A dubious honour – you say with a deadpan face. Alright then – we can pretend we’re on patrol like Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” a long way from home. I used to laugh at those men oblivious as they are to the angels enveloping them in a two-person aura. But that’s the thing – you can only see the angels when you’re outside the frame and looking in. And so – if there be angels out tonight we will not see them we will not know. Anca Rotar Anca Rotar is a Romanian-born writer of poetry and fiction. She was driven to writing by her love of stories and verse, as well as by an ever-increasing fascination with mysteries and the unknown. Her biggest complaint is that there are too many interesting things in the world and hardly enough time to discover them all. http://ancaspoemsandstories.wordpress.com Magnolia Grandiflora
Like a languid girl the blossom reclines on a swirl of plush red velvet. Framed by glossy green sepals, the ivory petals unfurl revealing the stamen’s nubbly pearl. The cut stem has already begun to shrivel, to curl. Bonnie Bishop Bonnie Bishop's chapbook, O Crocodile, came out through Finishing Line Press in 2009. Her book Local Habitation was published by Every Other Thursday Poets, a long-running poetry workshop of which she has been a member for several decades. She has been interested in ekphrastic poetry for many years, using visual prompts in her own teaching and leading a workshop at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts for teachers on writing ekphrastic poems. This poem is from a series called "American Wing," based on 19th century paintings in the MFA. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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