Villanelle for Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
I was a runaway girl who turned out alright. -Louise Bourgeois I was a runaway girl who turned out alright. All the algebraists who hump the pillars of the Sorbonne couldn’t stop me from running nude into the New York City night. The tapestries of centuries past, their unicorns and wights, couldn’t trip up my running shoes: I could not choose but run. I was a runaway girl who turned out alright. My father mended rugs for money; he ate my nanny’s rug for spite. To flee the prick of his unicorn horn, I married young: with my bridegroom, I fled nude into the New York City night. If I’d had to, I would’ve gladly made a solo flight à la Amelia Earhart; I’m used to doing things alone. I was a runaway girl who turned out alright-- Look at me now, surrounded by Manhattan’s neon lights! What a palace this place is! Who truly needs the sun when they’re running nude in the blue New York City night? Never mind how lonely I get amid these steel-girt heights, or the guilt I feel when I recall the war-torn France I shunned. I was a runaway girl who turned out alright, running, running nude into the New York City night. Jenna Le Previously published in Jenna Le's book, Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011). Jenna Le is the author of Six Rivers (NYQ Books, 2011), which was a Small Press Distribution Bestseller, and A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora (forthcoming from Anchor and Plume Press, 2016). Her poetry, fiction, essays, criticism, and translations appear or are forthcoming in AGNI Online, Bellevue Literary Review, The Best of the Raintown Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Los Angeles Review, Massachusetts Review, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. Her website is http://jennalewriting.com/ .
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Golden Boy
Bronze Adonis gilt in gold balanced atop the dome of the Legislative Building, cradling a sheaf of wheat and raising a torch like a relay runner poised to pass the baton; you are toned, buff – in the buff. Naughty naked boy, where is your common sense – facing northward flaunting your manhood and exposing your full glory to raw Winnipeg winters? Fern G. Z. Carr First published in Ekphrastia Gone Wild, edited by Rick Lupert. FERN G. Z. CARR is a Director of Project Literacy, lawyer, teacher and past President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She is a Full Member of and former Poet-in-Residence for the League of Canadian Poets. Carr composes and translates poetry in five languages while currently learning Mandarin Chinese. A 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, she has been published extensively world-wide from Finland to Mauritius. In addition to multiple prizes and awards, honours include being cited as a contributor to the Prakalpana Literary Movement in India; her poetry having been taught at West Virginia University and set to music by a Juno-nominated musician; an online feature in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper; and her poem, “I Am”, chosen by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate as Poem of the Month for Canada. Carr is thrilled to have one of her poems presently orbiting the planet Mars aboard NASA’S MAVEN spacecraft. www.ferngzcarr.com. I am the promise you didn't keep the hidden pebble in your pocket you played between your fingers ‘til it went missing in the wash, or when you searched for coins that day you bought chestnuts at the corner. You paid no mind, drifted through a mosaic of other pebbles and promises, with the ciphered centre I tried once to fill. Sarah Russell Sarah Russell has returned to her first love after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her poetry has appeared in Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, The Houseboat, Shot Glass Journal, Bijou Poetry Review and Poppy Road Review, among others. Her poem “Denouement” won the GR poetry contest in February, 2014. Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com.
The Shadow of Days Monday’s shadow falls from the Sabbath cast by Sunday’s prayers. Tuesday, like the sun eclipsed, hides behind the Moon Day’s face. Wednesday and Thursday shadowy twins attached at each other’s hip. Friday alone without a shadow of its own walks the sunless streets. Saturday, the damned, a shadow of itself at the end of time. Days follow days making shadows from the light and turning them to night. Neil Ellman Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published numerous poems, more than 850 of which are ekphrastic, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Rumblings of the Earth
We survive in the belly of the earth we thrive like Pleistocenic bats suspended from the roofs of unlit caves we are alive with just the sound of wings and walls to guide our flight we fly without the light of stars to tell us who or what we are and will become. Neil Ellman Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published numerous poems, more than 850 of which are ekphrastic, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. from special edition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale- illustrations by Anna and Elena Balbusso.
Mademoiselle Boissière
sits alone knitting for Sophie's baby, expected in the spring. She doesn't think of Sophie baring herself for a man, as she did once, when roses dizzied her with summer, how easy her petticoats lifted, how afterwards they smelled of blood and sweat, how she stumbled, pushed the bolt to lock the door, how those smells return when she sees him in the square, squiring his wife on errands and feels her heart loose in its stays. Sarah Russell Sarah Russell has returned to her first love after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her poetry has appeared in Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, The Houseboat, Shot Glass Journal, Bijou Poetry Review and Poppy Road Review, among others. Her poem “Denouement” won the GR poetry contest in February, 2014. Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com Georgia O’Keeffe Looks Over Her Shoulder
I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. Just when she thinks she’s painted all her fear, When bleached skulls turn to poppies red as lust, The sound of something wild attracts her ear. Black jacket, white soft collar curving near the place where desert sunset turns to rust awakens in that neck a prickling fear. The haunches of dead lovers gleam as clear in skulls as in the orchid’s velvet crust. Dry rattling of bone curls back her ear. Her upswept silken hair declares the year in shades of gray and tortoise brown as dust just when she thought she’d painted all her fear. Her thin pink pearl of seashell curves to hear the desert’s voice, more fierce, more dry than just as three fine wrinkles flow down from her ear. Such gaunt grace turns her, luscious and severe, containing bones and orchids, fruit and crust! Just when she thinks she’s painted all her fear, the sound of something wild attracts her ear. Anne Higgins Previously published in Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky, Plain View Press, 2007. |
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