 Dances, by Arch Hades (United Kingdom) 2024. Click on image for artist site. Delineation Asleep or awake? How am I?—uncertain, my mind hovers in a tension of thought inside images not quite deep enough to be dreaming. I walk gingerly across a landscape filled with currents of intuition I can’t translate into the coherence of words—they tell me something, shivering me, yet are forgotten as soon as they pass across the gaps between the synapses. What is this place? I don’t recognize it, or else it is larger than I remember, or smaller. If you were here, you’d know how to name it, to make it familiar. It's always your map I follow, the roads that hold your choreographies, even though you’ve left my life, this life. I can almost extract the music, the patterns—if I summon your reflection out of the breach, will you dance me home? Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** the gates of hell loitering around these angels never really getting through this dance that wears me out around the arch of hades dressing up and peeking through speaking words of reference to multisemous suffering only to articulate a meaningless existence the arch of hades it divides us and unites us their bodies for our souls the blinded angel keeping score as we reach a perfect balance Stien Pijp ** Paso They face in the wood With horns and with cape Where evil and good Can make no escape. Soft grows the sound As if from afar Stamping the ground To a Spanish guitar. The heat of the day Has faded to black– Setting the dance For chase and attack. For the righteous a knell For the victor a curse Before gates of Hell The proud enter first. Lara Dolphin A descendant of immigrants, Lara Dolphin lives with her family among the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania on the ancestral land of the Susquehannock/Iroquois people. She has written three chapbooks In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, and At Last a Valley. She, like countless others, hopes for a world filled with greater peace. ** The Dance of Winter Winter dances around the bare trees swishing her heavy robes of snow. Her head is bowed in concentration as she touches the music of the wind, the silence of seeds. Her body spins to the alternating beats of day & night. The patience of leafless branches, the strength of the bark reaching for the skies trance in black & white. The light song of her veined hands, her soft Sufi-twirls wrapped in swirls of prayers, the stillness hidden in her deft movements are but a reflection of possibilities in the invisible mirror of time. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines, more recently, in Pensive, Braided Way, The Orchard Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple and Birds of the Sky have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature. ** Dance Planet Enter two graces: figures of sound curves postures as aligned masts belted in black dresses of white backdrop mirroring the Milky Way for a late unfathomable sail. \ A nocturnal tune raises the masts: pianissimos to grazioso to rubato steer hands reorder air unbound feet tap on newly tangled euphonic compound you can hear its particles’ splitting sound quantum leap shreds belted bounds milky stars fall down – ecstasy crowned! Dance coast found! Out of the last broken-hearted note splashing on the dance coast emerges dressed in Aphrodite’s vest the third grace. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have been honoured by The Ekphrastic Review and its challenges quite often. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021 ** From the Book of Holy Fires The bonfire on the edge of the sea, seemingly comprising broken timbers liberated from old abandoned rowing boats, sat smouldering as a sharp breeze carried the group's memories away with its dank grey-black smoke. Strewn around them were partly burned items of clothing. There had been a funeral pyre but its work had been incomplete. Now the Sisters would need to Shrive the setting, bring the cleansing and atonement that the ritual burning should have achieved. The group watched the water. The Sisters would approach from there and depart upwards, into the wooded hills after the Shriving. So it was foretold. A way had been prepared, using the charred remains of furniture, mainly wooden chairs, to form a kind of causeway on the edge of the water. Floating at the edges of that informal, unsteady raft were lifeless spines of books, most of the pages loosened and floating away or burned to cinders. Either way, unreadable. That no longer mattered. The Sisters knew what they needed to do, to say. Records were unnecessary. The group stared, looking for a first sighting. Nothing. Then, two distant white specks. Gulls? No. The movement, at sea level, was fast and direct. In a blink two figures were there, draped in long white shroud-like cloaks. Elaborate headdresses, almost mini versions of themselves, crowned them while wholly obscuring their features. The Sisters faced each other, mirroring each other's actions, grasping each other's hands. They moved silently towards the group seemingly without using their legs, as if rolling on wheels. The group were motioned to lie down on the dirty, ashy, gritty sand. Only when they all lay facing the ground and closed their eyes would the Shriving begin. After the briefest of pauses a high pitched shrieking and wailing started. The prone figures felt the air move around them, the sweep of garments grazing them as the Sisters moved. Strong gusts of warm air swept across them all. The noise rose to a crescendo then suddenly dropped. The unmistakable gut-churning odour of newly wet ash permeated everything, edged with a tinge of salt and seaweed. After a short while members of the group began to move and get up from the sand. A few groans and exclamations escaped, hands flying to faces and heads. Those not left bald and beardless had a short bristle of white stubble on their heads. Others had lost their sight. There was always a steep price to be paid to the Sisters. Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer living in the UK Midlands. She's had pieces published in Ekphrastic Review’sChallenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print, including most recently in Blue Heron Review and The Orchards. ** Twin Goddesses on the Mountain Top As Mr. Frederick lowers the needle on the 45, the stylings of the Dutch band Shocking Blue get up under our feet. Our legs itch to get on the dance floor. “I’m your Venus,” the female singer belts out. It’s our signal for the Lindy. This Saturday night, we, the seventh and eighth grade girls, in our party dresses, curled hair, panty hose, heels, and the required white gloves, await the approach of the seventh and eighth grade boys to ask us to dance. All have been sponsored by members of the Arlington Women’s Club. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Junior Assembly, more frequently called Cotillion, in the auditorium of Roosevelt School. My twin sister and I were not accepted at first. We were plump, thanks to late night gorging of Sara Lee cakes from our father’s supermarket. We were Jewish. Not the right profile for this exclusive throwback to the town’s once-homogenous population. But we did not want to come into our classrooms on Monday mornings as social outcasts. Our mother had to intervene and ask one of her friends to sponsor us. I bought a new brown dress with sheer pink sleeves and a bowtie from Lane Bryant’s Chubby Department. Gary, whom I knew forever as a classmate, asks me to dance. But I am too tall to slide under his arm. No suited-up boy wants to dance with a girl taller than him. No boy wants to dance with a fat girl, either. My sister and I, refusing to be wallflowers, partner with each other. We’ve been doing that since the womb. We match each other in gait and grip. Once we determine who will lead this time, we step forward and back, one leading with the left and one with the right. We move on to the waltz, the foxtrot, rhumba, and cha-cha. We partner again as college seniors to fulfill the gym class requirement. We choose Dance. We whirl each other around as we waltz, clasping each other’s hands as we execute all that we learned at Cotillion. The gym instructor scolds us constantly, because we are having too much fun. It’s time for the Lindy. As we step forward and back, we sing, “I’m your Venus. I’m the fire, at your desire.” Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner is the author of three poetry chapbooks, including the ekphrastic Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press, 2025), and a forthcoming ekphrastic collection, The Night Watch (Kelsay Books). She's been honoured to have her ekphrastic poetry and prose appear in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw: a journal of prose poetry, Unbroken, Blaze/VOX, and elsewhere. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Last Dance The old woman Knew that it was her silhouette In the mirror of the dark forest Dead trees accompany her Their branches imitate her movements Follow their languid rhythms Hers and her phantom Who envelops Her last breath In a last dance Before being tenderly embraced By Infinity Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He and his wife love social dancing. After retiring, they resumed the hobby they enjoyed before having their children. They have been dancing together for nearly twenty years now. Touched by Arch Hades’ painting, Dances, he hopes to be able to dance with his wife for a few more years. ** Grocery Bag Ghosts "Right in the world's deep heart I lay me down And look up at the sky between the leaves... The air is full of soft imaginings... Soft luminous shadows Drifting like gilded ghosts before my eyes" Lord Alfred Douglas, The Wine of Summer Was I too late to see them released to dance through a jewelry-making studio in DuPage County? On pages, sheer as the light of an ancient emanation Caer Ibormeith appeared in the dreams of Oengus Og love-sick until he found her, flying with swans in the very heart of Ireland. Call her moon- white by starlight, Cygnus in a sapphire night as lovers married in a ritual of flight circling the platinum surface of a lake -- three times around, air reflected in water when Oengus shape- shifted into a swan his mating dance, the passion of feathers; feathered like late sun in the window of the lab pale air around the tin cans without brands washed clean to hold figures made with Jewel food bags, their shapes dancing -- no 2 the same -- in the flame of a jewelry soldering torch. I'd tried other bags, but only the Jewel bags, made of white plastic knotted and flowed into mythical drapes -- the way fabric hangs, designed by its own weight -- & once I added an opal moon. But by night the Celtic characters waited bedded in plaster, in unmarked cans, burned out -- or should I say melted -- the lost ghosts of legend to be cast in silver a page turned in the "ride of their lives" in a centrifuge. How mysteriously they seemed to me to be human, Caer floating in the arms of Oengus Og his goddess of dreams & prophecy -- how they'd fly over the leaves of the Kingsley Yew forest as our hair turned to silver in the mirror. Laurie Newendorp Honoured multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review's challenges and nominated for Best of The Net, Laurie Newendorp made jewelry in Chicago, adapting the "lost wax" technique of casting to plastic bags that took shapes that looked very like the figures in Arch Hades' Dances. ** Contortion In this sterile white dress, I am an oyster’s pearl-- a muse imbibed by eternal dusk. So the touch of life evades me. Tree branches, the veins of nature herself, do not dare to restore me. And yet, I contort to the rhythm of your fickle pulse. Samsaric, almost, and I remember how much I love your choreography. Anika Tenneti Anika Tenneti is an avid poet based in California. She has explored a vast array of themes in her works, some of which have appeared in anthologies such as Cargoes, Sheepshead Review, and Just Poetry, and have received recognition from The Poetry Society of Virginia. She has self-published several chapbooks, with a new one in the works. When she is not writing, she enjoys learning about various scientific concepts and doing origami. ** To Arch Hades Regarding Dances They seem to cling to sphere unseen, in dream of truth that lies between a moment sensed through echoes stored and promise held on which it soared preserved to be recalled again as all it was and might have been. The dance beheld is dare and trust that is our being unto dust... ...and bond perceived of faith and fear... ...or of hereafter and of here. ...or of assembled thought profound and conscience challenged, though unbound, to be defining sculpted grace of moral, other-centered face. ___ You mirror dances we impart as presence left in love and art. Portly Bard Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Night Goddess Dance with me, take my arm and sway Around the copse of trees in darkened wood Nymphs, billowing, faceless in moonlight Circling in rhythm, gauzy fabric flowing Endless music in silhouetted silence, echoed Stillness, celebrating the night goddess Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson has been writing poetry over 50 years, using prompts such as art, music, nature and memories. Her work has been widely published in full form [Amazon] as well as in many journals such as Blue Heron, Lothlorien, Medusa's Kitchen and The Ekphrastic Review. ** ocular respite (fibonacci poem) who dances for me in the moonlight dresses afloat shimmer and wind kisses me with soft cotton shrouds born again ___ after the autumn dance we stand winter leaves resting ___ enchant me (fibonacci poem) first ink then paper and a finger presses harder than a brush the watercolours of the night bring new painted memories ___ leftovers (fibonacci poem) seasons pass and we shed our skins smooth cotton and sandals too Mike Sluchinski Mike Sluchinski documents prehistoric parrothead habitats in Saskatchewan. Grateful to be read in Kaleidotrope, Eternal Haunted Summer, The Wave (Kelp), The Literary Review of Canada, The Coachella Review, Inlandia, Welter, Poemeleon, Lit Shark, Proud To Be Vol. 13, The Ekphrastic Review, MMPP (Meow Meow Pow Pow), Kelp Journal, “the fib review,” Syncopation Lit. Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal (SOFLOPOJO), Freefall, pulpmag, and more coming! ** Clandestine They meet in the trees in the liminal space between town and forest, light and twilight; the coming moon reflecting brightly off stark tree limbs. Each offers an arm to the other, torsos turned in time with crickets. Their heads tilt in laughter as their dance begins. Kaila Schwartz Kaila Schwartz has always loved writing ekphrastic poetry and finds great satisfaction staring at art that provokes story. Her work can be seen in Hippocrates Awards Anthology 2020, Ekphrastic Review, Moss Piglet, Waffle Fried, and The Yelling Continues, a Procrastinating Writers United Anthology. ** Hell’s Belles The Reaper’s older sisters, starkly grim, still frightened him, although not him alone. Their features always hidden, ghostly dim, but unlike his, without sinew and bone. His own bones had long framed his hood and shroud; gaunt figure, the dark portent of his fame. A single digit reaching from his shroud would take the life of those he came to claim. Identical, and yet invisible except for dingy vestments that they wore; disheveled gossamer, goat’s woven wool, black trim and skirts unraveling toward the floor. The sisters wandered like two nymphs from Hell and spread their madness to each mademoiselle. Ken Gosse Ken Gosse prefers to write rhymed, humorous verse using traditional forms. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then he has been in The Ekphrastic Review, Pure Slush, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Home Planet News, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot. ** Dancers Beautiful dancers, fading into the darkness, audience, amazed. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Danse Macabre Two, for whom death was complete Now shrouded in white, would meet Reluctantly, to follow that slow beat Both unable to resist the music’s pull With flapping costumes no longer full Circle each other in a danse macabre In life, such an event might be sweet Here and now, to permanently greet A state of mind that none can defeat Yet are afraid of being seen as a ghoul Spun slowly around as if in a whirlpool Yet still are dressed in their burial garb Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** When We Two Reunited When we two reunited, In silence and tears, My predictions were thwarted By the passage of years. Guided both the same Into the forest that night, I heard your lit fame And you tasted my caverned eyes. Past vows held us no longer Forever lost in deceit. From the former we grew stronger, Though I stuttered from my knees. The silence was broken By our tears tapping on the earth - A song of our love reopened, Music that our feet preferred. I stretched out my hand And traced your formless grace. Imagined the parts that were stabbed - Removed and erased. But the parts I had missed, Those floating like ghosts in my mind, Remained as we kissed In teardrop counted time. And who would have thought We'd have met again this way? Freed from the laws we were caught in, Frozen with nothing to say. We spent that night Swayed in marbled trances. Locked by our memories - And danced dances upon dances. Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** The Wind in My Sails The wind can climb a flight of stairs. And leap over a mountain range. In a single breath, it can cross an ocean. Or take a respite like a damselfly in my hand. But when it flows through your satin dress, Your silky nightclothes, your hair, It touches my soul like a nightingale. And it rests becalmed like an old rocking chair. Where the hearth in its cinders still Glows in the moonlight, ready to suddenly flare It's here; there is a hope, a wish to hold- Your hand and to dance beneath the starlight. It's here I want to watch the sunrise. And gaze into your eyes. A thousand more times without sleep; And here I want to pivot into the mystery that is you. Holding close a scented pillow, I never knew that at that time it could echo. My thoughts and feelings. I never really knew. The wind in my sails could taste this sweet. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** We Would Be Water A sea of greige stands between us. We are constructed of monochrome, the colour makes us messy. It ruins a constructed image we present, darkness wraps around purity, separation creates order. A divide in the chaos we could create. We would be water, clashing and crashing. A sea of confusion and hurt would overcome us. The separation is good, I tell myself. Whether to convince, reassure, or remind, I am unsure. So may the line remain, careful construction fulfills me. I do not need the complexities of shading, I have remained orderly long enough to know that. Darci Hunt Darci Hunt is a poetry enthusiast from Derby, England. This is her first entry into a poetry challenge. When not reading and writing poetry, Darci is a keen baker, often listening to Oasis whilst in the kitchen. ** Dance In the midnight stillness, dark and dramatic as a Caravaggio, the poet takes her evening walk. The hunter moon has transformed the skeletal trees into forked lightning creations at the forest’s edge. A disquieting aura blankets all. From the raven black shadows emerge a cloth-clad apparition. A ghostly figure from a de Chirico, haunting emptiness and power, wrapped in a Magritte-like riddle, unfathomable yet compelling. It floats and glides gracefully her way, hovering in her just-beyond as enigmatic as a poem. Unconcerned and curious, the poet, as poets do, puzzles over this strange spectacle, this stark form against the backdrop of nocturnal light swaying in wordless conversation. The poet’s thoughts stirs with possibilities; It’s me yet not, a mirror image of sorts, a mimic, a mask, a message. She digs deeper striving clarity; this or that, past or future, real or illusion? The mystery unfolds and recognition rises through the layers of impressions. The poet realizes it is not about a ‘who’ or ‘what’ but a ‘that’. Not about the Dancer but the Dance. Kaz Ogino Kaz Ogino lives in Toronto. A lifelong artist, her practice has been enriched by poetry. Her practice is about the discoveries and wonders of the process, in making art and crafting poems. Kaz’s art and visual poetry can be seen on her Instagram accounts; artbykaz.ca and artbykaz.play. ** Abandon We petal-dance, paper-wrapped dry as pharaohs in sand-swept secrecy, as shrunken hibiscus blossom, once vibrant, faded to a Victorian memory, pressed and lifeless. We skirt and flirt the hours of lived days beneath too-bright light or soft night-light, searching, sometimes finding, like planets orbiting elliptical courses that touch then move away, pretending the sap and syrup will never run dry, there will always be another.minuet. Ghost you, ghost me, we join hands, sifting our own dust, weaving our own shrouds as the rivers run over the world’s edge, taking our inconsequential dreams and the beauty of all creation with them. Jane Dougherty Pushcart Prize nominee, Jane Dougherty’s poetry has appeared in publications including Gleam, Ogham Stone, Black Bough Poetry, Ekphrastic Review and The Storms Journal. Her short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Lucent Dreaming among others, and her first adult novel will be published in September 2025 by Northodox Press. She lives in southwest France and has published three collections of poetry. ** An Offering How old was I the night you materialized in my bedroom at the lake house? Three or four? Never a sound sleeper, I stirred as soon as I sensed your gaze. You stood tall in the dense blackness, in front of the sliding glass doors. Through my thicket of hair, I could see you studying me. You shone from within. Skeptical of one another, we remained immobile and mute. I had never seen a boy with hair falling past his shoulders, a band tied around his head. You wore draped, loose clothing. A soft sack rested at your hip. You held a long, pointy stick in one hand and at your other side stood your dog. Or was he your fox? We watched. We marinated in uncertainty. We cultivated silence. Cocooned in my nightie, I wriggled to the edge of my twin bed without sitting up. I need to tell Mom there’s someone in my room with his… his pet, I thought. Never taking my eyes off you, I decided to pop up and dart into the hallway. The moment my feet touched the forgiving carpet, your hand crept into your satchel, eyes steady and safe. When you uncoiled your arm, a compact doll rested in your open palm. An offering. * How did you find your way to our cabin overlooking Clear Lake? Or am I the one who unknowingly stumbled into your world? Before Europeans made their way to the land that would become northern Iowa, Native Americans set up their summer camps on the shores of this lake. Tall grasses and oak trees dominated the landscape. Buffalo and elk roamed. Perhaps this was the lake you knew. Decades after our visit, I unearthed the diminutive corn husk girl as I rifled through the wardrobe in that same back bedroom. Stiff and papery with an elegant, tapered waist, her faceless form shot me back to that night. Your tradition taught that the lake’s spirits held the ensemble of human likenesses. Adorning the corn husk creation with eyes, nose, and a rosebud mouth would have deprived the water spirits of a sacred image that was theirs to protect. Doll at my chest, I stepped to the spot where you had stood. I turned and looked out over the lake. Your lake, my lake, our lake. Then, I lowered my arm to study the corn husk girl. Yours, mine, ours. * How old were you the day a tiny girl appeared at your lakeside camp? Fifteen or sixteen? Cleaning the walleye you had just pulled from the water, you looked over your shoulder and startled at the strange child sleeping curled under an oak. You rose to your feet and stood watch as she began to rustle, splashes of filtered light bouncing about her shifting frame. Your dog joined you. The girl awoke, rolled onto her back, and brushed a lock of tangled hair behind her ear. Her puzzled, glowing eyes appraised you. Neither of you spoke. Her twisted gown was dotted with tiny blue flowers. Her fingernails were dabbed with red paint. Plush and pale, she fidgeted nervously beneath the tree. Where are her people? you wondered. Should I call out to Uncle? You stayed quiet. You watched over her. Maybe she was lost. When she stood, you slipped your hand into your leather pouch. The corn husk doll was your talisman—a remembrance of your niece. Removing it from the sack, you leaned down and presented it to her—a gift of reassurance. An offering. Allison Connolly Allison Connolly splits her time between France and the States, taking inspiration from both cultures. Her book Spaces of Creation was published by Lexington Books in 2017. Her work has also been featured in Romance Notes and French and Francophone Studies. Her chapter Luxuriously Intimate is forthcoming in The Stories We Tell at Brill Press. She blogs at www.creativesanctuary.net and teaches at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. ** The Golden Hour at a sky park- direct downing sun burning thoughts. Retreating laughter, fading music, plummeting cable cars in a discarded dance. At the pool bar loud voices beckon all- still minds, bent looks, moves under threat. Jerusalema of a shrouded body- glimpses of an old neighborhood and reflected past. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** These Woods, This Night These woods in dark without moonlight without firewood without sleep This stand of cedars where wind hangs like cheesecloth where roots dance skirts where a drying branch still reaches This night when I dream awake when I listen, listen when hours melt one into the next This one night of cedars and mist and reaching that cannot separate what is held together that is everything and the spaces between things that promises passage between what is and what cannot be Denise Wilbur Denise Wilbur is a writer, a teacher, a hospital chaplain, a forest lover, a listener, a wide-awake dreamer. She lives for the spaces between things -- worlds, words — and the passage they promise. ** Contrasts The dark and the light Reality and dreamland Goodness and evil Hard truth and slimy fiction -- All just phantom narratives * We, the Contradictions We cloak ourselves tight In darkness so light can shine We run to stand still Telling lies to know our truths We are our own opposites Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** The Women’s Duel I mostly played by myself as a child, too blind to cross streets alone. No other kids on my block. Most of my friends were books and cats. Our backyard creek was a lure, but Mama warned, “Don’t go far from the house. I need to keep an eye on you.” So I wandered around the creek bed – a mini Grand Canyon. As usual, I was hunting for fairies. Mama always told me, “Use your imagination,” but it was just too dark to see any fairies. As I backed out of the tiny cave, the wind began to howl, then something hard struck my head. Whack! Fortunately, Mama COULD see me from the kitchen. She came running, though I didn’t know that at the time. I was hearing the wind as lush music, saw tiny, gossamer figures staring at me. Fairies! Chirping birds called me to look up, up, up into the sky, where two giant dancers took turns, charging at each other, then backing off. Mama later explained that’s called flamingo dancing, but I don’t know why. Where are their wings? And why cover their faces in gauze? I bet one’s a good fairy godmother, the other her evil twin. Maybe I’d be worried if I saw their scary faces. Instead, I’m just swaying to the music, waiting to take my own turn. I’m the last to know about my ten-day coma. I’ve never told ANYONE what happened that day…until now, when I told you. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. She has now lived more than half her life in Kansas City, MO. Alarie received the first Editor’s Choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. In April, Alarie was proud to be named the 2025 Muse of The Writers Place. **
1 Comment
BARBARA DUFRENE
7/26/2025 04:34:35 am
lovely to read you, Allison, only yesterday I talked about you with a tea friend from Brussels, when we went to visit the Victor Hugo Museum and today you are in touch, serendipity! when will you publish your book about Versailles ??? Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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Challenges
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