​Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. 

The prompt this time is Fishermen, by Hector Hippolyte. Deadline is September 12, 2025. 

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.

The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way.​ Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD).

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include HIPPOLYTE CHALLENGE in the subject line.

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, SEPTEMBER 12, 2025.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the  challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 
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​14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
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15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages!

16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
​

​Ocean

I look to the ocean to feel the start of life.
I reach for joy that is just beyond me.
Nothing holds me from going over the cliff.
I am alone but not afraid of solitude.
Yet, I am terrified of what lies below the surface.
It can reach up and pull me below at any moment.
Can the sky rescue me from the dark depths?

Chloe Hougan

Chloe Hougan is a painter and jewelry maker from Stoughton, Wisconsin. Using brilliant color, powerful pattern, and poetic titles, she reflects abstractly, bravely, and boldly upon both her inner and outer worlds, capturing them with distinctive vibrance. She is non-verbal and autistic, and although she only recently discovered creative writing, she enjoys it tremendously. This is the first poem that she has written by herself, and she very much looks forward to crafting many more.

*

Moment of Stillness

What she cannot say / falls / like petals / rain drops / into the sea / 
White cliffs / dulled by moss / eroded / a bare foot curls / over the lip 
The world is falling away / nothing holds her here but breath 

Landen Parkin 

Landen Parkin is a poet, teacher, and artist living in St. Paul, Minnesota. Parkin grew up in the suburbs before deciding to pack up and move to the Twin Cities to teach English. His work has been published in multiple sources including The Ekphrastic Review, Eclectica Magazine, and Sheila-Na-Gig Magazine. He enjoys reading and writing and gazing out the windows of his sunroom.

**

Death of Sappho by Miguel Carbonelli Selva

The revered painting of statuesque Sappho
on the jagged precipice of mount Leukas
overlooking the ragged Ionian Sea
longing for her ferryman.

She juts outwind into the disheveled clouds
like the maiden figurehead of some galleon
charging into the dactyls of the stormy sea
longing for her love songs.

Her rich black flocks unfolding down her arched back,
her floured countenance leaning into her fate,
forsaken by the world, her gods, her second self,
forlorn for the right pronoun.

For the sake of the love a fair man
she threw themselves into the dysphoria
of the forgiveness and forgetting of the sea,
such strophes, sung so well.

Ron Scully

Ron Scully is a very retired bookseller. After half a lifetime on the road, an authentic Willy Loman, only funnier,he has settled down in the Pacific Northwest to read and write. He practices haikai daily and has published widely in the short form journals. To date, he's published seven chapbooks of micropoems. Occasionally he publishes lyric poems but only when given. Currently he is working on a play and a sports literature anthology.  Otherwise, his grandchildren keep the old neurons firing.
​
*

​Sappho’s Seduction

climax, a crescendo
of a lyre lost in time

pushes me over the edge
crumbling solitude into sand

swept waves of silken lyrics
unfold surrender

crashing into the vulnerable places 
only my lover knows

that torrential stillness between words
where rising emotions demand name

desire undefined by men
capture a poet’s mind untamed

metered in the musings
of Aphrodite’s ode

Amanda Chandler

Amanda Chandler’s muse kindles her passion for poetry, theatre, and education. She shares her perspective through poetry to challenge both herself and her readers to uncover the lessons that are hidden in plain sight. Her work has been published by The Ekphrastic Review, Wingless Dreamer, and The Voices Project. When she’s not writing, she brings words to life by performing in local theatre productions.

**

sappho meets the beats at the beach
 
o sappho the streets beat
hard and strong and your
tender sweet nothings
got hit by a garbage truck
misadventured indentured
sweetness a slave to privilege
extinguished by the weed 
between an old tie dyed’s lips
stepped on and boot licked
by marxist marchers high on
the cause of the week and
steam rolled by captains of
industry and let’s just say those
filthy ocean goers contributed
with their sardine stained
rubbers and guts and even a few 
surgeons well their sneakers smeared
your sweet tunes and most of all
we replaced those sweet words
with cheap streams and downloads
forgotten for eternity known
as lies of the lyre dead favourites
with  better stuff some words we’ll
hear for now and later 
be gone sappho and your sweetness
your refrain for the dusk and dawn
has been post moderned has beened
dare i say a cancelled cancellation
and i’ll take two and call me in 
the morning just a line here or
there by some greasy beat
with some plastic beads the smell
of cheap jasmine incense and
all those damn turned bent corners 
on a paperback that never really hoped
for anything better than not winding
up being rolled up and smoked

Mike Sluchinski

Mike Sluchinski takes the good stuff home with him on the weekend and reads The Ekphrastic Review. You should too!

*

​Not at All: a Sijo Sequence

I.
We stood there on that shore, unknowing but not at all afraid,
suddenly remembering the past with crystal clarity
and seeing the future vividly – each triumph, each disaster.

II.
We gazed out over that clifftop at the unending sea below,
each tumultuous encounter of water and of rock
a battle between foes, a laugh shared by friends, a tryst of lovers,

III.
Each wave whispering, each wave clamouring, each wave thundering
all the harm it will do and all the harm that has been done to it –
a cautionary tale of terror and of excitement.

IV.
It is not only demons that incant serpentine temptations.
No, the wind and the rock and the fluidity all have their say,
and they are, none of them, happy with our infinite wrongdoings.

V.
The sins they solicit of us are never as brave, as foul,
as unforgivable as those we have already committed.
So, we cloak ourselves meekly in truths, in lies, in prophecies.

VI.
Both vulnerable and dangerous, thanks to this self-made armour, 
we listen greedily – weakly – to the siren call of our name  
sang in once perfect harmony by Earth, by sky, and by water,

VII.
And we shuffle our way to the edge, undaunted by its height.
Shamelessly unrepentant as the world drips vengeance from her tongue,
we stand here on this shore, foolish and still not at all afraid.

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. 

*

Whose Veins Ran Fire
 
            –a caudate sonnet / for Sappho
 
Every barricade I have ever loved
speaks her name. Every window
to a shrouded sky, every cliffside,
picket line, sweetbriar & needle held
before a finger – every myth breathed
into life in the no-man’s-land between
thunderclap                 & battle-cry.
Only one complete poem remains, but
we are no strangers to such emptiness,
nor the interpretation              of space.
The hunger of void. We lay fragments
of words on our tongues & find her
bones. Parse legend from stone. Trace
skeletons in the ash made of her wild
 
-erness, her wide eyes, wine-dark
 
& strange, by those who would burn
a rose bush simply for the presence
 
of thorns. Who disavow entropy, but take
 
as truth the greatest myth of her life – that is,
her death.        We know the truest myth
 
is that she ever            died     at all.

Kimberly Hall

Author's note: This poem borrows its title from “Invocation to Sappho” by Elsa Gidlow.

Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent poet based in Southeast Texas. She holds degrees in psychology and behavioural science. Her first poetry collection, Honey Locust, was published in December 2024 by hotpoet inc.

*

What One Loves

after Sappho

Had I stayed-
Would I have fooled myself to believe that shadows are real.
Love they say is devotion. But this madness is devotion with out an exit.
To remain else where, unclaimed, unbroken and unafraid contains remorse.
To grow teeth and become as a wild animal-still lingers inside, gnawing.
Walls contain these deepest cravings, while my breath disappears.
What does silence ask each of us, when no voice is in reach.

Having seen the fig tree bloom in the season of my becoming.
To have pressed my name into the mouth of the rising morning.
Eating the ripest apple without any hesitation to spit it out.
This sound came upon my breast as an open ocean floundered.
Not being the wound. But being the woman splayed like a cross.
It is the river that calls out remember, where did this love begin?

Ungraspable miracle, I tell you-someone will remember us in the future.
Ink stained fingers hearing our words will utter only my name- Sappho
A mystical flower, woven as a smell, touch, a remedy not unlike poison.
Then his chest will break open, and he will see in my eyes- His Own.
The hush before the kiss, the aching for a song, a single bed.
He seems to me equal to the gods-never having learned true language.

Suspense requires uncertainty.
Love must meet her-
Where she stands.

MWPiercy

MWPiercy: "At the intersection of Art, Poetry and Contradiction you will find my work, you will find me. Observing memories and the present moment, thinking with an eye that shadows the natural world. Philosophy, Theology, and Science are core of my writing - I have found that I am a synthesizer. managing ideas which do not always cohere. A manipulator of ideas. 

*

Sunset over Leucatas
 
All I’ve ever had are my words and poems;
even they fail me now. I love a man 
who does not love me. I long to hold him--
 
his muscular arms circling mine, his husky voice 
uttering the words I long to hear. But now, 
in order to rid myself of this passion, I must leap 
 
from this white rock stained with the blood 
of tortured souls before me. The time has come--
my beloved solar boy’s descent 
 
into the dark waters below imminent; 
before my rival Venus appears in the sky 
and claims him as her own.
 
Rosie Copeland

Rosie Copeland is a New Zealand writer and artist. She is currently writing a novel for YA. She belongs to several writing groups. Mayhem, Reading Room, and Tarot have published her work, and she has been a finalist in several poetry and fiction competitions in NZ. Rosie has also had poetry and fiction published in the USA, Canada, and several NZ anthologies.

*

A Write-On Woman
 
Sappho hurled the book and watched it plummet. The hardback flipped over in the air, its pages fluttering as it descended toward the sea. It landed on the surface with a splash and floated there for a moment, the waves licking the cover. Then the book was sucked down into the depths. 
 
She’d anticipated the overseas delivery for weeks. Today it had finally arrived: a plain, unpadded manila envelope, scuffed and torn. Still, she’d remained hopeful, easing the envelope open, only to discover that the out-of-print volume bearing her name was a disaster. It reeked of cigarette smoke. But it was also the literary equivalent of Wound Man, possessing virtually every injury a used book could sustain without completely disintegrating. The sun-faded cover was edgeworn and chipped. The pages bore the brown spots indicative of foxing, but also several stains that may have been syrup, causing the affected pages to adhere. Of course, the binding was loose. Sappho shook the likely culprits, a family of silverfish, out onto the ground. 
 
She felt like a chump, lulled by a few positive reviews and assurances from Bookmonkease72 that the edition was in “Good to Very Good condition with no significant damage.” She could tolerate a little highlighting, even a few notes in the margins. But this...? 
 
Well, the book was spiraling in the brine now. She hoped it would end up in the belly of a shark, then rescinded the wish. The poor fish would get dyspepsia. Like she had right now. Sappho gazed at the churning sea one last time before turning and trudging back to her cottage. Since she’d first heard the book’s title, she’d been inflamed with a desire to acquire a copy and read it. Today would not be that day. But as she sat down with her tablet, a new email attracted her attention. “Did your recent book order meet your expectations? We’d love your feedback! Click here to post your review.” Why yes, she thought, I have some choice words to share. 

Tracy Royce  

Author's note: The volume Sappho ordered was: Sappho Was a Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism, by Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love, originally published in 1972 by Stein and Day.

Tracy Royce is a writer and poet whose words appear in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Villain Era, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California where she enjoys hiking, playing board games, and obsessing over Richard Widmark movies. Find her on Bluesky.
​
*

Endlessly Sappho
 
Kelp green gleam ere Pleiades. Moonless craving
lyre rested. Song adoration fated.
Lover, midnight radiance, ebbing sunlight.
Ashen face of stricken papyrus, drowning
sorrow invokes you.
 
Myrrh in wine, embraces all bitter, others,
could not quell this agony. Spindrift kisses
neck nape feeling heavier colder tresses.
Tousled linen, beckoning surge as breath when
once we together
 
lay in groves so delicate, sweetly scented.
Waken courage, hesitate blinding panic.
Downward summons altar of awful rapture.
I am here the offering brought to shrine you,
springtime beloved.
 
Caress-blesser, great Aphrodite, goddess,
seize me cold this time into sleepless sleep where
oceans translate loneliness, ending turmoil.
Cloud and rock and memory, fierce with silence.
Heartbreak resounding.
 
Iris Quinn

Iris Quinn is an emerging writer living among the eucalyptus trees in Melbourne, Australia. As a poetess, she loves ekphrasis and the magic of metre. "Without Adam" after Eve by Dyane Jackson is in The Ekphrastic Review 3/21/2025. "Sub Rosa Formation" after Muse Garden Rugosa was selected and read aloud by the artist Hannah Berta as the Artists' Choice poem in the fourth annual Ekphrastic Poetry collaboration between Page Gallery (Camden, Maine) and The Poets Corner, 2024. "We Thought Love" after Jenny Funston’s Entanglement is in Geelong Ekphrastic Challenge #4 May 2025, Geelong Writers Inc.

*

Before the Death of Sappho

Leap not, dear Sappho!
See how Miguel still gives you hope
In your gaze at the wonderous sea?
Only you can hear its melody,
Witness the complex rhythm of its cacophony.
Once in the churn, you’ll be too close to
The gnash of that sharp percussion
To hear the song.
Leap not!
See how the artist paints the waves with warmth and light
To show you wonder and divinity on earth.
Do not lose sight of this fantastic unfolding. 
Hold fast through your inspired account and
Stay, dear Sappho, stay.
Just beyond the greying clouds and birds
Pleiades dance together still!
All seven sisters await your lyric voice
To ferry their ascent from the firmament,
Become the fable that will save man from his sorrow.
Leap not, our honied muse,
Our lucid butterfly,
Our herald of hearts,
Dear Sappho.
Stay.

Rhonda Zimlich

Rhonda Zimlich is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at American University in Washington, DC. Her debut novel, Raising Panic, won the 2023 Book Award from Steel Toe Books. Her other writing received the 2024 Nonfiction Award from Barely South Review, the 2021 Mental Health Award for Fiction from Please See Me, the 2020 Literary Award in Nonfiction from Dogwood Journal at Fairfield University (the same essay received an honourable mention in Best American Essays 2021).

*

​Long Fall

Gray sea, I am no villain.
There lives no ego here,
just a muse, a poet--
isolated, loveless, lost.

I seek you out,
raging Aegean,
to catch me, wash me
clean, reignite me--

but until then I’ll just
pace on this cliffside--
not begging for a reason,
merely practicing patience.

Gray sea, forgive me,
save me from my cowardice.
Foolish love swept me up,
wrecked my plans

and thrashed my good sense.
Please set me free, however
you see fit--
please wisen me up once more.

Taylor Scott

Taylor Scott is originally from California, but currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island with her partner and fifty houseplants. She writes as a coping mechanism, inspired by her experiences with and criticisms of human nature.

*

​Unrequited

Sing me alive across waves of despair
Let your voice carry my love 
through the thrum and the roar of our tears
Let my body not crash against the rocks
But land safely next to yours 
Buried in shipwreck 

Kaila Schwartz

Kaila Schwartz loves ekphrastic writing and can often be seen in museums scribbling away in notebooks. Her work can be seen in Hippocrates Awards Anthology 2020, The Ekphrastic Review, Moss Piglet, Waffle Fried, THE YELLING CONTINUES, a Procrastinating Writers United Anthology, and the Retro Summer issue of Boudin. In her spare time, she researches her family history.

*

Liar Lyre
 
This could be the last time we are together
In this tone-deaf sea with no muses guiding
But we're out of sync and sing in falsettos
What will happen now?
 
Like Phaon, you strummed a song as my lover
Rocked me to sleep with your droning lull of lies
Then robbed me of my peace and stole my sublime
Who will play me now?
 
Why do you stay there upon stressed stones alone
Uncasing yourself and exposing your truth
While tainted time forms eddies in our hollows
Who will take us now?
 
I will not return this way, nor will I look
Back towards your weak strung, resonating lies
So, enjoy the music we made and ask no more
Who will love you now?

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.

*

Her Final Performance:

Darkness consumed the sky and ocean, scaring seagulls towards Helios’ distant chariot. Sickly green waves and grim gray clouds crashed against the disgusting earth she stood on.

Like any dream a woman possessed in Antiquity, she discarded her golden lyre. Like the bittersweet obstacles and trivial triumphs she had faced, Aeolus’ breath blew against the maze patterns on her dress. Her dark eyes shot a crazed glare at Poseidon’s realm beneath.

She shrieked like a Fury, but her words were unheard.

Was it a curse? A frenzied prayer?

Or was it her final performance as a balladeer? Had she decided to express a final defiance towards her divine masters? What did she say?

“I know there is no room for me in Elysium!”

Did she say that?

“I know you will have me cast down to Tartarus! You think I am a mistake! You want the world to forget me as I am but remember me as the mistake you deem me to be!”

We know she died at the edge of that cliff. But was it by her own hands? That’s what they say?

They won’t say if divine retribution had drowned her and now tortures her for eternity.

Celine Krempp

Celine is a French-American who tends to point out that her French family is neither from Paris nor Québéc but the Northeast side of France. Working part-time as an art museum security guard inspires Celine in her ekphrastic writing. When she’s not brainstorming her next creative project, she walks her dog VanGogh, reads books, indulges in sweet cravings, and binge-watches Tanked on HBO Max. She is currently preparing for an artist talk for the Phillips Collection’s Staff Show.

*

Fragments of Lyric

Sappho said
to lovely girls
in thin linen
coverings
who tilted
their young faces
that some may insist
mounted horsemen
or uniformed infantry
in close formation
or as some describe
the rhythmic oars
of the fleet the finest
image of beauty
on our black earth --
no -- not these,
but whatever one,
whoever one loves.
In the sun Alcaeus
sitting closest to her
watched her lips
move, watched
only her lips
move with words
so madly driven
it was like stepping
from off a cliff into
Aphrodite's sea.

Royal Rhodes

Royal Rhodes is a retired educator.  He was a Classics major in college, and he has studied Roman and Greek literature for the last 65 years. He lives now in a quiet village that is surrounded by Amish farms and a nature conservancy.

*

Ripe Years in Exile
 
I tell you
someone will remember us
in another time.
Sappho Fragment 147 (trans. Anne Carson)
 
Sappho--
Mother, Muse--
 
not you,
but I,
have fallen
for many boatmen.
 
Last sunset--
a ripe youth
forty years my junior,
broad-smiling,
hair-roughened chest,
flesh warm, blushed, supple,
 
playing at power
in a leather harness,
locked cock--
his offering--
I’m eager to please--
bright as brass,
 
eyes wide
as if I were
a god come ashore,
 
coffee mug raised,
the proud rooster
saluting me
in jest.
 
Me intoxicated, 
dripping all my being--
yet I bared
no nakedness:
only the faintest
trickles of want.
 
I bared instead my soul--
my warrior’s scars,
my peaks and deep vales,
my thirst
for a boon companion.
 
Then, he ghosted me.
My life, my body
judged as
too fully lived.
 
I was not
his paper doll
for play-acting,
nor a player
in any imposed script. 
 
Moment by moment
his silence and absence
were my Scylla and Charybdis--
tempting my bare soul
trembling and unarmoured,
to destroy itself 
on their slick, sharp, barnacled edges.
 
By sunrise
my torment thinned
to a salt-stain of grief,
drying, longing
for a tongue like yours. 
 
I turn to you, Sappho--
give me a poem
of my heartbreak.
 
But will the gate keepers
pare me to 
erasures and fragments?
A white canvas
for them to paint my life?
 
Will they insist
I strip out my toys--
leather,
submission,
chastity--
as if queer flesh
and longing
were indecent for song?
 
The curators
of what a body may sing
will not have their way. 
 
I will keep them,
unabashed,
explicit.
 
You and I both know--
Mother, Muse--
they erased your ripe years,
posing you as a maiden
leaping from Leucadia’s cliff
before a storm-red sea at sunset--
histrionic--
for love of Phaon, 
a boatman 
anointed handsome by Aphrodite
for his kindness to her crone’s guise.
 
Yet you blossomed into ninety years
in Sicily, in political exile--
 
your wrinkled hands 
choosing cucumbers,
tomatoes, olives, 
a jar of brined feta,
 
your hair braided silver, 
your olive skin burnished 
like ripe figs, 
 
your gown--
off-white, gold meander trim--
flowing in the sunlit marketplace,
 
your laughter teasing 
the young women
behind the stalls, 
 
your smile recalling
Anactoria,
second only to Helen,
 
and Mnasidica, 
fairer than tender Gyrinno,
winking over your shoulder 
at disapproving husbands.
 
You pressed verses
with coins
into girls’ palms
for your purchases.
 
Give me,
such songs--
 
not coded narratives
from a white cliff,
 
but songs
that name the body,
that taste of salt and nectar,
 
songs unashamed
of power,
of longing--
 
songs glowing with truth,
smoldering,
after nights of eros. 
 
StevieB.
 
Stephen (“StevieB.”) McDonnell has spent his life in mystical—and later, erotic—adventures, wandering the wilds of the soul and serving as a wounded healer: part priest, part activist, part therapist, part trickster. In his sixties, he began shaping the prose of that journey into lyric poetry. He’s been learning the craft from Rumi and Whitman, O’Hara and Ginsberg—and the great, mysterious in-between. He lives in an anchor-hold with windows in every room, watching the wide-open sky above the farmlands of eastern Long Island, New York.
 
*

the death of sappho
                       
            one
            story
            among
            the many:
            she fell
            in love
            with the sun
            she worshiped
            with
            her words
            her beauty
            but the sun
            abandoned         
            her
            to
            the coming
            darkness
            her bed     
            the sea
            sensuous and wild
            her life
            her leap of despair


Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Author's note: “But I love delicacy [(h)abrosunē] […] this, | and passionate-love [erōs] for the Sun has won for me its radiance and beauty.” Gregory Nagy’s working translation from the Greek text of one of her poems.  “Death at Sunset for Sappho” by Gregory Nagy, September 4, 2020 an online article.

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024.) She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.  Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City. Other venues were Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Washington Irving High School, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Clayton University, Atlanta, Georgia; and Sanibel Island, Florida. The most recent concert was held at First Methodist Shoreline in Corpus Christi, Texas for their First Friday program. 

*

Dear Sappho

Hold me, dear Sappho.
Intertwine our fingers.
Let the waves wash over us -
delicate, light, feel not a thing.

Do you fear death, dear Sappho?
Do you fear what men do
when they find us?
Naked and wanting?

They cannot kill you, my Sappho.
They cannot rip the love from my veins,
the desire from my heart - just as 
they cannot rip stars from the sky.

There will be no death of Sappho,
as long as humans shall live- 
as long as red foxes still mate
and as long as life remains.

Maeson Roucoulet

Maeson Roucoulet (they/them) currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and is originally from Connecticut. They've been writing poetry since around the fourth grade, and were published in The Ram Page and The Ekphrastic Review. Maeson is now interested in creative writing, literature, and music.

*

Her Best Dream

Dusk is as good a time as any,
looking west at the future in 
a ferryman's wake. The sea
 
knows she’s coming, heels a 
hair’s breadth above the headland, 
sunset tugging like a magnet,
 
the wind’s whistled promises 
crisp and clear as a lover’s lyre. 
The waves need to taste her…
 
Why wait for the turning world to 
spin her from its surface? She knows 
she shouldn’t listen, but he left her
 
in her best dream, folds of sheets 
she’ll wear forever now, redolent 
of sex-scent, hair clutched tight
 
around bone white fingers. Let others 
tease meaning from this cliff dive, 
she'll take her chances in the tide.

Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald taught literature at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, before taking early retirement in 2019. He’s the author of over twenty books, covering fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His most recent are: Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020), Don’t Use the Phone: What Poets Can Learn From Books (2023), and 60 Poems (2023).

*

Sappho's Song
 
The sea lured me with its melodies,
so I took my lyre and went to the sea
and I transposed waves into song.
 
I cure my lovesickness with the waves.
The waves move rhythmically
like the feet of warriors,
warriors who sail the seas.
 
Aphrodite has given me a fever,
and I will not rest until I see
the one I love return home safely.
 
I write this poem to cure my fever.
Like Penelope endlessly weaving
I pluck the strings of my lyre.
 
If my lyre could speak, these lines
would be a love song, an entreaty
to the waves to carry you home safely,
away from the fabled snares, such as:
 
the sirens who lure sailors to their death 
through song, or vain Calypso, who holds on
for seven years, to what she cannot hold--
a mortal lover, who slips through her clasped hands
 
like ocean water through my fingers
like ocean spray through my untamed hair
like song through the strings of my lyre
 
like words, written down here,
that you might read them, if you reach home, 
and I am no longer here.
 
Tammy Iralu

Tammy Iralu lives and writes in New Mexico. Her poetry draws on her love for the light-infused landscapes of New Mexico and the Colorado Plateau. She enjoys backpacking, hiking, and breaking bread with family and friends. She teaches and volunteers in New Mexico classrooms and loves to share word play and stories with children and youth. When she cannot visit the shore, she makes vicarious visits to the ocean through poetry and art such as this narrative portrait by Miquel Selva. 

*

​Sappho’s Last Thoughts:

When I look at my reflection in the water.
It’s not the prospect of death that causes me to bother. 
Out of all of the lives I could have lived,
This is the one I chose.
The one I composed.

Birds can fly, but I cannot.
When I try to from this ledge, all I will do is drop.
Yet when I jump, I shall still try. I want to know if I can.
For either way, the next time I return to land, I die. 
Whether it be from the failure in flight, from this height, or
I walk down from this shelf, to live the life of a person who is not myself.
For I cannot love who I wish to hug. Who that is I do not care to share.
But whether it be that one of either gender, society forces me to surrender.

The birds can fly through the sky, and so can I. But for me, only one time.
Two coins in my hand, I go to join my other ferryman.

Ryan Steremberg

​Ryan Steremberg is a recent graduate of Muhlenberg College, having spent half of the past two years studying in Copenhagen, Denmark. Writing since 2018, his work comprises of poetry, short plays, and short fiction. This piece is his debut in a poetry journal.

​*

The Death of Sappho
 
Dionysus:
 
Ancient stones bereav’d of time
Resounding thru’ these temple walls
When centre’d bout the alter chime’d
Awoke the lord whom heaven calls
 
In ruins conquer’d by the sun
Erect thy star each fallen king
Inside a golden dream was spun
The dreams of sleeping Mercury 
 
…Dearest Sappho, always wanting
 
Sappho:
 
Thou surest love unbroken
Breaks against stone and sea
Greater still than any ocean
As never fills immensity
 
[The golden lyres muted speech
The winds amorous crys
Brought the ledge onto her feet
With fierce and longing eyes]            
 
Dionysus:
 
To what encumber’d lands embark
Ought a place thereto restrains
Ah’ what seem’d a tranquil start
Hath fetter’d thee in chains
 
Sappho:
 
Thou Sun n’ Moon the sky was losing          
E’er a quickness twain’d 
The stars that never cease their moving 
Languish’d all the same
 
[Nay with quick n’ nimble footing        
Surmounting still thy gaze
As that which looks kept looking
The brighter thou became]
 
Dionysus:
 
A stolen kiss has crown’d thy lips
To sing about in measure’d rhyme
T’was thee O’ ancient sorceress
Whom turns these roses into wine…
 
Phaon Dreaming:
 
Deeper still within the gloom
There she lay so blind and old
I gently weep upon her tomb
Thy lips I kiss have fallen cold       
 
Thou cheeks the palest colour knew                     
Upon thy breast white roses lie                                   
T’where firestorms encircl’d drew
The holy face of Adonai 
 
Dionysus:
 
What scale or meagre vastitude 
A sum no less than nine
Takes its head now thrice remov’d
Into a vat of brine
 
And there became a sweet perfume 
Intoxicating wine 
Wilst every vision nectar drew                   
From vestiture’s benign 
                                     
[With no ground to view the sky
No vessels left to fill
Thou did crown her thwarted eyes 
With golden daffodils]
 
Sappho:
 
Thine own chanting lips are deep wells
Thine heart in silence bathes
Thine voice, a flame, beyond ye swell'd
From its depths a fountain sprang
 
[Doth sun and moon the sky erouse'd
Betwixt a rainbow taken
T'was light that turn'd upon itself
In sweetest sublimation]
 
Dionysus:
 
…‘That’ a nimble matrix wears
The desert as a road
From what direction none appears           
To giveth mind a mode
 
Sappho:
 
Suredly so it’s quite untrue
the total of its sum
Why then fuss with such a ruse
that makes thyself a One
 
Dionysus:
 
Partly so to understand
Tho’ never wilst thee solve
That by which ye comprehends
Ascends the way it falls                                 
                          
Mistak'th not, a noble sense ensues                
Tho' vulgar was its sign
Passing thru’ what mind construes
Its image first must find…   
 
Nor does it stray as fact suggests
Upon each thing its seal is press’d
Tho’ It a Thing will surely miss
For what thou see'th will bewitch
 
Sappho:
 
Nor any pleasure doth it yield
Blight’d worlds impress
Diminuations that conceal 
The solvency of sense          
 
Dionysus:
 
…To Hades thou beseech 
Still gazing’ pon the white abyss 
Of heavens tether’d reach          
            
Mine careless words do feign express
Illusions to the eye
Tho’ from this point thou can suggest
What’s rightfully denied 
 
Sappho:
 
Alas! A love without division  
The ember in the egg
Fills mine dreams with blessed visions      
As white upon a page     
 
Each letter looms beyond dimension
No rumor of a name 
No face to give a space position
No concept ye can frame
 
Nor dreams thou can describe
No thoughts to give it word
No intellect to scheme or bribe
Such things appear absurd
 
Phaon Waking:
 
…A key thus fashion’d by a shrew
This door appears to pull me thu’
An empty mirror no hollow noise 
Useful things the heart employs
 
A foot a bed a chair
How waking seems to taunt
With eyes that turn to solemn prayer
The hunter and the fox
 
[Thru’ a window summon’d blew
A fragrant wild rye
Midst the autumn flowers grew
Two roses side by side]
 
Dionysus:
 
Ah’ what joy to recognize
The place where morning fell
When thru’ the night had crystaliz’d             
The milky dew inside her bell            
 
Like nectar from a lotus drew      
Unsullied by the mud                                        
T'is light that darkness passes thru’
That knows it never was
 
[As myriad worlds open and close
In a single poignant ray
Never becomes a thing that knows
Eager to mock and play…]
 
Dionysus:
 
…So look away from all your deeds
Nothing stands except the ground
As wisdom grows all light recedes
And renders dark what can’t be found
 
Sappho:
 
…From these bars I make a crown
Tho’ tarnish’d was its glow                                      
And twistle'd up telling those things above
That what was real was never known
 
…Dancing backwards as they climb'd
Were pull'd like threads from out their seems
As swirling vapors pour'd like wine
To render blind my grandest schemes
 
[When lapsed against that dream of time   
A mountain rose from out a stream
And carved its name when stricken blind
For all to folly and few to see…]
 
Dionysus:
 
…But wrath portray’d in weakest matter
To whom the bodies host has wrought
Spurn’d by death and carnal desire
With those who dance and jeer and mock
 
When legion realms are overthrown
Extract from flesh its airy spark
To nourish the seed that Thou has sown
With royal blood that crowns the heart
 
M. Mico

*

glitchskin selva.exe
 
they rubbed a glitch on your skin
in the oil-slick wind your shoulder flickers between marble and meat
stutter of centuries
the robe selva’s white
is no fabric but phosphor spill
but
what I see just
pixels unraveling along your spine
as if the light of today’s neon has begun to rewrite you
on fluorescent screens that project your stolen aura
the cliff is basalt from wired antennae
its edge ribbed with signal repeaters coughing light into two skies
below the sea is not water: liquid circuitry
waves made of failing encryption
behind it a city breathes
billboards pulse poems and electric rain to paint the stone with brief and false constellations
 
[fragment_v13.glitch]
- rubbed glitchH //_| on your skin
                  [signal break   ] white fo.ld wind
selva’s robe // stati###c dripsSss from hem
 
phaon’s rejection won’t wash off you
you’ve scrubbed at the code/lyre until your fingertips bled static/songs
watched his refusal crawl up the cliff-face behind your eyes
viral graffiti in his dead frequency
in selva’s frame they think the story is about him
about how a man makes a woman leap
but you stand here holding every erased like a backup file in your ribs
the lyre/code at your feet hums in sleep mode/standby
its strings lightwire/wireless trembling in the wind’s cold mouth
selva painted it wooden mute but here it is a digital instrument
still singing into your absence
through numeral digits instead of yours
but still recounting
                  recounting
                  recounting
 
[packet_loss_73%]
- lyre // wires hiss   low battery hum
hologram strings catching rainlight
     off clifffffff‘‘s lipp#`p
 
your hair is a blackout waterfall until some wind lifts it
to fracture into strands of light
each filament a coded frequency/batch file
only the women you loved can parse
you lean forward
white hem lifting in the updraft
the city’s light strobing your face into a hundred selvA(e)s,
some alive & already uploaded
this digital sea pulses
a tide that speaks in unbroken binary
YES
YES
NO
YES
NO
YES
..
 
[syntax_fragment:SEA]
                  - not watErr_
                                    lIquid circuItry LED ripppples“
                                    a moon in pixels calls you -yes
                                                      -no
                                                      -no
                                                                        a leap?
 
dive
selva couldn’t follow you past this/his brush(key)stroke
in his century the canvas ends at the cliff’s lip
your (digital)body arrested in #FFFFFwhite,255 and (human)despair
in time every glitch blossoms into a poem
gravity is replaced by pull of .code: // code-switched ,;coda
you fracture into a thousand sapphos
in this wired-darklight sea you meet your other selv(A)es
the sappho who never heard phaon’s name
the sappho who kissed on warm stone terraces
the sappho whose fragments were never buried in jars of dust
all v.12ersions,
all you
 
[final_echo]
- body iNto sh a R Ds / clones / archives
                  every glitch a proofCHECKSUM
                  you lived otherwise
 
the pixels keep your shape
the myth cannot overwrite you
every signature sings of a true copy
 
Florian Wulf Mettner

Florian lives in Cologne, Germany, holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Rochester, NY, used to be (and still is) a professional chef, but currently is employed as a Social Worker. He believes that consuming media is like breathing and eating.

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Dear Writers,
 
What a rich variety of responses to John Slaby’s The Serpent! Selecting those for this post was a challenge inside a challenge. Whether you find your response here or not, please know that each poem or story was read and greatly appreciated.
 
Thanks from John and me to you—for taking this serpentine journey and sharing your reflections and images.
 
Happy Writing!
Sandi
 
**

Toothache R & R
 
It was fifteen straight months on the front in combat
When my commander said, "You should probably get that toothache looked at."
He ordered me back on a few days of forced vacation
To visit a dentist and partake in some much-needed rest and recuperation
 
Now I am lying here alone in a stained mattress hotel
Four hours flight from where others fight in hell
Far enough away that no one seems to fear
The artillery rounds still pounding in my ears
 
Or is that the pulsing of my scalpel cut, shrapnel gums
Packed with Percocet gauze and wrapped in whiskey drenched tongue
Neither of which numb the slithering pain under my skin
Nor will they ever heal me into my old self again
 
I begin to sandbag the craters in my head
With all the things I thought I would have enjoyed instead
Like sugar venom snacks and snake fang syringes
Missed party pics and the fantasies of Facebook friends
 
Not to mention, jellybean rosary beads and Jesus’ icon offerings
Of candle lit cigarette scents serpentining through the slaughtering
Displayed across a news report's backlit battlefield glow
When a flashing strike of drone blast impacts my commander's bunker below
 
I mute the report's description of body-halved violence
But I can’t uncoil the hissing, crushing, hush of sizzling silence
So, I am lying here alone, resting and recuperating well beyond the tank’s touch
Wondering how a toothache could hurt all over this much
 
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 Last Time I Let Myself In

I used to knock.
Used to wait until your voice
curled around the corner,

but today,
I let myself in.

The screen cast that
glow.

A tank exploded something.
Target Destroyed.
It looked like winning.

Pepto-Bismol, a half-eaten burger,
pills scattered like loose change,
cigarettes, a blunt.

Two phones--
one frozen on a face I didn’t recognize.

You’d been drinking again.
The wine was mine.
The whiskey wasn’t.

The Jesus candle.
Unlit.

You used to tell me
you believed in second chances.

The armless statue lies on her back,
fallen,
or maybe she was made that way.

That x-ray on the wall--
a nail in place of a tooth.

I knew that was a message,
but I never knew who it was from
or why you kept it on the wall.

I didn’t clean the table.
Didn’t take the roses,
even the ones I brought.
Didn’t close your computer
or shut the bottle
or fix the picture
taped crooked on the wall.

I just stood there,
long enough
to feel like I had said goodbye.

Then I took the lighter.
Lit the candle
beneath Jesus’ face.

Just one flame.

But I left it burning.
Just in case
you wanted
to come back
to something warm.
 
Andrew Mauzey

Andrew Mauzey teaches writing and literature at Biola University in La Mirada, CA. His most recent poems can be read in Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Broad River Review, and TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, among others. He lives in Southern California with his wife and four children.
 
..
 
The Serpent
 
Small but clear, the voice comes from an undisclosed location.
Sibilant and seductive, it tries to test your motivation, 
but you must go to work.
 
“Today is so very hot,” it sighs with whispering sympathy.
“Hard to breathe with this Saharan dust and crushing Houston humidity.”
Something brushes your foot.
You must get to work. 
 
“Oh come back inside,” it beseeches,
“where it’s dark and it’s cool.  You can say you’re working from home.  
Don’t be a fool.  It’s so hot.”  
Something wriggles nearby.
You must do some work.  
 
Just for a moment, you think.  I’ll sit and cool down.
Then you frown at the mess and the game on the screen.
What are you doing?  
 
“Would you like something to drink?”  the tiny voice inquires.
“Something refreshing. Something with ice.  Maybe some whiskey?
Or rum might be nice? It’s too hot for coffee.” 
Something slides by your hand.
Will it help with work?
 
“If you need some quick energy, I’ve got Oreos and candy. 
 But if you need something more, or your teeth hurt, check the pill bottles for something handy.  
Aren’t you feeling better now that you’re cool?” 
Something glides around your neck.
You think maybe you are, but you must do a little work. 
 
The candles burn down and flicker.  You wake with a start.
With eyes bleary and blinking, you stare at Jesus’ glowing heart, and you remember. 
You should be at work.  Oh God, help me. 

You’ll work tomorrow.

“But it’s so hot.”  

Katherine Saxby

Katherine Saxby is a retired teacher of English and French, an optimistic but negligent gardener, and an adventurous vegetarian cook. She is always looking for ways to improve her harvest, her accent, her pie crust, and everything else (including her poetry). She lives in Alameda, California.  

..

To John Slaby Regarding The Serpent
 
Yes, clutter is the gutter to which ebbing life will drain
as muttered oaths conceal the truths we'd rather not explain
and clinging to our pleasures sensed becomes the fleeting bliss
of bringing back as if restored the broken and amiss.
 
Some means of course are merely by deceit outrageous ruse
that lead us to their flame as moths convinced that we can choose
to cease our self-indulgent whim that seems to mock our fear,
withdrawing wings of fervent dreams before they flare and sear.
 
But some means do indeed prolong the time that might remain
becoming opportunity to relish and sustain
the selfless love as penance due by which the soul atones,
confessing and releasing from self-righteous hands the stones
 
to mark instead much humbler way of charismatic grace
diverging from the road to Hell to give salvation chase.
 
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.
..

Our o boros
 
Let me nibble my tail
    a bite here
    a chunky chew there
 
Let me draw a circle
    of life 
    forfeit my vice
 
 
Let me eschew the fat
    say nay to horse 
    and hooch
 
Let me live serene
    as the gingko tree
    some 3000 years of harmony
 
Donna-Lee Smith
 
DLS writes from an off-grid cabin where she heeds Slaby's sage advice: avoid salt, fat, sugar and other snarly addictions. When she's older and crinklier (she's a mere 76), she'll set sail to Asia, sit under a Ginkgo Biloba, eat its silvery fruit.

..

Antivenom
 
Jumbled, heaped, abandoned mess.
Every type of false comfort is spread across the
Surface of my table calling to me, and I am
Unable to decide which will best numb my 
Senses and satisfy this aching need in me.
I yearn for inner peace, but food, booze, drugs, or
Sugar rush only lasts for a brief interlude before
The cravings return and demand I remain their slave.
How long must I endure this torment?
Every morning, I promise myself, today will be different!
A new start, a new me, a better, cleaner life.
No more subjugation by substances which are killing me.
Save me! If there were someone I could trust to rescue me
Whenever I feel weak and could stumble, yet again.
Eventually, in the corner, I see Him behind the candle.
Reconciliation, rescue, forgiveness—life.
 
Stephen Poole
 
Stephen Poole is a retired police officer who served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. His poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, LPP Magazine and in ten book anthologies. He has read his poetry to live audiences at various venues, including The Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden, Maidstone Fringe Festival, and Maidstone Radio.
 
..
 
Chelsie

As I sit in a mess of clutter and chaos, I try to get my fingers to type, but my mind is blank. My friends say it’s writer’s block, but I don’t think it is. I know it’s this place. I can’t concentrate. There are too many reminders of her. The silk red roses she placed on my desk to remind me she’d always be proud of me, and the bottle of red wine we shared on our one-year anniversary sits empty collecting dust. And I still have her prescription medication bottles. It makes me feel as if she’s still here. All these items distract me from getting my manuscript done. 

It's past midnight and the candle I lit glows with a slight flicker. I close my eyes and picture Chelsie’s face. The image of her long black hair and big smile brings tears to my eyes, knowing I’ll never see her again. But I stay like this for a little while longer.

When I open my eyes, the room is quiet, and the candle has gone out.

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.
 
..

Dear Danny,
 
I can only thank you for not looking
after my home and not watering the plants,
starving and mistreating the cats,
and leaving an almighty shitshow
in my kitchen and my bed and living rooms.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the roaches
had made their nasty little nests under the fridge,
the mice were having a field day in the pantry,
And my favourites, the maggots, are probably
eating their fattening ways through whatever
meaty stuff you left on the kitchen counter.
 
Because of your kindness, your caring
and thoughtful dereliction of even minor duties,
I’ll send a photo of the results
to all our friends—what are social media for?
I suspect that your couch surfing
and home sitting days will soon be over.
I also suggest you send any new date
to me first for an orientation session.

Rose Mary Boehm
 
Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published (and rejected) widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was several times nominated for a Pushcart and Best of Net. Her eighth book, LIFE STUFF, has been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). A new chapbook is about to meet readers. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/
 
..
 
Serpentance
 
8:51 and Venus smiles,
Eyeing a burger, both complete;
Tablets are tidy in their vials;
French fries are standing, warm and neat.
 
Surely there must have been a moment
Just before things went sour or broke:
When we were certain still what home meant,
Pre-booze and pills, pre-waste and smoke.
 
Orders for drugs are all unwritten.
Roses are coming into bud;
Serpent’s unblighted, fruit unbitten.
Christ has not shed his dear heart’s blood.   
 
Julia Griffin
 
Julia Griffin has published in several online poetry magazines, including The Ekphrastic Review.

..
 
Order
 
Ah, serpent you weave your judgment and creative slime to expose the distractions of my life.
 
What I drink, eat and surrender to each and every day.
 
My meaningless addictions and avoidances.
 
You have the gift of discovery, but not discernment.
 
You trivialize what I cannot control.
 
The mess of my chaotic life.
 
The feast of conformity.
 
Of human imperfections.
 
Of a life without order or prayer.
 
Of the last Supper without Christ.
 
Sandy Rochelle
 
Sandy Rochelle appeared on Broadway with the Acting Company of Lincoln Center. She produced and narrated the documentary film, ARTWATCH, about renowned Art Historian James Beck. Publications include, Dissident Voice, Amethyst Review, One Art, Haiku Universe, Connecticut River Review, Verse Virtual, Poetry Super Highway, and others.
 
..
 
The Morning After

I’m flat out, topless, severed by last night’s excesses. He’s silent, eyes averted, palms raised. My martyr.

It’s always the same. The binge begins like this:

The phone summons me with a buzz, and I pick up the damned thing, and there’s Mary posting again. She’s practically glowing, praising her Great Son. I turn to him and say, “Hey, if you’re so almighty, how about you get me something to eat?” His eyes drift skyward, as if seeking celestial rescue, but then presto! There’s soda, a burger, a cardboard cornucopia with fries aplenty spilling forth. I offer, “Thanks,” through a mouthful of mediocre meat. The next bite of burger is still blah, but I guess I didn’t say I wanted something good to eat. When you have a magic boyfriend or whatever you have to be specific. So, I’m wolfing down the fries, which are truly addictive, and swilling soda when I say, “Wouldn’t this be better if it had a little zing?” He looks pained, as if we’ve done all this before, and of course we have. Yet suddenly I’m awash in options, and it’s a splash of this and a puff of that, and I wonder what happens if I pop one of these? Whoops, knocked over a glass. Oh well. Too relaxed. I’ll get it later.

Now it’s morning and I feel like hell. Ashtray mouth and sludge in my guts, and I swear to God I’ll never do it again. And he says, ever so gently, “Please. Don’t take His name in—” 

“Jeez,” I say, “I’m so sorry.” Because we both know that tonight, I’ll be taken by temptation again. In the meantime, I’m just going to lie down here, gazing up toward Heaven.

Tracy Royce

Tracy Royce is a writer and poet whose words appear in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Villain Era, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California where she enjoys hiking, playing board games, and obsessing over Richard Widmark movies. Find her on Bluesky.

..

Out of the Depths
 
It’s like I have a damned altar filled with relics of my cravings and remedies to fix their poison. Even one vase of the roses is almost dead. Sacred Heart of Jesus save me. 
 
I have the Pepcid to take before my daily burger and fries. Jumbo soda doesn’t taste right if it’s diet. The Oreos and Paydays are a weakness, too, as you can tell from the X-ray of my teeth which the dentist gave me to keep. See where the tooth was pulled? There’s going to be an implant there. Oh, and there’s all those syringes for the insulin I have to take. But what’s life without sugar?
 
Gotta have salt, too. Jesus said “You are the salt of the earth,” after all. Maybe I’m taking that too literally. At least I monitor my blood pressure and take my Lisinopril and Hydrochlorothiazide most of the time. I think the Bible also says “The Lord helps those who help themselves” or maybe I imagined that. I think I helped myself a little too much. It reminds me of the lyrics of a Rufus Wainwright song: “If I should buy jellybeans/ Have to eat them all in just one sitting/ Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter/ A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me.” The song is called “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.” Yeah, I have the cigarettes too. Too late to quit now even if I could. 

Maybe I should get out of this house more, or at least open the blinds. But I have my Facebook to keep up with friends and the news. And my video games make the hours pass. Well, hours and hours to be exact. They help me escape from my crappy body and all its woes. So does the Bacardi which I serve in a fancy glass. Nothing else is fancy around here. Smoking my joints makes everything seem a little happier too. 
 
Most of the time I feel like that little statue I broke after a few too many Bacardis. Lopped in half. I can’t get rid of her though. It’s the only art I have. Maybe I’ll glue her back together one of these days. 
 
Lady cradles a skull
All is so dark here
Except candles and heart aflame
 
Bill Richard

Bill Richard is a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum. He also works at three medical schools as a standardized patient, helping future health professionals develop their communication skills. 
..

Praise Be to What I Cannot Foresee

Here is to life, to its chaos of the quotidian, none knows better than a candle. Quiet and observant, in a glass tower, hard to miss. The one who holds herself together in her meltdown, whether in love or in gloom. Let salt be salt, let a cocktail of Bacardi be one man’s poison, another’s medicine. Let you be you, myself be me. Let praise be for the roses, elegant even in wilting, guards of beauty and carters of love. The candle is watching the daily misery of my country, diverse and distinctive. Praise be to a song of joy I have yet to write for all my people— citizens or not, aliens or visitors. Tell me as I pen this, how to speak to mercy for the masses? When will this darkness pass?
 
Varsha Saraiya-Shah
 
Varsha Saraiya-Shah authored VOICES, a poetry chapbook by Finishing Line Press. Her latest poem was featured on Academy of American Poets’ website Poem-a-Day Project: https://poets.org/poem/anthem-america. Also, published in Ambidextrous Bloodhound, Borderlands, BorderSenses, Cha, Convergence, Dos Gatos, Echoes of the Cordillera, Ekphrastic Review, Mutabilis, Orchard Street Press, Penguin Random House India, Pippa Rann-UK, Synkroniciti and elsewhere. Her work has appeared on international panels, Austin’s Jazz-Poetry performance, Public Radio, and a multi-language/century dance program: “Poetry in Motion” at Miller Outdoor Theatre by Silambam, Houston.
 
..
 
Where Everything is Bigger
 
Months before the first showing, 
I scrubbed gesso, off-white, 
onto the surface. No one cares 
 
that a burnt-sienna, monochromatic, 
scene spread over pencil scratches, 
that leaked out of my mind and through 
my hands. Few concern themselves 
 
whether a brush starts in one corner 
and writhes, colour after colour, 
slabbed from a full palette 
 
or waxed paper. Few concern themselves 
to know if expensive sable tips choose 
an item at a time and work it to exhaustion. 
Only one or two cunningly quiz: acrylic or oil? 

I, alone, see what is lacking, 
what didn’t muster, what didn’t translate, 
what couldn’t be captured on canvas.
 
Todd Sukany
 
Todd Sukany, a two-time Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. His work has appeared in Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, eMerge Magazine, and The Ekphrastic Review. Sukany authored Frisco Trail and Tales as well as co-authored four books of poetry under the title, Book of Mirrors, with Raymond Kirk. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, loving three children, their spouses, seven grandchildren, caring for a rescued dog, and four rescued cats.
 
..
 
Shrine
 
Another single Saturday night spread before Steve like a serpent. Maybe splayed is a better word. The half-sipped soda, the sugar, the salt shaker, the Savior candle, the TV and cell phone screens snickering at him. Pills spilled out on the table, syringes, ashing cigarettes resting in the tray. All slinky silhouettes, shadows of a week’s sacrifice. A few bits of the burger, some fries, but he hadn’t yet touched the Twinkie. Steve sandwiched himself between the overstuffed pillows of his sofa and sighed. He stared at the two vases of roses. Rosemary. This whole slithering display was an offering to her. One part of him wanted to swipe the slate clean. Another part insisted he didn’t need anyone. The single life was sufficient, suited him like a slick surface. He stood, shuffled into the space his super called a kitchen, and popped a pod into the Keurig. He snatched a Hefty, returned to the living room, and cleared the week’s debris into the bag except for his phone, the roses, and his Savior candle. He lit Jesus, mumbled a prayer. He punched Rosemary’s digits into his phone. Yes, he said. He was ready for yes. 
 
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 honored to have her ekphrastic poetry and prose appear in The Ekphrastic Review, Mackinaw: A Prose Poetry Journal, Unbroken, Blaze/VOX, and elsewhere. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com.
 
..
 
Acrostical Tankas

That treacherous tail--
hamburger bites down the hatch--
enough pills scatter.
 
Skin french-fried in temptation--
echoes of dying roses--
reignite the heart--
past X-rays & syringes--
evil vies to live--
night candle casts a hope flame--
to spark your vibrant song.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer. He has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His poems have appeared in various literary journals such as San Pedro River Review, Panoply, The Comstock Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. His fifth collection of poems is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.
 
..

How To Bring Up Your Table of Existential Dread
 
for John Slaby
 
Be direct.
Instead of dropping quotes 
from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling,
say something like, “Have you ever chased M&M'S® with Viagra®?”
This makes it easier to respond with a definitive answer. 
 
Keep it simple. 
Avoid tackling Nietzsche’s master-slave morality.
Offer a casual prompt like, 
“What’s your favourite drone strike desktop background?”

Make a connection. Build rapport. 
In a polite and friendly way lay the groundwork. 
“God is dead;
I guess I’ll finish this Happy Meal®.”
 
Be confident. Project self-assurance.
A genuine smile and friendly demeanor
soften the blow as you shout,
“Put down your smartphone!
Behold life's meaninglessness!”

Handle rejection gracefully.
Respect your friends’ decision if 
they decline to contemplate your memento mori.
 
Try a polite response that shows maturity and avoids
making them feel awkward like,
“I understand, maybe some other time.”
 
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.
 
..
 
Covenant
 
Serpent hides & seeks
Unforbidden items doze  
God blesses the peace
 
Ekaterina Dukas
 
Ekaterina Dukas, MA in Philology and Philosophy, has studied and taught languages and culture at the Universities of Sofia, Delhi, and London, and authored a book on mediaeval art for The British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni.
 
..
 
“Love, Save Us!”: Devotions in Smoke and Oil 

Two centuries ago, cheap prints of the Sacred Heart seeped into the wallpapered walls of Irish Catholic kitchens—my forebears’ kitchen among them—pinned high above everything, above the turf fires, visible the moment one stepped through the door, wavering like a ghost in the blue-glass shimmer of kerosene lamps that burned without ceasing.  Prayers mumbled, rising like smoke to heaven—pleas for healing, for mercy, that the landlords be taken unto death. God forgive us. 

Just for today, I surrender to Love as I’ve come to know Love. I tithe to dark-haired deities who anoint my body with coconut oil, kneading fear from my muscles, pummeling grief from my thighs, spinning me in dances until I lose my head. My generation drowned in a red tide called AIDS. The tide offered no cure, no compassion, no everlasting life—only memories. I live in dread of prostate cancer, or of a heart that might betray me mid-dance. Beyond the blackout curtains, elected tyrants stoke forest fires and famines, drop bombs by drone, and delight in neighbour hating neighbour.

Do You see the roses, fresh-cut and trembling, veiled in baby’s breath, that we lay before your altar?
 
Do You smell the beeswax tapers that burn in our stead while we tend the fields?
 
Shall I go on practicing You in my small acts of kindness?
 
Shall I carry You, in the tabernacle of my heart, to those who still suffer? 
 
Stephen (“StevieB”) McDonnell
 
Stephen McDonnell has spent his life in mystical—and later, erotic—adventures, wandering the wilds of the soul and serving as a wounded healer: part priest, part activist, part therapist, part trickster. In his sixties, he began shaping the prose of that journey into lyric poetry. He’s been learning the craft from Rumi and Whitman, O’Hara and Ginsberg—and the great, mysterious in-between. He lives in an anchor-hold with windows in every room, watching the wide-open sky above the farmlands of eastern Long Island, New York.
 
..

Owed to The Serpent by John Slaby
 
There are many things here started but unfinished, some seem to be finished but left out to clutter. I am trying to forget the two images of the superb model ‘Cat’ I believe flanked this work when it was first displayed. There is only an image of her on a cell phone still on. Another thing started but not finished? Finished but left burning? 
 
On the left are rosebuds ready to bloom, on the right the same roses seem to have wilted. The baby’s breath with the roses reminds me of the renaissance artists who displayed the conception of Jesus in Mary as light passing through clear water in a clear vessel. If I had been Mary, I would have wished for something a bit more dramatic in getting it on with God. Wouldn’t you? 
 
But the flowers in those paintings were generally lilies. How many days passed between the budding and the wilting in this work? Is it important?
 
After all, Jesus is there in a Mexican Votive, his heart alight. Lots of little flames gutter here.
 
I feel I owe the artist more than this stream of consciousness, but I do not know what. The spilled French fries are a large order from McDonalds. One would suppose the very fake looking burger is also, bitten more than once but not eaten. Lots of drugs, looks like Viagra and insulin, and together with the compacted tooth in the dental X-rays they speak of aging, also of an artist who does not deny it. Lots of alcohol, but unfinished or unopened very close to a broken Venus, the base standing naked from the waist down, the top lying naked from the waist up. Any need to explain? 
 
Glass, lots of glass. Restaurant glass containers of sugar and salt, as if at home the artist could not get enough.
 
That’s about it, really, other than a perfectionist who must show wrinkled ill plastered tape perfectly. 
 
Pep-to-bis-mal. Dismal.
            
And why is there fishing line?
 
Oops! Almost forgot the central image on the computer screen. Could be a hydrogen bomb, could be the big bang, or just the birth of a great idea. We will never know because its unclear. We cannot get quite close enough due to the minutia of petty pleasures and waste that, for me at least, are the coils of the serpent.
 
Robert Taylor
 
Chapter one, Robert Taylor is born in Selma Alabama. He was shy and not very smart, yet somehow he was thrown in with people who were supposed to be smart three times at John Tyler Morgan Academy class of 1973, Selma, Alabama; then The Mallet Assembly Men’s honour’s dorm, University of Alabama graduated 1977; and the US Navy Aviation Officer’s Candidate School Commissioned Officer 1981. He spent 40 years in corporate sales. When he retired, he pursued his two best loves: art and writing. His wife met John Slaby first at the Houston Piano Club. Taylor met him in a life drawing class. 
 
..
 
 SERPENTINE:  The Serpent Communicates in Riddles
                                         
                                    "That there is not a wise Purpose in every thing that is made     
                                    because we do not understand it, is as absurd for a Man to      
                                    say 'There is no such thing as Light' because he is blind,  
                                    and has no sight to see it."
 
                                    --An Essay Toward A Natural History of Serpents,
                                     written by Charles Owen in 1742
 
 
Evie wore her new red snakeskin sandals    into the kitchen
and contemplated colors:    the green of the serpentine counter,
 
shades of the earth    like the flowing grasses in the Garden,
the rugged tree    where she'd gathered apples like ripening lovers...
 
But at the moment, it was too early    for temptation --
her grandmother's apple cake     with autumn's apples, created
 
in a house     so tiny it could have been a blueprint
on a 30 X 60 canvas    where ruby-red tomatoes had fallen; falling,
 
splitting open and scattering seeds    to make a garden
design on her wedding dress.    Evie's friend, Eden, had offered 
 
to cater the reception with bites and salad   (Serpent 
Salad, made with everything wild + from the garden)    & Evie 
 
might have trusted her to do it    but Eden argued about
what's appropriate because she didn't like figs.   The wedding dress, 
 
a frothy fabric toga --    antique Italian for a Roman holiday --
was both au courant and surreal;   water spots on the crinkled silk,

rainbow rings with seedling centres    like the promise
of an unexpected blossoming    on what to wear in her recent
 
relationship, for the love of Man    about to be a ritual
event    her hair coiled, serpent-like, around the mirrored eyes
 
of a tiara     handmade with freshly harvested  strands
of ivy    & replete with reflections on life that made her so happy
 
everyone envied her:    so like a serpent's kiss 
had been her friends and lovers!    Wound around branches
 
thick with ideas    (how to write ekphrastic poems)
the serpent-bodied tongues of memory   had become a menu
 
of literary questions:    Kaa's hiss -- was it matched
to a musical whisper    breeze kissing leaves, nature's music
 
ever more powerful than poison to Kipling?    & The 
Garden's Growing Question    What's For Dinner?  Everything

here is Serpentine;    as, on an extraterrestrial plane
a boy stands atop a planet    where The Little Prince is asking
 
why a boa constrictor     looks like a hat to adults
as it tries to digest an elephant.    As a bride, does Evie remember 
 
A Happy Childhood?    The potential power
of love when a poet calls his girlfriend    my little mongoose?
 
& red, read, red    why has the Scarlet King Snake
become Evie's red wedding shoes    as art is resurrected in
 
a still life    with objets d'art painted in the kitchen
though the garden is animated    the past like a moving picture
 
projected on a changing background    where a golden
cat can hang on like the sun    out of sight until the storm stops,
 
one paw on a tree branch    tail curled like a serpent
near bird's eggs in a nest    a scene where Evie (like Alice in her
 
Wonderland)    is evanescent; & where Christ,
with his usual eternal illumination    is ever-present, blood-
 
fire burning in a candle --    how art blesses burgers, 
Coke & cardboard coffee cups --  
                                                                a glass of wine and thou --

a world of junk and meds     
                                                  transformed by lyrics,
                                                        serpent-scales & apple boughs.
 
Laurie Newendorp
 
Laurie Newendorp, who lives and writes in Houston, dislikes writing bios, but is deeply thankful she's been honoured by publication in The Ekphrastic Review's challenges; Serpentine  is an homage to Kipling, Antoine de Saint-Exupery and William Matthews. 

​Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. 

The prompt this time is Death of Sappho, by Miguel Carbonell Selva. Deadline is August 15, 2025. 

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.

The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way.​ Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD).

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include SELVA CHALLENGE in the subject line.

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, AUGUST 15, 2025.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the  challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 
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​14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
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15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages!

16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.