High Vantage Points     (Vue de toits, Effet de neige, 1878)

                                           "On the roof, it's peaceful as can be,
                                             And there the world below can't bother me..."
                                                     Up On The Roof, lyrics by Carole King & Gerry Goffin,
                                                     Recorded by The Drifters, James Taylor & all those
                                                     who understand "At night the stars put on a show for free..."

                                           "...impression, a word of considerable antiquity
                                               denoting a physical mark upon a surface
                                                for an immediate effect."
                                                       Collins/Computer Dictionary Definition

       Snow falls in the night    a promise of beauty
       in the morning light:    Caillebotte finished his cafe au lait,

       his imagination already open    to the snow wings of angels,
       what the Impressionists might call Old World --    the croaking

       voices of constraint.    Reality had to be as he saw it,
       how the mansard roofs were changed    into an optical roof-

       line between the earth and heaven;     were now white with ice and snow,
       a view he could see from an upper-level balcony    as he finished

       what his French famille called petite dejeuner.    His eye (an artist's 
       eye) had focused on precipitation:    rainfall on people in the streets of Paris;

       and now, an unblemished memory of snow    falling, so gently, in the night,
       as the women, painted nude     wondered why her body was alone on canvas.

        If he had seen footprints in the snow --    a white carpet on the roofs
        of Paris --  would he have wondered at Nadar    photographing those roofs

        for the first time, his camera angled    from the side of a tethered
        hot air balloon, 1600 ft. altitude above Paris?     Or thought of

        what the light was like    looking down from that great height, "reality"
        altered by the snowfall?    Or was it just another simple morning, a scene

        waiting to be painted, people    invisible behind the dormer windows
        shuttered in the darker attics    under white-topped roofs of Paris,

        snow embracing chimneys and smokestacks    that stand, straight and military,
        on those roofs --  a "bird's eye" view of Paris;    a view where, in another century's

        perspective    a blackbird could be sitting on a roof-edge in a video,
        photographically real    with James Taylor singing --  Up On The Roof  --

        in the background, what the past promises the future:    first the snow,
        falling --  snow-tops for roof-tops --     then the snow, soundless and still,

        part of Snow Covered Roofs in Paris, 1878.     And above the roof's fixed silence,
        in colour by Caillebotte    a boundless, lyrical landscape, unseen and unknown.

        Laurie Newendorp

Laurie Newendorp's recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationship of art to life and poetry.  Honoured multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review's Ekphrastic Challenge, her poetry often questions reality using a dialectical opposition  concerned with what is fixed, and what is free.  In "High Vantage Points," after Caillebotte's elevated scenes of Paris, the roof becomes a kind of philosophical plateau, a place to  think and ask questions, as it is in Carole King's "Up On The Roof," sung by  JamesTaylor in his video with King's song, and with an unexpected cameo appearance by  a blackbird. It (the roof) also divides earthly nature from "natural harmonic tones, the  music of the spheres produced by the movement of the celestial spheres and the bodies fixed within them."  Caillebotte, knowing he would die young, must have painted with "one eye to the heights of heaven."  His Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877, is one of his better known canvases; and an earlier painting, one mentioned in the poem, is Nude Lying On A Couch,  1873. 

​**

Rooftops in Snow

Ranged high above the snowfall on the ground,
Oblivious to stirrings far below,
Observed from higher still by a renowned
French artist named Caillebotte, and capped with snow,
The Paris rooftops conjured up an air
Of urban stillness. Birds would have to hear
Pins dropping if they listened from up there,
So tranquil was the morning atmosphere ...
Impressions painted long ago are what
Now capture, for posterity, the peace
Snow-covered roofs presented to Caillebotte
Near old Montmartre ... Silence did not cease
On those old roofs: it still is felt today—--
When gazing at his oil in the Musée.

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University.  His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly.

**

Lost Dream for My Unvaccinated Lover
 
All anyone wants is a clean, bathed
sky in pink notes. I’m hovering 
over a snowy roof. Paris, je t'aime. 
The Ghost of Future lifts me via sleigh. 
My ice bones and half-stabbed, frozen lungs. 
Feet groan to land. Roof of innocence. 
Roof of chalky slate. I can’t open your shuttered 
windows. I can’t climb down your seductive, 
chic facade. Our reality has run adrift so let’s start 
anew on a white blanket. Spring is a promise of us 
living in a cherry blossom frame sipping cognac 
and amaretto in a courtyard. The glow of this scene
awakens. S'il vous plait, I gulp each breath 
in night bright.
​
John Milkereit

John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including San Pedro River Review, Panoply, Naugatuck River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. His next chapbook entitled A Comfortable Place With Fire is forthcoming from The Orchard Street Press in 2022.

**
​
A Paris Snow

He was quiet
As his thoughts
Tumbled out
All at once
Through the window
Over the snow covered
Rooftops
Of the quarter
Remembering everything
That was their city
Only
The closeness of the fire
On wintry nights
In the little apartment
On the rue Palatine
And the way the snowflakes  
Danced
Beneath the glow
Of the Christmas lights
Along St. Germaine
With the smell
Of chestnuts roasting
And a strong vin chaud
Stirring up
From somewhere
Down the narrow street
Around the corner
From the little bistro
In the Latin Quarter
Where they liked to warm
With boeuf bourguignon
On their way home
From a day in Montmartre
And the way  
She sometimes kissed him
For no reason
When they crossed Place Vendome
Toward the river
Holding his hand 
Tightly
As the day’s light
Struggled
Against the brooding
Grey skies
Of another cold December
In Paris

John Drudge

John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of four books of poetry: March (2019), The Seasons of Us (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.

**

snow covered roofs in paris 
                                                            
night caresses  
roof tops  
the stillness    
gray 
a sky 
over snow 
la neige 
they call it 
feminine 
every winter 
she falls 
in love  
roof tops 
bearing its weight 

Sister Lou Ella

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and new verse news as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53.) On May 11, 2021, five poems from her book which had been set to music by James Lee III were performed by the opera star Susanna Phillips, star clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Mayra Huang at Y92 in New York City. The group of songs is entitled Chavah’s Daughters Speak.

**

les chambres de bonne
 
Paris gets cold. There is no heating
in the maid’s room. There is one faucet
and a small lavabo in a corner of the corridor.
There is a hole in the ground for your necessities.
Mercifully, the little cubicle has a door. A few days ago
the water froze in the tank. It froze in the pipes.
No water to be had from the only faucet
on the whole floor. The slim bed is dank.
 
There are hardly any maids left. Their rooms
are on the attic floors with sloping roofs,
accessible only by fire escape, rickety metal stairs
you climb at your peril on the outside of the building.
Now these chambres are full of students, painters,
poets, writers, and other unseemly folk.
 
Cold or hot, Paris is a painter’s dream. 
Gustave Caillebotte saw the dark grey on white grey,
set off by blacks and browns. He could barely
hold his brush. He thought his paints would
freeze—although he knew this to be (almost)
impossible. But, oh, Paris gets so cold. 
 
He shivered in la chambre de bonne.
He had not paid rent for a week. He feared
the landlady was about to throw him out.
But first he needed to paint the snow-covered
roofs of yet another winter in Paris.
That mysterious, murky light.
Oh for blue, red, yellow and green…
Go South, Paul had said to Vincent.
Gustave was thinking about it.

Rose Mary Boehm

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fifth poetry collection, DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS, has just been snapped up by Kelsay Books for publication May/June 2022. Her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

**

What Hides
 
What hides
Beneath the silent snow
The chimneys
The shutters
The gray sodden sky
I cannot know
 
What lurks
In troubled minds
Behind trembling lips
In beating hearts
I cannot know
 
Except to imagine
That the bare, cold trees
Like sentinels on des rues
And the flimsy trails of smoke
From furnaces within
Have suffered the human stories
Of fear, abandonment, and grief
Yet still yearn upward
Beyond the heavy metallic sky
To something brighter
Than this winter afternoon.
 
Sandra Salinas Newton

Sandra Salinas Newton is a Filipina-American Professor Emeritus of English. Her published works include textbooks and a short story. Her recent poetry has appeared in OPEN: Journal of Arts and Letters and Vita Brevis Press in July 2021, the Winter 2021 online issue of the Swiss-based The Woolf, the upcoming Oberon Poetry Journal 2021, the eBook Vultures & Doves: Social Issues of Our Time (December 2021) published by The Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, the premier  issue of the online Fauxmoir, an issue of Apricity, a future issue of The Evening Press, the upcoming Anthology of Vita Brevis Press, the late November 2021 issue of Neologism Poetry, an issue of The Decadent Review (24 December 2021), and the inaugural issue of New Note Poetry in January 2021.  She earned her B.A. from The City College of New York, her M.A. from Hunter College, and her Ph.D. from Fordham University. She currently lives in Austin, Texas. Her website is www.snewton.net.

**

Those Living Cold Between Buildings 
 
Equality is a snowy roof top
view of black stovepipes
jutting through white coal
smoke streaming, terracotta
flues, red brick chimneys
stacked like warmth against
icy gray sky. No matchstick
girls are clear from up
here. All the homes look the
same from on high, over
looking the dirty cobblestone
maze of Montmartre’s slushy
streets. Patches of gaslight
offer little heat to those living
cold between buildings.
 
Lillian Lucca 

Lillian Lucca is an amateur writer with a passion for poetry.  

​**

housewarming 

urban fantasies postponed 
by a blizzard 
lungs armed for biological war
blistering cold blisters 
my toes 
swollen from homesickness 
my feet sheds rural regrets 

that first morning in paris 
we couldn’t close 
the windows 
the city intruded lovemaking
making pancakes 
huddled by the stove to defrost
jet lagged altercations 
our love tailored by three sutures
in places that burned to touch 

have you ever seen snow 
before that day 
you laughed at the uncultured
question 
calling me an uncultured 
american 
punctuated with californian ignorance
azy wildfires ignited me 
no, i’m californian! 

you promised me snow 
all i see is grey 
the first floor 
a foreigner’s curse from the 
tourist gods 
god-knows-how-many euros you paid
for broken windows 
we sleep all day 
grey 
under snow covered roofs in Paris

​Valerie Braylovskiy

​Valerie Braylovskiy is from San Francisco, California and attends Pomona College ('25). She has been writing for most of her life and is currently exploring intersections between poetry and prose.

**

Snow Covered Rooftops, One of My Favourite Things 

—a whimsical adaptation of the song My Favorite Things, 
from the 1959 musical The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein 
Snow covered rooftops and Paris in winter 
Shutters on windows and floors without splinters 
Mugs of hot cocoa where marshmallows cling 
These are a few of my favourite things 

Brightly lit houses and ice-laden maples 
Post-its® and Sharpies® and standard size staples 
Paintbrushes dripping with colours that sing 
These are a few of my favourite things 

Families brimming with good cheer and laughter 
Old homes with chimneys and less drafty rafters 
Snow angel outlines and sleigh bells that ring 
These are a few of my favourite things 

When the wind blows, when the phone pings 
When I'm less than glad 
I simply remember my favourite things 
And reclaim the smile I had 

Snow covered rooftops and Paris in winter 
Shutters on windows and floors without splinters 
Mugs of hot cocoa where marshmallows cling 
These are a few of my favourite things 

Jeannie E. Roberts​

Jeannie E. Roberts has authored seven books, five poetry collections and two illustrated children's books. Her most recent collection, As If Labyrinth - Pandemic Inspired Poems, was released by Kelsay Books in April of 2021. She’s a nature enthusiast, a Best of the Net award nominee, and a poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. 

**

​Pigalle 

In every other garret there is one like him 
waiting for his lover to arrive at dawn,
rhythm of her footfalls, 
pause on the landing, tap on the door. 
This one is a poet. Money’s not mentioned 
for the moment: he’ll draw her to his window, 
open to a Paris made strange by snow,
contemplate the violet light, vista of departing night.
He’ll note the hiss of chimney pots
waking with the thermals, whispered shift 
of slates beneath the white: 
a world unclenching even as she shivers 
from her journey through Pigalle.
Imagination offers torments of its own,
his guilty hours contemplating danger: 
her route along the Avenue Frochot, quickened pulse,
excruciating moments. He knows the price of art
and his shame curls around her like a tongue.
As the morning holds its breath theirs will
merge and disappear above the iced eaves,
while she cleaves to his body and believes. 

Paul McDonald
​
Paul McDonald taught American literature at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he also ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write and research full time. He is the author of over twenty books, covering fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His books include the novels Surviving Sting (2001), Kiss Me Softly Amy Turtle (2004), and Do I Love You? (2008); poetry collections, The Right Suggestion (1999), Catch a Falling Tortoise (2007), and An Artist Goes Bananas (2012), and a recent collection of flash fiction, Midnight Laughter (2019). His scholarly work ranges across a variety of disciplines, including American literature, humour, and narratology. His most recent academic books are: Enigmas of Confinement: A History and Poetics of Flash Fiction (2018), Lydia Davis: A Study (2019), and Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020).

**

​Take me to Paris in Winter

When I was in Paris it was stifling,
early summer days, hotter than home
unseasonably warm, they said.

Melting I walked miles past street vendors,
wilting I sat in outdoor cafes with glass of
tepid water. [I had to pay extra for ice]

A somewhat cooler place was the Louvre, 
cold marble sculptures of horses and men,
blank-faced watching sweat trickle down

my neck , standing before Mona
Lisa, jealous of her cool demeanor, mopping
my face in line to buy postcards.

Open windows in small hotel, second floor
emitted warm breeze, lovely view if not
for having to lie atop coverlet at night.

It’s never been so warm the end of May,
I constantly heard, feet slick inside sandals;
I loved Musee d’Orsay, Van Gogh,

Monet  almost forgetting the heat on my neck.
Take me to Paris in winter, snow-topped
buildings, muffler hiding my tear filled eyes

smiling beneath cold cheeks pink in chill air,
happy frozen fingers, snow crunching under
boots; yes, take me to Paris in winter.

Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson loves Autumn and Winter, is bothered by the heat, seeking out air conditioning, cool breezes and water. Her poetry appears in Sledgehammer, Misfit, Open Door and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals, or in full length volumes on Amazon. Dickson is a Pushcart nominee, former poetry board member, advocate for captive elephants and rescuer of cats.

**

Winter Voyagers

January is a changeling,
thrust from the womb
of a spontaneous winter thaw.
Cold and spare is the road to spring,
winding down dry barks of nature's law.
                                          
From fettered windows, 
i greet him
and grieve for his maternal loss.
Hope is but an ill begotten whim,
Melancholy has gone for a toss.
                                           
Likely friends are we to be,
wading through porous cuts.
Cursed siblings destined to weep
over bearing the world's brunt.
                                           
Come February ,
we'll be chapped and dry.
envisioning love's grand story,
drinking winter's last brine.

Prithvijeet Sinha

The writer's name is Prithvijeet Sinha from Lucknow, India. He is a post graduate in MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy's Panorama (https://anawadhboyspanorama.wordpress.com/)  Besides that, his works have been published in several varied publications as Cafe Dissensus, The Medley, Screen Queens, Confluence, Reader's Digest, Borderless Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, and many more.

**

12-24 Wrap-up 

I tell you, we scoped it out and there was no 
possible way he could get inside. Reconnaissance 
showed the two flues on the port side didn’t match 
up with the single on the starboard side. The chimney 
was a definite no. And besides, the snow covering the  
sink-hole between those dormers was just too treacherous  
for the jolly fellow to slip into the room. The slope was  
excessively severe, and on further inspection the other three  
visible windows presented the same dilemma. Yeah, he  
was bummed not to mention take-off for us would be  
nearly impossible. We discussed it briefly though due to  
the tight schedule he insists on maintaining there were no 
other options. Dasher did the deed, got the big guy’s 
credit card, using his Prime account, specified a 
two a.m. special delivery on 12-24 that included a note  
explaining the mix-up and asking the dad to get the flues  
repositioned before Christmas next year. Yeah,  
best laid plans...here, let me get the next one. 
 
Jane Lang

Jane Lang’s work has appeared in online publications including Quill and Parchment, the Avocet, Creative Inspirations, The Ekphrastic Review, and has been published in several anthologies. She has written and given two chapbooks to family and friends in lieu of Christmas cards. Jane lives in the Pacific Northwest.  ​

**

Colour of Mercy
 
In the hour of introspection
before dawn, you find
even your thoughts
are too loud for this scene.
In Paris, snow settles on rooftops
and industry.
Most of the time
you object to the smokestacks
across from your rented attic,
but now all complications of progress
roll through miles of winter trees.
And steel-plated alleys 
sing of red bricks in Eden-Nothing
is as lovely, iron-blue light
and city the colour of mercy. 
 
Janice Bethany

Janice Bethany lives in Texas and teaches for the University of Houston system. Her work has been recognized by National Poetry Month, San Antonio; Craven Arts Ekphrastic Competition, North Carolina; O’Bheal International Competition, Ireland; Texas Poetry Calendar 2021 and 2022; Toledo Museum of Art; Anesthesiology; Raleigh Review; The Ekphrastic Review and more.

**

Effet de Neige 

you speak to me
from your attic room
high above Paris
it's mid afternoon
your face is bathed
in the ghostly glow
of the phone light
and the reflection
from the scene outside
you turn the phone 
to show me the panorama
a soft, quiet blanket
hiding the uglier
man-made excrescences
- it could be any year
in last couple of centuries -
and it feels that long
since we were together
in the same room, the
same bed in particular
I would kindle warmth
in your blue-white
face that reappears
on the phone screen
cloaked under a shock
of thick black hair
warm your thinned lips
that droop at the corners
soothe the creases
that never seems to leave
the middle of your brow,
that show the sorrow
of enforced separation
- being locked down apart -
I'm half a world away

Emily Tee

Emily Tee spent her working life wrangling numbers.  Now retired, she has returned to her love of reading poetry, a pleasure from her schooldays, and has recently started writing as well.  She lives in a semi-rural part of England.

**

Oliver Displaced

I think of Oliver Twist.
Though a different city 
and half a century more modern,
I see undertakers and workhouses. 
 
Knowing my eyes 
play tricks on me, 
I glimpse footprints
in snow, along a ledge, 
near a loose board 
bracing an upper window 
against the winter winds, 
a series of small footprints 
belonging to children,
returning from a long day 
of picking pockets, 
bringing spoils back
to their elderly benefactor. 
 
But my eyes 
play tricks on me, 
as I drown in Twist.
 
As I stare into coal-stained snow, 
trying to think of anything else, 
reality summons me.
 
My pre-teen daughter,
dancing around our suburbia home, 
socks skidding across hardwood, 
tapping with a light thump 
while she sings in 
whimsical British accent 
learned from hours 
of studying You-tubers,
all in preparation for
a local musical. 

Every day
I hear Boy for Sale 
as she chases her brother,
Food Glorious Food,
every meal-time, 
look for my wallet after 
Pick a Pocket or Two,
and drift asleep to
Where is Love?

Tony Daly

Tony Daly is a DC/Metro Area creative writer. He has work published in The Poet Magazine, Danse Macabre, Red Ogre Review, and others. He serves as an Associate Editor with Military Experience and the Arts. For a list of his published work, please visit https://aldaly13.wixsite.com/website or follow him on Twitter @aldaly18. 

**

A Glass of Muscadet

She steps through customs into
           anonymity. Train to Gare du Nord,
                      taxi. Her Paris hotel, where she nestles into

the skin of its narrow street. The grocer,
           the baker, the rows of curtained lives housed
                     under chimney pots and garrets. A lone

song thrush, she perches on the windowsill,
           humming No Regrets. She still misses him,
                     how they mused on Parisian street life--

the assembly line of passers-by, their lives
           and jobs. With him gone, her eyes turn skyward
                     across the quiet white of mansard roofs.

Morning’s soft rain pocks the night’s snow.
           Her thoughts drift with the solitary slice
                     of yesterday. Apple tart at Le Fregate,

a glass of Muscadet, traffic slushing
           beside the winter-dark Seine. They once shared
                      dinner here—a window table—drinking  

in the city of light and lovers. Now only
           her passport knows her name. Sirens and horns
                       fill the air. Smoke wavers above closed shutters.

Sandi Stromberg

Sandi Stromberg is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honoured her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards, recently nominated her poem “Widowhood” for a Pushcart Prize, and twice nominated her poems for Best of the Net. Most recently, her poetry has appeared in Texas Poetry Assignment, MockingHeart Review, Equinox, easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, San Pedro River Review, The Ocotillo Review, and in Dutch in the Netherlands in Brabant Cultureel and Dichtersbankje (the Poet’s Bench). 

**

Sorcery

Outside, the flakes from a dour sky blanket 
dormant roofs. Bearded ravens caw against 

the gray swatch of dawn. Inside, a sorceress wakes from
dreams of rhubarb bleeding red on durum crusts. 

Petals flake from marigolds baked into focaccia earth.
She paces in the cold, her growing impatience rustling

a cache of strange spells. The pulse of simmering summers 
quickens within the gloom of her graphite world. 

Through the window she tames the voices of bitter 
winter gusts, her ruddy palms sowing puffs of carnelian dust. 

Hoarfrost shatters, as phosphorescent clouds descend 
with the vanity of clementines. The sorceress laughs at 

her mischief as blanched alleys light up in a confusion of states - 
pools of warm tangerine seeping over the cold duvet of snow.

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and pianist. She holds a Masters in English. Her art and poetry have been published in both print and online journals and anthologies including The Ekphrastic Review, The Eunoia Review, Vita Brevis Press, Bracken Magazine, and Black Bough Poetry. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and her art multiple times for The Best of The Net. She serves as a chief editor for Authora Australis. She lives and works in Sydney on the land of the Ku-ring-gai people of The Eora Nation. Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings

**

Moonglow on the Chimneys
 
The Lost Gen showed up a century ago.
They didn’t write much about the winters or snow,
how Paris rooftops go white, then death-face gray
when the sun runs off and days of rain follow.
 
Naked ladies, silver and barren as oaks,
re-dress and bow in the candle-lit windows.
Pale old men doze by dying fires and cognac,
slink off to bed in the dark, unloved and drunk. 
 
How do you paint happy with lead on the brush,
Caillebotte?  How do you create snow—minus 
the miasma, melancholy and emptiness?
Gone when Hemingway arrived, you were one name
 
he couldn’t drop in a novel or at a café.
The story ended the same: snow on rooftops,
fog in the streets, rats in the alley shadows, 
candle flickers through louvered shutters; writers, 
 
expats slumbering through the sunless winters.
The Lost Gen showed up a century ago.
They didn’t write about midnight roofs of glitter,
artists at the glass—moonglow on the chimneys.
 
Robert E. Ray

Robert E. Ray is a published novelist and poet. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in three poetry anthologies.  Robert lives in coastal Georgia.

**

Roof to Roof

Teto a teto
          toit à toit 
two people from two worlds
crossed, two people from two
opposite directions came.

No longer content to lay
under the warm white blankets 
covering their houses. 
Over the white runners of snow
cladding the rooves, they went.
over the quarters of the sleeping
and the stilled-hearts of the dead.

These two hearts that beat as one,
these two minds that wanted to think
as one, two souls longing to be joined,
skittered across the frosty, white-capped
houses so that their lips might meet without 
eyes to see them, and so that they could 
breathe to one another their thoughts, hopes,
and so that their souls could sync up. 

         Face à face
cara a cara
Eyes met
French and Portuguese tongues
stilled, hearts triphammering in chorus
smiled as hands held each other without
witness or objection, until clothes slid
off the rooftop, forced aside.

Bernardo Villela

Bernardo Villela has had poetry published by Entropy, Zoetic Press, and Bluepepper and forthcoming in Eldritch & Ether. He’s had fiction published with Coffin Bell Journal, The Dark Corner Zine, 101 Proof Horror, A Monster Told Me Bedtime Stories, Page & Spine. You can read more about these and various other pursuits at www.miller-villela.com. 

**

Caillebotte’s Snow Covered Roofs in Paris (1878)
 
Snow washed grey
holds hills with narrow, 
crooked streets
a winter day in Paris
sliced figures
of the bourgeoisie 
demolition of the medieval
Rue de Lille
7e arrondissement‎
wide-angle Musée d’Orsay
of light as it falls
with notes of blue clay
on the Left Bank of the Seine
influenced by Japanese prints 
a former railway station
the Belle Époque
I never scraped the oils
added layer upon layer.
 
Your battered wife in black furs.

Ilona Martonfi

Ilona Martonfi is a poet, editor, literary curator, and activist; she is the author of four poetry books, Blue Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009), Black Grass (Broken Rules Press, 2012), The Snow Kimono (Inanna, 2015) and Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna, 2022). Her work has published in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Recently, her poem "My Brother's Ashes" was nominated by The Ekphrastic Review for the Best Microfiction Awards Anthology, 2021. She is the curator Argo Bookshop Reading Series. She is also the recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award.

**

we pretend to be immortal
 
buried, more snow—why
was that dream ravenous, cold,
shivering, homeless?
 
voices reflected off walls
pierced by invisible crows--
 
sleep is somewhere else--
not in this room, this darkness,
not blanketing this
 
body, this restless spirit
repeating these futile prayers--
 
these spellsongs hidden
deep in the snowdrifts of mind--
the rhymes underneath
 
no fortuneteller can scry--
we take what we can, bear it--
 
sentences of words,
currented waves of crying,
flowing brain to blood--
 
languages that substitute
concrete clouds for starlit skies--
 
will morning ever
come, or will I remain here,
always suspended,
 
hidden deep in the forest
of these frozen memories?
 
windows of ice framed
by long silences--
glittering snowflakes--
 
just bones in the end—scarecrow
hanging in the changing light

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/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

**

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing 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 Angel Production, by Sonya Gonzalez. Deadline is January 7, 2022 .

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. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click below to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 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 GONZALEZ 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 7, 2022.

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 will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. 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. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. 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! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
​
16. 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!

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

Teaching the Ekphrastic Sex workshop for The Ekphrastic Review was an adventure! It was created with the always brilliant Lorette Luzajic, who helped to turn an idea into reality. Such fun  to share my process with the workshop participants, and to listen to the remarkable work they produced. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was an honour to judge the Ekphrastic Sex Poem/Flash Contest. So many sexy submissions, it was hard to choose the winners. To me, just being brave enough to put erotic words on paper is a real step forward. I applaud them all!

Alexis Rhone Fancher

**
​
Thank you to all of you who participated in this amazing journey through art history and through the secret places of our psyche. Thank you to Alexis, our guest judge- there could be no better suited judge for this contest, and we are eternally grateful.

And the winners are....

​Flash Fiction: The Care and Feeding of Your Penis Tree, by Margo Stutts Toombs
Poetry: In the Room Where We Live Forever, by Sherry Barker Abaldo

Both winners receive $150 each. Congratulations for your excellent works!

The Care and Feeding of Your Penis Tree
 
Penis trees are fun to raise, and they provide the owner with a magical sense of power and purpose. They give the gardener a ready answer to the question, “Do you have the balls for that?” Some say the penis has a mind of its own. You can keep yours in line and happy with the proper treatment.

• Choose the location for your tree carefully. The roots thrive in soft, wet, warm soil.
• Space out your trees so they do not become root-bound.
• Penis trees are an invasive species. Do not plant them close to other shrubberies. Avoid placing them near pussy willows and untrimmed bushes, especially if they have chlamydia. 
• Water on a regular basis. Nothing is worse than a dry penis. Lack of adequate hydration can lead to shrinkage: so, can cold water.
• Keep your trees in low light. A sunburnt penis is a nightmare. 
• Keep your penises away from moist environments. Jock itch can make them grumpy and unattractive.
• Transplant your trees as often as you like. They enjoy gentle pulling and tugging and new spaces to explore.
• Occasional fertilizing is recommended. Try stroking its ego or just stroke it. You will know it’s successful if the penises grow. 
• Prune carefully when it is time. Balls should stay with their original penis.

 
Keep your penis tree contented, and you will have an unusual plant for years to come. It is not that hard.
 
Margo Stutts Toombs

Margo Stutts Toombs enjoys writing, performing and filmmaking. She performs her monologues at Fringe Festivals, art galleries and anywhere food and beverages are served. Her poetry is inUntameable City - Mutabilis Press, the 2011 Texas Poetry Calendar, Love over 60:  An Anthology of Women’s Poems, the 2021 Friendswood Library Ekphrastic Poetry Reading and Archway Gallerychap books.  "Compassion at the Border" is a documentary poem written as part of a collaboration with artist donna e perkins (No Más Muerte) for an exhibit at the Houston Holocaust Museum. Her flash nonfiction piece, "Tommy," is in the inaugural issue of Equinox.

Rose Menyon Heflin

Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a writer and artist living in Madison, Wisconsin.  Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies spanning four continents, and her poetry won a 2021 Merit Award from Arts for All Wisconsin.  One of her poems was choreographed and performed by a local dance troupe, and she has an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece featured in the Companion Species exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art.  Among other venues, her recent and forthcoming publications include Defunkt Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Fauxmoir, Feral:  A Journal of Poetry and Art, La Raíz Magazine, MacQueen’s Quinterly,  Poemeleon, sPARKLE & bLINK, and Tangled Locks Journal’s MoonBites.  An OCD-sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people.  

**

Mimizan
 
The trees in a smoky muddle of yearning
To float skywards
Or dip heavy limbs down
Down to kiss themselves in cobalt water
Delicious joy of meeting
One’s self and the long embrace.
 
A sickness of self love
Perhaps still desiring cloud
Arbour making the shape of sky.
 
The summertime onlooker on the shore
Seeking the solace of reflection, balance
Paints summertime desire.
 
A hundred years later
This onlooker, free from war, politics, fame
Feels the breath of rippling water
The canopy of sky soon 
To be replaced with stars
 
Who saw him, the young man and his palette
Before he stepped into war.
 
Lucie Payne
 
Lucie is a retired librarian who is writing as much as she can and has particularly enjoyed working with ekphrastic challenges!

**

The Mirrors of Mimizan
 
Not unlike the Midwest, where white pines grace the shoreline, 
stand as if sentries in unbreakable bundles for the greater good,

the commune of Mimizan mirrors a soothing sweep to peace, 
transports us from the bustle of urban life to the solitude

of a glassy lake, where the mind’s eye can envision loons 
as they glide, disappear, then resurface amid the clarity

of expanse. The impressionistic strokes of painters remind us 
of nature’s radiant countenance, how it saves us in azure

and cerulean blues, sage greens, in jade and juniper hues, 
in the silken streams of cirrus clouds, where the presence

of clean water and unique wildlife encounters lifts our being. 
Yet, as our internality is eased, altered by the beauty

of our natural world, are we willing to act on its behalf? 
As we float in the silhouettes of ephemerality,

human indifference continues to erode the planet. Is it possible 
to unite as one, to actively participate in improvement,

to become environmental stewards of reform?
Generations to come depend upon the well-being of Earth.

As reflective melodies drench in pastel overlays at dawn, 
will plein air painting become a lost art?

As fireflies gather in luminous blinks and blooms at dusk, 
will future artists experience the serenity of Mimizan-like

settings? As white pines grace the shoreline, 
stand as if sentries in unbreakable bundles for the greater good,

how can we not save Mother Earth and the breathable bounty 
of a pristine day?
 
Jeannie E. Roberts​

Jeannie E. Roberts lives in Wisconsin, where she writes, draws and paints, and often photographs her natural surroundings. She’s authored seven books, five poetry collections and two illustrated children's books. Her newest collection, As If Labyrinth - Pandemic Inspired Poems, was released by Kelsay Books in April of 2021. Her poems appear in Anti-Heroin Chic, Sky Island Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. She’s an animal lover, a nature enthusiast, a Best of the Net award nominee, and a poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. 

**

Lost Song for My Unvaccinated Lover
 
Here’s to paddling along the shoreline, cypress canopy
reflecting on water like painted charcoal. Sun-drunk flies
ready for summer glow. Don’t worry. You as a mother 
are a good mother until you forget. A branch does not
remember how long its life came from a trunk, rings 
swallowed by dappled foam and yellow fizzle. 
Here’s a horizon we’ll never reach. Here’s science
dreaming of nothing but calling your name, not a sound,
just powder blue air. Here’s our moment, a spot along
a broken coast, rippling, ready to rub away. Our existence 
folds in Earth’s pocket of an oilskin jacket. Here’s to 
the religion of our boat coming on without mistake, 
whispering for you to wake.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including San Pedro River Review, Panoply, Naugatuck River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. His next chapbook entitled A Comfortable Place With Fire is forthcoming from The Orchard Street Press in 2022.

**
​
Joyride at Mimizan
 
Winston, you have escaped with a paintbox, your brushes,
board, an easel, your chair.
 
You wear a wide-brimmed hat and in your jacket pocket
perhaps there are cigars.
 
Have you a bottle of champagne? Surely someone will bring
a bucket of ice, a glass?
 
You are, after all, en vacances. You intend to make the most
of this late afternoon light,
 
not to mention your brightness.

 
So, you seize this moment to tackle today’s blank canvas
and lose yourself in reflection.
 
Can you capture pines on water, hunt down each ripple of
sky, cloud, dune?
 
How will you marshal and mix those blues to fix your view?
What brushes to use?
 
Quick as gunshot, you will pick answers, challenge yourself
to grasp new solutions,
 
snatch at joy, whilst you can.
 
Dorothy Burrows
​
Based in the UK, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction and short plays. This year, her work has been published by various e-zines and journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, Dust Poetry, Spelt, The Alchemy Spoon, Failed Haiku and Wales Haiku Journal. She tweets @rambling_dot and occasionally ‘joyrides' with a sketchbook and pencils.

**

Reflections
 
Light stains the still water 
like paint on wet glass,
slippery and running out of line--
a blurry collection of blues and violets
as the trees swoop down 
to dip their tender fingers
beneath the clear surface, 
turning sea-glass 
into liquid gold.
 
All the while cream speckled clouds 
glide quietly down 
the pebbled shoreline,
coating rocks and grass 
in a powdery skin
that will dissolve by nightfall.
 
Sienna Taggart
 
Sienna Taggart is finishing up her bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing and English, hoping to soon enter the world of teaching while she grows as an aspiring writer. She studied abroad in Scotland for six months at the University of Dundee where she took poetry workshops and wrote poetry reviews for DURA (Dundee University Review of the Arts). Sienna’s nonfiction essay, “Archaeological Dig” was published on the DURA website in 2020. She currently lives in El Paso, Texas, enjoying its desert views with her family and spirited pup, Ronin.

**

The Period Between
 
He faced the easel away from the lake.
The three wood legs and his boots wore the mud 
along the soft bank—Coco Chanel’s rouge 
 
on the last cigarette she smoked—before
the sun blazed through the trees, turned the water
warm and blue, laid white and green on the surface.
 
Behind him, outside the lodge, men congregated
around cognac and cigars. Coco held
another cigarette, let the ash fall
 
at her feet. The air was too hot to hunt 
deer and wild boar.  The period between wars
made men fat and worse liars—women peripheral.
 
He focused on the trees, how light altered 
the view and changed the color of the mud, 
the hue of the rouge on charred white paper.
 
Red: the one paint he left on the palette.
At twilight, it became a dried blood stain.
He left the easel empty on the bank.
 
In the dark water, the dumped colored oils
formed an amorphous slick and one rainbow--
one perche-soleil floating on the surface.
 
Moonlight made the easel white as bleached bone
—a headless companion. He drank and smoked
in the shadows, ash on the grass bowed with dew.

Robert E. Ray

Robert E. Ray is a published novelist and poet. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in three poetry anthologies.  Robert lives in coastal Georgia.

**

As Above, So Below

Liquid clouds drift toward 
the horizon. Drawn like Narcissus, 

trees stretch their branches 
toward their rippling reflections. 

Steadfast roots prevent them
from falling in—losing themselves 

beneath the painted surface 
of the sea. If I wet my hand 

at the water’s edge, my feet 
unsown—no groundwork to keep 

me tethered—would my body sink 
punch a hole in that perfect summer sky?​

Gabby Gilliam

Gabby Gilliam lives in the DC metro area. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Tofu Ink Arts Press, Tempered Runes Press, Cauldron Anthology, and two anthologies from Mythos Poets Society. You can find her online at gabbygilliam.squarespace.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GabbyGilliamAuthor.

**

View at Mimizan, by Churchill, 1920 
 
“John Constable is at the door.” 
Send him away, he’s been here too many times. 
He’s put water in my paints, and the oil 
won’t quite fix onto the canvas. 
But what about Degas, sleep-deprived, 
blanch-eyed, raising his fingers to not quite tap? 
Let him in, and let his girls in too. 
I see a couple floating here in the reflection 
of the sky, maybe a back, definitely a dainty foot. 
I must have dreamed her while I daubed away 
On the shore, and mulled over ends of conversations. 
In the future, someone will paint me as a man of chalk, 
the oil crudely patched to suggest moody features, 
and Degas is already dead, three years now. 
I talk to him all the time, but Constable 
answers instead, with forced and plummy diction, 
asking for haystacks, not fey French forest. 

Kathryn Pratt Russell
 
Kathryn Pratt Russell has published poems in Gargoyle, Black Warrior Review, Chelsea, Red Mountain Review, and elsewhere. Her essays and reviews have appeared in American Book Review, Studies in Romanticism, Disappointed Housewife, Romantic Circles, and Studies in English Literature. Her poetry chapbook, Raven Hotel, was published by Dancing Girl Press in July 2021.

**

Passing Time by the Lake at Mimizan

these calm blue waters reflect clouds
wisps of cream that float across the sky
rendered thicker, as if flooding the lake
today's approaching its golden hour
and as I depict the trees, so dark,
my own mind is mired within their murk

later I'll walk that lake-shore path 
with only my black dog for company
'Go on' he'll seem to say, 'Try it,
the cleansing depths, bathe, luxuriate
and wash away all the guilt and horror'

for now, I can lose myself in this moment,
at one with the scene through the very act
of capturing the ineffable still beauty,
the peace that's so lacking when I don't
have a brush in hand and canvas before me

this daub emerging pleases me, colours
and form fit a realism, a narrative 
I will construct to capture today -
light and colour, peace and hope -
and I know there will be a tomorrow
that I may shape to be better

Emily Tee

Emily Tee spent her working life wrangling numbers.  Now retired, she is new to writing and is returning to her love of poetry, a pleasure from her schooldays.  She lives in a semi-rural part of England.

**

To Sir Winston Churchill Regarding A View From Mimizan

You've rightly left unfinished sky
as evanescence to the eye
abstracted like evolving sea
as stillness it will never be

and yet awash in "often-seen"
that leaps to mind as what you mean
in those you bring to fabled shore
beholding as forever more

the depth of calmness teeming rife

in land of far more stable life
so clear when near to contemplate
that fades to what you consecrate

as battle of the heart with soul
adrift in time they don't control.

Portly Bard

Portly Bard: Old man.  Ekphrastic fan.

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

**

churchill’s momizan painting 
 
cotton dappled water washing 
into the shadows so soon 
after the Great War 
shadowed dark over the world 
cotton dappled sky 
just before the roaring years 
dark and light 
dark and light 
before and after 
before and after 
chanted like waves on a quiet sea 

Sister Lou Ella

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and new verse news as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53.) On May 11, 2021, five poems from her book which had been set to music by James Lee III were performed by the opera star Susanna Phillips, star clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Mayra Huang at Y92 in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.”

**

Painting Peace at Mimizan

I crept up behind them two men talking about “impressionism.” Living in Paris, I’d even met a few of the artists, men and women who were trying to paint light. I listened to them as  I worked on my poems, trying to cover the smell of our Kiwi sheep farm in a sea of ink. Until the Great War, I thought my poems would bring me immortality. Now, the memories of the trenches echo in my head each time I try to sleep. Worse than my time on the Western front was the fate of my brother, Jamie, who stayed with the sheep only to be drafted as shepherd to a troop of our friends and neighbours. They were sent on a boat to their slaughter in a place called Gallipoli. 

And the man in front of me sent him there. How could he, who surely studied the ancient battles in the Dardanelles, the old name for that place, think the Turks would not work hard to defend their land? And win.
 
He did not send boys raised in his hills, his pastures. No, he raided those of the lands “down under” to bloody a shoreline once as pristine as the one he has painted. My mam wrote to me last month that the British Graves commission found my brother’s body, his boney remains intertwined with those of a Turkish soldier. The two had fought to the death with knives, a sad and bloody way to end. 
So now, I have brought a knife. This man, this Churchill, sitting at a desk ordered my brother’s death. 
 
The man, Churchill, puts his paint box down and admires his work for that day. I want to rush up and offer him the death he offered to my brother. But looking on that peaceful scene as he is doing, a peace comes over me and the light the impressionists speak of begins to seep into my heart. I cannot bring myself to break the quiet with screams of pain. I cannot splash the greens of grass, the blue of the water, with blood’s red stream. 
 
Churchill’s brush work celebrates peace. I drop the knife, an Army knife like the one my brother carried. He was, like all of us, enveloped for a while in war, but that scene, that river. It whispers, “peace be to you.” A man who can paint a scene like that—he is a man of peace. And so I leave him in peace and as I go, I feel Jamie’s hand on my shoulder and hear him telling me to forgive the man. And so as I walk away, I whisper, “You are forgiven.”  Let us all live in peace.​

Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her poems, articles, essays, and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Yellow Mama, The Ekphrastic Review, anti-heroin chic, Verse Visual, Brass Bell, ovunquesiamo.com, Crimeucopia, Bould Anthology, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and more. She is a Pushcart Nominee, has been a Tupelo Press 30/30 author, and a Gilbert Chappell Fellow and is a five-time winner in NC Poetry in Plain Sight Competition. Her chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, is out from Finishing Line Press. Her three free chapbooks are Nature’s Gifts (Stanzaic Stylings), and Dancing Under the Moon and Morning by Morning, (Origami Press). As a performer, she tells folk and personal tales featuring food, family, nature, and strong women.

**

Reflections
 
Recalcitrant Prime Minister forced to stand
Blizabeth both student and ruler, eventual
Friend, he mentored a queen, her first
Legislator, parliament listened when he spoke
Elizabeth sought counsel, bespoke privilege 
Churchill painted to relax, health issues took their
Toll – reflected calm in otherwise intense mind
Imperial thinker, liberal democrat, trees painted
Over troubled waters of times, both war and peace
Noble Englishman, Nobel writer and artist
State funeral where even a queen wept
 
Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson has visited all but eight of the United States, has been to Canada many times, also to Ireland, Paris, Bermuda, Bahamas and Jamaica, but feels there is much of the world she hasn't seen. Art is a way of visiting far away places and provides great fodder for poems. Dickson's poetry appears in many journals including Sledgehammer, Open Door and The Ekphrastic Review. She is fond of lakes, cats and advocates for captive elephants.

**

Triolet From Our Boat

The blues keep coming.
Beauty is always converging.
Water & sky reservoirs of refraction, strumming
the blues. Keep coming
out this far & returning, waves drumming
desire’s languid rhythm, submerging
the blues. Keep coming; 
beauty is always converging. 
 
Jennifer R. Edwards

Jennifer R. Edwards’ debut collection, Unsymmetrical Body, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in July 2022. Her poems received Pushcart Prize nomination, honourable mention for the NEPC Amy Lowell Prize, fellowships from the Palm Beach Poetry Festival and publication in Lucky Jefferson, Snapdragon: Journal of Art and Healing, Literary Mama, FreezeRay Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review,  COVID Spring: Granite State Pandemic Poems (Hobblebush Books, 2020), and other literary magazines. She’s a speech therapist and lives in Concord, NH with her family. Instagram: Jenedwards8, Twitter @Jennife00420145

**

A Mimizan of the Mind

We came here to be cured 
but scarcely knew we lacked 
all that we have gained: health is in the head, 
like beauty, and here it seems certain 
we’ll dream ourselves better.
We’re not the first: belle epoch bathers 
were chased here by consumption, 
mouchoirs speckled red in the city crush.
What better place than here 
to find a life worth living?
The trees agree: from where we sit 
they seem to paddle in the sea, 
watch their charmed reflections 
shimmer in Atlantic shallows. 
In the lee of Les Landes dunes
we breathe in harmony: 
health is in the head, like beauty, 
and now a wilderness of futures
shimmer in the mind’s eye 
as coastal clouds reinvent the sky.

Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald taught American literature at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he also ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write and research full time. He is the author of over twenty books, covering fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His books include the novels Surviving Sting (2001), Kiss Me Softly Amy Turtle (2004), and Do I Love You? (2008); poetry collections, The Right Suggestion (1999), Catch a Falling Tortoise (2007), and An Artist Goes Bananas (2012), and a recent collection of flash fiction, Midnight Laughter (2019). His scholarly work ranges across a variety of disciplines, including American literature, humour, and narratology. His most recent academic books are: Enigmas of Confinement: A History and Poetics of Flash Fiction (2018), Lydia Davis: A Study (2019), and Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic (2020).

**

Painting the View at Mimizan
 
 There are more clouds in the water than appear in the sky;
I make my own illusions.
No fingerprints, no sense of duty, no struggle with vaccines.
My lifeline seems to flow through the brush into a reflection of indifference. 
Nature travels all alone, it’s one ongoing experiment 
I understand connection: the waves on this lake are my nucleotides. 
My name is Churchill, but today I’m a ghost.
Clouds join to reclaim space, as if they care about accuracy.
They spittle my face but I cover my canvas;
I head for a so-called drawing room.

Sue Ann Simar

Sue Ann Simar published and edited 10x3 plus poetry journal from 2008 to 2012.  She is a member of Madwomen in the Attic, a writing program affiliated with Carlow University in Pittsburgh.  Simar participated in Women Speak/Women of Appalachia prior to the Covid outbreak. Her most recent 
publications are Kestrel, Backbone Mountain Review, and Voices in the Attic. 

**

The Gift 
 
It always takes me back. 
 
In those grey years after the War, we would be invited to summer at the Château. Such a welcome relief from rigours of the big City and rationing and that pied-à-terre close by your parents’. 

On the morning of departure, I would sardine provisions into the trunk. Usually overloaded but we could never tell when, where and if vittles could be sourced en route. As gasoline was never plentiful, we always pre-filled a khaki metal cannister - the one sneaked back from the front. 

July weather was mostly reliable although an occasional electric storm could spit up the Bay. But thankfully, clothes packing was light with enough space for formals, casuals, footwear, jim-jams, two parasols and our smocks still paint-stained no matter how often they were boiled. 

We were always excited at the prospect of our annual adventure. There was so much to look forward to back then. 

Happy holidays! 
 
With the long journey south, we would overnight in Le Touquet or Hardelot, then often at La Rochelle close to where I camped in the early thirties. Memories, fond memories. 

We would amble through quaint towns; we would speed through the countryside. Massed sunflowers enthralled us though the heat would sap our energy. 

Above the constant drone of the four-stroke and intermittent rumbling over cobbles, we would sing - popular and light operatic. How I envied your conservatoire training. 

Although rustic luncheons at rural bistros were hit and miss, we were always welcomed - the French would not forget. 

Neither would we. 
 
Mimizan was an oasis; you said so yourself. The plage, the café scene, the skies - especially the skies in such a dense azure just like nothing I had seen before or since. You would comment that the commune had been preserved in aspic. Perhaps it was. 

Accommodation in the Château was up three flights of narrow winding stairs. Vaulted ceilings, candelabra, four-poster beds, tall mirrored oak wardrobes, marble-topped dressing tables and exposed tenné floorboards with, invariably, salle de bains far along a corridor that echoed with every footstep. You would always tip-toe but creaks still resounded. 

All the rooms were the same but all so very different. 

You particularly liked the one proffering westerly vistas across the luscious green lawns where we would attempt croquet on Sunday afternoons, over the pine forêt and on to the water. Snug in beige rattan chairs, we would often watch the sun setting oranges and pinks into the Atlantic. 

Most mornings after sustenance of fresh panne au chocolate from the patisserie on the corner and tepid chicory faux-café au lait, we would carry easels and palettes, parasols and paraphernalia and oils and acetone down to the lake along with a straw hamper with brie and baguette sufficient to last us until supper back at the Château. 

You loved to connect with cormorants soaring then diving to plunder, as much as you detested swarms of black fly that visited on far too many occasions. 

Yet if I am candid, some of your most evocative landscapes were created there. The location, the bonhomie, the freedom were inspiration par excellence. Little surprise that so many of us made the trip each summer. 

You were so, so talented. 
 
Then formal dinner al fresco, night after night. How you revelled in the dressing up. 

Sweet fragrance wafting from hydrangeas, dahlias and canna lilies would blend with the aroma of spit roasted wild boar or fresh mackerel netted from the Atlantic in the morning and the pungent smoke oozing from Romeo y Julieta and Gauloises that so irritated your throat and made you cough. I worried. 

As aspiring polyglots, we would engage in irreverent and irrelevant debate in French, in English and occasionally in the Euskal about everything and nothing often until well gone midnight against a tapestry of gypsy fiddle music and far too many glasses of Bordeaux - more nouveau than vintage you would tease. You could be so high spirited and sharp though relaxed at the Château. 

Slumber was sublime. 
 
By the spring of fifty-two, your health had deteriorated. We never returned south. 

On evenings of contemplation seeking a modicum of solace, I sit gazing up at the symmetrical Mimizan lakescape with its reflections of verdant trees and bulbous white clouds. How I treasure that gift you received back then. 

I recall so fondly our summer vacations; the adventures, the Château, our painting at the waterfront, the camaraderie, but most of all your presence. 

You know I always will. 
 
Alun Robert

Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse and prose. His work has been published by literary magazines, anthologies and webzines in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Turkey, India, South Africa, Kenya, USA and Canada. Since 2018, he has been part of The Ekphrastic Review community particularly enjoying the bi-weekly challenges. 
 
**

Churchill’s Mode

A born artist would instinctively know 
how important it is to win the sky.
To wing the perspective at the right point,
to give the clouds a breathing disposition,
to flux the horizon beyond reach - 
it is a skill tried and tested 
in many long pictorial fightings. 
And in addition, if you turn the sea 
into a spitting image of the sky
and order the trees as dad’s army,
your conceptual measure 
will also be such a pleasure!

It was a really lovely day!
After arriving with his young wife
for their summer break, 
they didn't waste a minute inside,
he took his chisel and camped on the beach,
she sat under a tree on his right
chatting about love to sun and sea
and what fish they will have for dinner;
Churchill wouldn’t compromise on his 
English “good companions” as he called 
the fried fish and chips, while Clementine 
definitely wanted to try some local dish.

It was getting hotter.
The birds took refuge 
under every free leaf,
their chirping relieved,
the usual Atlantic breeze - at rest.
Churchill was a bit anxious,
he said he would soon take a dip 
to taste how salty the water was,
in order, he joked, to infuse this taste 
into his canvas; she said she was glad
he was going to separate for a moment
from his cigar; they laughed and he tipped
the tale with a practical joke - 
will dip with his brush to ensure 
the right amount of salt 
for his arty plat-du-jour;
oh, man of taste, she smiled.

Yes, everything in view was secured
in good spirit and accord,
an alliance essential equally for artist 
and leader, as for both it is a battlefield
 in front and the aim is one - to capture it.

Winston trusted his brush 
more than his books, he approached 
the canvas with the faith of a loyal
beauty-adherent and this gave him
a great advantage before his future transgressor,
who was, in fact, 
a failed artist. So it was clear straight
from the perspective of the canvas 
who would be famous and who infamous.

In just two decades this smooth sky 
will be cut in pieces by Stukas,
this exuberant waters will be slit
by U-boats, this green trees will be
burnt by bombs, this tender light 
will be gunned in smoke.

But the artist, who captured 
its peaceful charm 
and tasted its salty character 
would come to the rescue 
to recapture its life back,
true and serene as here seen.
His then view point would be now 
his horizon and thus the perspective 
would come full circle - 
a faithful completion 
of a man with a mission. 

Upon this lofty background  
one question comes pressing:
why Churchill considered success
“going from failure to failure 
without losing enthusiasm”?
Enthusiasm, what a strange word 
in the vocabulary of a modern history’s giant!
Ordinarily, it is left for youngsters, 
but adults would just ensure that they
 “will go the extra mile” 
in a typically English low profile. 
Etymologically, it is rooted in the Greek word
“enthusiasmous” - meaning…believe it or not…
”possessed by a God”.
Of course, talking Greek, thinking Gods. Hence, 
once the Greek root enters the context 
all comfort zones are dismantled,
you are either possessed by a god,
or not part of the right lot.
 Enthusiasmous is or not. 

It is all to say that 
Churchill’s Atlantic perception
is a glowing visual representation 
of enthusiasm -
enchanting, luminous, vivid,
water and sky trading radiant light 
in abundance, trees’ green shade 
inviting the curious, a God in his finest,
one is captivated to enter this 
elemental bliss and ask to see
the face of the possessing God 
to be able to recognise/or not 
the true enthusiastic features 
in any prospective/or not alliance. 

Was this rooting all Greek to Churchill,
 or not? One can’t speak of this matter
if one is short of a possessing God, 
but as for the right lot 
it goes without saying since 
that now proverbial Churchillian
“never despair” mode 
made this essence famous -
tuned here 
in this finely captured bay,
 just down the coastline 
of the D-day.

Ekaterina Dukas

**

A Truth We Shall Never Know

Invoking stillness of a sudden death
Or a long awaited pilgrimage,
The leaves drop to angel birds
Swooping motionless.

Guarded by the prayer flags,
Whispers beckon the sacred here.

Loosing words for the towering trees
Under the hermit sky, I breathe celestial.

Treasured dreams, bruises and grief,
The clouds shall find no more what hides beneath,
This lake of fulfilling wish from centuries ago.

Abha Das Sarma

Author's note: 30 Kms from Geyzing, West Sikkim district in India, lake Khecheopalri is located which is also known as the "Wish fulfilling lake." It is considered sacred and is a major Buddhist pilgrim site. It is believed that as soon as leaves fall on the water surface, the birds pick them up, keeping the waters neat and clean.

An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. 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, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.

**

The Lake as Artist
 
Look into me, Sir Winston.
I, Lake Mimizan lapping the country retreat
owned by your friend, Duke Bandor, 
will paint your portrait in watercolours 
as faithfully as you rendered me
with lemon-tinged clouds,
rippling trees and the hunting lodge 
hidden in the background.    
 
I won’t be upset if rain pocks my art,
a breeze ruffles my fluid canvas
or shadflies mar your image. 
I can always recapture you
when the wind is asleep --
drinking champagne on the dock
with Dali, Chaplin and Coco Chanel
or garbed in a smock with paintbrush in hand
keeping depression’s black dog at bay*
while chomping at your Cuban cigar.
 
A warning: dear Secretary of State for War and Air
boasting of killing “savages”
and brutal when quelling rebellions**
like you are hunting wild boars --
 
Remember as you row through my gallery,
admiring your liquid reflections
with your steely blue eyes — 
these non-commissioned portraits, 
iconic as the photographs** you hoped 
would make you immortal              
will have disappeared
before you reach the far shore.
 
Donna Langevin

*Churchill’s words.
**in 1920, as Secretary of State for War and Air, Churchill was responsible for quelling rebellions in British Somaliland and the uprising of Kurds and Arabs in British-occupied Mesopotamia.
***famed photos by Yusuf Karsh

Donna Langevin's fifth poetry collection, Brimming was published by Piquant Press 2019. Short-listed for the Descant Winston Collins prize in 2012, she won second prize in the 2014 GritLIT contest, and first prize in the Banister Anthology Competition 2019 and first prize in the Ontario Poetry Society’s Pandemic Poem Contest, 2020. Her plays, The Dinner and Bargains in the New World won first prizes for script at the Eden Mills Festival in 2014 and 2015. If Socrates Were in My Shoes was produced at the Alumnae Theatre NIF Festival in 2018. Winner of a second place Stella Award, her play Summer of Saints about the 1847 typhus epidemic and the role of the Grey Nuns and others who cared for the newly arrived Irish immigrants in Montreal is scheduled to be produced by Act 2, Ryerson University, and published by Prometea Press in 2022.
​
**
​

​Enjoy reading and writing ekphrastic poetry, fiction, or CNF?
​
We have an arsenal of ekphrastic inspiration for your writing practice- themed prompt books, workshops, and more.  Check out the selection ebooks and workshops below.

Obligatory Warning:

This post contains discussion about human sexuality, erotic literature, and visual art on these themes. Some readers and viewers may find them disturbing. Please consider this before you scroll down. By scrolling down, you confirm that you are 18 or over.

Writing about sex is not easy. 

It might not be hard to throw down a bunch of filthy adjectives and print them out, but getting to the heart of the matter, the truth of it all, is a different matter. It's difficult to really get naked and tell the truth- we are vulnerable when writing about our most intimate experiences. Sex is beautiful and terrible, funny and forgettable, disappointing and surprising, painful and healing, powerful and victimizing. Sex is a weapon, and a bond. It is holy, and it is evil. It is magical and banal. We are all at turns embarrassed by much ado about nothing, by the scandalous places our desire takes us. And we have all glimpsed that exalted place, where we experienced untold pleasure, union, love, where we finally took something for ourselves, or finally found ourselves giving when we thought we were empty. We have used sex selfishly and we have given ourselves generously. We have landed in nightmares, fairy tales, and real life with a mortgage, diaper bills, and a dog.

To those who bravely entered our ekphrastic sex contest- thank you for your courage. 

If you think writing about sex is easy, take a look at sex in literature, sex in cinema, sex in music. It's an incredibly commonplace subject, and it is almost always terrible. Henry Miller's infamous Tropic books come to mind. While countless heralded these as brave and beautiful tomes of the unspeakable, I was not moved by the, ahem, wooden language. Elsewhere, Miller is a very deft writer with many nuanced, if frank, works. Here, he handles women awkwardly to say the least, with his pen.

You might recall the travesty, Sex, by Madonna, an artist with every conceivable consultant, artist, and budget at her fingertips. In the 90s she decided to give us a gift, herself, naked, with erotic writings and nude photography, a kind of narcissistic self-portrait. I confess I was a big fan and young feminist and eager to get my hands on this new style of woman-centered, sex-positive art. The entire thing was hideous. The writing could not have been less exciting or more idiotic. This from a woman who fears nothing and had no limitations of talent and assistance available to her. She could not write a single honest, sensual sentence on the subject. 

To read good sex, read the poetry of Sharon Olds. Married sex, practical and pensive odes to various body parts, birth, aging, and some heady and ribald thrills, all woven around real characters and the rest of the stuff of real life. 

Of course, the queen of the literary erotic is Alexis Rhone Fancher. Fancher is known for her stunning poetry and small stories on two prominent themes: sex, and death. She writes about both with candid frankness, raw honesty, complexity, and a whole range of honest emotions. She writes about the characters and their complications, not just their body parts. Her work is shocking, but it is not about shock value. It's a shot to the heart and a good, long, honest look in the mirror.

I have all of Alexis's books: How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen; Enter Here; Erotic; Junkie Wife; The Dead Kid Poems; and State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies. I admire how a woman can write without flinching about the most terrible loss. That same openness, that same willingness to experience all of life's emotions, from the beautiful to the devastating to the untidy, permeates all of her poetry about sex, too, from power to pleasure to pain.

We were absolutely thrilled when Alexis agreed to be our guest judge for the Ekphrastic Sex contest. I could think of no one more suited to the role, and was on cloud nine when she accepted. We had a zoom workshop on Writing Sex as well. It was an absolute pleasure to work with Alexis. She helped choose the finalists here, and she has chosen the winning story and poem from these finalists as well, to be announced soon. Alexis read all entries without names or bios of authors.

THANK YOU ALEXIS XOXOXOXOXOX

Congratulations to all of you!

The Finalists (in no particular order):

Flash Fiction:

The Care and Feeding of Your Penis Tree, by Margo Stutts Toombs
Wages of Sin, by Bernardo Villela
The Neighbours, by Alan Bern

Poetry:

Frida Gives Birth to Herself, by Mary McCarthy​
The Smallest Events Cause Trembling, by Martina Reisz Newberry 
​For Another, by Alun Robert
In the Room Where We Live Forever, by Sherry Abaldo
Hurts, by F.F. Teague
Framing the Question, by Elsa Fischer
The Sheet, by Tricia Marcella Cimera
Unformed, by Judith Duncan
​Zeus and the Honey,  by Suzy Aspell

​For Another
 
another day
another beast
another scar
another bruise
another kink
another position
another crevice
another device
another grey hair
another crows foot
another tear
another vomit
another gin
another spiff
another douche
another few Francs
another night
another nightmare
another beating
another day closer
another life
another location
another existence
another vocation
 
Alun Robert

Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse. He has achieved success in poetry competitions across the British Isles, Europe and North America. His work has been published by many literary magazines, anthologies and webzines in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, India, South Africa, Kenya, USA and Canada. Since 2018, he has been part of The Ekphrastic Review community particularly enjoying the biweekly challenges. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland for whom he was a Featured Writer in 2019.

**


The Smallest Events Cause Trembling
 
Trysts take place in the day, blinds drawn against 
the sun or wide open to let in November’s 
weak excuses for light. 

The reason is this: Stealing time in the evening 
is too hard. The complications of being away 
from spouse and children when it is dark 

are too difficult to maneuver. Truth comes undone 
when met with the secrets of a room rife with whispers. 
You can almost say that your anxious breathing floats 

on an atmosphere of your best intentions and it may be 
that those body-to-body songs really are the best things 
you’ve ever done. 

The smallest events cause trembling: 
an exhaled breath, a flickering eyelash, a long airy “yes,” 
a knowing touch at the base of the spine– 

his or yours–it doesn’t matter which. 
At home, at 3 a.m.,you interrogate yourself– 
ask the questions that, one day, the spouse 

or the children or the siblings or the friends will ask. 
To all you’ll say: 
Life was too stern, 
too frightful. 
I looked for God 
but found this ‘other,’
who spoke to me 
in the voice of a merman 
and caused a tide in me 
to rise as high as it never 
had before. What I felt 
passed for miraculous 
and I was willing to die 
rather than let it go. 

When it’s over, you crave 
a desperate change of scenery, a haircut, 
a cold glass of water. The 3 a.m. interrogations 

continue. You promise yourself 
to be truthful, to give it all you’ve got. 
Then you can sleep.

Martina Reisz Newberry
 
Martina Reisz Newberry is a passionate lover of Los Angeles, she currently lives there with her husband. Newberry’s most recent book is BLUES FOR FRENCH ROAST WITH CHICORY, (Deerbrook Editions). She is also the author of NEVER COMPLETELY AWAKE, (May 2017, Deerbrook Editions). WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions). LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions) and RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE: Collected Poems (Red Hen Press).  She has been widely published in the U.S. and abroad. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo Colony for the Arts, Djerassi Colony for the Arts, Anderson Center for Disciplinary Arts.
​

Framing the Question
 
In Philadelphia you visit
the museums where nudes
revel in their flesh and bone. 
 
You’re jealous of Cézanne’s 
bathers, Renoir’s women, 
luxuriant, their skin so luminous.  
 
Framed in the mirror, 
you call yourself
            Interior with Old Nude

           Is this it?              
 
Look at those joyless breasts, 
the webs of veins, the profile 
needing surgery. 
 
You seek refuge with Rembrandt 
whose Old Women feed cats,
pluck geese, cut their nails. 
 
Some even    weigh gold.
 
Elsa Fischer

Elsa Fischer comes from the Netherlands, studied Art History at Carleton University, Ottawa, lived and jobbed on four continents and currently lives in Switzerland’s capital where she is a “yelpie” rather than a “woopie”. She tries hard to convey her love of poetry to the natives and is a member of a workshop for expats. She has two pamphlets in the UK and poems published in magazines and anthologies. She endeavours to age with grace.

The Neighbours 
 
The neighbours knew. Somehow. From across the road. How? Without hearing. 
 
The neighbours didn’t like it: they knew these young unmarrieds were having long sex in the afternoon. 
 
Yes, the young couple had locked the screen door; still, sounds went through the tiny holes. 

But the couple played jazz music on the record player set to repeat. Miles. Loud.  
 
The cover. Slowly she’d come, hard, but with almost no wordsounds. Sighs. He asked her if the river. 
 
They lay on a bed below two large picture windows— they could see the greened hilltops, but not the river running below. 
 
And the jazz music did its job. Miles. And he’d come even harder, so he thought. Loud. And asking. 
 
Damp nap. 
 
Later the couple chose to go shopping for their next meals. He crossed the dirt road to ask the neighbours if they needed anything. 
 
No answer. Standing on their long redwood front porch, he looked at them through the glass sliding door opened just a crack. 
 
Alan Bern

Alan Bern is a retired children’s librarian and cofounder with artist/printer Robert Woods of Lines & Faces, illustrated poetry broadside press/publisher, linesandfaces.com. His work has recently appeared in CERASUS, Mediterranean Poetry, Feral, and Mercurius. Alan’s awards for his writing include a medal from from SouthWest Writers and first runner-up for his poem “Boxae” in Raw Art Review’s first Mirabai Prize for Poetry, 2020. Alan is author of No no the saddest (Fithian Press), Waterwalking in Berkeley (Fithian Press), and greater distance (Lines & Faces). Alan performs with the dancer Lucinda Weaver as PACES and with musicians from Composing Together, http://composingtogether.org

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing 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 Snow Covered Roofs in Paris, by Gustave Caillebotte. Deadline is December 24, 2021 .

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. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click below to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 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 CAILLEBOTTE 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight EST, December 24, 2021.

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 will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. 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. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. 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! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
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16. 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!

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

​Eye to Eye
 
I have often wondered
Why that tiny oblong
Metal hole is called an eye
Why is that eye
Of that needle
So hard to permeate?
Why does that thread hungry needle
Make it so hard?
We dampen the edge with
Our own spittle
We twirl it between our
Thumb and pointer
We look for a magnifying glass
We give up
We begin again
And are relieved
And proud
When soft and hard connect
Then
We can sew our stories
Mend our minds
Alter our consciousness
Hem our tales
And
Embroider our own selves
On to our own selves
Self repair
One stitch at a time
And finally
See ourselves
Eye to eye.
 ​