 Giant Plastic Tap, by Benjamin Von Wong (Canada) contemporary Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, Thank you all so much for submitting your Plastic-provoked pieces to The Ekphrastic Review. A challenging challenge it was; I was quite taken by your thoughts and images re Von Wong’s artwork. Do enjoy the compilation below, and do keep on thinking and writing and discussing art and environment. And anything you would like to think on and write about, of course! Congratulations everyone, hurrah for TER and for dear Lorette! Thank you all, wishing you a grand 2024, Kate Copeland ** Plastic Pipeline “He’s got a plastic heart, plastic teeth and toes, plastic knees and a perfect plastic nose. He’s got plastic lips that hide his plastic teeth and gums”, so sang the Kinks then, about their plastic man in 1969. Now in the twenty-first century it seems he’s here as plastic gushes everywhere over land, over sea and into our very being as plastics ingested from our food, and inhaled in from the air we breath become part of our bodies, part of ourselves to be inherited by our children. We fill every hole in the ground and soon the sea will be transformed into plastic land. We re-cycle it by the shipload from rich places to poor, places where the people don’t matter, where “plastic man don’t feel no pain”. There we dump it on the newly plasticised people in the plastic land we’ve created for them. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** To Care a double triolet Crow picks up masks, cups and paper, lines nest Boy’s invention funnels plastic from sea Buy food in glass, not plastic, do my best Crow picks up masks, cups and paper, lines nest Teacher speaks conservation to the rest To listen, to care, hear earth’s heartfelt plea Crow picks up masks, cups and paper, lines nest Boy’s invention funnels plastic from sea It’s not too late to care, find other ways Walk more, drive much less –emit fewer fumes I use less heat, wear warmer clothes these days It’s not too late to care, find other ways Better act now than wait, see how it plays out, our children will now learn in classrooms It’s not too late to care, find other ways Walk more, drive much less –emit fewer fumes Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson writes about nature, animals in captivity, environment and bullying. Her poems have appeared in Open Door, Sledgehammer, FLRE, The Ekphrastic Review and other journals; full length works are available on Amazon. A Pushcart nominee for her poem, "The Sky Must Remember," Dickson is a captive elephant advocate and lover of feral cat TNR. ** To Benjamin Von Wong Regarding Giant Plastic Tap What problems does such valve create or leave no longer solved concealed that you insinuate are better unresolved? While art indeed can advertise -- as noble -- worthy cause the risk it oversimplifies should give the artist pause. Far better I would find your thought if trickling from your tap were single uses we have sought to spare us from the trap that plastic bags and tubes avert by science dripped that we assert. Epilogue The point I make does not assail the urgency to say we -- circumspectly -- must not fail to find a better way. 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. ** No Genie in These Bottles A sandy beach, I tried to walk across it. My way was blocked by an enormous faucet Suspended in the air—no pipe or post-- It spewed used bottles all along coast. I’ve never seen such plastic in one place. A seaside ecological disgrace. And yet it seemed quite beautiful as well, The shapes and colors balanced out the smell. An artist named Von Wong created it. Some people liked it, others hated it. Although it’s sad to say, I must confess That my lifestyle contributes to the mess. Detergent, water, soda pop, and more Contribute to the trash along the shore. Recycling seems to help a little bit But nothing seems to bring an end to it. For life with plastic bottles will go on As long as we accept it with a yawn. James A. Tweedie James A. Tweedie has lived in California, Utah, Scotland, Australia, Hawaii, and presently in Long Beach, Washington. He has published six novels, four collections of poetry, and one collection of short stories with Dunecrest Press. His award-winning poetry has appeared both nationally and internationally in both online and print media. Among his awards for poetry are First Place honours in the Society of Classical Poets 2021 International Poetry Competition; Quarterly Prize Best Poem from The Lyric; First Place in the 2022 100 Days of Dante Poetry Competition; and the Laureate Choice Award in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. ** Earth’s Destroyer Giant plastic tap, meaningless and carelessness, destroying the earth. 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. ** 2042 my god is everlasting. how couldn’t he be? his robe is rigid & reflective & kissed with sweat, the scripture is an oesophageal tube; rooted through the grounds of the church. all of it, the sandy dunes and the polyester ocean, choked with the phlegm of the anemones and the half-melted exhales of the confessional. when we kneel in the church of plastic, we wear knee guards made of ancient tongues. the rubble of yesterday’s world is our uniform. we pray to be everlasting. our god tells us, clearly: the oceans will run dry, and so will your townships. the clouds will fear the arid world, and instead visit your replacement planets. the only thing that you can do is be delightfully inorganic. the stench of hot plastic is heaven; ascension. i feel each vessel in my body, every microbe, as a part of the production line; our final prayer! we will be made, everlasting. Dorian Winter Dorian Winter is a writer & artist harking from Boorloo, Western Australia, inspired by the visceral, the archetypal, and the unconscious. His poetry and artworks have been published in Pelican Magazine, Echo Literary Magazine, and The Battering Ram. Additionally, he is the editor-in-chief of emerging international literary journal Antler Velvet. Website: dorianwinter.com ** Scarecrow Once she’s done sweating us out of her pores, heaving us out with floods and conflagrations, she’ll set to work to balance, to restore, to heal extinctions with her new creations. As she takes time to make fresh, fertile soil out of our piles of refuse and our bones, turn reckless plastics back to buried oil, cleanse war-scarred rubble down to simple stones, Will she be thorough? Or not quite erase all of our works, but leave some scars and stains, so all her future creatures mark our trace: our petrified possessions and remains? This way, perhaps, she can scare back to sense those tempted to ape Homo sapiens. Yana Kane Yana Kane came to the United States as a refugee from the USSR. She holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, and a PhD in Statistics from Cornell University. Having retired after a successful technical career, she is pursuing an MFA in Literary Translation and Poetry at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Her recent and upcoming publications include 128 LIT, Allium, American Chordata, EastWest Literary Forum, The Los Angeles Review, Platform Review, RHINO Poetry, and Точка.Зрения/View.Point. View.Point recognized her translations of poetry of witness from Ukraine and Russia as among the "Best of 2022." 128 LIT nominated her translation for the Deep Vellum Best Literary Translations Anthology 2025. Her bilingual poetry book, Kingfisher/Зимородок, was published in 2020. ** Molded by Madness From rise to set, sun penetrates as clouds of ancient warning brew; from rise to fall, the tide recalls, both waving, drowning, laps increase. Our stalwart trees store while they stand, but bark out shrinking rings unheard. So much laid out here, sands of time, this scene screened - though that sun less so - the scree we see, but blind, our lot, as stumble, tumbling, rubble drop. We tick as plus, recycle box, a make of plastic, self inflict, because we’re molded, present past, though imperfect, uncertain, tense. Such giant steppes slow claim the globe, dismissed as stuff of fairy tales. But it’s not wicked, which to face, for if ignored, the choice is made; lagoons, retreat reefs of the rich soon lost at sea, no landing, stripped. Dust devils swirl from stranded sand, the islands soon to be engulfed, and plastic balls once played on beach long overshot as pellets, brine. We’re woken, force of faucet gush, but stop the cock, up underneath. Poor pupils for the insights known, we focus imperceptible, sea, sky and tree with constancy, but not ice melt, seep, drip of tap. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** happy to serve you the baby reaches for plastic first not wood not cotton the plastic feels like skin. sticky, good for gumming smooth to the touch the baby has no opinion on pollution. the baby has not yet seen a white plastic bag forest or a white plastic bag flying like a ghost or clinging to chainlink like a surrender flag. the baby doesn't know the word recycling yet. the differences between #4 (bubble wrap) #2 (shampoo bottles) #1 (clamshell containers) later, the baby will find it ironic that #1 is named after a bivalve mollusc like the one her mother lifted from wet sand as a child and regarded as an alien its silky, cloudy lip. its shell, a heavy stone, fitting so perfectly into her hand. she wanted to take it home but she put it back into the river so it could breathe again. DJ Wolfinsohn DJ (Debby) Wolfinsohn has written about movies and music for a variety of publications for many years. Her stories/poems appear in Vestal Review, HAD, Memoir Mixtapes, and others. Her 'zine is in the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame and is part of New York University's Riot Grrrl Archives. She lives in the Austin version of the Brady Bunch house, sharing it with 3 humans, 3 animals and 300 plants. Find her on twitter @debbywolfinsohn or debbywolfinsohn.journoportfolio.com. ** Plastic-Fantastic a cautionary tale in two parts i 1950 "Is it...magic? It's so light!" Cindy Johnson held the slim blue bottle up to the light, admiring its translucent gleam. "No, my dear, not magic. It's called plastic. The guys in the lab cooked it up from the leftovers from refining gasoline. Here, have a look at these." Cindy's husband Jim passed her a small red box and a shiny white plate. "Just a few early samples. The stuff's so flexible, it can be any colour and we can mould it into almost any shape - bottles, dishes, cartons, you name it. No more cutting down trees, or expensive pottery kilns, or furnaces for glass and steel. And no need for carpenters, potters or glass-blowers. It won't warp or rot when it gets wet and it doesn't tear or break. It's wipe-clean too, and so cheap it doesn't matter if you lose it or throw it away. It really is the future!" "And it's so pretty! The colours are so bright." Cindy looked at the thin, light plate, glowing under the white glare of electric light. "If only you could make clothes out of it too." "Say, that's not a bad idea. I'm sure one of the guys could work out a way." Jim Johnson continued, "If we can spin it into a thread we could weave with it." He tapped his finger on his chin, momentarily lost in thought and then gave his wife a thousand watt smile. "We're only just discovering what plastic can do. It's going to revolutionise the world." ii 2050 Kayla Hendricks checked the solar array and water-cell batteries. Good, enough power stored for the long range radio. The daily check-in call was shorter now, with only five remaining stations since Station Ten stopped attending a few weeks ago. The Alaskan outpost had been the last of the North American stations on the network. Worryingly, their final report had mentioned nearby sightings of the Grey Wave. Kayla's companion on day watch was Shanto Iversen. He seemed to read her mind, saying, "Not much chance of it here, all the way down on the southern tip of Aotearoa, Kayla. One of the few things we Pacific Islanders got right, banning that bacterium. Too good to be true, something that'd gobble up all the plastic waste with no side effects." Kayla gave a thin smile. "Yes, after the fiascos with cane toads and rabbits we finally learned the hard way. I'm keen to hear from Station Seven if they have any new drone reports from the Pacific Garbage Patch Gyre. That's where the Grey Wave will turn up first round here, I'm sure of it." "All the plastic garbage - hell, any kind of garbage - is ancient history, Kayla. No-one's been pumping out trash since the end of industrialisation when the big landmasses got swarmed by the Wave, and you know all new plastic was banned back in Thirty-Six." "It's not just the feed plastic, it's the currents, Shanto. We had all that ice melt in the late Twenties and the Gyres have been increasingly erratic. Don't forget that plastic spew off Tasmania last year." "Double-edged sword if you ask me. The Aussie plastic miners salvaged a load of good stuff for re-use. Valuable resources for their communities." "How can you say that? We've been trying to decontaminate ourselves from that plastic muck for decades." "Look, Kayla, you're a lot younger than me. I can still remember when plastic was allowed, before the first Grey Wave emerged. Back then we still had air travel, takeaway food, grocery stores, toys! We had towns and cities, places with more than a couple of dozen people living there. Not this foraged half-existence that we're scraping together! Sometimes I..." The radio crackled into life, interrupting. As he reached to hit transmit, Shanto said, "Best paste on a smile, Kayla, and sound positive for our buds out there. Only a few thousand people in known contact around the globe, we can't have them thinking we're in mental meltdown, can we?" Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in Ekphrastic Review Challenges, Visual Verse, Blue Heron Review, Whale Road Review and elsewhere online, and in print in Poetry Scotland and several anthologies. Emily is also the judge of the monthly ekphrastic poetry contest run by The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. She lives in the UK. ** Conservation Class We often eye-rolled at our uncle the naturalist who turned off the tap while brushing his teeth in the 60s before climate consciousness evolved into a movement; we undertook our meager share picking up tossed cans and bottles on Plum Island where birders and streakers spent weekends pursuing their hobbies; we may have covered our eyes but never forgot the lesson. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** A Magus in the Sand -after Gerald Stern What I took to be the bleached scapula of a whale turned out to be the door of a plane nesting between the cleavage of sand dunes. What I took to be an orb of quartz turned out to be the severed head of a doll, imprisoned in the gray, unearthly light. What I took to be driftwood turned out to be toilet-cleaner bottles, milk cartons, and floats, placid and gaunt. What I took to be a gannet’s orchid-shaped bone turned out to be plastic pansies peeping beneath a stone. What I took to be a lost Eden was an abandoned home. What I took were the scapula, orb, driftwood, and bone, those things death or weather had transformed. Louhi Pohjola Louhi Pohjola was born in Montreal, Canada, to Finnish immigrant parents. She was a cell and molecular biologist before teaching sciences and humanities in a small high school in southern Oregon. She is an avid fly-fisherwoman and river rock connoisseur. She enjoys fibre arts, reading, and chamber music and is obsessed with black holes and octopi. Louhi lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and her temperamental terrier. The latter thinks that he is a cat. ** I overhear them muse on anti-natalism The bloodline will end with us they resolve, for who with a grain of conscience would want to yoke new lives to the hellscape that opens beyond? Swimming back in time, I tread water to look up at the suspended flotsam of reckless aeons—skimming the fine line between death and hedonism—a cache of years, paused, rarely fretting about the future—so invincible was the armoured high of youth coursing on the toss of a lucky tarot, all hope and ambition mixed in swilling currents and daredevilry was all that counted, never thinking that one would live to see another sunrise, much less stand transformed, reformed, to bring forth and hold such precious seeds. And now they fold away-- discontent clutter-heavy in the world conferred on them, and I hear them and their kind-- wise eyes, awakened minds resigned, the halo of their tragic beauty beaded by the water’s edge, resolved to bring no more beings into the debris of existence, only to walk amid what is left and then to fade without bearing fruit in this ripple of ruin this incessant drip of rust and waste, this imploding heap-- the legacy of leached sands and defiled oceans flowing slowly, running dry. Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and improv pianist. Her art and poetry have been published in various print and online literary journals and anthologies including Cordite Poetry Review, Bracken Magazine, and Black Bough Poetry. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net, and was a finalist in the Dai Fry Memorial Award for Mystical Poetry 2022 (Wales). Her chapbook, Patchwork Fugue, is forthcoming from Atomic Bohemian Press in February 2024. She lives and works in Sydney on traditional Gammeragal land. Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings ** Von Wong's Plastic Tap (a Mirror Cinquain) Tiny plastic droplets unnoticed one by one spigot to beach to ocean tide, sucked by waves to a netherworld, statehood of of debris, faucet drips manifested, as plastic DNA. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown began 2024 as he has for years; writing each morning looking at the elm trees and pond outside his window. A year ago at age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. In the coming year he will continue to write and submit poems about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination. ** Upon Peering at a Plastic Tap Sculpture vessels subdue endless iterations of distorted worlds murky reflections of trees and sun and sky these reflections contain the schemes of industry schemes have been distilled and sizzle as if from a flask the chemicals that steam could fill a sky with smog the sky is a vault that contains the dreams of poets and poets derive from that vault a linguistic alchemy and this alchemy hinges upon the clarity of the azure so to witness a giant tap pour out vessel upon vessel vessels as the things that accrue to suspend the tap and each vessel drips with the thirst of multinationals a relentless thirst that hydrous worlds will never quell a universe could be in each bottle and all would be consumed and the thirsty ones would become thirstier thereafter the sandbars would catch similar waves of the tides and the tidal foam would billow from the same sea Efren Laya Cruzada Efren Laya Cruzada is a poet who was born in the Philippines and raised in the small town of Alice, Texas. He studied English and American Literature and Creative Writing at New York University. He is the author of Grand Flood: a poem. His poems have been published in many journals, most recently in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Tiger Moth Review, and Discretionary Love. He now resides in Austin, Texas. ** Momentarily Yours, Forever Hers healthy hair healthy body milk it does your body good drink more water cleans your clothes better makes your skin softer fresh breath fresh laundry freshly squeezed all packaged for your convenience in single serving bottles for your health for the health of your children for the health of all children but not for our Mother who is choking on the shells of our discarded choices Michele Cacano Michele Cacano lives in Seattle with one spouse and two cats. She is a self-employed LMT who writes poetry, short horror, HF, SF, NF, and more. Since 2007, she has led the Seattle Writers Meetup Group through weekly critiques and ongoing support. Find her on chillsubs.com and @MicheleCacano on Twitter and Instagram. ** Washing Hands I’m told that washing was easy in 2023 when water was plentiful but tasted gritty like the sand in which they buried their heads. I twist the tap, wait for the familiar rumble and grumble of methane pipes to exhume their tumble of plastic on greased palm. There is something satisfying in the rub of garbage on thumb, the stink of take-away tangling with skin and polyethene limbs. So much filth spread over beaches beneath a scorching sky, temperatures rising with the lies we have been fed. How easily they roll off the tongue. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published soon. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** How to Swim from Half Moon Bay, California to Shanghai, China Wait an hour after eating. Shower before you enter the water. Bring pepper spray for sharks. Bring mesh bags. Bring balloons. Stop checking your phone. Watch for oil tankers. Sing along with humpbacks. Learn to love plankton. Steer for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Gather plastic into mesh bags. Blow up balloons, attach to bags. A boat will follow and gather. Pause in the warm bath of El Niño. Wash hair. Rinse. Repeat. Twice a day swish your mouth with wave water. Saline is good for dental health. One weary morning when every muscle aches you will see God. Say hi. You will hear God (or mermaids) say Thank you for removing the plastic. Remember over there mermaids speak Mandarin. Pearls speak any language. Find some. Give some. Enjoy! Joe Cottonwood Joe Cottonwood repairs homes and writes poems in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest books of poetry are Foggy Dog and Random Saints. ** This Tap should be stopped, it’s gapped from reality as we know it; tap that imparts plastic surgery en masse over the earth’s face without its concession for such impersonation. This cunning tap should be stopped for face’ sake, this gaped tap…trap… Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, has studied and taught linguistics and culture at 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 and has been honoured frequently by The Ekphrastic Review and its Challenges. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** The Emperor's New Clothes Sea, trees, sky, pale, neglected Landscape, dull, so predictable Sea and land touch at the horizon At a distant point, a point zero, Certainly and aptly the 'vanishing point'. Even the sky's dominance is threatened As clouds drift, anxious, uncertain Man, tapping the world's resources Stands tall, metallic, though faintly ridiculous Wearing the livery of his dominance Paper flummery, a cardboard crown Gorgeous, eye catching, empty trash All his devotees grovel in the sand Only the homeless are free to whisper 'This King is rubbish!' Sarah Das Gupta Cambridge Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher from Cambridge, UK. She worries that this is an image of what we will leave to our children and grandchildren. ** The 3 Rs When I was a kid we learned the 3 Rs Reading Writing & Arithmetic Kids today also learn 3 Rs Reduce Reuse Refuse (on a good day in a good place) When living in Kenya 50 years ago Kibera slum was not a thing plastics was not a thing pollution was not a thing Snorkelling off Mombasa was a glorious thing akin to swimming in a tropical fish bowl today it's akin to dumpster diving the UN tells us that in 25 years there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish that only 9% of plastic gets recycled WWF tells us we consume a credit card's worth of plastic every week COP delegates tell us to break our addiction to fossil fuels & plastics oil execs tell us that it is our own personal responsibility to do what? obfuscate? what I have yet to learn is how what when to tell my grandchildren Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith thanks TER for sharing Von Wong's Turn Off the Plastic Tap. A timely choice for New Year's resolutions concerning the environment & our use of plastics in the kitchen: 1. buy less 2. cook from scratch 3. eschew packaged / processed food / plastic cutlery 4. choose wood cutting boards, bowls, etc. 5. choose glass over plastic containers 6. use reusable bags (a single-use plastic bag can take 1,000 years to decompose.
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