 Snack, by Daphna Kato (Netherlands) contemporary. Inkspired Languorous lie, less stretch as loose, acute, obtuse round island rug, a carpet fringe, frieze hieroglyphs - by fall of things, a pattern type. Though parallels do not conform, accoutrements of lazy life, of physics serendipity, here’s surreal to mark our ways. See flex as spring, aerial view, curl fronds, though not acanthus, phew! Framed heavy dark, yet flecks, grain, rain, what midnight hour for fairy tail? Of mermaid form, those weightless legs, her limbs a tale of trailing lithe, line crested spine of dorsal fins, a stegosaurus costume break? A piece of cake, this inkspired plate, or is it pizza, box wide eyed? Do snakes snack after jaws engorge? No apple of that Eden’s eye. Remote at hand if surf the strange, defy the gravity of all, break out the order of the day to dream beyond the pre-set staid. 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. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Relaxin’ Nothing so appealing than chillin’ and readin’ or watching the telly ‘bout dinos, my favorite beasties. Wearin’ my spino pjs, sippin’ cocoa, eatin’ pizza and ice cream, alone in my cozy room on a rainy night, thunder gives me a fright but I’m ok warm and inside, if I were to see a T-Rex, I’d hide or offer him pizza, he might enjoy pepperoni and cheese, you never know, it might please him and he’d stomp off and leave me be. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson loves to write from prompts, especially Ekphrastic poems. Her long history of writing reaches back over 50 years; her poems appear in various publications including Niagara Falls Poetry Project, Medusa's Kitchen and The Ekphrastic Review. She has served as guest editor for three journals, as well as curating several volumes of poetry. Dickson is an avid reader and writer who shares her home with two rescued cats, Cam and Jojo. ** Itinerant Dinosaurs don’t eat ice cream or keep pet echidnas in a cup - granted, if they weren’t extinct, who knows if they’d buy androids or a smartphone or order pizza in a box or lie on rugs and watch TV or wallpaper the house in prison stripes or buy a sofa or a creeping plant or hang a set of Tibetan prayer flags between the window and the public toilet stall called home. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda lives and writes poetry in Lake Tabourie, NSW, Australia in traditional Yuin country, and enjoys seeing her poetic work published in various literary spaces. ** A Late Night Encounter Hello. Please, sit down and join me. I’m finally getting a chance to relax after an exhausting evening. I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Millie. I work here in the McCormick’s home. The McCormick’s? No, they didn’t actually hire me. In fact, the mister and missus don’t believe the likes of me walk the earth. Why, yes. Thank you for asking. Having them deny my very existence does hurt my feelings a bit. I mean, I work very hard at what I do, and I never get a single night off. They’ve been told – often several times in one evening – that I am here. And yet? Consistent denial on their part. But as you can obviously see, I do exist. I eat. I drink. I rest. I watch TV. And, of course, I work. Do? Exactly what I’m on this earth to do. Nothing more. Nothing less. Oh, you want specifics? What if I give you a demonstration instead? Here, lie down on this sofa. Hold this stuffed hedgehog. A little tighter. Now, dangle your right foot just a bit. Do you feel yourself getting sleepy? Good! Good! Now, close your eyes while I turn off the light and scoot myself under here – ugh, tight fit. And grab your foot like so. Ouch! I bonked my head due to your dreadful screaming. My fault? You are the one who asked for the particulars. No, of course I didn’t expect such antics. For goodness’ sake, please calm down. There is no need to carry on like that. Oh bother. Now, look what you’ve done. All this noise woke the children. And I never got to finish my snack! Ah well, as my mother always told me, an ‘under the bed’ monster’s job is never done. Teri M Brown Teri M Brown is a wife, mother, grandmother, Online for Authors podcast host, and author who loves word games, reading, bumming on the beach, taking photos, singing in the shower, hunting for bargains, ballroom dancing, playing bridge, and mentoring others. Teri’s debut novel, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow(Jan 2022), is a historical fiction set in Ukraine, her second, An Enemy Like Me (Jan 2023), a WWII historical fiction, and her third, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap (Jan 2024), is an Appalachian granny woman tale. Learn more at www.terimbrown.com. ** Superhero Halloween, long past, she can't bear to surrender her cunning disguise, cloaked in its magic her legs are weightless her gumption limitless her force endless. Go ahead, grab the remote, try to change the channel but be warned this dragon's superpowers heighten with every bite of pizza slurp of cocoa nibble of cookie, who knows what can happen with all three at once? Prepare yourself to find out. Elaine Sorrentino An enthusiastic fan of ekphrasis, Elaine Sorrentino has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Writing in a Women’s Voice, The Poetry Porch, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Gyroscope Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. ** Friday Night – 7pm Stop. Stretch out, lizard like. Unearth the pleasure of the rerun, proudly mouth words learnt by heart. Disconnect. Send your unapologetic apologies. Ignore your digital self, desperate for attention and let the phone battery die. Savour. Relish in that dreaded word: solitude. Revel in the sight of it; the taste of it; the core of it. Slowly exhale. Stephanie White Stephanie White is a teacher from Nottingham, England. She has recently taken tentative steps into the writing and submission of poetry. When not indulging in writing, she is a regular wild swimmer. ** To Daphna Kato Regarding Snack You've drawn a dream where you confide illusion and the truth reside and each within the other seen becomes perspective you convene to mesmerize beholding eye that cannot help but wonder why a bygone era went awry as you in black and white imply by walls that never seem to form around a simpler joyous norm now gone forever but for you whose cleverness creates the view you revel in as realm of queen who draws what cannot be unseen. Portly Bard Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Partygoer I was all dressed up and ready to go! The spiny snake had seemed a great idea, it fitted my pricklier than a hedgehog mood when I chose it yesterday. I imagined myself slithering round the drinkers, the canapé eaters and the dancers, snapping at their ankles. I imagined their surprise and how I would laugh! I thought in passing about the Health and Safety issues, all those feet ready to trample me, such negative thoughts, but they passed slithered away like snakes in the grass. I decided to practice a bit, found some snacks to nibble and lay prone to work on my slither but somehow I became distracted lying there, so comfy, eating cake, so comforting, and a little drink, so calming when taken with mindless TV. I’m not ready to party now. I shall just lie here dreamily dreaming. 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. ** A Contemplative Crocodile Her body and her mood lie unnaturally flat. Somehow she fits into her daughter's early-teen crocodile Oodie. It's tight at the seams but she's made it work. Her daughter has left it behind, along with Friday pizza and movie night. The teeth on the crocodile Oodie are for show. Don't be fooled, they're only made of foam. She doesn't bite. She's just a little sad. No, more pensive than outright sad. You see, her daughter, an only child, has left home, again. She lies on the rug her daughter brought home from Athens on her last trip. She can't relate to her daughter's wanderlust. She’s never traveled herself, not really. Family camping trips as a child don’t count, crammed in the back of the family station wagon with her annoying little brother and her ‘too cool for school’ big sister. Somehow, because she was the middle child, she always had to sit in the middle. And overseas trips? Forget it. She never had the money for that. ‘How do kids these days travel so freely?’ she ponders. The steady rain has a ruminative effect with her big world thoughts laced with ‘woe is me’ on loop. The tub of gourmet ice cream is strategically placed within arm’s length and looks just the right suppleness, momentarily stealing her attention. Wild raspberry swirl. She takes a small spoonful. She knows she will devour the whole tub tonight, but she is patient. Frozen in time. Adam Stone Award winning lyricist from Australia who since 2023 has gravitated towards short story and flash fiction writing. Member of Writers Victoria, Geelong Writers Inc and Bellarine Writers. ** A Brief History of the Rebellious Teenager Post War- she slips out the back, slips into a booth at the coffee bar to the juke box, a cola in her hand and a High School boy - his arm carelessly snaking her waist canoodling in corners of red PVC. Mid-Sixties- she powders her face in clouds of Dusty Springfield white, spider-lashes clumped in black. She stiletto-staggers along the road to hang with rockers, leather-clad, the cloy of engine oil alluring. Skip forward in time- late 70s, she bops to songs on Top of the Pops, arguments play loop on loop as she flounces from rooms in platforms and flares to the club, where Travolta clones strut their stuff. Millennium just around the corner she needles and nags until at last her mother caves, buys tickets to gigs- Steps and The Spice Girls at the O2 all grown up, swigging white lightning and puffing on fags with her clique. She slips into Lockdown all flame-fizz, emerges like flat-pack, black and white. Pizza-box grease lolls on the floor, she drinks Netflix through a cable-straw and scrolls the world with iPhone eyes, the occasional flash of dragon fire. 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 pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** When the Whole World Wears a Costume Late June night, on your living room floor, slatted white, and each moment in dinosaur outfit is not a failure and the tasseled carpet talks cheap: I’m the Captain of fun, honeybun. You see the cliff marks of the present dressed up as an ice cream globule-- all creamy soft and wavy. What hums the glow of bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling slants the lighting, or buzzes the camped-out horizon above the pepperoni pizza slices and the plants with spindly, dark vines. They breathe what oxygen is here, behind the TV animal-like, or beside the baby porcupine staring from a striped cup as if puzzled while asking, “Why are you home this often?” Here, a cup might house your animal delight richly, weighing down passages of ever-clear sanity or did sanity take root twelve hundred miles from here on Waldorf Drive in Akron, Ohio where the backyard black cherry tree canopied seven good years with you quaffing tire-scented air and burnt leaves. Home to grass-bladed tents to hide bumble bees which don summer as stinging crimson. Memory doesn’t voice how many miles anymore. Open the future behind you in a black drawer. John Milkereit John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer. He has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals such as The Comstock Review,Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues editions of The Ekphrastic Review. In December, Kelsay Books published his fourth collection of poems entitled, Lost Sonnets for My Unvaccinated Lover. ** A Letter to the Past The scent of cheese, the aroma of ketchup pervades the air, invades my nostrils. I’m too hungry to peel off the tight costume that sticks to my skin. So, I turn off the distracting glare of television and settle down on the Persian rug. The delivery guy had said my order was straight from the oven. He was not wrong. The steam does a sprightly dance as I uncover the pizza and the cookies. I feel the crust of each bite on my tongue, the tanginess of olives, the spice of paprika and jalapeños, the crunch of the onions, the bell peppers, the cherry tomatoes travelling down my throat and into the cave of my ravenous stomach. The pair of incandescent bulbs overhead shine through the night’s song of darkness. The festoon of sepia-tinted photographs oscillates gently against the wooden wall slats, in tune to the rhythm of the rain’s pitter-patter. Your gift of love, Rancho, watches me from his coffee-mug perch while I recline in crocodile pose, stretch, reach out to comfort in the warm cocoon of this moment. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in several magazines such as Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Visual Verse, Quill & Parchment, Shotglass Journal, Sparks of Calliope, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press, Ink, Sweat & Tears and various other journals. Her microchaps A Single Moment and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. ** How to Snack with a Dragon Black scaled dragon lying in its lair stretched out - relaxed - surrounded by its treasures the business of cleaning its hoard complete now time for a snack at its leisure its sharpened the spines on its back all the way from its head to the tip of its tail now it’s time for a dragon to relax so approach it as slowly as a snail or quiet as a mouse if that suits you best it’s a risk like crossing the Rubicon stealth is the test to not rouse the beast be on your mettle from minute one and don’t expect a share of its Snackage a dragon is as protective of this as its trove it has a monster-appetite for pie and ice cream better to be prepared by taking your own it takes up a lot of space as it lays there it’s back legs stretched almost to the door step cautiously and avoid all the obstacles then wait to be invited to sit on the floor don’t show that you’re scared or nervous when it looks you in the eye look right back only speak when spoken to and with these rules you’ll avoid being its next favourite snack! Better to not meet a dragon when it’s hangry if it rumbles and grumbles it’s not a perfect storm let it have its snack on its favourite treats and it might turn back into its more reasonable human-teenage form! Peter R. Longden "My passion for poetry began over 25 years ago: my way to record how I see the world. I am married to Sally with two grown-up boys (and a granddaughter). I submit to competitions, one poem shortlisted for the International O'Bheal Five Words Poetry Competition in 2022, others published locally." ** Saturday Night Dreaming Watching my snack In front of the telly Wearing my dino Flat on my belly Perfectly happy Perfectly me I spy with my little eye A soap unseen My private dream Stien Pijp Stien Pijp lives in the east part of the Netherlands. Some years ago she and her family moved there to a house in the woods. As a dreamy urban person, comfortable with the rhythm of the city, she is now getting closer to nature every day. She works as a language therapist. She reads stories and poems of friends and sometimes writes herself. ** Cookie Dough and Tic-Tac-toe the X’s the O’s the hash and the tags # the sweat the blood the stain and the tears `` drip drip drip in the center, the core, the heart. my heart, to be exact. which was somewhere near austin by now. or at least traces of it settled there in his pockets dusting up against his thighs wrestling with his keys and whispering why. i lost the Tic the Tac and the Toe. all the Xs and every O. he loves me. he loves me not. pigtails and schoolyards and kissing in a tree. he carved our initials with a plus +plus +plus and an arrow —> right through it. he bled me, gut me, drained me. he sliced open my arms milked my veins sucked out the red licked the last drop and fled. but left the black Xs instead. left the black to the sheep to the gin to the wig. left the black to the man to the john to the cash. left the black to the A to the D to the C. left the black to the horse to the cherry to the tree and left me. left the black of the mug of the hedge of the hog. left the black of the rain of the love of the blind. left the black of the za of the box of the stripes. left the black of the spikes of the footed of the jams. stamped inky fingerprints on my belly and planted charcoal-stained kisses on my neck. tattooed graffiti on my breath for me to choke on the stench and all the rest. ring around the rosie he left the hell the hath and first comes love then comes all the FuRyyy! ashes ashes we all fall down black marker winged out the window, where the caw caw caw of the crow drowned out crowded house on the radio. don’t dream it’s over, they sang. oh, it’s over, i grrrowled. and crawled out from under my bed left the black of the night of the wild of the things. left the black of the horns of the claws of the teeth. left the black of the king of the crown of the carol. left the black of the tin of the foil of hat (-wearing) tornado-ripping t-rex sized terrible things we do for love in tomorrow’s trash. gathered the O’s grabbed a spoon and gobbled down a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie dough. Michelle Hoover Michelle Hoover is an aspiring poet, graduate student, and professional wiseacre. Living near a mountain on unceded Ute territory with her ornery feline, Stevie, the Magnificent Marshmallow, she loves how language, when constructed in unique, beautiful, and even dark ways, can become an elixir for tired souls. She enjoys her toes in the grass, a hardy laugh, and a backstroke under a starry sky. Her work can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, on her phone, her friends’ phones, and now, presumably, your phone; enjoy! ** Curiouser When Mr. Prickles popped up from the cup he huffed as hedgehogs are wont to do it's late it's late for canton tea & crumb pets Alas sighed Alice with her siamese smile I have but a slice of peyote pie & wee droops of shroom tea oh dear oh dear gruffed Mr P but that wouldn't dew nicely Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes at times from an off-grid cabin in Quebec where she communes with the loons and bathes in the moonlight. ** Witch’s Night In the wind howling / this potent night / you want to walk out in it / do a rain dance / but it’s chilly wet / and you remember how / you frightened your neighbour / the last time / so you stay in / play dress up / eat ice cream / ignore the phone / watch a paranormal thriller / you already know who did it / your familiar beside you / ensconced in / a glimmer of togetherness / your space made sacred / the comforting pelt of rain / surrounding / your haven womb home / small but perfect / your creeper plants wave at you / as you try and glean / creepy guy’s next move / damn this series is good / so is your life / Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, and Unlost Journal to name a few. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, writing in her local favourite café, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and X (Twitter): @NusraNazir. She blogs regularly at https://sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** The Best Day Today I made the best day…maybe not the best day of my life, but it was up there as one I’ll remember. Every hour was filled with my favorite things. I lounged in the grass to watch the clouds transform into shapes and created stories for them. I let the warm sun bake my skin. I ate hot dogs and macaroni and cheese for lunch. I blasted boy band music and screeched every lyric until my neighbor rattled my apartment door with an irritated fist. When I opened the door, I stared into his purple face and told him that I listen to no man. It was exhilarating. The color of his face inspired me to paint the walls of my bedroom fuchsia. As a final touch, I stuck plastic glowing stars above my bed. When the fluffy white clouds of the morning turned into stormy gray, and I took myself for a walk, splashing in every puddle I passed, ruining my white shoes. Now after a warm bubble bath, I lay on the ground, too close to the television to eat pizza and ice cream. The soft glow from the screen makes the snowy silk of the dress shimmer, and it catches my eye. I have no regrets about calling it all off. He would have hated today if he’d had been here. Samantha Gorman Samantha Gorman, a lifelong lover of books, lives in Western Pennsylvania. After taking several creative writing classes, she found her voice and had begun the adventure of becoming a writer. She writes poetry, short fiction, and is working on her first novel about witches in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. ** We Serve a God of Second Chances "Tiger shark vomits entire spikey land creature in rare sighting!" Computer News, June 8th, 2024 She called her daughter "Bundle of Love" -- bunde liefde -- as she dressed her for winter in a furry cap with ears. New mothers don't always think about confusion, and how soon their daughters would want to run in packs; while she, growing older, was called a "dinosaur." As a child, she'd loved nature: her playmates, crawdads and green lizards. Adolescence was hell. Acne and lost love, the boyfriends who would confess they'd walked on ledges to watch women change their clothes. She'd bought a blow-up Godzilla taller than she was, and her young children had watched her dance with him on lonely weekends. Then the garment industry had realized a new kind of intermingling (zoanthropy.) Dressed in a lizard suit, lying beside her faithful companion, a retriever she'd shared all that was left in the student-sized fridge (a gift from an African American student who knew she didn't have a kitchen.) Reality had taught her that those who don't have money can be much kinder than the "haves" who probably toss filets on their new grills set up in cabanas beside swimming pools, chefs watching water spill over blond herds in bikinis. She'd seen food giveaways on the news, heavy-set drivers, their bodies wedged behind the wheels of their new pickup trucks as they sat in line waiting for free food. Lying beside her on the SPCA blanket (a gift she'd been given with membership) her dog -- a gentleman -- waited patiently for his next bite as he stared at the broken television set -- picture with no sound. Or was it sound with no picture? He looked at her from time to time, confused by the change in what he'd grown to expect from TV the video with jungle animals she'd given him for company when he was a puppy. Did he miss the trees, branches swaying in the breeze, the marmosets, squirrel-like so he barked at them? When had their lives together changed? So much broken like the antiquated television with its nouveau repertoire, heavy investments with 2nd chances, jails as a second home; a way to meet a second husband... When had fraud become a kind of fun, a pretense -- a way to pretend that anyone could be anything they wanted -- a chameleon in tight black leather pants, decorated with dinosaur ridges running down the seams? A chihuahua in a green bandana with a picture of a tiger to celebrate International Tiger Day on July 29th? She remembered her daughter before she was old enough to walk, lying on a rug, stretched out, full-length, beside her "animal sister," the family cat. On the news, a large (very large) man parked at the food giveaway rolled down his truck window to tell the person dispensing food that he'd come to get free food for his auntie -- "por ol' hongri thang." Beside her in her lizard suit, lying on their animal allegiance blanket, her dog, forever loyal, sighs. The snack plate is as empty as the broken TV screen. Her daughter, now grown, doesn't return emails. Yesterday, a little girl in a hair- band with ears had danced, holding up a cell phone for a selfie to get attention at the grocery; the woman in line in front of her asked if there was free food for pets; and she, who had loved best children & animals who is culturally crippled, her house taken by squatters, wonders if her 2nd chance is a bad fairy tale -- if it was warm and comfy for Jonah in the belly of a whale? Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. With degrees in literature and creative writing (Poetry) she has been honoured many times by the Ekphrastic Challenge. Among her loves are children, art, animals and the Romantic Movement, including William Blake's iconoclastic reversal of traditional literary perspective with such poems as "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night: what immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" ** Morsels Every moment has a surprise story. Every breath traces a line I can taste. What are objects but an unexpected encounter with myself? My companions are whatever random images grow secret gardens in my anxious soul. Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig plays with words and images both in combination and juxtaposition, looking for new ways to see the world.  Morsels, by Kerfe Roig (USA) contemporary
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