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Dear Readers and Writers, I was, by chance, watching a video of a talk about Scottish archeology when the subject flickered briefly to ancient pagan rites on the hillsides. This painting was shown in a fleeting second as one of the illustrations of the old crafts. No further information was given about its contents, origin, date, or other issues of provenance. I tried writing to the institution to find out more, and froze the image to perform a Google image search. I called my Scottish friend and asked her for insights. Ultimately, my partner found it doing a keyword search for what he saw: a witches dance. As it turns out, the National Museum of Scotland that owns the work doesn't know much more about it than we have just stated! It was perfect timing for a Halloween prompt. Perhaps because of its mysterious nature, we have had a ridiculous avalanche of submissions in response to this work! I used many more than usual and still left a sad pile out. I just want to remind you that your words matter to The Ekphrastic Review, whether they are chosen or not for each prompt's selected responses. That you are thinking and writing about these artworks that mean so much to me is everything. I thank you for participating. I thank all of you- writers who contribute regularly or occasionally, hopeful writers who hope to appear here someday, future writers who do the challenges but have not yet sent their words to us, and readers who love to discover more about art, poetry, and fiction. Thank you for making this community so amazing. I invite you to join us for some sessions in writing together. This past summer, we began hosting intimate online workshops where we take a deep dive into some artworks and then do some writing. It is an amazing way for the ekphrastic family to come together, look, meet, talk, share, and write. We have had writers in Ireland, Australia, America and Canada! We have done some amazing writing in these sessions. These have been a special treat for me because I have the chance to share my passion for art history and the fascinating stories that lurk behind every painting. In the general Sunday Sessions, we write to a wide range of artworks chosen for variety and intrigue. In our themed workshops, like Ghost Stories, Sex, and the Moon, we looked closely at artworks on those specific themes. Coming up is a duet of evenings focused on Canadian art. We'll talk a quick walk back through history, and we'll look at classic art, women's art, Indigenous art, abstract art, and more, all from Canadians. You will surely be inspired with our fun exercises and supportive circles to write wonderful things. Check out the lineup ahead, here, and join us! love, Lorette  The Witches Dance, by artist unknown (Scotland?) date unknown Widdershins She quickens to its tune hears chatter, yelps, squeals all that heavy breathing. Tapping three times three, her mind leaps, swerves, reels. Her chestnut stick jabs at stone as she strives to straighten her spine’s curve and rise for another jig with her devilish sisters. Though who will heed her now she’s blind, mute, bunioned? Instead, she must rest, night-festering with skull bones and vacant coffins as the beat swirls on with a bright lass newly blooded spilling fresh spells across stained floors, while the old ways are scolded like a crone’s tongue. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction and short plays. This year, her poetry has appeared in various zines and journals including The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, Spelt Magazine, The Alchemy Spoon and Dust Poetry Magazine. The Science Museum published one of her poems online on National Poetry Day 2021. She tweets @rambling_dot and still dances at parties. ** Ta’wiz* for Gazelle Khan – I stopped seaming his quilts and mattresses – pillows of diagrams and verses: the triumphant triangle of together forevers. He was a Bohemian, more like. D i s i l l u s i o n e d-- way too clever to fall for the age-old cliches: ocean-deep blue eyes, rosy-red cheeks, long-blonde Cinderella hair, bright crescent-moon smiles, honey-sweet flowery-tongue, blah, blah, blah! My dance of back-turned feet was the last of its night; my dress was the sheer of moon – so pure before the rags of stars fell into its stitches – he saw my feet bleed back to his truth: universe orbiting a bigger reality: his fleeing particles – how he could never be contained. And then he found me on a piece of paper between clouds I had stuffed into his sleep; only, I appeared vagrant the shape of a parched tree’s head curved at the neck – and my hair a waterfall of twigs in autumn’s death. I would have never had him delivered to pain. God forbid! Neither have I ever been conventional. But, to gain his heart’s interest, I had to offer a bait to his soul: I had to morph into a Witch! That was my story he watched like a dream he’d awaken to cold like sheet of ice on air, his body like soul strewn on ash, his eyes bewitched onyx embedded in walls. ~ A Ta’wiz or two-- hidden in the bedside table, or even dissolved in the morning/afternoon/evening tea, would do the trick, apparently. He would remember turquoise glint – taste of spice reminding him of cinnamon and ginger – and my face of honey hues, rose-peppered cheeks. ~ It is solstice. I scale the moon with my eyes: ocean-blue – deep like tonight – at its prime: full and ready. Saad Ali & Sheikha, A. *“Ta’wiz” / تعویز (Urdu): An amulet or a locket, which usually contains a piece of paper with an encrypted combination of numbers, symbols, and scripts. In the South/East Asian cultures, it’s still commonplace to use a ta’wiz for both good and evil purposes. Sheikha, A. (b. 1982 C.E. in Hyderabad, Pakistan) is from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Pakistan. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications have been Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Atlantean Publishing, Alban Lake Publishing, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Persian. She has also appeared in Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love anthology that has been nominated for a Pulitzer. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com. Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been educated and brought up in the United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an (existential) philosopher, poet, and translator. Ali has authored five books of poetry. His latest collection of poetry is called Owl Of Pines: Sunyata(AuthorHouse, 2021). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant, and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese, and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com, or his Facebook author page at www.facebook.com/owlofpines. ** Tanka open the coffins watch us dance to demon screams hold the skull aloft to laud the queen of witches on this sacred halloween Stephen Poole Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. Passionate about poetry since boyhood, his poems have been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, LPP Magazine, and two anthologies. ** Snowflakes We all have heard it said that snowflakes and flowers are born in the same castle, a castle separated into wings by the expanse of the earth. As flowers dry and die in the graceful autumn sun, snowflakes begin their slow growth far away in the other wing, until it is the time, day or night, for our snowflake to float to us, a snowflake full of the endlessness even we who master the elements cannot truly grasp, the same way we cannot grasp the soft touch of the first flower. Now we five have gathered to welcome our own first flower of spring. A flower none of us have touched as we hold aloft our gifts and dance in distant pairs, all except our mother, who has grown so weary in the pursuit of a beauty she has begun to perish here, in the corner, though we shall ignore all interruptions and if she dies we will continue on with our skilled seduction, ignoring the old woman melting in her corner as we continue to dance with old skulls in our hands and our faces anxious with worry that we will never gather our new snowflake before she dances into the summer sun. John Riley John Riley has published poetry and fiction in Smokelong Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, Better Than Starbucks, Banyan Review, Connotation Press, Fiction Daily, The Molotov Cocktail, Dead Mule, St. Anne's Review, and numerous other anthologies and journals both online and in print. He has also published over thirty books of nonfiction for young readers and continues his work in educational publishing. ** Samhain Ward off the spirits, let the new year enter. Summer’s end, barns overflowing. The harvest has been bountiful. Move with caution between the living and the dead when the two realms blurr-- dance, sisters, make merry. Let us receive those from the other side with fire, fiddles and flutes. It is All Hallow’s Eve, and soon the dark will come again. Feed the fires, make light, ward off what would damage and derange. Lead the Dance Macabre towards the tombs, show the souls from whence they came to visit on this special night. Beat the bodhran with the bones, take the sacred fire, light your hearth again. Bring peace to your home, bring joy to your winter. 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/ ** Directions to the Witches Dance on Divination Drive Travel State Road West 37 to 85, note the Rock Falls Raceway and the unincorporated community of Caryville, spot Tanya’s Tire Sales and Rock Falls Veterinary Care, proceed through the town of Rock Falls, go past County H and Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, head over the river and past County O and the Land O’ Lakes Feed business, notice the rolling hills, fields, and dairy farms, watch for the Irrigation Valley Systems’ building as you behold bur oaks, spruce, jack pine, and an occasional dead deer, drive past The Tractor Doctor and Woodland Millwork. You’re now in Pepin County-- go past County J, Junction County MM, Custom Storage, Rapid Machining, County R, Junction County M, County V, and over the Bear Creek bridge. You’ve made it to Durand-- follow East then West Prospect Street (Observe the sign: Nelson, 15, Wabasha, 19), go past County AA and South 25. You’re now in Buffalo County—drive through the town of Maxville, past County V, scan the unincorporated community of Urne as you steer past Junction County K and County KK. *You’ve driven 45 miles—you’re nearly there, only a few more turns to go . . .Take a sharp left onto Wizard Way, go past Palmistry Place, Talisman Terrace, and Alchemy Avenue, switch off your headlights as you pass Voodoo Loop and Vampire Passage, navigate over the Nightmare Creek bridge, take a wide right to Startled Street, go past Corpse ‘n’ Court and Zombie Lane, watch for Sorcery Circle—discern your magical essence, sense its presence, then take a right, intuit an invisible left, here, Divination Drive will appear, follow the illuminated jack-o’-lanterns to the top of the hill, park between the gargoyles, negotiate the path of incantations (Be careful, try not to trip as some of the runes are missing.). When you reach the stronghold, sound the gong (Don’t be alarmed for it will play “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead”). After you enter, please remove your socks and shoes (We’ll dance barefoot until dawn, so be prepared for bloodied feet.). Now, you’ll don your pointy bonnet as you shake, rattle, and roll with your sister witches! After all, it’s All Hallows’ Eve where skulls rise to the occasion, bones gleam on the floor, and coffins stand upright as casket décor. P.S. You’re welcome to stay through November 2nd to celebrate the Day of the Dead. We’ve coffin accommodations in the dungeon. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts has 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. She’s a nature enthusiast, Best of the Net award nominee, and the poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Spirited Away In a pagan church cellar All Hallows' Eve sorceresses with pointy noses and bonnets dance across a creaky floor in bare feet in smocks that sway like ghosts their hands rejoice in midnight ether as they raise the dead in reverie and sorcery. The eldest hag in the corner sits still reflecting on evil in dim light made bright by a lone candle flickering and a young angel-witch alabaster pure twirling in an ivory tutu. Such wicked crafts the crone could teach her how to stir cauldrons of hemlock punch stroke black cats devour bats for lunch screech and cackle empty tombs silence prayers cast gloom and doom enthrall with spells ravish souls drown in Hell capture moles spread superstitions bring bad luck walk under ladders bathe in muck beguile and charm with creepy notions poison with bane and fatal potions. Clutching her cane the old witch wonders will she ever tempt a warlock again with her toady skin and gnarled fingers fly away on a broom sweep past the moon pirouette and be carefree malevolent or will she be overshadowed by this luminosity will she be spirited away into one of five coffins open caskets outlined with skeletons that foreshadow her death and the deaths of her coven whose skulls rattle in the air on the ground beneath the earth. Tanya Adèle Koehnke Tanya Adèle Koehnke is a member of The Ontario Poetry Society (T.O.P.S.) and the Scarborough Poetry Club. Tanya's poems appear in The Ekphrastic Review; The Ekphrastic World Anthology 2020; The Canvas; Big Art Book; Canadian Woman Studies; Foreplay: An Anthology of Word Sonnets; Tea-Ku: Poems About Tea; Grid Poems: A Guide and Workbook; and other publications. Tanya taught English at several post-secondary institutions in Toronto. Tanya also has a background in arts journalism. ** Enchanted The wives danced late into the night. They frolicked and twirled, happy to be free of their onerous husbands who obliged them to scrub clothes and floors all day, toil long hours in the kitchen, perform like whores in the bedroom by night, and always receive their men with smiles when they returned home from their seafaring adventures. But the townspeople claimed the husbands weren’t away on the high seas as the wives maintained. There were whisperings that the women were witches who’d murdered the men and hidden their crude coffins in the dark woods until worms, weather and soil did their work and the wives dug them up again and danced around their bones. There were even those who said the witches lay together in the dark of night, drinking mead and giving each other comfort, shunning proper relations. There was one in particular, rumored to be the favorite of the coven. A fair-skinned, sassy lass with golden curls and a graceful gait, who turned heads wherever she was glimpsed, though she was rarely spied in the street or the marketplace. It was said that she was hidden from sight by the old crones—made to engage in their wicked deeds, and sent to a dungeon when they tired of her or grew jealous of her charms. But the woodswomen paid no mind to such gossip. They barricaded the doors of their shared cottage with iron bars, dangled what looked to be human skulls and femurs from the thatching of the roof. So forbidding was this display that no one dared seek entry, certain that a terrible curse would befall any righteous soul who ventured too near. Cloistered inside the shadowy bosom of the hut that was warmed by the golden glow of lantern light, the women with their pointy bonnets and nimble feet were the only ones to know what really went on within. Kathryn Silver-Hajo Kathryn Silver-Hajo writes short fiction, long fiction, and poetry. Her stories appear, or are forthcoming, in MacQueen’s Quinterly, Flash Boulevard, Bending Genres, Cleaver Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, Ellipsis Zine, Unbroken Journal, Six Sentences, The Drabble, The Ekphrastic Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, The New Verse News, and Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary Journal. Read Kathryn’s work at www.kathrynsilverhajo.com and follow her on Twitter: @KSilverHajo ** The Origins of Our Sabbath Women were created to dance in bare feet and stain our wrists with frankincense; To join hands in the black mass and listen to the skulls chanting about the magoi. The timber crust of mother nature creaks under our liberated toes and tell us that cornered carpal bones join moon dances. The word, magoi, was the earliest form of witches. It spun around a charge of delusion. On the first midnight cycle, mothers teach us about white phrygian caps pointed up to different coordinations. Dusted down by the goddess Diana, mother says we are a magical species. Candles flood southward to tell us that a woman's liberation frightens men. Delusion became another designation for all-seeing. Outside our window, the sticks of pale skin declare, “guilty, guilty, guilty.” We are echoes awaiting cauldrons of coffins, but we keep dancing under the triumph of our moon. Lily Connolly Lily Connolly is a recent graduate of the University of Tampa's creative writing department. She has been published in several magazines and is the winner of the 2019 FCHC poetry contest. ** At the Witches Jamboree Though you burn us alive witches never die. Drums pound a syncopated beat. Our flesh no longer weighted liberated from the stake we dance and cackle in the street. A leader swathed in white chorus fitted out in black we swab the autumn air with the bramble swish of brooms. We cock our pointy hats twirl skirts of tinkling coins our ample bellies jiggle. Our ample bellies jiggle twirl skirts of tinkling coins. We cock our pointy hats. With the bramble swish of brooms we swab the autumn air. Chorus fitted out in black a leader swathed in white we dance and cackle in the street liberated from the stake. Our flesh no longer weighted drums pound a syncopated beat. Witches never die though you burn us alive. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honoured her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards and twice nominated her poems for Best of the Net. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poetry has appeared in many small journals and anthologies, most recently in 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). For ten years, she served on the board of Houston’s Mutabilis Press, dedicated to poetry. ** Discarded Matter and Reassembled Molecules Good and evil are categories that exist both everywhere and nowhere. Out of context they mean nothing. her changed body, now inanimate, a cut-out glued onto grey air Darkness requires balancing with light. The random shifts that surround us with fate cannot be forsworn. was she now merely a conduit, a portal connecting two worlds? Bodies return to their immortal matter, an intersection always waiting on the threshold of time. the chamber opens, flowing both ways all at once, recalibrating The ancient circle dances through an eternal ghostly night. By day, life intersects with death and continues on. much is alway in ferred--all questions are abjured, especially why 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/ ** Memento Mori Dance as fast as you can, point your pretty toes, fling your arms wide, flirt with the hem of your skirt while skin is smooth, while curls are golden, while breasts are firm. Dance as fast as you can but don’t forget: your unseen partner in this danse macabre is dancing fast too leaving reminders lurking in corners – crones, coffins, and skulls. Gretchen Fletcher Gretchen was a winner in the Poetry Society of America's Bright Lights/Big Verse competition, judged by Alice Quinn and David Lehman and was projected on the Jumbotron while reading her winning poem in Times Square. Her poems have been published in journals including The Chattahoochee Review, Pacific Coast Journal, Northeast Corridor, Inkwell, Pudding Magazine, and Upstreet. They have also appeared online at Poetry Southeast, SeaStories, and Prairie Home Companion, and have been anthologized in Chopin and Cherries, Poetic Voices Without Borders, Sincerely Elvis, You Are Here: New York Streets in Poetry, Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge: Poems About Marriage and Family Pictures, Poems and Photographs Celebrating Our Loved Ones. Her chapbooks, That Severed Cord and The Scent of Oranges, were published by Finishing Line Press. ** Macbeth - The Prequel in darkest coven close together fiddles scrape, bagpipes skirl round and round in 666some reel witches whirl like a fanaa of Dervish without their virtues of love and honor but with tongues, forked and barbed for tonight a trio will depart forsaking coffins and cerebral sisters off to the heath of purple heather to meet Macbeth, Thane of Glamis brave general in King Duncan’s army victor over Vikings and Irish invaders but for now the sorcerers rehearse chanting loud their pungent prophecy of Lady Macbeth and her hapless Thane in wanton treachery, unstinting ambition through bloodshed to impending regicide a Greek tragedy of the Scottish glens Alun Robert Scottish born Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse. He has achieved success in poetry competitions across the British Isles and North America. His work has been published by numerous 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 bi-weekly challenges. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland for whom he was a Featured Writer in 2019. ** Jenny Moonlight shines brightest on the young. Like a new bride, Jenny dances barefooted in her white dress. Bonnets, stained aprons and shadows drape the obedient and old. After the dance-- at dawn, the sun over the stone wall, a man will strangle her in public legally-- watch the gleam leave her eyes, put a flame to her cooling pale flesh, proclaim it is for the betterment of the people. He will say: God is avenged by man’s hands. The wood coffins remain for the obedient and old. Her ashes will rise—like Tabitha, dance in the wind. She will not be confined by a man’s hands. Moonlight shines brightest on the young. Like a new bride, Jenny dances on the dead painter's canvas. Her mother, a Mary of sorts, watches silently from the dark margin. Old women speak for the spirited who danced too long in the window. The judge’s gavel and coffin-maker’s mallet echo between the stone walls. At dawn, the sun over the horizon, a man will silence her in public legally. We will see the painting, the witches—and say it is history. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, in High Shelf Issue XXXV, and A Poetry Garden, a poetry anthology. Robert is a member of the Academy of American Poets. He lives in coastal Georgia. ** Witches at Prom We linger on damp dungeon walls, from which skeletons (collecting dust from dances ago) are hanging: tinsel-tied and limp. In this dead dude’s skull I’m crushing (serving as a cup) is a dim reflection, wobbling painfully. “I’ve heard—” (your mirth-quivered lip) “that the punch’s spiked... or at least, I think it is.” You flash me this stretched-skin grin, through those lash-thorned eyes, and I find myself following your lead. We make out with our mirrors (acid-red in kool-aid), and from these twin crania respectively, our images wane. You've donned a wedding dress for today— grave-robbed, that you must’ve grazed at the knees getting out. It and I are tangled now, with other sweaty bodies on the floor. In this dance, my corsage: a mourning lily on my breast, brushes yours, a sable rose. I’m in your hands now: they’re so bony, (so white), so warmth-drained over mine-- and it gets me going that you’re so much more gone than I. The music, a string ensemble screech, settles into slow dance on the floor, for the final scene. We bow our heads and I find anchor in our temples, wet where they join from the condense of our last-leaving breaths. Some things we know will change when witching hour cedes to sunrise, with the violin cease-- when we all must flee. When we leave our girlhoods locked within the walls of this dungeon, six feet deep: alongside your hand-me-down wedding gown, your rose-thorned gaze, and wilted lily petals scattered all across the floor. Though I know one thing will remain-- that’s the kool-aid stain of your smile on mine, so I know what comes beyond could be alright. Sonika Jaiganesh Sonika Jaiganesh is a 19 year old university student (she/they) from the UK who has become a lurker/lover of The Ekphrastic Review. They are passionate about art-and-aesthetic history, the discipline of curation and experiencing all the types of literature that life has to offer. They have only recently begun sharing their work, but hope to share a lot more to come. You can read their poetry on 'Literary Veganism', and follow their newly hatched twitter account @sonikajaiganesh ** Halloween Man Witches' laughter drowns the music as they dance, bat black and cat eyed, open coffins framing a skull’s applause of teeth. Witches' laughter drowns the sound of shredded feet, heels drilling bone into late October loam. Here, where it's bloody, here where foul things are savoured, elongated nostrils sniff the air. When they catch the scent of me - a man sneaking peeks through a curtain in his mind - they turn to face me, yellow gaze upon me, cold skin kissed by the moon. Witches laughter makes a halter of their hatred, drags me from my hiding to my doom. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write full time. He is the author of over twenty books, which cover fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His creative work has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes including The Bedford Prize, The Bridport Prize, The John Clare Poetry Prize, the Ottakars/Faber and Faber Poetry Competition, the Sentinel Poetry Prize, the Sentinel Short Story Prize, and Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. Paul McDonald Amazon Author Page ** Dead Bells of Ireland Dead Bells of Ireland cannot hold a candle to this lady’s cap: their centrepiece, she dances fore and centre, a celebrity ushering in the opened coffins’ ivory bones with such lovely gesture to her left. "De Brevitate Vitae" oh how the drinking boys for centuries would sing: Gaudeamus igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus, Gaudeamus igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus, Post jucundam juventutem, Post molestam senectutem, Nos habebit humus, Nos habebit humus. Their fifth stanza, so apt, like these, Vivant omnes virgines Faciles, formosae Vivant et mulieres :,: Bonae, laboriosae. Long live all girls, Easy [and] beautiful! Long live [mature] women too, Tender, lovable, Good, [and] hard-working. these five women, called ‘witches’, dancing! Whose prima ballerina has feet foreshadowing a life just like their own: feet are all the same, wide, bare and mud-splashed yet still they fly across the floor. Parodied cliches, yet admired: shoulders, forearms storied muscles from a lifetime of field labor and chores. Determined to have fun: their chins jut out, and one’s upturned nose is longer than Pinochio’s. On the dancer’s right, in a dark but profiled foreground, an old woman is plunked down, her cane held upward as if in half-salute, she gazes up, mesmerized, bewitched by the short chiffon-dressed maiden in whom (perhaps) she sees her own lost youth flown fleeting past, and beneath the curled white fronds of her own soddy old bonnet therein may lie a self-portrait of our anonymous Scottish (?) artist. Carolyn Clark Carolyn Clark, PhD, Pushcart Nominee 2020, is a retired teacher who sometimes leads workshops at The Writer’s Center. Indebted to teachers at Cornell, Brown, and The Johns Hopkins University for degrees in Classics-related fields, she enjoys the outdoors, writing woodlands lyric poetry, and finding mythology everywhere. Her poems can be found in various journals, a Covid-19 anthology (Golden Foothills Press, 2020), two recent collections (Cayuga Lake Books 2017, Kelsay Books 2019) and a pair of chapbooks (Finishing Line Press (2013, 2018). ** Which ones are those...? Which ones are those who dance disdain on death as if delight so vain, forsaking holy rites conferred for devil's brew their steps have stirred as if a curse they dare to press upon the pious who profess to be by birth the voice aloud of faith to them by saints endowed? Are they the ones who pray to hide the sins in which they too abide but suffer others to embrace as if confession offered grace? Or are they witches fantasized as demons those have "exorcised"? 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. ** The Witches Dance On woven silken webs those spider’s crawl hide from the moonlight beams Those steepled hats on witches’ heads that Samhain feast of rising dead. Light-footed dance, they sway to tumbled life the masks from hell a burnished gold Ghouls outside watch in, despair at the high amuse as coffin lids lie open, languished on the floor. Those dead walk, abandoned in gleeful mirth each woman is a goddess in ether flow. Swing high swing low, mercurial beings, while toes meet the earth, surge to the beat. Margaret Kiernan Margaret is nominated for the Best of The Net, 2021, for Creative Non-Fiction. She writes poetry also. Published in journals and magazines and online. Her background is in Social Justice Advocacy. ** Lady in White She dances, unfettered, oblivious to the macabre reality in which she treads, the focal point of our attention, the milky-skinned queen of the ball. Mind abstract, released by mandrake and nightshade. Pure, innocent, naïve, she waltzes and pirouettes, oblivious to the blood coating her feet. Perhaps she is grape stomping, or dancing in the wood, surrounded by flowers in bloom or potential loves, while we await the witching hour. We wait with blood and bone. We watch with devils and greed. We dance with our fair skinned queen, until the tincture’s power fades, when her rosy cheeks flush will with fear, her screams will echo through the circles of hades, reaching the ears of our Dark Lord, melodious as cherub bells marking his assent. Her terror will only sweetening her sacrifice. Tony Daly Tony Daly is a poet and short story writer of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and military fiction/nonfiction. His work has been recently published or is forthcoming with Danse Macabre, Silverblade, The HorrorZine, Utopia Science Fiction, and others. A retired U.S. Air Force medic, he proudly serves as an Associate Editor with Military Experience and the Arts. For a list, that probably needs to be updated, of his published work, please visit https://aldaly13.wixsite.com/website or follow him on Twitter @aldaly18. ** Danse Macabre I dance alone. Behind me, my new sisters dance in pairs—how joyfully they spin & clap their hands; lighting the dim room with a skull lantern; memento mori. I wonder why the other crone just sits & watches; stitching secrets. Perhaps she’s jealous of my youth, but her old eyes shine with pity, so I try my best not to look. I won’t let her ruin the fun: the night is young & it is mine-- I’ll dance until my feet grow sore; I’ll twirl in my new dress-- white & pure as a bridal gown, or a burial shroud. When the clock strikes twelve there’ll be a sacrifice in my honour. Corinna Board Corinna Board lives in a small village in the Cotswolds and works in Oxford, where she teaches English as an additional language. She loves her job, although she wishes she had more time to write poetry and that she could write a more interesting bio! She can be found on Instagram @parole_de_reveuse. (She was born in the UK, but lived and worked in France, hence the Instagram handle which actually means ‘dreamer’s word.’) ** So, Now, We Dance We twirl and swirl, My sisters have conjured me, from an albino pumpkin where I rested until the time was right. Once they chanted the magic words to waken me I was ready and so now, we dance. See the villager elder ladies wise beyond their years forgotten by the young? See them smiling at us as we twirl and swirl? I invite them to join us, saying, So, now we dance! You, who live beyond the frame, you can join us here if you know that magic or simply dance where you are to your own self music-- sing, sway, move, twirl and swirl in your own power. So, now, we dance! Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage, as often inspired by art as by the world around her. She tells tales of food, family, nature, and strong women with pen and in performance. ** Initiate Oversees the dance, crone longs for youthful times when she too raised hands to call on spirits, macabre waltz, bone symphony to celebrate in secret. Join hands, sway to trance, bare feet bounce lithely inside sacred crypt, magic sings a wiccan chant, dance a gala to welcome initiate bridely white her dress. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson explores new forms in poetry through workshops, prompts and art, Ekphrastic being a more recent favourite. Her poetry appears in Misfit, Open Door, Sledgehammer, Pulse and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals; full length works available on Amazon. Dickson shares her home with an 8 year old rescued feral black cat, who is often her first audience. She has coordinated workshops, 100 Thousand Poets for Change and is a past board member on two poetry boards. A Pushcart nominee, Dickson has written poetry for 50 years. ** Danse Macabre Look at her; how the candlelight dresses her white, shining skin. Look how she smiles, beguiling. Bares her feet, feels the ground beneath her bones; she shares a common heart with her sinister sister-crones. Circling widdershins, wayward, unruly bodies articulate the dumb dead, uncontained now in their graves. In the annihilating turmoil of the ecstasy to come, she turns and turns and turns again. Sinews, muscles, pulse with supernatural blood. She feels us close to her as we sing with one voice, howl with one tongue. Among us women, she is free, she is bright, she is young. She does not notice the devil in the shadows. Does not see his scarlet grin, knowing nothing of the sacrifice to be made before the morning bell rings, that in daylight she will disappear. Although we know this power too well to be entranced, beating the time with a heavy stick, still we’ll take a partner and dance the age- old dance, always to his tune, played by a veteran enchanter. For this is his classic magic, this is the ancient trick. Louise Longson Louise Longson lives in West Oxfordshire. She is a qualified psychotherapist, specialising in trauma and enduring mental health issues and currently works to support those distressed by chronic loneliness and isolation. A late starter to writing poetry, she settled down to it in 2020 at the age of 57, and her work has appeared in various publications including One Hand Clapping, Fly on the Wall, Dreich, Vaine, Nymphs, The Ekphrastic Review, Drifting Sands, The Poetry Shed, Obsessed with Pipework and the various publication of Indigo dreams Publications. She is a winner of the Dreich ‘Slims’ competition 2021 with her chapbook Hanging Fire. Twitter @LouisePoetical ** Halloween Fling "Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches) Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches!" Robert Burns, Tam O' Shanter " In my step, nothing is real -- dreaming, I'm dreaming." Witches Dance, Mercyful Fate Witches came from the kitchen without their brooms; the girl wore a dress made of moonlight. Outside the thunder made glorious booms and a Halloween dream filled the Laird's living room: Fancy a dance? (she was sure that she'd heard him) that this was a night when true love was exhumed -- why her great aunts and witch-kin had come from their coffins -- to dance at her wedding and hear the year's news: how they'd finish the dinner (they called it Dumb Dinner -- drum-rolls for the witches! breaking bread with the dead) as she stepped from a painting over the fireplace, a girl born from fire in the background, young again -- fairy magic -- to teach them the dance steps, old bodies, shapeshifting, pyrne in a gyre: Aphalba, the oldest, had to sit down as Amethyst reeled with Allegra, Shedding, Back-Stepping, Rocking, Cross-Over -- Toe and Heel, Shake and Turn -- spirits in a poem by Robert Burns! Is it as much fun as bowling with skulls? One arm in the air, one arm crossing her heart she's wearing a moon dress by Cutty Sark, how witches bewitch a young man in the dark, dancing the dance, the witches' dance her Halloween Fling in a Chinese hat.... Call it the art of their choreograph when the witches' circle is the witches' map. Laurie Newendorp Honoured multiple times by the Ekphrastic Challenge, Laurie Newendorp's recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationships between art, life and writing. "Cutty Sark" is the ancient Scots' name for a woman's nightie, or undergarment, and the Halloween celebration for the silent dead was a love ritual known as "The Dumb Dinner." "Halloween Fling" was written in memory of a witch's peaked hat and costume made for the poet at a young age by her grandmother, who believed in the spirit of youth. ** Come write with us! Below are several upcoming workshops online at The Ekphrastic Review.
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