 Pavonia, by Francis Picabia (France) 1929 A Meditation on Transparency Bestow the skill of insight pierce the enigma of disguise. Transform the layers of confusion disclose the lie. Deliver the buoyancy of daisies music autumn leaves. Impart the courage of reflection note the past how it tugs. Lead the foot with the hoof of strength walk the bridge of truth. Manifest starlight the tenderness of doves. Reveal the columns of clarity let them guide us toward love. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books (2025). She is an Eric Hoffer and a two-time Best of the Net award nominee. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and finds joy spending time outdoors and with loved ones. ** Pan’s Pavane "Transparencies are the association of the visible and the invisible [...]. It is the notion of time, added to the one of space, which precisely constitutes the doctrine of your art." Léonce Rosenberg, on Picabia: Preface to the Exhibition 30 Ans de Peinture (Paris, 1930) A fluted pillar with an angled urn A female centaur – two – slim legs advanced Borders a fluting youth, whose greened eyes turn Under the pelt of peacocks, each enhanced Leafwise, as vines and crazy oakleaves sprout With wild volutes of iron, overwrought With daisies, stretching almost inside out Till you would almost think, or would have thought Like seers whose one purpose is to see Time’s notion manifest in starry flowers Where forge-work doubles to infinity As half-green offshoots frame imagined hours Still as two peacocks, till a tail unfurls For the boy-flautist who may just discern Inscribed in signs: five legs; two centaur-girls – A fluted pillar with an angled urn. Julia Griffin Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia. She has published in several online poetry magazines, including The Ekphrastic Review. ** A Strange Hallelujah Clouds part over the fishing pier like an oyster shucked with a dull knife. Danger Deep Water. Late August afternoon, maybe she’s sixteen, white t-shirt and faded denim, sneakers stained creosote. Someone casts his line. That timeworn tidal thrum tugs her deep. She launches straight out, always bad at gauging distances. Water in mouth and throat, she’s a mermaid preserved in brine, the gift in his arms as he kisses her to life from a rippled sea bed. Too soon, that windward force to middle age. Clouds whisk a creased 100 franc note inside her bra for luck. An ancient seaport, water reflecting the cerulean sky, rows of cypress to the horizon. Wine glass rimmed with red lipstick, a phone number someone black-inked on her palm. Final wind inversion: Zero hours. Eyes closed. Machines beep, disconnect, release the final inch of her trachea. Beside the bed a voice sings a strange hallelujah. Relax, let go, let go. One last sweet thick inhale. Musky smell of wood anemones. Getting out unscathed. How she’d wanted to believe. Janice Scudder Janice Scudder lives in Colorado. ** From a Park Bench I dreamed of moving From wrought iron-- There were leaves flying There were bursts of white Brown and green birds In my knees. There were my hatchings My moist, transparent bodies. There were my bodies Flexing, soft There was iron and blue. My bodies arced and joined. They were seen. In all bodies I was awake Eyes elsewhere Eyes in my many eyes A swirling elsewhere. On the avenue tires and slush. Colours drain from the dream. It is just my eye-less body Moving one way going in cold. Janice Bethany Janice Bethany teaches writing for the University of Houston System. ** Pavonia Poppies, Pan piping, the letter P leaning against a Doric column. There is a kaleidoscopic riot of images and a lovely translucency. If I shake the glass particles, other images will appear or transform. There’s a female centaur, a background of Pompey, flowers, lines, and mythical characters that are overlaid. I imagine that I have laser eyes that can see through solid objects. Cinematic celluloid images collide in this dream. Although much is happening in the scene, it is quiet and comforting. The stippled shade that isn’t quite peacock blue soothes me. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen’s full-length book of poetry, Shoes for Lucy, was published by SCE Press in 2023. Woodland Arts Editions published her chapbook, More Than a Handful in 2020. Her work is anthologized in The Memory Palace: an ekphrastic anthology (Ekphrastic Editions, 2024), Seeing Things and Seeing Things 2 (Woodland Arts, 2020 and 2024). Lynne is President of the Board of Bright Hill Press and has served on many other not-for-profit boards. She is an Editor and Interviewer for Blue Mountain Review. She is a nominee for a Pushcart Prize this year. ** The Lost The lost souls of my sisters surround me once more. Mystics all-- the lived-the forgotten and and the willing to live again. They dance the dance of the divine Lord. The whirlwinds of Sufi mystery. The dervish prayer- my life-my obsession. The love of the desert and the flashes of divine consciousness. Come to me my sisters from the land of forgetfulness. Arise to the music of Krishna. The mystery of the earth and the wind. We are one with the dust. Envelop me and return me to the Great One. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is a widely published poet, actress and narrator. Recipient of the World Peace Prayer Society for Poetry. A member of Acting Company of Lincoln Center. And Voting member of the Recording Academy in the Spoken Word Category. Publications include: One Art, Verse Virtual, Wild Word, Dissident Voice, and others. ** Momentary Perfection The beauty of the body – breasts and lips, the penis, buttocks, muscled arms and calves, some of what art reflects – curves of the hips, the male and female set make up two halves of human form, the ideal unity. See how the eyes are almost all the same – the eyebrows, lashes, pupils set to see, each one alert – this stud, this flawless dame. They know they’re on display, the man a god, his female centaur has his back among the flowers bursting from the air, no sod to route them. Living here is always young, the leaves the only clue that one might age. They yellow, orange, warn that sun will set. Is this what those eyes see beyond the page, their aging selves? Perhaps that is the fret displayed in those dark eyes. She sees a hag, and he sees an old codger – what a drag! MFrostDelaney MFrostDelaney is a bean counter by trade, a tree hugger in heart and a recovering soul, practicing life in New England. A member of the Powow River Poets, her poems appear regularly in Quill & Parchment, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has contributed poetry to HerStory 2021, has poems in the Powow River Poets Anthology II and Extreme Sonnets II, and displayed a poem at New Beginnings – Poetry on Canvas, Peabody Art Association 2022. ** Knockoff transparencies masterfully layered stained glass impersonator Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino is the author of Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit which was released by Kelsay Books in January of 2025. Host of the Duxbury Poetry Circle, she has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch, and Panoplyzine. ** Upon Awakening, the Planned and Unplanned Falling asleep on the bench in the classical sculpture section of the museum was not planned. Neither was getting no sleep for the three days ahead of the planned jaunt from our rural town to culturally enrich myself and neighbors with a tour of the state’s largest museum. Our group walked slowly, as I’d planned, from the bus to the entry, into each room. Our young guide’s explanations were fulsome as planned, per my request, but her voice! She droned. By the time we’d plodded into the classical sculpture room, I needed to sit down. I was planning on a momentary respite, but her drone lulled me into an unplanned nap, head on chest, sitting up. My friends, knowing how tired I was, continued without me, my best friend assigned the task of shaking me awake, in time to get me to the bus before our scheduled departure. So many plans I’d made but a nap was not among them. I was alone in the room amid the cool quiet marble shapes of my own Grek and Roman ancestors until my shoulders moved in my friend’s strong grip. Then, in those few moments between the last vestiges of sleep and full awakening, there was a lifting of the veil between this world and the realm of “other.” A new awareness, unplanned sighting, hearing , knowing, came upon me. People, creatures wafted about the airy spaces of the room, untethered from pedestals, from walls, from floor. Birds from the arts and crafts room flew by in full colour and song. People, whose bodies could have been formed from the classical marble pieces in this room, swirled about me not as shades of white, cream, but outlined, transparent. And the sounds! The birds trilled forest songs. The people whispered to me and to Brief snippets of their thoughts, desires before transitioning from reality to art. I was seeing far more, experiencing far more, hearing far more, than I had planned, and I did not want to leave this sudden, unplanned spectacle. I knew this was what I had yearned for without planning for it, without even knowing my need for it. My friend shook me again and the images receded, sounds faded. She and I were now alone in the classical sculpture room. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time nominee (for Pushcart and Best of the Net, a nominee for Western Peace Prize, and a 2022 runner-up in the Robert Frost Competition. Joan performs folk and personal tales of food, family, and strong women across the country and in UK and Europe, teaches classes on writing and presenting stories, and offers a one woman meet-the-author show bringing Louisa May Alcott to today’s audiences. She is on the LABRC Board, and has been the invited speaker at several conferences. ** The Gardener’s Lesson in Meditation It takes two to tango. So, you dance all night on the lawns of the mind, just the two of you – you and your breath, when suddenly the centaurs of thoughts gatecrash, gallop through the horizon, disrupt the sequence of the choreographed steps, the birdsong of silence and the calm of its fragrance. How do you rein them, you think long and hard while the delicate patch of grass is being wrecked, the flowers destroyed. In a quiet corner, the delicate, white petals catch your eye. The perennial white pavonia are still in full-bloom deep within the folds of shadows, untouched by the havoc of hoofs, shielded from the stomping moments. The inflorescence spirals up into the sky, carefree, trusting. White diffuses through the heat of the air, climbs up the Victorian balustrade, crawls down the Greek pillars deep within, all in tender wisps. Its velvety peace blossoms into sweet songs of the present. Dawn steps on the sidewalk following the route map of the autumn vine, holding green and yellowing autumn leaves swaying gently in the breeze. You curl your fingers into gyana mudra. You sit still to feel the soft dew-spritzed morning touch your cheeks. The cold on your bare skin soothes the sweat of wait. This too shall pass, you realize and without holding on, allow the centaurs to trot away. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published or are appearing in several magazines such as The Oddball Magazine, Braided Way, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and various other journals. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple and Birds of the Sky- have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature. ** Recital play me a prelude of pastels nestled in Romanesque columns with haunting chords of melodies play me an aria of alchemy plucked by the strings of a lute acoustic magic bubbling play me a polka of Panpipes fluting cyan with spring songs of nightingales and linnets play me a gigue of vibrancy of azure, jade and ochre tones layered on staves of a canvas play me the clash of a centaur’s riff and let me dance to the wild beat of cadence play me a tune of translucence where leaf and limb adagio through musical resolution 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. ** Picabia's Pavonia overlaid images flowers in an ancient garden pomegranate/apple blossoms bedroom poetry decor dan smith dan smith is the author of Crooked River and The Liquid of Her Skin, the Suns of Her Eyes. He has been widely published in such diverse journals as The Rhysling Anthology, Deep Cleveland Junk Mail Oracle, Jerry Jazz Musician, Sein und Werden and Gas Station Famous. Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, his most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, dadakuku, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review Challenge, tsuri-doro, The Solitary Daisy and Sense and Sensibility. ** Shellshocked; or Saturnalia Does my spirit remain anchored in this human world? or have I followed my mother, my aunt, into an alien mindscape that I cannot explain? Do I still perceive time, what it is, or is there no time?--the past, the present, all one mad cacophony of people places experiences imagined misremembered combined. They accumulate and rearrange themselves, each morning each day each night. Sometimes I appear as I once was, as I was conceived. Sometimes I’m merely a ghost, already attached to a future that will never occur. Sometimes I’m only an outline to fill in, a vessel spilling out and taking more in, all at the same time. Sometimes I never existed at all 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/. ** The Sky Becomes a Canvas of Dreams and Metaphors in the House of Power Poet, did you start out as a shepherd boy and now you find yourself a servant of the imperial court? Did you spend your childhood nights outside, looking after the flocks, sitting by a small fire and staring at the stars? What strange tales and beauties did you see, with the whole Milky Way before you like a celestial pathway, an invitation to let your mind wander? When I look at the sky's cloudy indigo it is splattered with sparkling bright white grains, as numerous as a sackful of spilled rice. You turned these points of light into diamonds. The images you relate conjure up wealth beyond imagining in wisdom and philosophy. Against the sky's infinite backdrop the more I look the more stars I see. Perhaps that's how it was for you as well, so your mind painted these figures on top. You outlined the objects of your dreams, told stories and myths about gods, muses, wishes and desires. Now you paint them with clever words, tell the poetic tales to your masters. They instruct artists to depict your epics onto the indigo domed ceilings within the palace, so they don't have to venture out into the open under the real sky. You retell and organize; you make sense of the heavens. You turn it into life, beauty and music, and courtship, love and lust. There is a sense of power at play. There are symbols of your adopted culture, carved columns and intricately wrought ironwork. Vine leaves and daisies, doves and horses cavort with figures of heroism and beauty and above all, youth. With your well chosen words you teach the powerful through fables and metaphors. You distilled your odes from your boyhood dreams and lessons, your impressions of life learned out under the cold blanket of the infinite night sky, only the flicker of the campfire flames and sounds of the sheep and ever prowling distant wolves to keep your dreaming self company. Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer from the UK Midlands. She particularly enjoys ekphrastic writing and has had many pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print. ** Untitled transparencies & other lies your flute taunts me against the loss of my rebellion your poems sting like tats upon my skin your mouth whispers my words mangled on the air your paintings push against the rise of the furor your rage so quaint against the dawning of the dark Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from Canada, her mother country, who shares the world's longest (and possibly leakiest) border with her largest trading partner: the United States of America. Imagination takes me to Picabia, painting in 1929.... ** Under Stars Unwounded, my commanders claimed, yet that warfare broke my spirit: I could neither be still, nor rest but churned in my mind long marches on the dusty plains, pitched battles in a rock-strewn wilderness... all for a praetor’s vanity, for fiefdoms that I reckoned not; for scrapes of land-- for bread, or salt, or brutal bloodlet.... until a foreigner found me close to death, who brought to me a remedy— Herbs of healing, she called them: crushed leaves for my body, ground them with a pestle, gave me to drink pavonia until, at last, I slept. I dreamed of childhood: duck-hunts with my father in the hot salt-marshes where pavonia used to grow. Of standing in the city with my neck craned back to watch in awe as craftsmen raised up colonnades carved intricately of stone. I dreamed then that she wrapped her arms around me under soft blue stars. Spoke quietly in another tone and tongue-- melodic Macedonian that I did not know.... I dreamed that I slept twined with her, mended by the breath of faintest stars, by the glow of her warm arms, by pink pavonia and the leaves she stripped from off their fleshy stems. Lizzie Ballagher One of the winners in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Lizzie Ballagher focuses on landscapes, both psychological and natural. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2018. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/
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