 Rainy Day Rainbow, by Kaz Ogino (Canada) 2024 Pixelated Rain pours from paint clouds, each a hue of the colour wheel. My window mullions bisect the transitions of pixel drops between green and blue, purple and red. The rain drips not in streaks but as genesis of fantastical shapes. I cannot help but smile. I don’t have to turn the round colour wheel. It is here in front of me, rectangular, moving with its own force. I poke my finger into the shapes. I enter the glass, let curlicue and musical note pigments wash over me. I am all colours, cartwheeling from pane to pane until I rainbow. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner recently saw the Van Gogh immersive experience and marvelled at the movement of pixels from one hue to another. She is the author of two forthcoming ekphrastic poetry collections, Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press) and The Night Watch (Kelsay Books). Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Rainy Day Rainbow
On the eve of the Summer Solstice I see a rainbow turned upside down, everything backwards--- tilted. The summer caterpillars are purple as a queen’s robe and I become royalty as I tend my garden. The pigs roll in the grass, and turn green as Mother’s Depression glass, and yes, I miss her. I am blue watching my sailboat sail away without me, but looking down, the sea amazes me with its life. I scream when I read the news-- It throws me perpetually sideways with rage and droplets of regret. I can only hope the dance moves that come to me when I hear Blowing in the Wind brings answers, will fill in a new rainbow of glee, shouts, hugs and waves, the color wheel of the future. The eve of the Summer Solstice that turned everything upside down, empties my pockets of everything I do not need. Beth Fox Beth Fox loves being connected to the arts and the community of poetry in New Hampshire. Her work is found in The Poet’s Touchstone, The Seacoast Anthology, Covid Springs II, Silver Birch Press, New Verse News, and The 2010 Poets Guide to NH. Her chapbook, Reaching for the Nightingale, was published by Finishing Line Press. A finalist, Beth helped seniors in Wolfeboro publish their work in an anthology, Other Voices, Other Lives. ** Room of Colours A room of colours Red, orange, yellow, green, blue The colours blind me Sophia Smith ** A Horror Movie Soundtrack Life’s music rainbow Echoes in bright treble clefs - Just the silence of Disembodied illusions And schizophrenic nightmares Rose Menyon Heflin and Robert Bergmann Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. Robert Bergmann is a retiree from Madison, Wisconsin. Although he thoroughly enjoys reading and writing, this was his first time venturing into poetry, and it is his first foray into the wilds of publication. ** I See: a Sijo Sequence I. I see red, fury pulsing through my veins, a river of hot rage. I see orange, and I grow antsy, craving summer on my tongue. I see yellow, and I think softly - fondly - of spring sunshine. II. I see green, and I grow calm, fight or flight ebbing from my muscles. I see blue, and I trust in the honesty of sky and water. I see indigo, and I feel strong, persisting through the pain. III. I see violet, and I wonder, wanting only to wander. I see a refracted miracle in a sky whose tears have stopped. I see the past and future as one only can in the present. IV. I see possibility. I see mystery. I see old pain. I see new joy. I see justice. I see love, and I see pride. I see it all through my window in one arching, endless rainbow. Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** Discordant Harmony Dancing musical notes tossed in a cocktail tin-in-tin, shaken, rattled and poured no longer a composed tune. Now liberated from their staff dizzy dark scribbles spill down multicoloured panes like a jigsaw of misshapen clefs and rests; this new arrangement surprising, unstructured thrives like an ideal alternative-- free and unlabeled. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, author of Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit (Kelsay Books, 2025) has been published in journals such as Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quartet Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Etched Onyx Magazine, and Haikuniverse. She lives in Massachusetts, holds a journalism degree from Suffolk University, and is facilitator of the Duxbury Poetry Circle. ** Intervals with a nod to Anne Sexton Your muffled pulse gallops like a seahorse through remnants of ruptured waters. The cardiotocograph squiggles lines on a paper scroll and I cradle my pregnant belly and crave the comforts of outdoors, and childhood swims back to me-- surprise rainbows against a slate blue sky, scarlet roses and lavender, honeysuckle vine, the scent of wild onion wafting. Picking blueberries. Grasshoppers startled from the hedge. Antepartum nurses ask if I'm thirsty, if I need water, but I'm overflowing with baby, with imagined sips of Nehi Grape and Cherry Slurpee, lemonade and berry Kool-Aid. The shifting hues of gobstoppers. My offered tongue blue like a skink's. I wait for the hour when you'll thunder from the deep, neck lasso'd with cord and a wail of song escaping. This stormy morning we're tethered, the rhythm of rain beating the windowpane and all you do is kick. Heather Brown Barrett Heather Brown Barrett is an award-winning poet in southeastern Virginia. She mothers her young son and contemplates life, the universe, and everything with her writer husband. She is a member and regular student of The Muse Writers Center, a member of The Poetry Society of Virginia, and a former board member of Hampton Roads Writers. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Yellow Arrow Journal, formidable Woman sanctuary, and elsewhere. She’s the author of Water in Every Room (Kelsay Books, 2025). Website: https://heatherbrownbarrett.com/. ** To Kaz Ogino Regarding Rainy Day Rainbow Where otherwise the sun would preen by shifting shadow shapes and sheen, your muse amid the overcast foresees the moment storm has passed and hears still echoed distant rains symphonic on imagined panes where sun that peeks through clouds in flight is piecing spectral shards of light together as the remnant blur of forces that became the whir reminding idled, yearning soul of all the things it can't control and yet of beauty still to find by faith more tempered left behind. ** sunlit spectral blur silent as symphonic echo sings to storm and lull Portly Bard 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. ** Ink Sink Skin This art cannot be boxed. In the splay of two-dimension, time stops. The brain reconfigures. You lay one form against another, and filters of light flit like a dance on water. The colour is layers of solid and juice. Primary, secondary. A pollen of marks, a song that stole in. Hues are notes and notes are hues. Violet swoons into scarlet that smooches crimson. Cobalt tiptoes into violet, rubs right up against it, indigo is born. Green strokes the flank of cobalt like a brush on paper. They hold hands, create harmonies of jade and leaf. Ink and space wait for the artist. To dilly dally them about then declare it just so. Pointillism and other tongues. Lay to rest in the air-drying afternoon. Musical notes, gone awol. ‘Cause Debussy is all over this piece, infused between polyphonies. The song left echoes in its wake. When it quivered the ink that married the skin. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly atwww.sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** Rainy Day Rainbow The first shard of nascent light touches the intermittent slow pour of grey. The sky pitter-patters in the soft whispers of water-colours. The fine print of dew, the spray paint of rain pattern the square panes. The closed window turns into a coloured mosaic of possibilities. Scrawled on the glass, with the ink of change is the signature of dawn. Ardent prayers usher in a spectrum of calligraphic answers. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines, more recently, in Pensive, Braided Way, The Orchard Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple, and Birds of the Sky, have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature. ** Rainy Day Rainbow Today I’m going to say, I see a rainbow— even though the sky at noon has no colours-- because I know puddles can shine with the splendor of a clearing sky’s mixed hues, and the cloudy streams in the gutters by roads can gleam with reflections violet, indigo, and blue. I think that I’ve always wanted the horizon to become a vibrant canvas, wished sunlight would bend and slow until the air glows. As nearby church bells ring in the town and soft voices of a children’s choir drift toward me, the northeaster speaks in a sorrowful language, reminds me of losses, and is far too loud. Hymns blend with the incessant patter of the deluge, the rattle of shutters, the noisome cascade that smears the window panes. Lawns and side streets flood. In the forested hills beyond them, branches of evergreens and poplars sag, then break, yet I envision them coming back to their unspoiled form, picture an iridescent arc above them, believe that promises of hopeful beginnings will emerge after every storm. Gregory E. Lucas Gregory E. Lucas lives on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. His fiction and short stories have appeared in magazines such as Blueline, Sparks of Calliope, and The Horror Zine. ** Palette Doubt - a Broken Sonnet Smeared into a slurry Of water floated fragments The dreams from decades of our marriage Oozed down glass canvas Cascaded from pain to pane Shifted shapes from memories made Stirred words we never said Then puddled into perfect squares Although we etched what we hated Into tear salted gutter troughs At rain's ends, I believe we'll see Past our own separation thoughts To a clear view of our palette And the rainbow of us that we should never doubt Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** Through Looking Glass Here’s pane-full insights, outside in, boundary-bursting breaking through, edge-walking on the lip of words. A teeter, totter, waver swing, the toddle wobble, quiver quake, reel weave careen sway as fore-seen. ’Tis scenic mind-map, mindful been, a quaver maybe, not galumph, as clomp towards the trompe l’oeil. Yet delicately waddle on with glyphs a-plenty, blended inks, to spin the spangled, treasured sap. See window onto where folk been as listen, draw, conclusions sought; their images must be proclaimed. Though mizzle, drizzle, falling drain, precipitating what moods reign, it’s brainpower whirls us into safe. Though edgy, striding into strange where strangers met are walking on to find the rainbow, golden end. An alchemy etched on our screen, as letting spreads our sprinkled dream, and what deemed secret soon revealed. 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 ** Summer Rain It’s June and every storefront has a rainbow on the door, music bouncing off windows and sliding down panes; a smattering of quarter notes, clefs and staffs, splatterin’ and sweatin’ in the steamy colors of jazz; greens, reds and purples belting out the blues, dancin’ and a’singin’ like rain upon the roof; and every drop that falls – every small part of the whole – is a shower of joy in a summer of pride. Mark Hendrickson Mark Hendrickson (he/him/his) is a gay poet and writer in the Des Moines area navigating the Sturm und Drang of daily life through wordcraft. His work has appeared Variant Lit, Vestal Review, Modern Haiku, Spellbinder, and others. He has a background in music, psychology, and marriage & family therapy. Mark worked for many years as a Mental Health Technician on a locked psychiatric unit. Follow him @MarkHPoetry, or visit his website: https://www.markhendricksonpoetry.com ** A Window to Escape Prisoner of my thoughts My head swims My thoughts roll Rock like a boat On the tumultuous waves Of the Newfoundland ocean Overflowing from my head My thoughts are looking for A window to escape Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He just comes from a two-week trip in Newfoundland where he had the idea for this poem after a boat tour to the Icebergs. ** iterations sky changes randomly outside my window-- compressed into hushed anticipation, then spinning out, tangled, reconfigured by weather patterns beyond any control—I wait for the air to conjure itself into chromatic saturation-- but what emerges is gone almost before I notice it was there-- a luminous moment, shining in an uncertain configuration of light Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Haiku music conversation —she listens in the rain K. J. Watson K. J. Watson’s stories and poems have appeared on the radio; in magazines, comics and anthologies; and online. ** Windowpanes Music fills the windowpanes, notes bulge and curve boisterous chords seep through edges, squeeze through gaps, pour through every opening * window tries to keep control unruly colours, flower bed bursting its borders, snail circus celebration sheet music, sleet music, strike up the band * rainmelt drizzles red, blue, purple, green, speckled like strawberries fat calligraphy draws us outside the lines gushes over sash, jamb, and sill * dance tilt, frost widget, glass dissolves into laughter sketch marks topsy-turvy, syncopated message we can almost read signed with a flourish by the rain. Cindy Bousquet Harris Cindy Bousquet Harris is a poet, photographer, the editor of Spirit Fire Review, and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Her poems can be found in Clamor, California Quarterly, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Unlost Journal, Black Bough Poetry, and several anthologies. Cindy lives in Southern California with her husband and family. ** This Year, Winter Didn’t Dawdle Spring taps at my window – pitter-pat, pitter-pat, pat-a-pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat. At first, a soft lullabye, before full joy bursts forth. A treble clef blows up like a balloon and sails right through the pane. Curvaceous notes follow, changing costumes like dancers at the Folies Bergère. The entire chorus line rushes onto stage. (You DO know that young, flirty girls can’t resist trying on every color of the rainbow?) Sure hope their show has a long run. Keep singing and prancing, girls! I’m giving a long standing ovation. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. She has now lived more than half her life in Kansas City, MO.Alarie received the first Editor’s Choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. In April, Alarie was proud to be named the 2025 Muse of The Writers Place. **
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