 Rocky River, by Cookie Wells (USA) 2024. Click image for artist site. Dear Writers, I'm again honoured to curate The Ekphrastic Review's biweekly challenge. Over the next two weeks, artist Cookie Wells and I invite you to spend time with her painting, Rocky River, and share whatever its inspiration creates. For many years, Cookie was a figure painter. Wanting a change, she switched to abstract about 8 years ago. Her passion is colour and texture. She is a native of Texas, born in Beaumont. She received an art degree from Lamar University and worked 30-plus years in graphic arts. She is now a full-time artist and member of Archway Gallery, a co-op gallery in Houston, Texas. Write On! Sandi Stromberg ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Rocky River, by Cookie Wells. Deadline is March 28, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include WELLS CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, March 28, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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 Deserted Highway, Mojave Desert, photography by Alexis Rhone Fancher (USA) 2025 To Lend Her Own Eyes There’s always a kid in back, clicked quietly free of her seatbelt if there is one, up on her knees to watch the minutes recede in the rear window. She sees a reverse vista—the golden expanse of forsaken instants we didn’t note the mix of scents the wind blew in over our left arm in sun while we steered, sweet creosote’s particles whirling like stars into the black holes of our nostrils —without a word or a shout. The child shudders with an aloneness that bursts out like a thousand cactus wrens from the nest of her heart into the silver-black mountains above the haze. We’re useless to her or worse, except that we drive these hours between our nowheres, we stay in our lane, leave the radio on its AM Spanish romances strummed and tremolo’d through flurries of static snow, and maybe it’s better somehow we have no idea what beauty burgeons behind her brow as the light grows longer bronzing the scrub calling for her return to the burning dancefloor of fringe-toed lizards and sidewinders. So we’re blind but for the road, but for her eyes on the light we leave and leave the mountains our wind-carved tombstone. Do we somewhere inside us know she’ll come here again, passing under the shadows of lonely crucifix poles and their high-strung wires to whisper-cry to our souls, to wonder, grieve, to lend her own eyes in their deepened arroyos, to reckon slow how impossible it is to see a thing let alone one another as we drive and drive looking for home? Jed Myers Jed Myers is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Learning to Hold (Wandering Aengus Press, Editors’ Award, 2024), and previously The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press) and Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award)—as well as six chapbooks. Recent honours include the Northwest Review Poetry Prize, the River Heron Poetry Prize, and the Sundress Chapbook Editor’s Choice. Poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rattle, The Poetry Review, RHINO, Poetry Northwest, Southern Indiana Review, The Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Myers lives in Seattle, where he’s editor of Bracken. ** The Desert Road Has Thinned Down to This. The road knows it is now another star in a galaxy of stars gone empty, the heat rising like apology that buckles from the too-dry air. The air chokes and then slithers towards anything but here. The road has felt the small murder of a man ‘s foot, the crushing ego of a tire and knows how it is just a moment thing, like moonlight and mist and love. The road remembers how the desert pressed the breath out of the people who drove here, their cars sputtering, the hotslap air through the window cracks. And when the people got out and stretched and tried to cool themselves, their legs went stem, their arms flying, flightless. The sun above a pulse, a pulse. Francine Witte Francine Witte’s flash fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals. Most recently, her stories have been in Best Small Fictions and Flash Fiction America. Her latest flash fiction book is Radio Water (Roadside Press.) Her upcoming collection of poetry, Some Distant Pin of Light is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in NYC. Visit her website francinewitte.com ** Ragged Psalms “Awake. Shake dreams from your hair. My pretty child, my sweet one. Choose the day and choose the sign of your day.” Jim Morrison et al, “Ghost Song” 1. Riding shotgun, Crow’s face blank and bland against the open window like a dog’s, basking in the breeze. The road was wide and the road was empty and the road was endless ahead of them. Morrison’s uneasy melancholy from the speakers. Raggedy gnawed on her stubby fingertips again until Jill snapped at her hand. Rolled up the dregs from the crumpled packet of American Spirit and they all pulled at the nicotine teat. Sang along with Jim as the night drifted up behind them. 2. Raggedy didn’t quite trust the hitchers, or anyone really, but she was glad for company on the journey west. A peculiar couple. Crow didn’t speak at all. Jill said he was an old soul, spanning centuries with an eternal beating heart. Crushed velvet and pirate ruffles and a lingering perfume like an old church. An armload full of Byron and dusty old folklore from Transylvania. Before New Orleans, Raggedy would have laughed out loud, but now, she’ll believe anything. 3. She didn’t want to leave. The Crescent City. She’d grown used to the rhythms of the river, the way the boardwalk saxophones scratched their sigils into the night sky with sound. 4. She’d gotten used to the heavy lullaby of the blues. 5. And all the booze that was hers for the taking in a sea of plastic cups. She was a long way from Canada, but she liked the way she disappeared into the otherworld, a place of barefoot flower children, ragtag punks, and vampires. She blended in with all the gleaming hardware stuck to her body like a human pincushion. She had wanted to be far away, as far away as you could go from what you knew before. 6. Cacti bunched and scraggly, clawing their way up into the reefs of clouds. Green and purple beads roped over the rear-view mirror. Raggedy had felt so free, flashing her assets on Bourbon Street, sucking back strawberry booze from giant alien-faced bottles. In a humid bar that was once a Storyville brothel, lost in the music, she had cradled a small lost boy in her sticky arms, and cried with him over all the things he fled in Salt Lake City. When he had finally emptied of weeping, he wiped his face on her denim sleeves, pulled back, and said, why would you name yourself after a broken doll? 7. Crow still panting, open smile against the open window. Coltrane now, moody, complicated, serenading the falling night. Jill had to pee. Raggedy veered to the highway’s shoulder. Each of them emptied themselves to the darkness at the side of the road. 8. Raggedy had no idea what waited for them when the desert gave itself up for the ocean. She had never seen the cliffs and how they tumbled down to the coast, to the seam between here and forever. 9. Look, Jill said, when they finally pulled into a gas station under a flickering neon sign. Something like an Ed Ruscha painting, a dimly flashing promise: Najah Oasis. Just leave us here, okay? Crow’s hands raking packages of crisps and peanuts into his pockets. Raggedy wiped the windshield methodically, clearing her line of sight for the distance ahead. She watched the strangers walk across the lot, going anywhere, going nowhere, going gone. 10. Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A rusty orange cat perched on her fender, then her dashboard. He stayed a few days, and exited on Hollywood Boulevard. She felt the thrum of history in every new ghosting. She wound her way finally up to Vancouver. Stayed for near a year. 11. Her favourite place is the beach, and the gay nightclubs up the hill are a refuge. After sweating out all the martinis she could imbibe on the dancefloors at the circuit parties, Raggedy loves to go down to English Bay and listen to the sea. Watch the dawn being born anew. Sometimes she sleeps underneath the stars in the shadow of the totem poles. She feels safe there. She can feel their power. She cuts things out of rave flyers and discarded fashion magazines, out of old art books she digs out of dumpsters. She scribbles poems on them, arranges the images in unexpected ways, glues them into place. One day she will start to come together. One day, she will change back her name. Lorette C. Luzajic Lorette C. Luzajic is the founding editor of The Ekphrastic Review and The Mackinaw. She has published hundreds of ekphrastic prose poems and small fictions in journals and anthologies. She is also an award-winning visual artist with collectors in forty countries so far. ** The Empty Road The Mojave Desert astounds me It looks so much like the ceiling of the Brosnan Caves dusted with millet It doesn’t wear gloves because it’s too hot Its sky is a pail of water that spills into the ether It’s the gleam of a snail’s trail left on Aphrodite’s thigh that quenches the thirst of Mariantonietta Peru who walked across the Mojave after she walked across the Sahara and found no one at home Richard Modiano While a resident of New York City Richard Modiano became active in the literary community connected to the Poetry Project where he came to know Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs and Ted Berrigan. In 2001 he was a programmer at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, joined the Board of Trustees in 2006, and from 2010 to 2019, he served as Executive Director. The Huffington Post named him as one of 200 people doing the most to promote poetry in the United States. Modiano is the winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for labour poetry and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. ** The Open Road At high noon, sunlight across cement. Mountains loom ahead, Baba in the driver's seat. I look for birds swift of wing, flat shrubs huddled under baby blue skies. We read the land without GPS or maps, and Mom marks time with her hands, stretching out her arm: departure, the top of her shoulder; arrival, the thin wristband of her watch. Hours pass, summer wind against my face. Where are we on your hand? my siblings and I ask, as we inch ever closer to the wrist watch, seeking the thin sliver of the sea. Elanur Williams Elanur Williams writes from New York City, where she lives with her husband and daughter. She wrote this poem inspired by the summer road trips she took with her family in Turkey, where she lived as a child. The image reminded her of the many juxtapositions of Turkey's structurally complex terrain-- a mosaic of plateaus, valleys, mountain ranges, and gorgeous coastal regions. ** The Way-Back My brother & I rode in the way-back, filmy glass rectangle framing our view like a curtain of mountain mist. Facing each other in leatherette jump seats, so far removed from the bulk of the station wagon we might have been strangers on a train, an invisible table jostling our knees while surreal Western scenes zipped backwards. Miles of tarmac and tumbleweed vanished in the fumes of cheap gas. We had seen this take before. We never would see it again. Heat shimmying over the road like ghostly dancers doing the Frug to the roar of surf music, hundreds of miles from blue shore. A lunar late-night-movie landscape-- loyal dog barking and doomed Bogart stumbling from the rocks to give himself away. In the shadows of High Sierra, we were let loose for feeding and watering at a bleached trading post. Waiting our turns for the lone bathroom. Peering into a cracked glass case—tangle of turquoise and nickel lighters and a beached ceramic mermaid with crooked curled Red Velvet lips, removable breasts for salt and pepper. Someone gunned her down, like any outlaw. Three nicks in one tit and the deathblow drilled into the lurid pink slab holding her heart. Angele Ellis Angele Ellis's work has appeared on a theater marquee, in museums, and in over ninety publications. Her first collection of poems, Arab on Radar (Six Gallery), won a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for its poems on her Arab American heritage. She also is author of Spared (A Main Street Rag Editor's Choice Chapbook) and Under the Kaufmann's Clock (Six Gallery), a hybrid of poetry and short fiction inspired by her adopted city of Pittsburgh. ** California Dreaming Driving Borrego Springs Road at dusk feels like a lost highway dream. A set David Lynch could have used to film where monsters of our minds are metal sculptures of extinct species, mythic birds and beasts, are irradiated insects like rust colored scorpions poised to strike puny humans, in vehicles and out, or are fire spitting dragons that traverse two lanes and loom, their terrible aspects assaultive as moonrise in the desert, as the second coming of nightmares whose unknown origins make the shadows they cast come alive. Alan Catlin Alan Catlin has three books scheduled for this year: Landscape for Exiles (Dos Madres), The Naked City, short stories (Anxiety Press) and Work Anxiety Poems (Roadside Press.) His Still Life with Apocalypse is scheduled with Shelia Na Gig press in 2026, if we live long enough to see 2026. ** Snapshot of Dreamscape As in a dream, I’m driving nowhere on a nowhere road. I’m in the wrong lane, passing a shadow who lurks at my right, chasing me, wanting some trinket or trophy, though I never see his face. As in a dream drawn by advanced AI, I could erase amber desert scrub, substitute miles of rows of corn, replace the corn with trees-- same highway, destination, wide- angle lens. As in a dream, I focus on what’s in front of me: rockface daggering sky like a tooth. It’s not the place I’m bound, my notion of paradise, just a spot that exists, as in this same exhausting dream, at a point in the future I won’t reach before an alarm awakens me with my racing heartbeat in the dark. Ace Boggess Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy. His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His forthcoming books include poetry collections, My Pandemic / Gratitude List from Mōtus Audāx Press and Tell Us How to Live from Fernwood Press, and his first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, from Running Wild Press. ** A la Mode Pie David Lynch drives into a sunset of off kilter horizons toward that hard to reach place around the corner from Mulholland where all the crime is squeezed from romance and every femme fatale is just an angel in disguise because nothing is ever lost and all the highways lead to some lonely diner on the outskirts of Paradise where the underbelly isn’t always reaching for the sky and the pie is always a la mode with the jukebox playing all your favourites over and over like it’s reading your mind dan smith dan smith is the author of Crooked River and The Liquid of Her Skin, the Suns of Her Eyes. Widely published, he has had poems in or at The Rhysling Anthology, Deep Cleveland Junk Mail Oracle, Dwarf Stars, Sein und Werden and Gas Station Famous. Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, dan's most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, dadakuku, Jerry Jazz Musician, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The Ekphrastic Review. ** Deserted Here, hope never dies, in spite of all evidence. Here is the graveyard of Howard Hughes ingenuity in rows of retired warplanes, moored metal sails flashing for miles. Not for nothing is the infamous town called Tombstone, yet still they came, hell-bent for leather. Trucks and horses are traded beneath willful thunderheads and dust devils. Here are many thieves, but rarely a moth has eaten, and never has rust destroyed. Godforsaken and accursed in blistering clarity, it stills you into a lizard on a rock, and you can wonder yourself to death, not at the why of it all, but the how of it all. The land of enchantment is harsh and stony and towering in its vastness, but with the most delicate and fragile survivals scattered across it, both ephemeral and timeless at once. The light falls over it mightily, an unblinking dare to show yourself. Lizbeth Leigh Jones Lizbeth Leigh Jones holds a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. Her nonfiction and short fiction have been published in Compendium, Persona, and Bainbridge Island Magazine. Her poem “Apocalyptic Us” has been published in the current issue of Cagibi. She currently lives in Atlanta where she works as a freelance writer and editor and is a member of the Broadleaf Writers Association. ** Endless Velocity Consider that behind the intimidating glare of this hundred-and-eight degrees of desert heat is an arcade of stars banking through galaxies that we can only sort in our tiny minds by our frail human standards of understanding expressed in a language with a mere twenty-six letters to shape into the size of the truths that need to be told. I have a mind that sees dust rising in the distance and wants to describe a waterfall flowing skyward, a ridge of mountains calling to the lies one wants to stop living. I am captive in the turn of these wheels rumbling this stretch of nothing-to-see-of-ease here highway. I am obliged to keep moving one uncomfortable foot in front of the other. One turn at the place where there used to be a corner, a market, a home, a recognizable country, a standard of chivalry, an ounce of expected respectable behaviour. I am compelled toward silence. I once wrote speeches and sermons and lessons to deliver. Now, I am a lowered anchor in a pit of flailing venom. Peggy Dobreer Peggy Dobreer is the founder and curator of Slow Lightning Lit, and editor-in-chief of Slow Lightning: Lit anthologies, and a few “uncommon books of poetry.” Peggy is a Los Angeles based poet, choreographer and somatic practitioner. A four-time Pushcart nominee, she is author of three published collections: Forbidden Plums, 2021, Glass Lyre Press, Drop and Dazzle, 2018 and In the Lake of Your Bones, 2012, with Moon Tide Press. ** Two Worlds Lift your eyes up to the hills hewn out of blue granite, gabbo, tonalite, and quartz. Once, the earth’s core spilled over, raining boulders, a giant toddler stacked and disarranged these blocks. Two worlds, mountain and desert, neither hospitable to those with no fur or feathers that might shield, no claws to dig a hollow in the ground. This is just a place we pass, a vista from the window. We’re drawn to towns beyond the hills. Stop and stand among the cholla and the brittlebush. At first sight, you’ll be convinced that nothing much lives in this yellow desert, below a narrow belt of cloud. But look what’s camouflaged by brush, not evident unless you stand for hours bent on capturing the slightest movement of a lizard or jackrabbit. In the cool shade of prickly pear, the cactus wren has made its nest, blue eggs like fallen bits of sky. Soon you’ll see traces of a sidewinder, eyebrows etched in sand, impressions waves make at the ocean’s edge. You’ll learn by watching what seeds and fruits are good to eat, where water lies. Take this knowledge with you when you go, but only if your life depends on it. Robbi Nester Robbi Nester is a retired college educator and author of five books of poetry, the most recent of these being About to Disappear, an ekphrastic collection of poetry to be published by Shanti Arts. She has also edited three ekphrastic anthologies. Currently, Robbi curates and hosts two poetry reading series monthly on Zoom. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vox Populi, SWWIM, One Art, and many other places, and will appear in forthcoming anthologies, A Golden State and Keystone: Poets of Pennsylvania. Learn more at http://www.robbinester.net. ** Silence of Silence I am lost and I’m driving alone Why did I think I was lost? When did violet rain exile? Death rises like smoke Lucky sunshine opens silence, leaving awe Wind blowing frees spirits whispering unlocks hearts Nature's touch of words, stillness melts in my heart My words disappear like dust but I write poetry with my language of sand No season changes who I am, the roots of trees Mojave desert, where I can love without worrying about tomorrow No fence can stop me from blooming Time has passed so quickly And get a cup of coffee 99 miles stop, gas station, must fill gas The joshua tree remembers my teardrops My heart aches if I look back I can always turn around If I am not ready The wind runs to me in yellow shoes Who knows what is on the other side I am not sweating to cross the mountain I am not looking for belonging nor destiny I left without knowing where I’m going It must be tuesday morning It’s better to drive alone I am lost Tanya Ko Hong Tanya (Hyonhye) Ko Hong (고현혜) is an internationally published poet, translator, and cultural-curator who champions bilingual poetry and poets. She is the author of five books, including The War Still Within (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). Her poetry appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (The Feminist Press), among others. Her segmented poem, “Comfort Woman,” received an honourable mention from the Women’s National Book Association. She holds an MFA degree from Antioch University, Los Angeles. ** If I Ever Got Married, It Would Be Like This Like that highway sparse Like each word that we ground out Like that blinding sun And like those vows we took Our hate will last forever 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 200 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 put into 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. ** Snowfall Concrete rises and falls with alluvial fans dry Cahuilla washes where road does not obey human engineering whimsies. In passenger seat between her knees she arranged her winter pack, sun caught dark hair with silvern strands which last night rested against my chest. Violinist’s brown eyes peered straight through the windshield read the line of lumbrous low clouds shrouding the mountain "Those clouds aren’t going anywhere soon." Scanning ahead it hit me. We were driving into a storm we should have turned back to the Hot Springs hotel connected by the desert highway where she told me in the shower she was sexually numb – fucked . by so many fake gurus during free love she put it. I continued to drive straight. Hypnotized by the rolling road. Lolled by memories of the touch of her lips on my cock, the taste of her cunt on my tongue. "Dreams are meant to come true" she said as we embraced and though I never entered her body we shared each other’s sex through the night. Clouds boiled up to 10,000 feet by the time we reached road’s end to join a group for winter snow camp. Up the Tramway we rose as the road reduced to ribbon, disembarked in a lost land at the trail head where the two of us made angels in the snow which amused the more experienced. When the blizzard struck we bedded down on the trail shared a down sleeping bag shivered through a night so cold it froze five gallons of water stiff. The next day, we made it back to the desert floor, separated like dips along the pavement she whistled the opening bars of the Kreutzer Sonata I heard her play with a philharmonic, entranced, though she was already gone when I dropped her in La Jolla no good bye, never to see her. Marc Petrie Marc Petrie has published three collections of poems and a novel. His work has appeared in City Lights Review, Book of Matches, and the American Poetry Review, among others. Mr. Petrie teaches math and lives in Orange County, California with his wife and dog. ** An Oasis for Elders “I am dry down there,” she tells me as we drive through the Mojave. “As long as I can remember, I have been moist. Hot and eager.” She puts her hand on my thigh. I smile, then look back at the highway. keep both hands on the wheel. You never know when you are going to have to keep control. “But life rearranges your body. Sags and creaks are part of the deal,” she sighs. Then she gestures towards the desert. “But now between my legs sometimes it feels like this. Moisture keeps getting harder to find.” She shrugs, and pulls from her purse a small bag of YES® lubricant applicators. She dangles them from her fingers. “Sometimes you have to pay to play,” she whispers, then slides her other hand even higher. “How far is the oasis?" Gary S. Rosin Gary S. Rosin is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press 2023), Cold Moon Journal, Concho River Review, contemporary haibun, Texas Poetry Calendar, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Wild Word. Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum 2008). His poems “Viewing the Dead,” and “Black Dogs,” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. His poem “Night Winds” was nominated for “Best of the Net 2024.” ** Your Point At what point will you slant sideways into the horizon of your memory At what point will you disappear from the you and me that once was us At what point will you unhook the imagining of tomorrow lose all memory of my kiss Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith dedicates these words to those caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's, especially her sister-in-law. ** Solitary Traveler The night he died he told her he would. No, you won’t, she said, though he knew what he knew and in fact did what he said. As we drove on Interstate 40 to the funeral, surrounded by mountains, we passed twisted Joshua trees, their branches like arms upraised in prayer. She looked down at her lap and told me her deepest regret would always be that she did not hold his hand as died. I just let him go alone, she wept. And I know I was supposed to say No, you did not. But she did. She did. Cheryl Snell Cheryl Snell’s books include several poetry collections and novels. Her most recent writing has or will appear in Midway, Rogue Agent, Blue Unicorn, 100 Word Story, and the Best Microfiction 2025 anthology.  Eve, by Dyane Jackson (USA) 2017 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Eve, by Dyane Jackson. Deadline is March 14, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include JACKSON CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, March 14, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  Untitled, by Manolo Millares (Spain) 1963 Entitled "Isn't it rich Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air... Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear, Losing my timing this late in my career..." Stephen Sondheim, Send In The Clowns The black and white cross on canvas is Untitled, mixed with burlap's rough texture, splotched with red -- enough blood, it was said by Lorca, to equal 300 roses; or sangre spilled in the Spanish Civil War. In the mountains between Madrid and Segovia, Robert Jordan's horse is shot from beneath him, and dying, he says goodbye to Maria, his memory of the grass where their bodies were entwined taken with him though his life must end in Hemmingway's fiction. How near the lyricism of life is that of death: Lorca shot by Franco's Fascist firing squad in Viznar, Spain the words of his gypsy ballads lingering -- Green I love you greenly, and green the branches. Dali and Gala were already in exile for safety; they begged their friend, Lorca to flee...but Robert Jordan was dying, firing on the enemy; and Maria -- young -- was left clinging to passion on the mountainside, entitled to have what they had shared, if briefly, on an unknown road into the future, days when the earth could have been sparsely foliaged -- summer-bare as it was when we drove to Granada. There, in a moment of amazing beauty the barren landscape was surprised by The Alhambra -- its fountains an oasis, a Wonder of the World (1 of 7 the guidebook said) yet the sight of it was so much more than words.... In my heart, I'd grieved for Lorca, his fascination with the gypsies of his homeland a living pulse of life ...could such entitlement be ours when we could no longer be together as the water from a fountain cast a curl of diamonds; and Lorca's simple "Song of The Rider" was my song as I sat beside you -- my husband who wasi driving; and Lorca seemed so near on his black pony the moon fat and full, his saddlebags filled with Spanish olives; and for us, do you remember how precious were our children, ripening with love and life -- Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. The beauty and surreality of Lorca's words have long been a source of poetry she finds inspirational as in the first poem in her book, When Dreams Were Poems. Robert Jordan and Maria were Hemingway characters who meet during the Spanish Civil War in For Whom The Bell Tolls. ** Skinny and Flimsy Work Horse, Almost Always Full of Bruises Don Quijote called her Rosinante. Cervantes said: “He gave him this name because he thought it was the most appropriate for a gentleman.” And there rode the hidalgo Alonso Quijano, reader of romances of the chivalric sort, who imagines himself the caballero who is about to fight evil and defend his patria, his fatherland, with the help of SanchoPanza, his ignorant sidekick. And so Alonso Quijano becomes Don Quixote de la Mancha, knight in shiny armour, the only one who will fight the giants with the flailing arms. Salvador de Madariaga is telling us of the "Sanchifaction of Don Quixote and the Quixotizsation of Sancho Panza." Oh, would this be so today, when Rosinante has to carry two poor deluded souls battling windmills, and probably riding the poor beast to death. Giants of your mind Elongated lances Dead horses Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was several times nominated for a Pushcart and Best of Net. Her eighth book, LIFE STUFF,has been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). A new manuscript is in the works. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** ‘Til Then, Dear Girl: a Sijo Sequence I. We will scratch a legacy across this teardrop tender sky, fighting our oppressors armed with our resentment, fury, and hate, defending freedom with the truth, as our mothers would have wanted. II. Standing tall, standing proud, standing at the edge, we will rage resistance Psalms and blare death metal ballads of peace, giving and taking hits easily after all this abuse. III. There are people who never seem to rise to anything at all. Others only know how to hurt for their own greedy benefit. Some are hurt so much that they themselves learn how to hurt others well. IV. Be wary of them all, dear. Each poses their own unique threat, And no matter what they tell you, you are good and worthy and true. So, we will defend you, just as generations before did us. V. ‘Til we are predictably battered, wearing our black and blue proud. ‘Til they have bloodied us as red as Eve allegedly did. ‘Til we waltz and we two-step and we salsa across these men’s graves. Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist in Madison, Wisconsin, born and raised in rural Kentucky. She has had over 200 poems published on five continents, and her poetry has won multiple awards. One poem was choreographed and performed by a dance troupe, and an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece was featured in the Chazen Museum of Art’s Companion Species exhibit. Her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, San Antonio Review, and Xinachtli Journal (Journal X). An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** Rancher's First Date After a Long Time My heartline and lifeline cross just here inside my glove, even if y’can’t see, or which one forks off–small splinter trickles away like the Colorado, won’t reach the Gulf anymore. I drank that water as a kid, splashed through troughs, rain ran down our backs, flicked off our eyelashes. Best soaking, a deluge, drops raced each other below, between shale and bedrock right here at our feet. I swear I could feel earth rumble above the water filt’ring– –sounded like traveling across cattle guards at night with a truck full. We’d drill wood slats to the door where pushing was worst and get on board –wore ear buds for the noise–head to slaughter god knows where since they closed the yards at KC, until we’d release ‘em under flood lights –bawling, stumbling in dirt, through the chutes. I stayed once after auction, told my little girl I’d watch where they went, keep ‘em safe. Has her own kids now, my bloodline, six generations. After the sale, they'd be done slippin' and fallin' on the concrete, hangin' over drains, drippin' so fast –rain like that could recharge the Red. Blood smells like mined lead, y’know, sweet, so thick it’d make you sick, if y’let it. At least the cow excretions get hosed out first. Toughest gloves come from cattle. I won’t touch sheep leather. Too soft. Cowhide takes time to wear in but can take a beating day in, day out, somethin' you can count on. Lynn Axelrod Lynn Axelrod's poetry appears in various journals and outlets; is anthologized; was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle; and is in a collection of the James Joyce Library, University College, Dublin. Her first chapbook, Night Arrangements, earned a Kirkus Review "Get it" verdict. Her second, Lotus Earth on Fire was published in 2024 by Finishing Line Press. She's been a community organizer for disaster readiness, reporter for a weekly newspaper, studio jewelry maker, environmental NGO staffer, and a lawyer. ** Blood-Bird Man The figure looms over Enrique, blood-bird wingspan stretched over him from a white and black robe. Protection or condemnation? Death-inhaler or death-exhaler? Enrique doesn't know which, and he is too ill to care. Eyeless skulls stare at him. He wants to chuckle, for how can a hollow where an eye once was be capable of stare? Or is each of these crevasses an abyss in the fabric of life through which he must now pass? He hears mumbles of an ancient tongue he cannot comprehend. Blood-bird man presses on his chest with the lightness of feathers. Enrique’s breathing quickens at first and then relaxes into a lullaby rhythm his mother might once have hummed. His pain dissipates. All that remains is the melody of breath and the flapping of wings. He falls into a deep sleep. When he awakes, the village shaman announces, “He is well!” The shaman’s robes are now all white. The ground is littered with red feathers and black rags. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals. Visit her website at barbarakrasner.com. ** Death Was Different Then Death was different then, more approachable. We could call him down if we needed to, and I did. The writing was on the wall; after days of seeing skulls in every rock’s shadow, I knew which way I was headed. I went out dressed for Death in my best burlap-- in the old colors he knows-- chalk-white and clay-red and the black of tarpits and aurochs-- drew X’s to mark my spot (nice and obvious; I was only doing this once). Take me, take me, I said, but in Death’s language, which at that time was common (and easy enough, monosyllabic), and opened my arms wide for his embrace, and just like that, he was at my back, like a wind, like a wish, like a wailing bird, lifting me up; I never saw his face. I heard a sound like the ripping of a great fabric as he tore me away from the earth-- I still hear it. Amber Burke Amber Burke grew up in North Dakota and graduated from Yale and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. Now she teaches writing and yoga at UNM-Taos. Her creative work can be found in magazines including The Sun, Quarterly West, and Swamp Pink. Her yoga writing appears in Yoga International and Yoga Journal. ** Painted Moth It was flying around that evening Attracted to the table lamp light Set up to give a pale white glow As I was spray painting a canvas With acrylic creams and browns As an untitled abstract impression Capturing a mood I’d felt all day A confused moth, fluttered past Straight across my line of sight Spattered with paint, it tumbled As if shot down by ack-ack fire Landing clumsily upon the table Now static in the lightbulb glare Clearly in shock and unmoving With paint drying over its wings Almost now an alien camouflage Hidden patches on a muddy field Yet providing me new inspiration My artwork with an altered view Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** Hidden Beneath Here below turbulent waves deep In the depths, a great beast floats Dark blue water camouflaged, a true Dennison of the deep: whale, shark? Echoes of human manufacture- a sub? Nearly invisible, painted blood red Brine can’t wash away memories of ships Entering fishing grounds, scaring life till None can survive the empty sea, under waves Ebbed in tides, no place left to hide from Attacks, harpoon and net, can never forget That humans are a danger to all sea life Hidden beneath, the plight just to survive Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson write poetry from prompts including art, nature and music. Her work varies between life and teen issues, environment and memories. Dickson's poems appear in over 70 journals worldwide, including Girl Goddess, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien and The Ekphrastic Review. She has served a a guest editor on several publications and as a past poetry board member. ** Manolo's Vision Etched deep into the angled edge of the mountain's sheer rock face - two long bones, the white plate of pelvis, an ochre red smear tinted by some ancient plant or berry: history of violence. In Altamira, sketched men run on stick legs, arms extend into spears, sharp deep strokes in the charcoal walls of the cave, bison flee, fall: the same ochre red patches of blood: ancient history of violence, of survival. Laura L. Hansen Laura Hansen is a Stevens Poetry Manuscript Prize Winner for Midnight River. Her most recent books are The Night Journey: Stories and Poems published by River Place Press and Waiting Rooms: My Breast Cancer Journey in Poems. Laura is a former Independent Bookseller who is passionate about the power of words to convey and connect. She is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and has attended workshops at The Loft Literary Center, Madeline Island School of the Arts and elsewhere. Laura's other passions include whiskery dogs, life by the river, reading and puzzles. ** Baba Yaga’s[1] Winter Forest In these woods my hut balances on the feathered talons of owls. Men roar past on oil-fed contraptions, stain the snow black. My hut realigns itself, agile as the barred owl hunting among the trees and as silent. My camouflage is birch bark siding. Only the deer know I am here. They taught me how to find the vanishing point. Showed me the lone woman. The other women stick to the road, gobbling in flocks like the turkeys. Sometimes the turkeys scrabble round my house for beetles and beech nuts. The one that plumps my stew pot isn’t missed by the clucking flock. They don’t know the spell for silence. The lone woman sidles close on webbed wooden feet when the drifts are soft. I don’t feed the fire so there’s no smoke. Huddle by the cooling stove. Even the Pileated woodpeckers flatten their red crests, black and white blending with the birches. The woman seeks me in her dreams: wants a spell to save the trees. Last summer the wind boiled a funnel cloud through my forest, snapping trunks of burly maples, muscled blue beech. Like twigs. Tore the feathered capes of White Pines. Scattered bird nests. Eggs, shards of blue sky, leaking. That wind had iron teeth and claws. I burrowed into the river bank, lived with the kingfisher all summer. The woman’s dreams haunt me: she found a blue feather from a shadow jay on the snow. Like Lucy of the candle crown[2], she wanders the forest path on the longest night, searching for her lost sight. I told her to gouge out her eyes so she would always walk in darkness. I hide beneath its heavy duvet. If the lone woman finds me I will eat her heart. Kate Rogers [1] Baba Yaga is an Eastern European forest witch from ancient Slavic myth. [2] St. Lucy is a saint of Nordic countries. Unlike most saints, she does not have her own day, but does have a night. At ceremonies the young woman chosen to be Lucy wears a crown of candles. She is believed to bring back the light. Some Lucy stories describe how she gouged out her eyes to discourage a suitor. Kate Rogers won first place in the subTerrain magazine 2023 Lush Triumphant Contest for her five-poem suite, “My Mother’s House.” She is co-author of the chapbook Homeless City with Donna Langevin. Kate’s latest poetry collection is The Meaning of Leaving. She is the Director of Art Bar, Toronto’s oldest poetry reading series. More at: katerogers.ca/ ** Flatout Sacked A not-so-subtle exhale. Like seeing the coin toss flop from its edge. Like the replay of your favorite quarterback crushed under three-hundred pounds of defensive tackle. Not even bones--ribs, knuckles-- retain shape. The Xs and Os. Mostly the Oh’s turning gray. The blood-red of the midfield logo permanently smashed into the flank. All that’s left after the last whoosh--the exiting puff of life-giving breath, the extinguishing of light and memory--is one unblinking eye. Todd Sukany Todd Sukany <[email protected]>, a two-time Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. His work has appeared in Ancient Paths, Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, and The Ekphrastic Review. Sukany authored Frisco Trail and Tales as well as co-authored four books of poetry under the title, Book of Mirrors, with Raymond Kirk. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, loving three children, their spouses, seven grandchildren, caring for two rescued dogs, and four rescued cats. ** Bloodletting after we abandoned our preordained selves I couldn't remember your face. a decade of painting portraits, and then you, the negative space. when we were children they told us Jesus was stumbling to Calvary under the cross and a woman broke from the crowd to wipe his brow with her veil. later, blood marked the cloth in his image. after we met again I tried to claw you from the red dark behind my eyes. the parish priest carried me from the sacristy— my son, you have been blessed. he kissed the boreholes in my face before leaving me on the cathedral steps. he said he would tell you where to find me, but once his psalms had finally corroded I felt my way up to the apse and you fell from me in hymns and clots and hallowing rust. Lalini Shanela Ranaraja Lalini Shanela Ranaraja makes art in a wilderness of places, most recently Katugastota (Sri Lanka), Rock Island (Illinois) and the California Bay Area. She has written about defiant women, red-tailed hawks, best beloveds, mothertongues and luminous worlds for The Ekphrastic Review, Wildness, Hunger Mountain, Strange Horizons and others. Discover more of her work at www.shanelaranaraja.com. ** A Raw Poetics What is this animal Manolo that stalks your canvas pushes past the frame walks its awkward limbs towards me as if something must be accounted for of what did you dream in that café with Tapiés those hours exchanging notes on cardboard scraps in your scrawling écriture some new aesthetic a raw art discard of rules of tone or touch conventions even of beauty even Goya was not enough you headed instead to alleyways a collector now burlap tar rope sand torn jute you sewed into whole cloth scumbled with your gesture primal disquieted your viscous clumps of paint weighing heavy upon that animal a raw poetics you said to salvage the dark of history bear witness to despair but oh how history repeats repeats repeats itself Manolo the relentless beat of a drum your animal walks its awkward limbs towards me as if something must be accounted for. Victoria LeBlanc Victoria LeBlanc is an artist, writer and curator. She has contributed to over 50 publications on contemporary Canadian artists. As a visual artist, she has participated in solo and group exhibitions across Canada. Recent poetry collections include Hold (2019) and River | Riven (2024), the latter accompanied by the exhibition A path walks quietly on its own. www.victorialeblancart.com ** Untitled, No Date A milch cow, flayed, left hanging from a wall Where thick black dust’s cut open with a scrawl Not much unlike a swastika, although Death’s possibilities are endless. so Just call it what you like: Pandora’s box; Life-saving drugs left rotting on the docks; Earth’s creatures used and starved, hung out to dry: A prize for dicing soldiers by and by; For we in all our godly zeal require A living testament to knife and wire, A sacrament of blood, a sacred cow Slaughtered to prove sheer wealth is holy now. Does art do this? Picasso shook his head. I’m not to blame for Guernica, he said. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few online magazines. She has a particular love for animals and visual art. ** I make peace with my ghosts i all I ever got was glimpses, there in the corners of my life - after-images, haunting as skulls, ghosts of other existences sometimes they hinted at spilled blood, theirs and others, often it was about black dirt thick like loam, corrupted, and there was ash, so much ash leaving dirty smears on crumpled white sheets that spread like waves, like wings ii when the ghosts stopped appearing I felt hollow, deserted - had I just imagined the words of those whispering voices? those conversations with them had mattered even when it felt like touching cobwebs and shadows, my mind's hollow echoing was I really just making them up, talking to past versions of myself? had I warped the rough fabric to make it fit my own needs? iii when they'd first appeared I yearned for silence from the ghosts not realising how much I'd miss them when they were gone as the absence grew I looked, I searched, I pored over signs I realised how much they'd become part of me, our shared history now I have my own story of why they came, why they had to leave I am at peace with my version of them. They leave me alone Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer from the UK Midlands. She particularly enjoys ekphrastic writing and has had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print. ** To Manolo Millares Regarding Untitled How apt that jute would be avowed as fit embrace of final shroud to keep the worst of beasts at bay from lifeless flesh as feasts of prey and threats to those who left survive by reason not to be but thrive and also leave their conscious thought as skill and conscience better wrought to destine aim becoming course, triumphant even in remorse, that leaves its mark on darkened walls as proof of hope in cryptic scrawls that you revere in jute again connecting is to long has been. 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. ** Cowed When your artwork is abstract or surreal, people bombard you with questions. What is it? Why did you paint it like THAT? Do you make any art that is, you know, PRETTY? Potential buyers go nuts when I don’t title a painting. (I do in my head, but they get in the way of sales.) Most of my audience is mystified why I would specialize in cow art. I don’t tell them I grew up on a dairy farm. I fell in love with cows, but hated the matter of fact attitude of my parents and brothers. Four years truly isn’t the natural life span of a cow. I fell apart every time one of our Bessies or Buttercups disappeared from our barn. Mama wanted me to skip college and work at the dairy. She wasn’t about to pay for more schooling. So what did I do? I approached an abstract artist. He moved to our farming community to paint in peace. I offered to assist him by stretching canvases, answering phones, doing what I could to help. In exchange, he paid me minimum wage and taught me most of what I know about art. It didn’t hurt that I’m a decent cook either. He even let me squeeze in classes at the local art institute. It wasn’t long before I was noticed. My artist was kind to mix my canvases with his in the gallery. I began to make money, win contests, and best of all, bought my own small pasture/summer workshop space. Three or four sweet cows get to live out their full lives with me and a colony of cats. See that russet blot on this canvas? That belongs to my Millie. No cows are ever harmed in the name of art. 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. 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. ** Building Bridges, Not Walls I. burlap noun : a coarse heavy plain-woven fabric usually of jute or hemp used for bagging and wrapping and in furniture and linoleum manufacture [Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary] II. Worn by the prophets in solidarity with the suffering, sackcloth served as a metaphor for God’s work. III. Incorporated within the paintings of Millares, it symbolized the persistence of the human spirit, represented the resilience of humanity. IV. Like the prophets and artists before us, will you build bridges, support all people in the figurative weave and unity of burlap? Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is a Midwesterner with roots in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She 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 finds joy spending time outdoors and with loved ones. ** Collage: chalk on blackboard, paper bags, dark chocolate, and the red paint risk of disapproval In Adam's world of quantum physics, observation can bring things into being. Like us. I observed him at the grocery store where I work, gently bagged his peaches as I rang him through. He noticed me at a coffee shop downtown and waved. In the park, we discovered we both had golden retrievers. I said, "Your Niels Bohr is cute." He said, "Your Goldie is cuter." After that, we laughed and touched, and when we began the silly "You hang up first."—"No, you hang up." I moved in with him. It's been a month now. None of my friends and family know. "Cindy, you are in a superposition," says Adam one night in bed. "You and I will not change other realities." Realities like Marg and I, Elliot and I., my daughter Tessa and I. "It'll be plus, not minus." I kiss him for that. He kisses me back. "Tell them I have a quantum property called strangeness." No, they won't get it. What will they get? That forever-single Cindy is cohabitating (Adam's word) with a professor of physics, a science man from the fancy-schmancy university on the hill. Adam says, "Hypothesise. How might your family react?" Marg. My bestie for thirty years. She'll mumble as the surprise computes, will grab her phone and look up quantum physics, then crack a crooked smile. Something funny is coming. Something like Adam is my atom. "Like it?" I ask. He does. High school science was boring and confusing; nothing but Cs and Ds. I don't understand much of what Adam says, but do try to apply it. "Marg is a positive proton." Adams nods as he fiddles with my nightie. "She'll be happy for us and will want to know when I knew." Adam props himself up on a pillow. "Knew what, specifically?" "When you were the one." He cocks a bushy eyebrow. "You told me I was a charm quark." Sounded sweet, whatever it is. Apparently, the randomness of molecules in the human brain suggests we don't have free will. Elliot, my negatively charged younger brother. When he finds out about us, he'll agree. Will mansplain that I sure as hell don't because I'm smitten and at, snort, fifty-nine. "Blah-blah ridiculous to get into a common-law entanglement blah-blah." Says Adam, "Well, I have asked you to marry me. Will repeat." He throws back the blankets and, in pyjamas covered with equations, plunks down on one creaky knee beside the bed. "Tomorrow is Valentine's Day." He takes my hand. "A surprise wedding! Let's invite your friend and your brother over. Tessa is already coming." Tessa. Our annual mother-daughter party is tomorrow. "We'll wed in front of them in the living room or on the patio." Oh, God. I pull Adam back into bed, play with the numbers on his jammies. "Dunno, Love." "Why not?" When Tessa was seven, her father left and a new universe—such a hard one—began. It's been just her and I ever since. And ever since, Valentine's Day has been our day. We give each other roses. We have Marry Me Chicken and watch sappy romances, sigh that we'll both find The One someday. Always thought my beautiful girl, now nearly thirty-two, would've been the first. "I can't. I can't shock Tessa with a wedding." "Valentine's Day should be ours," grumbles Adam. Don't know how to answer, so I don't. "I'll tell her about us tomorrow." Adam perks up. Advice comes as easily to him as formulae. I bet he fills blackboards when teaching. Serve soothing chamomile tea. Serve dark chocolate. It can ease anxiety. Become the detached transmitter of information, the "Alice" of his quantum cryptography experiments. Tessa will be the "Bob", the receiver. So as not to be "Eve", the theoretical eavesdropper, Adam will leave the house before Tessa arrives. One look into my girl's brown eyes and I'll screw everything up, confuse her so badly she'll blurt, "Huh? There's an Alice and some guy named Bob mixed up with you and this Adam? OMG, Mum." Shudder. I need much simpler. "What about telling her you fell into my lap and I fell into yours?" Adam drums his fingers on the sheets. "But is gravity compatible with quantum physics?" Slowly, I say what I never have about his science: "I do not care." Adam's mouth twitches. I tell him I want Tessa to hug me, say she's so glad I've found someone and holler where the hell is he anyway because she wants to meet him, warn him that he better be damn good to me. Or else. Adam blinks-blinks. "Yeah, Tessa can be tough." This Valentine's Day might be red and heated. Messy for him. Adam flops back on his pillow. Although I know he knows he kinda did, my professor of physics mumbles, "Nobody said this was going to be easy." Karen Walker Karen Walker (she/her) writes short in a low basement in Ontario, Canada. Her recent work is in or forthcoming in Exist Otherwise, antonym, Mythic Picnic, Misery Tourism, and Does it Have Pockets.  Deserted Highway, Mojave Desert, photography by Alexis Rhone Fancher (USA) 2025 The Ekphrastic Review is thrilled to have the incredible Alexis Rhone Fancher as this challenge's guest editor and artist! A big welcome to Alexis, who is known for her widely published photography and for many amazing books, including Erotic, The Dead Kid Poems, Enter Here, Brazen, Junkie Wife, and more. You can visit her site here: https://www.alexisrhonefancher.com/.
** Dear Ekphrastic Readers and Writers, I have long been a fool for ekphrastic poems. Some visual artists are adept at creating art that allows the viewer to enter the art, make themselves a part of it and then write about it. Such works of art tease me, even dare me to step inside. Edward Hopper is one such artist. So much empty space in his canvases. Leonora Carrington is another painter who dazzles me. And occasionally, a photograph of mine seems to tempt me as well, which led me to create DUETS, a collaboration between myself and my long-time editing/creating partner, poet Cynthia Atkins. We wrote to my photos over a one-year period, and realized we had a book, which was published in 2022, by Harbor Editions. It’s always a pleasure to be published in The Ekphrastic Review. Over the past few years they’ve published several of my ekphrastic poems. I’m a poet, writer, art lover and also a photographer, and there’s so much convergence in these pages that speaks to me. I’m delighted to be a guest editor with my own photo, one which I hope will invite you to enter my desert landscape, and then write about your journey. I look forward to reading your poems and stories. Alexis Rhone Fancher ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Deserted Highway, Mojave Desert, by Alexis Rhone Fancher. Deadline is February 28, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include FANCHER CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, February 28, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  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/  Untitled, by Manolo Millares (Spain) 1963 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Untitled, by Manolo Millares. Deadline is February 14, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include MILLARES CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, February 14, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  Life on the Precipice 1, Yosemite Park, photography by Franka M. Gabler (USA) contemporary Missed? But there is life, means to survive. amongst the strife of shallow graves, where rock and masonry conjoin to wipe from earth that little hope. But some adapted, little root, a guard, a carbon-capture cloud, to hold their ground, in fortress stance, that bulwark worn down by the rain, drips infinite in time on place, a torture for impregnable. Remember well, in savage war, the weakest triumphs in thin soil, despite colossal taking toll, the mighty brought down, haughty fall. It’s hard to see where both obtain - that massive block, as solid wall, the whelm that hefts the lonely tree; but so with mist that fogs our view, for veil of tears (no vale in site), distracts from hope, surmounting scape. So celebrate each single tree, a sign and symbol, history; from mycorrhiza, canopy, all evergreen in darkest earth. Recall their seed needs stratify, be frozen before germinates. But forget not, while justice slow, when mass knows force, then moment known, as crib lies under rubble strewn, may we encourage gracious, kind? 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 online 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 ** Precipice uneven border of crumbling rock, sharp silver cut into mist -- here at the brink, unbound Elanur Williams Elanur Williams is a GED teacher in the Bronx. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter. ** The Choice “Don’t look back.” Isn’t that what was said to Lot’s wife? But she looked, and we all know her fate. Does her pillar still stand? Unlikely. The ravages of time would have taken care of mere salt. Despite the warning, I, too, look back to a place where the deeds are done, the shadows are banished, and there is nothing to fear. I’m tempted to stay here gazing into the past for the rest of eternity, living easily amidst my memories of beautiful days while banishing anything with a darker hue. Would a pillar of salt be such a terrible fate? A tremulous whisper interrupts my reverie. “I’m here.” I slowly turn my head. Who is here? What do they want with me? The bearer of the voice is lost in a sea of mist and swirls. I take a tentative step forward, arms outstretched, grasping at wisps of emptiness. My toes curl over an edge. A precipice. What lies beyond? The choice is clear. The past in its permanence or the future in its possibilities? A statue or living, breathing, creating? I leap, leaving the salt behind. Teri M. Brown Teri M. Brown, mother, grandmother, beach bum, bridge player, cyclist, award-winning author, and Online for Authors podcast host, calls the North Carolina coast home. Teri’s novels, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap, and An Enemy Like Me introduce readers to characters they’d like to invite to lunch. Follow her at www.terimbrown.com. ** Conundrum Fog uncomforts fear in wild beauty admired from unmoving safety anchored to rock, a tiny gully enclosing the body from edges and certain death from accidental fall or impulsive leap, flight. And yet in imagination, I navigate to the edge stand firm with arms embracing wind, fog, dawning sun, feet young wholly unbothered by jagged edges and uneven stance. I look down, undizzy. I fill my lungs. Carol Coven Grannick Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose work captures her response to, and relationship with the earth’s natural objects, imprints, creatures, and experiences. She delights in writing for little ones and for the rest of us. Her work in numerous children's and literary magazines gives meaning to the tender journey through this life. She can be reached through her website: https://bitsoftheworldinverse.com ** The Precipice Calls The edge had dared us. The pull that flesh exerts this season feels suspended. For days the rain sheeted, damping the cold dirt. Dry and dormant things gasped for air underground in tunnels running near and around buried stones. A line of leafless trees swayed at a meadow's edge; a field of pale grass lies flat in shearing winds, a low, hollow lallation against a stinging silence that smothers human sounds. Cold to the touch, this land of immense disappearances, where dusk had stalled and squeezed breath from the sky, encompasses us, alone together, turning our senses, the broken bits we use to know ourselves, the raw force, tight as a bud, we feel will burst out in full, seducing flowers, sprung alive from our bodies to wreck the world we made. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator who taught global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village in rural Ohio. ** Life on the Precipice Overhead I hear kak-kak-kak—a peregrine falcon hunting lunch in the crevices of granite below me, in the distant valley, I see shadow and sunlight. Night was just stepping aside when I began this climb, and now, sweat-slicked and aching, hunger hangs on the breeze and the fog-chill envelops me. The wool in my head has unraveled onto subalpine scrub and the whitebark pine holds its breath. Up here, I can be nothing but what I am—an edge-walker, heart-stomped and empty-handed. Damp air clings, my nostrils tingle, I can almost taste spring. I wonder what would happen if I floated right off the bluff. Lesley Rogers Hobbs Lesley Rogers Hobbs (she/her) is an Irish poet and artist living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and service dog. She loves popcorn, sunshine, Pink Floyd and the ocean. Her poetry has appeared online and in print, including in The Ekphrastic Review, Open Door Poetry, The Hyacinth Review, Querencia Press and Cirque. ** No Time to Worry, No Time to Blink Life on a precipice sure is sweet. No time to worry, no time to blink. Grip onto something till your hands are no longer pink. Else you might not make it across the street. Life isn't a pillow fight fought to defeat. It is sitting on the edge, a moment from survival or death. And marching forward, cherishing each breath. Lying next to someone close with a shared latent heat. Living a little wild, forgetting any or all conceit Discarding these many lies and being ever-present It sure beats worrying about what to circumvent. Especially when it's truly captivating or bittersweet. Tomorrow and yesterday do not even exist. If that's where you're at and hope to reside You will never really live or thrive. You will only somehow, devoid of happiness, subsist. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** Silver, Silver, Not Yet Gold Silver, silver, not yet gold sculpts the land: frost and all that could be cold Ebbing swifter than sea like a strand of wavering silk: Silver, silver, not yet gold. Between dream and drug, form and figure: frost and all that could be cold Where purgatory held infernos that bow at once before those of hell: Silver, silver, not yet gold Daymare was too weak a word yet with less might than hate: frost and all that could be cold The sensation in which fog partakes - collides contrary to an oak, alive: Silver, silver, not yet gold Frost and all that could be cold Jenna Chebaro ** Haibun from a Cliff’s Edge It is not truly the desire to fall which captures the senses here. More the weight. The weight of breadth, and breath under pressure. The wind, which withers and turns deadly, weathering stone and bone alike. Air and void whisper across the heavy fog, cloud-sweet. Heady. Beckoning. Moisture crawls downward like darkened fingers, curling, cupping the open cliffside in its slick, dewy palm – and it would be so easy to slip. It would be so easy to slide low into apathy. Do nothing. Watch as gravity takes its due – as the earth turns up roots and the sky tears down branches, bends spines, crumbles hands and peaks under feet – it would be so easy, and yet – and yet – steady arms stretch through deepening gloom – within reach, new dawn’s tender light Kimberly Hall Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent poet based in Southeast Texas. She holds degrees in psychology and behavioral science. Her debut poetry collection, Honey Locust, was published in 2024 by hotpoet, and is available through them (here) or through communication with the poet (here). ** Rooted in Resilience Body: A twisted trunk against the granite face, A testament to life in barren lands, Where roots cling tight, defying time and space, And branches reach towards the sky's demands. He stands like that lone tree, weathered, bold, A soul that's known the storms of doubt and fear, Yet found his footing, stories yet untold, A heart that beats with strength, year after year. His mind, a kaleidoscope of shifting hues, Reflects the beauty of a world unseen, Where patterns form, and dreams begin to fuse, And fragile roots find strength in what has been. He stands, a testament to life's embrace, A soul that thrives in this precarious space. Trent Shafer Trent is a writer, artist, and social impact technologist with a "kaleidoscope mind." He explores the world through a unique lens, weaving together personal narratives, social commentary, and a touch of the surreal. His work celebrates the beauty of difference, the power of human connection, and the resilience of the human spirit. ** Sunday in the Park with Franka Franka, Why is it you always get to stand on sure ground While I have to live on the edge Hello, Franka There’s a being on this ledge A droplet of sweat The top of a leaf She always does this Can you make this brief Sunday in the park with Franka One more Su– The crown is wide Beginning to sway The branches giving I won’t let them splay Who was at the sea Franka Who was at the sea The gulls and who Franka The gulls and who Don't move Lara Dolphin A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley (Blue Jade Press). ** Inkblot Images "Pareidolia: active pattern of perceiving objects, shapes or scenery as meaningful things in the observer's experience.” from a computer definition of Rorschach Fog fell like a bridal veil over a granite glacier, the stone like a natural sculpture -- a platform for a single tree with a somewhat amorphous shape sitting beneath it; a form that could have been a gypsy marman, seated, holding a child who reached up to touch her nose; or it could have been someone in costume, a tourist who'd climbed the rock face rising above his simple beginnings in a Swiss village. Misty liked to think of scenes as a creation myth, a granite formation that began with ice and snow, a glacial event fallen from the heavens related to eternity no less real if it happens to a grain of dust instead of to a star a thousand times greater than our sun... Just looking at the fog-shrouded precipice in the picture of Yosemite made Misty think her name, Misty, should rhyme with dizzy; Way to go with Vertigo -- If there were sound, would it be a yodel? She sat, silent, in her therapist's waiting room as cows the color of butter- milk (cream turning brown as the calves grew up) were draped with flowers. They reminded her of the climb up Yankee Boy Basin to a clear pond -- like a mirror in a landscape with alpine flowers. She'd been freezing that day, so cold she'd borrowed a little boy's wooly hat and pulled it over her ears. Remembering that child, she wondered if that was why the figure under the tree in the photograph looked human, though it may have been a small mound of stones. Did she want those stones to mean life, beneath that single tree -- life with the courage to grow so near the edge of reality -- the precipice of marriage where wind-force might blow all of it away into the valley of Yosemite? Wasn't that rock a rather precarious place to imagine a Destination Wedding? If so, where were her Swiss bridesmaids? The guests? The groomsmen? The Groom? & where on earth had the figure beneath the tree gotten a baby? Had the story appeared like inkblot Rorschach images (the same pictures, different meanings every visit?) visions that became more bizarre after her therapist fell asleep for $225 an hour; maybe she'd wake up, jealous if she wasn't invited to the wedding! She, herself, might not be there after they said their vows -- a leap of faith. The session would begin with the usual question: "Where were we, where are we now, and where are we going? Swiss cow bells made a soft clunking sound as Misty felt for a Swiss chocolate in the pocket of her gypsy-wedding drindl. (She'd added rhinestones shining on the fitted bodice like stars -- sparkling thoughts of marital bliss -- Halfway to Heaven.) The camera lens had caught the sides of the Half Dome stone -- smooth and sculpted and satiny in Gabler's picture. Thinking of the photographer -- her name -- Misty's thoughts drifted to Hedda Gabler Ibsen's unhappy young married protagonist -- did something about those rocks mean the danger of falling in love? The therapist was taking a call (on Misty's time) so Misty focused, for meaning, on childhood abandonment. She remembered the story of Heidi, a little orphan girl who lived with her grandfather -- her Opa -- in the Swiss Alps. The fog, soft as cloud-fluff ringed the rocks in a photograph where nature defied reality. Misty sat, wondering how to assimilate the meaning of the inkblot images as Heidi's Opa said that it was time to take the animals down the hill -- to take them home. He stooped, standing near his granddaughter as he spoke so her cheek was brushed by his white beard. It was soft as cotton -- and soft as a bridal veil of fog a scene where the permanence of stone means the possibility of change -- a remedy at Yosemite. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Honoured by acceptances to the ekphrastic challenges and nominated for Best of the Net, her book, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationship of art to life and poetry. Marman means "mother" in German-Swiss. A drindl for a girl and lederhosen for a boy was traditional dress for Swiss, Germans and Bavarians. The quote about eternity in a grain of dust is from Margo Bennet’s The Wife of Bath. ** Vantage Point I am an embassy managing failed expectations. I keep a quiet heart on the precipice. Caution has its price, and I have stayed gone, for the most part. I miss the dog who died with his eyes wide open. To minimize doubt, I lift the slap he lays under once in a blue moon, like the lawless woman that I am. There is a parasitic nature to those who are unprepared to be loved, and I know there will come a time when my feet will no longer be needed to bear my weight. I will have a gaping mouth. The world will barely skip a beat. How long should a prayer last, anyway? The palm frondsare growing stealth and sturdy against the ancient and cracked seawall, which is stoking all of my superstitious tendencies. I have read all the signs. The corpse of a star still pulses and though it is gasping and weak, its strength is in its negative potential. The sutures are jagged and they leave a scare. I am up off the floor and into the light. It is a parabolic moment and there is a new story to tell. You can't trod the earth broken-hearted forever. Michelle Reale Michelle Reale is a poet and scholar, living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She is the author ofseveral poetry collections including In the Year of Hurricane Agnes (Alien Buddha Press, 2022)and the forthcoming Let it be Extravagant (Bordighera Press, 2025). She teaches poetry in the MFA program at Arcadia University. ** What Exists / Lets Itself Be Encountered You stand at the brink of divinity. Infinitude envelops you. You whisper a makeshift prayer, send it out across the giant breaths. What to do when you reach the precipice but become ever-present? Your search for godliness led you here. You stand in the thick of it. A lone tree for company. Facing yourself in the great surround, you merge and become. Stupefied by photons. Element and force. You lean in and shed yourself. The geometry of falling. The fathomless space. Flight and gravity. Oh, how the abyss is seductive. You would walk right into it if you weren’t so utterly material. Instead, you breathe it in, knowing you could disappear into its arms and never be seen again. 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 writer with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, writing in her local favourite café, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. ** Slip Slidin’ Away the hospice walls are polyethene everything I see is clouded in shrouds of opaque fluid – tubes drips canula clips Paul Simon’s lyric slices through silence that hangs – the nearer your destination the more you’re slip slidin’ away yesterday befuddled in fog a rare moment of clarity a childhood memory – a bag of Fox’s Glacier Mints we’re sucking transparency feeling the spill of solidity sink into slithers on tongues for the sheer joy of it I sense you slipping now skimming the face of ice no purchase on precipice – tasting the thrum of that song 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 ** To Franka M. Gabler Regarding Life on the Precipice 1 The magic of your misted ledge and life that clings to lethal edge is in the blur at first to eyes that drawing closer realize the clarity is merely veiled where time has etched to be regaled the stubborn will of battered stone and scattered seed that fate has sown to be survival carving crest now beauty of its struggle blessed to be the shade and resting place for other life that it will grace as lesson to the fervent gaze that sees beneath translucent haze. 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. ** Two Trees like the Pieta enveloped in the thick fog of wars as countless mothers mourn we silent on a windswept peak surmise what Gazan, what Ukranian, what Syrian what untold others might have risen to save us compose sing paint live less desolate less inconsolable than we who remain in this landscape This Golgotha of two trees 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 journals as diverse as The Rhysling Anthology, Deep Cleveland Junkmail Oracle, Sein und Werden, Jerry Jazz Musician and Gas Station Famous. Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, his most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, dadakuku, Rattle Prompt Challenge,The Ekphrastic Review, tsuri-doro, Sense and Sensibility and The Solitary Daisy. ** The Lone Tree wakes up, at dawn’s first touch parting the silken curtains of mist, to feel the velvet warmth of the sun on her skin. The music of the breeze cradles her leaves, while she stands witness to the winter of stillness, the shadow of summer, in the chasm between the familiar and the unfamiliar, never once complaining, not once grumbling, but rooted gracefully in the present - stretching her arms to reach for the skies of hope, while counting her blessings, each second of her life on the precipice. 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 Braided Way, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and various other journals. Her microchaps, A Single Moment, and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature. ** Somewhere, a Heron My sight stills on a sliver of world I’ve not yet seen, nor likely ever will: a slice of Yosemite, frozen by your lens and chiselled to an ice tooth. Breath - this ancient mist - wets my lip and condenses there in beads of silver, or crystal crumbs of mint; a glacier to lick. I’m lost in your ghost-grey. Knuckle up folded rock, climb a tin foil tree to seek the heron who, day by day, greets me in silence its eye affixed to the river by my home. Slow stirrer of shallows, its bob disquiets the valley. Then skyward like fine art, wings shivering the air. Your camera. Quick! A tether for my heart. Vanessa Crannis Vanessa writes mainly, but would love to expand her collection of poetry. She is very happy to have been published and short-listed a few times, including in The Ekphrastic Review's Tickled Pink contest. Vanessa is happiest out-of-doors and runs or swims every day. She is training for a second marathon and planning a triathlon. This year, she hopes to re-start her interest in recording UK moths, curious about any writing that might emerge. A late starter, Vanessa is also on the look out for old vinyls, and discovering whether music might move her as much as words. ** Standing Tall This fog cannot hide that cliff as it sweeps closer and closer. My roots have started touching air, not stone-- nothing I can clutch. One day I will lose my hold, and topple. But now, I stand tall. Now, my branches stretch. Now, I drink the mist. Gary S. Rosin Gary S. Rosin’s work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net, and has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press 2023), Cold Moon Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Texas Poetry Assignment, Texas Seniors (Lamar Literary Press), The Ekphrastic Review, Verse Virtual, and elsewhere. He is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum 2008)(offprint). ** Shadows That Follow as I stand atop a place perfect in times of love and loss- in shared silence of abandoned squishy ghost, half-eaten bourbons, the unopened 50-50 classic sweet and salty missing the carry-on. In wrappers that housed tattoos and stickers, hooked labels of baby puppets, Elsa & Anna’s friendly world. In shiny threads twirling my hairbrush. The truth lies heavy in cracked mist- meeting last light in gentle wind by the trees. Love lives still in luminous grey, in conversations, in smell of coffee over the scent. In rising voice of the womb, a witness to decades of hollow, a voyage as yet barren. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** I Teeter at the Precipice of Prednisone The treatment for my autoimmune skin disease encases me within swollen body and useless limbs. My watery eye-slits cannot judge distance, slope, or risk. My daily existence becomes a navigation of fossilized gray glacier. If only I could throw a grappling hook, let its rope catch a solid foothold to steady myself, believe that I could master my destiny. But I am frozen in this no man’s land, locked in a mindset of weakness. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse. Her work has also been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals. Visit her website at barbarakrasner.com. ** From Pebble and Seed Are those monuments in the deep distance? If so, why shroud them in fog? I’m sure you have your reasons. ~ The fog is certain it blocks your view, but all it really does is arouse your curiosity until you’re sure it is not hiding some suffering thing. ~ One massive cliff face upon another. Think of the pain of bone on bone, of the vanished disc a spine growing shorter and thinner and gravely more sheer ~ the saddest has already happened why keep the monuments secreted why place a tree where no other trees can grow? ~ find what is redeeming no matter how far they descend the simple colors are still tender ~ imagine hanging from your fingertips from the nexus the way we hang from days some of us believing that if we hang long enough we’ll never fall ~ oh maker of things colossal and infinitesimal how will I ever know which is which just by watching do I not need scent touch perceiving fear? ~ the aged bluff recollects its pebble days as the tree remembers sprouting ~ consider beyond the fog or risk being lifeless John L Stanizzi Author of 15 books, including - Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Chants, POND, SEE, Hallelujah Time, and others. Besides The Ekphrastic Review, Johnnie is widely published - including Prairie Schooner, Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River, and others. Creative Non-Fiction found in Literature & Belief, Potato Soup, After the Pause, and others. Creative Non Fiction Fellowship 2021 - Connecticut Dept. of Arts, Culture, and Diversity - a former New England Poet of the Year - Etherington Scholar - Wesleyan University - most recently he was awarded first place in The Ekphrastic Review’s Ekphrastic Marathon. Newest book, Entra La Notte, due in March 2025. Retired Lit. Prof. Manchester Comm. College – also taught English and was theatre director, Bacon Academy. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com ** Don't Pine For Me When but a sapling my mother tree soughed to me: Girl don't you go planting seeds on the precipice! Don't tell me where to germinate! I barked Now some centuries gone my lover who might have been blown by the wind leaves me naughty with desire oh so high on the scarp Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith, an abstract photographer, at times writes from Gotland Island where Viking souls frolic on the mist. ** Alone on the Precipice When visited in a hundred years by children of the eons the precipice tree will be rooted as it is now it will bend in freezing winds blanketed by snow and ice it will look from its small perch down the deep facade it will exist as it does not knowing what existence is it will stand alone like it was when seen by the eyes of ancient nomads or posed on the precipice captured by a photographers lens not knowing the beauty of its curve or how it grew alone from rock the twist and tangle of its limbs that feel the solitary wisp of clouds. Daniel W. Brown Daniel W. Brown began writing poetry as a senior. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. world. Daniel has been published in various journals and anthologies, and he has hosted a youtube channel Poetry From Shooks Pond. He was also included in MId-Hudson's Arts Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23 and writes each day about music, art and whatever else captures his imagination. ** Men of the Cliff Mist covers the foreground hiding away the smaller edges and scratches of the cliff. The cliff itself forms disturbingly straight, the edge standing like a proud man. Tufts of snowy hair grow slowly on the shoulders while a singular tree juts upwards on the rocky top, like an evergreen ponytail. Stony arches with sprinkled snow are seen in the distance resembling raised shoulders of other men with matching confidence. The mist is a palette of grayscale spanning from bliss to abyss like colored air. White angels guard the bright sky, glaring down at the ashen hell beneath its wraith-like monsters cropped away by Gabler’s composition. In the midst of the tension the man and his friends in the distance stand haughtily and gaze ahead unaware of the two cliques that vie for them. Matthew Liu Matthew Liu is a high school student dreaming of a WWII historical fiction idea to publicize someday, currently residing in the United States. ** Growing Up A seed was excreted by a passing bird and deposited on the top of a high cliff. Even though exposed to the elements, it dared to stretch forth a tiny white root which sought a foothold and sustenance. Mist and dew brought water which, with the goodness left in the bird dropping, were enough to give it strength to explore a tiny crack in the rock. As it grew, the root felt its way along, absorbing the nutrients left behind by the algae and lichen that lived up there. Thus encouraged, a tiny shoot of green emerged from the other side of the seed. It followed the sun and bent with the pressure of wind currents eddying around the uneven cliffs. As it waved in the wind, its stem thickened and strengthened, and the roots - for the first root was now not alone - burrowed further and split the rock into shards which over the years rain and snow froze and thawed and broke into fragments, then particles, then into a fine life-giving soil which was quickly inhabited by insects. The tree, for that is what it was, grew strong, put forth branches and leaves until one day a tiny yellow blossom appeared, followed by another and another till the tree was laden with them. The winds that year though were strong and blew off the petals, as they did the next year when the tree blossomed again. The third year however, the winds were light and a bee, caught on a zephyr, was blown up to the rock. It needed to collect pollen and nectar to make honey for the winter so it smeared the powdery grains with a little of the nectar and gummed these pellets to its legs. It was difficult doing this using only its feet so some pollen ended up being caught in its fur and this the bee inadvertently brushed onto the anthers of the next flower when it dived into one tempting nectary after another. When it could barely hold itself up with the weight of the grains, the bee launched itself off the branch and flew back to its hive leaving behind flowers which later swelled into berries. Much of the fruit rotted during the autumn rains; some fell on the rock and rolled off, falling to the ground far below; others were eaten by grateful passing birds, but two fell onto the tiny patch of soil and put forth slim roots which burrowed into the new earth. As the years passed, the saplings grew tough and resilient alongside their parent and in their turn were able to spread seeds on the rock until one day the whole of the rock was covered with trees and birds and insects and thrived with life and song. A seed can grow shoots Which despite adversity Become a forest Alison R Reed Alison R Reed has been writing for many years, but only came to poetry some seven years ago. She won the 2020 Writers Bureau Poetry competition and has been published both online and in various anthologies. She enjoys experimenting with different forms of poetry and particularly enjoys Ekphrasis. She has been secretary of Walsall Writers’ Circle for more years than she would like to say! ** Liminal This mist is stone. This stone is mist. And I persist. And I persist. How long a time shall I survive? I am alone. I am alive. This white is grey. This grey is white. I match the water with the light. I know my roots, how deep they are. How far is down? How down is far? How dry is cold? How wet is dry? I am this one. This one is I. I match the silence with the spray. This grey is white. This white is grey. How long a lifetime have I grown? I am alive. I am alone. This stone is mist. This mist is stone. This mist is stone. This mist is stone. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few online poetry magazines. She has a particular love for animals and visual art. ** The Tree “On a misty mountain top where the sky showed no sign of blues, a single tree stood at the edge of a great precipice. It had not always been alone. Once it had been part of a dense forest crowded with several trees just like itself. But over the years, the others had fallen or been uprooted by storms, leaving the solitary figure to face the vastness alone. The tree wasn’t the tallest or strongest but was stubborn. It had persistence that kept it firmly rooted when others swayed and toppled during fierce winter snowstorms. Its branches were crooked and reaching, almost as if it was trying to embrace something out of its grasp, perhaps the sky, the stars, or perhaps the sense of belonging it had no longer remembered. In its earlier days, the tree had longed for the companionship of other trees. It missed the chorus of rustling leaves, the chatter of birds, the hum of the forest. But as time passed, the tree’s yearning faded. It learned to find comfort in the stillness, to appreciate the quiet moments the world offered. From its place on the precipice, it could see the world below—vast valleys, winding rivers, and forests stretching out in every direction. Each moment was a gift, the changing light, the shifting clouds, the cool winds that danced around it,” said Mary, as she sat beside her daughter, Emma, near the crackling campfire. The mist drifted lazily through the cliffs, the air cool and crisp. They were camped at the edge of Yosemite, where the mountains rose sharply into the sky, their peaks dusted with the softest layer of snow. “Why do you think the tree didn’t mind being alone, Mom?” Emma asked, her voice soft against the whisper of the wind. Mary smiled, “I think the tree didn’t need to be surrounded by others to feel whole. The quiet, the space around it, gave the tree a chance to see things. To notice the little changes, the way the fog swirled around the rocks, the way the light shifted at dawn.” Emma nodded slowly, feeling the weight of her mother's words. “So, it wasn’t really lonely?” she asked, trying to understand. “No,” Mary said, her voice almost a whisper as she watched the last of the daylight fade from the sky. “It wasn’t lonely at all. It learned to embrace the quiet, to feel connected to the world in its own way. Just like how I find little moments when I take photos.” She paused, reaching for her camera beside her. “I look for the moments most people miss—like how the mist hugs the mountains, or how a branch quivers in the wind. Those moments are enough to create the perfect picture. Emma looked up at the darkening sky, imagining the tree on that precipice, its branches reaching into the mist, hugging the world in its own silent way. The wind picked up slightly, rustling the trees, and Emma leaned into her mother, feeling the peace of the moment settle around them. "I think the tree would have liked this," Emma said softly. "The quiet." Mary smiled, her gaze drifting over the misty peaks. "I think it would have, too." And for a long while, mother and daughter sat together, wrapped in the stillness, both finding solace in the quiet beauty of the mountains, just like the tree on the precipice. Noel Fang ** Haiku rooted in stone standing before the silent void - a gnarled juniper Lisa Germany Lisa Germany is an Australian haiku poet writing in the traditional Japanese style ** After the Precipice Inevitable-- the fall, and how quickly we fade to mist, our particles, illuminated, brushing against our loved ones’ cheeks, wet with memory Eileen Lawrence Eileen Lawrence is a poet living in Central Texas. Her poetry has been published by Dos Gatos Press, Mutabilis Press, the Fargo Public Library, Visions International, Equinox Journal, and Kindred Characters. ** A Rocky Perspective Many a blood has been spilt here, on the cliffs, on the ledges, on the cracks, on the pebbles, seeping into the rock that just caused their troubles. Some people start the journey up my side, but they give up, turn away, and that’s okay. They know this fight to the top of my head is not a battle they want to attend. Some people start the journey up my side, and keep going out of sheer determination. But that’s the problem. The climb up to the top of my head is nothing but a goal, a mission, a checkmark on a bucket list. It doesn’t mean anything once they’re back on the ground beside me. Some people start the journey up my side, they pause, they scream, they contemplate. Their blood seeps into my pores. Their sweat quenches my thirst. Their tears cleanse my heart. But still they climb. Up, up, up they go until they reach the top. They stand on my head, panting and sweating, only to gasp as the fogs lift, revealing a world that no one recognizes anymore. A world they fought to see. And now they know who they want to be. These are the strangers I love to observe, watching and waiting, to see where they’ll go, to learn why they’re here, to know who they are, and what changes I may bring. For those who see where they want to go and who they want to be, are the ones who stay, the ones who remain seeing the world no one sees. Their names carved into my only friend who’s stayed forever on my head. My constant companion, who is only revealed to those who show promise in facing life’s cruel deals of cliffs, ledges, cracks, and pebbles, the fogs will lift and they will see the tree of who they chose to be. Katie Davey Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has published three pieces through three separate challenges for The Ekphrastic Review, the first titled Hidden Prophecies as part of the Richard Challenge, the second titled Listen Well, Listen All, of My Tale to Caution All as part of the Vicente Challenge, and the third titled I Blink as part of the Morrisseau Challenge. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern and is a member of Stephens College's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. She earned her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024. ** fleeting There was almost a bird in the light that particled into glitters of silver. It was shadowed by itself, by the movement of the atmosphere, by the changing composition of reflected air. Only the ciphered motes were visible, traveling so quickly that I could not catch them in my mind. They merged like a Turner painting, uncertain as to boundaries, all liquid sky, liquid land, dripping inside an unchartable sea. But the bird—if it was a bird—had disappeared. Was it a memory? Only the possibility of falling deeper into the abyss remained imprinted on the clouds of uncertainty before me. Only the endlessly busy collisions between molecules entered my senses, attempting to navigate with me all the vast empty spaces that were the heart of the matter. How many bridges had I created and then just as quickly left uncrossed? So much was temporary—perhaps everything. There was almost a bird. Or was it a memory? Where was it now? Why do we think we can capture time? Today, yesterday, tomorrow—all those chronicles and photographs—what do they tell us? Perhaps the almost-bird carries the answer under its imaginary wings. We are all fraying fragments, illusions. Nothing is all we can ever possess. 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/. ** Glimmer of Slate Barely visible-- western white pine, mountain hemlock, and lodgepole pine are engulfed in gray gauze as fog blankets the High Sierra, granite cliffs formed by molten rock, before spring sunrise ascends above the Merced River, high with snowmelt. In the valley below amidst the first blooms of spider lupines, redbuds, tufted orange poppies, and owl’s clover. I listen attentively to the guttural murmur of a nearby cascading waterfall evoking the spirit of spring like Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 1 while savoring the tranquility of Yosemite. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019) copies are available at [email protected]. His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review(Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), The Wild Word (Germany), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** rock roots (fibonacci poem) so deep beneath the tree my face runs smooth gray rock ribbons and walls you shape me born in fire ** travelling just not there i will not move my feet now earth anchor and rock belly no end to my dance with the sun mike sluchinski Mike Sluchinski knows that El Shaddai lives in rainstorms and that, in a drought, he prays for rain! Forget the umbrella! Take time to read his work in The Coachella Review, Inlandia, Welter, Poemeleon, Lit Shark, Proud To Be Vol. 13, The Ekphrastic Review, MMPP (Meow Meow Pow Pow), Kelp Journal & The Wave, ‘the fib review’, Eternal Haunted Summer, Syncopation Lit. Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal (SOFLOPOJO), Freefall, and more coming! ** On the Precipice The fog had buried all the heavens then, the ragged edge of a clifftop I stood on to find uncloudedness amid the murk, an obscure outline of mountain appeared. Its frightening shadow overwhelmed me. My shaking foot were chained to the hard ground and paralyzed limbs took a freaky shape just like a withered tree on the parched earth. What kind of sin am I accused of now? Am I deserved to such great suffering poor Prometheus ever should endured? The echo faded out into thin air. Upon a desolate land I just heard a roar of coyote out of the mist. Toshiji Kawagoe Toshiji Kawagoe, Ph.D. is a professor at Future University Hakodate. He lives in Hokkaido, Japan. His haiku was selected in the 21 Best Haiku of 2021 at the Society of Classical Poets and his poems in classical Chinese have been published in the anthologies of Chinese poetry. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals. ** O, Tutokanula I am gold monkeyflower winking-- minting coins in a granite fissure. I am dark-winged bat folded leatherlike into your now-cooled crevices. I am peregrine falcon, high as a mile and a half above the ponderosa, red sequoia: my wings wide, poised on a thermal, eyes locked on land for whisk of tail or flick of mammalian ears. I fall on them: stoop, and have my fill. But you, O Tutokanula, you are our great chieftain. Your winds are angel messengers, your rains our mysteries. Even waters rushing in a bridal veil, Pohono, do not conceal your might. Even the mist that smokes like incense from your cataracts and from your shrouds and clouds cannot obscure your sacred majesty. Fierce granite proclaims in answer, Climb, climb to my stunted solo pine with its ruggèd, forkèd trunk. O, Tutokanula-- here God descends as on some ancient holy hill. His face is hidden, for to look on Him so high above the earth is hazardous presumption. Climb if you will, the voice commands in basso profundo. Be not precipitate. 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/ ** The Echo of Their Heart Life on the Precipice by Franka M. Gabler is a therapeutic photo After the threatening but divine painting The Wild Hunt of Odin (ARBO Challenge). Tree, cliff and photographer all have the same rhythm. We can hear the echo of the artist’s heart, we can feel her Art. The mist protecting their intimacy, Above all, this superb photo evokes harmony. Harmony between a rock, a tree and Franka M. Gabler. The echo of their heart has the same beat. I went to Yosemite National Park a few years ago. I had a picnic at the foot of these majestic cliffs crowned with trees. Through those soothing and peaceful giants, I felt connected to the earth and the sky. Huge walls acting as guardians of their secrets, Shields protecting and defending the vulnerability of Nature. The resilient life of the trees supported by tons and tons of rock. Aged more than one hundred million years, They aroused my admiration and my concern. I just wanted to stay with them, Worried about the fragility of our environment. Jean Bourque Jean writes from Montreal, province of Quebec, Canada. He is French-speaking and a retired specialist teacher of children having learning disabilities. He loves Nature and painting. He is learning English. Recently he discovered the ekphrastic challenges, a good opportunity to practice. He also discovered that he loves writing and that writing is like painting with words.  Pavonia, by Francis Picabia (France) 1929 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative.
The prompt this time is Pavonia, by Francis Picabia. Deadline is January 31, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include PICABIA CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 31, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo (Norway) 1872 Let Them Be Free —for poet Wendell Berry and author Mel Robbins The midwinter blues coalesce as the gusty grays collide constellate near the diagonal darkness of an airborne battle. Here weapons deploy amid legions of chaos. Unlike the legends of brutality rendered atop canvas or the reality of present-day feuds between humans the owl and raven the goat and horse fend for well-being seek mellow horizons as they glide walk and gallop toward circumstances within their control practice The Peace of Wild Things and The Let Them Theory. 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 in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Through the nightly air (from the opening line of the poem Asgaardsreien, by Johan Sebastian Welhaven.) Dark and hideous burns a sunrise bruising sacred goodness of a life. Combating chores on days of no consequence, women weave a vapor chorus, let the green fly into the web- while the men assault cheap liquors. Turmoiled mind, howling time drowns murmurs and the scent. Secrets smolder through the nightly air. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** [frothing black horses] frothing black horses presage the coming storm of the hunting forces of rain forcing the hollow-eyed prey of the following cataract coarsening weather-veins pulsing repulsing all hallows evening all Wotan hailing unmortal flesh flushed flown OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana, has a degree in computer science. He enjoys playing with words, doing crossword puzzles, writing poems, and occasionally publishing them. You can learn more about him at http://oddwritings.com . ** Ode to Odin Odin bursts into the dead of night his wild vein horsing on his forehead haunted by the bright mirage of the muses’ porcelain souls lost in peripatetic cadence luring him in chase through Valhalla drowning darkness as their gloss blinds his mind and he can’t but grab and run till all porcelain ghosts are dumped into the crack of dawn. In a way it’s carnage. In a way - bondage. Odin has awareness of none. He belongs to the Solstice taunt. By dawn Odin is oddly gently numb. You awake to what made your wynorrific dream. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and enjoys being frequently honoured by TER and its challenges. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** Tidings from Mjolnir Shut your eyes, for we have been awoken by the flames of Valhalla to ride into your moonless night. Run, while you still can, into the shallow depths of your camp tents, brothels-- pray that the pain shall kill you swift when the valkyries stab out your battle cries with spears, lay you down with bow and arrow, condemn your chainmail armour and naked bodies to the lowest layer of Helheim. Our ravens have brought death unto whole armies, raised hordes of harlots from graves, so waste not your last moments on thoughts of escape-- Rather, peer past those billowing curtains and look to the rolling clouds, shadow mountains, thunder, Thor. Angelina Carrera Angelina Carrera, 22, is a neurodivergent poet, Philosophy major, and Creative Writing minor at UC Berkeley. She is winner of First Matter Press’ 2024 Ekphrastic Poem Contest. Her work has been featured in After Happy Hour Review, F(r)iction, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and more. ** Wild Hunt Odin’s terrifying procession across the night sky A wild hunt, seeking all those not hidden, to die Across the winter landscape, dead souls would fly It presaged a catastrophe, such as a plague or war A motif with origins in Germanic and Nordic lore Seeking and abducting witnesses to join the horde The moon looks on, through the thickening cloud Cries of the many rabid hunters, deafeningly loud All blinded by violence, none ever shall be cowed The dawn soon to come, the sun with its own fire Survivors, to be left trembling in the bloody mire Seeing them overhead with bared teeth and sword Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** Truth or Dare? Near fifty past in Wistmans’s Wood connections with The Hunt, their sale for tourist bounty, rural rides, though county next, in Cornish lore the Devil’s Dandy Dogs seemed frail. Grimm tales, long spread, all underlaid; did delta drain, strain deemed aura? Here’s host of pruning, thinning ways - those Marvel Comics, Quatermass - with music, modern media. But myths are truths, allegory, so commonalities exist, a pattern made, if not pre-laid, each culture with twist patented, like stubborn stubble, winnowed grist. Midst winter woods, ferocious winds, both howling hounds and growling storms, as plagues, wars, famines strip the ground, land spirits from cult-of-the-dead, all baying, gallop, restless forms. These spectral and nocturnal hordes, a muscle memory of tears, less threat by naming, slotted box, or by transforming to our taste - so fairy host, those vicious, clears. As culture vultures search their roots, find routes by which we share our fears, new faiths accommodate as must, adopt or demonise as best - for monks and missionaries steer. In harmony, strange Schönberg see - while Weber also joins that Liszt. Here Hecate and Wicca merge in pagan pantheon with Norse, that none be missed in vaulting mist? The nightly frothing horse stampede, thronged ravens of the Odin flock, those spectral riders, Arbo’s frame - feel menace din of restless souls, these trolls, werewolves, Valhalla stock. 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 ** Hunted nightmare carves the dark like fire breaking under rough clouds a stampede of wild horses their hooves iron anvils striking sparks from a gunmetal sky-- ghost-ridden chased from the last dull shelter split open and broken empty bone shell crushed out of hope and no chance of rescue where dark squalls of crow and raven shoulder past even the faintest memory of light and I crouch beneath the weight of judgement’s heel and wait the final hammerfall of night Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic and Clare MacQueen, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, the Storyteller Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection, How to Become Invisible, that chronicles a bipolar journey, is now available from Kelsay books, Amazon, and the author. ** Ode to Woden When Wednesday's child though full of woe won the war we warriors wandered home to whelp our wee ones oh how we wept whence we saw The Wild Hunt of Odin where once again we women were limbed without wearing nary a gown Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from Gotland Island where the Baltic Sea nibbles the coastline and the Vikings rest their souls in ships of stone. ** Gehenna Revolts Of all the evils man has endeavored, one yet remains, too long endured. Convicting mortal nature—a devil! masquerades as both magistrate and Lord. So, in coalition and common reason, the damned then to the depths resort. Where in concert as resounding Legion, against the deity they lead revolt. Together, harmonic in agreement, the demonic chamber forever pleads. While the Archon stokes over Hades’ ember, devouring sacraments of ill-will and misdeed. The guilt it savours are remorseful flavours-- morsels of the bitter treasure hoard. Until again, at vengeance end, the unrepentant feed their god once more. Jory Como Jory Como is an aspiring American writer residing in Christchurch, New Zealand. ** Inheritance My ghosts are visible but unrecognizable. we wish on stars, on myth, on the magic of words spelled into narratives that journey us alive My ghosts cannot be confined. alive inside darkness awaiting the ending of time, ethereal layers scattered like seeds My ghosts are ravenous and skeletal. layers of seeds scattered into history—what grows from our bones? are we tied to earth or spirit? My ghosts are beasts of legend, followers of frenzied flight. spirit relics remade into dust, particles that travel in wavelengths of long lost souls, shadows My ghosts hold the darkest hour untouched by light. shadows emptied of self-- moon-mirrors death-dancing-- as if they could tell us who was master, who thrall My ghosts are divine, profane, profound. 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/. ** These Visions Sadden Me so don’t expect a love poem, minus enticing apples and rose petals it shrieks of conquest and power, not one brush stroke of humanity. Evil heaves itself across a terrifying sky hunters seize unfortunate souls unable to find refuge in time, but, in the midst of this ambush what about those lithe Valkyries─ are they compassionate heroes or hostile compadres steering the ill-fated to the slaughter? The opposite of a love poem, there’s no hope in this melee, only sorrow that history and lore often celebrate brutality. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch, and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle and is looking forward having her first poetry collection, Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit, published by Kelsay Books in spring of 2025. Visit Elaine online at https://www.elainesorrentinopoet.com/. ** They May Fight on the Clouds They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war With his band of female handmaiden warriors His Valkyries, he will not give anyone room. Except for those few, his choosers of the slain And the slain will then be carried to Valhalla, As heroes to once more live immortally again They may fight on the field of battle valiantly. They may even sing of victories fairly won. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war He will throw his spear again and again. While riding his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, And his spear will hit its mark and sink Into the hearts of beasts like a venomous snake. And no doubt his victims will undoubtedly fall. But Odin, the god of war, the god of the dead And the hall of the slain he will use his knowledge, His sorcery to defeat those who won’t kneel, Bow before his royal feet. Wisdom is his alone. After bartering his sight for a far greater insight Those who don't agree will swing from the gallows. They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with bubbling blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war Today, he alone knows what’s truly in store. With his band of female warrior handmaidens He will cut the beast of the field down to straw. With a party of airborne horsemen accompanied By ravens and owls, the Wild Hunt is upon us. And all are sent scurrying like a fleeing whore. Back to the places where sleep's a wild pagan boar. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** To Nicolai Arbo Regarding The Wild Hunt of Odin There are forces far beyond us eyes behind us would explain as torrential fury's vengeance gods could wreak upon the vain at the turning of the winter through the dark of longest night as the chill of bitter warning in a wind of lethal might to remind us flesh is mortal but its soul might well survive to be prey of Odin's hunters for the hell in which they thrive while they leave our ash to fallow as the terror thus they hallow. You paint that tale in single frame with screech implied of mythic fame and wind as if the eerie moan of souls removed from flesh and bone amid the thundered rumbling sound of hooves that strike the air as ground emerging from concealing clouds unbound it seems from yielding shrouds becoming capes that flutter free as terror eye can plainly see against the veil of shuttered sky at dusk so prematurely nigh that crackles with the distant fire of life extinguished on its pyre to kindle in the warming glow rebirth as spring we will not know except by deed or brush or pen that tells the tale of who we've been. 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. |
Challenges
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