Agile Fe{e/a}t of Dreams in Picasso’s Acrobat on a Ball

I imagine you, years from now, perched 
on a box, muscle-spent after flexing 
iron bars. Spotlighting a circus behind-
the-scenes teenage wordless 
exchange. Get up from being 
idle, a spitting image of your future 
self will say. Practice the acrobatics 
of doing nothing, you will rest
to counter. In the bustling 
tourist trap of Musée d’Orsay, I rush 
to stammer before you, strumming 
the guitar-taught tendons on wrinkled
whisker-black hairs covering 
my father’s hand. Narrowing 
my stance into a gymnast’s 
beam, I wobble from front 
foot to back. Watching him 
watching you as a way to desire
to become the sky or the sea 
of you, agile acrobat preparing 
to hop off the private world 
of a sphere. As if your body could 
fashion its own wings. One day, half
a grab-bag of your genes will balance 
XX with a lover’s XY, pairing up
in order of size like rain boots 
on a doormat to evolve 
a child who will chromosome-
mural a chance coordination 
of you, wiring and firing nerves 
into a patient rock of bare-bones, 
pharaoh-firm-footed after 
your weightlifter onlooker. You will grow 
up into an upended barbell holding onto 
a fragile moment in your Atlas- 
like pose. Lithe arms bent 
above your wafer-thin frame reality 
reminds us to outgrow. Those sky-blue 
stockings like your infant onesie. 
Your girl will mirror you, experimenting 
herself in stability on unstable 
surfaces. Teetering on delicate 
pinks, pearls and blues 
to shape a new feeling 
out of nothing besides 
air and space. Resolved to be 
a human globe lingering 
in consequence within Picasso’s Rose 
Period punctuated in ellipses 
by the faraway 
family manufacturing grace 
or fluid statues of dreams 
out the everyday. 

Grace Lynn
 
Grace Lynn is an emerging poet and painter who lives with a chronic illness. Her work explores the intersections between faith, the natural world, art and the body. In her spare time, Grace enjoys listening to Bob Dylan, reading suspense novels and investigating absurd angles of art history.

Join us on Monday for The Picasso Problem!

In this zoom session, we will look at the life and work of Pablo Picasso to understand his prolific productivity and innovation and how it changed art forever. We will also talk about Picasso's legendary misogyny and narcissism, and how it damaged the people who loved him.

Session includes several creative writing exercises using Picasso's work to inspire poems or stories of your own. 

​Passage
       
ME     from my view all is hidden beneath an opaque fog     impossible to divine air from sea or to
see any landform     in my Adirondack I pick up a book I will not read it drops face down the spine
cracks     beyond the horizon on the island invisible to me two-hundred steps ascend from deck to
dock      many times I have negotiated the climb from boat to pier and I know well by now the ship
is arrived the passengers disembarked all a chatter with movielettes of the breached whale and
galloping dolphins
 
YOU     mix your palette from your canvas chair where the world is clear before you     to see
the swell     to see the helmsman steady his sail-less craft through troughs of teal-tinged sea     to
salute the windmill waving from the hilltop     who shouts ahoy to those that moor    your box 
of paints is open to the shadow of the harlequin gate that defines your porch     the wind has come
up     you are gone inside for a moment     outside wrapped in a towel your friend is asleep     
the tide approaches softly
 
YOU have gone to greet ME at your door

welcome to Ibiza
we have wine and sobrasada
let me put away the paints

Emily Bernhardt

Emily Bernhardt is retired from numbers and Los Angeles. She lives in Ventura, CA and practices poetry, gardening and yoga.

​The Window Opens as the Walls Close In
 
She blends faceless into the room’s casements,
but her purpose is clear. She mourns the boats
along the river. Her beloved sails farther and farther away,
while she remains grounded, caught between the louvres of her longing.
​

Colour Is the Stain of Life
 
I float on an ice barge,
forging my own way 
on the immunocompromised sea.
 
My jagged edges keep visitors
at bay. I cannot allow them 
to come on board. I slip
 
into alabaster nothingness,
sailing toward blank horizon
and a bleak future
 
where the only colour
is the stain of lesions
on my inherited skin.

In the Shadow of the North Sea
 
Morning light ripe with possibilities, all oars
seeped in water to seek the day’s treasures,
even in a humble skiff, not like the sailing ships
in the harbor. We have only the inlet, no beach,
but rocks and shrubs to be sure. And our network
of nets to trap that delicacy, eel, once we lay
them back into the water. 
 
We have our chicory brew 
and morning sandwiches of Tilsiter
on Bauernbrot. The fish like cheese, too,
when we hook it for bait. Cod, herring, sole,
and fatty mackerel. But the real haul
of the day is the banter between father and son
while we pass around the flask of schnaps,
waiting for snags.

​Sunrise, Sunset
 
I stand before the rising sun.
or maybe the setting sun. Too tired
to notice whether I face east or west.
 
I stretch out my fingers, my hands, my arms
to receive. Anything. The sound of lapping water
in the pond. The scent of lilac. The imprint
of my mother’s fingertips on my arm before she slipped away.
 
I stand in silent prayer. Grateful to have clothes
on my back, shoes on my feet, the ability
to walk. Creamy bursts of hard lentils on Sylvesterabend. 
 
If only my shoulders could relax even when
I let my arms hang against my hips. If I could sleep
through the night without angst
 
about what tomorrow will bring. Even the night’s
eerie silence threatens. I inhale
and exhale as I’ve practiced many times.
 
I close my eyes and visualize the time
when we were all together in our house,
gathered around the dining room table,
 
anticipating the blessings of the New Year.
I wipe imaginary breadcrumbs from my lap,
suck on honeyed memories from my fingers.

​Sudetenland
 
The sun stretches its ego across the mountain range,
poking its bravado into evergreens, tickling gentian petals
into glory, tucking Sudeten violets into protection.
Not to be outdone, the sky sends its sentinels 
to cloud sunbeams, straitjacket them in mist.
On the slope stands a herder’s shack. Across
the meadows onto pastures, he pokes the sheep,
bleating their way someday to a butcher 
and dinner plate. With mica, quartz, and feldspar,
ancient granite beds anchor the open playground.
Above all this, Odin watches
and decides when and where to strike.

Barbara Krasner
​
Barbara Krasner, a former German major, viewed the works of Caspar David Friedrich up close and personal at a featured exhibit of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May 2025. His romanticism inspired her to write in response to his art. She is the author of seven poetry collections and a frequent participant in The Ekphrastic Academy workshops. She lives and teaches in New Jersey. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com.

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld

Inspired by the painting above, and Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice,” Act II, Scene I          

My eyes mark no land bleached and sorrow-scraped 
Trees nauseous with translucent ghosts of leaves 
Starched, moonless sky sucked dry of season, shaped 
by dead who slither from rock and cave like thieves. 

I glimpse no acid peat, soil ravenous
to swallow us in its sour, lichened tomb
Misery scouring flesh with brackish dust 
Choking whittled bodies in its turbid womb.

No, only flaxen curls at your neck’s nape
A muscled bicep taut as lyre’s strings
I see your hand grasp my wrist in our escape
Just your valiant fingers, one golden-ringed.
 
Your fear revealed only by your palm’s
perspiring skin, fist clutched as if praying psalms.

I fail to hear the bark of Cerberus
echo off albino trunks of bone 
Wind dry of birdsong, nor dryads’ frothing pus
who squirm and grovel, bellies scraping stone.

I can’t discern the Furies’ savage screams
that with your melody you soothed to sobs
The only sound I hear – the strum of strings 
and your keen tenor’s ring that punctures fog.

The stagnant Styx vomits its putrid pond
Air dense with dead men’s belch and hacking cough
Yet I only smell the sweetness of your sweat, blond 
chest, tendrilled hair, arms tense and soft. 

Pleading Pluto’s throne, I recall your voice’s swoon:
“Her bud was plucked before the flower bloomed.”

I cannot taste the ash of chalky sky 
Where willow’s threadbare leaves weave dusty lace 
My tongue remembers your skin’s salt and rye
Your incandescent mouth, its only taste.

Ankles ignore my gown’s hem soaked with swamp
and my slick toes sucking sphagnum’s slime
I think of reeds scraping your calves as our footsteps stomp
Wind pressing our tattered robes as we climb. 

Save me from this landscape drained of love
Where sallow skin absorbs anemic air
Necrotic hearts molt their flesh like gloves
Where shame grinds lovers’ bones, gnawed raw, stripped bare.

Lead me on, though my pallid hand goes slack
in your firm grip. My darling, don’t look back.

Claudia Kessel 

Claudia Kessel works as a grant writer in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her poetry has been published in Richmond Magazine as a finalist in the 2021 Shann Palmer Poetry Contest, awarded by James River Writers, in the 2024 Poetry Society of Virginia anthology, and in literary journals Ekstasis, Neologism Poetry Journal, Arkana, Literary Mama, Uppagus, Shot Glass Journal, The Bluebird Word (upcoming), The Write Launch (upcoming),and Lullwater Review.

An Owl Prayer

A motionless owl
perpetually scowling
disappears to prowl

An escaped field mouse
that plundered within the house
moves when lights are doused

Shadows no longer
make its trembling fear stronger --
not knowing how wrong

The owl without noise
with lengthened talons poised
traps such living toys

Head-turning watcher,
this little death one more notch
for nature's butcher

Give wisdom to me
to hold a dream of beauty
without tragedy

Fate is in your stare
Your silent kenning lays bare
the hope my heart dared

Into woods deeper
drunk on heartache keep
me in one long sleep

Royal Rhodes

Royal Rhodes is a poet who lives in a small village close to a nature conservancy, green cemetery, and Amish farms. Nearby is a river whose indigenous name means: Place of the Little Owls.

​The Old Guitarist
 
The old guitarist’s sight has dimmed.  
He no longer strums the long
and lovely songs of his youth
 
when his fingers were strong and nimble,
the fingernails of the left hand shorn,
the right left long and strong.
 
The old guitarist remembers his body 
unracked by angles of pain, elbows,
knees, shoulders straight as rain.
 
He remembers blue skies.
He remembers dawn.
He remembers light.

Ruth Bavetta

Ruth Bavetta’s poems have appeared in North American Review, Nimrod, Rattle, Slant, and many other journals and anthologies. She formerly taught Art History and Drawing at a community college. She loves the light on November afternoons, the music of Stravinsky, the smell of the ocean. She hates pretense, insincerity, and sauerkraut.

Three in One

1.
The arrangement of these panels speaks worlds. On the left, Mary. On the right, in another half-panel, there’s St. John the Baptist. His hair is tousled his clothes dirty We could easily read a story line just from their postures. Both figures lean towards the Christ Jesus, in their eyes a worried yearning. The artist left a smudge under Mary’s arm for a reason we may not understand. She bows her head, arms extending from her purple garment, like a blue branch. She is only one side of the parentheses. St. John is on the other side—his clothing dirty, his hair unwashed and knotted. He seems to slip away slightly from Jesus, yet all the same, closing up the parentheses. 

In the centre of the Deesis is the One, the Christ, the One. See the full-blooded colour of his pillow, the sandaled feet, resting above. The flowing navy-blue cloak of the Christ matches the fabric of Mary’s dress and draws them together. It suggests a deep shadow, perhaps the tip of a spear. But behind him there are three glimmering halos, Blue is the dark, where Jesus is precariously perched, as if he might withdraw from us and drop into a bottomless well. In one arm he holds a book, but the words are faint. Will we ever discern His message? 

The mystic Meister Ekhart believes that some people prefer solitude. Their peace of mind depends on this. Others prefer to go to a church. Ekhart notes: “If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are. God is with you everywhere—in the marketplace or in the church. Your surroundings don’t matter. If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you. God is not distracted by a multitude of things. Nor can we be.” All you have to do is love somebody. If you love somebody, you will never give them up. The experience itself is yours alone, never in the hands of another human being. In this way, God moves into the hallways of your mind and emotions, and broods.

​I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Jack Gilbert

Jackie Langetieg

​Jackie Langetieg has published poems in literary magazines: Verse Wisconsin, The Ekphrastic Review, Bramble Blue Heron Review. She’s won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She is a regular contributor to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. She has written five books of poems,  including Letter to My Daughter and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold.