The Painter’s Wife The painter conjured her down from the painting, and fell on the floor, exhausted. He slept without dreams because the time for dreams, vivid as they were, was finally over. When he awoke, she stood motionlessly over his supine body, and her gown smelled of fresh paint. Her face was frozen, her muscles rigid, her eyes glassy. The painter turned his head and saw her likeness still on the painting. There, she was smiling, a faint but warm smile. He turned again, and there she was, alive, but as unwelcoming as an icy rain. She couldn’t be in both places at once; though no scientist, he knew that much. He parted his lips, about to ask her to move, to stand by the painting, so he could see and decide for himself, but she lowered herself to him. She was smooth under her dress, and warming up quickly to his touch. Now, a day later, she smiles as if she’s used to moving her lips and squinting her eyes. Her curly red hair falls, full and thick, on her pale shoulders and back, in long strands that have lost their canvas flatness and brush strokes. Her smile is an enigma with the frosting of promise. Her breasts and belly carry his fingerprints. They exchanged rings once and DNA on several occasions. “I love you to death, if you’ll forgive me such a cliché,” she says, testing the sharpness of her nails against the skin of her hand while watching her husband shaving. She seems fascinated with sharp objects—a curious trait for someone who spent all her life inside the vulnerability of woven cloth. The painter tried to get her next to the painting, to see them together, but failed. They never exist in the same frame. At least he can’t see them, which is the same to him. He blames himself: his studio is too big, she’s too quick on her feet, and his vision is not as good as it once was. Nodding to her words, the painter cuts himself with the razor. He winces, but the little pain doesn’t prevent him from granting her poetic license to speak any way she wants. She steps closer to the painting, walking softly like a cat. The painter blinks. One of them will be gone now. Maybe, all three of them, even the painting, will be gone. He’s not certain of anything anymore. Her hair and fingernails shine like a burning sun, and he brings his hands up to protect his face. Mark Budman This story was first published in Fiction Southeast. Mark Budman was born in the former Soviet Union, and he speaks English with an accent. His writing appeared in Five Points, PEN, American Scholar, Huffington Post, World Literature Today, Daily Science Fiction, Mississippi Review, Virginia Quarterly, The London Magazine (UK), McSweeney's, Sonora Review, Another Chicago, Sou'wester, Southeast Review, Mid-American Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Short Fiction (UK), and elsewhere. He is the publisher of the flash fiction magazine Vestal Review. His novel My Life at First Try was published by Counterpoint Press. He co-edited flash fiction anthologies from Ooligan Press and Persea Books/Norton. http://markbudman.com
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Kandinsky's Red Spot A red spot fell on the floor in the Guggenheim Museum someone’s lost cinnamon candy or a pill to stave off arthritis pain a red spot on the speckled marble floor inscribed in circles a red spot exiled from one of Kandinsky’s paintings hanging on the wall one of Kandinsky’s larger circles compressed & boiled down a red pill you take once a day the Idea of Art alchemized. ☭ Красное пятно [Russian Translation by Inna Ehrlich, Ph.D.] Красное пятно упало на пол в музее Гуггенхайма, кто-то уронил конфету с корицей или таблетку от артрита. Kрасное пятно на пёстром мраморном полу вписанное в круги. Kрасное пятно, сбежавшее с какой-то картины Кандинского, что висит на стене. Oдин из больших кругов Кандинского, спрессованний в красную таблетку, какую глотают раз в день. Алхимия абстракционизма. ☭ The Red Spot [English translation by Google from the Russian translation by Inna Ehrlich, Ph.D.] Red spot fell to the floor the Guggenheim Museum, someone dropped a sweet cinnamon or tablet from arthritis. Krasnoe spot a multicolored marble floor inscribed in a circle. Krasnoe spot to escape with some paintings by Kandinsky, that hangs on the wall. Shout of the great circles of Kandinsky, compressed into the red pill which ingest every day. Alchemy abstractionism. ☭ [re-write based on the Google translation from the Russian] The Red spot on the floor of the Guggenheim Museum is sweet cinnamon candy or a pill for arthritis a Krasnoe escaped from Kadinsky's paintings on the wall “Krasnoe!” shouts the circle of spectators “Krasnoe!” shouts the great circle of Kandinsky compressed into a red pill we take each day -- “Krasnoe!” the alchemy of abstraction. Dan Wilcox “Kandinsky’s Red Spot” began as one poem. It was translated by Inna Ehrlich, Ph.D., then re-worked for a workshop with Bernadette Mayer to become the 4 parts you read here. Dan Wilcox is the host of the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany, N.Y. and is a member of the poetry performance group "3 Guys from Albany". As a photographer, he claims to have the world's largest collection of photos of unknown poets. He has been a featured reader at all the important poetry venues in the Capital District & throughout the Hudson Valley and is an active member of Veterans for Peace. You can read his Blog at dwlcx.blogspot.com. It's the String
"they are the soul freed from its physical incarnation" –Dominique Fortin, on her birds It's the string, there's always a string. It's a thin flimsy string, a loose homemade leash. It hasn't been tested, but it connects. How does the bird maintain flight inside the blank room while the girl holds the string? Did she climb the precarious ladder to allow as much flight as possible in the white room? How long can she stand in her two little shoes on the small unsure platform? How long since the cage was a cage? Shirley Glubka This poem was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic poetry challenge on birds. Shirley Glubka is a retired psychotherapist, the author of three poetry collections, a mixed genre collection, and two novels. The Bright Logic of Wilma Schuh (novel, Blade of Grass Press, 2017) is her latest. Shirley lives in Prospect, Maine with her spouse, Virginia Holmes. Website: http://shirleyglubka.weebly.com/ Online poetry at The Ekphrastic Review here and at 2River View here and at The Ghazal Page here and here. The Bus
My bare feet graze the trolley’s metal floor. The apricot-flamed scarf winds its way from head to toe, a cotton shield, and tucks lightly around you: my silent, hidden son. You are quiet and eager. My eyes dart, diligent, from your eyes to chin to forehead, tracing the well-worn circuit of you. My gaze is only yours, and you, my copper-gauzed world. We sit in a row on the pressed wood bench: dolls on a playroom shelf, our tourists queued up outside the museum. Lost in thoughts and dreams. The split seconds between the now and the next are frozen in frame-- your tongue darts back and forth-- your coo a small mewing-- we are unsuspecting passengers for one moment more, and then the seconds will collapse into each other, and we will follow. Catherine Ruffing Drotleff A non-profit fundraiser by day, and a poet by night, Catherine Ruffing Drotleff writes to place herself in the world and to observe that place over time and space. A Midwesterner by birthright and a Chicagoan by choice, Catherine's work has appeared in Rattle and Blue Hour Magazine. Thank you so much to Alarie Tennille, one of The Ekphrastic Review's regular poets, for supporting Ekphrastic at Patreon. Alarie has been with us as a reader and writer from our inception. She has been a wonderful cheerleader to myself and to other poets who confer together on Facebook. I can't thank you enough dear Alarie! The Ekphrastic Review is free to read and enjoy and free to submit to. We do not and never will charge "reading fees"- we are dead set against this. We refuse to use foul click bait ads. If you would like to support our maintenance and development, there are a few ways you can do so: 1. Become a Patreon supporter. Patreon is a forward thinking system that allows private citizens and consumers the opportunity to patronize or support creatives to develop their projects. It's easy to use and you basically pledge an amount per month, starting at 2$. The patreon page is a general page for my creative projects. You should know that The Ekphrastic Review takes approximately 25 percent to a third of all of my work time, and you can specify that you want your donation to go towards that time and not my painting or exhibitions. I am looking for innovative ways to make my time commitments more realistic for the long haul as Ekphrastic grows and grows. I wasn't expecting it to become anything but a fun little hobby for a few hours a month. It takes about 45 hours a month now. I love it and if you do too, help me continue! We're in this together. Thank you. Click here to learn more. You can support us through Patreon and cancel any time. 2. Buy some artwork. I have lots of small artworks on Etsy, here. Just let me know in the notes when you purchase that you found me through The Ekphrastic Review. 3. Make a one time donation through Paypal. You can donate one dollar or one million through Paypal, using the address theekphrasticreview@gmail.com. Thank you so very much. www.paypal.com If you would like to give a gift to Ekphrastic but don't have a Paypal account, contact us and we'll find another way. Thank you so much! Sing of Bareness a New Song
Were it necessary to recognize only carved agony, the inevitable effort of suffering, the starved human frame doubled to a clinging skeletal pair, genocide, famine, all things apocalyptic in these death-bound lovers, I would not have come to know that one in one united bare in bare doth shine; nor been struck wordless by the force of the glow from the stripped complexity of the final ecstatic coupling. Shirley Glubka (Author's Note: "The title is from 'The Song of Bareness,' author unknown, formerly ascribed to Johannes Tauler; the line in italics is from Meister Eckhart.) This was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic challenge on sex and art. Shirley Glubka is a retired psychotherapist, the author of three poetry collections, a mixed genre collection, and two novels. The Bright Logic of Wilma Schuh (novel, Blade of Grass Press, 2017) is her latest. Shirley lives in Prospect, Maine with her spouse, Virginia Holmes. Website: http://shirleyglubka.weebly.com/ Online poetry at The Ekphrastic Review here and at 2River View here and at The Ghazal Page here and here. Sophia Behrs at Seventeen
photographer, painter, writer; mother of 13; wife of Tolstoy This is what she is like, the year before she marries him -- before he gives her, this fresh-hearted girl (yes, I know she looks feisty, but come on), his diaries to read which tell in searing detail of sex with another woman; before being pregnant from ages eighteen to forty-four and burying five children; before he makes her nurse their firstborn despite the open sores in her breasts; before seven times copying out War and Peace from his tangled scribbles, feeding and caring for family, servants and the ubiquitous hangers-on and pleading with him for years not to gift away their livelihood-- Sophia, before she draws up from inside a bucketful of something, and starts furiously writing her own stories-- sketching flowers—taking pictures of everything, later developed in the pantry. Before she takes her own portrait, a dolled-up grandmother, still beautiful. You forget the husband’s scowl at her side: light flocks to her, the old woman, same as at seventeen. Look, here is Sophia. Laura Chalar This poem was first published in the chapbook, Midnight at the Law Firm (Coal City Press, 2015) Laura Chalar was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a lawyer and writer whose most recent poetry collection, Unlearning, was published by Coal City Press in 2018. The Scream
The sky leaks it first. Then we’re pulled to the oily drift of the bridge to see where it ends. If it ends. Pulled To the figure in the foreground both less and more than human holding forever in his hands both his ears in a view that will never be over-- So infinite is it. One raining pitch, a twisted splicing of lines, clogged both less and more in the pipes of the sky than the dim canals of the ears. How it bends and winds the continuing etched pen and ink, drilling the runnels of rough and worn wooden slats Underneath with the depth of enduring inception luring us further and further in to the silent camp of the deaf where the railing of inner liquids runs in elliptical rivulets-- transfusions embalming the brain pumping a skeletal premonition through the facial bones of this gnome whose hands, upon staring become two pinned wings, two symmetrical slabs of marble framing the face like the hair of a woman-- So that now it is lion, serpent, bird-- the shared eye and ear of the inhuman, wild with nightmare sustained in the shadowed couple arm in arm in the tiny background-- calm as the cloud of lake while ribs of the sky quietly starve in testament to the steeple riding its fading spine to the edge of the cliff gliding and ringing both beneath and above the bridge singing and singing a gorgon’s lullabye. Deborah DeNicola This poem was previously published in Where Divinity Begins, by Deborah DeNicola from Alice James Books. Deborah DeNicola is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently, Original Human, 2010 from Word Tech, Where Divinity Begins from Alice James Books, four chapbooks, and her memoir, The Future That Brought Her Here from NicholasHays 2009. She edited Orpheus & Company; Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology (UPNE.) An adjunct professor, and editor, DeNicola received The Carpe Articulum Award in 2010, Briar Cliff Poetry Award, 2007, the Santa Barbara Poetry Award, 2008 and The Paul Hoover Critical Essay Award from Packingtown Review, 2009. She is the recipient of an artist’s fellowship from the NEA. Her web site is www.intuitivegateways.com. Wings
Two small birds on the canvas aerodynamic even in repose colored feathers resplendent end of a long inheritance reaching back to saurian life before flight before flowers before we could have been imagined coming so late and so full of new ideas you were our first music your songs rising in counterpoint above the drumbeat of our blood giving us dreams full of wings lifting in the bright air of morning or swift and soundless as the great owl in moonlight our hearts forever yearning for the grace of flight Mary McCarthy This poem was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic poetry challenge on birds. Mary McCarthy has always been a writer even though she spent most of her working years as a Registered Nurse. Recently moved to Florida, she has been enjoying the abundant local wildlife, including a great variety of birds, everything from snowy egrets and pelicans to osprey and vultures. She has had work published in many online and print journals, and has an e chapbook “Things I Was Told Not to Think About” available as a free download from Praxis Magazine. A Clear Image Is Not Available
I will decide this one is different. I will say the teeth, this time, are bared in ecstasy. I will glory in the respectable bed, the clean white sheets, the pillowcases. Let the exhausted ghosts rest. The source of light, I say, is the sex-- is soul upon soul-- is innocent flesh, innocently held in a firm dark box of rapture, floorless, floating. Shirley Glubka This was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic challenge on sex and art. Shirley Glubka is a retired psychotherapist, the author of three poetry collections, a mixed genre collection, and two novels. The Bright Logic of Wilma Schuh (novel, Blade of Grass Press, 2017) is her latest. Shirley lives in Prospect, Maine with her spouse, Virginia Holmes. Website: http://shirleyglubka.weebly.com/ Online poetry at The Ekphrastic Review here and at 2River View here and at The Ghazal Page here and here. |
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