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The Old Towns, by Mark Danowsky

2/29/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Jericho Valley, Winter, by John Folinsbee (USA) 1935

The Old Towns

  
A tiered expanse
                 to reflect on birth
 
We had family
                 from all over
 
Perhaps you do not
                 or prefer not to
                          acknowledge distance
 
How dark the sky appears
                 after snowfall
                          especially at dusk
 
The old towns
                 must remain weathered  
                           or lose their identity
 
We cannot abandon
                           our gray roots

Mark Danowsky

Mark Danowsky is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press, 2018). His poems have appeared in Eunoia Review, Gargoyle, The Healing Muse, North Dakota Quarterly, Peacock Journal, and elsewhere. He’s Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal. 
1 Comment

Rediscovery, by Eugene Ong

2/29/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, by Giorgio de Chirico (Italy) 1914

​Re-discovery
 
In some half-imagined scene of mine, 
perhaps in a sunlit piazza in Trieste, 
I am thinking deeply of you again. 
 
It seemed the kind of life we wanted.
Sipping wine on a terrace, 
you in a bright ochre corridor of light
with a foreign phrasebook on your lap. 
 
I squint in memory of some lines  — 
“Mai piu ritonerai, mai piu”, which sound 
like the begging of all good years left in me,
to return no more, no more to you. 
 
Why these lines have loitered
half-heeded in my throat,
no one can say.
Not in this wind-haunted seaport, 
where the afternoon stretches on,
marked only by long shadows. 
 
The old starry-eyed Italians like Galileo 
were feted for mapping point to point.
Then why did I want to be re-discovered by you 
in this cobbled square, 
when I caught in a lowered gaze, 
that piazza really meant insurrection,
not connection. 

Eugene Ong

Eugene Ong is interested in city planning, architectural heritage and photography. His photographs on housing estates have appeared in <<联合早报>>. He has co-authored a book on Singapore's vanished public housing estates and his writing has appeared in Asian Cha and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. Visit his website for more information.
1 Comment

Bread Sculpture- Grace Hartigan, by Sarah Wyman

2/28/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Bread Sculpture, by Grace Hartigan (USA) 1977

Bread Sculpture Grace Hartigan
 
Back then, bread knew how to fill a pan,
rise past tin walls
where the only fear was too eager a vermilion bite
as though all those layered eyes might stop their smiling,
as though the smooth touch of each phallic finger stroking
bloated love might mix its cuticle
or gaze too easily into another’s pot.
 
The ‘70s sent tropical vegetation
as decoration, cozied in the floating
females caught up in bold prints
and chucked gently through red outlines,
wearing Marimekko smocks that pocketed wooden spoons
and the neighbor’s secret keys.
 
For those peeking over picket fences,
bread begs back to yeast when the baker can’t disentangle
the mythic beast who nibbles from the leaf that feeds.
In dreams, we travel a hibiscus ridge down the back
of a snake-like road we took only for fun
that time the sprig of a gift allowed one more gilded drive
to finish off the loaf.

Sarah Wyman

Sarah Wyman writes and teaches on verbal / visual intersections and lives in the Hudson Valley where climbing feet kick dust down to a river-sea.  Her work has appeared in Aaduna, Mudfish, Quarry, Petrichor Review, A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Poets of the Hudson Valley (Codhill), and other venues. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook Sighted Stones last year.

1 Comment

Ekphrastic Responses: Maximilian Pirner

2/28/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Lovers in Small Boat (sometimes called The Demon Love), by Maximilian Pirner (Czech Republic) 1884

Reined
 
Belted in red this
Sash
Of mine
Your gift sir from
A fine day
Spans my waist
Like a
Bridge
At the point
Where
Mind loses
Land to
Lust
This waist a pontifex
Like a priest but
Not
Bears what once
Belonged
Only to soldiers and
Royals
Pirates too
A sign of a
Prize
Forcefully won
From blood and
Death
Now secured and seen
On this
Body
La femme
Gagged where
Talk
Might cross
From one hemisphere
To another
Subtlety of
Knowing
Flickering like
A roll of
Silk
Near a thinly cracked
Window
Where whispers of a
House
Become the language
Of trees and
Wild
Birds
A cracked window
Being
The best you can
Hope for
In a weighted
World
Chatelained and
Thimbled
As you are
Now
That is the history of
A sash
This one
The language of
Belonging/longing
And Rank
Fear
Wound round
And round
Prettily
Long tails
Hang
Like reins.

Kate Bowers

Kate Bowers is a Pittsburgh based writer who works for a large public school system by day. She has been published previously in The Ekphrastic Review and is a compulsive reader of anything with print on it. So if you find her staring at you oddly, you're probably holding something she can't quite read. Or, she just likes you. Kate is a trained improviser, loves to swim, and is a big fan of gardening and life. 


**

Lovers in a Small Boat

“Meet me tonight, 
at our secret hideaway.
Let us hide, once again.
Hide; like old times.”

“I’ll come, dressed as a bride.
And you, my groom.
Around my waist, will be tied;
The red ribbon.*
In my hands, I will be 
Holding Daturas.*
Although,
Our oars are tied,
And boat; restrained.
Together we will board.
Together we shall float.”

“We’ll say our vows,
We’ll say ‘I do’.
Then in our deep kiss,
Like always; we’ll drown.
Only this time, never to be found.”

***

“Our little gifts,
Our first kiss,
Our fights and laughs,
Our hurried goodbyes,
The never-ending stream,
Of sparkling dreams.
-Our memories and longings
Are all rooted in this place.
Let’s hide right here, forever;
From this town. 
Let’s draw upon ourselves;
-The Ultimate Veil.”

“Hush now, my darling,
Do not waste your breath.
Take a bite of this blossom.
And give me a kiss…
Share with me, this concluding misery. 
Let’s close our eyes, 
And never open again.
Come, wipe your tears.
Let me hold you tight,
Till we make it to the other side.

Life did us apart,
Let this poison marry us
-For eternity.”

As the two ascended,
Floating together, 
Hand in hand;
To this grisly melody,
The Mighty Moon danced.


Maraam Pasha

*In some cultures, a red ribbon around a bride’s waist, is to symbolize a Virgin or a One-man woman.
*Daturas are white poisonous flowers.

Maraam is a Business Student from Pakistan. She is an ordinary girl, who finds literature a way to both tap into her real self, and to express her view of the world and beyond. She aspires to become who she once wanted to be, and encourage others along the way.

**

Love, A Discourse
 
In this backlit Bayou
evening descends
on lamplit water,
on lovers enshrined 
 
in moody green hues.
Swoon and swoop
and surrender; silence 
a co-conspirator.
 
He kisses her like an art -
and she a muse, enthralled.
This stolen moment, a dalliance
better thought of. 
 
Vampire devouring her soul?
It is night, and his face is sharp;
and her fallen frame frail
in the murky light.
 
Romantic heroine distress?
Another Ophelia, you suppose.
Or Psyche succumbing 
to Cupid’s charming kiss.
 
Romance rendered real
in classic passionate pose.
Melancholy transmuted
to momentary beauty.
 
How, in a drowning world
love is a boat (small or not)
keeping us afloat. 
Or in a floating, frivolous world -
 
love is the drowning deep 
we so desperately seek.

Siobhán Mc Laughlin

Siobhán is an English and History graduate from Ireland with a passion for reading and writing poetry. She has a MA in Creativity in Practice and facilitates a creative writing group in her local area. As well as writing poetry, she enjoys blogging about it and other writing matters on www.a-poem-a-day-project.blogspot.com. Her other interests include art, music and cats. Her poems have appeared online on Poetry24, The Ekphrastic Review and forthcoming on The Honest Ulsterman.
Twitter @siobhan347 

**

Vow

kiss me wildfire
and robin’s blue egg. kiss me 
in your mismatched socks. 
kiss me in pain, in hunger, 
or in mystery, whichever 
comes first. kiss me under 
the dragonfly’s hum, over 
raspberry cream pie, against 
debussy’s sonata. kiss me stupid. 
kiss me, fool. roughen my mouth 
like this august fervor. the sunflowers 
will turn away    to blush. 
 
Grace Song
 
Grace Q. Song is a high school junior from New York. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, DIALOGIST, Crab Creek Review, L'Éphémère Review, Into The Void, Frontier, and [PANK],among others. A 2019 Best of Net nominee, she enjoys listening to ABBA and Yoke Lore.

**
​
Carried Away

The river of your departure was
relentless and its surging currents 

rushed past much too fast. No gleam lightens 
the hollow gloom that consumes me. Dreams 

ebb – murmurs in reeds, fingers brushing
my cheek as if you’d never let go. 

No-one bolsters me. No lips anchor 
mine now in this vortex without you. 

Where is the moor of your limbs, the hold 
of our symmetry, our sweet duet?

Helen Freeman

Helen has been published on several online sites such as Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and the Ekphrastic Review.  She lives in England after many years in East Africa and the Middle East.

**

Assignation                                      

She would sooner drop her guard 
than the antique lace hankie she clutches 

along the lip of a snug boat moored 
in mystery. His professed love, deep as
these shallows. Her pink satin ribbon,

trawling the depths. His firm hand 
upon her neck, a willowy stem supporting 

petal-soft lips. Their first kiss sown  
by her open gaze. Her left arm, taut, 
the right, succumbing to the whiplash 

curve of his shoulder. She leans in. 
A demur surrender or false modesty? 

Sinuous lines blur. Swaying reeds give 
with the crush of their docking boat. 
What geometry in this equation. Art or 

artifice? Do I hear his quickened breath, 
her sigh? Mythic ardor suspended.

Margo Davis

Margo Davis is a retiree with wanderlust. In fall 2018, she toured major Madrid and Barcelona museums, Malaga and the Alhambra. In 2019, she was awarded a writing residency in Italy. This year's residencies will be in Budapest and Assisi. Her home base is Houston.Twice nominated for a Pushcart, Margo is partial to ekphrastic poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, What Rough Beast, The Fourth River, and The Houston Chronicle.

**


     Past Life Regression of an Artist's Model         

     All that was missing was the moon
     and swans in Praha,
     the river Vitava flowing  flowing,
     art in the heart of Bohemia
     when I was too young to understand
     why you told me to put on a white dress
     with a pink sash and whisper ravissement,
     my body pressed against the length of you --
     eyes closed, lips open --  your hand
     cradling my throat...measuring
     what I was to be in the future.  The dance
     was over, and there was no movement
     in the water rushes,
     the river lapping gently at the boat sides,
     the spirit of Proteus rising
                                                   in the silence of the soul.
                                                
                                                  Onstage, swan feathers had trembled,
                                                  the false lake shimmering like shook foil;

     There was no boat to hold me thus,
      my hair with strands of age and light
      sheer as luna moth wings -- a ghostly
      platinum in the moonless night -- my body
      clinging to the ledge outside the tower window
      (Sleepwalker, you would call me)
      surviving in what was left of the wetlands
      south of Camelot in another country
      as the Lady of Shalott passed by;

      as the dark knight rode from the black forest
      and I was Psyche in your arms,
      the muscled horse beneath us, you
      with dark hair fallen on your brow,
      the face of a boy who could have been my first love,
      or the young Yeats, trying to grow beyond
      the mystery of the afterlife, a canvas
      filled with what we could never escape:

      the gypsy fortune teller at the Cafe Slavia,
      her eyes the color of wild hazelnuts,
      the way she looked up from my palm
      as the waiter tried to stop us
      although it was inevitable,
      my lace handkerchief returned
      from the place where I'd dropped it
      at his feet; then the boat,
      The Lovers who never left the dock,
      the hard knot of you, almost
      in pain, crying out against me
      for the waking 
                                shudder of pure release --

                                winter bursting into spring,
                                the relief of romantic heat

      on the cool cement floor
      in the downstairs hallway
      of my grandparents' house 
      built into the limestone cliffs
      above the creek in Austin,
      a paperback book of poetry
      open in my hands --  Bronte,
      the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson --
      the snakey assonance of Swinburne;
      outside, foliage growing to the water,
      island grasses where The Lotus-Eaters

      could not swim into consciousness
      as you painted me in plein air, dipping
      your finger in a small, white bottle
      filled with poison, touching it to my lips,
      to my breast where the white dress
      had been spread open like angel wings
      as your tongue traced lifetimes
                                                               of daemonic love;

                                                              as you picked me up
                                                              like a wilted cabbage rose

     and carried me into a studio
     where you'd left the lights on
     in that haunted, beautiful house
     with a Victorian Valentine on the mantle,
     fields beyond the garden wall
     climbing the hills behind us
     as you dressed my body
     in the sinuous lines
     of bittersweet passion
                                             floating in shadows,
                                          
                                             vulnerable and wistful,
                                             seductive and provocative

     (tempus fugit --  momento mori )
     time flying by like long hours of love,
     the boat swaying gently in the cattails,
     our lives illustrated by canvasses
     everywhere around us
     creating me over and over
     as I created you --  I wanted you --
     words inside me as naked and alive as you
     must have felt as you painted
                                                           the woman I was, and could never be.

Laurie Newendorp

Laurie Newendorp's new book of poetry, When Dreams Were Poems, has two of the poems selected by The Ekphrastic Challenge.  Her ekphrastic poem was chosen for The Ekphrastic Poetry       Prize, Houston Poetry Fest, 2018.  "What surprises me, on Valentine's, is how little I've changed, writing a poem with the spirit of Pre-Raphaelite art, which I've always loved, imagining the women of that age as myself, different this year only in deviating from my usual Valentine pattern, writing a humorous short story."
      
**

​Lovers in a Small Boat

As we swoon on these board seats, your hands 
at my throat and waist, one of mine gripping 
your shoulder, the other braced on the cold gunwale
to press my face to your face your kiss 
your lips your lips your lips, your suit rumpled, 
my dress a wreck, both of us given over to this,

we can hardly hear the calls from the shore – 
the derisive hoots of my child and your child,
catcalls of our exes, ambivalent sigh of your dear
late wife – and are scarcely aware of the muffled
ding of texts from my lonely dad, your baffled
brother, our lovelorn friends, that accompanies 

our blind journey, so determined are we
to let the fire consume us, bootlessly.

Laura Cherry

Laura Cherry is the author of the collection Haunts (Cooper Dillon Books) and the chapbooks Two White Beds (Minerva Rising) and What We Planted (Providence Athenaeum). She co-edited the anthology Poem, Revised (Marion Street Press) with Robert Hartwell Fiske, and her work has been published in journals including Antiphon, Ekphrastic Review, Los Angeles Review, Cider Press Review, and Hartskill Review. She earned an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.

**

Shallow Water, Deep Breaths

She truly doesn't know which she wants:
For his kiss to be eternal, if not unending,
or for him to be her first demon lover,
to populate her dreams with little deaths
carried through by his sinister hand
caressing her throat before continuing
down, along the body aching to be new,
revealed and permanently changed.
 
She knows the Tennyson by heart:
Another woman, different boat and river,
forsaking her life to abandon the tower
bordering hopes for a lover's kiss before
surrendering all to sleep forever alone.
That isn't the plan tonight, any of it,
except this boat, this river, this real man.
Her fantasies are finer than old legends.

Lennart Lundh


Lennart Lundh is a poet, short-fictionist, historian, and photographer. His work has appeared internationally since 1965.

**

Kiss on the Water
 
She’d seen him around. That dark lock
of hair so daringly falling over the left eye,
pushed back impatiently, sometimes 
blown up, lower lip forward. She’d observed
him. She’d lusted, even though
she hadn’t been sure what lust was.
 
A small town, she from the manor
house. Well protected, always 
accompanied. She had to find a way.
 
He’d seen her too. So white, so blond,
so unattainable, so prettily dressed.
Always accompanied. He lusted
after her. Knew exactly what lust was.
He had to find a way.
 
He’d brushed past her. Hardly touching.
But a note went furtively from his hand
to hers. She escaped through the back
garden, pretending to go for a quiet
evening stroll. Seven pm under the footbridge,
the note had said. Her heart pounding
she stepped into the skiff. When he kissed
her, hidden from curious eyes by the reeds
and the bad light, she learned
what lust was.

Rose Mary Boehm

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and three poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals. Her latest full-length poetry manuscript, The Rain Girl, has been accepted for publication in June 2020 by Blue Nib.

**

The Trouble with Rowing a Boat Across a Pond 
and Stopping To Embrace Your Lover

 
Love is no duck soup—that boat tips over 
when he shifts his balance. 
 
Her powdered blue and tan dress, 
the commissioned one that took eons 

to sew, will deflate into the reeds. 
Then her hand will grasp the dock post 
 
more desperately than his shoulder. 
Is he a soldier that could not 
 
wed anyway, for sex weakens, 
the Romans said long ago? 
 
So much easier now to just drive 
down the freeway to a sturdy lounge, 
 
and deliver the black latex corset, 
size XS, which she wanted from Etsy. 
 
I might have won her over more
when she took a selfie with Snoopy 
 
smiling on the gift bag. And how much better 
to know the only water is at the bottom 
 
of an ice bucket that supports a bottle 
of Veuve Clicquot Rosé champagne?
 
No pestering yellow glow from a window 
in the background or worrying
 
about spies behind any trees.
The waitress reserved the V.I.P. booth 
 
docked in plush red velvet with shutters
half-closed, the dimmer light bathing us 
 
in marine blue and violet. No need 
to ring St. Valentine, for this demon love
 
becomes a lemon dove with shiny horns 
that bangs against my heart’s thin hull.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit is a mechanical engineer working in the oil and gas industry who lives in Houston, TX. His poems have appeared in various literary journals including The Ekphrastic Review, San Pedro River Review, and The Ocotillo Review. He completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, WA in 2016. His most recent collection of poems, Drive the World in a Taxicab, was published by Lamar University Press. 

**

Troubled Waters?

Before the launch, encomium,
assumed fare suit for season’s mood,
and illustrate for secret cards - 
why my unease, discomfiture?
Reading romance or demon power,
ask who or what is at the heights, 
emotion, power of love displayed
or dominant ascendency? 

This separate the lads from lass,
in what they see, or choose to view,
and on which side might dare to be,
some gilt enhanced or guilt betrayed? 
I wonder, one neck-gripping hand,   
another, tense, seeks gunwale cloth;
is one in charge, or charge in both,
a supplicant or slave entwined?

The mastery, line sinuous,
said compliment, or complement
to devil lover - even pair?
In dusky shade, her flesh must cool,
unbalanced strain, skeletal thrall,
I fear abuse is, hear, laid bare,
pink ribbon, pinned to prize displayed -
is small boat universe, or cell?

Stephen Kingsnorth

​Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces accepted by over a dozen on-line poetry sites, including Ekphrastic Review; and Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines & Vita Brevis Anthology. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/

**

​
Blind Date
 
In a small boat
on the midnight lake
held close in arms
strong as the clamp
of a steel trap
 
you seem to faint
in the swoon of love
gone pale and still
as a white ghost
a drift of fog and moonlight
too insubstantial
to push away
 
your small hand
braced against the rail
nothing against
his urgency
 
his hand set firm
beneath your head
keeping your mouth
sealed tight to his
as he stoops to your lips
with a raptor’s kiss
that takes your breath away

Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy is a writer and artist who spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many on line and print journals, and she has an electronic chapbook, Things I Was Told Not to Think About, available as a free download from Praxis magazine. Ekphrastic writing is a particular and new favourite for her.

**

Education Of Pre-Pubescent Teens

We hid behind bulrushes
(as all young teens do)
voyeurs pre-puberty
inquisitive in extremis
as a punt veered to the bank
him and her
ceased rowing
ceased heavy breathing
(surprisingly they didn’t).

They blurted out nonsense
(as ancient adults do)
tears flowing like rain
in their life full of sorrow
saving each other from death
him and her
arms clasped around torsos
mouth to mouth resuscitation
(surprisingly they did).

If that’s grown-up life then
I’d rather remain a child
without dæmons in my domain
or cavorting in a small boat
screeching “Yes!” for salvation
him and her
no mouth onto mouth
no toppling into rivers
(surprisingly they would
then again, perhaps not).

Alun Robert

Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse. Of late, he has achieved success in poetry competitions and featured in international literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He particularly enjoys ekphrastic challenges. In 2019, he was a Featured Writer of the Federation of Writers Scotland.

**

Did Psyche and Eros Know?
 
i.
 
An erotic link,
the neck,
head to torso
sympathetic nerve
begging touch.
She braces,
leaning across his leg
clutching her innocence
in white lace against
the boat’s wooden side.
Water that alchemists,
even Jesus,
could turn into wine.
Kisses that lure lust
release her to him
seduced beyond
questioning
his intentions.
 
ii          The Simple Act
 
Our third date,
cars illegally parked
side by side. We stood
in the dripping heat, caressed
by humidity. Middle-aged,
divorced, children grown. And he did
what I wanted.
 
I hadn’t told him. I didn’t know
what was missing from the lost
marriage until I saw
the made-for-tv-movie. The film’s
slow motion, like foreplay. The actor
cherishing the woman before him,
an unexpected move
that made me hunger.
 
As we moved toward each other,
my lover-to-be dropped
his keys to the ground and embraced
my face. Inched
his fingers down my neck
circling it then moving
deep into the dark brown
thickness of my hair and drew me
to his lips.
 
Sandi Stromberg

Sandi Stromberg has had poetry nominated for a Pushcart Prize, been featured on NPR, and juried in the Houston Poetry Fest eleven times. Her poetry has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Red River Review, Illya’s Honey, Colere: An Exploration of Cultural Exploration, among other small journals as well as several anthologies. She especially loves these ekphrastic challenges that combine her love of poetry and art down through the ages. 
 
**

Two Dozen Mallards Quack


Dusk in covert cattails 
bulrushes obscure flat-bottom rowboat 
docked at wharf in damp decay.

Clouds of black flies bite
exposed necks. Mosquitoes penetrate,
buzz with greedy syringes. 

Mouths gulp like bluegill,
search for beneficial bacteria 
among tangled roots below.

Two dozen mallards quack, 
mocking a desperate pageant 
in frog slime

tadpoles squirm, 
yearn for release, and the hunt,
under parlour-light refraction

organs, other than clutching hearts, 
stir. A handkerchief ready
to shoo fly, or offending passion.

Jordan Trethewey

Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His frightening book of verse, Spirits for Sale, is available on Amazon from Pskis Porch Publishing. Some of his work found a home here, and in other publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal, Fishbowl Press, The Blue Nib, Red Fez, Spillwords, Nine Muses Poetry, and Jerry Jazz Musician.  Jordan is an editor at Red Fez, and a regular guest editor at The Ekphrastic Review. His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com.

**

the futility of time

misty twilight falls around them,
the soft glow of first love,
as the mountains look on
wistfully, remembering
all that they have seen,
every soul 
illumined by a spark of hope,
feeling like the moon smiles beneficently
just for them,
them only.
 
the reeds, dusted with gold 
from the porchlights
whisper knowing musings 
amongst themselves, laughing melodically,
as they sway to the music 
of twinkling starlight around them.
reflected in the pond, 
pastel hues like that of her dress,
filmy gossamer,
a ribbon of rose,
the kerchief clutched in her hand
forgotten.
 
the crickets coo,
the heart sighs in a breathless flutter.
the boat treads a fine line,
drifting on a glass pane,
but now,
it matters not.
the heart is a fragile instrument,
rarely content in its loneliness,
restless in rhythmless days,
but now,
it is too alive to remember 
the ache of 
glass shattering, being broken.
 
right now
love is the light that 
shines forever, always remembered
it is better
to be embraced by its warmth
than to never see the sun,
to never know
love,
the buoyant wings 
of a butterfly,
beauty for a moment
is suspended forever,
in the heart
emblazoned
like stars in the sky.
 
dividing so many eternities
into seconds and minutes,
minutes and hours,
dates on calendars,
observations made by the clock
are fruitless
in these eyes,
time matters not.
 
so we think not,
just hearing 
two hearts beating
as one,
the twilight falling softly,
just a whispered word,
unobtrusive and sweet
music drifting slowly
the reeds laughing 
stars waiting breathlessly 
in the purple blankets of sky,
the summer evening 
is gentle as lace around the shoulders,
scrawled around them
like ribbons of silk.

Kathryn Sadakierski

Kathryn Sadakierski’s writing has appeared in The Bangor Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Nine Muses Poetry, Teachers of Vision, Dime Show Review, The Decadent Review, and elsewhere. She graduated summa cum laude from Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts with her Bachelor of Arts degree, and is currently pursuing her Master of Science degree.

**

Me Too
 
Scarcely screened by reeds
she has fallen in the body of the boat 
her suitor’s hand on her neck
 
she leans on the rim
seeks to kiss away his lips - 
blurred waters only 
allow for shameful rowing off
 
Passers-by please
at the perilous heaving – would they
have looked on
if the woman had pulled one oar
to re-establish balance?
 
Petra Vergunst

Petra Vergunst is a poet living and working in Northeast Scotland. Her writing deals with the multiple ways in which we understand, interact with, and relate to the world around us. In her long, narrative poem Embrace (Lulu Publishing, 2017) she investigates her relation with local woodlands.



1 Comment

Bonnard Remembers Marthe In Evening Light, by Mary Jo Balistreri

2/27/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
View From the Artist's Studio, by Pierre Bonnard (France) 1945

Bonnard Remembers Marthe In Evening Light
                       
As I lean toward sunset, the tall trees 
hold the sun in such embrace they throb
within me. The stone paths we designed
flow like rivers of molten gold in this heat.
I sit at the open window of my studio
and paint the outrageous color of our garden.
The pulse of hidden seeds beats soft 
against the canvas like your small body
against mine. How present you are
in your absence.
 
The flowering orange drifts to the pink
oils in which I dress you, falls beside me as you
carry the pruned stems by armfuls into the house,
the air delicious with sweetness.
My eyes blur as you bend over your hoe, 
something passing in that intense light, a 
ripening, a flush, the way you open the baked
soil, coax and cajole it like a child.
 
Evening is upon us and a lavender breeze lifts
the hair on my arms. The blues and greens quiver
in the changed air, and you drape my shoulders
in a cloak of violet and yellow. Soon a sea of black
starlight will close over us. 
       Je me souviens, Marthe;
life lives not in the brush stroke, but in between.
 
Mary Jo Balistreri

This poem previously appeared in Mary Jo Balistreri's book, gathering the harvest, (Bellowing Ark Press, 2012).

Mary Jo has three full length books of poetry and one chapbook. She was a musician most of her life but due to the death of a grandchild and a consequent loss of her hearing, she turned to poetry. Mary Jo has always been interested in art and received her BA in art from the U. of Pennsylvania. Please visit her at maryjobalistreripoet.com. She lives in Wisconsin. 
2 Comments

Hilda Goldwag’s Mirth, by Magi Gibson

2/26/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mirth, by Hilda Goldwag (Scotland, b. Austria) 20th century, exact date unknown.

Hilda Goldwag’s Mirth
 
Hitler wanted you to die, or failing that, to fall
into a hell of suffering. And you did, wandering 
the canal with boards and oils, painting industrial 
decay, faces lined with trapped world-weariness. 
 
Then out she burst from deep in you, this girl, 
rollicking on her haunches, smiling 
at the future, even as behind her naked back, 
flames rage and crack in a holocaust of hate. 
 
Featherless phoenix, birthed from grief, 
she is a life-force eager to escape 
the borders that confine, to leap, 
laughing from the frame. 
 
Her innocence, her mirth, her hopefulness
your sweet revenge, your antidote to pain.

Magi Gibson

A Scottish poet, Magi Gibson has held several Scottish Arts Council Fellowships and a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship. Her sixth full length collection will be published this year.

Hilda Goldwag was born in Vienna in 1912. She was on holiday in Scotland when war broke out in 1939. Her entire family was wiped out by the Nazis. She never returned. Trained as an artist, she worked in various practical jobs, then as an old woman, she took up her paints again. She never had a studio, but was often seen in Glasgow walking or getting on and off buses with her shopping trolley loaded with oil paints and boards. On her death many of her paintings were almost destroyed by the Cleansing Department. Her work has since been exhibited and recognized.
0 Comments

Riding the Night Mare, by Claire Booker

2/25/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Nightmare, by John Henry Fuseli (Britain, b. Switzerland) 1790

​Riding the Night Mare
 
It's a crime to whip her this hard,
but you're up ahead hollering and I can't keep pace. 
 
She'll bear me if it kills her. Those heaving sides 
tell me that. We fly along ancient forest tracks,

our way breached by cones and fallen timber -
dark secrets laid up in rings. 
 
When we stop, she guzzles gladly, refuses nothing 
from my hand except the dry half lemon, 
 
not yet knowing how sour can be put to long use. 
Her eyes are fiery water-marks. Stubborn teeth. 
 
I take her tongue, with a mind of its own. 
Vice it. Force the rind down.
 
When I wake, I'm tilting at your chest, remembering 
how white it was, like a freshly prised abalone, 
 
while we were young enough to count 
ourselves in summers, and you my turkey cock 
 
with feathers and attitude. 
But here's neither time nor place.
 
Your complex mechanism is wound too tight.
We'll wait. Again. Until the mood is right.
 
I fumble for something to cover my flanks.
Nothing said about her of course.

Claire Booker

This poem was first published in the pamphlet Later There Will Be Postcards, by Green Bottle Press.


Claire Booker is a poet and playwright who lives in Brighton (UK). Her debut pamphlet Later There Will Be Postcards is out with Green Bottle Press. A second pamphlet is forthcoming with Indigo Dreams Publishing. Her poetry has been set to music, filmed, appeared on the side of Guernsey buses and in numerous literary mags. She blogs at www.bookerplays.co.uk
0 Comments

Pickle Sisters, by Jordan Trethewey

2/25/2020

3 Comments

 
Picture
promotion photo, photographer unknown, 1920s

​Pickle Sisters

Remember, Dad?
You said,
If you love pickles so much,
why don't you marry one?

Well...
here are four.
One-hit vaudeville wonders:
The Pickle Sisters.

They're not really siblings.
It's all an abstract act,
multi-layered showbiz sammich.
These girls the latest garish garnish.

How can I choose?
My conundrum bitter-sweet.
Left to right:
Dill                                   Delilah
Sweet                              Susan
Gherkin       formerly     Ginny
or
Kosher                             Katherine

Fancy all that deliciousness
preserved in a jar.
Smart shopper, I have sampled
cucumber cuties.

Don't blush, Father,
for I fancy myself a Gherkin--
obviously.
She smiles, unafraid,

takes full advantage of
the full fifteen minutes.
She understands irony--
a toothless smile,
whistling harmonies,
are acquired tastes,

but do not preclude
interest in a lush life.

Jordan Trethewey

Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His new, frightening book of verse, Spirits for Sale, is now available on Amazon from Pskis Porch Publishing. Some of his work found a home here, and in other publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal, Fishbowl Press, The Blue Nib, Red Fez, and Spillwords.  Jordan is an editor at https://www.redfez.net/, and a regular guest editor at The Ekphrastic Review. His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com.


3 Comments

Reaping, by Sarah Russell

2/24/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Arles, Views from the Wheat Fields, by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands) 1888

Reaping

It is a good year, a good harvest
―
the wheat, gold as a king’s coins,
as a lover’s hair freed from her combs.
At sunset, when the sky turns gold
we are gilded too―our skin
becomes the sheaves―the ache of bending,
of swinging the scythe, of gathering,
forgotten.

Sarah Russell

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, Rusty Truck, Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday, and other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poetry collection, I lost summer somewhere, was published in 2019 by Kelsay Books. She blogs at SarahRussellPoetry.net
.
0 Comments

My Lady of the Tapestries, by Sue Mackrell

2/24/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Central Panel from Marian Hanging Tapestry, Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, 1570 – 85

My Lady of the Tapestries
     
This tapestry is exquisitely executed,
I would be proud to claim it as my own,
a silken greensward studded with gems of
violet heartsease and yellow columbines.
And in the centre, a pure white hart,
snow skein skin rippling, taut,
caught in a web of stitches, a cruel enclosure.
 
That fine woven Arcadia
conceals yet another cold stone wall,
another castle. I cannot tell where,
they are all one to me,
except what matters is the quality of light.
 
I must be housed in the Solar,
for the delicacy of my needlework demands it
as I stitch a rich purple thistle with golden thorns,
a twisting emerald vine heavy with fruit,
and I cut the thread of a silken rose
 with a blood red heart.

Sue Mackrell
​
Inspired by the embroideries by Mary Queen of Scots during her imprisonment in a series of castles and "safe houses" between 1569 and around 1585. Click here to learn more.

This poem was written as part of a "Poems in Place" project at Ashby de la Zouch Castle, Leicestershire, U.K. where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned for a  short time. 

Sue Mackrell lives in Leicestershire, U.K., and is of  London-Welsh ancestry, Her poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines, anthologies and on the web -  she is delighted that her poems have appeared in the last five editions of Agenda Poetry -   http://www.agendapoetry.co.uk/ She has an MA  in Creative Writing from Loughborough University, UK, and taught creative writing there, as well as in schools, colleges, galleries and museums. Retirement means more time to visit galleries and write! 
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