Seven Sadnesses You’ve got sadness in you, I’ve got sadness in me—an my works of art are places where the two sadnesses can meet . . . —Mark Rothko I. Underground Fantasy, 1940 Did you see the people in this painting as iron bars of some hellish cell of your own making? Did you believe that if you kept stretching them they would break free of your canvas prison? Did you see everyone around you as nothing more than unstruck matchsticks? Did you conjure these wick-thin underworld wraiths from nightmares? How could you know in 1940 what the dead of Buchenwald would look like? II. Untitled, 1948 After the war destroyed the human form, your paintings began to transform into some new life-form conjured from your own imagination. As Creator, you could have titled this painting “Zygote” or “Embryo” or “Fetus.” "Overture” could have worked, too, which suggests something bolder yet to come. As you grew older, you may have surrendered to the palette and designated the painting “Blue over Orange and Yellow.” By the end of your life, you may have only been able to assign a number, maybe “3.” But in the way that you made the multiform colours reach toward one another as if trying—but failing— to touch, to connect, to combine, perhaps the best title is no title at all. III. Yellow, Blue, Orange, 1955 You attempt to suppress your darkness beneath a block of sunlight that is both bright and waning. You attempt to leach out all traces of despair and leave a cool lake whose waters, you hope, will calm your fevered mind. IV. Four Darks in Red, 1958 You have created a world where gravity is unchained. What was once darkest and heaviest now floats unrefrained above an incandescent landscape illuminated by a wholly unnatural light. V. Rothko’s Dinner at the Four Seasons, Autumn 1959 It was meant to be nothing more than a scouting expedition, for a prospective new commission, an opportunity to examine the space where unsuspecting patrons would guzzle champagne surrounded by the portals of your monolithic paintings. There was no better place, you believed, to wage war against a class of people who needed to face the abstract reality of a damaged world. You slowly scanned the swanky room formulating a plan of attack: your paintings—your weapons-- would hang low, no higher than five feet from the floor, so that their detonations would devour everyone, consume the consumers, deposit their remains into some private void only to be reconstituted back into something close to human. You saw this as your last chance to become God-like, to become Creator, Destroyer, and Redeemer. But with each new bombastic course (Caviar on Ice, followed by Watercress Vichyssoise, followed by Lobster Thermidor, followed by… followed by…followed by…) your appetite waned and your resolve disintegrated. When they ignited the Crêpes Suzette, you stood suddenly, your immaculate white serviette falling silently to the floor like a flag of surrender. Staring into the dancing blue flames, you realized for the first time that winning this war meant sacrificing yourself to the ravages of friendly fire. VI. Black on Maroon, 1959 A banner of blood stretched, decomposing, necrotic at the edges: your sigil for a world undyingly loyal to suffering. VII. No. 4, 1964 Even you knew that sometimes there is safety in numbers. Even you, having lived so long moving from one dark space to another, you who made a habit of inhabiting emptiness, you who saw your paintings not as windows but as mirrors, you who buoyed yourself on the back of blackness the way a dying star relies on the night to prove that it still has some light to give, even you found those moments when you could not—or would not-- name the darkness. Kip Knott Kip Knott teaches composition and literature at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio. His first full-length collection of poetry--Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on--is forthcoming later this year from Kelsay Books. In his spare time, he is an art dealer who travels throughout the Midwest and Appalachia in search of lost treasures that can still be found in small town flea markets and antique shops.
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There Are Still Match Sellers There are still match sellers, naturally their words smoke. Their faces nearly as small as the body, boy hands shivering for a box of matches, over on the footpath, dogs gang. The people have their favorite colours too, the shoes change, the clothes change but there are still match sellers. Sometimes he sells toy parrots- bright yellow bodied, blood red faced. He raises it off the newspaper, over the footpath, when a child glances his way, still holding hands. His hands as a boy shiver, remembering caterpillars in empty match- boxes becoming butterflies in the open sun. In the night, naturally, they are smoke. The shoes change still, clothes wear new people every day as they go on & come out of the trains- long smoking caterpillars in a line. Over on the footpath, there are still match sellers, the last thing of their Pandora’s boxes rolled into fragile needles of aspen, & the parrots follow hand-held children into the blinding lights. Ajay Kumar Ajay Kumar is a student & writer based in Chennai, India. He has served as an editor for Abhivyanjana Magazine, a local magazine aimed at highlighting the works of student-writers. His poems have been published in various online journals, most recently in The Bangalore Review, Amethyst, Eunoia & Runcible Spoon among others. Confrontation Relentless time all things endure as foe... ...to those that reckon...beckoning demise... ...who, still, exhibit will with which they cope... ...as rising, reaching, consciousness of hope... ...that leaves behind its art as if estate... ...and gauntlet of the war and work to wage... ...illuminating paths where past had led... and dreams that were by fascination fed... ...to soul uplifted seeing it had wrought the pale and vibrant, lit and shadowed truth as comedy and tragedy of praise becoming fire aflame in distant haze rewoven into threads from which it sprang to be reborn as portrait of resolve. Portly Bard Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Editor's note: Over the years at The Ekphrastic Review, I have received occasional poems inspired by my own visual art. I was moved each time to have my artwork looked at so closely, and amazed along the way at the variety of perspectives and ideas that came about in response to my work. Poet Bill Waters, famous for his short-form poetry, surprised me with an eclectic series of short poems that were entirely composed of titles of the paintings, moved around like the collages I create to form a meaningful sequence. This became a little chapbook called The Luzajic Variations. Later I was approached by Devon Balwit with a manuscript of poetry she had written about my art, and that became Risk Being/Complicated. It was curious to see what other creative people saw in my images and how they articulated it. I was honoured to be approached again by a poet who was writing about my mixed media paintings and about ekphrastic writing in general, and I'm involved in a collaboration with him that will be born to the world in the near future. When yet another writer asked me about writing about my art, another collaboration in the works, I decided to run an artwork a challenge subject for the Review. It was a fascinating experience for me to see how my pieces are perceived. I always feel uncomfortable in the position of "judge," knowing the truth is that editing and curating is a subjective pursuit. I felt this intensely when the challenge prompt was my own painting, and wondered if it was a better idea for one of the guest editors to read and choose. I was astounded at the variety of submissions. I love ekphrastic writing because it makes us look more carefully at art and the world, stepping outside ourselves even as we are more deeply immersed in our memories and perceptions. We write about what we know and what we don't know at the time same time, with another person's creation as the key. I know some of you took risks in your poetry practice with this piece, changing the approach you usually take, trying on a new style, or just taking a stab at it, wondering how I would perceive your interpretation. It is different to write about an artwork when the artist will read it, isn't it? I thank each and every one of you for your poems, for sharing your talent with the world, for reading other writers, and for being such an important part of The Ekphrastic Review. Much love, Lorette ** Graffiti Detritus Awash the din, white-wash chaos, strike a chord from the driver’s seat, Bat mobile hits the wall – BAM. Unnoticed, all heads were turned. Gangs from hell Their eye-corner tears wept as 23 scrape survival from streets devoid of life, no dollar signs delude, no fools, they – from diluted graffiti detritus, so un-Banksy-like amidst blue not of a calm sky. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a New Hampshire poet and YA fiction writer, whose passions are animals, especially rescued cats and captive elephants to be released to sanctuaries. Her work has appeared in Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Harvard Press, among others. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 for her poem "The Sky Must Remember." Dickson's other works are available on Amazon. ** Reading the Signs BAM! STRIKE! Get ready for it. Your fate is about to change. That’s right, I don’t use tarot cards or read palms. I read faces, and yours is calling my bluff. So why can’t you believe the best is yet to come? First you must run toward it, work for it. Go out and search for hope. Carry a butterfly net into the fog of despair. Blindly scoop if that’s the best you can do. Unseen forces will guide you. It’s much like the work of a poet looking for ideas. Here’s a poem, there’s another. What signs do you track? Like dreams and fingerprints, the numbers, symbols, and sounds that you sense will be unique to you. But many clients report a feeling of weightlessness, like they’re floating out of a dense gray fog into a cobalt blue sky, with splashes of neon sunrise. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. For Alarie, looking at art is the surest way to inspire a poem, so she’s made The Ekphrastic Review home for four years. She hopes you’ll check out her poetry books on the Ekphrastic Book Shelf and visit her at alariepoet.com. ** ain’t nothin like it sometimes you say the word love as if you mean it as if it isn’t just another bad habit to break Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig enjoys exploring the intersection of poetry and art. ** On Love and Art We Leave Behind The future's not to be foretold, nor can it languish put on hold, but risk that we anticipate -- and plan for -- might well mitigate what, catastrophic otherwise, would be or seem as if demise of beauty we have engineered supporting dreams so long revered of what we hope to leave behind as love and art that others find to be the works by which they know that in their future as they grow... ...their past is only where they're from... ...today creates the best to come. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. ** Work In Progress Far cry from part-used acrylic tubes from printer’s black, the ink thinners whose odour slices studio air hogs’-hair brushes in a plethora of gauge the palette knives the rubber rollers the metric rulers worn stencils in both letter cases numerous semi-permanent marker pens fingers covered in mixed media, stained ditto the Irish linen apron and the thrice varnished parquet floor, lie random conflicts from artist’s block through long days the darkest nights the extant tears the trickle of sweat a constant strain of abstract work empty cafetieres of French roast, cold rigours of artistry performed under pressure crumpled packets of Aspirin, the caplets a structured approach to filling white voids scurrying deep to find a balance well beyond the third dimension, or fourth in the devil and drive of human creation for the best is yet to come. 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. ** Time It’s time To celebrate existence By slowing down Perceptions Jumping in To the centre of it all Flashing forward And beyond As time Folds into fog Behind that one last breath Of our breaking grasp John Drudge John is a social worker working in the field of disability management. He is the author of two books of poetry: March, (2019) and The Seasons of Us (2019). His work has appeared in the Arlington Literary Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetica Review, Drinkers Only, Literary Yard, The Alien Buddha Press, Montreal Writes, Mad Swirl, The Avocet, Sparks of Caliope, Harbinger Asylum, Black Coffee Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Dissident Voice, La Piccioletta Barca Literary Journal, and the Adelaide Literary Magazine. John is a Pushcart Prize nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children. ** Flying Toward the Light A near void forms the middle, (we cannot always see through to the core), but two planes are flying, speeding us to the outer world. This benevolent world, so rich! You love its clutter, not knowing where to place things, happy in the jumbled environment. Your son, added to the wondrous mix. It was not an easy A-B-C, you had to make decisions, just as Luzajic’s canvas must have called for decisions. Ought-nine was that split second when decisions were made for you. You feel again the energy of that moment, its definitive strike. Look! See again the seconds that are flying past—past the jumbled edifices, past the bursts of energy, past things known, lost, and found again, past the constructions that do not fail you. Mark the elements that bring you joy! Look for the encouragers! Stretch your arms to the sunlight! Melded into light Marked for something stellar bright Asking what comes next Carole Mertz Carole Mertz, poet and essayist, is a graduate of Oberlin College. She maintains a lifelong interest in classical painting and other works of the 19th and 20th centuries and is a sibling to two professional visual artists. After music performance, writing is her chief occupation, with recent works at Eclectica, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Society of Classical Poets, WestWard Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her recent reviews of poetry collections are at Mom Egg Review, Eclectica, Into the Void, Arc Poetry, CutBank, Dreamers Creative Writing, South 85 Journal, and World Literature Today. She served as reader at MER in the selection of Pushcart nominees process and is Book Review Editor at Dreamers Creative Writing.Carole’s first poetry chapbook Toward a Peeping Sunrise will be published in October. ** Realised Do I take the obvious, leaping from the screen? The influence that money bought, the products made to hear? And when my eye, forced to view, the pupil, parrot taut, do I relax and broaden scape, seek out the reticent? Collage or is it collagen, body parts that no one sees? When norms retreat, life back to front, or mirror images, pretend not there, just look away, or lay-by, temporary? For my control to overwrite, to colour as I choose; transform the landscape overlaid and mindfulness pursue. The canvas mine, the palette range, the dominating seen. What scene is in my orbit scan to cast or grasp or field? 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 The Ekphrastic Review; and Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines & Vita Brevis Anthology. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** Groundwork In front of you the foundations of her city - newspaper blocks collage-painted primaries gravity drawn lanes negative space passages Groundwork for a living city streets connecting beanstalk buildings garden squares for those streets to lead to upturned skyscrapers along narrowboat canals contours of mountains behind Yet, the best thing comes when on a sunny morning she half-watches people from beneath the canvas of a walkway parasol where she reads the Saturday paper Petra Vergunst Petra Vergunst is a poet living in Northeast Scotland who is interested in how we understand, relate to, and participate in the world. Currently, her writing investigates what visual art may teach us about what it means to be human, and the agency it gives us to shape our lives. ** "The best is yet to come and babe won't it be fine?" That's what they sang to each other, as if this life were the wall of a building, painted and papered across the years, maybe a small store that anchored and supported the changing neighborhood, both waiting to be rebuilt in time to mark a second coming, a rebirth, but it's not and now never will be. He doesn't remember his son and daughter-in-law an hour later, and takes as given that these grown women with unfamiliar voices, strange faces, are his granddaughters who will cry tonight at the memories ripped apart and not replaced. Once brilliant and careful, his words are randomly erased, their spaces taken by repeating strings of uncertain letters running to and fro, leaving him unreliably angry and unpredictably violent when he thinks he's been crossed, his authority questioned, while leaving her afraid to share a room with him in their marriage's eighth decade, mourning alone the best as it passes. Lennart Lundh Lennart Lundh is a poet, short-fictionist, historian, and photographer. His work has appeared internationally since 1965. ** Fog Over Central Park (in memory of Mike Guerriero) The ghost of memories float over the park, a billowed wind sock as fireflies fill the trees. And played to the tempo of time, musical graffiti haunts the city air in blocks surrounding this self-contrived center of images -- blue-skirted clouds and sidewalks where my daughter roller-bladed to a corner and stopped -- just in time, I found her just in time almost fifty years ago when she rounded a corner in a department store, small hands exploring the floor lured by a broken button a piece of string and part of a candy wrapper (to the avid collector, found items are treasure) later, there would be shelves for display (hell to dust) so she could see everything gathered from travel, ours and her father's, dented beer cans with cartoon pictures -- Asterix, Shizam! -- time passing -- 1, 2, 3 -- in the ABC years of education, pieces of posters gathered like flowers growing on walls in the New York subway. These were the years of montage and mementoes theatres, ticket stubs, toy stores, portable bowling in hotel hallways (pins down, Strike!) when eclecticism was gender-specific passed from mother to daughter (art DNA) -- why would we ever throw anything away? a popcorn bag from San Genarro a map of festival events with a festival cover guests of my mother's Sicilian lover, an academic who showed us his city New York and the park -- music floating from Tavern On The Green -- Out of the tree of life I just picked a plum... You came along and everything's startin' to hum -- The best is yet to come, and baby, won't it be fine! Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp's new book, When Dreams Were Poems, connects her to the Ekphrastic Review, to art, her love of collage, to the lyrical music of poetry and Max Ernst's frottage; and to her present, writing this poem filled with thoughts of her past when the best was yet to come, "my mother's almost fairy tale ending when Mike Guerriero came down to D.C. to help start up the OEO. For me, he filled New York with paternal magic; it became the place where my daughter felt the pulse of New York's magic and took her roller blades to college." ** The Best is Yet to Come after Muhammad Ali and Lorette C. Luzajic We live in chaos. In the arena’s blinding lights and deafening noise. Hypnotic dreams floating like butterflies, stinging like bees. We’re on the ropes with trainers pummeling final instructions, managers clouting money, the crowd’s passion, red like slaughter. Then the bout begins. Pivots and bounces and crosses and jabs. We’re swaying like a punching bag suspended in the gym’s corner, as disoriented as a sparrow glancing off glass. A dip and a cut and a Strike! And a Bam! One, two, three, we’re out for the count. Until - until the Great Champion, the Pride of Jacob, lifts us to our feet and raises our arms in triumph, proclaiming all things new. No death, no dark, no curse, no pain. Victors. For eternity. Reigning forever and ever. Jo Taylor Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia. Her favorite genre to teach high school students was poetry, and today she dedicates more time to writing it, her major themes focused on family, place, and faith. She says she feels compelled to write, to give testimony to the past and to her heritage. She has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, in Silver Birch Press and inHeart of Flesh Literary Journal. ** Possibilities So many possibilities in a new year! Past ideas, hopes, actions frame our path as we go forward but our centre is a shape unknown, to be formed from our own will and force, perhaps stretching out beyond that frame perhaps preserving some of same. Into that space I throw myself, Commending my spirit to the new. My future will exceed present, past. As I leap into its space I know I can reach out to steady myself by touching past, present but they will not hold me back. I swim through a foggy portal into a future unseen, unknown, but full of bright possibilities, hope. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta loves writing ekphrastic poetry. Her work has appeared in Ekphrastic Journal, ovunquesiamo, and many other journals. Her short stories, essays, and articles are also widely published. On stage she performs folk and original tales of food, family, and strong women. ** Wake-Up Call So busy - numbers, letters, words, colour, people, myriad emotions manic activity, so much going on and I am overwhelmed as I have always been overwhelmed by the beautifully vivid confusion of life. It is too much. It has always been too much. Strike! Strike hard - strike now. That's what I should have done all those years ago when I was young, but Time is the Great Deceiver of youth. I'll do it tomorrow, next week, next year, I'll do it one day until one day all those tomorrows are a mountain of yesterdays and our tomorrows grow fewer with every sunset. Time is running out and if I am to leave anything to show a vestige of what were once my thoughts in this scintilla of consciousness which glimmers between beginningless and endless oblivions, I must do it now - there is no time to lose. So I'll turn with hope to face the setting sun and make damn sure the best is yet to come. Stephen Poole Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. He studied Media Practice at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London and also underwent training at the London School of Journalism. His articles and interviews have appeared in a variety of British county and national magazines. He has also been published online. He has been passionate about poetry since boyhood. His poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and he was a contributing poet to the Strand Book Of International Poets 2010. ** The Blue is Shrinking The blue is shrinking, the pale space the space ships see, unencumbered with lights and the debris of human lives. Soon the blue swill will swell, grow green with algae, brightly speckled with pretty plastic tops, lids, bags and all the gaily strewn paraphernalia we cannot live without. The ocean groans already and the thin crust we cut like pie, digging out the best parts, throwing the rest away. Choking, we might discover too late, is worse than living without. Jane Dougherty Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. Her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, Hedgerow Journal, Tuck Magazine, ink sweat and tears, Eye to the Telescope, Nightingale & Sparrow, the Drabble, Lucent Dreaming and The Ekphrastic Review. She has a well-stocked blog at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ ** Hope is the Thing with Feathers As I meditate on a chaos of images-- collaged and swirling around the canvas-- I am startled by a Texas-size cockroach. It scampers from under a copy of the artwork, and takes up residence on my keyboard. Such unabashed confidence! As though sent by the oracle of Delphi to assure me The Best is Yet to Come. As a young woman, I once sat on the steps of a Greek temple above the Sybil’s sacred cave. Lost in reverie, I hoped Frank Sinatra’s song would hold true for me, too. But what if a cockroach is just a cockroach--As Good as It Gets? The ancient insect stretches its feelers across the wireless keys, securing its position. I hesitate to kill what might be a messenger until I see strict orders on the painting Strike! Bam! I assemble my SWAT team-- a pink slipper, the stapler. Then, I scrape the carapace from the board, perhaps the way the artist scraped a central space in this artwork. Erasures that leave a ghostly, blue-white whisper suggestive of an airplane’s body and wings. Perhaps she has cleared the runway, tucked hope in her luggage, ready to jet off to the undiscovered. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg continues to love these challenges that wed the pleasures of living with artworks and writing poetry. She also enjoys gathering poets’ work into anthologies. She co-edited Echoes of the Cordillera (ekphrastic poems, Museum of the Big Bend, 2018) and guest-edited Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press, 2015). Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, read on PBS during the April 2017 “Voices and Verses,” and published in multiple small journals and anthologies. ** Merkabah: Settled Dust Pins and needles pill these veins - rivers verve - in an alternate time the cryptic mind gathers the years as light surfing on faint flashbacks; the pain has gone still but rivers inflame as volcanic waves; today is the day of the dawn/not the dawn of the day/ men will gather in white robes dangling beyond their tails called shadows, meeting the earth in a sweep towards cleansing, and they will comb their hairs in a manner for siding/parting/ holding/congealing. Their tongues will favour fruits the colour of rubies, picking ripened ajwas like rare stones concealed within mountains rarer to find, and their sights will savour the decadent dusk - descending domes - then a tree will tear out of the souls of a painting covered in a snow of words; the sky will blotch on the canvas of their language, and in the moment's lit ecstasy their robes will stain like the sky under a splitting sun. Thrones will topple/return to basics/high jewel will blend into the invisibility of regalia. Sheikha A. Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications have been Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Atlantean Publishing, Alban Lake Publishing, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated to Spanish, Greek, Italian, Arabic and Persian. She is the co-author of a digital poetry chapbook entitled Nyctophiliac Confessions available through Praxis Magazine. More about her published works can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com ** Media Storm All at once there are too many voices crowding the air begging space enough to be heard time enough to register as more than a flicker of sound and color streaming past my unfocused attention I see nothing but fragments disappearing too fast to recognize or remember words reduced to syllables an incoherence moving too quick to catch in an overwhelming rush as confusion rises like a tide of fog impossible to see through or blink back to clarity And it is suddenly too late to find a good way out from under all these shifting lies and delusions back to silence and solid ground Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy seems to have fallen in love with Ekphrastic. Not surprising, as she has always been both a writer and visual artist. The conversation between image and word is fascinating, and engaging in that conversation, whether as reader or writer, is purely irresistible. ** Placement Regardless of blue as best, yellow for yet, for the letters in BAM! the red space around strike, the white veil of uncertain will win best in show over the dripping lines for sure — the prize is probably only clear to those who have not yet stenciled in numbers, but clearly are ready to announce possibilities to come-- The idea of it-- --best to split from sense-- is repeating in the chaos, are you ready yet? no matter how you sequence $ to numbers, alphabetize fate… come, come just repeat the best, the best, the best, eugenically, the best the scrub-off of the ill-fated. Best to start over. What’s best for everyone will — was--is never— clear. Whose interest is being scribbled on the wall, yet pasted upside down, yet posted in disorderly notes, as if to say all that is. to be considered has not yet come? Just wait. It will come. Kitty Jospé Kitty Jospé, teacher, writer and art docent at the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester (NY) loves to explore relations between art, word, music, choreography. After receiving her MFA in poetry from Pacific University, OR in 2009, she has published five books and her work appears in numerous journals. ** Not Whitewashed Alphabet of primary red, yellow and blue stories hidden in text so I get out a magnifying glass to see circles of storms, zigzags of fences on mountain passes and turnstiles to government land without a push bar only cattle and horses forbidden on the other side with directions to leave your time in and out in case lost or a Dorothy Hughes noir mystery of the 40s and 50s set on the edge of a pueblo in New Mexico with a woman heroine and the quiet of a blanket drawn against the cold as someone stands on a flat roof of an adobe house observing the sunrise, best yet to come in a cloud, a wash of white that makes you look deeper into what lies underneath, books on the shelves with titles you can’t decipher, not giving away all their secrets and somewhere under all that exists a timetable because that’s all we’re given—we get to fill in the rest. Kyle Laws Kyle Laws is based out of the Arts Alliance Studios Community in Pueblo, CO where she directs Line/Circle: Women Poets in Performance. Her collections include Ride the Pink Horse (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), Faces of Fishing Creek (Middle Creek Publishing, 2018), This Town: Poems of Correspondence with Jared Smith (Liquid Light Press, 2017), So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press, 2015), and Wildwood (Lummox Press, 2014). With eight nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Germany. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. ** Whitewash They tore off the poster, whitewashed the wall. My proclamation more offensive than others. Truly beyond me. Must be fear-- one person's voice, bare on a dark stage without white noise polluting privileged thoughts for a brief period. Public proclamations concerning lonely dissertations on dissent make starched shirts uncomfortable, itchy to take them down. A layered effect created by cover-ups; dozens of individual attempts to be seen and heard, can lull passive eyes into seeing handsome backdrops to expensive dinner conversations among the tax sheltered, whom these protestations tried to initially expose. 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 Drowning As in a children’s storybook a first elegy plainspoken narrative fourth grade choir she didn’t make and every summer a boy drowning Ascension Sunday. The boy from Burgweinting. The small pond they swam in. When she spoke of this boy in the back of her notebook Bavarian Forest mountains chalk quarries bombed refugee town roads of clay dirt, birch trees ask about their secrets: “Where do the dead go?” Bogs older than Danube grasses sharp spines of a hedgehog a first elegy. Inhospitable in the yellow sunlight she couldn’t bear language pigtailed nine year old obsessed with glass marbles poppies, purple thistles. To need less and less overexposing film less familiar here, less rote teacher with a lisp closing blinds clicking film reels. Teacher’s hands. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is an editor, poet, curator, advocate and activist. Author of four poetry books, the most recent collection is Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna, 2021). Writes in journals, anthologies, and six chapbooks. Her poem “Dachau on a Rainy Day” was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. Artistic director of Visual Arts Centre Reading Series and Argo Bookshop Reading Series. QWF 2010 Community Award. ** Chaos Theory On this canvas of my life it looks as though butterflies were flapping their wings and flitting about at every opportunity making trouble having fun and shaking things up a bit. Looking backwards into the cloud, I remember my lived life was similarly peppered with disorder, irregularities, random events. I struggle to discern underlying patterns, interconnectedness or organisation. It’s regularities and irregularities were left to the butterflies and their flitting and flapping. In the end they flapped the clouds away. Tomorrow I shall paint a new canvas and with the help of the butterflies I will paint another picture drawn from my life. On canvas, I am the butterfly. I can make the patterns, the order or disorder. Others may make of it what they will. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Light Journal and So It Goes Journal. https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Once Upon a Time in London It started out like any old London summer’s day. Not too hot, not too sunny, a cloud threatening here or there. The big boys took the little ones to the zoo. Past the ABC cinema, The Service Station, some yard full of packing crates. Sometimes they saw the blue sky that might have been. That’s London. Most of the summers you just imagined. The big boys hurried the little ones along- After all, they were responsible and there were 18 of the small boys, all trundling and play-fighting and sometimes bothering other users of the narrow pavements. They also wanted to get there. The small boys would be less of a bother, they could let them run free to see the animals they wanted. So long as they’d all meet again at 17.00 hours sharp at the exit. The big boys looked forward to a cigarette or two, a sip of whisky secreted in a flat flask in Bob’s coat pocket and talking about the girls they knew, of course. Then the thick fog settled over what seemed the whole world. Some of the little boys found their way home by about four o’clock in the morning. Rose Mary Boehm A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, one full-length poetry collection and two chapbooks, her work has been widely published in mostly US poetry journals. Her latest full-length poetry MS, The Rain Girl, has been accepted for publication in June 2020 by Blue Nib. Her poem, "Old Love’s Sonnet", has been nominated for a Pushcart by Shark Reef Journal where it was published in the summer of 2019. ** The Best is Yet a faded future, pastels distilled, burnt by the nuclear sun, an angry past littered with dollars, swept up our lives, marble-washed dreams given no time to set they’ll find our culture brightly drawn, action-packed- limbs flailing and cries of BAM! Drunk on technicolour- violence, we always came a distant second they’ll root through our pictures and words, they’ll see numbers and figures and plastic covered nightmares, betrothed brothers of mother’s ruin our faded past, once rich and warm, glassed by memories, sunk like the ships it carried, worn by the salt in the air, if we scream no-one hears us, futility in blue where did we go? No question too dumb, like the leaders, count the days as we went backwards, as we went… not for long, the universe always had its answers. Zac Thraves Zac Thraves is a writer, performer and mindfulness practitioner based in the UK. You can find a number of poems on this site, as well in a number of other publications; and you may wish to take a browse on Amazon's virtual bookshelves for some exciting short fiction. The future is peace and love, just go with it. ** Silent Soundtrack rivers meander blue-lipped like a Braque collage through pasted wasted snippets of life running off walls in meaningless print a silent soundtrack to high-rise noise its pastel life of colours draining dollars skimming expletives riding the slip-sliding waves pulling us back from the brink of canvas wiped clean Kate Young Kate Young lives in Kent with her husband and has been passionate about poetry and literature since childhood. Over the last few years she has returned to writing and has had success with poems published in webzines in Britain and internationally. She is a regular reader of The Ekphrastic Review and her work has appeared in response to some of the challenges. Kate is now busy editing her work and setting up her website. ** Untitled all time explodes outwards from the mind all we’ve learned the ABC of it the 1,2,3 of it the wham-bam-glam of scribbles, whales and balloons puffs and pastels out, except that fuzzy bit you don’t know yet a small figure steps into the future Oonah V. Joslin Born in N. Ireland, Oonah V Joslin is a retired teacher. She writes mostly poetry and micro-fiction and won three MicroHorror prizes, and is published widely on-line and in several anthologies. Most recently she won two Moon Awards in Writing in a Woman’s Voice. She is currently poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings magazine. Her chapbook, Three Pounds of Cells is available on Amazon and she was invited by the National Trust to read her poem from that book, Almost on Brantwood Jetty on board the Gondola Steamship at Coniston in 2016. You can follow Oonah at oovj.wordpress.com Parallel Oonahverse and on Facebook. ** For the Best Outcome I zoom in on the future 300% to count eight rabbits stamped in various positions inside red frames. Nothing to do with a sexual appetite even if little rabbits feed habits. Double dollar figures stand to the west strutting their lucky bodies. No, I do not bet. To improve my outlook though, I want to draw an angel fluttering above with good health, beating wings of common sense to that squatted rabbit resting on her back. She is weird and pretty looking up at Hello Kitty. The wings flap, feathers, still white and fragile, would drop with each eye blink and litter the splotched grass fields where I want to sit, near bands of smoke and scribbles of tumbleweed that roll on. John Milkereit John Milkereit is a mechanical engineer working in the oil & 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. ** Sector 097 sector 097 of the venn is reserved for serendipity whose cuts produce the gem Oh Bunnikins you never asked about the aesthetics of upside-down don’t neglect the pun upon the decorated globe the braille for texture Will you find it mama? find it mama mama please I know my dear eat your veggies childhood adheres you have glue in your hair, pet - sit still No I won’t! THERE! Don’t destroy it darling your brother wants to read it I found this wonderful site Lorette it has waxed paper for keeping food fresh marvellous expensive but you would really like it …just one ice cube please… …she has a stud in Kentucky… …hmmm… Are we nearly home yet mummy? mummy wake up wake up mummy please i don’t like beetles and there’s a big one the rorschach i flushed it mommy but its running down the page Boys and girls come out to play kiss the railing first. I’ll let go if you kiss the railing Don’t write in the steam darling it leaves marks echo echo alpha dollar dollar the flagpole of free dom i can’t see it mom i can’t do it because it doesn’t make sense Stamp it like this…or use your stencil That’s lovely darling! Will we put it on the wall? The sociologist is visiting and he likes pictures. He rides a bicycle. No, don’t scribble All right, lets see if we can make something from it Tidy up the comics now Adam Just do something that makes you happy I love the colours in that one. What do the words say (keep it in the airwaves) everything was signed after my parents left they had no idea it was the best thing I CAN’T HEAR! Everyone’s talking at once! col OMB ia! I’m going to bed now Kitty cuddles? It was clearly the best thing but they had no idea they had it coming. Cameron McClure Cameron McClure was brought up on a farm in the north of Ireland where he still lives. Now retired, writing is his attempt to prove to himself that he is human after all. ** Rash Whine Gilded wisps skirt a vacant abstraction like satellites whose globes are dissolving in a haphazard sky. So? Signs shriek shnocked proclamations: “All’s awash!” “Waterlogged!” “Blue puddles like splotchy slugs footprinting eroding concrete and encroaching fast!” But shun such convulsions, will ya? The crux of broadcasting one’s garbled conceptions-- reflections feared, sneered, steepled gossip—is it’s too stupid! (The best is yet to come!) D. R. James D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 36 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His most recent of nine collections are Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press, 2017). His micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is printable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage ** The Best Is Yet To Come My Way Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum You came along and everything started to hum And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain Still it's a real good bet The best is yet to come I've lived a life that's full I traveled each and every highway But more, much more than this, I did it my way The Best is yet to come and babe won't that be fine You think you've seen the sun But you ain't seen it shine Regrets, I've had a few But then again, too few to mention I did what I had to do, I saw it through without exemption And wait til the warm up's under way Wait til our lips have met And wait til you see that sunshine day You ain't seen nothing yet I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway And more, much more than this, I did it my way And yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew Wait til your charms are right for these arms, to surround You think you've flown before But baby you ain't left the ground But through it all, when there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way I've loved, I've laughed and cried I've had my fill, my share of losing Wait till you're locked in my embrace Wait til I draw you near And wait til you see that sunshine place Ain't nothing like it here But now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing To think I did all that And may I say, not in a shy way Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way Come the day you're mine I've got plans for you, baby And, baby, you're gonna fly Donald Brackett Author's note: Song lyric by Carolyn Leigh, 1959, recorded by Frank Sinatra, and merged with Sinatra’s signature 1969 song "My Way," composed by Paul Anka. Donald Brackett verbal collage conducted according to the Burroughs and Gyson method. Donald Brackett is a Vancouver-based culture journalist and poet who writes about music, art and films, as well as curating film programs for Cinematheque. He is the author of three books with Backbeat Books: on Amy Winehouse, 2016, Sharon Jones, 2018, and Tina Turner, 2020. He is currently working on a new book about the conceptual artist and musician Yoko Ono. ** Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts has authored four poetry collections and two children's books. Her work appears in print and online in North American and international journals and anthologies. She is poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. When she’s not reading, writing, or editing, you can find her drawing and painting, or outdoors photographing her natural surroundings. ** After The Best is Yet to Come for family, friends and Lorette A book on the loft, I am A bunch of scriptures, maybe; Or a booklet of prayers, A Chapter of the Kamasutra, Or a prescription for venereal diseases. I realize nothing out of these. (Someone would have read had I been one.) Amrita Pritam[1] 1. Pilgrimages In my life, I’ve had the privilege of performing three major pilgrimages: 1) In 20th Century C.E.: during my childhood, to The Kaaba[2] in the heart of Masjid[3] Al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 2) In 21st Century C.E.: during my intellectual maturity, to The Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Perhaps, the site should be declared The Holy Place for all philosophers, poets and artists. 3) In 21st Century C.E.: during my conscious transcendence to Mohenjo-Daro[4] in Sindh, Pakistan. Perhaps, the site should be declared The Holy Place for all historians and philologists. I should like to confess: the second experience has been the profoundest. A verse and/or discourse on why and how on another occasion now. Currently, I’m on The Pilgrimage to Self-- the most significant of all, after all. For, in the words of Bulleh,[5] then: your resources and claims and acclamations and proclamations of knowledge and wisdom: learning by means of cramming —devouring thousands and thousands of all manner of volumes on top of volumes. but have you ever endeavoured to read and learn about your-self —inner-and outer-selves? all your life, you’ve remained a permanent resident at the so-called house of lord —temple, synagogue, church, mosque, gurdwara, shrine et cetera. but have you ever cared to spend a few nano-moments at the house of self? latterly, you’ve been preoccupied with rather rigorously sanctioning all manner of battles and wars against all manner of devils of all manner of worlds. but have you ever considered embarking upon an odyssey of self-reflection/reflexivity —supervising, monitoring and regulating your ego/super ego?[6] 2. Love and Romance Throughout my life, I’ve been exceptionally privileged to have always had the love of my mother. And of course, of my father and siblings. And of course, of many dear friends from across the globe. I’m absolutely convinced: Mother is The Face of God! And in my life, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing the romance and romanticism of many loving, caring, intelligent and beautiful women too of various classes and creeds. And I’ll keep (re)emphasising until my material and immaterial being ceases to exist: EVE IS NOT FROM ADAM’S RIBS! Phallocracy/chauvinism/patriarchy may be The Order of the Day (governing the mechanics of societies in many regions of the world today), but as Heraclitus[7] said: only thing that is permanent is change. And the ones in denial of the inevitability of change are, but delusional, I’m afraid. 3. Languages, Art and Literature a) Languages Right from the onset i.e. the very early childhood, pursuing the trait of being multilingual was instilled in my brain. Hence, the basic knowledge of many and proficiency in some languages i.e. Sanskrit, Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Turkish, French, Punjabi and Urdu, English, respectively. Urdu (the so-called Mother Tongue) is a transliteration of the phrase اردو, which literally means a ‘caravan.’ The language is a chimaera—formulated by blending Farsi (Persian), Sanskrit, Arabic and Turkish. I should like to confess: I’m still learning it. There is a theory, you know, which states that “the language that you speak in your dreams is your Mother Tongue.” Thereby, I can rather conveniently claim the English language to be my ultimate forte and fortress. A consequence, I would say, of the postcolonial syndrome, apparently. The British ruled the so-called Indian Sub-continent for over a hundred years, after all. And throughout my life, I’ve had the privilege of having an unhindered access to all manner of local and foreign art, theatre, and literature. Such are the virtues of a liberal and postmodern upbringing. b) Art During the infancy, I was fascinated by calligraphy. And I learnt to carve bam- boo stems into calligraphy pens. The craft was taught to me by our gardener in Kotli, Kashmir. I was encouraged by my family and friends to participate in the Calligraphy Competitions at school and won a few awards, too. I still possess a few of those calligraphic pieces (wood, cloth, stone and paper) from when I was only thirteen years old. During the adolescence, my existence became exposed to the marvels of Surrealism. I was nineteen and a half years old. The stage was the post- modern Babylonia i.e. London, UK. And the Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Dali was the culprit. And to this very moment, I have not been able to free myself from the hypnosis. Although, I never did take the canvas, paint and brush as my brides. c) Literature To me, the apotheosis of my existence has been the publications of a few florilegia of verse in English. A feat—i.e. becoming an internationally published author-- that has never been achieved before by anyone in neither my maternal nor paternal family. I know, it’s nothing too extraordinary, since it has not been done for the very first time ever in the history of humanity, but the milestone is something to take pride in, for sure, I think. For, after all, Family History is made. Although, I haven’t any offspring of my own to carry the Legacy forward. The words of my first-ever poem are still vivid in the cosmos of memory. I had written it for this girl named Amina from my neighbourhood in Kotli, Kashmir. I had a very serious crush on her. And I was too shy to confess it to her face. So, I wrote a short poem for her: The luminous crescent of Ramadan[8] is even jealous of the charisma of your deep-set hazel eyes, and the waterfalls of Srinagar even yearn to bathe in the dust of your milky-white feet. … To me, she had the most beautiful eyes and feet that a human being could possibly possess. Little did I know at that time that the two were en route to manifesting as my fetish, eventually. I was 12, she was 14. Little did I know at that time that my inclination to fall for older girls was being nurtured and was to become my permanent ally, eventually. One day, after school, I mustered up the courage to give her the poem. I like it, she said. During this journey, I’ve come to realise the following though: i) Poetry is the string of yarn-- embroidered with multishaped and multicoloured beads, art. ii) Irony is existence’s dearest attire—stain-proof, crease-proof et cetera. Yes, that the thoughts and words are fascinating cosmoses in their own rights. But the so-called influencer itself even needs (some other form of) an influencer. To put it rather poetically: for the so-called muse to be rendered a muse, the prerequisite is the existence of (some other form of) muse. Id est: language as the vahana,[9] in case of thoughts and words; imagery, in case of muse. ‘Why’ we would (probably) never know and learn. 4. Epilogue Indeed, it has been an endeavour pregnant with all manner of sounds, colours, smells and tastes-- worthy of an experience in every life regardless of the nature of Karma.[10] Rest assured: none of this and that has ever been taken for granted on my part. Nonetheless, prior to the inevitable epilogue (the one that all living things are decreed to have), as I remain focused on finishing up composing this ekphrasis, glued to my workstation (at home) —inhabited by chocolate brown desktop, separate journals for verse, ekphrases, aphorisms and notes, sketch books, charcoal pencils, oil pastels, books, notebooks (A4/A5) led pencils (including mechanical ones), fountain pens, ballpoint pens, miscellaneous stationary, and of course, the marvel that computer is and its partner in crime, the printer-- I am, but compelled to ponder: amidst the mist of what has been and is being done, if the best is yet to come? Saad Ali [1] This is an excerpt from her poem titled ‘Time and Again’. Translator: Suresh Kohli. [2] The Kaaba is the ultimate Holy Site for Muslims. [3] ‘Masjid’ is a transliteration of the word مسجد from the Arabic language, which means Mosque—a place of worship for Muslims. [4] ‘Mohenjo-Daro’ means ‘Mound of the Dead Men.’ The city happened to be one of the major cosmopolitans of the Ancient Indus Valley Civilisation from 2500 BCE (approximately). [5] The most revered Punjabi Sufi (Saint) and poet, Syed Abdul Shah Qadri, or Bulleh Shah (1680 – 1757 CE) from Kasur, Hindustan (India). Kasur is now a city in Pakistan. [6] This is my non-literal and a rather long translation of the first six verses of a poem by Bulleh Shah. [7] Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 – 475 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. [8] Ramadan is the Holy Month of Fasting for Muslims. [9] ‘Vahana’ is a transliteration of the word वाहन from the Sanskrit language, which means a ‘mount’ or ‘vehicle.’ [10] ‘Karma’ is a transliteration of the word कर्म from the Sanskrit language, which means ‘deed’ or ‘action.’ In the Hindu philosophical tradition, the phenomenon of karma is interpreted in the context of cause and effect and relates to reincarnation, or ‘rebirth.’ For example, good karma results in a good next life and vice versa. Saad Ali Editor's note: Saad Ali kindly permitted us to reprint his poetry sequence, altered, in order to work with the formatting limitations of the software and this editor. A PDF file follows his bio, where you can read the original as it was intended. Saad Ali was born in Okara, Pakistan in 1980 C.E. He has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored three books of verse (so far) i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019) and Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020). By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Chinese, Greek and Arabic cuisine. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com.
Tom’s Territory Tom was a poacher. Things were hard for country people; farm work, when you could get it did not pay a deal. Tom inherited the tricks – generations of forebears who took the products of the country as their right – to poach was not to steal. Tom can be found with his lamp, his snares and flams, walking stealthily that copse at the top of the rise. Tom listens to the wind; there’s a good pegger getting up. Forgoing the pheasant for tonight, the coneys will be the prize. Tom watches his step, and you should too if you should dare to venture there. Take care not to become the quarry; Tom might mistake you for the keeper or the village bobby. Tread warily in the gloam, my friend for this is Tom’s territory. Mick Jenkinson This poem first appeared in the pamphlet, A Tale to Tell, published by Glasshead Press. Mick is a poet, songwriter, musician and events organiser from Doncaster. Involved with Doncaster Folk Festival and Ted Hughes Poetry Festival, he also runs Well Spoken! a monthly poetry night at Doncaster Brewery. His second poetry pamphlet, When the Waters Rise, was published by Calder Valley Poetry in November 2019. Portrait of Helen My prose poem does not like me. “Why?” you ask. Because I have no talent for my prose poem -- and already I am thinking of potential rhymes: poem / I am -- an off-rhyme -- but still not the stuff of prose poems -- prose also rhymes with rose & nose -- and suddenly my prose poem and I are peeking through a rusty gate into Old Mr. Odom’s fragrant garden, at its velvet magenta cockscombs, long green lawns & a goldfish pond -- and up the tall fence his climbing roses are climbing. “You see, you never know where rhymes will take you,” I say. Rose also rhymes with pose, and there behind my left shoulder, I am posing for a dead painter, sitting quietly behind myself, back there, trapped in a gilt rectangular frame (much as a prose poem is trapped inside its invisible rectangular frame). “How am I like a prose poem?” I ask. And my prose poem says, “You too are trapped, but you never change. You sit there in your high-backed chair -- in a froth of yellow tulle – white flowers bobby pinned behind your left ear -- a pair of pink pointe shoes in your lap. You sit there, still young.” Helen Brandenburg Helen Brandenburg's poems have won The Poetry Society of SC’s most prestigious award and have appeared in Best American Poetry blog as well as such journals as Pirene’s Fountain. A former ballet dancer, teacher, and director, she was also a long-time English teacher and has read at Piccolo Sundown Poetry. Presently, she is one of Richard Garcia’s Long Table poets in Charleston, SC. Ray Goodbred studied at the Art Students League of N.Y. From 1948-1951, he studied with Robert Brackman and Ogden Pleissner. He also studied at the National School of Fine Arts. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, Gibbes Gallery Hasting School of Art and at his own studio. He was a member of the Charleston Artists Guild for many year. Edward Hopper, Sunday (1926) It's after church when I view him sitting on the curb of an old-fashioned wood plank sidewalk, leaning forward, resting his arms on his knees, cigar clamped in his teeth, its tip unlit, its cold ragged head soggy with spit, he's gazing into the distance, eyes unfocused and blank, sensing—not knowing—that something, something is missing. *** Bright sun beats the top of his balding head, whitening one side of his face, leaving the other side dark. He's wearing his work clothes, his not-Sunday-best clothes, the sleeves of his white shirt held up by elastic red bands; black vest, black pants, brown shoes. A waiter, perhaps, or a barber. But the storefronts behind him are missing any ads for today's blue-plate specials, missing a red and white candy-striped pole. *** Is he missing the tools of his trade? His revolving, adjustable, strop-hung chair? His shelf full of brushes and scents, precursors of Boss and Old Spice? Or does he miss in that sharp angled light from above a rainbow of hope sung by angels with lyres through windows of medieval glass? Sunday, what's missing from his life and mine? Gerry Hendershot Gerry Hendershot, 82, is a new poet (and retired health statistician), active in many poetry writing and discussion groups near to and far from his home in University Park, Maryland. He has pioneered the use of poetry to illuminate scripture in many churches, and is developing an adult course with an art historian on theology, poetry, and art. His poems are under review by Image Journal, Round Table Literary Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, Better than Starbucks, and Able Muse. Donna Bruna The enigma seems tied in with the landscape behind her. What is your secret, donna bruna? The countryside pulls greens of a lake into the corners of your mouth. The light hovers there, and it matters that the road behind you spirals, tapers off toward the west, that a bridge softens curiously against the deep curve of your back. How calmly you accept this condition, one hand crossing the other, light caught forever in the folds of skin, caught in the lunar precipices beyond. * The air clouds with mist, and the landscape changes to Florentine streets where a woman smiles desperately, radiant creature locked in a pose, the artist painting at the end of a road. Femina scura, he should let you go. The light vanishes from skies. Your eyes fill with years. * Four centuries, and your eyes, donna bruna, as intense as the day the artist leaned you against the studio wall, your shadow cast upon the floor. He should let you go. Already, fog crosses the lake, rising toward the veiled sky, toward a woman running over luminous hills where the wind passes over like a crazed bird, calling no need, no need to turn back now. Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda “Donna Bruna” first appeared in Day Tonight / Night Today and in the author’s collection, Contrary Visions (SCRIPTA HUMANISTICA, ©1988). The poem was anthologized in Montpelier: Plus 4, 1980 –1984 and In a Certain Place (SCOP Publications, Inc., ©2000). It also appears in the author’s books, Greatest Hits 1981 –2000 (Pudding House Publications, ©2001) and in These Flecks of Color: New & Selected Poems (San Francisco Bay Press, ©2018). Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2006-2008. She holds a Ph.D. degree from George Mason University, where she received the university’s first doctorate, an Outstanding Academic Achievement and Service Award, and a Letter of Recognition for Quality Research from the Virginia Educational Research Association for her dissertation. She has co-edited three anthologies and published eight books of poetry, including The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, winner of the Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. Carolyn also works as an abstract colorist artist. [www.carolynforonda.com] The Two Fridas My younger self inquires why my older self is a raw rose, a fool. I claw at my heart, strap it on my dress -- a red hole that opens & closes without bleeding. The Wounded Deer I’ve stalked my own heart with compulsive arrows. I will never return to how I was before. I grasp my self-hatred like sagging plums, unable to extend my fingers. Moses We’re one moving organism that began with a lone sperm & an egg, its yolk shining in utero, the bright morning jelly star. The Flying Bed At once I birth lobsters & snails, orchids so violet their petals burn my wrists. Stones & snails drop through my hips. After pools of blood spill, the fetus floats in a jar, waters around it congealing to wax. The Suicide of Dorothy Hale If you won’t marry me, I’ll wed death, step off a balcony at noon. My skin will descend & alter to milk on the sidewalk. All other traces of me will evaporate, back to the sky from which I descended. My Grandparents, My Parents and Me My mother paced the halls with needles & spoons like a parrot trying to merge into wallpaper. Her leather skin teased but never touched me. The starched & laced collar of her dress squeezed her neck until she collapsed. The Bus We travel to a market brimming with melons, pelicans & bouquets of white lilies. A housewife nurses her basket, fingering rows of just-hatched eggs. A boy stares out the window, knees burning the long bench. The Dream (The Bed) Death is dancing around my bed all night long. Vines on my coverlet advance. Skeletons snooze on the canopy. My pillows contemplate shadows nibbling on corners. The Broken Column I’m a martyr to Diego’s infidelities, dancing on my back like tacks. My spine is blown to smithereens, vertebrae smashing bone against bone Burned, buried, aureate stones crumble like chalk. Without Hope Don’t be shocked by the horror of my insides fragmented on the canvas like pumpkin pulp. I can only count on one thing, a candy skull perfect & white, snickering over my bed. Memory, the Heart My organ has become so large, it’s bigger than my abdomen. The dress in which you ravaged me is sleeveless. I’m wading in water with a damaged foot & no arms. Girl with Death Mask They say I look like a doll, arms, legs & torso in miniature with a honeyed voice. I’m dizzy from the same song. I wear masks to the fiesta – calacas & tigres -- How could they be frightened by someone as small as I? My Dress Hangs There America, I don’t worship your bourgeois toilets, telephones, skyscrapers, or feathered monstrosities purchased from a Fifth Avenue habadashery. Across the Hudson smokestacks & water towers waddle on spindly, metal legs. Crucifixes are wrapped in freshly printed greenbacks. Portrait of Cristina My Sister Your skin is churned butter. When my organs shriveled into strips of poblano peppers, their seeds rattled in their cases. You opened your legs to Diego, his cock poking your languid skirts as casually as turning on a faucet. You’re a jagged leaf disguised as a flower. Roots Because I cannot wean a child, I birth vines that originate from atria, ventricles & semilunar valves. My blood circulates, flowing to parched earth. In Coyoacan In the Jardin Centenario coyotes guzzle from fountains. Laurel trees sway their hips. Vendors at Plaza Hidalgo proffer sopes, quesadillas y los mas ricas helados. I pace the streets, heels clicking between each cobblestone, cloc, cloc, cloc, as carriages thunder by. Self-Portrait with Monkeys Four seasons, four corners of table & bed. My four monkeys, your black fur brushes the nape of my neck. I feed you bits of mango & banana and you squeal among the leaves. “Los Fridos,” you are my four apprentices, four apertures to the world. Self Portrait with Cropped Hair You loved me for my black thicket, horse’s mane, rope-coiled, luxury-long siren’s song. I’ve lobbed it off, seaweed-strong, with shears. You won’t see me anymore. My Nurse and I I was like a calf at a dairy farm sucking milk in mechanical release – drip & suck, drip & suck. Mother nursed my sister but had no love left for me. I do not recall her face, for it was a pre-Colombian mask -- features without feeling, eyes without souls. With one hand she weld me to her massive breast. With the other, a bottle of tequila. The Wounded Table
What a feast of my last hours. Every dimension of me devours chilles rellenos, guacamole and mole poblano. At the table: Wounded Me, always inviting arrows to enter; Androgynous Me, jaw sharpened like a man’s; Martyr Me, Christ and high priestess; Nude Me, Mexican Venus; Elegant, Colonial Me, eyeing my subjects surreptitiously; Third-eye Me, for the mirage that opens its doors; Diego, for I am he & he is me; Earth Goddess Me, because my art is all of me; The Lord Herself, who presides over Earth & melts into Sun and Moon, mesmerizing me. Susan Michele Coronel Susan Michele Coronel graduated with a B.A. in English from Indiana University-Bloomington and an M.S. Ed. in Applied Linguistics/Teaching English as a Second Language from Queens College (CUNY). She is a lifelong lover of poetry, and has studied with Yusef Komunyakaa, Tina Chang, Joanna Fuhrman and Annie Finch. Her poem "British Rhapsody" was published in issue #7 of Newtown Literary Journal. She has worked as a journalist and blogger, and as an elementary and ESL teacher. Since 2004 she has lived in Ridgewood, Queens, where she owns and directs a preschool/daycare program. And As I Wait I Tremble These plates are floating, though I know They shouldn't be. The buildings lean in, lowering Over the street. Cobbles rush their ancient patterns. Windows are eyes, but Lashless. Their cords rattle And the dancing stars crowd down Like lemmings In the dark ink-blue. I wait for you In this raffish café At the edge of town. Thin, the moon, poignant, thin, Its blade cuts at my heart. And I think you may be late. Clive Donovan This poem first appeared in Brittle Star. Clive Donovan lives in Devon. His work has appeared in Agenda, Acumen, Salzburg Review, Stand, Prole, and Interpreters House. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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