Crushed in the Ice
They sailed too far through seas of blue ice jagged peaks soaring above the mast, blocking the wan sun. A thousand Circes urged them on until one night they were trapped, ice moaning, open water black and far away, the ship listing, slowly being crushed. Later, did they think Of sunlight on the deck as it broke apart, groans of the dying ship, the monstrous ice grinding? Did they recall their screams as feeling returned to frozen limbs the stinking rag between their teeth as blackened fingers were cut away? Were they wiser for it, crumbling soft white bread into their mouths just for the pleasure, holding the baby close and cradling its warm milky head? Or did they long to return? Grace Massey Grace Massey has been a writer and editor for over 30 years and has studied classical ballet for almost as long. She lives in Newton, MA, with her husband and cat, and texts daily with her daughter, a romance novelist.
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Landlubbers All night, against a contrary wind, we rowed east. Hungry, tired, and torn from the safe familiarity of home, we shivered. Waves broke over the bow, cold in the night chill, spray dampening my mother's gingham dress, salt crystalizing on windblown strands of her hair and reflecting strange pale light from her eyelashes and the creases of her neck. Blisters grew on our hands, swelled, turned from clear to red, tore open. Blood stained the handles of the weather-beaten oars. They grew steadily blacker and slicker in the faint light from the waning moon. As our strength gradually failed, we at first stood still in the wind and then moved backwards, steadily losing that distance we'd fought so hard to gain. The sky changed from black to indigo, from indigo to pewter, and one by one, the stars winked out. A miraculous shadow grew on the horizon, the source of a second wind, of hope, a chance for life that had seemed to ebb away into the night. The first hint of dawn swelled into flames, the entire beach burned with lemon light. We pulled and pulled with new strength, our arms taut and strong. As land approached, we sang hymns of joy and glory. When the bow struck gold, my mother stood, bent her head to step into all that light. Her entire exhausted body quivered like a prayer to the rocking earth, and grew nearly transparent with love. Mary Stebbins Taitt This poem and the artwork were previously published in Call and Response, Poets and Artists in Dialogue, 2017 by the Grosse Pointe Congregational Church Arts Ministry. Mary Stebbins Taitt has an MFA in writing in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, was nominated for a pushcart for her poem, "A Jungle of Light," and climbed the highest peaks in the Adirondacks barefooted. Visiting Day on the Lawn, Pilgrim State Mental Hospital, A BxW Still Life 1978
Standing on the Commons, between identical brick buildings for the living brain dead, she is the reaper of tin foil, discarded packets, empty crushed paper cups, collecting The Offal. She gathers the field methodically, storing The Refuse in a soiled black denim sling. All morning, she gathers, listening to tin top 40s music, transmitted directly to the neural receptors by plastic earpieces. Voices whisper, in between half notes, telling the secrets of Runing, this Gathering will bring. By late afternoon, she is bent low, inspecting the lawn, inch by square inch, inscribing circles with her feet, defining the lost horizons of her mind, impelled by an epic battle of the bands, twin radios tuned to opposing stations for the different ears of her separate brains. By nightfall she is a stark silhouette against sky, shrouded by a soiled, black shawl, eyes like dying suns flashing the dark. Visiting Day on the Psychiatric Ward Looking for mother, long ago lost inside, no one remembers the face that coincides with her name registered in their daily logs or the plastic bracelets she collects on her wrists; each time they admit her, she gets a new one to play with during each long night she never sleeps, whistling transcendental etudes by Liszt, slightly off key; we are searching shallow worn faces cluttering violent halls, idiot savants reciting perpetual calendars, all the ruling names of A Holy Roman Empire, toothless old ladies lip synch old time movies, their hands held overhead, silently snapping together, extra mouths imitating an untouchable screen, in a corner they sit and pee, marking their places with an indelible scent; years after death no one will invade their territorial space Revisiting Day on the Psychiatric Ward Nursing station to nowhere, rubble strewn, stripped-of- asbestos pipes, dropped ceilings, holes punched by jackhammers, pick ax, crampons poked in the walls of hell, peeling paint, filmy as onion skin, patient evaluations, ghost charts yellowed by seepage, urine, unidentified falling objects, clots of paper, graphs, rolled-into-bundles sheets, inmate blouses and pants; on the wall beneath the front desk, painted in blood, two words: WELCOME HOME Pilgrim State Hospital Current Status: Abandoned Snow dust on the broken branches, the overgrown side walks, on twin evergreen, pine barren shrubs by entrance, first floors of abandoned Medical Arts Center set back on the wild, white, matted lawn; the empty, punched out windows, bent bars silent as memory's repressed scream. Alan Catlin The first poem was previously published in Alan Catlin's chapbook, Black and White in Color, which won the Mississinewa Press Prize. The second poem was previously published in Alan Catlin's chapbook of the same name, Visiting Day on the Psychiatric Ward. It was published by Pudding Publications and was first runner up in the Looking Glass Chapbook Competition. Alan Catlin has been publishing for parts of five decades. His work derives from many interests from Art, music and literature to the bars he lived and worked in. His many full length books and chapbooks include the ekphrastic collection "Effects of Sunlight on Fog" from Bright Hill Press and, more recently from Future Cycle Press, "American Odyssey" largely derived from photos by Mary Ellen Mark and photos by photographers killed in Vietnam. Forthcoming is "Wild Beauty", also largely ekphrastic, from Future Cycle Press. His chapbook, "Blue Velvet" (poems inspired by movies) won the 2017 Slipstream Chapbook Award. Time, 1820
Father Time leers between two old ladies as they peer into a mirror his angel wings still yet poised ready as he raises his broom to sweep them away out of life off the Earth their time has come one is deformed, diseased, hideous the other’s long nose hangs down over her toothless mouth but she’s relaxed realizing her youth has finally gone for good and remains resolved as if waiting for her wedding to the Devil himself in a sweeping white diaphanous gown. Michael Estabrook Michael Estabrook has been publishing his poetry in the small press since the 1980s. Hopefully with each passing decade the poems have become more succinct and precise, clear and relatable, more appealing and “universal.” He has published over 20 collections, the latest being Bouncy House, edited by Larry Fagin (Green Zone Editions, 2014). The Honey Hour
The light has shifted past the honey hour to that place where the sun burns white, casting hard shadows from a sky gone gray. Only the grasses still hold gold. Dark is not long away. The trees have already started their march to the solid wall they’ll form around the house. A wall that feels safe, or threatening, depending on how Norma feels as she looks out. For only in this moment can her tell what’s roiled inside. Peering out, watching the light shift, even leaning into it. As the gold fades from the tall grass, and the sky drops from purple to ink. As the sharp shadows fill in, enclose her like a blanket or coffin. That’s what she wants to know. . .which is it. She’s stuck, ambushed, in the grip of some creature, otherwise. And each night she lingers, looks beyond the road for the beam of headlights. Ralph rarely comes home before dark. He leaves her each morning here alone, this house he brought her to. They’ll farm, he’d said. So far from my family, she’d said. And they didn’t farm. Then mama died and papa died, and that animal of grief took refuge in her heart next to the memories of missing them when she could still touch their hands, comb her mother’s hair, bring her pa his coffee after supper. When she could still visit and cook them a meal, give relief to their aging bodies. She stretches her neck toward the last of the light in the sky. The trees have closed in solid now. Sitting, she knows tonight it will be a blanket of comfort she feels. That when Ralph gets home, she’ll greet him at the door. Hours pass. She sits by the window. The open book in her lap at the same page for the last twenty minutes. The glow from the lamp beside the big easy chair the only light now. He’s never been this late before. In this moment she wants something to happen. The phone to ring. Something bright to pierce the black night. The blanket of comfort has shrugged from her shoulders. She won’t let that chill of grief and cut of loneliness happen. Not tonight. She’ll be ready when he gets back. Lights flash on the wall. The sound of the truck on the gravel drive, then the motor dies. His footsteps. The one two stomp he always does when he reaches the door, just before he opens it. She tracks it like an animal on predation. When the door closes, she’s there. “How was your day?” she says, taking his coat. Cigarette smoke. She smells it. “How was yours?” he says, and kisses her cheek. She doesn’t ask where he’s been. He doesn’t ask about dinner. “Let’s talk,” he says. They sit in the bay of the windows where she watches night fall each day. The bay he’d built for her despite the cost because she said it reminded her of home. She waits as he settles. Taking off his shoes, he slides his slippers out from under the chair, puts them on. “We’re leaving,” he says. She feels something break from her chest. Like a cluster of birds suddenly in flight. “They’re closing the plant. Said I have a job in Cleveland if I want it.” The birds flap about her head. Their wings batter her face, her cheeks, her eyes. Their feathers cover her nose. “Farm didn’t ever work. It’s a good offer. I know you love this house,” he says. “I’m sorry to take you from it, but this is good.” This house. This prison she’s missed her parents in. Where she lost three babies. Where at the end of each day the trees close ranks into a wall that surrounds her. Leave it? When, oh when. The birds take off, and it seems for the first time in fifteen years she takes a deep breath. Like clear cool water down to her belly, she feels herself breathe. “Seems right, Ralph,” she says. Heloise Jones Heloise Jones lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA). Her publications include: "The Writer's Block Myth," a guide for the writing life; a contributing essay in "What I Wish for You" by Patti Digh; a Pushcart Prize nominated poem in The Wayfarer (Homebound Pub.), and Blood on His Hands, an excerpt from her novel "Flight." She's a 2012 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize finalist and a 2014 Ruminate Magazine poetry prize semi-finalist. Her book for writers has appeared on 400+ media sites across the United States, including ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX. As a writing consultant, she loves working with writers so they tell their stories and feel empowered. She also blogs regularly. www.HeloiseJones.com Poet Devon Balwit reading from Risk Being/Complicated at Black Hat Books in Portland, Oregon, April 26, 2018.
The book is a collection of poems inspired by the visual artwork of The Ekphrastic Review's editor, Lorette C. Luzajic. Click here to view, read reviews, or purchase on Amazon. Click here to read an in depth review of the book by Alexandra Umlas at Cultural Weekly. |
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