A Poem For My Sons When They’re Bored standing in front of Kent House by Jamie Wyeth at Crystal Bridges There is a house on rocks. The house is the same colour as small parts of the rock. Vanilla. Or off-Vanilla. Or muted vanilla. The door— near the middle of the painting, almost no bigger than the vanilla windows, above it and next to it, is blue. There are no birch trees for swinging—not there on this shoreline in Maine, anyway. Not there on the rock. Only the house. There is no hawk anywhere I can see, “motionless in dying vision before it knows it will accept the mortal limit.” There is only the rock, mostly, with the house, similar in colour, and the door—the blue door the same colour as the sky. You may live in the house on all of that rock. You may watch all the TV you wish or stream movies on your phone in that house on all of that rock. You may ignore the windows and indulge in mirrors. You may argue whether the kitchen or the bathrooms are the most important rooms for profitable resale. You may. Remember that the door leads to the sky. Jacob Stratman Jacob Stratman teaches in the English department at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, AR and spends as much time in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as he can.
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submit a poem a story a review submit your resume your timesheet your resignation submit an op-ed an article an obituary submit with your photo ID with your fingerprints with your $10 fee submit in Spanish in Dutch in duplicate submit to gravity to God to Google Bill Waters Source: Google search results. Bill Waters is a well-published writer of short poetry and compressed prose. He also runs the Poetry in Public Places Project, a Facebook / real-world group interested in creating and promoting poetry in public spaces to increase the richness of everyday living. Bill lives in Pennington, New Jersey, U.S.A., with his wonderful wife and their two amazing cats. See more square foot works by Lorette C. Luzajic at www.squarefootartbylorette.ca. Use the coupon code EKPHRASTIC50 to receive $50 off. Your purchase directly supports the development and maintenance of The Ekphrastic Review. Smith’s Gate, Umatilla Indian Reservation
A pale moon rises over the hills. The last of the sun bathes them in gold. An azure sky spreads its wings. The whole scene glows. One falls into this painted world, into hills deep folds seamed with pine. Time has no meaning here, only the light, light that fills every space and spills from the canvas, light that entices the viewer to step into the painting, become yellow ochre, raw sienna, a ghost in that ghost of a moon. Judith Kelly Quaempts Judith Kelly Quaempts lives and writes in rural eastern Oregon. Her short stories and poetry can be found online and in print, most recently in The Poeming Pigeon, Diane Lockward's, Crafty Poet II, Ariel Chart, Young Ravens Literary Review, and Paragon. She has published two novels. The late Yakama Nation artist Peter S. Quaempts' paintings are in private collections, as well as collections of the Oregon State Dept of Employment in Pendleton, Oregon, and Tamastslikt Cultural Center on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Mission, Oregon. Prince Rules poet's note: Read straight across, jumping over white spaces. It can be helpful to place a ruler or a piece of white paper to cover the text below where you are, and then move it down as you read. Vince Gotera This poem first appeared in Delirious: A Poetic Celebration of Prince, edited by Dianne Borsenik (NightBallet Press, 2016), and in the late Inigo Online Magazine. Vince Gotera is a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016). He is Editor of Star*Line, the print journal of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association. Recent poems appeared in Altered Reality Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Crooked Teeth Literary Magazine, Eleven Eleven, Voices de la Luna, and Eye to the Telescope. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar <vincegotera.blogspot.com>. The Destruction of Nalanda
below a high, an almost-white moon a man is unusually awake this unusual night also observes a silhouette, an uncanny motion what belongs next to the lonely sight is a streak of flames — the library that has twice been destroyed and twice rebuilt makes love with fire that shores higher than itself in a city that yet only hallucinates in the arms of night save for a man who doesn't know of the walls but only fire, sees only flames and jets of smoke, yet to recover from shock so as to awaken the people thither — what happened before this something incomprehensible: a turk fell ill amid these: he was treated by someone who was not what he was Nalanda wouldn't have suffered another time, to never again breathe as twice earlier it did, had he: not have been resurrected, or been a little thankful -- jealousy took the toll, it was three months until each page had burnt itself alive — a slaughter of cultures Note: The Nalanda University in Bihar was burnt for the third time in A.D. 1193 by the Turkish ruler Bakhtiyar Khilji. It took three whole months for the 9 million manuscripts stored there to burn. Jayant Kashyap Jayant Kashyap's poems have been published widely, including in StepAway and Rigorous magazines; his debut chapbook comes later this year by NY-based Clare Songbirds Publishing House. He's also the founding editor of India-based Bold + Italic e-magazine alongwith a friend of his. Find him at https://onlyhumane.wordpress.com/ https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/4409/
On Tiepolo’s Banquet of Cleopatra Any frayed waiting room copy of Who could catch this scene: flash Eurotrash surveys a sulky round faced überBabe who’s got the lot—what else could this painting mean, except that superstars can will their luck, or just how little raw envy’s hidden by contempt, so words like ‘Wow! Great Tits!’ or ‘Comic Opera Wop’ sum up the observer, not Anthony and Cleopatra, attached to pets & entourages—our contemporaries minus coke & sunglasses. What’s that pearl without price she’s dropping in her glass? A mirror of their self-regard, replaced by each others’ glances. Still, it glows, blue & blank at the centre like their hearts, flanked by idlers on balconies leering & placing bets. But if they suggest Eros, what role does Agape play in this-- downstairs & screaming, being shown The Instruments? You wish, voyeur, you wish. The Australian poet John Forbes (1950-1998) took an active interest in the Australian contemporary art scene. Professional artists were among Forbes’ closest friends, and he wrote catalogues for many of them, including Ken Searle, Bill Henson, and long-time girlfriend, Nicole Ellis. He even featured as a work of art himself, adorning the Adelaide Fringe Festival as a round-the-clock art installation, entitled Ask me anything about John Forbes. But his interest in art extended beyond the local and contemporary scene, and he was a keen reader of art history. The scene painted by the eighteenth-century Venetian artists Giovanni Battista Tiepolo potrays a wager over who could give the most lavish banquet. Antony looks to have the upper hand, until Cleopatra dissolves a priceless pearl in vinegar and drinks it. The impressive 2.5 x 3.5 metre canvas hangs prominently in the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne, the city which Forbes made his home for the last decade of his life. Tiepolo was widely praised as a decorative painter, his work was famous for its luminosity, and his vast canvasses and tableaux were commissioned to fill spaces in stately homes and palaces. Forbes’ friend, the poet and art critic Ken Bolton, has compared Tiepolo to a smoke machine at a disco. Such a rococo triumph of style over perceived substance would have appealed to Forbes, and what the painting is said by the speaker to “mean” is not without a knowing irony. Tiepolo’s painting featured on the cover of Forbes’ final book of poems, Damaged Glamour, when it was published posthumously. Indeed, Forbes thought highly enough of the poem to have originally titled this volume The Banquet of Cleopatra and other poems. The title Damaged Glamour could equally apply to the central figures in the painting, who are well into middle-age, and will soon die at the hands of one of Rome’s new men, the much younger, Octavius. Typical of Forbes’ late work, the poem is formally – almost classically – restrained, while remaining chatty. Forbes moved with great agility between the worlds of high art and pop culture, and this poem, in particular, seems the perfect fusion of the two, exposing this trashy banquet for what it is. We, the viewers, like the bit-players in the painting, are cast in the role of voyeur, but there’s a darker underside to our gaze. If this is erotic love, what part, the speaker asks, is played by agape, the love of God and man and our more charitable instincts? Do we, the suggested voyeur, enjoy the relegation of such qualities to the dungeon, or do we simply want to consume an indiscriminate act of torture. Both scenarios seem, in the realm of popular entertainment, to be on the same plane, maybe even more so today than when the poem was written. Aidan Coleman Aidan Coleman is an Adelaide-based writer, who has published two collections of poetry. He is currently writing a biography of the poet John Forbes with the assistance of the Australia Council. A Little Mummy Enclosed in a Plexiglas case on her back as strangers conversed in a language she didn’t understand, the child couldn’t move. This didn’t feel like the afterlife she expected. Where were her toys, family, and food? The priest had preserved and mummified her body after he removed her organs except for her heart, which he protected with a large amulet. Her throat was no longer sore and her arms and legs wrapped in linen centuries ago had no feeling. A sudden jolt shook the installation where she rested. A middle-aged woman had fainted and bumped into the display. The guard walked over and bent down on his knee to help. Legs of visitors to the gallery walked past her as she sat on the floor and recovered. The child's raspy voice coming from the mummy shocked the woman. The mummy, three feet long, was the smallest she’d seen, with a painting on wood placed where her face once had been. Linen wrappings secured the body. The painting's large black kohl eyes looked back at her and the woman blacked out. “Are you all right?” The guard asked. “I’m fine,” she said. The guard laughed when she told him the mummy spoke to her. A cluster of old people, emanating the familiar scent of onions, garlic, chicken fat, and buckwheat groats, and speaking Russian stepped around the woman on the floor. A child’s early death and her removal from a family tomb for public viewing disturbed the woman, though it contradicted the excitement she’d experienced visiting the museum as a child. She led her mother to the mummies first and then the armour court on her Saturday trips for drawing classes. Later that day, when she told her daughter how she reacted to the exhibit, she knew how she might respond. “It’s history. How else can we learn? Historians and scientists have to dig and explore.” “No one should disturb the dead,” she said to her daughter without repeating the tale only she had listened to as she studied the object label on the wall. The girl hadn’t obeyed when her mother asked her to mind her baby brother while she bathed. Instead, she wandered to the market. She desired a toy one of her male cousins had tempted her with but didn’t share. He boasted a harmless wooden reptile; unlike the ones her father had warned her of near the river. They snapped children in two. Dazzled by the jaws of the toy crocodile which opened and closed, she had to have her own and left her brother in his basket for the Bazaar. Along the way, she wiped sweat from her brow and protected her eyes with her hands from the harsh sun. As she neared the market, the hot air stirred, the sky darkened and rain pelted the ground. Under the tents of fruit and vegetables, she stood and waited for the rain to stop until she could wait no longer. Into the downpour, the girl searched among the stands that held baskets, tools, and toys. When she found the merchant with toys spread out on a piece of rough cloth, the air had cooled. Her teeth chattered and her wet body shivered. A crocodile capable of opening and closing its jaws, with tiny teeth filed but not sharp enough to even scratch a finger laid on its side next to several spinning tops. With a nod of her head and focused eyes, she showed the man what she desired. Before he handed the carved treasure to the girl, he told her how much it cost. She reached deep into the pocket of her skirt and showed him a coin. Swiftly, he lifted the money from the girl's palm. She could have bought many toys with the coin she offered. Pleased with her toy clutched against her wet clothing, the girl started home in the rain. Sand and mud stuck to her feet and slowed her journey as night fell. Suraya, Suraya, Suraya... her name echoed and bounced off the walls of the village, and her father’s voice startled her when she approached the gate to home. He frightened his daughter when he placed each of his large hands on her shoulders and shuttled her into their courtyard. Her mother, fearful the girl had drowned in the river, stopped crying when Suraya stood before her unharmed. “Where’ve you been?” “The Bazaar.” “Forgive me, mother," she said as tears flowed over her cheeks. When she saw the wooden crocodile, she screamed, took the toy and placed it in the folds of her robe. “After you dry yourself and change into warm clothing, come to my room." Suraya trembled and cried while she changed into her nightclothes. Her mother waited on a chaise holding the baby. She placed the swaddled infant on a pillow, and then she held Suraya close. The girl settled into the goodness she’d missed since her brother's birth and sunk into a deep sleep. In the morning she woke in her own bed under many blankets. A painful throat prevented her from eating that night, the next day, and the next. In her sleep, she murmured sweat and shook. Her mother sat beside her sleeping daughter for seven nights and days. On the morning of the eighth day, the little girl didn’t awaken, and the family mourned when the priest embalmed their treasure. A disagreement ensued between the mother and the father whether the toy crocodile should be buried with their daughter for the afterlife. After a brief discussion, the toy burned in the ovens. Years passed, and the mummified mother and father joined the daughter they had missed. The family stayed underground until scientists discovered the mummies on a dig. With care, they dug and transferred the smallest mummy to a museum. After consultations with specialists, the museum’s conservation department removed the soil from the wrappings. The painting over her face intrigued the curators of the museum. Some argued to remove the painting and mount it on the wall in an array with the others from Hawara. Another historian demanded that it should stay in place. The eyes of the face paintings arranged on the far wall of the exhibition added to the woman’s discomfort when she left the small mummy. Drenched in sweat after her fall, the woman needed fresh air and found the exit to the acclimatized gallery. She zipped her jacket and pushed the heavy door of the Art building open. A strong wind coming from the Lake made her eyes water. Murmurings of the mummy played through her mind as if on a loop further frustrating the woman, as she could not soothe the child's displaced soul. Jo Goren Jo Goren is a writer, mom, wife, artist, sister, friend, gardener and community volunteer for the YWCA of Cleveland. She has a BFA from Ohio University and has attended writing workshops at the Cuyahoga County Public Library, the Chautauqua Writer’s Festival in New York and Literary Cleveland. Running Fence Improbable as a line of laundry, indispensable as a spine, a lightning bolt that celebrates the contour of hills, it fades into fog, rises into sun. A dash of chalk against the summer brown, describing the wind, it disappears into a valley, reappears on the hill, curves over a crest, gone, returned to plunge at last into the sea. Ruth Bavetta This poem was first published in Ruth Bavetta's book, Future Pigments, FutureCycle Press. Ruth Bavetta’s poems have been published in Rattle, Nimrod, North American Review, Slant, Tar River Poetry, Spillway, Hanging Loose, Poetry East and many others. She has four books, Embers on the Stairs (Moon Tide Press,) Fugitive Pigments (FutureCycle Press,) Flour Water Salt (Futurecycle Press) and No Longer at This Address (Aldrich Press.) She writes at a messy desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Well School Ekphrastic Poetry Project editor's note: The Ekphrastic Review is pleased to showcase a special presentation of student writing from The Well School in New Hampshire. The Well School was founded in 1967 and is located in Peterborough, New Hampshire. At the Well, students are encouraged to develop a lifelong reservoir of knowledge and curiosity grounded in nature, project-based learning, self-discovery, and the arts. http://thewellschool.org/ This collection was written by students as part of The Well School annual Project Week, facilitated and curated by a Well School parent-volunteer. During Project Week, which occurs during the last 3 weeks of school, Well community parents offer projects ranging from crafts and arts, to music, technology and life skills. Students choose— and commit— to several projects suiting their interests and curiosity. This year, over 100 projects were offered. For our project we read, wrote, workshopped and revised ekphrastic poetry over the course of 6 meetings, which we then shared with the school. Many thanks to The Well School faculty and staff for supporting our project, and teacher/artist Victoria Sager for tolerating cohabitation of her classroom. A special thanks to the poets and artists whose inspiration helped inspire us: Elsa Dax, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Janine Pommy Vega, Georgia O’Keefe, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Pieter Bruegel, Henri Matisse, Renee Magritte, Mary Oliver, Vincent Van Goh, Gary Snyder, W.D. Snodgrass, Franz Marc, and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda. These are our poems. People A blood curdling scream! A boy falling from the sky the sun's rays scatter. The leaves rustle, dead, empty. The ground shakes in fear of itself. People learn to forget what day of the week it is. People never remember. Emma Huckabone, age 11 Serenity of Horses on Canvas I gaze into the painting of the blue horses. Why are they blue I think to myself, if only franz marc were here to answer. The deep black manes of the horses swish in an unseen breeze, the blood red of the distance, set back from the tranquility of the foreground. The peaceful horses bowing to some unknown master, horses as blue as sun on sea. eyes and mane as black as a moonless night, they snort and snuff unbothered by reality. They do not care about the Monday blues. I can see each stroke of oil paint on canvas. A once empty wasteland of white transformed into a world of infinite meaning. I do not know what was in his mind when Franz Marc painted this, only the light of an invisible sun shining silken coats. I cannot imagine one of these elegant creatures tripping or stumbling, like a man after a long night of drinking. They do not know of such things, neither of war, nor dark cruelty and greed. Only chomping on long grasses. Kalyn Ross, age 11 Beasts Inside As if Pandora’s box of fears and worries exploded into sharp, splintering shards They scream as the monsters jump from the darkness into the blinding light No one can see as fear swallows them whole A shadow draped, snarling Wolf A beast Muffled chaos From a child’s nightmare Visions blur together No one hears them There is no reality There is no protection Only candle and moonlight, I did this to myself Am I the monster? Why would you let your imagination eat you alive? The selfish peer into Darkness Only to regret it Their fear grows Then dies With each breath as their dark Creatures Consume them We live in a broken World Full of broken People. Ella Darowski, age 13 The Fire in the Poppy The flower resembles fire waving in the wind imperfect with a dark black centre The ashes not moving. Why does the fire move? Why does it not stay still like a flower when the wind is not blowing. When the wind blows the fire comes out of the flower, Burning going beyond the fire. Burning all but somehow more poppies grow from The ashes like a phoenix. Fire keeps them alive. Ezra Von Mertens, age 11 A Watermelon Soft, juicy, delicious Water melon Refreshing in a way that nobody can explain How… did watermelon come along? All the labour that goes into growing them, every person works hard for the money. Just for something that never lasts because everybody wants to devour the melon. Oil on masonite. Minutes it takes to get to the store, you look at the fruits and vegetables , we are lucky to some extent. After you get home you cut the watermelon… a party! Everyone needs watermelon. The simple things in life are not. Emma Huckabone, age 11 This Long curtains of earth Hang The dark, twisting roots Feed Off of orange Flesh Using others to help yourself Grow Life Simply comes from the Life or Death of Others But the long forgotten, mossy Body Never deserved this Ella Darowski, age 13 The Hidden Love She looks at him, He stares back. She lounges on a couch made of colour. He stands on a porch made of shadow. Their worlds are so different! Her world is bright, growing, and curvy. His world is cruel, uneven, and sharp. Her world has the movement of wind blowing. His world has the movement of blood dripping. Her world has the sound of animals playing and talking. His world has the sound of armour clinking together. Her world celebrates. His world kills. How are they in love? Clara Smith, age 11 Distortion of Reality Why was this made? The tide is uneven Yet the clouds align The glass stays the same But the ball disappears Look to the centre The painting Inside a paining How can something As simple as paint Confuse someone so It casts a shadow Too small for itself I would try to imagine A ship sailing on the Crystal water No one looking Can decide What reality is. What is reality? Kalyn Ross, age 11 The Gateway An evil spirit with sword and shield in the dark, he has a helmet that protects his head in the wars of sadness that he fights every day. He stands in a doorway with a black sea behind him. Cannons firing in the distance always war on Mars no rest for the weak or defenseless. The fight he fights every day will never end. A new war will begin. She sits in her chair of love and beauty. Her hair waving in the wind, fire in the distance, trees birds grass. But somehow they are connected by earth Earth has both beauty and war. Not one or the other, but both. Ezra Von Mertens, age 11 Footprints
Green. The light, yet bright colour of spring. It is everywhere you turn. The ferns, the moss, the grass, and most of all, the leaves. The rain lightly pattering on the leaves gives way to sunshine. A bird calls, trying to gain something’s attention. Soft, wet, sand sinks beneath heavy footsteps. Almost invisible chipmunks scurry up trees, showering us in rainwater. “Look!” someone says, pointing. Pink Rhododendrons blink at us through the air. The rainwater seems to magnetize towards the ground, slipping from leaf to leaf, then finally forming pools at our feet. A bird answers the previous call, sounding almost…....hopeful? I hear everyone’s footfalls, heavy on the now more solid ground. The small structures of the village stare at us, intruders of their place. Animals roam their enclosures. I see a container holding sand for sanding the roads in the winter. Why do they sand roads made of sand? See? There is no answer. Our steps are silenced by the pine needles on the ground. Back on the campus of The Well, I see red buildings, extreme contrast to the green of spring. Here the ground is uneven yet sturdy. Clara Smith, age 11 How Dark the Sky
How dark the sky, Bright the water When silver fish Reflect the moon. Gonzalinho da Costa Gonzalinho da Costa—a pen name—is a management, communication, research, statistics, and machine learning consultant living in the City of San Juan, Philippines. A lover of world literature, he has completed graduate degrees in the humanities, management, communication, and statistics, and writes poetry as a hobby. |
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