How Far Down the River?
​
A bullet
starts its own line,
tries to join
 
heart line and life line,
measure with your blood
 
the distance between.

Gary S. Rosin 

Gary S. Rosin is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press 2023), Concho River Review, contemporary haibun, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Senior Class: Poems on Aging (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024/2025), Texas Poetry Assignment, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum 2008). His poems have nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and for Best of the Net.

​A Woman from the Past
  
There are days you feel
no more than scribbled upon the world.
 
Maybe this is one of those days.
 
Around you, even trees and grasses
and patches of earth blur
 
with smear and smudge. And maybe today,
 
but just today, you become a woman
from the past in a long blue dress,
 
a modest dress.
 
There’s a jaunty, yellow hat upon your gold-
brown curls. You are disappearing

bit by bit, starting with your hands,
 
which keeps you from reaching out, 
keeps you from the apples,
 
or peaches, or plums, or pears—anything
 
in season. You stand motionless
in afternoon sunlight, morning
 
sunlight, the middle of the day
 
when time is a fickle thing
that makes all our edges indistinct.
 
Your gaze is transfixed where no one else can see,
 
a look of despair, or longing
or even that quiet drift of thoughtlessness.
 
And even though I have no way to prove it,
 
I’m going to assume a flash of blue feathers
in the distance, and all that’s left are twigs
 
and leaves twitching after what they’ve lost.
 
David B. Prather
​
David B. Prather still lives a life of Sunday dinners and lawn mowing in Parkersburg, WV. He is the author of three poetry collections: We Were Birds (Main Street Rag, 2019), Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2023), and the forthcoming Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press, 2024).

​Poppy

They arrive,
one at a wondering time,
in skins borrowed and bought, in
dresses & suits & short shorts, with
hats & phones & large
bags kindly left at the desk.

Her poppy heartbeat rustles into
silence, stills her well
oiled leaves and 
searches out a human
face for freedom.

She, She, She, with the 
shortest skirt and longest legs and flawless face 
clicks a poppy as the ‘no photos’ security 
reaches for the phone. Too late, too
close.  A touch & now
She, She, She is the 
most startled poppy painting 
in a frame. 
Lifeless on a wall.

Poppy — short skirt, long legs, 
flawless face — deletes the image
for ‘no photos’ security and 
pockets the device. 

Not a pocket.
Not a pocket. 
Cogs shift. 
There’s a slit in her side &
the phone slides in. 
All motherboards, no 
blood. 

Alexina Dalgetty

Alexina Dalgetty lives and writes in Camrose, Alberta. Her debut novel, The Cleaning Woman's Daughter, (2023) was published by Liquorice Fish Books, an imprint of Cinnamon Press. She worked with Theatre of the Oppressed techniques for many years, facilitating theatre presentations by youth. 

With many thanks to Women on Writing, an amazing resource promoting women writers in diverse fields.

This is a four week course covering the basics and history of ekphrastic writing, and we'll be reading and writing ekphrasis. A great introduction for those just discovering ekphrastic poetry (or fiction) and a fantastic review for experienced ekphrastic writers, too. 

Ekphrastic writing is the practice of creative writing from visual art. People who love ekphrasis describe being hooked once they start, because it is a wonderful way to expand our imagination, grow our writing, and learn more about visual art. In this class, we will look at the 3000-year history of ekphrasis, and explore fun ways to create our own. We will read inspiring examples, find ideas through brainstorming and writing exercises, and talk about how and where to submit our ekphrastic poetry and stories.

4 weeks for 120 minutes in person via Zoom each week: Wednesdays, 6 pm - 8 pm EST. Dates: October 9, 16, 23, and 30. The class will include time for sharing in class and peer comments. The instructor will also offer feedback on two drafts of ekphrastic writing via email.
More info and sign up:

https://wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/LoretteLuzajic_Ekphrasis.html
​

Clare Island Ghost
 
Tony O’Malley, Oil on Board
Inscribed on reverse: "In memory of my dear cousin 
Michael Joe O’Malley - being buried today 
at Ballytoughey, Clare Island 10.08.1989" 
 
Leaving the quay for the northeast promontory 
For Michael Joe’s, to organic-farm stone-barn-café 
–now transformed.  
The clayed-flesh to the spade-ridges withdrawn   
Tunes to the far chime of Tibetan bells at dawn:
A whitewashed shed roots in earth reclaimed,
By Praeger’s count, floral species regenerate, 
Pollinators trace the brinked borage terrace,
Hazel and elder mount the hollow garden canvas, 
A canopy of broadleaves blanket Ballytoughey,
A mind retreats and soy milk helps cool the tea,
Respite is found from pushed and pedaled hills,
The echoing mounds of Mac Alla fall wind-still.
My daughter next to me, finds wonder in a scone
Decorating flowers, ‘til we find our ferry home.

Peter Kelly

Peter Kelly teaches and researches poetry in the ancient and modern worlds in Princeton University. He is originally from Galway, Ireland and much of his work considers ideas of place and displacement in shifting environments. He is the editor of a collected volume on Ekphrasis, which brings together creative and academic essays on the connections between the use of ekphrasis in ancient Greece and Rome, and contemporary poetry.        

Muse
 
Every figure you sketched
was your father’s.
The impulse which strode him
vigorous
to the local brothel on his wedding night
because your mother was seventeen
and scared.
And the way he returned
after an encounter with Madame M,
the syphilis riding him as a wood worm
straddles the first timber of a new home.
His early progeny was stillborn,
the rest scarred by a disease
which urged him to dress for invisible guests.
Every figure you sketched
possessed his gauntness:
bodies in which light struggles,
faces taunted by the sex
death brings.
 
 
**
 
Blind Mother, 1910
 
She has borne twins,
one for each sightless eye.
 
Their bald heads fold over
her breasts; their suckle is sightless
 
as though light has made them insatiable.
She kneels, martyred to their mouths,
 
a mother nursing around walls,
her thin canes of milk letting down
 
into throats, red streets she must touch,
nourish with her blindness.
 
**
 
Seated Male Nude, 1910
 
knees are the gargoyles of his body,
carved from an edifice of bone
they glare down at the landscape
calves and feet form.
 
thighs spring like sinew bridges,
intersecting roads, muscled hillocks,
all connecting to the pubis:
one-industry town.
 
the stomach is always snow covered;
one child, navel-size, prepares to slide
down the well-worn path which divides
east and west of this steepest climb.
 
hips jut like plateaus,
catch-alls for what may fall
down the runnel of the body
and settle.
 
ribs are farmlands
where martyrs plant
rows of rock and skin, seeded
by lungs.
 
nipples are secret landmarks
where settlers drink, draw round
red pleasures on the table tops
at sundown.
 
his sex lurks, soft outcast, in this city of bone.
 
**
 
Vision
 
Your surname provoked
jibes from critics
who imagined a correlation
between “schielen- to squint”
 
and the way you painted women
with all their knobby beauty:
chafed knuckles, rude elbows,
crude lips with lust in all the fissures.
 
Yes, you had a bent
towards depiction of a particular kind
but your lids never pressed narrow
in refusal. In some self-portraits, you
 
deigned to answer them by pulling
an eye open with one finger so
the white widened in exaggerated 
defiance. It was as though
 
you were parting the folds of a woman,
for one purpose, gentle yet persistent:
to take the darkness and draw
it ever deeper.
 
**
 
Mr. Death
 
Having once heard the dirge of syphilis sung over his
father’s body, Egon depicted Death as a mirror image, rarely a
skeletal cliché, or the curvaceous stylization common to Klimt.
This Death, though paler than the average man, retains his
features: a receding hairline, layers of garments over the bone
dance. The victims are always in close proximity, gripped or
dragged, the shadow of knowledge cast irrevocably between
their eyelids upon jaundiced complexions.
And Death is never a woman. He is the male urge grown
cannibal. The man who, by visiting a brothel, brings about his
own downfall. A scourged likeness of the libido. The victims
have no vision of a shapely afterlife; their names are beaten
dimensionless by gossips.
 
**
 
Dead Mother, 1910
 
The hand passes by like the ship
in Breughel’s Icarus, a fish fossilized
in the drift of black waters. It is not gilded,
but passes, unconcerned with the dying.
 
*
In the chrysalis of an impotent butterfly,
bound child. It is warm with the distortion 
of binding; a faint yolk glow emanates.
The tiny whites of eyes leak. One hand
like a prophet crab pushes at the shawl.
Stands to speak.
 
*
 
The jaundiced sinew of a woman drifts in.
She rests on the embankment of her child.
One moon passes and the tide returns,
gathers her in again, womb after womb.
 
*
 
The sightless night turns, imitates.
 
**
 
Witness
 
St. Dorothy, the martyr
from Cappadocia, was asked
by a doubter to send fruits
from heaven after her execution
to prove the worth of her belief.
 
Not long after, an angel appeared
bearing a trinity of apples, unfurrowed
by rot, roses blooming without fade.
You, who knew how society aches
to use the quivers of hatred and diminishment,
 
took St. Sebastian as your patron,
depicted yourself torn by his fate:
arrows ciphering your heart, cancelling its fury.
No one had to ask, at your death,
for proof of your faith, words existed already
 
proclaiming, I am the fruit. And eyes, dipping
to the apples, the petals pollinate them endlessly.
 
Catherine Owen
 
“Blind Mother” first appeared in Descant Journal. These poems are all from the book Somatic: the Life and Work of Egon Schiele (Catherine Owen, Exile Editions, 1998.)
 
Catherine Owen is the author of sixteen collections of poetry and prose. Somatic is her first book, written when she was 23-25. A born and raised Vancouverite, she now lives in Edmonton in a 1905 house called Delilah. Her most recent book is 2024's The Weather Says: poems, a limited edition collection from Carbonation Press in Spokane, Washington.

Tilling in Tomorrow's Field

Where labour is a loving thing
its haven is a constant spring,
renewing more engaged the soul
that finds itself becoming whole

applying its poetic bent
to elevate the moment spent
pursuing so beloved the yen
to have it be admired again

as treasure of connected heart
that, sensing it as living art,
will see the bloom, the fruit, and seed
as heirloom left that given heed

can yet again enrich the yield
of tilling in tomorrow's field.

Portly Bard

Editor's note: This poem was written to celebrate the anniversary of the collection and collaboration, Thinking Inside the Box, of poetry by Portly Bard and the visual artwork of Lorette C. Luzajic. The book also contains a dialogue between the artists about ekphrasis, art, and the meaning of life. You can get a free virtual copy, or order a hardcover or paperback on Amazon.
​
Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent...
of verse becoming complement...
...and by such homage being lent...
ideally also compliment.

Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise
for words but from returning gaze
far more aware of fortune art
becomes to eyes that fathom heart.

Get your free virtual copy of Thinking Inside the Box, and some other ekphrastic ebooks, at the link below. Scroll down for the free stuff!

https://www.ekphrastic.net/ebooks.html

A big congratulations to our ten nominees for Best of the Net!

Best of the Net is an annual anthology honouring small press literature first published online, through Sundress Publications. Online journals can nominate ten works each year.

Please join us in congratulating these writers for their amazing poems and stories.

The Ekphrastic Review

​**

We Are Seven, by Saskia Ashby

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/rene-magritte-ekphrastic-writing-responses

**

An Item on My Old Bucket List, by Rose Mary Boehm

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/frederic-edwin-church-ekphrastic-writing-responses

**

Vercingetorix, by Dave Day

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/archives/05-2024/2

**

On Plato and Lamplight, by Kimberly Hall

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/on-plato-and-lamplight-by-kimberly-hall

**

Zenia in February 1869, by Angela Kirby

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/ekphrastic-writing-responses-antonio-rafael-pinto-bandeira

**

Sunday River by Laurie Newendorp

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/ekphrastic-writing-responses-antonio-rafael-pinto-bandeira

**

Seeing The Sahara by Gustave Guillaumet, by Paul McDonald

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/gustave-guillaumet-ekphrastic-writing-responses

**

On Seeing the Portrait of Juliette Gordon Low by Edward Hughes by Tamara Nicholl-Smith

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/on-seeing-the-portrait-of-juliette-gordon-low-by-edward-hughes-by-tamara-nicholl-smith

**

Georgia O’Keeffe & the Opening, by Katy Scarlett

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/georgia-okeeffe-the-opening-by-katy-scarlett

**

Moth Orchid at the Botanical Gardens, by Kathryn Winograd
​
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/moth-orchid-at-the-botanical-gardens-by-kathryn-winograd