Treepiece

Well yes,
you love aspen,
its dry and bright flaky
bark surface peels to reveal
tender

snakeskin
new and silver –
silver celebrity
of the copse, white and leaning to
the left

with grace.
Untouched ‘til your
human intervention,
when you bracelet the bark before
it breaks

when you
insert your arms,
hands free, outside, to stretch
skywards in the wood, same angle,
tone right.

Your im-
age deceives our
eye to see you as a
tree, so exact your twinning and
its cam-

ouflage
that your elbow
becomes one tree knot, out
of seven hundred aspen in
our sight.

Apoll-
o cannot get
you now, though trembling as-
pen, not laurel, gives you such protect-
ive allure.

**

This poem was written in response to Untitled (McDowell Colony), by Francesca Woodman (USA) 1980.
https://woodmanfoundation.org/artworks/untitled-7

**

Bark and Dress

You’ve brushed
and plaited your
hair, parted it dead cen-
tre so its upward line reflects
the trees’

growth up.
Your bark bracelets
make you part of the wood,
as you reach for the sky in them.
Their tears

and holes –
are they prickly? –
echo the twig patterns
on your vintage dress. Yes, you are
Daphne now.

**

This poem was written after Untitled (McDowell Colony), by Francesca Woodman (USA) 1980
https://assets-global.website-files.com/5d8073c5ddf5281c25cdcc3e/62db2762b32a76dd08ec0035_M_476_CD.jpg

Alison Dunhill 

Alison Dunhill won the James Tate Prize in 2020 with her chapbook As Pure as Coal Dust. She has poems in the anthology Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry (ed. Jonas Zdanys ) and in SurVision’s Anthology of Tangential Surrealist Poetry (ed. Tony Kitt), both published in 2023. She is also a visual artist and has exhibited frequently. An art historian too, her MPhil thesis makes links between interwar European surrealism and 1970s photography. 

​Le Quatuor of Life
 
for Nashwa Y. Butt, Umm-e-Aiman Ali, Dr Lloyd Jacobs, and Ejaz Rahim
 
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha)
 
Love
 
love is a poem a nightingale cannot keep caged inside her beak / love is a dream splashed on a butterfly’s wings / love is a breather hole on a nib that keeps the کاغذ portrayed.1
 
Hate
 
hate is a chainsaw that exposes the crow’s feet on a tree trunk / hate is a queen termite that terraforms your favourite closet into her canvas / hate is the پتاغان that chops the heart ‘n soul into two.2
 
Fear
 
fear is the الدخان that renders one owl of athena blind ‘n wingless /3 fear is the grave that swallows many a prometheus whole / fear is the furnace that transforms many a parthenon into rubble.
 
Courage
 
courage is the بانگ درا that makes the ape climb down from the pinus /4 courage is the lamassu that carries one homo sapiens past the singularity /5 courage is the vahana that transmogrifies the homo sapiens into one homo deus.6
 
Saad Ali
 
1. کاغذ / Kagaz (Urdu): Paper.
2. پتاغان / Yatagan (Turkish): Two-curved sword.
3. الدخان / Ad-Dukhan (Arabic): The black smoke (Al-Quran, 44: 10-11).
4. بانگ درا / Bang-e-Dara (Farsi): The Call of the Marching Bell (phraseology borrowed from Dr Allama M. Iqbal).
5. Lamassu (Mesopotamian Mythology): A chimera – with a head of a human, body of a lion/bull, and wings of a bird.
6. Vahana (Hindu Mythology): A ride of a god/goddess; Homo Deus (Latin): The God-Man (phraseology borrowed from Dr Yuval N. Harari).
 
Saad Ali, poet-philosopher & literary translator, has been brought up and educated in the UK and Pakistan. His poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Synchronized Chaos, and two Anthologies by Kevin Watt (ed.). His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net. His ekphrases have been showcased at an Art Exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Learn further: www.facebook.com/owlofpines. 

Before We Are Famous

We stand on our own feet, 
upside down, balancing 
like acrobats, heel to heel, 
toe to toe. Tommy even has 
his hands on his head. 

The Three of us make shapes, 
wandering down here instead 
of school and we learn stuff .
We find fish skeletons and 
condoms and old coins 
sometimes. 

We never see Kate Moss 
down here taking her top off 
for those nude Vogue photos. 
Believe me, we're on the look. 
An old geezer with a knackered 

Metal detector wanted to put 
his hand in our pants for a 
fiver and a can of Special Brew 
- each - but someday we're gonna  
be famous and

Even Karl doesn't know Tommy
is Tamara under her jacket. It's always
been The Three of us so I don't know 
how things would kick off.

The three blades on the turbine 
turn around and around and around 
and always make electricity somehow. 
We're the power station and it's our 
golden hour.

Saskia Ashby 

Saskia is a UK experimental fine artist who enjoys being active across a broad field and encouraging others to be creative without anxiety .

​Visit to the Witch

Go into the smoke. 
It will be there outside her door.
But do not cross the threshold.
Leave a pretty fish on her stoop 
And a basket of new linen and thread
For the making.
Write your wish in ash from the fire.
Fold it in three and seal it
With the gum from the tree at the edge
Of the clearing.
You’ll find the knife in its trunk.

Do not pretend you do not know what you do, that you do not have a wish that might spin another’s life in a direction they haven’t chosen.

No.

A witch cannot work with a pretender.
The bond is not strong enough, the hunger not clear.

Open your mouth to what you want.
Give it its name. 

Spell it out.

Kate Bowers

Kate Bowers s a Pittsburgh based writer who has been published in Sheila-Na-Gig, Rue Scribe, and The Ekphrastic Review. Her work appears in the anthology Pandemic Evolution: Poets Respond to the Art of Matthew Wolfe by Hayley Haugen (Editor) and Matthew Wolfe (Contributor). Kate maintains a reading blog “So Read This” that can be found at https://www.facebook.com/soreadthis. She works as a technical writer for Pittsburgh Public Schools, the second largest urban public school system in Pennsylvania, where she specializes in philanthropy and program design. Kate helps promote the work of ekphrastic writers as co-manager of the TER Facebook page.

Wintering
 
Elsa at fifty.
Letting it go.
Wig off.
Exposed leg
in silver heels.
 
Defiant.
 
Looking toward the future.
No more fucks to give.
Accoutrements, all the
fakery be damned.
 
Yet.
 
Still.
 
Here. 
 
Barbara Crary 

Barbara Crary worked for thirty years as a school psychologist in southeastern Pennsylvania and began writing poetry after her retirement. She has participated in writing courses through the University of Iowa International Writing Program and was a contributing poet to Whitmanthology: On Loss and Grief, as well as having been published by Silver Birch Press, Visual Verse, and The Pennsylvania Bards Eastern PA Poetry Review.

Crucifixion
 
of what are you accused my child
to evoke these hate-filled glares
so much suspicion and blame
 
your eyes stare vacantly
above your blood red hood
arms stretched-pulled reveal
a crown of thorns already borne
 
the mob who rules ready
to wrap you in white linen
conviction consumated
caught in the final act
 
when they are done
will they secret you
away behind a boulder
knowing there is no chance
 
that you will rise again
 
Robin Gabbert

Robin Gabbert has poetry in multiple state, national, and international poetry anthologies. Her first book of poetry, Diary of a Mad Poet was published in 2020; a book of ekphrastic poetry — The Clandestine Life of Paintings, in Poems in November 2022. Robin has spoken to the California Writers Club and other groups on ekphrastic Poetry. She lives in California wine country with her husband and pup Hamish. For samples of Robin’s poetry, see www.robingabbert.com
​

Deposition

But their eyes lied in the surrender to crosses, candles, a clamp, caught slipping
off the crossbeams of Don’t You Dare and It Is What It Is, a zippered heart
broken, only one, Petra, named, the notes from Jude still stapled
to a pierced pulse, as she slid toward the coven of thorns.

Mary Hutchins Harris

Mary Hutchins Harris’s work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Lily Poetry Review, Poemeleon, Pirene’s Fountain, The Rumpus: ENOUGH, The Ekphrastic Review, Spillway, Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility, as well as in other print and on-line publications. She is an Interdisciplinary Studies Adjunct professor in the Lesley University, Cambridge, MA Low-Residency MFA program and on the faculty of the YMCA Downtown Writer's Center in Syracuse, NY. ​

The Warning
 
Burn the witch!
 
Foolish stories turn to shame
It was meant to be a game
Afternoon fun with spindle and wheel
Pass the time, make young girls squeal
 
Burn the witch!
 
But you who know too much of ghosts
Cannot be reliable hosts
Deep inside you harbor sin
Cannot disguise the evil within
 
Burn the witch!
 
Those strong leaders who watch the flock
Make the most of collar and frock
Seize all power, wealth and fame
Always protect reputation and name
 
Burn the witch!
 
They say blame must never be
Within the heart of me but thee
You who lead young minds astray
Must always be the one to pay
 
Burn the witch!
 
As you become stooped and gray
Guard your words and thoughts by day
Though you are just a woman slight
The fearful come for you by night
 
Burn the witch!
 
Then as you spin your charming yarn
Regale the girls of mountain tarn
Lest you befall the wretched guile
And hear the words at end of trial
 
Burn the witch!
 
Cathy Hollister
 
​Cathy Hollister is the author of Seasoned Women, A Collection of Poems published by Poet’s Choice.  A 2024 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been in Eclectica Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee; find her online at www.cathyhollister.com and Instagram cathy.hollister.52

Annaliese Jakimides

​Writer/mixed media artist Annaliese Jakimides’s work has appeared in many venues nationally and internationally. A finalist for many awards, including the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, the inaugural Edna St. Vincent Millay Residency, and the Maine Literary Awards in multiple genres and years, she’s part of the creative team for the musical Love Affair, premiering in 2024. annaliesejakimides.com

Tabula Rasa
 
I am a blank canvas
until I break from
the name of my birth,
erase empty letters
with white paint.
 
I can craft myself
as my own composition,
arrange the colours
in patterns and directions
as I see them.
That which comprises me
is in equal measure
a panoply of colour.
The beauty is in 
the arrangement,
not the object.
 
See how the blocks
relate to each other.
This is equality,
each block relying
on its neighbours,
each offering its 
vulnerable face.

Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Michigan Quarterly Review, Paterson Literary Review, Rust + Moth, The Vassar Review, and other journals. She lives and teaches in New Jersey, and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com.

Nostalgia

This moment in time
is purple, ethereal
neon cloudburst
of lilac whimsy
sung by a dove
with a raven’s heart.

This moment in time 
is the roulade centre
of a cerise rose,
parma violet perfume
sweet sixteen 
forget-me-not
love story.

This moment in time
is a dice rolled
music dreamt backwards
light spilling
into iridescence
graffiti of joy painted 
on a blooming heart. 

Siobhán Mc Laughlin

​Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Ireland. Her poems have appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review and other journals including The Honest Ulsterman, Drawn to the Light Press, Reverie, Quince, The Poetry Village and more. 

Betrayal

Dear F

Some will love you
for your Tehuana clothing
Flowers in your hair

Some will haunt you
like damaged body parts
A right leg, a broken spine

Some might call to you
to forgive them
A sister and a husband

There are some who
might betray you by
Ignoring your talent

Those who won’t see
the rivers of colours
held in your hands

Forget them

Amy Phimister 

Amy Phimister is a writer who resides in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and has been published by WFOP, Yardstick Books, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Hal Prize. She and her cousin have written a children’s book called A-B-C the Animals.

Slept 
    Walked 
through 
a loop
along
a curve
    in
a multiverse 
my
multi
    verse
I morph
I sing
inside 
a cave 
    wall
spike 
    of hair 
piece 
    of halo

Donna-Lee Smith

Author's note: My cheeky response to this much admired photographer is to write a few lines and include a couple of photographs of myself. Photo # 1 is my manipulation of photo #2. 

​Donna-Lee Smith finds great joy in ekphrastic writing.

​Ticky-Tacky

it could be any back garden, carefully
mapped out in regimented squares

they could be any people, melding
into amorphous uniformity

houses like boxes, gardens out of catalogues
people like cutout dolls, lives snap-shotted

Malvina Reynolds coined the epithet
"ticky-tacky" for their similitude

packaged in suburbs, they exist, barely
painted caricatures of themselves

Adrienne Stevenson

Adrienne Stevenson, a retired forensic toxicologist, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over sixty print and online journals and anthologies worldwide. Adrienne is an avid gardener, voracious reader, amateur genealogist and sometimes folk musician. Her historical novel Mirrors & Smoke was published in 2023,  and her poetry chapbook Skipping Stones, in collaboration with Marie-Andrée Auclair, in 2024. https://adriennestevenson.ca

Court Gestures
 
And which Honourable Wife are you? I asked, newly arrived in court. 
Honorable 23, she responded.  You? 
Concubine Eighty-eight, I answered smugly.  
Ah, a double lucky number, Honorable 23 conceded. 
 
She tilted her chin, nodding slowly.
That is why he gave you a dog, a companion, 
Someone to keep you warm at night. 
 
Because he never will, she added coolly, 
moving on. 
 
Cynthia Storrs

Cynthia Storrs teaches and writes near Nashville.  Educated in the US and UK, she has served on the board of Poetry West (CO), Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Committee, and Pikes Peak Arts Council, which awarded her a grant for promoting poetry in the region. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, magazines, and on-line. She has also published academic articles on bilingualism, biculturalism, and acculturation. Cynthia loves art history, theatre, landscape painting, and chocolate.

Longing for Happiness

also after C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory 
 
Happiness is toasted marshmellows, coconut
macaroons, oily macadamia nuts and Paris 
rain. Front porch swings, putty in a child’s hands, 
icy moon drops and soft jazz.  Happiness is harp
strings at Christmas, the cypress tree stretching 
on the river’s muddy banks. It’s a terry cloth
robe at evening, a hot bath, an answered 
prayer.
 
But we know macaroons don’t last, do they,
nor does rain, sun and moon, and soft jazz.
Cypress trees lose their leaves in late autumn, 
and bath water quickly turns cold. Perhaps
the thing is not that which matters the most,
but the longing, the yearning, the want. It is 
the desire for breaking news, for the far-off 
country, for that long-expected someone
of our dreams. It’s the ache for beauty 
we have yet to experience. the scent 
of a flower we have not [yet discovered], 
the echo of a tune we have not [yet] heard.

Jo Taylor
​
Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia. In April of this year she published her second book, Come Before Winter (Kelsay Books).  She enjoys morning walks, playing with her two grandsons, and collecting and reading cookbooks.  Connect with her on Facebook or on her website at Jotaylorwrites.com

In the Mirror
 
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV

I forgot his name until the lawyer told me: Mark Gertler.
He was my inheritance from Gramma. When I Googled
his name, I discovered he wasn’t some unknown artist,
but hot stuff! Famous novelists like D.H. Lawrence 
and Aldous Huxley based characters on him. 
 
I guess I didn’t know Gramma that well, either. How 
did she know so much about art? How could she afford 
such a painting? I miss her already.
 
No one else in the family cared a fig (Gramma’s way 
of saying it) for art, and the world still pays too little 
attention to women, she said. Ignore what the world thinks 
and think for yourself. (I can still hear her.) 
 
On Saturdays, we went on Big World adventures.
Gramma would take me on trips to the library, to art 
museums, to concerts. Don’t limit your horizons, 
she’d say. At first, I was both fascinated and freaked out 
when I saw vanitas paintings. Why would anyone 
want to keep a real skull on the table or hanging 
on their wall?
 
Gramma explained, It’s supposed to remind
 you that you’ll soon die and not be able to take 
your books, musical instruments, flowers, 
or feasts with you to Heaven. 
 
Hummmph, she’d add. How are we supposed 
to be ready for Heaven if we’re exhausted
from spending all our time on work, work, work? 
Aren’t we supposed to make a joyful noise 
unto the Lord?
 
My greatest gift from Gramma was learning
to appreciate each day, to find something
new to love. And I love you, Mr. Gertler,
despite the obvious reasons we will never
meet. How clever of you to replace 
the usual skull with your handsome face, 
bouncing off the mirror, jug, and candlestick – 
a trinity of you.
 
Alarie Tennille
 
Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in feminism. Please visit her new website at https://www.alariepoet.com

 
Sleepwalking
 
My Da walks up the dirt path to the village,
he strikes out on his own, all time of day or night,
often in his favorite striped pyjamas.
 
Aren’t you afraid of his walking straight over the cliffs?
all the villagers ask her. Aren’t you scared half silly 
he’ll drop to his death, and drown? 
 
He’s got eyes, my Ma would answer, 
and a bit of sense left.  He was born here,
knows this land like he knows me after all these years.  
 
He always walks briskly, with a sense of purpose,
like he has a place to get to, and a time to get there by.
Leave him that, at least, my Ma says. Leave him be. 
 
She calls it sleepwalking, which robs it of its sting.
Can’t bear to call it anything else, can’t bear to think of it.
He’s in his dreams, after all, she says, he’s far off with the fairies.
 
I suspect she sometimes wishes he’d misstep. 
That they’d find his striped pyjamas on the beach
before he forgets his way and her kind, familiar face.
 
But that would only be a fleeting, hateful thought.
She’d make up for it, by saying the rosary and baking scones for his return.
Her heart still leaps – even higher now - when she hears Da coming home. 

Wendy Winn

Wendy Winn is a writer and radio host living in Luxembourg. She's been published by Black Fountain Press and The Vincent Brothers Review, and joined the TVBR team last year as poetry editor. She published a collection Train of Thought in 2021 and recently did the cover art for a new collection by fellow poet Lawrence E Hussmann. She is new to ekphrastic poetry, but thanks to the marathon, she is now addicted!  

​After Church
  
The weighty ladies from church 
line the stoops
as if still in pews, shoulder to shoulder, 
hip to hip, leaning in, laughing, 
like the baby in arms, 
like the youngfolk
stitched with
sideways glances, flirt,
fans-in-hands You said it, 
you said it slapping the thigh
kids on sidewalks, squatting
swatting one another You lie!
Community aligned 
along the street
of story 
while cars full of people pass slow by.
How could it be anything 
but a party in this place
of  finest straw hats and heels. 
All that’s needed is a ukulele, 
a place to sit.
Don’t need a thing more 
to beat Harlem summer heat. 

Catherine Young
 
Catherine Young is author of the ekphrastic memoir Black Diamonds : A Childhood Colored by Coal  and the ecopoetry collection Geosmin (Midwest Book Awards Silver Medal Winner). Her prose and poetry are published in anthologies and literary journals internationally and nationally. She worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother before completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Catherine loves ekphrastic obsessions. For podcasts and writings visit: http://www.catherineyoungwriter.com/

​We Can’t Do That Here
 
The woman notices you. During her visit, she sees you peering out from the bedroom in your tiny princess pajamas. Your eyes are like two black stones ready to roll away from your skull upon catching sight of this figure. Her skin is a patchwork of colours: light browns, rusted reds, dried purples. 

This encounter, though brief, stays with you. The kaleidoscopic woman. Her image is transported to your mind one day when you are on a date at an art museum. The man you are with holds your hand kindly but explains each piece to you like you are a child. Since you are 34 and Nigerian American and unmarried, you let him guide you. This is called pointillism, he says. It was founded in the late 19th century, coined by a French painter named Georges Seurat. It involves painting miniscule dots until they form a cohesive piece from a distance. You look from afar first, then move closer to see the details. Hundreds of colourful specks together but separated by glimpses of white. It is in staring at the white space, the dot-less, that the memory of the woman’s face intrudes into your mind, accompanied by a scene of muffled words and actions:

Through the cracked door, the kitchen light breaks the darkness of the bedroom. You move your eyes quickly to take in everything. There is a woman standing near the counter. Based on her appearance, you don’t register her as Nigerian. She wears a wrinkled, navy tracksuit and a gray coat, buttons done wrong. A few strands of fine, black hair graze her shoulders, while the rest is held in a slack ponytail. Her light tawny skin, almost translucent, is mottled with bruises. 

I don’t know what else to do, she says, eyes glossed.

Your mom shakes her head and apologizes, handing the woman a tissue like a practiced behaviour.

Your dad grabs his phone and dials. Moments pass before someone answers his call.

How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t do that here? his voice raises through the receiver.
​
Your mind locks onto the word “here” and wonders what it means. At first, you think it means your house. Though, you had not seen or heard anything happen to the woman in your home that night. But now, at this museum, as you reflect on the collage of painted pain covering the woman’s skin, the “here” occupies more space than the creaky walls of your home. It symbolizes a larger world, a land of opportunity. A world separated from there.
 
Cynthia Ajuzie
​
This story was first published in Quarter After Eight.
​
Cynthia Ajuzie is a Nigerian American writer who grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. While attending University of Virginia, she wrote for the theatrical production, The Black Monologues, and had her work performed for the university’s community. After obtaining a BA in Literary Prose, Cynthia taught high school English for three years in Houston, Texas within an underserved community. She is an MFA graduate from Rutgers University-Newark and her work can be found in the literary magazine, Quarter After Eight and Brittle Paper.

The Ekphrastic Review rejoices at the absolute bounty that arose from so many imaginations during the Nine Lives Marathon in July, when we celebrated together nine years of this journal, writers, and art.

Here is our selection of prose chosen from the entries, and the announcement of the winning story. (The selection of poetry entries will be posted separately.)

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the marathon, whether or not you entered your works or felt happy with what you made. For this particular creative event, the goal is to complete the marathon and to "see what happens." We are inviting the muse in an intense but fun way, shaking things up, trying something different, and indulging ourselves in a day of pure exploration and play, rather than doing any work that is administrative, editing, revising, or grammar. Kudos for being there! 

This year we decided to do something different with the marathon entries, and chose a work from every submitting participant. The result for readers is a wonderful array of ingenuity and insight. Bravo!

A massive thank-you to editors Kate Copeland and Sandi Stromberg for their presence, brilliance, and hard work.

The prize winning entry in both poetry and flash categories will be announced within a few weeks.

See you at the marathon next year! Plan on joining us if you haven't joined yet. It's amazing.

love, Lorette

with Kate Copeland and Sandi Stromberg

**

Announcement of Winning Story

Nine Lives was my first marathon as an editor at The Ekphrastic Review. What a joy it was to watch the stories emerge online as the eight hours ticked along. Then, I had the opportunity to read many of them as entries in finished form. 

After that came the challenge of selecting the prose winner. I enjoyed all the pieces submitted, and when I say challenge, I mean challenge. I was impressed time and again by the stories. Especially fun were the variety of tales told in response to the same artwork.  
In the end, the piece that most captured my imagination is Norbert Kovacs’s “Private Island." Written in a woman’s meandering voice, it perfectly captures Paraskevi Fasiola’s almost labyrinthine if only I hadn’t wished for what I thought was missing. 

Congratulations to all of you for taking part in this year's marathon! Your tenacity and creativity are truly astounding.

Happy writing!

Sandi Stromberg
Editor, The Ekphrastic Review

**

​Norbert's winning story runs first, and then the other selections follow in alphabetical order of the author.

​Private Island
 
She would live on a private island if she could. It would be in the tropics. She'd have a coconut tree on a hill there; it would supply her plenty of coconuts. Of course, one island with a coconut tree might not be enough if she proved very hungry or thirsty. So she'd have another island close by, a short swim away. She could go get coconuts there if she ran out on the first island. Or if there was a hurricane and the tree on the first island blew down. Then she would need the second island entirely to provide for her. If it became the only island for her, though, she would need another island with a coconut tree to be the alternate one. She wouldn't go and live again stuck on just a solitary isle. So she'd have three islands but use only two. By this point, though, she hoped to better secure the arrangement against another hurricane. She would have a fourth island, a short swim away. A fifth for contingency. She ought not to short change herself, she felt.
 
She thought then it might get monotonous to have all those tropical islands, each just a hill crowned by a coconut tree. To avoid feeling bored with them, she thought to have a different kind of place nearby to go on occasion. She liked those landscapes from the American west, so thought she would have a tall butte on an island to itself. She'd put it right by her tropical islands. But a butte in mid-ocean might look odd, and she wanted to minimize any such feeling about the scene. So, she'd have a few buttes there, each on its own island; she considered she could look then from one to the next as you do in a fine desert landscape of the American west. The buttes might form a sort of line across the ocean, but not perfectly, which wouldn't seem natural. She considered each butte ought to have the sun cresting its top for the visual effect of bright light against the brownish red stone. Somehow then, she must arrange to have the sun cresting each butte at any time. The solution she realized was for each butte to have its own private sun. The suns would form their own line in the sky like the buttes on the water. To keep things consistent, the tropical islands would have a sun shining somewhere else. Of course, having five, six, or more suns beaming down at the same time might make it hotter than she could take. Actually, it would make climate change look like a joke. How very quickly paradise can turn into hell, she thought.
 
Norbert Kovacs
 
Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He has published art-inspired short stories in Timada's Diary, MacQueen's Quinterly, and The Ekphrastic Review. His website: www.norbertkovacs.net.

Eating Up the Sky
 
It looks so calm, a pale blueberry smoothie spilled along the horizon, topping the last strip of pureed peach light, tiny marshmallow clouds floating in nice even innocent rows. But keep your eyes open, things are not as they seem. Those clouds aren’t really marshmallows, they’re milky baby-teeth. It may be too late once they start to feast and their colours start to change. Gobbling until they look like fat grapes. Gorging until they resemble bloated aubergines. Soon they will have consumed everything around them, but it won’t be enough. Appetites will only be whet, not sated. Saliva will drip and they’ll start to spin. Searching. Searching. Chomping up house shingles, they can never get enough of those. More. More. Uprooting trees. Flipping trucks. Really showing off until they, only they, decide it’s time to leave.
  
Louella Lester

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press), a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and has a story included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing appears in a variety of journals, including: Odd Magazine, Your Impossible Voice, Five Minutes, Yellow Mama, Roi Faineant, 50-Word Story, Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gooseberry Pie, Paragraph Planet, Hooghly Review, Bright Flash, Cult. Magazine, and SoFloPoJo.

Why Don't People Just Leave Me Alone?

People ask me whether I know I’m sleepwalking. What a stupid question. The clue’s in the name, as my Darryl says to me. Of course I bloody don’t know! Do they think I’d go out in my pyjamas barefoot and walk up the rough gravel path behind my house at half four in the morning if I knew what I was doing? I know afterwards alright when I wake up back in bed with sore feet and grit between my toes. Some nights I wake up thinking I’ve pissed myself. Then I realise the wet patch on the sheets is related to the rain lashing down the window pane and my squelchy slippers ditto. 

Somnambulance it’s called. I’m ambulant when in a state of somnia. Somnia - sleep - opposite of in-somnia, something I’ve never been troubled with. Except when Darryl was a baby and he scriked all night. It was useful to be out walking in those days. Didn’t please the wife though. 

I’ve been at it all my life. Well, since I could ambulate. Just up and down the stairs in those days. My old man used to cuff me and pack me back to bed. When I was tall enough to open the back door it got more dangerous, especially near the cliffs. Ma used to push a dresser over every night to block my exit. Dad didn’t like that. Had to come back early from the pub if he didn’t want to sleep in the outside privy. He thought I was defective. 

I joined the Navy when I was fifteen. Only they sent me home after the medical. Can’t have sleepwalkers on a ship. I didn’t go home. Tried my hand in London. Met the wife there. Should have married her cousin. Bigger tits. 

She buggered off to Guildford late sixties and left me with Darryl. Came back a few years later and we gave it a go but we weren’t right for each other. I missed Darryl when she left the second time but he used to come down regular to stay with me. We fished and watched the footie on a Saturday.  

Darryl’s used to me toddling off at night but his missus thinks I should be in a home or something. Keeps carting me off to Casualty and telling them I’m a danger to myself. I’ll be a danger to her if she doesn’t watch it. So here I am now answering bloody stupid questions again trying to prove I’m not off me rocker. What year is it? Who’s the prime minister? I ask you. There’s nothing wrong with me a spot of breakfast won’t sort out but fat chance of getting that here. Last time I waited thirteen hours to see anyone and only got three stitches and one cold cup of tea - in a beaker!  A beaker! 

She’s got my house keys this time though. I’m worried now I might not see my little house again for a very long time. 

I’m scared.

Caroline Mohan

Caroline Mohan is based in Ireland and writes sporadically - mostly stories with the occasional poem and mostly in workshops. She is currently enjoying ekphrastic writing.

Wherever You Go, There You Are
 
my brother said when I told him I was moving across the country. He only said it because he’s older, because he wants to sound wise, because he thinks I should listen to him. But as our family deteriorated, the idea of finding myself didn’t sound quite so bad.
 
My mother wanted me to be a quiet boy who washed the dishes after dinner so she could go out back and sneak a cigarette, so I was.
 
My father wanted me to be a good boy who told him how much Mom drank as she cooked, then kept his mouth closed no matter what he heard coming from the patio, so I was.
 
My brother wanted me to be a wimp grateful for his interference, hiding in the closet until he told me the coast was clear, even though I could tell by the silence that lingered after my father slammed the front door behind him, so I was.
 
But with that past crumbling and falling away, I found myself on unsteady ground. So I left, driving alone as if that would force me to realize who I was meant to be.
 
I stopped for gas and bought a drink for every cup holder, just because I could. I slept in the reclined passenger seat because I didn’t need to make room for anyone else.
 
With each mile I drove, I realized I didn’t need to move across the country to find myself. As my brother said, there I was. So I drove and drove and drove until I became the car and the car became me, and then we thought, wouldn’t it be nice to be the highway, so I was.
 
Allison Renner
 
Allison Renner’s fiction has appeared in Ellipsis Zine, SoFloPoJo, Six Sentences, Rejection Letters, Atlas and Alice, and Misery Tourism. Her chapbook Won’t Be By Your Side is out from Alien Buddha Press. She can be found online at allisonrennerwrites.com and on Twitter @AllisonRWrites

 
Medieval Wolves
 
We used to be real wolves, alive back so many years ago, it’s hard to remember how many. We were a family of twelve blue wolves back then, we do not know what happened to our missing relations, we are only three now, our mother, one sister and one brother, me.
 
Now we are small and stiff and cold, we cannot move, we frighten no one, we hunger always but can neither hunt nor feed nor quench our thirst. It is maddening, but we are wolves and we persist. At least we still are within sight of each other and are able to commune between ourselves, somewhat, with difficulty.
 
As best we can piece things together, we ran afoul of a bad human, one who had availed himself of knowledge both deadly and cruel. While he himself had no fight with our family, he came to the attention of another, a wealthy and powerful human who did indeed have a rather monumental bone to pick with us.
 
Apparently during an earlier and particularly storm-driven winter, near insane with hunger, we hunted and killed this man’s only son as he returned to the castle after finishing his studies at university. Please believe us that in the interests of our own safety, we as a matter of principle had never hunted humans because of the danger of engaging with human-packs. But the scant feeding provided by this one youth helped our pack to make it through a particularly dismal winter. Under circumstances like these do we not have the right to eat to stay alive? 
 
In the spring, while still searching for any sign of his son, this man discovered the last bony remains which clearly identified him as wolf-kill. Thus started a long and cruel vendetta against any and all wolves for a hundred miles around. Our own larger pack at that time numbered many, with several satellite packs of varying degrees of relation to us. When there were but the twelve of us left, the avenger paused briefly to bring our nemesis to the cave where he had cornered us.
 
This other man was a fool, but possessed of a piece of ancient magic that was our downfall. He mumbled and gestured and called upon this necromancer and that demon, with the result that my mother, sisters and brothers and I began to shrink and solidify as we wept and spoke our love and farewells to each other.
 
I called this evil practitioner a fool, and here is why… after he had shrunk each of us down to the size of a human hand he decided to toy with us before the magic was completed. As he dandled and juggled with us suffering and terrified beings, the last of our line of blue wolves, we fought and scratched and bit him repeatedly. Trifling though the tiny wounds were, our claws and teeth were as noxious and unclean as any full-sized meat-eating predator’s could be, and infection festered quickly and caused him a lingering, miserable, and well deserved death.
 
The end of my tale is both short and long. In short order we were reduced to twelve carved and glazed toy wolf figurines. After many long years of being displayed as the evil man-killers that took the rich man’s son from him, we eventually were passed along to various other people; some were sold into we know not what. Tragically we even saw some of our brethren smashed before our eyes and thrown away. You see before you the last three that I know of: my blessed mother, my one remaining lovely sister and myself. We are toys for children, forgotten ornaments, someone’s unwanted junk. However, we are still wolves and we persist.
 
Susan St Maurice
 
Susan St Maurice spent many years as a technical writer, only to morph late into a fiber artist, maker of artist books, and printmaker. She's interested in using ekphrastic writing to develop original content for her artist books. She spends a lot of time in the New England woods with her two smallish dogs, both rescues from Puerto Rico. 
 

The Healer

after “The rain has stopped” by Eve Joseph from Quarrels (Anvil Press, 2018).

The apple trunk has split and its limbs welcome lichen. My daughter is in the basement darkroom talking to Lazarus, who is folding my towels. She tells him things she cannot tell me, things about fruit bats and mica. Lazarus is old now, old as a swinging gate and wind-worn to a shine, but he holds my linens to his nose and breathes in the zest of June. From outside, I hear him tell her with a laugh lumpy as a pitcher of doves: this is how we unwind the light.

Angeline Schellenberg

Angeline Schellenberg is a treasure-hunter: thrifting, mudlarking, birding, and, as a contemplative spiritual director, listening in people’s everyday for the Divine. She has written Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016) about raising autistic children and Fields of Light and Stone (University of Alberta Press, 2020) for her Mennonite grandparents. She’s the second shooter at Anthony Mark Photography and the punny host of Speaking Crow—Winnipeg’s longest-running poetry open-mic. Angeline enjoys watching Korean dramas, talking to dogs, and eating other people’s baking. She is launching Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, 2024), an askew review of hue, tune, and Yahoo.

​Ghost Stories
 
They were storytellers, these ghosts. Sometimes I saw them in their seventeenth-century woolen garb of red or green with modest lace collars and white aprons; their hair was always tucked neatly under lace caps. Most often, they gathered in my grandmother’s parlour, hands on spindles or needles, never idle, seldom pausing. Only Mrs. Winters lifted her hands as she raised or lowered her voice. Mrs. Winters was not the oldest of them, but she was the leader and the best storyteller. Her favourite story was the Woman in White who drifted through the house in her long white gown.
 
Even when I couldn’t see them, I heard them whispering. When not listening to stories, they gossiped— “she went to the witch for a love charm. No good comes of that.” Then there were “tsk tsks” and nervous giggles from the younger ones. I was a child, but I knew not to tell anyone about the women and their stories.  Still, I was an observer only—until the day I wasn’t.
 
“Don’t stand there gawping, Child,” Mrs. Winters said, looking straight at me, “go fetch your embroidery.” I left the room and woke in my own bed.  
 
After that day, I went back and forth a few times, understanding somehow that time was fluid, a wave that ebbed and flowed, carrying me from and to my own shore. But I never knew when I would become unmoored. I only saw them at my grandmother’s house, and as I got older between school and then work, I couldn’t visit often, and I seldom heard the women. I almost forgot about them, but never the house.
 
I loved my grandmother, and I loved her house with its gleaming polished wood, sunlit windows with wavy glass, and stern ancestors glaring at me from oil portraits in the gallery. We both wanted me to be married there. I would walk down the oak stairway and take the arm of my Robert at the base of the stairs. In my bedroom, on my wedding eve, I tried on my wedding gown. As I looked at myself in the mirror dressed in ivory satin and tulle, I saw Mrs. Winters behind me. Our eyes met—and I realized then that I was the Woman in White.
 
Merril D. Smith
 
Merril D. Smith is a Pushcart-nominated poet who lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her work has been published in poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Sidhe Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Storms, Fevers of the Mind, Gleam, Humana Obscura, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. 

Beachscene

When I was sixteen, we moved to a small town on the coast. My parents said it would be good for us, but I knew they were referring to me. They bought canoes, spoke about surfing lessons. On any windless evening in the week, they’d ask Who wants to go for a walk? and it didn’t matter what we’d answer—they’d traipse me and my sister with them to the beach. 
           
As the months passed, they ran into more people they knew—parents from my sister’s Girl Scout troop, the organist from church—and they’d waltz into a five-minute chat, my dad’s hands resting in his pockets, my mom leaning forward in a warm farewell before they loped away. In every interaction, I felt a hidden pressure, the flit of concerned eyes. My sister would chatter or dance through the water, but I was stuck, the backwash sinking my feet, the stress cementing my teeth. I couldn’t speak to adults, or anyone, really. 

With some practice, I found a way to be alone. I dawdled back, walked in slow zigzags through the surf, until my parents got distracted or tired of waiting. If my sister stayed with me, I was cold and offish until she got mad and ran ahead. 

Then I was left to my beach scene. While I walked, I’d raise my hand so that it hid my family. I imagined I was grown up, had driven to the beach on my own. I’d raise the other to cover the wind turbine—I had enough money to live near a beach that was nicer than this. 

When my arms got sore and drifted down, I was back with the sadness I couldn’t lift. 
 
Megan Tennant
 
Megan Tennant is a writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Her poetry has appeared in South African literary journals New Contrast, Prufrock, New Coin and others, and a work of short fiction is forthcoming in The Common.

The Wolf, as an Example. Me, as Another.
 
Interesting. 

A microscopic single-celled organism called Toxoplasma Gondii can change an animal's behaviour. It does so by tweaking the host's hormones, causing the creature to become bolder and more restless.   
Take the wolf. One that's infected is, according to researchers, ten times more likely than an uninfected wolf to abandon family and church in the Idyll Valley for the heathen east coast.  

And take me. I once had a pack in the valley. When I left, I was considered sick. 

Father prayed I wouldn't spread such rebellion. He forbade me to speak to my many little brothers and sisters. After all the long plain dresses Mother had sewed and the long hair she had braided, I wore tight jeans and shaved my head. Her dream of marrying me to the deacon's son died.  
 
I became a black sheep: ironic when discussing wolves. 

Daring decisions can be beneficial to an animal.  

I found a city job and a city life. I found Joshua, forgave his Biblical name. 

Daring decisions can be isolating.   
 
For the wolf, there's opportunity and strength in numbers when hunting big game, and warmth in winter when curled up together. It's cold all alone. 

Me, I have only Joshua.   

When I feared I was pregnant, the doctor told me more about Toxoplasma Gondii: it can cause toxoplasmosis and harm the baby. He tested me, pronounced me clear.  
   
Doc advised me not to clean the cat's litter box. Have my partner do it.
 
Instead, Joshua got rid of the cat. Puss was a health risk and, he believed, a furry, purry distraction draining my motherly instincts. 

Researchers say it's unknown how the parasitic infection impacts overall reproduction rates.  

For example, can the bug drive a wolf to be honest? Finally declare it doesn't want to become a parent even though a mate may then curse having met such a selfish, abnormal beast, and leave?  

Also unclear is the microbe's impact upon survival. 

Me, I'm coping. Joshua wants lots of pups. That's what he calls babies. 

I'm collecting wolves. 

Joshua doesn't understand why, but, in this, he indulges me. Every month during my fertile window, he buys a new wolf figurine and sets it on a high shelf in our bedroom. 

I'm kept there, too. Healthy, but not as brave as I thought I was.   

Karen Walker

Karen Walker writes short fiction in Ontario, Canada. Her work is in Reflex Fiction, Sunspot Lit, Unstamatic, The Disappointed Housewife, Retreat West, Five Minute Lit, Sundial Magazine, 100 Word Story, and others. She's at @MeKawalker883. 

​The Subversion of Michelangelo
 
During the Renaissance
Michelangelo dissected bodies
snatched from graves,
discovering the vessels, 
muscles, & bones that power
our voyage through life
& published his discovery
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
where The Creation of Adam
depicts God & the angels 
transported in a vessel shaped
like the cross-section of a brain,
God & Adam reaching out
to one another, agonizingly 
close, but never touching.

Joseph Geskey

Joseph Geskey has another ekphrastic poem in Poetry East, dedicated to Claude Monet. His first collection of poetry, Alms for the Ravens, is with Main Street Rag. More work can be found at josephgeskey.com

The Dervish Enneagram

Number Pattern:  9 1432 8657

The ninth man moved his bed
from the top to the circle’s bottom 
where, clad in silk and cotton,
he rests with hands behind his head. 

The first to sing in sky blue,
the man in peach the two,
the gray three, hand to brow.
To his left, the gray four assists two

pairs of two that have slumbered.
Across from them, the man between
is five (like the players below three,
the gold one above has no number).

The circle ends with three more:
the orange number six,
the green seventh, then the eight.
They sing in a special order:

the first man’s note goes clockwise
to the fourth, on his left,
what we call an “A,” then rests
upon the fourth man’s eyes, 

who with an understitch,  
turns the line of his sung “B”
back up, counter-clockwise, 
over number three, to catch

what the second weaves
with the two to make a melody
as he sings the “C,”
which, rising, leaves

to cross to eight, a trajectory  
that curves along the sphere
when the outer circle clears
life’s fused force free 

within the infinitude of time,
the mirror of the one that feels
what man is and what he needs.
the bridge the second’s mind

makes with what the eighth sees.
Head down, he sings his song in
to the fifth man under him,
the “D” in the harmony,

- overstitching six- the vine’s root,
the foundation of the joyous chord,
the branch pruned by the Lord
that bears the living fruit,

what we give to one another;
to those who realize his demand
that they follow his command
to love each other.  

The fifth man’s note,
the “E,” spirals with a scent
that permeates the inner senses:
the joy of the seventh the hope

of all mankind:  he knows the pleasure
of the melody’s fulfillment
in the light of love’s harmony,
and draws it in full measure

through the centre of the round,
to the one, while in the inner ring,
a hand raised, twirling
slowly, waiting for a sound

to rise from heart to mind.
loose silk scarves floating 
from their gleaming coats,
four men spin within the nine

the excitement of their being, 
the dance in earnest:
forward and up, now rest,
now straight, now leaning, 

the musicians with horn,
drum, and flute, the ground
on which they dance on 
tremulous, quivering, born

in sobriety, what the need
of song for man drums
on as the men turn from 
positions nine, six and three

to form a triangle of light:
each affirming,
each denying,
and with each other, reconciling.

Tom Skove

Tom Skove is a retired environmental lawyer from Cleveland, Ohio, who has been writing and at times publishing poetry most of his life. 

​Condottiero (The Warlord) 

Brown 
Nothing sentimental about this guy 
in his scrolled metal helmet and 
tarnished lionhead-studded armour 
Nothing noble, nothing handsome 
The hump of a broken nose 
The slack double chin of a jaw 
A cheek deep with battle scars
Lips that pout almost like 
a two-year old denied a treat
Eyes that hold no light 
The reality of a mercenary 
a life based on a contract 
killing for money.

Mary A. Hood

Mary A. Hood is a retired microbiologist who was a fellow at Radcliffe and Harvard Medical School. She taught at University of West Florida. She was also a poet laureate of Pensacola, Florida. Mary has a special interest in ecology, a passion that took her to more than 50 countries. Her books include River Time: Eco Travel on the World's Rivers and Walking Seasonal Roads. She has a website of nature-based and ekphrastic poetry: https://maryahoodpoems.org/

Standing in Awe at the Museum of Modern Art

It’s worth the price 
to get into the Museum 
and stand with twenty people or so 
who stand in awe
in front of Monet’s lily pads,
which get their own room
and cover the whole wall.

I understand how we’re all in awe, 
though that woman in a hat 
looks especially in awe. 
I wonder what it is she sees 
that I don’t, so I

walk over, and stand next to her,
a little behind,
to see from her vantage point,
as I don’t want to miss out 
on the slightest awe.

A couple with two children enters the room,
where only the father stands in awe,
as the mother is busy corralling the boy 
who’s chasing a frog
that hopped off a lily pad,
and his sister now wading
knee deep in the pond.

Lee Stockdale

​Lee Stockdale has won The United Kingdom National Poetry Prize and other prizes. His debut poetry collection, Gorilla, was brought out by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2022. He lives in the Western North Carolina Mountains.

Read other poems by Lee Stockdale:

Unaware
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/unaware-by-lee-stockdale
​
New Stepfather (after Picasso's Geurnica):
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/new-stepfather-by-lee-stockdale

​Elisabet Ney Visits Me at Hot Yoga Asheville:
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/elizabet-ney-visits-me-at-hot-yoga-asheville-by-lee-stockdale

The Flood

Once the hand stretches
to wipe the slate clean, 
we’re already too late.
Only the work of living
can compensate 
for what comes next,

as the tide rakes the rock line,
drags the wreckage
miles from the shore,
brims the broken banks
and spills into the streets,
as an acid wind eats
the foundations of our folly.

Cling as we may to structure,
by our nails, by our teeth, 
everything falls eventually
to the tug of the core,
the tug of the moon,
two directions to ruin. 
Death is water, and gravity.

Where is Sixtus, Alexander, Julius?
Only their servant survives,
impressed into labor, to build
a beauty that will not wash away,
not by rain nor damp
nor salt of the sea, not yet 
slipping into the swampland 
of the Tiber that settles, 
settles, sinks into itself.

His image still stands,
a battlement of flesh, 
all that is sturdy in muscle and bone
now writhing an orgy of survival,
a desperate wrestle for breath

as the first creation crests,
their backs rippling like waves, 
their legs swollen as they strain
for footing, for anything firm.
One fragile lover holding another.

The tension is primal.
So too was his answer.
Presume no permanence.
Prepare the plaster.

John Tessitore

John Tessitore has been a journalist and biographer. He has taught history and literature at colleges around Boston and directed national policy studies on education and civil justice. He serves as Co-Editor Across the Pond for The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. His poems have appeared in a variety of books and journals. He has published several volumes of poetry, a novella, and hosts a poetry podcast, Be True, available on all major podcast platforms.

​

​
Manet’s Funeral

I am more taken back by Monet having to borrow money 

for a mourning suit and a train ticket than the cause of Manet’s death 
                       
imagine Monet scrubbing paint off his hands thinking of the long journey

from Giverny to Paris

not the Monet we know in museums or from books but ordinary Monet 

a pallbearer at his friend’s funeral    worried    about his neck collar

who happens to notice    how clouds float alongside lilies in a pond

would you have noticed how much we want out of this life

or cared that Manet died from complications of syphilis 

Manet who painted a barmaid who stares at us

as if she knows our follies     what aperitif we drink to forget   

her name    unknown ​
 
 JoAnna Scandiffio

JoAnna Scandiffio is a gemologist living in San Francisco. Her poems are like bird nests, made with fragments randomly connected to hold the moment. She is like the old medieval monks who copied out verses in coloured inks so the world could sing forever. Her work has appeared in Calyx, The MacGuffin, The Poeming Pigeon, Poets 11, and SugarWater.