Lost in Translation
I’ve linked your name to each time the muezzin pleads; he will, by default, call your name to my tongue. Forked lines on my palms speak of cruel fate – fickle charity – continue your sacrificing of me if this will bring the world to your feet. The act of waiting isn’t lost to my artistic clarity. Your sleep is a castle of bones. I’ve tied my wrists to your dominance; way sided the hour of dawn that should otherwise see me bowed in worship. Become known to the distances I’ve eliminated – the boats I’ve been burning to progress to you. Sheikha A. Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her work has appeared in over 90 literary venues so far, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. She edits poetry for eFiction India. More about her can be accessed on her blog sheikha82.wordpress.com Suvojit Banerjee is from India and the United States. He started writing early, but found his niche in his early twenties. His works have been published in many Indian and International journals and magazines and featured in several anthologies. He currently works in a software company, and has worked as a lead writer/reviewer for a technology website. When not writing, he can be found dabbling in sketch and photography.
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Twelfth century icon from St. Catherine's Monastery, Egypt, based on The Ladder of Paradise, by John Climacus around 600 A.D. The monastic treatise, also known as the Scala, was widely used in teaching in Eastern Christianity. It included thirty steps or "rungs" that included "on lying," "on cowardice," "on despondency," "on avarice," and "on peace of the soul."
January 12th 2010, Haiti Madonna of Port-au-Prince You who look like Alice Your eyes red with shattered plaster and weeping Your full lips bruised with dirt Your hairpiece of locks slipping back like a cowl The powder dusting your oval cheeks is grey concrete — If the rest of you was not buried under rocks of blasted wall And the figure in the foreground was not blood splattered And someone’s leg was not trapped behind you, You could have been a pretty girl With sand on your bare arms Writing your name on a shell On some beach off Les Cayes— You who look like Alice Another lost girl I used to know, Not an ikon’s model On a chapel wall in Jacmel But a strange Madonna anyhow Flat on the scattered masonry Sans enfant, or enfant gone from your hands To the devouring earth — The ikon herself Impassive Erzulie, gazing through your Carib face From a palette of pixels Framing now before me. Maman Did you find him, maman, the old man, Or was it the grandchild left in your care for the day, Or, in the catastrophe behind you, The daughter who was setting your supper, Or perhaps your friend, having a Dominican ponche with you? Your long arms, maman, are bathed in the white dust of disastrous city-fall, Your fingers are exhausted from their frantic and futile search for bones, For hair, for a belt or a bodice, For a baby, a baby who was impossibly there, Gurgling at her spoon Teasing your heart, And you singing a lullaby, “Haiti Cherie” Haiti beloved, beloved child, Gone child, gone with the walls, the debris, the tranblanterre and the lavalas, Gone from your arms, from your keening, scrabbling fingers Despairing under block, under board, under broken back And the child disparu, taken — Or was it your friend from Cap Haitien, Or the daughter who shared your name, Or the old man — companion of your days, Comrade of sleepless hours, keeper of your young heart Comforter of those fallen breasts Fallen under your torn chemise Fallen with the roofs and the windows and the President’s house Fallen with the broken routes of Port-au-Prince Fallen and forlorn, Haiti Cherie? Cathedral The ionic columns hold nothing up Not the twin cupolas that welcomed mariners to Port-au-Prince Not the grand round windows of stained-glass ikons Not the novenas of those who died in the fallen girders, Unless you count the blue dome of vacant air The ruined, ruined facades The hovering stench — Has Boukman triumphed? Do Legba and Ghede aka Baron Samedi mount the buried altars? Does Ogoun lie entombed in this broken peristyle? Do these curious questions matter to the houngan Crying down the mess of fallen masonry To touch his daughter’s ears?-- Outside the shattered cathedral The women kneeling in the dust Raise rosaries to the familiar Haitian sky And lift their psalms Past the ionic columns That hold nothing up. At Capernaum, Boats “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned.” – Matthew 4:16. This, the Port of the boat people This, the Port of their Prince Home-harbour safe Docks of sails in sunset-- This is the Port of the boat people After Dessalines and Duvalier, HIV and cholera After tornado and tremblor The Gadarene adventure and their Bay of Pigs Canoewrecks off Florida, the invading boots of marines From caravel to carrier— After the desolate cities of my pilgrimage And diverse tribulations From deserts and catacombs to creole favelas, These crosses of masts under the purpling evening Their sails folding like seamless robes The people neither coming nor going Home-harbour safe Intransit to the undying lands of their Prince Who loved fishermen Who slept in their boats Roped their storms to His peace And encompassed their little faith With His incomprehensible love Home harbour safe— At Capernaum, boats The Port of the boat people The Port of our Prince. In Caravaggio’s Ikon
In Caravaggio’s ikon of Thomas seeing Christ all eyes are locked to the doubter’s firm finger poking around the torn flesh, under the strong hand of the Carpenter. Thomas, Apostle to our secular, mocking, murderous new age, meeting his worst-case scenario with the firm grit of flesh under his thumb that index of incarnation— incarnation, Immanuel God is with us — under the impossible rubble as we claw at the unimaginable earthfall, Immanuel— over the body of someone’s son fallen in crossfire in shrieking shadowlands of betrayal through terminal disorientation of disease, Immanuel. Because that wound is real, the death was certain here, beyond reason, beyond the apocalypse of private disasters, is something else is Life beyond life, beyond heartbreak beyond assassination, beyond the tremblor at 3 in the afternoon, beyond the amnesiac cancer of the mind. Here, under our finger, is faith, here is hope, and He asks us, against the brutal heel on the locked door the harsh fist of imploding earth the shroud covered bier— “Love one another.” John Robert Lee JOHN ROBERT LEE (b. St. Lucia 1948) has published several collections of poetry. His short stories and poems have been widely anthologised. His reviews and columns have appeared with regularity in newspapers, local and regional. He has also produced and presented radio and television programmes in St. Lucia for many years. His books include Saint Lucian (1988), Artefacts (2000), Canticles (2007), Elemental (2008), Sighting (2013), City Remembrances (2016). He compiled and edited Roseau Valley and other poems for Brother George Odlum (2003), Bibliography of Saint Lucian Creative Writing 1948-2013 (2013); he co-edited Saint Lucian Literature and Theatre: an anthology of reviews (2006) with fellow St. Lucian poet Kendel Hippolyte and co-edited Sent Lisi: poems and art of Saint Lucia (2014) with Kendel Hippolyte, Jane King and Vladimir Lucien. Editor's note: Some of the photos shown with John Robert Lee's Haiti earthquake sequence were not the original photos that he was inspired by. Where unable to obtain permission to show specific photographs, Ekphrastic has substituted public domain imagery that is related to the pieces. In this case, the author and editor believe the subject matter is so important and timely again that selecting related imagery was the best option. Both paintings are the original inspiration. Rothko Meant Nothing
canvases painted in one colour. Where the detail? I've painted house walls with one colour. Modern art is crap. Money for nothing then I saw the ordinary light of a wintered Humber Estuary subtle difference to the sky and understood. Paul Brookes Paul Brookes has performed in poetry performance group "Rats for Love" and is included in their "Rats for Love: The Book" Bristol Broadsides, 1989. His first chapbook "The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley" by Dearne Community Arts, 1993. He has read his work on BBC Radio Bristol and had a creative writing workshop for sixth formers broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live. Patina
A black man in 1890 painted these gorgeous glowing onions. Don’t ask why his colour matters. Colour mattered when he painted the crock, the kettle, the onions, their lovely coppery-gold patina. Still does. Still life. Tricia Marcella Cimera This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere. She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website. Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox. Moth Man
Lorette C. Luzajic 12x12" mixed media on canvas $125 Did you know? You can support The Ekphrastic Review by purchasing a small artwork or photography print by Lorette at Etsy. Ekphrastic readers and writers will receive a special 25% discount. Just enter EKPHRASTIC25 at check out. The story of the West Virginia mothman- which in turn inspired the 1975 book by John Keel- inspired this creepy, surreal work. The legend began in the '60s when some gravediggers all saw an eerie, impossible sight, a human figure flying. Other sightings were reported in different counties. Although experts believe folks were viewing a seven foot crane, the story had already taken root in the popular imagination. 12x12" work comes ready to hang, or frame as desired. Thank you for supporting my creative practice. Bacchus Brings Her
Bacchus brings her blue-violet bunches from a landscape teeming with patina’d clouds. Trees bend around her but their bare bark offers no protection against wind. She crouches no cave no pelt no warmth. He brings her leopard skin and nectar. He brings her to a cave steaming with warm waters. He shelters her under his shaggy brow licks his lips and scatters grapes like amethysts on a dry floor. Taunja Thomson This poem was written for the 20 Poem Challenge. Taunja Thomson: "My poetry has most recently appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic and will be featured in the September 2016 issue of Halcyon Days. Two of my poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Award: “Seahorse and Moon” in 2005 and “I Walked Out in January” in 2016. I have co-authored a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry which has recently been accepted for publication and have a writer’s page at https://www.facebook.com/TaunjaThomsonWriter" Seeing No Tomorrow Dead wood hard and brittle that won’t take fire veins choked with dust heartwood black as the space between the stars strange as dark matter a grief invisible and wordless so deep the world moves back forever out of reach no welcome for you in that perfect light no absolution- you are the opposite of possibility a stopped watch a dead end a mouth without a tongue a bridge that ends abrupt in empty air Mary McCarthy This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals, including Earth's Daughters, Gnarled Oak, Third Wednesday and Three Elements Review. She is grateful for the wonderful online communities of writers and poets sharing their work and passion for writing, providing a rich world of inspiration, appreciation, and delight. Furious Answers
The answer is definitely NO! I don't want a hopeless sky layered with shades of dark grey diffusing to pale teal on the near horizon. I don't want my view squared off limited and restricted by blank, silent or unstretched canvas. I want hope I want light sunlight and nuances of shade. I want colour nature humanity. I want contesting contrasting startling arresting uplifting questioning visions. I want painters, photographers carvers and engravers, collagists and ceramicists weavers and wordsmiths with their delicious, curious, glorious, furious answers to burst from the frames set my mind on fire. Sue Dymoke This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Sue Dymoke is Reader in Education and National Teaching Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research focuses on poetry pedagogy (for example: Dymoke, Barrs, Lambirth and Wilson, Making Poetry Happen: transforming the poetry classroom, published by Bloomsbury in 2015). Her second full poetry collection is Moon at the Park and Ride (2012, Shoestring Press) and she is published widely in poetry magazines. Sue blogs occasionally at http://suedymokepoetry.com. |
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