Child
After a feverish night, she brings the quieted babe to the edge of the wood. Her narrow path is well trodden, soil worn smooth by the passing of many feet. The air is crisp, the scent of green life and gray decay mingle in the cool air wafting from the dark forest. She cradles the baby in her lap, her farm hands dark against the luminescent child, her daughters’ fair skin blending with the ashen tones of the swaddling cloth. O babe, world of wonder and beauty, sweet scented perfection. In a gesture so subtle, so distinct, she leans back at the appearance of a slight Slavic figure, hooded, who now bends tenderly to the child as if to breathe in her still scent. One hand digs into the folds of her baby’s blanket while the other falls away. Elizabeth Burnside This poem was written as part of the surprise ekphrastic Halloween challenge. Elizabeth Burnside's poems have been been published in the I-70 Review, Fourth River, Plum Tree Tavern and The Ekphrastic Review, among other places. She found this painting one of the most haunting of the Halloween Challenge.
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Ghost Ship
Mary Celeste you look adrift encompassed from keel to topmast of fibrous ivory linen tendons disheveled but seaworthy your last log entry was dated ten days ago personal belongings appear undisturbed where are your captain and his wife their two-year-old daughter the crew of seven at this moment there is no sign of wind approaching except for storm cloud grey azure water hash marked by brigantines are you there you are the banded hamstring connecting sky to water the space between them looks fathomable incalculable intelligence of ether and aqua somehow keeps you afloat how to measure it do they even touch do they interlace their fingers cup your keel in their hands from rudder to hull if you’re indeed wet do the sea salts and chill air surround you or slip through you are the heat and cold real riddle me this barrels of denatured alcohol and a crew composed of parallel arrays of collagen closely packed together elastin proteoglycans copper manganese calcium cartilaginous zones reticulin fibers vascular walls capillary membranes all are entangled in a sealed hold atoms are mostly empty space nothing stands still sinew is flexible but makes for inelastic bulkheads it is impossible to predict when a particular atom will decay your passengers may be simultaneously both alive and dead I fear unresolved suspicions your inconclusive nature fosters mystery false details of methylated spirits and fantasy in a state of quantum superposition dense irregular sheaths connect to random subatomic events that may or may not occur show me truth both sacred and profane open your hatch Amy Baskin Amy Baskin’s work is featured in What Rough Beast, Fire Poetry Journal, The Ghazal Page, Postcards, Poetry & Prose, Dirty Chai, Panoply, Riddled With Arrows, and more. She is a 2016 Willamette Writers Kay Snow Poetry award recipient for her poem “About Face.” A Nun —Henriette Browne (1859); oil on canvas; 92.4 x 73.6 cm Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti Bergamo, Italy The time of day set still as stone for prayer Nones, that ninth hour after dawn, that place I’m looking, wimple wound around her head Drawn to shadow under chin, the sheer black habit Of praying, the pages with their red rims That long path on the way to finding grace. Her heavy lids like louvers closing in On infinity. She seems a novice-- A cover girl for nuns—that parchment robe The unity within the whole The composition triangulated Each shape solid and weightless, so balanced Something so pellucid I remember Kneeling in a pew—nave, nun, that pale light— Sharon Tracey Sharon Tracey is a writer, editor and author of the poetry collection, What I Remember Most Is Everything (ALL CAPS PUBLISHING, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Ekphrasis, The Ekphrastic Review, Naugatuck River Review, Silkworm, and are forthcoming in Canary and Common Ground Review. Art and nature are recurring themes in her work. She has enjoyed a varied career as an environmentalist, policy analyst, editor and communications director. She is currently working on a series of poems featuring women artists of the past five centuries. Sweet Slumber Been a tough day down here, God knows: this one all knees and chest and feet and now folded in half on the hard subway bench to make way for the guy in boxers who dangles an unlit cigarette from his lips. Though the “E” never did encourage such sprawling-- just read the car-cards or the faces of the rest-- as it heads for Jamaica Yards all the way east where all trains go to spend the wee hours and get half-cleaned and aired-out, or if not the skeleton crew might at least kick back and light up a smoke of their own. But at 3 am, the graveyard cop has passed with nary a nudge from the nightstick he’s twirled so all might take proper note-- with only an imperceptible shrug at the one in boxers. This guy’s seen it all and some fights are just worth less this time of night now when all might get to where they’re going with just a baby-dose of live-and-let-live, an accompanying sigh that says life’s too damn short and who the hell would disagree, least of all the guy with the sketchpad, him making like he’s found a higher purpose when he’s pretty much the same as us, riding the “E” the middle of the night, finding another way of murdering time. Alan Walowitz Alan Walowitz’s poems can be found on the web and off. He’s a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry, and teaches at Manhattanville College and St. John’s University. His chapbook, Exactly Like Love, was published by Osedax Press in 2016 and is now in its second printing. Go to alanwalowitz.com for more poems and more information. Tim Savage, a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru, is a graphic designer, fine artist, and teacher of art, calligraphy, and web design. He’s won numerous awards in watercolour, oils and pastel painting and is a published illustrator. Tim’s a member of the Art League of Nassau County, the National Art League, and is an active volunteer in the Inkwell Foundation, an organization that brings cartoonists and illustrators together with children in need. He can be found on the web at http://timsavageteacher.com/ harbingers T concerned for U V W-X riffed no notice plucked from farm of cube signs dark days had come Z peering over partition hoping alphabet coup Orwell said of the work [ R E D A C T E D ] & now mad scramble N’s in with 2’s & U’s doubled over into T’s sector labial glubs & fricative grit of drowning sailors doomed aboard capsized ships fled as emptiness floods each tight compartment none part of today’s tomorrow’s stenciled crate Whole lotta H C J K 3 left on everyone’s mind & What can be spelt without U’s V’s W’s X How language dies & dies & dies again entombed in letter setter’s inconvenient box lost Ask hard questions close eyes camera moves in hear hard answers cringe while the other side faces to the floor hide single U V W-X Tony Brewer This poem was first published in Bobo Books: 1.1.1: Vol. 2. 2017. Tony Brewer is chair of the Writers Guild at Bloomington, Indiana; executive director of the Spoken Word Stage at the 4th Street Festival; festival director of Slam Camp at Indiana University; and one-fourth of the performance troupe Reservoir Dogwoods. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016 and he has 3 books: Hot Type Cold Read (Chatter House Press), Little Glove in a Big Hand (Plan B Press), and The Great American Scapegoat (self-published). St. Matthew and the Angel
From behind his right shoulder she leans close by, hand resting lightly, wild hair a cascade, daughter of earth and sky, lips imparting revelation. Perhaps she was there, invisible attendant at the birth, hovering over tentative steps, or one of the host who comforted in the desert of temptation and grief. The old man pauses, veined hand rising to finger his beard, comes wisdom in candlelight, far beyond his own poor experience of life, dares to write the unearthly story that threatens the social order, lived by someone sacrificed for a world unready to hear it. No more ready are they in this newer age rife with fear, pettiness, dreams for better, for words he can barely comprehend himself, overwhelming those who will read them, unmoored, adrift in their fragility. His hands cover his face, he works free the fatigue, picks up the pen to write words distorted, as they must be, by the lens of his humanity, mere shadows of words, the mist, not the flood, that bleeds through his pen to the page. Eileen Mattmann Eileen Mattmann’s poetry has appeared in several print and online poetry journals. She began writing poetry after a long teaching career. Untitled 1951-52
my heart pounds, gut clenched like a fist - I look straight up the far left side of the tall canvas wall like a world trade tower, like a redwood tree and my spirit grasps the edges of flat black emerging from the upper left drawing it over me, a blanket of darkness, this is how hope enters a field of fear and violence - the raw red wound reaching down through glossy blackness - the colours blood can be, this open field killing ground, the things blood can become. M.J. Arcangelini M.J. Arcangelini was born 1952 in western Pennsylvania. He has resided in northern California since 1979. He began writing poetry at age 11, stories in his teens and memoirs in his late 40′s. His work has been published in a lot of little magazines, small newspapers and 9 anthologies. He is the author of two poetry collections: “With Fingers at the Tips of My Words” 2002 and “Room Enough” 2016. Arcangelini maintains an occasional blog of poetry and prose at https://joearky.wordpress.com/ Moments of Pause Red-hooded, she stands Solitary, patient Aware of her own Unawareness. The sheep Graze behind her, Backs facing back Accenting time’s irrelevance. I crave moments like these When peace and harmony Seem inevitable. Instead, It is usually rush and stretch Go and scatter. Some days I stop too, Cloaked in my synthetic fibers. But instead of calmly peering At knitting needles, creating, I am staring at my smart phone Desperate for answers to questions About lamb eye health, Droopy ewes, dewormers Safe for lactation. I strive for her contentedness Though I know it is fleeting, Those moments of pause when all You need are sun breaks, fresh Grass and the passive, soothing Sighs of your own breath. Jessica Gigot Jessica Gigot, Ph.D, M.F.A, is a poet, farmer, teacher and musician. She has a small farm in Bow, WA, called Harmony Fields that grows herbs, lamb and specialty produce. She also offers educational & art workshops through her Art in the Barn series. Jessica has lived in the Skagit Valley for over ten years and is deeply connected to the artistic and agricultural communities that coexist in the region. Her writing has been published in the Floating Bridge Press Review, Poetry Northwest, About Place Jounrnal and All We Can Hold: Poems of Motherhood. Her first book of poems, Flood Patterns, was published by Antrim House Books in 2015. Winter in Petrograd
is a blue window awake on the wide space of poverty, tiny in the cold water dawn streets whitening, gasping windows breathing the wide canvas air unclothed in the simplest language apple winter dawn Mark Silverberg Mark Silverberg is the author of the Eric Hoffer award-winning ekphrastic poetry collection, Believing the Line: The Jack Siegel Poems (Breton Books, 2013). His poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Antigonish Review, The Nashwaak Review and Contemporary Verse 2. He is an Associate Professor of English at Cape Breton University where I specializes in American poetry, visual arts, and artistic collaborations. I Knew This Girl in High School
This could be her, at least, this is how I remember her, older than us, wiser, out-of-reach eyes letting everything in. Junior boys who got drunk on Saturday nights all wanted her. She let cigarettes burn to ropes of ash, drank Tequila shots, lemon and salt a sacrament. She drew lilies in textbooks, hid her poetry under the bed. She blew classes with senior boys. They wagered on the colour of her pubic hair, listened to her as they would their mother. Rumours of an older man, she dropped out of college, backpacked through Europe. At a used bookstore, I found a poetry chapbook, Charcoal Lilies, cover art by the poet, keep it under my bed. Billy Howell-Sinnard Billy is a hospice case manager, visual artist, and poet. He's had numerous first, second, and third place wins at IBPC (InterBoard Poetry Community). His poem, Hospice Nurse, won second place for poem of the year for 2014-2015. Several of his poems have been published in anthologies and at online poetry sites. |
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