​Andrew’s Flowers
 
The scent of flowers … hyacinths,
lilacs, lavender … overwhelms.
But my eyes focus on petals,
stamens, slender stalks, turned 
under leaves.  The dirt caked
around his fingernails.  Especially
the toasted brown soil clinging
to nail beds.  As flower
roots cling in garden 
beds.  
 
Andrew.  He murmurs 
his name.  Two syllables.                                
Aster.  Iris.  Laurel.  His hands 
grasp, cradle blue poppies, 
splashes of yellow peeking 
like eyes under droopy
lids.
   
The flower market before
dawn.  I flit between stalls,
listen to water buzzing in
metal buckets, doves
cooing from rafters, 
clippers snipping dried 
leaves, spent blooms. 
 
Yet I return to watch Andrew.
Mud crusts his sleeves, blue 
somewhere underneath.  
Poppy blue

​Kathryn Schmeiser
​
Kathryn Schmeiser is the author of two poetry and photography collections.  She has had poems published in Cadence 2024 (Florida State Poets Association Anthology), CSPS (California State Poetry Society) Poetry Letter, Message in a Bottle (Highland Park Poetry Publication), Of Poets & Poetry (Publication of the Florida State Poets Association), Poets for Peace Sunflowers Rising: Poems for Peace Anthology and The Reach of Song.  Her poems have received national and state awards.  She is a member of Poets for Peace (NFSPS) and was a submissions review reader for Sunflowers Rising: Peace Poems Anthology, 2025.

The Course of Rivers

Old River,
you’re a squatter by nature.
Nourished by pelting rains
and glacier’s melting, 
your watery heart erodes
the continental crust,
craving gully and waterfall,
source to mouth, reshaping the landscape.

Old River,
I climb the grassy hillside
where you flow
gathering strength, you persevere;
endure
the sublime task
of pushing forward.

I am young when I first hoist
your sediment onto the shallow
blade of a sturdy shovel.
I watch as your stream widens,
alters course.
I keep digging.
Waterholes appear and deepen.
Thirty farmlands lie waiting below.

I am like you, Old River.

I am the headwaters sprinting downhill.
I am the shifting and reshaping of rock.
I am aimless with meandering
through deltas and floodplains.
I travel beside you
watering all things along our path.

Marilyn Gove

Marilyn Gove lives in Plymouth, Mass, "America's Hometown," where the Mayflower Pilgrims first landed in 1620.  In September, 2024 she was invited to write an ekphrastic poem for a juried art show at Plymouth’s Center for the Arts. Marilyn “fell head over heels” for the genre and has been invited back to participate in the Center’s Ekphrastic event this fall. Her poem later appeared in the publication, Visual Inverse 2024, Words & Images in Conversation. Additionally, her work has been published in the online journal Verse-Virtual, an Anthology of Poems by the Tuesday Evening poets, and its sequel, Second Harvest.

My Mother Died in Her Sleep                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Her body, bed and oxygen
had moved to new rooms 
by nine. We sat on her rug
among the mysteries she fondled 
and the webs she couldn’t sweep.
By afternoon she was dust. 
I watched her paint 
with a knife this gull on the ground
with folded wings. 
It broods beside a fallen 
nest with three eggs. 

I’m one of those eggs.
A living mask watches 
the bird from a winter tree
more motion than wood.
A gold cloud floats
from the mask 
like a second head.
A blue glow from these and these 
rooms beyond the frame 
illuminates the falling snow.
My wife’s long hair 

emerges from this painting 
behind her in my videos 
of her playing piano solos 
for the church website in this Covid 
winter of distance worship. 
She repeats intricate 
phrases until her fingers trill 
like hummingbird wings 
beneath her moving face 
and arms. Parkinson’s 
slows her left hand.

​Christopher L. Dornin

This poem and painting were first published in Choeofpleirn.
​
Christopher Laird Dornin has won a New Hampshire Arts Council fellowship in poetry and placed runner-up in the 2023 Swan Scythe chapbook contest, semi-finalist in the 2024 Finishing Line book contest and semi-finalist in the 2025 Wolfson Press chapbook contest. His verse has appeared in The Lake, Oberon, Mudfish, Blue Unicorn, Nimrod and other journals. He has also earned 22 New England journalism awards. 

His late mother, Margaret Laird Dornin, sold dozens of paintings in the Pittsburgh and eastern Ohio region during the 1950s and 1960s. Her style evolved from an early realism, to wild abstraction, to a mature blend of the two styles in this piece, Mask in Tree." Her work once hung alongside paintings by Picasso and Klee, this at a time when women artists received little recognition.

Start the new year off with an interesting immersion in art with this unique asynchronous workshop. Join us for this unique writing experience where you will follow clues and prompts provided by the The Ekphrastic Academy to discover a variety of intriguing paintings and other works of visual art. You will use books of art you have on hand, online research, or even a gallery or museum visit to search for works that could fulfill the clues given. These will be open ended and open to interpretation, with suggestions curated to inspire an entertaining and thought-provoking search experience with multiple possibilities. From your discoveries, you will choose the work that speaks to you and use a prompt provided or your imagination to write a story or poem inspired by that work.

You can use your scavenger hunt finds to create poetry, flash fiction, or CNF.

The workshop will take place asynchronously on your own schedule, while connecting with others to share your ideas and discoveries, and your drafts, in a private Facebook group.

There will be an optional afterparty on Sunday evening at 6 pm to 7 pm eastern time on zoom, where we will discuss our search, the artworks we discovered, and how our writing was inspired.

Arguably the most important artist in modern history, Picasso broke all the rules to create a new understanding of the meaning of visual art. Driven, prolific, obsessive, and self-obsessed, his pioneering imagination changed the art world forever. Pablo Picasso is as famous for his misogyny and megalomania as for his art. How should we approach his legacy in this light?
In this session, we will look at the life and legend of Picasso, his work, and his story. We will discuss the muses that fuelled his paintings. And we will use his works to inspire our own poems and stories in some creative writing exercises.

In the pop age of mass manufacturing, advertising, and factory-made production of everything from fashion to food, pop art rose up to declare that the everyday taste of the masses were of monumental importance. For some artists, this was a celebration of common taste and for others, this was a commentary on commercialism.

Join us for an overview of pop art, its meanings, its luminaries, and its trajectory. We will look at the history of pop art, then write our own poems inspired by some fascinating works of pop art.

When the Aunties Come, I Am Out the Door
 
after Leonora Carrington’s Old Maids with a nod to T. S. Eliot 
 
In the yellow fog of a great green room women 
come and go talking of Michelangelo and magic,
while the magpies feast on nutcake and seeds
and the capuchin traces the table’s edge,
hoping for pie
 
which the tallest auntie carries into the room,
her coif nearly touching the ceiling. In fact, they are all
tall except for the one in chronic pain, a halo of needles 
piercing her head and neck; the “transcendent one” 
holds the center with a face bright as the sun, her cup 
in hand, her black cloak covering all but her pointy toes.
 
The other three sisters sip their tea
beneath odd-shaped hats towering high.
See the beehive-with-brim, the four-layered “trifle”, 
the hat like a lampshade. Only the pie sister 
hatless, hair loose.
 
A white bird perches near the brazier, on the arm 
of an asymmetrical chair with legs possibly animate.
Teapot and honey set aside, the old maids have an agenda-
which does not concern me-- clearly not of this world.
When the aunties come, table laid before the evening is spread 
out against the sky, I am out the door, the cat not far behind.

Rachel Barton
 
Rachel Barton is a poet and editor whose most recent publications were in The Hare’s Paw, Cirque, and Main Street Rag. Her recent collection, Jacob’s Ladder, and her previous, This is the Lightness, are available through her website. She lives in the land of the Kalapuya and fills her freezer with blueberries from her front yard. See rachelbartonwriter.com for more information.

​The Jester
 
By this time of the night, Cindy had drunk a little too much port. She wished her godmother had given her a fan to complete her outfit. It would sure come in handy right now, what with the alcohol, the latex mask and the attentions of the court jester.

As the night had gone on, his jokes had got funnier and funnier. At least, to her ears. That he was neglecting his duties in entertaining the Prince to flirt with her he’d worry about tomorrow. Cindy was by far the prettiest girl at the ball, a vision of loveliness in cream and pink, just like a frosted cake, and he was dying to see what colour her hair was under that silver costume wig. 

The jester could tell her nose was dainty and her eyes a beautiful aquamarine, which matched her fur-trimmed cape, fringed by dark eyelashes. He suspected she wasn’t a natural blonde or redhead for that reason, but it didn’t matter to him. He quite liked a raven-haired beauty.

When Prince George walked past, the jester leaned in and whispered to Cindy a rumour that a servant had caught the Prince dressed in the queen's gowns on at least two occasions. She giggled hysterically, and the Prince, who had a prickling sensation at the back of his neck that he was being laughed at, turned and approached the jester.

He was enraged. “Have you no pantomime for your king’s entertainment tonight, jester?”

The jester winked at Cindy and said, “Of course. One moment.” He stood unsteadily, having consumed twice as much port as she had. He wanted to impress her. Thinking quickly, he asked her for her cape. “Why yes, of course,” said Cindy, sounding surprised.

He staggered past the court’s guests to make his way to the front of the orchestra.

Excited twitters ran through the crowd who’d heard the exchange. The jester was a popular member of the court, his wit and comedy legendary, and they’d not seen much of him all night.

He put the voluminous cape on, wrapped a nearby silk curtain tassel around his waist and pranced about on his tiptoes, mimicking the walk of a lady in high heels holding up the hem of her skirts.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I present to you Princess Georgina of the Court of King Rupert III,” he parodied.

There were audible gasps as the jester, in fine form now, pranced and pirouetted around on his mock heels, giggling like a young girl and feigning swooning.

Cindy, who’d just heard about the Prince’s predilection for wearing feminine attire, suddenly jumped to her feet. “It’s nearly midnight. I must meet my carriage,” she said to no one.

She dared not try to retrieve her cape, so with no one to witness, for they were all watching the jester in varying degrees of humour and horror, she slipped away through the ballroom door.

“Enough!” roared the prince.

It took the jester a couple of minutes to notice that no one was laughing anymore despite the nervous giggles that had first accompanied his parody. Then he noticed Cindy was no longer seated at the table. Only a silver slipper with a pink bow remained.

He sobered up quickly after the guards threw buckets of icy cold water over him in the dungeons. But he would not sign an apology. His performance had been the pinnacle of his career. As they beat him to a pulp, he hoped Cindy wasn’t cold without her cape. 

His last memory of her as he slipped out of consciousness was of her delicate scent: spices like cloves and cinnamon used in pumpkin pie.

Rosie Copeland

Rosie Copeland lives in New Zealand by the sea with her husband and cat. Mayhem, The Ekphrastic Review, Ethelzine, Frazzled Lit, and Tarot, among others, have published her work, and she has been a finalist in several poetry and fiction competitions. Rosie has also been anthologized which is not as painful as it sounds!

​The Invisible Ghost (In Death, as in Life)

She often / rests against the / old / grandfather clock / at the foot of the / worn / wooden stairs / in the now / slumbering hallway / a clock / that was actually / coincidentally / made by her / grandmother / A woman who discovered / quite by accident / the venerable craft of clockmaking / Her hands were treasures / creating the most exquisite time pieces / from pediment to plinth /  
 
Many times / from when the sun rose until dusk / she would lean on her grandmother’s / old / grandfather clock / feeling the tick tock of the pendulum / back and forth / back and forth / swaying slowly / rhythmically / like a far-off lullaby / as if it was / the heartbeat / of her grandmother’s /once /warm bosom  
 
Every other day / when the tours of the old house began / and / people would come from the / many / rounded corners of the world / she would prop herself up against her grandmother’s  / grandfather clock / waiting eagerly / to tell the visitors the / amazing tale / the history of / her grandmother’s / exquisite / grandfather clock / sometimes even mimicking / her /grandmother’s voice
 
But no one / saw her / nor / heard her / even those / that called themselves / enlightened / until / utterly exasperated and bereft / she fell dead asleep / against her grandmother’s / beautiful / grandfather clock / knowing time would tick / forward / into another / restrainedly / hopeful / day

J.G. Simiński 
​
J.G. Simiński was a finalist for the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Poetry Award and as one of 15 writers for the 2025 PEN America Emerging Voices Workshop, and was a 2024 Poetry Fellowship recipient of the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, recipient of a 2025 T.S. Eliot Summer School, scholarship, Merton College, Oxford. Simiński’s poetry has appeared widely in many journals.  Simiński's essay was shortlisted by The Fountain Magazine. Story Shares selected Simiński as the Gay Pride Author of 2024 for an LGBTQ story.  Simiński studied Shakespeare and the Classics at Balliol College, Oxford through a special program associated with Juilliard and U.C.L.A.
​

Crossing 
 
Two sides:                              An entire story in one frame. 
                                                All juxtapositions.
 
Light of hope                         dark storm clouds.
 
Peace of the blue sky           the majestic power of a squall.
 
The magnificence of a huge sky and lake (despite the title given later) in turmoil.
 
Tissot caught the scene on the boat, John Martin exposed the storm, 
but Rembrandt  displayed  both. An intimate scenario captured within an enormous tempest.
 
Rays of sunlight                     from one side of the painting, lead my eyes to the face of Jesus, 
sitting on a cushion               in the darkness on the other,
 
woken from slumber by panicked followers, most clinging on to parts of
the boat for their lives; Peter, with his knife, a few men bent near Jesus pleading and questioning. 
 
One poor lad vomiting. I feel for him, having personally been in the last ferry allowed across 
the English Channel in a storm where the boat in front had to be rescued. Those waves were big, 
and one's stomach is churned harder than the waves of the sea. I can certainly relate.
 
And Rembrandt himself, Hitchcock-like in his own scene, holds on to his hat with one hand 
and a rope with the other, looking through the '4th wall', straight at us viewing the scene 
as if we have a telescope trained on the boat and he has noticed us watching him.
 
We know the ending to the story, 
Jesus rebuking the storm   calm descending.
Rembrandt hints at this with his patch of blue sky appearing, but he has given us
humanity, in all its chaos and panic, responding badly to a situation, despite 
the solution is in front of them in the boat., sleeping on a cushion.
 
The painting, stolen, cannot be seen by us personally. The search continues,
as we search for the One invisible but always present with us in our little boats in the storms.

Rena Ong

​Rena Ong is an English poet based in Singapore whose work appears in such publications as Ekstasis, A Given Grace, Montfort Review and anthologized in several Mingled Voices Hong Kong, along with  Studio Press Sydney and Fish Publishing in Ireland. Her poems have been displayed in gallery settings in Canada and Japan, and publicly read in Hong Kong and Singapore. an upcoming poem in Haiku shack . USA in 2025. Her poetry review writing also appears internationally.