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Ravens, by Aldona Dziedziejko

12/25/2019

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Raven, by Henry Busse (Northwest Territories, Canada) exact date unknown, c. 1950s?

​Ravens 
 
On our way 
to the dump 
through a narrow winter trail 
a stark sight-- 
obsidian topped white tamaracks.  
 
Like x-mas tree toppers, 
except smouldering inside 
their anthracite coal  
blackness 
those ravens sat smack dab  
on lanky conifer leaders. 
 
Heads tucked low  
into the down of their napes, they looked sullen 
watching the snow lay a thin gauze 
on household detritus-
ghost appliances, shattered crates,  
dismantled cabin frames,  
torn plastic bags overflowing with scraps. 


Gaudy flowers spilling  
from the horn of plenty in a Rococo painting. 
 
The birds lost their grease-slick sheen of Autumn back
when they surfed updrafts,  
and pierced quickly and swiftly through vacuum packed steaks  
sat aside for porch BBQ’s. 
 
Now like us they’re slow, introspective 
on the lookout 
for crummy treasures 
in frozen images of boreal lore.  
 
Aldona Dziedziejko 

Aldona Dziedziejko is a Polish-Canadian poet and academic. Her poems appeared in Antithesis (SFU), Juice (U of W), CV2 (Winnipeg), subTerrain (Vancouver), Poetry is Dead (Vancouver) and the Nanaimo Art Gallery's "How can we speak differently?" event (Nanaimo). She has received the Lina Chartrand Poetry Award for an emerging poet in celebration of women’s achievements in writing.  She is currently living in a remote hamlet in the Northwest Territories teaching visual art and special projects. 
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Three Roads, by Stephen Kingsnorth

12/24/2019

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Distant View of Nazareth, by Holman Hunt (UK) 1861

Three Roads

The village, we hear, nestles,
but at crossroads people-watching
the banter carries
headlines and domesticity -
family feuds, deals done and battles won
to ears of growing wisdom,
amongst the shavings with a rural eye.
So childhood is no refuge,
from tattling tales, gabbling tongues,
prattling cackle or serenity.

The pilgrims pass with sorrow
and thanksgiving doves
though in the pack is stored
continued searching worry.

Caravans plod south,
arrogant humped carriers
bringing barter,
and if the scam succeeds
assured pot-bellied boasters
rehearse their returning brilliance
even as the pilgrims pass.

And crossing through
the battle wearied columns
meet the fresh-faced conscripts,
sneer and swear,
revile the money-making proud
and maybe curse the travellers,
but smile inwardly at worshippers
who remind them of their mothers.

Stephen Kingsnorth

Stephen Kingsnorth, retired from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces accepted for publication by Nine Muses Poetry; Voices Poetry Blog; Eunoia Review; Runcible Spoon; Ink Sweat and Tears; The Poetry Village; The Seventh Quarry; Gold Dust; From the Edge and Allegro Poetry. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/


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To Gainsborough, by Kate Rigby

12/23/2019

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A Peasant Girl Gathering Faggots in a Wood, Thomas Gainsborough (UK) 1782

To Gainsborough

Tiring of face painting, your confounded ugly creatures,
you retreat to your old landscape love.
Great loose sweeps of your brush describe,
without precision, the indifferent, darkening sky.
The afflicted tree extends its blighted stumps
which, viewed from the cottage in its glady dell,
stands for the damaged, dirty soldier limping
unrecognised, uncompensated, home from cruel wars.
 
But this won’t pay the rent.  Your swimmy, silken sheen
conjures a child, both ragged and fancy. 
Shame on you, Thomas, to so exploit the rural poor. 
Mood music of humility and gratitude seeps out,
just what your buying public wants to hear. 
As the oval of her curls frames the shining sadness of her face, 
so must your generous heart 
have been constrained to paint her so.
 
But, Thomas, I accept the rough unfinished hands
and little slippered feet
as your apology.

Kate Rigby


Kate Rigby is a part-time poet and part-time historian, living in Manchester and luxuriously dividing her time between researching for the National Trust, creating displays in a historic library, and reading (and less frequently writing) poetry for her own pleasure. Kate has had poems published in journals such as Antiphon, Scrittura, Cannon’s Mouth and this month she appears in an anthology of Manchester poets writing about Peterloo.  
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Persephone, by Jane Blanchard

12/22/2019

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The Return of Persephone, by Frederic Leighton (England) 1891
 
​Persephone
 
This business of dividing time is not
The easiest. Six months below with him;
Six months above with her—such means a lot
Of moving out and settling in. For them,
I must abandon home and habits twice
A year and never have a moment to
Myself. It seems the greater sacrifice
Is mine than theirs. I come and go when due
As set forth in a compromise once made
Or rather ordered. Being loved so much
Is less a blessing than a curse. Afraid
I may get used to staying out of touch,
My husband and my mother have proved loath
To understand I always care for both.  

Jane Blanchard

This sonnet, first published in Arion, is part of Jane Blanchard’s third collection, After Before, now available from Kelsay Books.  Jane divides her own time between Augusta and Saint Simon’s Island, Georgia.
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

12/21/2019

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THANK YOU to those who have supported us! We are most grateful for the recent gifts. You know who you are. YOU make this happen!!! We cannot thank you enough.

**

Please consider some love for The Ekphrastic Review this holiday season.

It takes an extraordinary amount of time to read through submissions, post accepted ekphrastic works, respond to queries, promote, seek permissions, and manage the challenges.

We do not want to charge submission fees! Please share some voluntary love with a gift for your favourite journal.

You might not think $5 will be noticed. It will- we very rarely receive gifts!

Small or more, it means so much to us.

We are most grateful for those who have helped us- YOU have helped nourish this amazing project.

Click here to show your love. It's easy with PayPal, or contact us if you want to arrange an alternative way. 

You could sign up for our Book Shelf as well. This greatly benefits us and writers in return. You can list an ekphrastic book or a book by a contributor to the journal for $25 a year. Click here to add a book to our shelves, or buy one from one of our writers!

THANK YOU
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Hunger, by Mark Elber

12/21/2019

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The Boating Party, by Pierre Auguste Renoir (France) 1881

Hunger
 
Under the orange-striped canopy
a densely arrayed table of fruit and wine 
corked bottles mating the fragrance of grape and oak
backs bearing hand-sewn cloth and the rainbows of spring
 
toward the banister a straw-hatted man leans back
trimmed beard, thick forearms and biceps of a body
whose hands earn their keep deep in the soil
ushering gourds and roots into the light
the smell of earth and rain in his pores
 
weeds wade in the water
while on the wooden deck
fourteen lives mingle in the May of 1880
and there’s always a peacock in a crowd, a crow self-promoting its prowess         
cawing its intentions to sow and spread itself over the fecund fields 
 
in this parade of plumage
in this concoction of muscle, meat, finery, fertility, the perfumes of pollination
ache and restraint in the pleats of trousers, the press of dresses
this pitch, this moment ripe and redolent, this pulse, this racing in place
 
for close to a century now, dust

Mark Elber

Mark Elber has been published in various journals among which are four issues of Mudfish, Newtown Literary, The Jerusalem Review, Home Planet News, and The Sierra Nevada College Review. He has an MFA from the low residency program for writers at Warren Wilson College and is the author of The Everything Kabbalah Book and The Sacred Now.  Mark was born in NYC and now lives in Fall River, MA.
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One Day in My Life, by Mary Jo Balistreri

12/20/2019

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Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1942

​​One Day in My Life 

On the morning of September 24, 2019, I wake with a question. What does an ordinary day look like when one pays close attention? 

The lamp casts a shadow of my hand moving across the journal. Intrigued, I press down on the pencil as if trying to imprint time on the page. I feel more than hear the scratch of the Pentel. 

 I write time! 
 
When I look up, the shape of the wind is a river of beech-yellow leaves and I think how we each have our own signature. The wind’s is a loopy flow, with a freedom I don’t feel. Mine is focused with each letter made separately. I want my handwriting to look neat. I want control. 

Turning my attention back to the bedroom, I’m confronted with piles of books under the window on the floor. Looking at them produces discomfort—a reminder they have to be put away. My husband’s expectation.

Hopper’s Nighthawks, for example, lies open, a full two-page spread. It occurred to me that it might be fun to write a haiku sequence to the painting, although it has probably been done. On top of painting are two haiku journals. The Overstory, and Jamison’s, The Recovering fall off to the side along with Midnight in Sicily. This written assignment on top flutters in the breeze.

Back to Nighthawks, I write another haiku in my notebook, ignore the small voice within that tells me I have nothing to contribute.
 
oasis
in the midnight city
of light
 
The cellphone rings and I automatically answer. When the call ends, I drift to the iPad beside me. I scroll through messages, answer a few, until I realize my calm has been replaced with anxiety

Without a segue, sadness sweeps everything else aside. Tuesday, September 24th. This was a Judy Day. I visited her once a week on Tuesday, but yesterday I learned that after our last get-together, she’d died. How could Judy be dead without anyone telling me? I even missed the memorial yesterday having no knowledge of her death. No one called—her sons didn’t call. I think of the gluten-free chocolate-layered cake in the freezer, the one she loved. I was bringing it today along with her black tea. How can she be dead?
            
Later, I sit on the front porch. I look over what I’ve written, observe the sun-juddered trees, the evergreen’s long shadow in the middle of the court. Louise Erdrich’s The Painted Drum lies open on my lap. She speaks of how life will break you, betray you, but you’re here to risk your heart. I did that and Judy is dead. Erdrich’s solution of sitting under an apple tree, listening to apples falling wasting their sweetness, telling myself I’ve tasted as many as I could, doesn’t help with the hurt. Doesn’t help with her death. But I read it again anyway. Just in case.

Mary Jo Balistreri

Mary Jo has three full length books of poetry and one chapbook. She was a musician most of her life but due to the death of a grandchild and a consequent loss of her hearing, she turned to poetry. Mary Jo has always been interested in art and received her BA in art from the U. of Pennsylvania. Please visit her at maryjobalistreripoet.com. She lives in Wisconsin. 

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The Riddle, by Suzanne Richardson

12/20/2019

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Questioner of the Sphinx, by Elihu Vedder (USA) 1836

​The Riddle
 
You are waiting-
The plum pits of your eyes 
Dull. You are so thirsty, you’re a 
Yearning paper bag. You remember
The desert was once an ocean. Picture
A wave of salvation you can drink.  The wetness.
You went looking 
And you found your mortality. The desert at night
A place of beauty, but the path you walked
Vanished like a voice in a canyon. Just the
Swirl of chaos—any way is forward, any
Way is backwards. She reminds you of your mother-
The hard-boiled egg of her eyes 
The lips parted. “Mothers are makers
Of death*”-they have little mercy.
They create things
That will die. Did you think
She could save you? 
Now a half-lion, half-woman
Ponders your fate. You still wait. Why 
Ask for riddles and myths in
Place of politics? Maybe
You would like death better
If you disappeared right away.
Instead of slowly fading
Like a myth in a language 
No one remembers to 
Speak.

Suzanne Richardson

*inspired from "Mothers As Makers of Death" by Claudia Dey, The Paris Review

Suzanne Richardson is currently a professor of English at Utica College in Utica, NY. Her work has appeared in New South, New Ohio Review, and Blood Orange Review, among others.
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Ekphrastic Challenge Responses: Henri Regnault

12/20/2019

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Salome, by Henri Regnault (France) 1870

Shalome, Salomé

She sits sweaty, disheveled- 
a fortunate soldier after the fray.

Muscles in grip of lactic acids,
hair appears as wig covering masculine jaw.

Glorious after the trade-
a dance for a baptist's head.

Victorious with ceremonial sword
presented with bowl of drippings. 

She could have done it
herself, all sinew and physique.

Appearances being their own currency,
let a simple man do a simple job-

elegant energy best expended 
on classical forms.

The ornate box on which she sits
contains no surprise-

velvet pillow cradles 
penny-covered eyes.​

Jordan Trethewey

Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His new, frightening book of verse, Spirits for Sale, is now available on Amazon from Pskis Porch Publishing. Some of his work found a home here, and in other online and print publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal, Fishbowl Press, and is forthcoming in The Blue Nib.  His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. Jordan is an editor at https://openartsforum.com. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com.

**

Salome Danced

When Herod interrupted,
bullying the lithe young lady 
to request some reward, 
Salome told her mother
I find everything I want
in dance, so you pick.
 
An hour later, Herod handed Salome 
a platter bearing a bloodied
severed head- what the hell,
she thought, I dance, damn it. 
I want to dance, that is all!
 
Old John’s fresh ghost
must’ve sensed her passion, fierce,
pure as his own, for his crusty lips 
parted and blew forth a tempest 
that swept Salome away. 
 
Old storytellers say  
she wanders now, dances in trees
come stormy nights… 
 
Oh Salome, the black sky 
flashes gold. I see you, come to dance
outside my rattling window! I will never
interrupt. Your hair slings water
as you pirouette! The wind 
sings wild melodies.
 
Your feet rise and sweep, 
bare and free.

Jessica Federle

J. Federle’s writing has been acquired by The Threepenny Review and The Saturday Evening Post, among others. For a decade, she edited technical writing—engineering reports, medical studies, business proposals… this career spiraled into the madness that now enriches her fantastical (often ghost-riddled) prose and poetry. Born and raised in Kentucky, she earned her MA in 19th-century Romantic poetry at the University of Bristol, England. When not haunting library aisles, she travelled Europe with a handsome Peruvian; they’ve since married and flown off to South America.

**

Queen for a Week
 
The painters have always used
poor girls,
usually prostitutes,
as their stepping-stones
while building themselves 
the pyramids
of artistic glory.
 
"Be a queen for a week,"
they have panted in the ears
of the homeless and the starving
Marias, Jeannes, Marguerites,
Annes, Alices, Mildreds, Ediths,
and Florences to name a few,
and only a few have turned
their offers down.
 
The girls have enjoyed the thrill
of stripping down before the "gentlemen"
and putting on the dresses
usually borrowed from the near-by shops:
to be returned after the week is up.
The girls have enjoyed their glasses of cheap wine
and the plates of cheese, bread, and fruit,
and after a few days,
many have fallen in love with the fancy slavers
since slavers the painters have been,
nothing more and nothing less.
 
But in the hearts of the painters,
love has not been present:
Adam has not found his Eve.
After a week, 
the painters have already been focused 
on the next
projects,
and while the heartbroken
Marias, Jeannes, Marguerites,
Annes, Alices, Mildreds, Ediths,
and Florences to name a few
have been crying and beating on their doors,
the painters have been panting in the ears
of the other homeless and starving girls:
"Be a queen for a week."

Paula Puolakka​

Paula Puolakka (1982) is a Beat poet, writer, and MA (History of Science and Ideas.) She has landed first and second in the poetry and short story contests and challenges held in the USA, Israel, and South Africa. She has also been awarded in a few essay contests held in Finland. Her latest work can be found through, for example, The Reader/Author Connection (May Issue #5 & November/December Issue #8), Woody Guthrie Poets (the "Speak Your Mind" poetry contest anthology,) Arts Quarter Books, Jerry Jazz Musician (Fall 2019 poetry edition,) and The Voices Project.

**

Salome by Regnault

How much would you pay for a dance
If you were a king? Anything you want,
Said Herod to Salome who wove
A spell with her veiled almond eyes,
Hands that fluttered like butterflies,
Hips that hypnotized.

I want the head of John the Baptist
She said when done. Well,
An oath is an oath, Herod sighed.

In Regnault’s Salome, 
a boyish girl, or a girlish boy
doesn’t give a fig
for the fate of a saint,
the knife she cradles
will bring her mother
his head on a platter.

​Ed Meek

Ed Meek has had poems in The Paris Review, the Sun and Plume. High Tide, his new book of poems, is coming out in 2020.

**

Salome

Over the ages you have intrigued us.
We have taken to art to depict your charm,
your sparkle, our fascination like the pull of
north and south magnetic fields.  We have 
dramatized how you seduced the leading 
men of Galilee with dance, how Herod
Antipas, frenzied with wine and wantonness, 
offered you half his kingdom, how you
demanded more; you, bent on blood. 

After two thousand years you still dazzle.
Here you are on canvas, sultry, rosy-cheeked, 
shimmering in gauze golds, your dark tresses,
shadowed face and half-smile as mysterious
and beguiling as the gem-eyed serpent bracelet 
coiled about your upper arm. With one hand on
hip, the other resting on ivory-hefted knife
sheathed in red, you tout danger, a readiness 
to pounce, a willingness to do the dirty work. 
You pose, poised for power, as wild and barbarous
as Dionysian fertility rites. 

But could we be deceived?  Might you have been
simply the lioness’ cub, a damsel distressed, the 
pawn moved on the chessboard by a cold, 
calculating, grudge-holding mother? Were you
caught in a snare like a moth in a spider’s web
when you called for the prophet’s head upon 
the platter? 

Oh, but no matter, Salome. 
Violent delights have violent ends.
Death at last stalked you to a frozen river
and cracked the ice.

Jo Taylor

Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia.  Her favorite genre to teach high school students was poetry, and today she dedicates more time to writing it, her major themes focused on family, place, and faith.  She says she feels compelled to write, to give testimony to the past and to her heritage.  She has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, in Silver Birch Press and in Heart of Flesh Literary Journal.

**


Salomé

After my golden chiffon slips,
his eyes narrow, he gasps, and his 
throat clenches, unable to mutter oh god,

like an umlaut. He offers half
his kingdom—gold, still buried, ripe
vineyards, and fields of fighting men to fill

Southern Galilee’s beds of silk sheets--
and yet, I only ask for one man’s head. 

In my dressing room of honey
and apricot, I don’t gloat my prize.
No blood, no ringlets belonging to the Baptist

scrunching like caterpillars, no furrow-stem 
brow, or solemn tongue. The evidence
is in my taut feet. My platter holds a scimitar

encrust in gold gilt. My platter holds the glint 
of a gibbous moon, and in that moon, sits the black
thistle over my shoulders, and a smirk, and in that smirk, 

is my sheathed tongue. You expect alchemy 
to boil from my mouth, to glean a nest of cocoons
for my room of yellow silks, but look how my platter

fills, and holds room for more.

Miguel A. Soto

​Miguel A. Soto is the Book Review and Website consultant for Jet Fuel Review. His work has appeared in 30N, EFNIKS, Rogue Agent, and other literary journals. He is also a fellow for the Wolny Writing Center. 

**
​
Salome

Flimsily clad
Sassy
All-too-ready

To follow
Mother’s
Greedy footsteps

Messenger
Of God
Soon beheaded

(John neither ate
Nor drank)
His head severed

While Salome
Danced
In step with sin

Knife in hand
Platter
Dripping holy blood

Regnault’s work
Limns
The loathsome deed

Salome
Doesn’t know
The party’s over

Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz writes essays and poetry, with several works published here at The Ekphrastic Review. She is the author of Toward a Peeping Sunrise, a poetry chapbook. Other recent works are in Main Street Rag and Into the Void.

**


The Dance That Made Me Immortal 

First, let me be clear. There were no 
seven veils. The Bible doesn’t even name me.
Yet, I’m not allowed to die.

I’m a woman with a reputation.
At the time, I was just a young girl, trying 
to please Herod, my stepfather. 

He called me out, impromptu, giving me 
my first glass of wine. (They never tell you that 
in the stories.) And when I stood, bowed, 

and started to move, my body curved itself 
into a swan, then a bird in flight. Lost  
in the trance of dance, I didn’t stop 

until the music did. It was one moment
in my life, but it labeled me for centuries. 
Trying to please my parents, Herod 

by dancing, my mom by asking for the head
of John the Baptist. She tended toward 
cruelty when she couldn’t have her way 

with a man. So here I am now in the 19th 
century as Henri Regnault paints me, weary.
His idea of what a Middle Eastern girl might 

have worn in my day. One foot arches seductively 
above a slipper. And there’s plenty of décolleté.
At least, he gave me a smirk to offset such 

a wanton costume. Do these men who imagine me
in ballet, opera, plays, paintings, poetry think 
about me as anything other than an erotic object?

Or about the meaning of my name? Sa-lome, two syllables, 
not three, from the Hebrew "shalom" for peace, 
or "shalem" for whole, complete, the perfect woman?

Sandi Stromberg
​
Sandi Stromberg was a professional magazine feature writer and editor who now enjoys writing poetry. She served on the board of a poetry press for ten years, has been nominated for a Pushcart prize, and had her poetry read on NPR.

**

Dance of Destiny
 
A self-satisfied smile,
Smug and carefree,
Perhaps a trace of imperial majesty
Tinged with some boredom,
A face about to greet the frozen expression of John the Baptist,
Fiery glee, burning
Eyes, pebbles of coal
Half-covered by hair,
Surrounded by wrinkled drapery,
Saffron waves
Etched in silver,
Crinkling with the austere allure of jewels on your dress,
But that you long to escape,
These gilt confines,
Too much for any mind,
All aglow with life
Lying in wait, 
With that triumphant cocked arm,
Confidently poised,
A wily sleeve trickling past the shoulder
In unkempt contentment.
 
Toes arched, 
Ready to dance;
A platter, fit for a king,
Salome ruffles the carpet,
Holding the velvet sheath,
Shrouded in mystery,
Unslippering her restless feet.
Proud to pose for a portrait
To glorify your golden deeds
With their metallic shine,
Like that smile most sly,
Absorbed in time,
Just a moment
Above the richly-patterned Persian box,
Unknown treasures,
Stories inside,
Just like we’ll never know
What, exactly,
Behind that smile
Still hides.

Kathryn Sadakierski

Kathryn Sadakierski draws much of her inspiration from art and nature. She is passionate about combining her love for language with her appreciation for the beauty of art through ekphrastic poetry. Kathryn graduated summa cum laude from Bay Path University with her B.A. in Liberal Studies, and is currently pursuing her Master's degree.

**

personifications

what is this trembling, 
these lines of unreadable script?

why does every image waver
unfixed, falling into its surroundings?

the drunken movement of feet,
the silhouette, illuminated,

shadowed, a dark form
girdled by an aura of intense light--

repelled by the afterimage,
the nakedness of what is not quite there--

always uncertain, these layers
of unveiled mind left untethered

to the movements of the body--
the dance that finds only the precipice

Kerfe Roig

​A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

**

Desire Is a Mule

Desire is a mule
Working for you for twenty years
Like Faulkner
Just for the chance to kick you once
When you’re not looking
And never where you expect
With a foot so soft, arched, petite
As a dragon’s mouth is wide.

Desire dangles from the toe it covers
Ready to drop, but not quite falling,
Not yet.
The heel exposed, juicy and round,
Peelable, luscious,
Perhaps the unseen toes
Pebbled and succulent?
There’s that kick again.
Best worn in red
To the church of beautiful women.

The Comtesse d’Olonne,
A name most difficult to purify,
Went there as bidden,
and with scarlet feet
matching some of the magistrates’ own
mulleus calceus not otherwise purple,
A church full of desire
And plenty of kicking.
 
Herodias’s daughter
Afoot as well and dancing
Carried the desire of her mother
Plating it as a reward
For a dance done by her Salome,
A girl named peace
Who would just as soon have the platter
As the head upon it.

When a jackass and a mare get together
Cobbling a half shoe
Starting with the pointy end
Where maximum thrust is found
But never finishing truly
Half covered
We know it’s there
Darkened or not.

In Dean Martin’s song
“Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
Desire takes hold.
He’s not wrong.
He just hasn’t seen
The foot slide in and out
Or the dagger toes curled round it
Still covered with satin.

Kate Bowers

Kate Bowers is a Pittsburgh based writer who works for a large public school system by day. She has been published previously in The Ekphrastic Review and is a compulsive reader of anything with print on it. So if you find her staring at you oddly, you're probably holding something she can't quite read. Or, she just likes you. Kate is a trained improviser, loves to swim, and is a big fan of gardening and life.


**

Once the Sword
 
Salome is who Mother wanted us to be--
jet black hair in gypsy curls flowing 
over pale shoulders and dressed for the stage.
 
But she complained beginning in grade school
about what she called my Sarah Bernhardt ways.
It took years before I understood the reference.
 
She wanted the look not the voice in third grade 
that could carry across the auditorium in a play 
without microphone.
 
She needed us to invest in our appearance 
because she thought attracting men would take 
us farther down the road than we’d get on our own.
 
It must have been because she never drove a car                   
and that each man got in one and left her behind
one even pushing her out an open door on a curve.
 
When she came home with asphalt in her hair 
and patches of scalp gone we listened but knew 
what she could be like when she started to drink.
 
Because no one actually was as smart as she was 
and those were times when it was better to keep your 
mouth shut, sway your hips and swing a mighty sword.  
 
Kyle Laws
 
Kyle Laws is based out of the Arts Alliance Studios Community in Pueblo, CO where she directs Line/Circle: Women Poets in Performance. Her collections include Ride the Pink Horse (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), Faces of Fishing Creek (Middle Creek Publishing, 2018), This Town: Poems of Correspondence with Jared Smith (Liquid Light Press, 2017), So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press, 2015), and Wildwood (Lummox Press, 2014). With eight nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and France. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press.

**

I Will Dance
 
I smirk today to celebrate my last seduction--
dancing at the banquet wearing a gold gown,
 
thinly veiled by silk. And if I shall dance again
on Herod’s birthday like the motion of the sea
 
rolling back with mischievous clouds above Galilee,
will my mother send another request to behead
 
a man like John the Baptist, who said her marriage
was unlawful? I know you are proud, mother, 
 
that I can entice these men by turning my body 
endlessly in half circles. I miss the severed head 
 
by the dagger I am ready to unsheathe.
For my next dance, no, instead I will ask for 
 
more than a blood trail. I will want 
half the kingdom. I am bent so far now,
 
exotic like an oriental chest,
and inside, a leopard purrs, ready to leap.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit is a mechanical engineer working in the oil & gas industry in Houston, TX. His poems have appeared in various literary journals including The Ekphrastic Review, San Pedro River Review, and The Ocotillo Review. He completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, WA. His most recent collection of poems, Drive the World in a Taxicab, was published by Lamar University Press.

**

Salome

Rejecting her was not an option. And princesses
aren’t sluts. Wasn’t that what he’d called her?
She loved to show her body and when she danced
she felt lust streaming from the men who watched.
Even her father.
After all, they’d always used her.

The time had come to show them who she had
become. A woman. Empowered. In control. 
She had learned in those small hours of many mornings
what it meant to be abused. She’d been five.
Her uncle came into her room, his robes undone.

Her father had insisted on the marriage.
Princesses don’t play. Princesses get sold.
Princesses become queens.
After her uncle it had been her cousin.
So far it had stayed in the family.

Then she’d seen him. Yochanan. And for the first
time she had hungered. She had lusted. He’d been
so beautiful, and he had taken exception to incest and betrayal.
The fool. Did he not know of the real world? She had offered
herself to him, and he had rejected her. She, Salome, would
have her revenge. His head on a plate. 
Nothing less would do to wipe off the stain.

Rose Mary Boehm

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives Lima, Peru. Author of one full-length poetry collection and two chapbooks, her work has been widely published in mostly US poetry journals. Her latest full-length poetry MS, The Rain Girl, has been accepted for publication in June 2020 by Blue Nib. Her poem, ‘Old Love’s Sonnet’, has been nominated for a Pushcart by Shark Reef Journal where it was published in the Summer of 2019.

**

I Have a Certain Reputation

I hear your whispers: Salome the Slut,
Princess Prostitute, Prophet Slayer.

Despite what you’ve heard,
I had no sinister plan 
before my famous dance. 
A hundred times a day, I go back
to that evening, feel all eyes caressing 
my body, know I can win some treasure
with undulating hips 
               and scarves that follow my curves.  

I begin slowly,
        theatrical foreplay, 
                 use my graceful arms to say, 
                                           “Come touch me.” 

I twirl and spin – 
         faster, 
                  faster,  
until Herod swoons, drunk with desire. 

Women have no say 
without using wealthy, powerful men. 
My lewd stepfather revolts me. 

I spot my turns a foot above his head. 
He fancies I’m looking dreamy-eyed 
at him, but it’s the Baptist’s eyes I see, 
looking straight through me 
to a dark place. I know he’s locked
in a cell below.

Herod offered me a reward.
Mother chose John’s head.
I got the blame.

I believe the Baptist knew
exactly what was coming.

Alarie Tennille

​Alarie Tennille graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She’s now lived more than half her life in Kansas City, where she serves on the Emeritus Board of The Writers Place. Her latest poetry book, Waking on the Moon, contains many poems first published by The Ekphrastic Review. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.





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Spirit of Myth, by Karla Daly

12/19/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
Hierarchical Birds, by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia) 1942

​Spirit of Myth
 
Some things never change.
Take, for instance, 
the hierarchy of birds.
 
At the lowest level,
principalities, archangels, or angels
with brown and sheer white tail feathers 
rise out of layers of aqua.
 
Above them, a band of soil
flecked with gold and darkest brown
is scraped away by human hands. 
There, dominions, virtues, or powers 
bare their bellies, 
one broad and white
with roots or ribs—it's not for me to say--
another brown and gray 
stippled with orange
as if part of the earth.
 
Their heads are in the haze of heavens,
brushstrokes of pink and blue and white.
And this is where we leave the earth
with a gesture looping as on a frieze:
A red eye blinking back at me
where thrones and cherubim and seraphim
appear, unknowable.

Karla Daly

Karla Daly is a third-year MFA Creative Writing candidate at American University and has worked in various editorial capacities for many years. Her poetry has appeared in District Lines, The Prose-Poem Project, and Alimentum: The Literature of Food, and she was a co-winner of The Phillips Collection’s Lupertz Poetry Challenge. She lives in Washington, DC.
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