 The Best is Yet to Come, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2019 Editor's note: Over the years at The Ekphrastic Review, I have received occasional poems inspired by my own visual art. I was moved each time to have my artwork looked at so closely, and amazed along the way at the variety of perspectives and ideas that came about in response to my work. Poet Bill Waters, famous for his short-form poetry, surprised me with an eclectic series of short poems that were entirely composed of titles of the paintings, moved around like the collages I create to form a meaningful sequence. This became a little chapbook called The Luzajic Variations. Later I was approached by Devon Balwit with a manuscript of poetry she had written about my art, and that became Risk Being/Complicated. It was curious to see what other creative people saw in my images and how they articulated it. I was honoured to be approached again by a poet who was writing about my mixed media paintings and about ekphrastic writing in general, and I'm involved in a collaboration with him that will be born to the world in the near future. When yet another writer asked me about writing about my art, another collaboration in the works, I decided to run an artwork a challenge subject for the Review. It was a fascinating experience for me to see how my pieces are perceived. I always feel uncomfortable in the position of "judge," knowing the truth is that editing and curating is a subjective pursuit. I felt this intensely when the challenge prompt was my own painting, and wondered if it was a better idea for one of the guest editors to read and choose. I was astounded at the variety of submissions. I love ekphrastic writing because it makes us look more carefully at art and the world, stepping outside ourselves even as we are more deeply immersed in our memories and perceptions. We write about what we know and what we don't know at the time same time, with another person's creation as the key. I know some of you took risks in your poetry practice with this piece, changing the approach you usually take, trying on a new style, or just taking a stab at it, wondering how I would perceive your interpretation. It is different to write about an artwork when the artist will read it, isn't it? I thank each and every one of you for your poems, for sharing your talent with the world, for reading other writers, and for being such an important part of The Ekphrastic Review. Much love, Lorette ** Graffiti Detritus Awash the din, white-wash chaos, strike a chord from the driver’s seat, Bat mobile hits the wall – BAM. Unnoticed, all heads were turned. Gangs from hell Their eye-corner tears wept as 23 scrape survival from streets devoid of life, no dollar signs delude, no fools, they – from diluted graffiti detritus, so un-Banksy-like amidst blue not of a calm sky. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a New Hampshire poet and YA fiction writer, whose passions are animals, especially rescued cats and captive elephants to be released to sanctuaries. Her work has appeared in Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Harvard Press, among others. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 for her poem "The Sky Must Remember." Dickson's other works are available on Amazon. ** Reading the Signs BAM! STRIKE! Get ready for it. Your fate is about to change. That’s right, I don’t use tarot cards or read palms. I read faces, and yours is calling my bluff. So why can’t you believe the best is yet to come? First you must run toward it, work for it. Go out and search for hope. Carry a butterfly net into the fog of despair. Blindly scoop if that’s the best you can do. Unseen forces will guide you. It’s much like the work of a poet looking for ideas. Here’s a poem, there’s another. What signs do you track? Like dreams and fingerprints, the numbers, symbols, and sounds that you sense will be unique to you. But many clients report a feeling of weightlessness, like they’re floating out of a dense gray fog into a cobalt blue sky, with splashes of neon sunrise. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. For Alarie, looking at art is the surest way to inspire a poem, so she’s made The Ekphrastic Review home for four years. She hopes you’ll check out her poetry books on the Ekphrastic Book Shelf and visit her at alariepoet.com. ** ain’t nothin like it sometimes you say the word love as if you mean it as if it isn’t just another bad habit to break Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig enjoys exploring the intersection of poetry and art. ** On Love and Art We Leave Behind The future's not to be foretold, nor can it languish put on hold, but risk that we anticipate -- and plan for -- might well mitigate what, catastrophic otherwise, would be or seem as if demise of beauty we have engineered supporting dreams so long revered of what we hope to leave behind as love and art that others find to be the works by which they know that in their future as they grow... ...their past is only where they're from... ...today creates the best to come. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. ** Work In Progress Far cry from part-used acrylic tubes from printer’s black, the ink thinners whose odour slices studio air hogs’-hair brushes in a plethora of gauge the palette knives the rubber rollers the metric rulers worn stencils in both letter cases numerous semi-permanent marker pens fingers covered in mixed media, stained ditto the Irish linen apron and the thrice varnished parquet floor, lie random conflicts from artist’s block through long days the darkest nights the extant tears the trickle of sweat a constant strain of abstract work empty cafetieres of French roast, cold rigours of artistry performed under pressure crumpled packets of Aspirin, the caplets a structured approach to filling white voids scurrying deep to find a balance well beyond the third dimension, or fourth in the devil and drive of human creation for the best is yet to come. Alun Robert Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse. Of late, he has achieved success in poetry competitions and featured in international literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He particularly enjoys ekphrastic challenges. In 2019, he was a Featured Writer of the Federation of Writers Scotland. ** Time It’s time To celebrate existence By slowing down Perceptions Jumping in To the centre of it all Flashing forward And beyond As time Folds into fog Behind that one last breath Of our breaking grasp John Drudge John is a social worker working in the field of disability management. He is the author of two books of poetry: March, (2019) and The Seasons of Us (2019). His work has appeared in the Arlington Literary Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, Poetica Review, Drinkers Only, Literary Yard, The Alien Buddha Press, Montreal Writes, Mad Swirl, The Avocet, Sparks of Caliope, Harbinger Asylum, Black Coffee Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Dissident Voice, La Piccioletta Barca Literary Journal, and the Adelaide Literary Magazine. John is a Pushcart Prize nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children. ** Flying Toward the Light A near void forms the middle, (we cannot always see through to the core), but two planes are flying, speeding us to the outer world. This benevolent world, so rich! You love its clutter, not knowing where to place things, happy in the jumbled environment. Your son, added to the wondrous mix. It was not an easy A-B-C, you had to make decisions, just as Luzajic’s canvas must have called for decisions. Ought-nine was that split second when decisions were made for you. You feel again the energy of that moment, its definitive strike. Look! See again the seconds that are flying past—past the jumbled edifices, past the bursts of energy, past things known, lost, and found again, past the constructions that do not fail you. Mark the elements that bring you joy! Look for the encouragers! Stretch your arms to the sunlight! Melded into light Marked for something stellar bright Asking what comes next Carole Mertz Carole Mertz, poet and essayist, is a graduate of Oberlin College. She maintains a lifelong interest in classical painting and other works of the 19th and 20th centuries and is a sibling to two professional visual artists. After music performance, writing is her chief occupation, with recent works at Eclectica, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Society of Classical Poets, WestWard Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her recent reviews of poetry collections are at Mom Egg Review, Eclectica, Into the Void, Arc Poetry, CutBank, Dreamers Creative Writing, South 85 Journal, and World Literature Today. She served as reader at MER in the selection of Pushcart nominees process and is Book Review Editor at Dreamers Creative Writing.Carole’s first poetry chapbook Toward a Peeping Sunrise will be published in October. ** Realised Do I take the obvious, leaping from the screen? The influence that money bought, the products made to hear? And when my eye, forced to view, the pupil, parrot taut, do I relax and broaden scape, seek out the reticent? Collage or is it collagen, body parts that no one sees? When norms retreat, life back to front, or mirror images, pretend not there, just look away, or lay-by, temporary? For my control to overwrite, to colour as I choose; transform the landscape overlaid and mindfulness pursue. The canvas mine, the palette range, the dominating seen. What scene is in my orbit scan to cast or grasp or field? Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church, has had pieces accepted by over a dozen on-line poetry sites, including The Ekphrastic Review; and Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines & Vita Brevis Anthology. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** Groundwork In front of you the foundations of her city - newspaper blocks collage-painted primaries gravity drawn lanes negative space passages Groundwork for a living city streets connecting beanstalk buildings garden squares for those streets to lead to upturned skyscrapers along narrowboat canals contours of mountains behind Yet, the best thing comes when on a sunny morning she half-watches people from beneath the canvas of a walkway parasol where she reads the Saturday paper Petra Vergunst Petra Vergunst is a poet living in Northeast Scotland who is interested in how we understand, relate to, and participate in the world. Currently, her writing investigates what visual art may teach us about what it means to be human, and the agency it gives us to shape our lives. ** "The best is yet to come and babe won't it be fine?" That's what they sang to each other, as if this life were the wall of a building, painted and papered across the years, maybe a small store that anchored and supported the changing neighborhood, both waiting to be rebuilt in time to mark a second coming, a rebirth, but it's not and now never will be. He doesn't remember his son and daughter-in-law an hour later, and takes as given that these grown women with unfamiliar voices, strange faces, are his granddaughters who will cry tonight at the memories ripped apart and not replaced. Once brilliant and careful, his words are randomly erased, their spaces taken by repeating strings of uncertain letters running to and fro, leaving him unreliably angry and unpredictably violent when he thinks he's been crossed, his authority questioned, while leaving her afraid to share a room with him in their marriage's eighth decade, mourning alone the best as it passes. Lennart Lundh Lennart Lundh is a poet, short-fictionist, historian, and photographer. His work has appeared internationally since 1965. ** Fog Over Central Park (in memory of Mike Guerriero) The ghost of memories float over the park, a billowed wind sock as fireflies fill the trees. And played to the tempo of time, musical graffiti haunts the city air in blocks surrounding this self-contrived center of images -- blue-skirted clouds and sidewalks where my daughter roller-bladed to a corner and stopped -- just in time, I found her just in time almost fifty years ago when she rounded a corner in a department store, small hands exploring the floor lured by a broken button a piece of string and part of a candy wrapper (to the avid collector, found items are treasure) later, there would be shelves for display (hell to dust) so she could see everything gathered from travel, ours and her father's, dented beer cans with cartoon pictures -- Asterix, Shizam! -- time passing -- 1, 2, 3 -- in the ABC years of education, pieces of posters gathered like flowers growing on walls in the New York subway. These were the years of montage and mementoes theatres, ticket stubs, toy stores, portable bowling in hotel hallways (pins down, Strike!) when eclecticism was gender-specific passed from mother to daughter (art DNA) -- why would we ever throw anything away? a popcorn bag from San Genarro a map of festival events with a festival cover guests of my mother's Sicilian lover, an academic who showed us his city New York and the park -- music floating from Tavern On The Green -- Out of the tree of life I just picked a plum... You came along and everything's startin' to hum -- The best is yet to come, and baby, won't it be fine! Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp's new book, When Dreams Were Poems, connects her to the Ekphrastic Review, to art, her love of collage, to the lyrical music of poetry and Max Ernst's frottage; and to her present, writing this poem filled with thoughts of her past when the best was yet to come, "my mother's almost fairy tale ending when Mike Guerriero came down to D.C. to help start up the OEO. For me, he filled New York with paternal magic; it became the place where my daughter felt the pulse of New York's magic and took her roller blades to college." ** The Best is Yet to Come after Muhammad Ali and Lorette C. Luzajic We live in chaos. In the arena’s blinding lights and deafening noise. Hypnotic dreams floating like butterflies, stinging like bees. We’re on the ropes with trainers pummeling final instructions, managers clouting money, the crowd’s passion, red like slaughter. Then the bout begins. Pivots and bounces and crosses and jabs. We’re swaying like a punching bag suspended in the gym’s corner, as disoriented as a sparrow glancing off glass. A dip and a cut and a Strike! And a Bam! One, two, three, we’re out for the count. Until - until the Great Champion, the Pride of Jacob, lifts us to our feet and raises our arms in triumph, proclaiming all things new. No death, no dark, no curse, no pain. Victors. For eternity. Reigning forever and ever. 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 inHeart of Flesh Literary Journal. ** Possibilities So many possibilities in a new year! Past ideas, hopes, actions frame our path as we go forward but our centre is a shape unknown, to be formed from our own will and force, perhaps stretching out beyond that frame perhaps preserving some of same. Into that space I throw myself, Commending my spirit to the new. My future will exceed present, past. As I leap into its space I know I can reach out to steady myself by touching past, present but they will not hold me back. I swim through a foggy portal into a future unseen, unknown, but full of bright possibilities, hope. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta loves writing ekphrastic poetry. Her work has appeared in Ekphrastic Journal, ovunquesiamo, and many other journals. Her short stories, essays, and articles are also widely published. On stage she performs folk and original tales of food, family, and strong women. ** Wake-Up Call So busy - numbers, letters, words, colour, people, myriad emotions manic activity, so much going on and I am overwhelmed as I have always been overwhelmed by the beautifully vivid confusion of life. It is too much. It has always been too much. Strike! Strike hard - strike now. That's what I should have done all those years ago when I was young, but Time is the Great Deceiver of youth. I'll do it tomorrow, next week, next year, I'll do it one day until one day all those tomorrows are a mountain of yesterdays and our tomorrows grow fewer with every sunset. Time is running out and if I am to leave anything to show a vestige of what were once my thoughts in this scintilla of consciousness which glimmers between beginningless and endless oblivions, I must do it now - there is no time to lose. So I'll turn with hope to face the setting sun and make damn sure the best is yet to come. Stephen Poole Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. He studied Media Practice at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London and also underwent training at the London School of Journalism. His articles and interviews have appeared in a variety of British county and national magazines. He has also been published online. He has been passionate about poetry since boyhood. His poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and he was a contributing poet to the Strand Book Of International Poets 2010. ** The Blue is Shrinking The blue is shrinking, the pale space the space ships see, unencumbered with lights and the debris of human lives. Soon the blue swill will swell, grow green with algae, brightly speckled with pretty plastic tops, lids, bags and all the gaily strewn paraphernalia we cannot live without. The ocean groans already and the thin crust we cut like pie, digging out the best parts, throwing the rest away. Choking, we might discover too late, is worse than living without. Jane Dougherty Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. Her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, Hedgerow Journal, Tuck Magazine, ink sweat and tears, Eye to the Telescope, Nightingale & Sparrow, the Drabble, Lucent Dreaming and The Ekphrastic Review. She has a well-stocked blog at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ ** Hope is the Thing with Feathers As I meditate on a chaos of images-- collaged and swirling around the canvas-- I am startled by a Texas-size cockroach. It scampers from under a copy of the artwork, and takes up residence on my keyboard. Such unabashed confidence! As though sent by the oracle of Delphi to assure me The Best is Yet to Come. As a young woman, I once sat on the steps of a Greek temple above the Sybil’s sacred cave. Lost in reverie, I hoped Frank Sinatra’s song would hold true for me, too. But what if a cockroach is just a cockroach--As Good as It Gets? The ancient insect stretches its feelers across the wireless keys, securing its position. I hesitate to kill what might be a messenger until I see strict orders on the painting Strike! Bam! I assemble my SWAT team-- a pink slipper, the stapler. Then, I scrape the carapace from the board, perhaps the way the artist scraped a central space in this artwork. Erasures that leave a ghostly, blue-white whisper suggestive of an airplane’s body and wings. Perhaps she has cleared the runway, tucked hope in her luggage, ready to jet off to the undiscovered. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg continues to love these challenges that wed the pleasures of living with artworks and writing poetry. She also enjoys gathering poets’ work into anthologies. She co-edited Echoes of the Cordillera (ekphrastic poems, Museum of the Big Bend, 2018) and guest-edited Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press, 2015). Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, read on PBS during the April 2017 “Voices and Verses,” and published in multiple small journals and anthologies. ** Merkabah: Settled Dust Pins and needles pill these veins - rivers verve - in an alternate time the cryptic mind gathers the years as light surfing on faint flashbacks; the pain has gone still but rivers inflame as volcanic waves; today is the day of the dawn/not the dawn of the day/ men will gather in white robes dangling beyond their tails called shadows, meeting the earth in a sweep towards cleansing, and they will comb their hairs in a manner for siding/parting/ holding/congealing. Their tongues will favour fruits the colour of rubies, picking ripened ajwas like rare stones concealed within mountains rarer to find, and their sights will savour the decadent dusk - descending domes - then a tree will tear out of the souls of a painting covered in a snow of words; the sky will blotch on the canvas of their language, and in the moment's lit ecstasy their robes will stain like the sky under a splitting sun. Thrones will topple/return to basics/high jewel will blend into the invisibility of regalia. Sheikha A. Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications have been Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Atlantean Publishing, Alban Lake Publishing, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated to Spanish, Greek, Italian, Arabic and Persian. She is the co-author of a digital poetry chapbook entitled Nyctophiliac Confessions available through Praxis Magazine. More about her published works can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com ** Media Storm All at once there are too many voices crowding the air begging space enough to be heard time enough to register as more than a flicker of sound and color streaming past my unfocused attention I see nothing but fragments disappearing too fast to recognize or remember words reduced to syllables an incoherence moving too quick to catch in an overwhelming rush as confusion rises like a tide of fog impossible to see through or blink back to clarity And it is suddenly too late to find a good way out from under all these shifting lies and delusions back to silence and solid ground Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy seems to have fallen in love with Ekphrastic. Not surprising, as she has always been both a writer and visual artist. The conversation between image and word is fascinating, and engaging in that conversation, whether as reader or writer, is purely irresistible. ** Placement Regardless of blue as best, yellow for yet, for the letters in BAM! the red space around strike, the white veil of uncertain will win best in show over the dripping lines for sure — the prize is probably only clear to those who have not yet stenciled in numbers, but clearly are ready to announce possibilities to come-- The idea of it-- --best to split from sense-- is repeating in the chaos, are you ready yet? no matter how you sequence $ to numbers, alphabetize fate… come, come just repeat the best, the best, the best, eugenically, the best the scrub-off of the ill-fated. Best to start over. What’s best for everyone will — was--is never— clear. Whose interest is being scribbled on the wall, yet pasted upside down, yet posted in disorderly notes, as if to say all that is. to be considered has not yet come? Just wait. It will come. Kitty Jospé Kitty Jospé, teacher, writer and art docent at the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester (NY) loves to explore relations between art, word, music, choreography. After receiving her MFA in poetry from Pacific University, OR in 2009, she has published five books and her work appears in numerous journals. ** Not Whitewashed Alphabet of primary red, yellow and blue stories hidden in text so I get out a magnifying glass to see circles of storms, zigzags of fences on mountain passes and turnstiles to government land without a push bar only cattle and horses forbidden on the other side with directions to leave your time in and out in case lost or a Dorothy Hughes noir mystery of the 40s and 50s set on the edge of a pueblo in New Mexico with a woman heroine and the quiet of a blanket drawn against the cold as someone stands on a flat roof of an adobe house observing the sunrise, best yet to come in a cloud, a wash of white that makes you look deeper into what lies underneath, books on the shelves with titles you can’t decipher, not giving away all their secrets and somewhere under all that exists a timetable because that’s all we’re given—we get to fill in the rest. 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 Germany. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. ** Whitewash They tore off the poster, whitewashed the wall. My proclamation more offensive than others. Truly beyond me. Must be fear-- one person's voice, bare on a dark stage without white noise polluting privileged thoughts for a brief period. Public proclamations concerning lonely dissertations on dissent make starched shirts uncomfortable, itchy to take them down. A layered effect created by cover-ups; dozens of individual attempts to be seen and heard, can lull passive eyes into seeing handsome backdrops to expensive dinner conversations among the tax sheltered, whom these protestations tried to initially expose. Jordan Trethewey Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His frightening book of verse, Spirits for Sale, is available on Amazon from Pskis Porch Publishing. Some of his work found a home here, and in other publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal, Fishbowl Press, The Blue Nib, Red Fez, Spillwords, Nine Muses Poetry, and Jerry Jazz Musician. Jordan is an editor at Red Fez, and a regular guest editor at The Ekphrastic Review. His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com. ** The Drowning As in a children’s storybook a first elegy plainspoken narrative fourth grade choir she didn’t make and every summer a boy drowning Ascension Sunday. The boy from Burgweinting. The small pond they swam in. When she spoke of this boy in the back of her notebook Bavarian Forest mountains chalk quarries bombed refugee town roads of clay dirt, birch trees ask about their secrets: “Where do the dead go?” Bogs older than Danube grasses sharp spines of a hedgehog a first elegy. Inhospitable in the yellow sunlight she couldn’t bear language pigtailed nine year old obsessed with glass marbles poppies, purple thistles. To need less and less overexposing film less familiar here, less rote teacher with a lisp closing blinds clicking film reels. Teacher’s hands. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is an editor, poet, curator, advocate and activist. Author of four poetry books, the most recent collection is Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna, 2021). Writes in journals, anthologies, and six chapbooks. Her poem “Dachau on a Rainy Day” was nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize. Artistic director of Visual Arts Centre Reading Series and Argo Bookshop Reading Series. QWF 2010 Community Award. ** Chaos Theory On this canvas of my life it looks as though butterflies were flapping their wings and flitting about at every opportunity making trouble having fun and shaking things up a bit. Looking backwards into the cloud, I remember my lived life was similarly peppered with disorder, irregularities, random events. I struggle to discern underlying patterns, interconnectedness or organisation. It’s regularities and irregularities were left to the butterflies and their flitting and flapping. In the end they flapped the clouds away. Tomorrow I shall paint a new canvas and with the help of the butterflies I will paint another picture drawn from my life. On canvas, I am the butterfly. I can make the patterns, the order or disorder. Others may make of it what they will. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Light Journal and So It Goes Journal. https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Once Upon a Time in London It started out like any old London summer’s day. Not too hot, not too sunny, a cloud threatening here or there. The big boys took the little ones to the zoo. Past the ABC cinema, The Service Station, some yard full of packing crates. Sometimes they saw the blue sky that might have been. That’s London. Most of the summers you just imagined. The big boys hurried the little ones along- After all, they were responsible and there were 18 of the small boys, all trundling and play-fighting and sometimes bothering other users of the narrow pavements. They also wanted to get there. The small boys would be less of a bother, they could let them run free to see the animals they wanted. So long as they’d all meet again at 17.00 hours sharp at the exit. The big boys looked forward to a cigarette or two, a sip of whisky secreted in a flat flask in Bob’s coat pocket and talking about the girls they knew, of course. Then the thick fog settled over what seemed the whole world. Some of the little boys found their way home by about four o’clock in the morning. Rose Mary Boehm A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, 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. ** The Best is Yet a faded future, pastels distilled, burnt by the nuclear sun, an angry past littered with dollars, swept up our lives, marble-washed dreams given no time to set they’ll find our culture brightly drawn, action-packed- limbs flailing and cries of BAM! Drunk on technicolour- violence, we always came a distant second they’ll root through our pictures and words, they’ll see numbers and figures and plastic covered nightmares, betrothed brothers of mother’s ruin our faded past, once rich and warm, glassed by memories, sunk like the ships it carried, worn by the salt in the air, if we scream no-one hears us, futility in blue where did we go? No question too dumb, like the leaders, count the days as we went backwards, as we went… not for long, the universe always had its answers. Zac Thraves Zac Thraves is a writer, performer and mindfulness practitioner based in the UK. You can find a number of poems on this site, as well in a number of other publications; and you may wish to take a browse on Amazon's virtual bookshelves for some exciting short fiction. The future is peace and love, just go with it. ** Silent Soundtrack rivers meander blue-lipped like a Braque collage through pasted wasted snippets of life running off walls in meaningless print a silent soundtrack to high-rise noise its pastel life of colours draining dollars skimming expletives riding the slip-sliding waves pulling us back from the brink of canvas wiped clean Kate Young Kate Young lives in Kent with her husband and has been passionate about poetry and literature since childhood. Over the last few years she has returned to writing and has had success with poems published in webzines in Britain and internationally. She is a regular reader of The Ekphrastic Review and her work has appeared in response to some of the challenges. Kate is now busy editing her work and setting up her website. ** Untitled all time explodes outwards from the mind all we’ve learned the ABC of it the 1,2,3 of it the wham-bam-glam of scribbles, whales and balloons puffs and pastels out, except that fuzzy bit you don’t know yet a small figure steps into the future Oonah V. Joslin Born in N. Ireland, Oonah V Joslin is a retired teacher. She writes mostly poetry and micro-fiction and won three MicroHorror prizes, and is published widely on-line and in several anthologies. Most recently she won two Moon Awards in Writing in a Woman’s Voice. She is currently poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings magazine. Her chapbook, Three Pounds of Cells is available on Amazon and she was invited by the National Trust to read her poem from that book, Almost on Brantwood Jetty on board the Gondola Steamship at Coniston in 2016. You can follow Oonah at oovj.wordpress.com Parallel Oonahverse and on Facebook. ** For the Best Outcome I zoom in on the future 300% to count eight rabbits stamped in various positions inside red frames. Nothing to do with a sexual appetite even if little rabbits feed habits. Double dollar figures stand to the west strutting their lucky bodies. No, I do not bet. To improve my outlook though, I want to draw an angel fluttering above with good health, beating wings of common sense to that squatted rabbit resting on her back. She is weird and pretty looking up at Hello Kitty. The wings flap, feathers, still white and fragile, would drop with each eye blink and litter the splotched grass fields where I want to sit, near bands of smoke and scribbles of tumbleweed that roll on. John Milkereit John Milkereit is a mechanical engineer working in the oil & gas industry who lives 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 in 2016. His most recent collection of poems, Drive the World in a Taxicab, was published by Lamar University Press. ** Sector 097 sector 097 of the venn is reserved for serendipity whose cuts produce the gem Oh Bunnikins you never asked about the aesthetics of upside-down don’t neglect the pun upon the decorated globe the braille for texture Will you find it mama? find it mama mama please I know my dear eat your veggies childhood adheres you have glue in your hair, pet - sit still No I won’t! THERE! Don’t destroy it darling your brother wants to read it I found this wonderful site Lorette it has waxed paper for keeping food fresh marvellous expensive but you would really like it …just one ice cube please… …she has a stud in Kentucky… …hmmm… Are we nearly home yet mummy? mummy wake up wake up mummy please i don’t like beetles and there’s a big one the rorschach i flushed it mommy but its running down the page Boys and girls come out to play kiss the railing first. I’ll let go if you kiss the railing Don’t write in the steam darling it leaves marks echo echo alpha dollar dollar the flagpole of free dom i can’t see it mom i can’t do it because it doesn’t make sense Stamp it like this…or use your stencil That’s lovely darling! Will we put it on the wall? The sociologist is visiting and he likes pictures. He rides a bicycle. No, don’t scribble All right, lets see if we can make something from it Tidy up the comics now Adam Just do something that makes you happy I love the colours in that one. What do the words say (keep it in the airwaves) everything was signed after my parents left they had no idea it was the best thing I CAN’T HEAR! Everyone’s talking at once! col OMB ia! I’m going to bed now Kitty cuddles? It was clearly the best thing but they had no idea they had it coming. Cameron McClure Cameron McClure was brought up on a farm in the north of Ireland where he still lives. Now retired, writing is his attempt to prove to himself that he is human after all. ** Rash Whine Gilded wisps skirt a vacant abstraction like satellites whose globes are dissolving in a haphazard sky. So? Signs shriek shnocked proclamations: “All’s awash!” “Waterlogged!” “Blue puddles like splotchy slugs footprinting eroding concrete and encroaching fast!” But shun such convulsions, will ya? The crux of broadcasting one’s garbled conceptions-- reflections feared, sneered, steepled gossip—is it’s too stupid! (The best is yet to come!) D. R. James D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 36 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His most recent of nine collections are Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2020), Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box, 2019), and If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press, 2017). His micro-chapbook All Her Jazz is printable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. https://www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage ** The Best Is Yet To Come My Way Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum You came along and everything started to hum And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain Still it's a real good bet The best is yet to come I've lived a life that's full I traveled each and every highway But more, much more than this, I did it my way The Best is yet to come and babe won't that be fine You think you've seen the sun But you ain't seen it shine Regrets, I've had a few But then again, too few to mention I did what I had to do, I saw it through without exemption And wait til the warm up's under way Wait til our lips have met And wait til you see that sunshine day You ain't seen nothing yet I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway And more, much more than this, I did it my way And yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew Wait til your charms are right for these arms, to surround You think you've flown before But baby you ain't left the ground But through it all, when there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way I've loved, I've laughed and cried I've had my fill, my share of losing Wait till you're locked in my embrace Wait til I draw you near And wait til you see that sunshine place Ain't nothing like it here But now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing To think I did all that And may I say, not in a shy way Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way Come the day you're mine I've got plans for you, baby And, baby, you're gonna fly Donald Brackett Author's note: Song lyric by Carolyn Leigh, 1959, recorded by Frank Sinatra, and merged with Sinatra’s signature 1969 song "My Way," composed by Paul Anka. Donald Brackett verbal collage conducted according to the Burroughs and Gyson method. Donald Brackett is a Vancouver-based culture journalist and poet who writes about music, art and films, as well as curating film programs for Cinematheque. He is the author of three books with Backbeat Books: on Amy Winehouse, 2016, Sharon Jones, 2018, and Tina Turner, 2020. He is currently working on a new book about the conceptual artist and musician Yoko Ono. **  Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts has authored four poetry collections and two children's books. Her work appears in print and online in North American and international journals and anthologies. She is poetry editor of the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. When she’s not reading, writing, or editing, you can find her drawing and painting, or outdoors photographing her natural surroundings. ** After The Best is Yet to Come for family, friends and Lorette A book on the loft, I am A bunch of scriptures, maybe; Or a booklet of prayers, A Chapter of the Kamasutra, Or a prescription for venereal diseases. I realize nothing out of these. (Someone would have read had I been one.) Amrita Pritam[1] 1. Pilgrimages In my life, I’ve had the privilege of performing three major pilgrimages: 1) In 20th Century C.E.: during my childhood, to The Kaaba[2] in the heart of Masjid[3] Al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. 2) In 21st Century C.E.: during my intellectual maturity, to The Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Perhaps, the site should be declared The Holy Place for all philosophers, poets and artists. 3) In 21st Century C.E.: during my conscious transcendence to Mohenjo-Daro[4] in Sindh, Pakistan. Perhaps, the site should be declared The Holy Place for all historians and philologists. I should like to confess: the second experience has been the profoundest. A verse and/or discourse on why and how on another occasion now. Currently, I’m on The Pilgrimage to Self-- the most significant of all, after all. For, in the words of Bulleh,[5] then: your resources and claims and acclamations and proclamations of knowledge and wisdom: learning by means of cramming —devouring thousands and thousands of all manner of volumes on top of volumes. but have you ever endeavoured to read and learn about your-self —inner-and outer-selves? all your life, you’ve remained a permanent resident at the so-called house of lord —temple, synagogue, church, mosque, gurdwara, shrine et cetera. but have you ever cared to spend a few nano-moments at the house of self? latterly, you’ve been preoccupied with rather rigorously sanctioning all manner of battles and wars against all manner of devils of all manner of worlds. but have you ever considered embarking upon an odyssey of self-reflection/reflexivity —supervising, monitoring and regulating your ego/super ego?[6] 2. Love and Romance Throughout my life, I’ve been exceptionally privileged to have always had the love of my mother. And of course, of my father and siblings. And of course, of many dear friends from across the globe. I’m absolutely convinced: Mother is The Face of God! And in my life, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing the romance and romanticism of many loving, caring, intelligent and beautiful women too of various classes and creeds. And I’ll keep (re)emphasising until my material and immaterial being ceases to exist: EVE IS NOT FROM ADAM’S RIBS! Phallocracy/chauvinism/patriarchy may be The Order of the Day (governing the mechanics of societies in many regions of the world today), but as Heraclitus[7] said: only thing that is permanent is change. And the ones in denial of the inevitability of change are, but delusional, I’m afraid. 3. Languages, Art and Literature a) Languages Right from the onset i.e. the very early childhood, pursuing the trait of being multilingual was instilled in my brain. Hence, the basic knowledge of many and proficiency in some languages i.e. Sanskrit, Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Turkish, French, Punjabi and Urdu, English, respectively. Urdu (the so-called Mother Tongue) is a transliteration of the phrase اردو, which literally means a ‘caravan.’ The language is a chimaera—formulated by blending Farsi (Persian), Sanskrit, Arabic and Turkish. I should like to confess: I’m still learning it. There is a theory, you know, which states that “the language that you speak in your dreams is your Mother Tongue.” Thereby, I can rather conveniently claim the English language to be my ultimate forte and fortress. A consequence, I would say, of the postcolonial syndrome, apparently. The British ruled the so-called Indian Sub-continent for over a hundred years, after all. And throughout my life, I’ve had the privilege of having an unhindered access to all manner of local and foreign art, theatre, and literature. Such are the virtues of a liberal and postmodern upbringing. b) Art During the infancy, I was fascinated by calligraphy. And I learnt to carve bam- boo stems into calligraphy pens. The craft was taught to me by our gardener in Kotli, Kashmir. I was encouraged by my family and friends to participate in the Calligraphy Competitions at school and won a few awards, too. I still possess a few of those calligraphic pieces (wood, cloth, stone and paper) from when I was only thirteen years old. During the adolescence, my existence became exposed to the marvels of Surrealism. I was nineteen and a half years old. The stage was the post- modern Babylonia i.e. London, UK. And the Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Dali was the culprit. And to this very moment, I have not been able to free myself from the hypnosis. Although, I never did take the canvas, paint and brush as my brides. c) Literature To me, the apotheosis of my existence has been the publications of a few florilegia of verse in English. A feat—i.e. becoming an internationally published author-- that has never been achieved before by anyone in neither my maternal nor paternal family. I know, it’s nothing too extraordinary, since it has not been done for the very first time ever in the history of humanity, but the milestone is something to take pride in, for sure, I think. For, after all, Family History is made. Although, I haven’t any offspring of my own to carry the Legacy forward. The words of my first-ever poem are still vivid in the cosmos of memory. I had written it for this girl named Amina from my neighbourhood in Kotli, Kashmir. I had a very serious crush on her. And I was too shy to confess it to her face. So, I wrote a short poem for her: The luminous crescent of Ramadan[8] is even jealous of the charisma of your deep-set hazel eyes, and the waterfalls of Srinagar even yearn to bathe in the dust of your milky-white feet. … To me, she had the most beautiful eyes and feet that a human being could possibly possess. Little did I know at that time that the two were en route to manifesting as my fetish, eventually. I was 12, she was 14. Little did I know at that time that my inclination to fall for older girls was being nurtured and was to become my permanent ally, eventually. One day, after school, I mustered up the courage to give her the poem. I like it, she said. During this journey, I’ve come to realise the following though: i) Poetry is the string of yarn-- embroidered with multishaped and multicoloured beads, art. ii) Irony is existence’s dearest attire—stain-proof, crease-proof et cetera. Yes, that the thoughts and words are fascinating cosmoses in their own rights. But the so-called influencer itself even needs (some other form of) an influencer. To put it rather poetically: for the so-called muse to be rendered a muse, the prerequisite is the existence of (some other form of) muse. Id est: language as the vahana,[9] in case of thoughts and words; imagery, in case of muse. ‘Why’ we would (probably) never know and learn. 4. Epilogue Indeed, it has been an endeavour pregnant with all manner of sounds, colours, smells and tastes-- worthy of an experience in every life regardless of the nature of Karma.[10] Rest assured: none of this and that has ever been taken for granted on my part. Nonetheless, prior to the inevitable epilogue (the one that all living things are decreed to have), as I remain focused on finishing up composing this ekphrasis, glued to my workstation (at home) —inhabited by chocolate brown desktop, separate journals for verse, ekphrases, aphorisms and notes, sketch books, charcoal pencils, oil pastels, books, notebooks (A4/A5) led pencils (including mechanical ones), fountain pens, ballpoint pens, miscellaneous stationary, and of course, the marvel that computer is and its partner in crime, the printer-- I am, but compelled to ponder: amidst the mist of what has been and is being done, if the best is yet to come? Saad Ali [1] This is an excerpt from her poem titled ‘Time and Again’. Translator: Suresh Kohli. [2] The Kaaba is the ultimate Holy Site for Muslims. [3] ‘Masjid’ is a transliteration of the word مسجد from the Arabic language, which means Mosque—a place of worship for Muslims. [4] ‘Mohenjo-Daro’ means ‘Mound of the Dead Men.’ The city happened to be one of the major cosmopolitans of the Ancient Indus Valley Civilisation from 2500 BCE (approximately). [5] The most revered Punjabi Sufi (Saint) and poet, Syed Abdul Shah Qadri, or Bulleh Shah (1680 – 1757 CE) from Kasur, Hindustan (India). Kasur is now a city in Pakistan. [6] This is my non-literal and a rather long translation of the first six verses of a poem by Bulleh Shah. [7] Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 – 475 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. [8] Ramadan is the Holy Month of Fasting for Muslims. [9] ‘Vahana’ is a transliteration of the word वाहन from the Sanskrit language, which means a ‘mount’ or ‘vehicle.’ [10] ‘Karma’ is a transliteration of the word कर्म from the Sanskrit language, which means ‘deed’ or ‘action.’ In the Hindu philosophical tradition, the phenomenon of karma is interpreted in the context of cause and effect and relates to reincarnation, or ‘rebirth.’ For example, good karma results in a good next life and vice versa. Saad Ali Editor's note: Saad Ali kindly permitted us to reprint his poetry sequence, altered, in order to work with the formatting limitations of the software and this editor. A PDF file follows his bio, where you can read the original as it was intended. Saad Ali was born in Okara, Pakistan in 1980 C.E. He has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored three books of verse (so far) i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019) and Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020). By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Chinese, Greek and Arabic cuisine. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com. 
1 Comment
Sylvia Vaughn
4/14/2020 06:06:14 pm
Reading the Signs by Alarie Tennille is a cool pairing with the intriguing artwork. Great idea, well worth the risk! Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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