Ekphrastic Writing Challenge Responses: Joan Miro

Hors du Cercle, by Joan Miro (Spain) 1920.

colours of time - a misinterpretation

this is how time passes in my mind.
it’s skewed and stained with hues
with jagged lines that run through the middle
splintering my mind.

I measure the hours in colour
and I spend eternities
trying to figure out if I am real
or not.
if I am here
or not.
do I exist outside the fortifications of my mind?

moments are counted in stains.
time stops when
I’m open
and my insides are pouring out.

time is too far away in yellow.
my friend in oregon
cannot be reached
by my bare, outstretched hand,
for the sun has disappeared
ever since her sister left.
how will she read the shadows
on her garden clock?

the blue closes over my head.
time is in seconds
and I have learned that
I cannot breathe
while that clock is ticking.

green is the clock here.
emerald trees line the
looming cliffs;
the kind of time
that will forever climb
higher than those mountains.

it all gets away from me
and that, I cannot help.
I am merely a passenger on this train
until my clock
begins to unwind.

the finality of it all
is that these clocks
will turn black
as the days become the past.
my memories will be
strung up on lines,
displayed for all to see.

if only someone would
pick them up and
read them,
they could see
the times of my life.

caitlin grace mowry

caitlin is a high school student living in utah after moving from the east coast two years ago. her poems typically tie into her personal life and the challenges she has faced. writing gives her a way to see her thoughts on a page and express them more clearly. caitlin has never entered a poetry contest before and is looking for a chance to share her work with more people than just her small class of writing students.

**

Rose Becoming Limb and Thorn

The background somehow seems the muse
for moment loved you dared not lose 
descending from recurring thought
as melody that must be taught

to colors dancing, dark and bright,
engaging discord and delight
in movements that from mind to brush,
unhurried, recreated rush

of impulse given studied grace
suspended in its captive space
for other eyes to orchestrate
as symphony to celebrate

such beauty so begotten born
to rose becoming limb and thorn.

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.

**

What His Delirium Disclosed:

Smudged constellations and sooty bruising
in rose mist colliding fisted sutures
with flicked graffiti, on which he’d scribbled
shivering thatch strokes, adrift crescendos
of syllables all a-clattering like
pearls latched to bamboo saplings, shards to thorned
patches, chants to restless tunnels of throat--
which he shuttered but (taunting lightning from
his mind’s turret’s den) then detonated
into gusts of clustered, cycloning zones.

D. R. James

D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 35 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. Poems and prose have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, his latest of eight poetry collections are If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press) and Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box), and a microchapbook All Her Jazz is free and downloadable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

**

On The Inside

The circles are in such a tangle
it’s impossible to explore them
impossible to see what’s inside
impossible to plumb their depths
the coloured threads of a life
intertwined.
So I’m left with the outside
which is much simpler
much clearer
much duller
less colourful
and yet still 
incomprehensible.
Sometimes 
even when things are straightened
and appear clear
I can’t make sense of them
can’t manage to join the dots
and the dashes
and the tangles are more beautiful
which seems to be important.
The colourful threads of a life
intertwined round and round

on the inside of my head.

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.

Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/

**

Cirque du Soleil

Sunrise clambers new, energized
flirting on wires                                                                              
suspended
sprawling
hung from urban sky
 
luminous spectacle eaten in fire
dazzling galaxies
juggling
cycling
burning in circles
 
bodies curled in balls of flame
fluid as oceans
rolling
tumbling
fusion of motion
 
tones unfold in hoops of tempo
regular rhythm
rotating
gyrating
limbs swinging freely

Kate Young

Kate Young lives in Kent with her husband and has been passionate about poetry and literature since childhood. After retiring, she has returned to writing and has had success with poems published in Great Britain and internationally. She is presently editing her work for an anthology and enjoying responding to ekphrastic challenges. Alongside poetry, Kate enjoys art, dance and playing her growing collection of guitars and ukuleles!

**

Conduits
​
They told me, 
stay out of the power line corridor, 
protected by rows of electrified, barbed wire.

But the linear geometry is beautiful simplicity. 
The metal, as conduit for hyperactive electrons,
welcomes insects to participate
in brief, bursting firework displays.

I cannot stand forever,
admiring a swamp,
bathed in bug repellent.

Like a fire-wall for information, 
through air, or in wires,
something nasty is bound
to get through,
sting, and infect.

Jordan Trethewey

Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Some of his work found a home here, and in other online and print publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal and Califragile. His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com

**

Brainstorms

A survey in 2013 showed that 65% of Americans believe
humans use only 10% of our brains. From MRI technology,
we now know this is a myth.  MedicalNewsToday.com

Aha moments
arrive like lightning bolts
just as you’d expect from firing neurons.
Yet most thoughts bounce randomly by
like tumbleweeds or balls of yarn
batted out from under the sofa by a cat.
Only you don’t knit.
Do you own a cat?

When you sleep,
your brain works overtime and expects
more genius from you. Sends messages
in Mandarin characters. Requires you
to interpret the calligraphy of ten blackbirds
perched on a power line. Hands you a mic
and pushes you on stage – only you don’t know
the play, can’t sing, and haven’t prepared
for a TED Talk. You can’t even explain
why Winnie-the-Pooh shows up
at sessions of Congress.

You need sleep for good health, so why
won’t the brain dim the lights and hum
ommmm?

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.

​**

Free 
            
You might run in circles, dog-like, but I find
I like your pink background, Miro, it 
sends me skyward—I’m rocketed past 
those little ink-dots, (stars perhaps?) 
while other paths are being 
 
formed—These large black marks are
challenges to meet, (the ultimate right
way of seeing things, perhaps). Painted 
circular blooms are inventions. 
 
(Mother would be proud.) I feel the air
on my skin, my limbs are
weightless. Ah, sweet pink, you give me 
the space I need--
 
Those medium-sized inky blobs
are works in progress, buds ready
 
to burst. Shall I hitch myself
to existing orbits or lay down ties
for new rails? Surrounded by so much ink 
I can’t fail. (Lovely representations!)
 
Once as a child, I stood before the lilac
tree, squinting into the sun. Uncle snapped
pictures, made predictions about
me. I think I’ve surpassed 
them…                                           I’m out in the pink!
 
I may go outside the frame. Or perhaps
dig deeper 
             down,                            
                          go into the pink behind
 
that blue bloom on the left.
 
Oh look! Here’s the Morning 
Star!
 
Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz is writing cento poems. She has recent work at Dreamers Creative Writing, Eclectica, Muddy River Poetry Review, Page & Spine, Voices on the Wind, and Into the Void. Carole lives with her husband in Parma, Ohio where she teaches classical music.

**

Irrational

Colours in a circle.
Stars here and there
a pink sky--
dawn’s daily hope suffusing all.
However, brushed in black,
over all, irrational pi looms--
chaos of man’s base nature
centered, large, overbearing,
marks the orderly natural scene,
takes the spotlight.
Yet, hope remains, for though pi’s
sudden strike of bold black stroke
now dominates, it does not blot out
life’s circles, sky’s stars
dawn’s hope.

Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood. She loves to write ekphrastic poetry. Many of her poems have been featured here and on Visual Verse, and at the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, England). She also writes stories, poems, essays, and novels that often feature food, family, and strong women. 

**

The Way You Conduct Yourself

Hammers fall, klaxons
sound, and cacophony reigns.

Fireworks blaze, consuming
anyone who encounters

your tantrums
and the score behind them.

Ken Gierke

Ken Gierke is a retired truck driver who enjoys kayaking and photography, but writing poetry brings him the most satisfaction.  Primarily free verse and haiku, his poetry has appeared at Ekphrastic Review, Vita Brevis, and Eunoia Review, as well as at Tuck Magazine, and can be seen on his blog: https://rivrvlogr.wordpress.com.

**

Outside the Circles
 
Outside the circles lies a pink that is background,
the colour of blood when it touches water,
the colour of my life along the beach.
 
For years I denied it—too feminine, too vulnerable.
Just look at the man coming out of the surf
with machete to strike the foot of a woman.
 
She has nothing to balance. One arm shorter
than the other, the pole to walk her tightrope falling
to the ground. Even it passes through red.  
 
Gather the circles of gold as stars. Have the top red
be the sun as it descends into bay.
Have the bottom one sweep the man out to sea.  
 
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), Faces of Fishing Creek (Middle Creek Publishing), So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press), and Wildwood (Lummox Press). With six nominations for a Pushcart Prize, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. She is the editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. 

**

Dreaming Hors du Cercle
                  with a quote from Joan Miró
 
a double-trunk, pi-shaped tree,
a bird singing on its branch,
halting Chinese brushstrokes

              Throughout the time I am working
              on a canvas, I can feel…

circles of tangled yarn—blue, lavender, green,
a shaky man on stilts
holding a thin bow, bent arrow at the ready,
a black stripe of sidewalk

              …how I am beginning to love it…

a curious little boy
not imprisoned in some invented label
gazing at a line of chattering grackles

             …with that love,
             with that love which is born…

a ladder connecting earth with sky,
eight-pointed stars, planets spinning off
into a pink universe outside the circle

             …of slow comprehension.
 
Sandi Stromberg
 
Sandi Stromberg loves the challenges presented by The Ekphrastic Review. They combine two of her favorite activities: delving into art from all periods and writing poetry. She was recently named a finalist in Public Poetry’s 2019 nation-wide, themed contest ENOUGH. Other recent publications/acceptances include the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News, The Ekphrastic Review Challenges, and the 2020 Texas Poetry Calendar.

**

Out of Questions

The end or the beginning--
can either be
defined?  Can we tell where 
we stand on the wheel
that spins from here to
there and back again?
Where do we draw the line?
Is potential the same as being?
Is it merely possibility
or is it death, waiting
to begin?
Is the seed part of the space
between
fire and flood?
And if the heart beats 
but the synapses remain
dark,
is that existence?
Does life consist of blood 
and veins, or thought 
and mystery?
Is this tunnel of light part
of the mind’s illusion,
or a path of no return
that mirrors the exit 
from the womb?
How do we make room
for what isn’t there?
If we draw a circle
around our questions,
do we create an answer?
or only a symbol 
for nothing?
​
Kerfe Roig

Kerfe Roig finds the work of Joan Miro both playful and mysterious. You can see more of her creations, often in response to the work of others, on her website http://kerferoig.com/ or on her blogs https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (with her friend Nina) and https://kblog.blog/

**

Until Three Astérisks Sparkle Outside The Circles

Here.
Prostrate at crepuscular.
Eyes open.
Pupils dilated.
Unconscious automatism
oozing through the ether
evoking abstracts in the ceiling
superficial voids on the surface:
     spirals
     circles
     blotches
     scarring

tiny forms in empty spaces
camouflaged as pareidolia.
Under the existence of transcendental pi
arced once round the diameter:
     bold
     black
     matte
     serrated

empty plains
empty horizons.
Celestial symbolism, bare.
Devoid of perfect motion
until three astérisks sparkle
outside the circles at
seven minutes passed midnight
with all light eroded when

black is as white.
Tones are as colours.
Impressions have departed.
Expressions have returned:
     vacant
     abstract
     obtuse
     here.

Alun Robert

Born in Scotland of Irish lineage, Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse achieving success in poetry competitions in Europe and North America. His poems have featured in international literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He is particularly inspired by ekphrastic challenges.

**

Shirley Glubka
​
Shirley Glubka has just published a new chapbook, Burst Thought Shall Show Its Root: erasure poetry. She's also been guest editor at The Ekphrastic Review and has happily contributed quite a number of ekphrases to the site. To find out more about Shirley's literary adventures, see her website: https://shirleyglubka.weebly.com