Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Congo

Untitled, by Congo (Britain) 1957?

                 A Gannet Dives

                 Arctic eyes catch sight: 
                             fish threading
                                          below the roar 
                                                        & chop & slap of surf.

He soars, grates out
a cackling incantation
swivelling on the pole
of the fixed gaze
ice-hard intent
locked on target

whirls
bends back
black wings
folds them
hooks up
obsidian
webbed feet
plunges through
the waves’
boom:
streak
of silver beak
amber poll
snow plumes
flurry of spume
feather
& foam

Water leaps.
Prey is taken.

Lizzie Ballagher

Lizzie Ballagher has just finished her first full collection of poetry. Her work has been featured in a variety of magazines and webzines, including Words for the Wild, Nitrogen House, Poetry Space, Nine Muses, and The Ekphrastic Review.  She blogs at  https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/

**

Counterstroke
 
"According to Morris’s catalogue essay, Congo soon recoiled against the bourgeois orderliness of these painting sessions and, like an auto-destructive artist ahead of his time, the chimp began “to obliterate the sheets of paper with large masses of paint”.
                        ~ Tim Keane, Seeing Ourselves in a Chimpanzee’s Art
 

I
My mind daggers
its intentions in tangents, 
in indigo squibs & black pigment, 
like a haze of gnats 
flattened onto a matrix.
 
A jungle evanesces
a largesse of charcoal bark 
& curdled sky — 
an arboreal commotion
radiating outward
like leaves in a nest.

Burrow 
into the slough
of the natural world: 
its corrugations
both floral & fading. 
 
Tunnel 
into the susurrus: 
its densities of velvet-
shouldered creatures. 
 
Witness 
the bristle & singe 
of my knuckles smearing
burnt ochre on paper,
see where my mouth’s red roof
dissolves into the hinterlands
of drumfire.
 
II
A sporadic flush  
of symbols effloresces,
an insistent scissoring & flourish 
brinking on script.  
 
Myriad 
upon myriad of strokes 
into the pith, my fingers 
stagnant with yolk.
 
Every inch is infinite
& I am caught like resin 
in the crosshairs, 
uncrumpling memory.
 
III
My mouth
is a gorgeous sphere   
gorging on knowledge,
unburying the lyrical.
 
I am amassing an archive
until such need recedes 
& the obdurate ape in me
awakens.
 
IV
Isn’t all surface mirage?  
Supple, faceted, shifting
like the questions that live 
between our lineages. 
 
If language is 
where we divide,
let us respire
into the disquiet. 
 
V
I was content
to know enough. 
 
To concede this much
requires fealty & a fidelity 
to errand.
 
But I came to you --
whole, coherent --
& so shall I return.
 
VI
O, to be born a beast
— verging on human --
& all that means. 
 
But what being 
can breathe in the smoke 
of another’s dream
without choking?
 
Cara Waterfall

Ottawa-born and Costa Rica-based, Cara’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry, CV2, The Maynard, The Fiddlehead, SWWIM, Rust + Moth and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She won Room’s 2018 Short Forms contest and second place in Frontier Poetry’s 2018 Award for New Poets. In 2019, she was a finalist for Radar Poetry’s The Coniston Prize and shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. She has a diploma in Poetry & Lyric Discourse from The Writer’s Studio at SFU, and a diploma from the London School of Journalism.

**

The Envy of Picasso 
 
You were the spaghetti they threw,
a shocking, fruitful three-year experiment, 

your beautiful pandemonium of tempera choices,
a spray of slate blue, white, and black

radiating from a beige landscape
and kissed with delicate strokes of burnt sienna,

create a striking balance 
of harmony and disharmony
 
with a signature symmetrical consistency; 
even Pablo could not resist.
 
Forty years gone,
your abstract impressionism style

still yields a high price at auction, outselling 
non-chimpanzee artists Renoir and Warhol.
 
Elaine Sorrentino

Elaine Sorrentino is Communications Director at South Shore Conservatory in Hingham, MA.  Her work has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, The Writers' Magazine, Haiku Universe, Failed Haiku, and has won the monthly poetry challenge at wildamorris.blogspot.com.

**

A Surrealist Gives the Chimpanzee Pencil and Paper

And Congo draws a line
That will lead to other lines
That become his style
A hint of Chinese brushstrokes
That will sometimes be splashes of colour
Like a child’s jump into rain puddles
Vague radiating fan patterns
In blue and black, or red, yellow, green

Congo paints a line
Without one lesson
Not even a modest intro to colour
And goes down in animal art history
His mind not, after all, a tabula rasa
But like ours, filled with images
A primal search for symmetry and balance

Congo paints lines some call
“Lyrical abstract impressionism”
That Picasso hangs in his studio
The critics question
The way the doubting ask
Is there a God?
Congo makes his mark
But is it Art?

Sandi Stromberg

Sandi Stromberg is a former magazine feature writer, editor, and columnist, who has dedicated her retirement to writing poetry. She lives in Houston, Texas, and served ten years on the board of Mutabilis Press, dedicated to publishing the work of regional poets in a series of anthologies.

**

Congo in Britain
 
Certain entities, 
in spite of 
chaos
strive for unity--
maintain their balance
 
This is Congo’s
(1957) “untitled”
blacks & whites
interspersed,
beneath—the inevitable
blues, singing their hearts out--
 
struggling
to hold—much like
our country—threads unraveling
from the spool
 
(Has Desmond played us
for a fool?)

Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz writes from Parma, Ohio. She’s reading Wilda Morris’s Pequod Poems, marveling again at how far poetry can carry us. Carole’s next collection Color and Line is scheduled for November (2020) release with Kelsay Books.

**

Rhapsody (Response to Congo)

Versions of you—kaleidoscopic
each facet sharp with intangible nuance
enigmatic
escapable
You--
a composition of intersections and vertexes
concave
convex
but even the intersections never meet
You--
cornflower blue contrast
to a dull beige world 
You--
stark white soul
resisting the gravitational pull into 
the vortex
a phoenix 
without giving way 
to fire and ashes
already resurrected

Elizabeth Bates

​Elizabeth Bates is a wife and mother of one. Bates dabbles in various writing forms: poetry; flash and microfiction; creative nonfiction; literary criticism; and she is currently writing her debut novel. She has a poem due to be published in Versification literary zine in July. Bates is a high school English teacher in Washington state. She earned her MA in English from Southern New Hampshire University in 2019.

**

Black and Blue

Black and blue.
Colours that go
together 
usually
a perfect match
usually.

Red is different.
It stands alone
and shouts
and screams
and bleeds
and bursts
into flame.

But there is black at the heart
of the fire,
black sticks 
that make
it’s bare bones. 
And it needs air
to burst
into flame.
Less air, though
to burn with a blue flame
to breathlessly consume 
the black parts.

Blue and black
the remnants are lying there
breathless.
Black and blue.
Beaten.
Broken.
Waiting for the red.

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/

**

Hydrant

In summers past a hydrant blast was all it took
to wash the sweat off heated days, a splash
in the geyser flash, the cleansing sprays. 
We jumped back laughing, stomping puddles, 
united in the joy of cooling skin, the unexpected 
surge and strength of thirsty limbs. 
An ice cream truck jingled the soundtrack 
to our dance, our soggy t-shirts twirling, 
drenched and dripping, sagging pants. 
We lined up with our silver, 
split a Twin Pop™ with our best friend, 
sucked the flavor from the ice, 
chewed the stick to splinters, 
until sweet and sticky, 
we hopped back in again.

Betsy Mars

​Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, and educator. She founded Kingly Street Press in 2019, publishing her first anthology, Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife, in October. Her work has appeared widely online, most recently in Live Encounters, Silver Birch Press, Verse-Virtual, Kissing Dynamite, and The New Verse News as well as in multiple anthologies. Her chapbook, Alinea (Picture Show Press), came out in January 2019. In the Muddle of the Night, a chapbook she is co-authoring with poet Alan Walowitz, will be published by Arroyo Seco Press later in 2020.
​
**

Objet d’Art Pan Troglodyte
 
He would never paint the Savanna,
depict home of the past, his origin
family long ago, recalled faces,
hear sounds of splashing in the pond,
to dispel the already oppressive heat
of Fongoli at morning, preparing to rest
after a cooler nighttime of gathering.
 
Child’s table with palette, bare canvas, 
brush in hand, a far cry from Senegal,
memories of survival instincts dulled,
absent the din of his chimpanzee siblings;
colors remind him of water, tepid
but refreshing, mud streaked fur under
trees not plentiful, even shade brutally hot.
 
No one could explain the painful breathing,
cough endured, a human ailment not meant
for Pan Troglodyte, stricken young,
far from a Savanna he barely recalled;
they celebrate his painting, Objet d’art,
sought after, his creativity born of captivity,
in the wild, chimps don’t paint.
 
Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson is a New Hampshire poet, active in causes such as animal rights, teen issues, nature and environment. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry Quarterly, The Harvard Press, Ekphrastic Review, among others. Her full length works are available on Amazon.

**

The Planet of the Blues
 
It’s easy, they cried. We are blue, we are huge,
we can only win. Do we need more land? 
Yeeeeessss, cried the masses. Who’s got it?
The black ones. Then they planned
their attack.
 
Splash, blue sprung into the black village
flailing their weapons wildly, hoping
to have it over and done with quickly. 
They relied on their size and the surprise,
striking while the village was sleeping.
 
Those who survived the first wave
of the offensive regrouped quickly, defending
their land and their children. 
They fought fiercely for what they loved,
won the day. Over time the blues learned
that there was enough room to share.

Rose Mary Boehm

A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and Tangents, a full-length poetry collection published in the UK in 2011, she was three times winner of the Goodreads monthly competition. Recent poetry collections: From the Ruhr to Somewhere Near Dresden 1939-1949: A Child’s Journey, and Peru Blues or Lady Gaga Won’t Be Back. Her latest full-length poetry manuscript, The Rain Girl, will be published by Chaffinch Press in 2020.

**

Witness to an Event

People stood agape;
there were curly-haired girls
and lip-biting boys,

wide-eyed children 
complained about the noise
as the grown men wept and wailed,

while some women marveled 
at the majesty,
and wrote sonnets 
in their heads using words 
like explosion and cacophony.

When the icerock hit the earth,
all these people were witness to the event.

Henry Bladon

​Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His latest poetry collection is a collaboration about mental health with Dutch artist Marcel Herms and is available from Egalitarian Publishing.

**

View from a Quarantine Window
 
At least summer still looks like summer.
Deep blue skies, a few puffy clouds
skimming by like pool floats, inviting me
to drift away.

But the world goes raging on, spitting hate,
spattering blood, bringing darkness out
of hiding.

Will we find a vaccine
in time or give way
to nights without any stars?

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 was honoured to receive one of the Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards for 2020. Alarie hopes you’ll check out her poetry books on the Ekphrastic Book Shelf and visit her at alariepoet.com.​

**

I Know What I Do

Lay down a foundation,
        bold blue strokes. 
Fan out in all directions cohesive, 
        overlapping stories.
Some splatters of white,
         defined, defended by blue. 
 
Introduce black. Figures 
         falling back, just abstract enough 
to become subjective but not exact. 
         Earth’s darkest pigment, 
the mix of all colours together
         to go up against blue.

A blood-red spurts between the two. 
Nothing is random in what we do.

Diana Cole

Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has had poems published in numerous journals including Poetry East, Spillway, the Tar River Review, the Cider Press Review, Friends Journal, Verse Daily and the Main Street Rag. Her chapbook, Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press. She is an editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal and a member of Ocean State Poets whose mission is to encourage the reading, writing and sharing of poetry.

**

Broken, Unrecognized
 
The Madonna’s colours
once resplendent
on the illuminated pages
of gilded prayer books--
her blue and red
serenity and passion
framed by the elegant letters
of hand-drawn script–
Here crushed
like smashed idols
broken and scribbled over
with furious black
the blue reaching up
above the blood red beat
of its failing heart
to speak in a fractured tongue
we don’t remember
 
Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, and she has an electronic chapbook, Things I Was Told Not to Think About, available as a free download from Praxis Magazine.

**

Untitled by Congo 
 
Blue skies.
Meadows, ablaze
A murder of crows, 
Dead in the dust
Gasping and gaping,
Where is the life?
 
Lost and ruined...
 
Where is the life?
Gasping and gaping,
Dead in the dust
A murder of crows,
Meadows, ablaze
Blue skies.

Ellie Klaus

Ellie Klaus was born and raised in Montreal. She has lived different selves over several decades: daughter, wildlife biology graduate, vision quest traveler, family life educator, president (of her son's school committee), friend, confidante, lover, wife, mother, caregiver and now caregivee, if there is such a word. Each has contributed to a different perspective of living, of life. The pieces of the puzzle are evident and coming together, although the final image is yet to be revealed to her.  So, writing has reemerged as a creative endeavor to release some of the angst that arises from living a confined life, or any life for that matter, over the past ten years.

**

​To the Handler of Congo Regarding Untitled

If art is "as beheld" declared,
all images are thus ensnared,
and whether made by man, by brute,
or by machine is matter moot.

Yet if it's held as I in fact
believe  --  a conscious, moral act
of self-expression one convenes
to be for soul immortal means

of statement to posterity
establishing with clarity
the conscious will of human grace
to hold a moment in its place  --

these words cannot ekphrastic be.
There is no art that I can see.

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.

**

The Purest of Colours
 
A boy stares at a map of The Tube
looking for the blue line,
not the wavy blue of The Thames
but the blue that alights a flight of steps,
(no aeroplanes involved),
to Her Majesty’s Theatre where he assumes
The Queen will be waiting to greet him
(although he hates public displays.)
 
The boy’s eyes skitter anxiously
over three options as a confusion
of blue lines surface, swimming
up towards underground light.
Victoria     Piccadilly     TFL.
Three is not good, unlucky he thinks,
less than 50/50 by his calculation.
(He doesn’t do shades, even in summer.)
 
‘Tube’, the boy rolls it under his tongue.
Singular.  Tube: a hollow cylinder
designed to squeeze him under streets
of London with maximum speed from
Point A to Point B. But the lines touch,
make contact then spin off at angles
to curious places like Oxford Circus
on the Red line, a gaudy-lipped clown.
 
The boy closes his eyes.  Colours merge
as he rubs lids until kaleidoscopes form.
He considers the Brown of Bakerloo,
(unsavoury, a severe case of diarrhoea),
The Yellow of Circle, (happy like a roundel sun,
though he doesn’t do shades, even in summer),
the Black of the Northern to Charing Cross,
(he dislikes churches so it comes to pass).
 
A voice with no face slaps him squarely,
a boxer ringed in by claustrophobia.
“This train terminates at …..”, sounds fatal
as if the engine is dying on its wheels,
then a whoosh of tunnelled wind
its warmth surprisingly menacing.
‘Mind the Gap’, what does that mean?
 
Signage is misleading, personal even.
Gap: a break or hole between objects,
Mind: a person’s ability to think.
The boy is often told he is different,
that the messages in his brain jump,
become derailed. But he is perfect,
this boy who stares at lines with eyes
that see only the purest of colours.
 
Kate Young
 ​
Editor's note: This artwork reminded the poet of the colours on the London Underground, and how they might appear to one of the children with autism that she has taught. For many of these children, a preoccupation with colour and balance is common. The poem reflects that possibility.

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. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.

**

The Stakes Are High

Just heard reverberating voices, smell acrid antiseptic,
feel my torso horizontal sensing a gathering above though

can’t move my limp fingers or my arms or dead legs
can’t tell where I am and don’t know the time, or day for

I’m dizzy, lightheaded, hungry and parched with
tubes in my mouth and a foul taste in my throat as

I feel cold yet am sweating quite unable to move
cocooned in this body, overwhelmed from trauma so

guess I must be constrained for I’m numb down below
but impatient to calibrate on my vista overhead where

everything’s out of shape in a black, blue, white explosion
with nothing quite in focus, nothing I can recognise but

I sure remember the guy who wanted my Lexus LS
fresh from the dealership and fresh out of fuel I was

on my way back home only a five minute drive
stopping at the Chevron to gas up my sedan when

he pulled out a handgun (Smith & Wesson I think)
that must have gone off for I remember nothing else yet

at least I can see hear and smell, cognate with some image
but I must make a recovery with far too much at stake.

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.

**

Congo Dreams
 
We carry our roots with us 
sometimes rolled neatly in a coil 
and hidden in a bottom drawer, 
 
sometimes worn in flamboyant locks, 
a dance of embroidered slippers, 
a way of walking, a mournful song. 
 
They linger, clinging, 
tender tendrilled, 
deep and primal, 
 
and we remember fear and loss, 
the black, the white, shadows and ghosts, 
and the great billowing blue of ocean, 
 
the trench that divides us 
from then and now 
the unmapped tracks that never lead back,
 
whether we are man, 
woman 
or ape.

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, Visual Verse, 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/

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