Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Sister Plautilla Nelli

The Last Supper, by Sister Plautilla Nelli (Florence) 1560s

 
Pray For The Paintress

     To feel the strength of his belief,
         my head against his heart,
             the dark walls of night
                  opening to a last
                      intimacy
                                        was to feel

      how the universe
          was altered by a storm surge,
              time an unlimited translation
                  of what he had been to me --
                       flesh and flash --
                                                        the lightning

       bolting what had ever been an anonymous
           doorway, lock and key and words, 
               roses I'd plucked from the garden
                   to go with the bread, and the wine
                       called blood --
                                                     what he would shed

       when the heavens were ripped open
           in premonition -- the sky falling!
               paradise in storm and stigmata!
                   how the earth is scarred
                       and wounded
                                                  by the nails

      and thorns; yet his heartbeat
          remains steady, and true,
              as the doorway frames
                  the dinner, a lunette
                      as I painted
                                             the table,

      how I was dear to him
          hidden in the background
             of his passion, my paint brush
                 shaping the twelve --
                     John, Andrew, 
                                               James,

      Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew,
          Thomas, Simon; Judas who will
              betray love with a kiss; 2 named
                   Judas, 2 Simon, and 2 James --
                        how church history
                                                          confuses

       and explains why I must be hidden,
           ghostly as the spirit of the moon,
               mother, somehow, to 12 rising suns --
                    All for One! --  Pray for me!
                         as I do not follow
                                                          the Order

      of instruction --  Do Not Sit Near
          The Son of God!  Do not imagine
              it is you who fills his heart
                  on this last night in one world
                      before we cross
                                                    to another,

      O my love, before the paint dries.


Laurie Newendorp

Laurie Newendorp is unsure of many things. Sometimes visionary, she has tried to explain the inexplicable in her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, but the essence of love and spirituality -- their certainty -- can only be described as those who are in her heart.  Nelli's painting beautifully describes comfort, as do Stanley Plumly's words about his birth, and his grandmother, in “After Whistler,” a poem that ends "...holding me small in her small arms, hers, in the calendar dark, my head against her heart."

**

Someday I Will Love John Milkereit

John, no need to worry.
A piece of bread is only
a piece of bread.
John, keep it if you want
or give one or two pieces to your guests
or not.
You do not have to count.
No fair share since betrayal is eating supper.
 
If you want to offer a gentle touch to Mary
wrapped in her red and olive cloth.
If you want to drink more wine,
just ask for more, no need to keep glasses full.
 
And no need to cut the roasted lamb 
in the turquoise bowl. You have never
liked fava beans, so do not eat those. 
Or the lettuce heads.

Be gentle on yourself looking holy 
with a halo. A moon sliver awaits 
your naked body behind these brown panels. 
John, it’s the last night to dance. 
So go, just laugh, and say 
“I will. Yes, I will.”

John Milkereit

John Milkereit is a mechanical engineer working in the oil & gas industry, who lives in Houston, Texas. 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. He is working on his next collection of poems.

**

Dear Sister Plautilla Nelli
from your conservator, Rossella Lari
 
“It’s not unusual for conservators to spend more hours
alone with a great work than the artist themselves.”
                       The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith
 
            “One will never get closer to an artist than
            in the restoration studio.” — Rossella Lari, conservator

In the beginning, I stood in awe before neglect.
Your painting once rolled like a canvas rag
and stored in a drawer. A victim of floods,

of Napoleon’s dislike of religious art.
So much damage to your Jesus
and his disciples. Could I resurrect

the first Last Supper by a woman?
As the years passed, I began to see you--
self-taught painter woman nun—more clearly,

to learn how you worked, how you mentored
sister apprentices in the power
of strong brushstrokes and chiaroscuros.

You knew what you wanted, as surely as any
male master-artist of the 1600s.
For four years I have stood before your art.

The work has ended. For the painting--
a new beginning. I thank you for nourishing
me as Jesus nourished his followers.

I stand in awe of the veined hands, muscled arm,
Jesus’s eyelashes. In awe of your courage,
painting under the rule of Savonarola,

hellfire preacher of the ferocious,
burning eye, who approved of your tableaux,
how they saved women from the deadly sin of sloth. 

Sandi Stromberg

Sandi Stromberg is thriving on challenges from The Ekphrastic Review. What better company during lockdown than poetry and art! She has poems accepted for the 2021 Texas Poetry Calendar, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, and loved contributing to formidable woman sanctuary’s Spring 2020 Renga issue, the editor’s aim to create “evolutionary-lit.”

**

Float
​
I rest my head in your hands, 
close my eyes and feel your shoulder 
beneath my ear.

I remember the first time you held me 
this way. I remember their fight: 
something about a wandering eye, and the 
dinner table conflagrated before our eyes. 

The heat of our father’s breath, the shrill 
of our mother’s tone, the soft pace of 
your fingers across my back. 

You took me to the stars, let us watch 
the eruption of our home from the 
distance of a lightyear. 

Thank you for making me an astronaut, 
for showing me how to float, eyes closed, 
when forks and tablecloth felt heavier 
than Earth itself. 

Niko Malouf

As a teenager living in Los Angeles, I enjoy writing about the things that surround me, stimulate me, the events of my adolescence as well as the happenings of the world. I hope to share my experiences and perspective with others and inspire them to do the same.

**

2008 C.E.: The Last Supper at George’s 
for George, Nick, Christiana and Shaohua
 
 
1.        
“How is the spaghetti? Is the beef missing something?” Surprisingly, this time, Christiana needed some reassurance. “We still should’ve made something special. But you, Big-Babies, were too impatient and needed something fast. So, Bon Appétit!” She lodges the case in her defence straight away, too.
 
“Here, Malaka![1] A hint of some olive oil should make it edible. It’s straight from my Olive Gardens in Crete,” teasing her, George passes me the unbranded and unlabelled glass bottle. “And eat some Feta; it’s homemade feta—my grandma’s special recipe. It’s good for you!” George’s hospitality had always been second to none.
 
2.
“So, shall we?” Nick sends a quick glance my way for an approval. “Sure, Dr. Karf! What better way to compliment ‘The Last Supper’ than a fine tobacco, Stella and chess,” I reaffirmed.
 
3.         The Next Morning
In the bus, en route to the Heathrow Airport to fly out of the UK for the last time, I couldn’t stop reminiscing and smiling: we treated ourselves—and deservingly so, too—by paying a visit—a homage, more like—to the grave of Karl Marx in London before saying the last goodbyes. And back in 2004 C.E., it was merely a romantic idea to return to Leicester to further our personal and academic causes by continuing onto the PhD programme. … Shaohua will be fine; she will be fine!
 
            Postscriptum
Ever so often, I leave this song, Yaarian (Friendship), by Vital Signs[2] playing in the background:
 
To those, who leave friends behind,
Life must be awfully harsh.[3]

Saad Ali


[1] ‘Malaka’ implies a loser or an idiot. It’s a very common slang used by the Greeks, when having a casual conversation among friends. But outside of a casual friendly conversation(s), this slang can be very offensive, if said to a stranger.
[2] Vital Signs are an iconic music band from Pakistan, who revolutionized the Pop Music Scene in the South Asia in the 1980s.
[3] This is my literal translation of the lyrics by Vital Signs: “Yaaron ko, Jo bhe choar kay chalay jaatay hain, Unhain zindage rulati hogi.”


Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems Βιβλίο Άλφα (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 Persian, Chinese and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com.

**

The Last Supper by Sister Plautilla Nelli, OP
                                        1524-1588
                                 to the cloistered dominican sisters in lufkin, texas


        as a child
        perhaps
        she was left at the convent--
        a family commodity
        like so many others
        but then as now
        life was full of surprises
        and she was certainly one . . .
        donning her black and white lifestyle
        whose cloistered walls sheltered sacred spaces
        she canvased into color  
        her self-taught learning 
        then she taught women like herself   
        who would gift
        this holy supper
        to grace the nuns own meals
        in the dining room
                  of their own hidden lives

Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Sister Lou Ella Hickman’s poems and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and journals as well as four anthologies. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015. (Press 53)


**

Praying Because of the Paintress

‘Nelli signed her paintings as "Pray for the Paintress" after her
name, confirming her role in spite of her gender’ - Wikipedia


the haloed saints turn to You
like sunflowers soaking in soft sun rays,

genome of devotion visible
along sinewy palms,

their mien ruffled like
flower petals caught in a storm

You coast through the Last Supper,
reveal the calculus of betrayal and
break bread with the traitor

snow shower of crumbs
meld into the crisp white table-cloth,

the scene safe and secure,
ferried along the route
of proper channel, from master to disciple

until it reaches the paintress
who leads me to the threshold of history
so close, I can hear nirvana breathe
through pores of the lit painting

wings of a silent prayer flutter on my lips
before take off

Preeth Ganapathy

Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant. She is an officer of Indian Revenue Service who hails from Coorg and currently resides in Bangalore, India. Writing has been her passion
since childhood. Her works have been published or are upcoming in Nymphs, The Short Humour Site, Red Wolf Journal and Spark (India) among other online magazines.

**

The Rectangular Table

Thoughts become things,
solid and immovable,
packed with the emotional weight
of betrayal--

constructed carefully
to contain the faithful,
to defend against heresy,
to prevent escape.

Who will name the mothers,
the daughters, the spirits
of the holy,
the sacred, earth?

What is outside this room
remains unheard, unseen, 
meaningless--limited to
the symbolic artifice of a vessel

that contains only the blood 
of fathers and sons, 
filled to the brim with the reigns 
of kings and princes

who deny the dances, the wisdom,
of women, the circles
that follow the moon, the earth,
the seasons without end

Kerfe Roig

Kerfe Roig is sheltering, writing, and making art in New York City.  You can see more of her work on her blog https://kblog.blog/

**

Untitled

it’s the fold of the tablecloth he 
notices, resting his blurry head 
against jesus’ shoulder, warm on 
wine, warm by the hand cupping 
his cheek like a mother’s would, 
like his mother’s did. the tablecloth 
is so even, and he can feel the lip 
of one of the folds brushing against 
his knee, and he takes one of his 
hands, probably the left, and pinches 
the cloth between his forefinger and 
thumb and trails along the rough 
hemmed edge, it is the nicest table 
cloth he has ever seen, it is the nicest 
fabric he has ever touched, and 
jesus’ head droops to rest on his, 
like a brother would, like a tired friend 
would. but jesus is not the tired one, 
and the steady wash of his words, 
muffled and darkened by wine, 
like when he would drowsily nod off 
as a child listening to his grandmother 
and grandfather talk the only room over,
candlelight whispering yellow and 
blanket scratchy under his chin, just 
like the itch of jesus’ beard, but that 
is grazing his forehead, not his chin, 
like his lord would- kindly, reassuringly, 
pulling him to a more comfortable position 
that he didn’t even know he wanted but 
his lord did, and he closes his eyes as 
one of the other men speak up. and the 
night softens to his blood in his heart 
and the tablecloth’s rough seam against 
his fingertips and jesus’ words spilling 
spilling spilling. 
jesus leaves him there when he must 
depart, unwoken, and so does everyone 
else, just like when he was a child and 
his older brothers would leave him behind
when they didn’t want to play with him, 
and he blinks bleary buoyant a little still, 
and he sits up and the tablecloth is uneven
now, the squares not as uniform, wrinkled and
twisted, and jesus’ shawl is draped over him,
smelling like him, like his mother’s scarf did 
whenever she gave it to him when he was cold.
and that was the last time he saw jesus. 
he didn’t realize it, though, because he was
pulling the shawl more tightly over him and
dropping his head back down onto the bench
and staring at the closely blurred lips of 
the twisted folds of the tablecloth he remembers   
admiring through the fog the night before. 
 
Madeline McConnell

Madeline McConnell: "There is nothing you need to know about me."

**

To Sister Nelli Regarding The Last Supper

How fitting work they resurrect
you so uniquely would perfect
as Passion that you dared embrace
as if the meal so commonplace

to holy women given art
to shield from sloth devoted heart
yet left to learn, each on her own,
by wit and grit the skill self-grown

to craft this moment much like those
depicted who from lives arose
as ordinary souls to be
the face of faith and destiny

by journey each would tread alone
together by example shown.

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.