The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Four Poems After Gregory Crewdson Photography, by Paul McDonald

9/1/2020

0 Comments

 

Magnetised
(after Gregory Crewdson's Untitled) 

Her father's shed had a gambrel roof 
that made her think of fairy tales, 
Flemish crones in lace hats, embroidered tunics:
narratives like magnets. 
It squatted at the bottom of the garden, 
locked to little girls, sixty steps from bed. 

One night it throbbed with light, 
a beam that probed her dreams, 
drew her from her sleep toward the door. 
It hung open like it never had before,
watched her count the steps across 
the damp lawn, grass teasing bare toes. 

Magnetised, she strained to hear pixie mirth 
or elfin chatter, glimpse a fairy dance. 
At thirty steps she saw them: confetti wings 
like cabbage whites, glitter in a snow-globe, 
or dust-motes twinkling in the yellow light. 
She felt them in her tummy too, 

and on her tongue, like ginger: 
magic that might coax her into fairyland. 
But something made her stop: 
cold began to creep up through 
her foot soles; and in the space between 
her steps, a magnet shifted poles.

**

First Time
(after Gregory Crewdson’s  The Den) 

Refuse to accept
that this is all there is. 
The stale wine sofa that isn't 
quite big enough for lovers after all,
the crescent of another person's
rear turned toward you, 
the knotted rope of spine. 

Be glad you kept your top on, 
halving your embarrassment, 
the chill that the other doesn't 
seem to feel, spooning cushions
through the night, a spent white shape. 
Refuse to accept that
the moon was just reflected gold.

Turn toward the dawn
like a flower, away from 
his plaster cast body, the carpet 
strewn with underwear. 
Clamp your knees together 
to feel what should be there:
womb like a fist, tight enough to trap it. 

**

Morning On Her Tongue
(after Gregory Crewdson's Seated Woman On Bed) 

From the corner of her bed 
she ignores the grey dawn 
bullying the world beyond her window:

she knows it too well, 
the cold gears of morning,
their slow shift tightening the flesh 

beneath her nightdress.
Today she’s oblivious to bare feet
on laminate, the hessian texture 

of morning on her tongue. 
She's caught by an image in the mirror: 
skin part owned by her history,

sleepy white like Lazarus. 
As her grip scrolls the counterpane, 
a single question -

she asks the mirror,
and the mirror asks back:
what more do you want from me?

**

Dementia Roast 
(after Gregory Crewdson's photograph, Sunday Roast)

Grimy walls,
a door's grim departures:
you can't place 
the absent faces now, 
retrieve the morning's fragments, 
the broken ritual 

of family lunch. 
Sunday’s stunned 
by raw meat, 
a lounge that's lost 
the will to live, 
empty table set for six. 

Your own plucked heart 
is a lunch of blood
plated up for all to see...
This is what it looks like: 
dementia in a room, 
a mute space clenching.

Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write full time. He is the author of over twenty books, which cover fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His work has won a number of prizes including the Ottakars/Faber and Faber Poetry Competition, The John Clare Poetry Prize, and the Sentinel Poetry Prize. His academic work includes books on Philip Roth, Allen Ginsberg, Lydia Davis, narratology, and the philosophy of humour. Paul McDonald Amazon Author Page

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    Picture
    COOKIES/PRIVACY

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
    @ekphrasticreview.



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic [email protected] 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead