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

Lonely Bird, by H.W. Bryce

11/25/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Improvisation 35, by Wassily Kandinsky (Russia). 1914

Lonely Bird
 
All the colours of chaos and smudge smear
The clear eyes of heaven and of earth
So that nothing is clear any more
And black and white is buried in the turmoil
Smeared onto the canvas of life
And man cannot recognize his mate…
But in the turmoil, the caloposy* of modern art
In the disharmony of colours arguing against blending…
                A loney bird sings.
 
Its voice rises above the cacophonic pandemonium
As the musical notes fall from their clefs
And scream in their horror of loss and abandonment…
Yet the loney bird sings, a lonely herald of hope
In a vision of renewal and peace.
Listen. Listen.
Listen to the lonely bird sing.
 
Her song is the song of hope.
Her song is the prayer of the lost children,
Of the lonely and the beaten,
And a cry for the path less taken.
 
Sing with the lonely bird
Gird your lonely loin,
Join with the colours of Hope,
Slope not away from her song.
 
For the fish in the seas lose their senses
Of navigation and distance in the reverberations
Of the swirling, howling colours and one landmark
Butts into another and one fish can no longer
Recognize another in its new and splodged colours
In this crazy mixing bowl of splish splashing
Hues and dyes,
And one by one each fish, each one dies...
 
And in the swirl and the scramble of chaos
And rewritten history repeating itself
The minds of mankind like The Scream are screaming
Out like the lost souls being sucked into
Dante’s Inferno, and the crazy painter
Splashes more colours and more...
 
And the butterflies, and the humming birds
Are not painted in but are being painted right out…
 
And the drum beat keeps skipping its beat
And the music can find its rhythm no more
And the orchestral members keep trying to
Out-loud each other in great disharmony…
 
And yet, the loney bird sings.
 
Her song is the song of hope.
Her song is the prayer of the lost children,
Of the lonely and the beaten,
And a cry for the path less taken.
 
Sing with the lonely bird,
Gird your lonely loin,
Join with the colours of Hope,
Slope not away from her song.
 
H. W. Bryce
 
*caloposy – a made up word to describe the chaos of colours (in modern art)

H. W. Bryce, BA, Western University, lives in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Former journalist, editor, book editor, teacher, courier, and robbery and kidnap victim while travelling the Middle East and North Africa, he survived near-clinical depression by writing poetry. While learning the art of caregiving to his late wife on her long goodbye Alzheimer’s journey, both his writing and his life were transformed. His poetry appears in anthologies in Canada, the US, and India. He is published in the Neworld Review. Mr. Bryce was one of three judges for the 2017 Rabindranath Tagore Award International English Poetry Competition. He is the author of a family book Ann, A Tribute, and of Chasing a Butterfly: a journey in poems of love and loss to acceptance, the poems of Alzheimer’s and poems for everybody. Mr. Bryce’s blog appears on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/herb.w.bryce He has been a featured poet and frequent contributor to many venues, and has ‘appeared’ on radio as well. Mr. Bryce is a member of the Royal City Literary Society and the Holy Wow Poets Canada.
 

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    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 theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

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