Nine Lives Marathon: Poetry Responses

The Ekphrastic Review rejoices at the absolute bounty that arose from so many imaginations during the Nine Lives Marathon in July, when we celebrated together nine years of this journal, writers, and art.

Here is our selection of poems chosen from the entries, and the announcement of the winning poem. (The selection of flash fiction and other prose entries will be posted separately.) Congratulations to everyone who participated in the marathon, whether or not you entered your works or felt happy with what you made. For this particular creative event, the goal is to complete the marathon and to "see what happens." We are inviting the muse in an intense but fun way, shaking things up, trying something different, and indulging ourselves in a day of pure exploration and play, rather than doing any work that is administrative, editing, revising, or grammar. Kudos for being there! 

This year we decided to do something different with the marathon entries, and chose a work from every submitting participant. The result for readers is a wonderful array of ingenuity and insight. Bravo!

A massive thank-you to editors Kate Copeland and Sandi Stromberg for their presence, brilliance, and hard work.

See you at the marathon next year! Plan on joining us if you haven't joined yet. It's amazing.

love, Lorette

with Kate Copeland and Sandi Stromberg

**

Dear Ekphrastic Marathoners,

Thank you for being part of Nine Lives and for sending in your ekphrastic writings! How wonderful it was to read your words on marathon-day…and how wonderful it has been to read all your beautiful pieces afterwards.  

I found this year’s poetry to be a high-quality body of words; beautiful, profound and witty sometimes too…you ekphrastic writers know what you are doing when it comes to turning art into art! I was taken by use of metaphors, imagery, different languages and the knowledge of artworks and artists.

Hence, it was ever so difficult to select a winning poem. I have based my choice on looking for writers who wrote about, as well as through the artwork; for an original ‘show-don’t tell’ that made it interesting to read and re-read the words.

It is my absolute honour to announce this year’s winner: 

Huge congratulations to 
John L. Stanizzi for the winning poem: “What Happens When I Arrive?”

yours, Kate Copeland, editor, The Ekphrastic Review

**

​The winning poem is just below, with all the other selected poems afterwards in alphabetic order of author.

The Black Path 3, by Marcelle Hanselaar (Netherlands) 2019-20

What Happens When I Arrive?

The wind, having become contemptuous,
ripped a small flame from the failing sunset,
flew across the water,
touched the flame to my shirt
and blew on it as only a nasty wind can.
It twirled the flame close enough to my shirt
that it finally caught fire.

My problem was my cynicism.
I could clearly see that my shirt was burning,
but I refused to believe it.
I will admit, though, that I was
growing concerned about what I was going to do.

I had been permitted to venture this far, barefoot,
shirt aflame, wind whipping my frail coat,

The wind had blown dead the flame on my shirt,
I took a very close look at the walkway,
and made the decision to jog.

It was slightly uphill, but no problem.
Good fortune also came
in the complete diminishment of the wind.

Oh, but I felt great.
It did not concern me one single bit
why I had not asked the man
who seemed to be in charge of the boardwalk
where it led, and would I be able to return safely.
Now I didn’t care one single bit.

If you’re feeling fairly comfortable right now,
allow me to continue.

The jog to the end of the brown trail only took seconds,
yet…when I turned around,
the boardwalk looked miles and miles away.
In fact, I couldn’t even see it
until it exploded, lighting up
the night sky much more impressively
than the sunset had.

I turned to confirm that I was, indeed,
at the end of the brown trail, but when I turned
I saw – for the first time – a massive,
monolithic structure, solid steel hard.

Now what?

I looked again for the boardwalk
and saw only a sky of smoke and flame.
It was at the moment that
I also realized the trail
was rolling itself up like a rug.
I was running out of room.

I turned back to the monolith,
but the only thing there was
a monstrous storm cloud
that instantly lifted off
into the black sky and vanished.

I had run out of brown trail
and I had to face the truth-
I would have to dive in
and try to swim…somewhere.

I had run out of brown trail,
the monolith had vaporized,
the boardwalk was still burning,
and so I dove in.

My horror was unspeakable.
I landed face first on asphalt,
scratched up my face really good,
and stood up, standing on
miles and miles and miles
of asphalt in every direction
as far as I could see.

John L. Stanizzi 

John L. Stanizzi authored numerous collections - Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Feathers and Bones, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide/Ebb Tide, Chants, Four Bits, Sundowning, POND, and The Tree That Lights the Way Home.  Besides The Ekphrastic Review (one of his absolute favourite journals) he also published in Prairie Schooner, American Life In Poetry, New York Quarterly, and many others.  His translations appear widely in Italy. His nonfiction has appeared in Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, after the pause, many others.  A former New England Poet of the Year, John received a Fellowship in 2021 from Connecticut Office of the Arts.  Lives in Coventry, CT., with his wife, Carol.  https://johnlstanizzi.com

Composition, by Piet Mondrian (Netherlands) 1919

​Le Quatuor of Life
 
for Nashwa Y. Butt, Umm-e-Aiman Ali, Dr Lloyd Jacobs, and Ejaz Rahim
 
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha)
 
Love
 
love is a poem a nightingale cannot keep caged inside her beak / love is a dream splashed on a butterfly’s wings / love is a breather hole on a nib that keeps the کاغذ portrayed.1
 
Hate
 
hate is a chainsaw that exposes the crow’s feet on a tree trunk / hate is a queen termite that terraforms your favourite closet into her canvas / hate is the پتاغان that chops the heart ‘n soul into two.2
 
Fear
 
fear is the الدخان that renders one owl of athena blind ‘n wingless /3 fear is the grave that swallows many a prometheus whole / fear is the furnace that transforms many a parthenon into rubble.
 
Courage
 
courage is the بانگ درا that makes the ape climb down from the pinus /4 courage is the lamassu that carries one homo sapiens past the singularity /5 courage is the vahana that transmogrifies the homo sapiens into one homo deus.6
 
Saad Ali
 
1. کاغذ / Kagaz (Urdu): Paper.
2. پتاغان / Yatagan (Turkish): Two-curved sword.
3. الدخان / Ad-Dukhan (Arabic): The black smoke (Al-Quran, 44: 10-11).
4. بانگ درا / Bang-e-Dara (Farsi): The Call of the Marching Bell (phraseology borrowed from Dr Allama M. Iqbal).
5. Lamassu (Mesopotamian Mythology): A chimera – with a head of a human, body of a lion/bull, and wings of a bird.
6. Vahana (Hindu Mythology): A ride of a god/goddess; Homo Deus (Latin): The God-Man (phraseology borrowed from Dr Yuval N. Harari).
 
Saad Ali, poet-philosopher & literary translator, has been brought up and educated in the UK and Pakistan. His poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Synchronized Chaos, and two Anthologies by Kevin Watt (ed.). His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net. His ekphrases have been showcased at an Art Exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Learn further: www.facebook.com/owlofpines. 

Beach Scene 23, by Fergus Hare (UK) contemporary

Before We Are Famous

We stand on our own feet, 
upside down, balancing 
like acrobats, heel to heel, 
toe to toe. Tommy even has 
his hands on his head. 

The Three of us make shapes, 
wandering down here instead 
of school and we learn stuff .
We find fish skeletons and 
condoms and old coins 
sometimes. 

We never see Kate Moss 
down here taking her top off 
for those nude Vogue photos. 
Believe me, we're on the look. 
An old geezer with a knackered 

Metal detector wanted to put 
his hand in our pants for a 
fiver and a can of Special Brew 
- each - but someday we're gonna  
be famous and

Even Karl doesn't know Tommy
is Tamara under her jacket. It's always
been The Three of us so I don't know 
how things would kick off.

The three blades on the turbine 
turn around and around and around 
and always make electricity somehow. 
We're the power station and it's our 
golden hour.

Saskia Ashby 

Saskia is a UK experimental fine artist who enjoys being active across a broad field and encouraging others to be creative without anxiety .

Composition, by Piet Mondrian (The Netherlands) 1919

Mapping Mondrian    
 
Mondrian reminds me of the Midwest.
Maps full of perfect angles and lines
Color blocked sections like small town zoning
Residential, commercial, industrial.
Land divided into perfect Mondrian shapes
Large squares broken down into smaller
Hard edged spaces. 
Easy to maneuver, hard to get lost,
Constant stops and starts at each intersection.

Red, blue, yellow, why did he not use green…
He had rules, rigid like a map.

I would have used green, but I began
In a rural area where green
Was a primary colour.
Green zones full of trees and fields and life.
Imperfect squares of
Yards for play, gardens for food,
Grasses for bunnies and streams for fish.
Pathways cut through at odd angles
Curving around trees and rocks
Allowing for exploration.
Green is that color that softens
And opens our lives
Pushing aside the boundaries
And rules
We may set for ourselves.

Kimberly Beckham 

Kimberly Beckham: Wanderer, photographer, reader, writer, hopeful human with two older demanding cats and a love of breakfast cereal and Lego building.

Visit to the Witch, Edward Frederick Brewtnall (England) 1882

​Visit to the Witch

Go into the smoke. 
It will be there outside her door.
But do not cross the threshold.
Leave a pretty fish on her stoop 
And a basket of new linen and thread
For the making.
Write your wish in ash from the fire.
Fold it in three and seal it
With the gum from the tree at the edge
Of the clearing.
You’ll find the knife in its trunk.

Do not pretend you do not know what you do, that you do not have a wish that might spin another’s life in a direction they haven’t chosen.

No.

A witch cannot work with a pretender.
The bond is not strong enough, the hunger not clear.

Open your mouth to what you want.
Give it its name. 

Spell it out.

Kate Bowers

Kate Bowers s a Pittsburgh based writer who has been published in Sheila-Na-Gig, Rue Scribe, and The Ekphrastic Review. Her work appears in the anthology Pandemic Evolution: Poets Respond to the Art of Matthew Wolfe by Hayley Haugen (Editor) and Matthew Wolfe (Contributor). Kate maintains a reading blog “So Read This” that can be found at https://www.facebook.com/soreadthis. She works as a technical writer for Pittsburgh Public Schools, the second largest urban public school system in Pennsylvania, where she specializes in philanthropy and program design. Kate helps promote the work of ekphrastic writers as co-manager of the TER Facebook page.

Winter, by Jamie Clements (United Kingdom) 2022

Wintering
 
Elsa at fifty.
Letting it go.
Wig off.
Exposed leg
in silver heels.
 
Defiant.
 
Looking toward the future.
No more fucks to give.
Accoutrements, all the
fakery be damned.
 
Yet.
 
Still.
 
Here. 
 
Barbara Crary 

Barbara Crary worked for thirty years as a school psychologist in southeastern Pennsylvania and began writing poetry after her retirement. She has participated in writing courses through the University of Iowa International Writing Program and was a contributing poet to Whitmanthology: On Loss and Grief, as well as having been published by Silver Birch Press, Visual Verse, and The Pennsylvania Bards Eastern PA Poetry Review.

Tale of the Waves, by Kazimierz Stabrowski (Poland) 1910

Storm Warning

Be careful by the sea, we say. 
You mustn’t muss your fancy dress. 
That gossamer lace might flounce away. 
The pearls you drape could easily drop, 
lost listless in the frothy waves. Play safe.

But wait. Now we see, you are the sea.
Your ruffles become the rippled waves.
Those dripping pearls have made their way
from hollows of the shell you hold. Yes, your
demeanor is but delicate, yet your eyes are bold.

We know you are neither mirage nor fantasy. Once we 
tossed, aimless, on a restless sea, crested with the waves. 
Fragile, miniscule, feeble—we found our halting way 
to land, mere vessels of water and salt. But we forget, 
grow arrogant. 

Yes, we staked our claim—water, earth, heaven even. We 
ravaged our domain. Until the gods, enraged, proclaimed: 
This that the ocean has given, the ocean will take away.

The ocean is a ravished woman. Dwell upon her gaze.
Hers are the eyes of storms. It looks like rain today.
Be afraid.

​Kelly Ellis

Kelly Ann Ellis holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Houston, where she also taught for over a decade. A member of the critique group Poets in the Loop, she is the co-founder of hotpoet, Inc. and the managing editor of Equinox. Her poetry, which has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, was featured in the REELpoetry festival for three years consecutive years and showcased in the Houston Fringe Festival in 2019. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2020, and her poetry collection, The Hungry Ghost Diner, was published by Lamar University Literary Press in 2023.

This Moment in Time, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2024

To Honour a Muse

Daughters of Zeus and the Goddess Mnemosyne--
one whose artful collage memetic honours her sister’s 
music wuthering from Olympian heights; her lyrics
spellbind and songs lodge, ever-lasting, in memory. 

This moment in time is but a step into a stream that
flows forever, unyielding to mere mortals. Too fluid,
time, to have but a moment, for sometimes is often
never and never is forever.
 
​
A melody lures
Memory into a stream
There lingers this soul

Karen FitzGerald

Karen FitzGerald is a genre fluid writer working on her debut novel, and ever looking for interesting distractions from the effort. Ekphrasis is a favourite distraction, as are Happy Hours with Jack Daniel and eight hour marathons, writing or otherwise. Karen is most recently published in the anthology, Vision & Verse; a Fusion of Poetry, Prose, Art and Photography (2024) 

Deposition, by Pascal Möhlmann (Switzerland) 2024

Crucifixion
 
of what are you accused my child
to evoke these hate-filled glares
so much suspicion and blame
 
your eyes stare vacantly
above your blood red hood
arms stretched-pulled reveal
a crown of thorns already borne
 
the mob who rules ready
to wrap you in white linen
conviction consumated
caught in the final act
 
when they are done
will they secret you
away behind a boulder
knowing there is no chance
 
that you will rise again
 
Robin Gabbert

Robin Gabbert has poetry in multiple state, national, and international poetry anthologies. Her first book of poetry, Diary of a Mad Poet was published in 2020; a book of ekphrastic poetry — The Clandestine Life of Paintings, in Poems in November 2022. Robin has spoken to the California Writers Club and other groups on ekphrastic Poetry. She lives in California wine country with her husband and pup Hamish. For samples of Robin’s poetry, see www.robingabbert.com
​

Memory, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico) 1937

​People Pleaser

And this is what happens
when I try to let hope
fold me into a functional shape

I separate into islands
that please no one

I long to refuse 
the offered hand
and the blandness
of social acceptance
for the bold flavour
of authenticity

but only succeed in driving
a blunt stake through my own chest
all of us choosing to ignore
the bloody fossil of my heart.

Gabby Gilliam 

Gabby Gilliam is a writer, an aspiring teacher, and a mom. She lives in the DC metro area with her husband and son. She is a founding member of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective. Her first chapbook, No Ocean Spit Me Out, was released in June 2024 from Old Scratch Press. Her novella duology, Drumming for the Dead: Trouble in Tomsk and Drumming for the Dead: Chasing a Cure were released from Black Hare Press. Her poetry and fiction has appeared online and in multiple anthologies.  You can find her online at gabbygilliam.com.

Deposition, by Pascal Möhlmann (Switzerland) 2024

Deposition

But their eyes lied in the surrender to crosses, candles, a clamp, caught slipping
off the crossbeams of Don’t You Dare and It Is What It Is, a zippered heart
broken, only one, Petra, named, the notes from Jude still stapled
to a pierced pulse, as she slid toward the coven of thorns.

Mary Hutchins Harris

Mary Hutchins Harris’s work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, Lily Poetry Review, Poemeleon, Pirene’s Fountain, The Rumpus: ENOUGH, The Ekphrastic Review, Spillway, Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility, as well as in other print and on-line publications. She is an Interdisciplinary Studies Adjunct professor in the Lesley University, Cambridge, MA Low-Residency MFA program and on the faculty of the YMCA Downtown Writer's Center in Syracuse, NY. ​

Visit to the Witch, Edward Frederick Brewtnall (England) 1882

The Ghost Story, by Walter McEwen (USA) 1923

The Warning
 
Burn the witch!
 
Foolish stories turn to shame
It was meant to be a game
Afternoon fun with spindle and wheel
Pass the time, make young girls squeal
 
Burn the witch!
 
But you who know too much of ghosts
Cannot be reliable hosts
Deep inside you harbor sin
Cannot disguise the evil within
 
Burn the witch!
 
Those strong leaders who watch the flock
Make the most of collar and frock
Seize all power, wealth and fame
Always protect reputation and name
 
Burn the witch!
 
They say blame must never be
Within the heart of me but thee
You who lead young minds astray
Must always be the one to pay
 
Burn the witch!
 
As you become stooped and gray
Guard your words and thoughts by day
Though you are just a woman slight
The fearful come for you by night
 
Burn the witch!
 
Then as you spin your charming yarn
Regale the girls of mountain tarn
Lest you befall the wretched guile
And hear the words at end of trial
 
Burn the witch!
 
Cathy Hollister
 
​Cathy Hollister is the author of Seasoned Women, A Collection of Poems published by Poet’s Choice.  A 2024 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been in Eclectica Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee; find her online at www.cathyhollister.com and Instagram cathy.hollister.52

The Healer, by Rene Magritte (Beligum) 1936

Annaliese Jakimides

​Writer/mixed media artist Annaliese Jakimides’s work has appeared in many venues nationally and internationally. A finalist for many awards, including the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, the inaugural Edna St. Vincent Millay Residency, and the Maine Literary Awards in multiple genres and years, she’s part of the creative team for the musical Love Affair, premiering in 2024. annaliesejakimides.com

Composition, by Piet Mondrian (Netherlands) 1919

Tabula Rasa
 
I am a blank canvas
until I break from
the name of my birth,
erase empty letters
with white paint.
 
I can craft myself
as my own composition,
arrange the colours
in patterns and directions
as I see them.
That which comprises me
is in equal measure
a panoply of colour.
The beauty is in 
the arrangement,
not the object.
 
See how the blocks
relate to each other.
This is equality,
each block relying
on its neighbours,
each offering its 
vulnerable face.

Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod, Michigan Quarterly Review, Paterson Literary Review, Rust + Moth, The Vassar Review, and other journals. She lives and teaches in New Jersey, and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com.

Kimono, by Lyn Aylward (UK) 2023

Addressing the Lady, Wearing a Green Kimono as She Sits on the Blue Chaise

Excuse me, could you turn around please?
I think I know you.
Actually, I think you are my mother,
come back to pose for this painting 
to get up from the chaise as you used to do
on Sunday afternoons after your nap.
The kimono is so like things she wore--
“Redheads look good in green,” she would often say.

Your hair, you in the painting,  
is not quite the vibrant red of hers
but maybe I’ve caught you on a day when 
the sun is not glimmering on the red gold 
of your cascading locks
ss they fall around your shoulders.
I see your robe and tho I do not recall one exactly like
that in her wardrobe, I know it was her favourite colour.

I’m sorry if my footsteps woke you, as they often 
did to my mother. When I became lonely, 
on Sundays when Dad was working, and I wanted you
to wake up and play with me, I would clomp 
up the steps hoping to wake you or nap with you
on the blue chaise. As I look at you, your back to
me, I’d like to tap you on the shoulder now so
you would turn around and I could tell you
that now that I’m an adult, I have my own chaise
that I use for naps. In truth, which is not all I have 
to say o you, dear Mama. I still seek you
out when I am lonely. Please turn around
and hug me as you used to do.

​Joan Leotta

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs folk and personal tales of food, family, strong women on stages across the country and in Europe and offers a one woman show of author visits as Louisa May Alcott. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time Pushcart nominee, twice Best of the Net nominee, and a 2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, CNF, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in  Impspired, One Art, Lothlorien, The Ekphrastic Review, Ovunquesiamo,  MacQueen’s Quinterly, Pure Slush, and others.  Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, (Finishing Line) and  Feathers on Stone, (Main Street Rag). https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

This Moment in Time, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2024

Nostalgia

This moment in time
is purple, ethereal
neon cloudburst
of lilac whimsy
sung by a dove
with a raven’s heart.

This moment in time 
is the roulade centre
of a cerise rose,
parma violet perfume
sweet sixteen 
forget-me-not
love story.

This moment in time
is a dice rolled
music dreamt backwards
light spilling
into iridescence
graffiti of joy painted 
on a blooming heart. 

Siobhán Mc Laughlin

​Siobhán Mc Laughlin is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Ireland. Her poems have appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review and other journals including The Honest Ulsterman, Drawn to the Light Press, Reverie, Quince, The Poetry Village and more. 

Beach Scene 23, by Fergus Hare (UK) contemporary

(Faceless watercolour mirrors
vertical jeans and washed out
windmills)

A hand on hair no a hoodie for
hair the cancer has blown away
ponytail eyebrows the crown as
bold as the glassy sea. And yet feet
remain feet on sand sand on
sediment sediment on bedrock
bedrock on the crust of the earth.
On the surface a crest of foamy
bubbles lap the shore health
​returning tumor receding feet still
and again walking splashing
squishing held up by an earth that
spins on despite despite

Isabella Mori

Isabella Mori lives on the unceded, traditional and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people aka Vancouver, BC. They are the author of three books of and about poetry, including Not So Pretty Haiku. They also write fiction and nonfiction and are the founder of Muriel’s Journey Poetry Prize, which celebrates loud, socially engaged poetry. Publications have been in places such as State Of Matter,  Kingfisher, Signs Of Life, Presence, and The Group Of Seven Reimagined. In 2021, Isabella was a writer-in-residence at the Historic Joy Kogawa House. A book about mental health and addiction is forthcoming in 2025.

​Memory, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico) 1937

Betrayal

Dear F

Some will love you
for your Tehuana clothing
Flowers in your hair

Some will haunt you
like damaged body parts
A right leg, a broken spine

Some might call to you
to forgive them
A sister and a husband

There are some who
might betray you by
Ignoring your talent

Those who won’t see
the rivers of colours
held in your hands

Forget them

Amy Phimister 

Amy Phimister is a writer who resides in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and has been published by WFOP, Yardstick Books, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Hal Prize. She and her cousin have written a children’s book called A-B-C the Animals.

Sleepwalking, photography by Alex Bamford (UK) 2023

Slept 
    Walked 
through 
a loop
along
a curve
    in
a multiverse 
my
multi
    verse
I morph
I sing
inside 
a cave 
    wall
spike 
    of hair 
piece 
    of halo

Donna-Lee Smith

Author's note: My cheeky response to this much admired photographer is to write a few lines and include a couple of photographs of myself. Photo # 1 is my manipulation of photo #2. 

​Donna-Lee Smith finds great joy in ekphrastic writing.

Mount Pleasant Rd., by John Montgomery (United Kingdom) 2024

​Ticky-Tacky

it could be any back garden, carefully
mapped out in regimented squares

they could be any people, melding
into amorphous uniformity

houses like boxes, gardens out of catalogues
people like cutout dolls, lives snap-shotted

Malvina Reynolds coined the epithet
"ticky-tacky" for their similitude

packaged in suburbs, they exist, barely
painted caricatures of themselves

Adrienne Stevenson

Adrienne Stevenson, a retired forensic toxicologist, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over sixty print and online journals and anthologies worldwide. Adrienne is an avid gardener, voracious reader, amateur genealogist and sometimes folk musician. Her historical novel Mirrors & Smoke was published in 2023,  and her poetry chapbook Skipping Stones, in collaboration with Marie-Andrée Auclair, in 2024. https://adriennestevenson.ca

Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers (detail), by Zhou Fang (China) 8th century

Court Gestures
 
And which Honourable Wife are you? I asked, newly arrived in court. 
Honorable 23, she responded.  You? 
Concubine Eighty-eight, I answered smugly.  
Ah, a double lucky number, Honorable 23 conceded. 
 
She tilted her chin, nodding slowly.
That is why he gave you a dog, a companion, 
Someone to keep you warm at night. 
 
Because he never will, she added coolly, 
moving on. 
 
Cynthia Storrs

Cynthia Storrs teaches and writes near Nashville.  Educated in the US and UK, she has served on the board of Poetry West (CO), Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Committee, and Pikes Peak Arts Council, which awarded her a grant for promoting poetry in the region. Her poetry has been published in anthologies, magazines, and on-line. She has also published academic articles on bilingualism, biculturalism, and acculturation. Cynthia loves art history, theatre, landscape painting, and chocolate.

Ex-voto Painting, from Liguria (Italy) 1879

The Fall

Mother said often
I’d be the death of her
with my tomboy ways,
and when I fell,
she said she prayed over my bed,
day after day,
night after dark of night,
searching amongst the saints
for a way to save me.

She always said I could
sleep through a circus--
elephants blaring entrance,
crowds roaring to applause
at the trapeze, the lion-tamer,
the bearded lady’s escapades
with a Fiat full of small clowns--
I’d just snore,
apparently even through
mending bones and stitches.

She never found
the patron saint of spiral stairs,
but one day her vow
brought wake to my slumber,
stretching and questioning my bruises,
the promises I now had to keep
to Saint Agnes for intercession.

​Michael E. (Maik) Strosahl ​

Michael E. “Maik” Strosahl started just blocks from the Mississippi River, but has flowed from there through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri, now exploring the world in an eighteen wheeler. Home is nebulous experience currently existing in DeKalb, Illinois. Maik’s work has appeared in The Tipton Poetry Journal, The Last Stanza Journal, Bards Against Hunger projects, The Polk Street Review, PSI projects, several projects for Poetry Contests for a Cause, and online at Moristotle & Company, Project Agent Orange, Our Day’s Encounter, Indiana Voice Journal, Poetry Super Highway—plus on several city buses, at art galleries and in a museum.

Longing for Happiness, by Gustav Klimt (Austria) 1901

Longing for Happiness

also after C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory 
 
Happiness is toasted marshmellows, coconut
macaroons, oily macadamia nuts and Paris 
rain. Front porch swings, putty in a child’s hands, 
icy moon drops and soft jazz.  Happiness is harp
strings at Christmas, the cypress tree stretching 
on the river’s muddy banks. It’s a terry cloth
robe at evening, a hot bath, an answered 
prayer.
 
But we know macaroons don’t last, do they,
nor does rain, sun and moon, and soft jazz.
Cypress trees lose their leaves in late autumn, 
and bath water quickly turns cold. Perhaps
the thing is not that which matters the most,
but the longing, the yearning, the want. It is 
the desire for breaking news, for the far-off 
country, for that long-expected someone
of our dreams. It’s the ache for beauty 
we have yet to experience. the scent 
of a flower we have not [yet discovered], 
the echo of a tune we have not [yet] heard.

Jo Taylor
​
Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia. In April of this year she published her second book, Come Before Winter (Kelsay Books).  She enjoys morning walks, playing with her two grandsons, and collecting and reading cookbooks.  Connect with her on Facebook or on her website at Jotaylorwrites.com

Still Life with Self-Portrait, by Mark Gertler (England) 1918

In the Mirror
 
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV

I forgot his name until the lawyer told me: Mark Gertler.
He was my inheritance from Gramma. When I Googled
his name, I discovered he wasn’t some unknown artist,
but hot stuff! Famous novelists like D.H. Lawrence 
and Aldous Huxley based characters on him. 
 
I guess I didn’t know Gramma that well, either. How 
did she know so much about art? How could she afford 
such a painting? I miss her already.
 
No one else in the family cared a fig (Gramma’s way 
of saying it) for art, and the world still pays too little 
attention to women, she said. Ignore what the world thinks 
and think for yourself. (I can still hear her.) 
 
On Saturdays, we went on Big World adventures.
Gramma would take me on trips to the library, to art 
museums, to concerts. Don’t limit your horizons, 
she’d say. At first, I was both fascinated and freaked out 
when I saw vanitas paintings. Why would anyone 
want to keep a real skull on the table or hanging 
on their wall?
 
Gramma explained, It’s supposed to remind
 you that you’ll soon die and not be able to take 
your books, musical instruments, flowers, 
or feasts with you to Heaven. 
 
Hummmph, she’d add. How are we supposed 
to be ready for Heaven if we’re exhausted
from spending all our time on work, work, work? 
Aren’t we supposed to make a joyful noise 
unto the Lord?
 
My greatest gift from Gramma was learning
to appreciate each day, to find something
new to love. And I love you, Mr. Gertler,
despite the obvious reasons we will never
meet. How clever of you to replace 
the usual skull with your handsome face, 
bouncing off the mirror, jug, and candlestick – 
a trinity of you.
 
Alarie Tennille
 
Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in feminism. Please visit her new website at https://www.alariepoet.com

Madonna of Pomato, by Unknown Cuzco School of Art Painter (Peru) 1700s

Madonna of Tomatoes 

She wears a loamy gown 
stitched together by rough sepals
& she worships the smell—earthy, sweet,
wet.

Black cherry, midnight snack, 
bumblebee, sakura, sunsugar, Isis candy--
archangels glinting
in sun.

And those heirlooms—brandywine
beefsteak, Arkansas traveler, black beauty,
big rainbow—chunky
cherubim.

This Madonna doesn’t believe 
in Lent, in giving up soil or sky or pulp,
renouncing July or abdicating August, when fingers
pluck orbs.

She does reckon on the return
of this ripe fruit, its rise on bumpy, hairy 
stems, its blossoming into round, tongue-savoured
flesh. 

​t.m. thomson

t.m. thomson’s work has been featured in several journals, most recently in The Briar Cliff Review, and three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards. She has co-authored Frame and Mount the Sky (2017) and is the author of Strum and Lull (2019) and The Profusion (2019). Her full-length collection, Plunge, has just been published and is available through UnCollected Press.

Winter, by Jamie Clements (UK) 2022

Winter

for Pete Seeger

She stands, blue, bald, and is her own explanation.
Follow the swath of her dress to her bare leg 
unhidden, up to the pigtail of her white wig
in her hand, then her sleeve beside the darker bodice
of her full belly and pendulous breasts
past the low-cut neckline to her head and shoulders,
a pale marble bust as of an ancient Roman noble,
but for the lipstick and cheek colour. 
That gestural upward line says it all
as she turns back toward the path of conclusion
that brought her there.  She turns, 
turns to the intersection of beauty and homely reality, 
to both the beginning of an end
to be followed immutably by an end 
of this stark beginning.

Linden Van Wert

​A former librarian, Linden Van Wert is now a part-time mentor for students interested in environmental habitat restoration. Her writing has been or is soon to appear in One Sentence Poems, The Muleskinner Journal and Orchards Poetry Journal.  Her favourite non-professional activities range from exploring on foot, beekeeping, work with feral cats, and research about animal cognition.

Sleepwalking, by Alex Bamford (United Kingdom) 2023

 
Sleepwalking
 
My Da walks up the dirt path to the village,
he strikes out on his own, all time of day or night,
often in his favorite striped pyjamas.
 
Aren’t you afraid of his walking straight over the cliffs?
all the villagers ask her. Aren’t you scared half silly 
he’ll drop to his death, and drown? 
 
He’s got eyes, my Ma would answer, 
and a bit of sense left.  He was born here,
knows this land like he knows me after all these years.  
 
He always walks briskly, with a sense of purpose,
like he has a place to get to, and a time to get there by.
Leave him that, at least, my Ma says. Leave him be. 
 
She calls it sleepwalking, which robs it of its sting.
Can’t bear to call it anything else, can’t bear to think of it.
He’s in his dreams, after all, she says, he’s far off with the fairies.
 
I suspect she sometimes wishes he’d misstep. 
That they’d find his striped pyjamas on the beach
before he forgets his way and her kind, familiar face.
 
But that would only be a fleeting, hateful thought.
She’d make up for it, by saying the rosary and baking scones for his return.
Her heart still leaps – even higher now - when she hears Da coming home. 

Wendy Winn

Wendy Winn is a writer and radio host living in Luxembourg. She's been published by Black Fountain Press and The Vincent Brothers Review, and joined the TVBR team last year as poetry editor. She published a collection Train of Thought in 2021 and recently did the cover art for a new collection by fellow poet Lawrence E Hussmann. She is new to ekphrastic poetry, but thanks to the marathon, she is now addicted!  

Midsummer Night in Harlem, by Palmer Hayden (USA) 1936

​After Church
  
The weighty ladies from church 
line the stoops
as if still in pews, shoulder to shoulder, 
hip to hip, leaning in, laughing, 
like the baby in arms, 
like the youngfolk
stitched with
sideways glances, flirt,
fans-in-hands You said it, 
you said it slapping the thigh
kids on sidewalks, squatting
swatting one another You lie!
Community aligned 
along the street
of story 
while cars full of people pass slow by.
How could it be anything 
but a party in this place
of  finest straw hats and heels. 
All that’s needed is a ukulele, 
a place to sit.
Don’t need a thing more 
to beat Harlem summer heat. 

Catherine Young
 
Catherine Young is author of the ekphrastic memoir Black Diamonds : A Childhood Colored by Coal  and the ecopoetry collection Geosmin (Midwest Book Awards Silver Medal Winner). Her prose and poetry are published in anthologies and literary journals internationally and nationally. She worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother before completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Catherine loves ekphrastic obsessions. For podcasts and writings visit: http://www.catherineyoungwriter.com/