Ghost Flower
 
More than a lily, a ghost quietly lifting diaphanous layers, one slender arm pointed heavenward; a veil-less virgin bride, the train of her gown, the petaled horn of a gramophone flipped, trailing an afterthought of regret behind her. And what of the flower’s silhouette? The white bell echoed dark, its black twin an anchor to earth.

Tina Barry

Tina Barry is a former textile designer who transitioned from creating visual art to making pictures with words. Her poetry and short fiction can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, Rattle, SWWIM, and The Best Small Fictions 2020 and 2016. She teaches at the Poetry Barn and Writers.com. ​

Rip Tide

for Bill, by way of Paul Klee, Fish Magic
 
The world in the painting is dark,
lit by six fish from points on a rainbow 
above fluorescent traces of genial figures. 
In this world, the sea’s abyss holds flowers, 
the darkness is soft, like night
around a sleeping child
with all the colours tucked in, snug. 
 
Did you see colours, that day in the ocean?
Did the day start with a child’s palette?
As wave after wave turned from play
and held you away from the shore,
as safety receded again and again, 
as you carried your sister, your mother, 
and the strength in your arms
and legs gave out, was replaced 
by something less certain,
where were the magic fish then? 
I try to imagine that day.
Surely, the colours had faded
to nothing, except the red beat
of your heart, ten years old, 
alone, bringing the three of you home. 

Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser

Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser is a visual artist and poet who has been known to incorporate texts of her own in her visual work. Her poems have been published in Kelsey Review, US1 Worksheets, and the New Jersey Bards Anthology for 2026. She lives in New Jersey.

From the Birdcage of Doubt 

Today I am speaking from the birdcage of doubt,
my beak black as a crow’s, to the cosmos
and its steep ravines which don’t know how
to respond to a diminutive animal with five senses
who is trapped behind bars.
Today I admit I cannot imagine that what’s infinitely
greater than I am might ever want hear my voice,
let alone listen, to a little fluttery thing unable
to unlatch a door.
The angel of the Self alights to tell me:
You tiny observer, caught in your iota of a world,
there’s a term for your language.We call it prayer.

Ann E. Michael
​
Ann E. Michael gardens and watches cloudscapes in eastern PA, USA and dreams of moving to New Mexico. Meanwhile, she blogs at http://www.annemichael.blog.

The Lemon

Rind was peeled, we cannot
      know by whom. Cut fruit of Asia, brought
to decorate the Dutch milieu, domestic zest,
      translucency at rest,

laying bare two tear-like
      seeds. Below, a bowl, curved not unlike
a whitish keel, of porcelain, is anchored dead
      upon the dullish red

tablecloth, and shelters
      vividly the halves. A plant incurs,
behind, the almost lightless green the walls emit,
      and stems and blackish blooms from it

reach toward cut glass that
      blurs reflected hues. Though no éclat
from regimented angles flares, the full effect
      invites a mute respect.

Nonetheless, it must be
      said, perched on the yellow path, we see
the fly ignore it, stalk the citron scent instead,
      and inches from its head,

crawls the butterfly to-
      ward the flower, displaying wings where two
blood-coloured spots invade a colourless design.
      A warm hand made the line.

Ramya Yandava

Ramya Yandava lives in Boston. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Oxonian Review, The Society of Classical Poets, The Classical Outlook, and Merion West. She writes the newsletter Soul-Making at soulmaking.xyz. ​

Two Epigrams on Michelangelo’s Night, Translated (and Answered), by Julie Steiner

This Night you see asleep in soft obliques
of sculpted stone? An Angel was her maker.
And since she sleeps, she must have life. Just wake her,
if doubtful; you’ll believe it when she speaks.

Giovan Battista Strozzi, ca. 1544, translated by Julie Steiner

“Sleep’s dear to me -- to be of stone, yet dearer --
while what goes on is shameful and distressing.
Not seeing, not perceiving, is a blessing.
Don’t wake me, then! Speak low, and come no nearer.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti, ca. 1545-6, translated by Julie Steiner

Belly in folds, stone breasts skewed left and right,
I, too, have slept propped awkwardly, exhausted,
oblivious while chaos has accosted.
Your limbs speak new-mom semaphore, good Night.

Julie Steiner, 2026

**
​
La Notte che tu vedi in sì dolci atti
dormir fu da un Angelo scolpita
in questo sasso, e perchè dorme ha vita :
destala, se nol credi, e parleratti.

Giovan Battista di Lorenzo Strozzi

Caro m’ è ’l sonno, e più l’ esser di sasso
Mentre che ’l danno e la vergogna dura :
Non veder, non sentir, m’ è gran ventura ;
Però non mi destar, deh! parla basso.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

**

Translator’s Note: In Greek and Roman mythology, Night was the mother of several offspring, including in some versions the twins Death and Sleep. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) of Florence carved this figure of Night between 1526 and 1531, for the tomb for Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici (1479-1516) in the Sagrestia Nuova of the Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. The sculptor’s reply to the epigram by the Florentine noble and songwriter Giovan Battista Strozzi (1504-1571) implies criticism of the governance of the then-current duke of Florence, Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574).

Julie Steiner is the pseudonym of a recovering classicist in San Diego, California. Links to many of her published poems and verse translations are posted at Off-Piste on Mount Parnassus (offpisteonmountp.substack.com).

The Torch-Bearers

Cassatt bathes innocence, mise en scene.
She cushions mother- and child-hood to show
That life is love, intact from anywhen,
Like air in a room or water stopped mid-flow.

Kusama’s infinite mirrors, deep and sleuth,
Make angels flit beneath perception’s brow.
She reflects mystery to invoke the truth
And dissolves the borders of the here and now.

Frida Kahlo made her accident 
Her art. The rod that skewered her became 
A crucifix. Her tears do not repent.
Subdued brushstrokes beg me to say her name.

Walker’s silhouettes portray a screen
Where lynchings mix with Disney innocence.
One-time wallflowers step into the scene
To shred the portraits out of self-defence.

Light peach to faun grey; her colours combat rage.
A figure-eight that’s yellow uterus,
Deflated pufferfish, or open cage.
We’re trapped by af Klimt. Her joy is mutinous.

Sherald paints carnivals. They pump the hearts
She’s dressed in factories, a flag, flowers.
Landscapes overtake their body parts:
A wrist is a dune; bent knees, the Twin Towers.

Spinning desire with spider legs that bait
Viewers, turn nightmares to conventions,
Bourgeois’ moulded shadows amputate
Our expectations of the three dimensions.

O’Keeffe shows clouds reflecting on a lake,
Shaded hillsides, beaches, a green wood.
Why does the mirrored sky, semi-opaque,
Appal oglers who call it maidenhood 

When through her eyes there is no blasphemy?
She’d find cosmos inside a hyacinth’s
Stigma or murmur us to ecstasy
Within the folds of mountain labyrinths.

A whisper on the lips of a thousand sisters,
A secret scribbled in a thousand stalls,
It’s coded into thousands of tongue twisters,
A candle lit in dormitory halls.

A queen of media, she’s given us
A testimony of our dignity
That others have dismissed superfluous
But is the gateway to eternity. 
 
Traci O'Dea​, a personalized translation of "Les Phares" by Charlies Baudelaire
​
**

Les Phares

Rubens, fleuve d’oubli, jardin de la paresse,
Oreiller de chair fraîche où l’on ne peut aimer,
Mais où la vie afflue et s’agite sans cesse,
Comme l’air dans le ciel et la mer dans la mer;

Léonard de Vinci, miroir profond et sombre,
Où des anges charmants, avec un doux souris
Tout chargé de mystère, apparaissent à l’ombre
Des glaciers et des pins qui ferment leur pays;

Rembrandt, triste hôpital tout rempli de murmures,
Et d’un grand crucifix décoré seulement,
Où la prière en pleurs s’exhale des ordures,
Et d’un rayon d’hiver traversé brusquement;

Michel-Ange, lieu vague où l’on voit des Hercules
Se mêler à des Christs, et se lever tout droits
Des fantômes puissants qui dans les crépuscules
Déchirent leur suaire en étirant leurs doigts;

Colères de boxeur, impudences de faune,
Toi qui sus ramasser la beauté des goujats,
Grand coeur gonflé d’orgueil, homme débile et jaune,
Puget, mélancolique empereur des forçats;

Watteau, ce carnaval où bien des coeurs illustres,
Comme des papillons, errent en flamboyant,
Décors frais et légers éclairés par des lustres
Qui versent la folie à ce bal tournoyant;

Goya, cauchemar plein de choses inconnues,
De foetus qu’on fait cuire au milieu des sabbats,
De vieilles au miroir et d’enfants toutes nues,
Pour tenter les démons ajustant bien leurs bas;

Delacroix, lac de sang hanté des mauvais anges,
Ombragé par un bois de sapins toujours vert,
Où, sous un ciel chagrin, des fanfares étranges
Passent, comme un soupir étouffé de Weber;

Ces malédictions, ces blasphèmes, ces plaintes,
Ces extases, ces cris, ces pleurs, ces Te Deum,
Sont un écho redit par mille labyrinthes;
C’est pour les coeurs mortels un divin opium!

C’est un cri répété par mille sentinelles,
Un ordre renvoyé par mille porte-voix;
C’est un phare allumé sur mille citadelles,
Un appel de chasseurs perdus dans les grands bois!

Car c’est vraiment, Seigneur, le meilleur témoignage
Que nous puissions donner de notre dignité
Que cet ardent sanglot qui roule d’âge en âge
Et vient mourir au bord de votre éternité!

Charles Baudelaire

Author's Note: 
​
"A translation of Baudelaire's "Les Phares," in which he names the most influential visual artists on his life: Rubens, de Vinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Puget, Watteau, Goya, and Delacroix. I have replaced these with the most influential visual artists on my life and work: Cassatt, Kusama, Kahlo, Walker, de Klimt, Sherald, Bourgeois, and O'Keeffe. I use Baudelaire's metre and rhyme scheme as well as some of his own words that resonate with the work of the women painters."

Head of Humanities at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College in the British Virgin Islands, Traci O'Dea has published two collections of poetry: Waving (Assure Press 2021) and Restricted Movement (Scotland Street Press 2021). The audiobook for Restricted Movement was released in 2022. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Fiddlehead, A Room of One’s Own, and elsewhere. Her short story “American Bully” is forthcoming in Virgin Islands Noir. In her spare time, she teaches ekphrastic poetry workshops at art galleries, reads submissions for Smartish Pace, and eats exotic things that grow on trees which sometimes turn out to be poisonous.

​Double Portrait of Frank O'Hara, by Larry Rivers (USA) 1955

Unable to capture the whole man in one
you’ve doubled him.

He looks out, intently,
mouth open, about to speak.
Small, intense blue eyes, gaze steady
under wide open brows
that declare his honesty.
Frank, rightly named.

He looks to the left, down 
and away, not seeing us.
His eyes are coldly paler, brow furrowed
rising hairline cruelly visible
full lips together.
Fiercely inhabiting another place.

You give us stereoscope
the man in three dimensions.
He completely lives life 
and writes it.

Kathleen Palmer

Kathleen Palmer is a freelance art curator and poet in progress, based in Surrey, England. She has long seen exhibitions as story-telling in three dimensions. Partly inspired by working with poets in museums, she returned to an early love of writing. Her work has appeared in The Alchemy Spoon and Lamp Lit. She can be found on Instagram and Threads as @kathleenpalmer_101.

Planning the Breakout

We began as greenbones barely 
knowing to crawl: bumped against walls of the home cave
painted thick with ragemaster God, more hair
than a pack of wolves, and our own
perennially fruiting madonna whose sweet bell shape
was wrapped in lamb-smelling cardigans.

It was usually winter. The cold was a glittery grizzly,
with palisades of claws. We learned our place.
Northerners mate, ride and die on glaciers,
where the bride's dress is an icefall of lace
and the corpse's full beard snows over his earth suit.
Red twilight turned to black frost

and the red brand of the home
saved as it burned. The hive of the family
provided abundance of sweet.
Still, the year came when I (mama's pearl,
papa's youth of flint) thought
canaries die here
and plotted my own abduction.
Rock bricked me up,
front, bottom, top and sides. Cave fire gilded
the coma of time. Never mind. The young,
like murder, like art, will out
in the most surprising places. And stubborn blood
melts rock.

Margaret Benbow

Margaret Benbow's poems and stories have been published in The Ekphrastic Review, The Georgia Review, Triquarterly, The Antioch Review, and in other magazines and anthologies. Her first collection, Stalking Joy, won the Walt McDonald First Book award and was published by TTUP. she has recently finished a new collection, Wild Peter Thinks About His Humans.