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

Remembrance Day Poems, by Kendall Johnson

11/11/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Avatar, by Henry Lintott (Scotland) 1916

Avatar  

I can’t believe my eyes. On my computer screen is a well 
appointed virtual sales room with stylish furniture highlighting a 
painting, designed to show me how well it would underscore the 
elegance of my home. The painting is
Avatar, by Henry Lintott, 
painted in 1916. Four angelic figures bear upward the body of a 
soldier struck down in the Great War. It is said that the painting 
brought great peace to British poet and infantryman Wilfred 
Owens who came to visit it often in 1918 during his recuperation 
from battle shock in Craiglockhart hospital nearby. This was just 
before he was declared healed, and sent back to the front. Owen 
was killed in the trenches, one week before Armistice was 
declared. I think of Marines, dying in the Vietnamese mud, dying 
before me on my own evacuation flight, dying later in the VA 
hospitals, and sometimes later still, dying at home by their own 
​hand.

Kendall Johnson

Picture
Gassed, by John Singer Sargent (USA) 1919

Armistice Day  
​

“Do you believe in ghosts?” The child looks at me for truth. I 
can speak to the fears, but not to the question, for I know some 
ghosts too well. I see them emerge from behind parked cars. 
Whole families follow me from tunnels of Vinh Moc. They call 
to me at night from free-fire zones, stranded on jungled 
beaches, from faces I never saw. Their shadows reach for me 
from stretchers and drip bags, and piles of too-late bandages. 
Prescribed rituals and beliefs, incense burnings and magic 
spells: all hollow songs against darkness


Kendall Johnson

These poems first appeared in Wordpeace.

Kendall Johnson served with the US Navy in Vietnam. He is a painter, and author of Fireflies Against Darkness (Arroyo Seco Press, 2021), Black Box Poetics (Bamboo Dart Press, 2020), and Chaos & Ash (Pelekinesis, 2019). His catalogued collection of desert paintings and cherita poems Melting Into Air (Sasse Museum of Art) is forthcoming.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    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
    Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
    @ekphrasticreview.



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    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