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

Something Like Living, by Joe Boyle

10/26/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Composition, by Alberto Burri (Italy), 1953.
 Something Like Living

If an oil painted portrait is a second hand reflection
a burlap sack is: the flatness of defeat
grafted textile imprisonment
startling sacchi

They must have said 
pointing at the bloody rips in the cloth
the sulfurous dust graining the corner
"Here is blood washing up on the shores of Tripoli
Mussolini's funeral shroud
the skin of a dead monster!"

But it is much more deliberate
necessary even
when One fingers the running stitches and crazy veins
One feels the tired vital signs
of a free man

We all make art from what we know
the pieces of our selves 
given by fathers jailers lovers and passersby
they are the things we know 
crowding out the light of our day
shouting us down
they threaten to topple us over
bury us

And you knew bandages
rough wool suits and laundry sacks
the necessary pieces of your self
to use anything more 
that's vanity

The scars of prison 
the shredded linen
and the aggressor
the inhumanity of men
I don't know this
I am still fully on the other side of the wheel
the slow upward ride of accumulation 
and satisfaction
                                You shake your head
if the victims ran the show
there'd be no one left to share the dark
tenuous stitches of our dizzy dreams
crooked smiles and cracked faces in the thread
you wouldn't have saved these scraps
from the bin

Everyone finds out 
what they are put together from
that they are not colourfast
some are only late to the show

In the worn out places
dirt clots in our scored surfaces
I can almost smell the sweet decay of earth there
almost see the gangly little flowers crawling through the cracks 
in our crumbled wall in early springtime

These remnants flicker and fade 
when I turn to look: patchwork quilts
and walls alike mean nothing in themselves
they exist obedient to their purpose
to settle for a quiet life longer than ours
stand against time
measure our ever changing now

To keep some things out
and some things in
and let very few things pass between
only a warm breath
a single strand from a pale silkworm
or the weedy green shoots of time

Joe Boyle

Joe Boyle earned his M.A. in creative writing at University College Dublin in 2013, where he edited the annual class anthology, Fault Lines. His thesis was a collection of poems called "The Innocents." He currently lives in Kent, Ohio, where he studies, reads and, at times, works. He can be found pushing pencils at an Akron block. He graduated from Kent State University in 2012, where he studied history, English and writing. Joe has been published online and in print in Bare Hands, We Are The Catalyst, Luna Negra, and the book for the 2012 Jawbone poetry festival in Kent, Ohio. 

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
    ​

    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 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