Two Poems and Two Artworks, by Ben Tellie and Elliott Schwebach

Gathering the Scatter, by Benjamin Tellie (USA) 2025

Mullen Tankas: Gathering the Scatter

scapes of carbon, concrete, keen / in this dark court 
of framing objects, have you a question 
for me, too? stonefall / until next moonlight

knitted presence and charcoal: lost again 
in everything. all that conditions, tames, 
I vow to pull apart / emerging, leaving 

these peace-offering bones of history.
after all, I sought war. yet / after all 
this angry scattering, behind me: a light 

from something / bright as amber. a city, 
addled by its promise / and its promises
and you and I, in our time / gathering /

​Elliott Schwebach

Unsaid Things, by Benjamin Tellie (USA) 2025

Sonnet for Unsaid Things

for now, again, I’ve made peace with my god
smooth sailing, cold lip, beside the low-sky
window. my skin, glass lions make. pride, trod

lucky. midnite blue, sudden blue. young, I
took the lives of bugs, took one breath-fat sip,
took another. inkspot, snow. our fathers

left us leaning over great, bonsai’d rifts
of unclaimed sins. in every behavior,
if memory serves, is a prayer. young, we

looked the other way, wrote lemmas in crayon.
here we are again - healing, measuring
up, tangled up in liturgy. again, 

berry red, zeta zeros, lamping. fine
again, clouding… on that critical line.

Elliott Schwebach

Ben Tellie is an abstract artist, educator, consultant, and scholar whose artwork investigates inner emotional states and socially traumatic histories and topics. He teaches visual art high school electives at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD. He recently obtained his Ed.D. at The George Washington University.

Elliott Schwebach is a writer, educator, and friend. From Baltimore to Albuquerque to Tacoma to Fort Collins to Wenzhou, he has moved around a lot these last few years. He adores good espresso, kava and 12/8 ballads, and his friends call him “crocodile.”