Editor's Note: Apologies. This was supposed to post automatically on Dec. 29 and it did not. Posting it manually today (Dec. 31). So sorry! Thanks everyone! ** on the painting The Adoration of the Magi by Joseph van Bredael joseph you painted a story of near far far off the secret gospel code of who was in and who was out like all parables we’re there: some moving on yet huddled for safety in their travel some with bodies also huddled close around the canopy of a house falling into a stable of shambles pressed together like wheat bending under wind and then there are some among the crowd men from the East the distant ancient enemy who carried off His history’s people now have returned with its own treasures presenting to this child the priceless omens of His distant costly gift Sister Lou Ella Hickman Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, US Catholic, Commonweal, The Christian Century, Presence, Prism, and several anthologies. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2017 and 2020. Five poems from her book, she: robed and words, set to music by James Lee III were performed on May 11, 2021. The soloist was the opera singer Susanna Phillips, principal clarinetist Anthony McGill of the New York Philharmonic and Grammy® nominated pianist Mayra Huang. The arrangement was part of a concert held at Y92 in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.” Another concert was held in Cleveland, Ohio on March 28, 2023. The soloist was Elena Perroni. ** The Mission Tree Christmas is standing alone as a far off encounter Then the day comes where perfection must be found An ornament, a testament to all that is natural- Casting drudgery aside to climb the mountain in hope Father, son, daughter, mother, brother, sister all along Shielded from boredom on a glistening winters day Talk of the mission paramount at the table the night before The plan, the saw, the axe, the readiness- the size discussed Waiting to be felled as a fallen soldier taken to soon Armored with thorns and a resilient sap greenly hiding Among the many there are candidates, which to be found Just But there is one that must be-the one, the chosen one Who will decide the merits of what is rich and what is gold The youngest, the oldest - those in between being undecided It is all too much trouble, please just pick, pick one, pick me What voice is that surrendering to the family - Beauty It is I, for I am the perfect tree; have you seen another fairer’ A child knows do not argue -this is the tree the mission tree MWPiercy Michael W. Piercy: "At the intersection of Art, Poetry and Contradiction, you will find my work, you will find me. Taking on memories and the present moment. Thinking- With an eye that shadows the natural world. Philosophy, Theology and Science are at the core of my writing. I have found that I am a synthesizer- managing ideas which do not always cohere. Trying to manipulate- Ideas." ** Innkeeper Something happened in the dark that suddenly was not dark but full of burning light…and song-- crazed fools singing in the midst of Roman occupation--and in the dead of winter when there’s little enough to celebrate. Bethlehem heaves with footsore pilgrims. Each bed & board is full this week. Even my shed out back was booked by a weary carpenter & his wife. Humbly they were glad to share with donkeys, cattle, camels there. Today I wake to bedlam in my small estate! The pasture’s crammed with wayfarers—more than I can count. Has all the world gone mad? From the tavern’s balcony I see travellers never known before to mingle. What mystery is here? Sure, something happened overnight. Shepherds I see—though not their flocks; tradesmen with their wares—and do my eyes betray me?—regal folk with glorious clothes… treasures in the straw. Must I join this tumult of gathered folk? Yes, now I shall run fast! Something happened in the dark. They’ve torn away the stable walls to let the people see. The child new-born sits open-eyed upon his mother’s knee; chuckling with delight, he raises happy hands: sages, kings & beggars fall to the ground to honour the child. I gaze on him, and he on me. Never have I witnessed such a wonder. Who cares for censuses, or for Roman laws when God has come to stay with us? Yes, something happened in the night! Lizzie Ballagher Ballagher has travelled widely and lived for years in different countries: a kind of life that has greatly affected her writing. This year wintering in Pennsylvania, she is for the first time in many decades contemplating the beauty of the North American wilderness in winter. Her work also appears intermittently at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/ ** Adoration of the Magi Holiday Express -- No room at the Inn. Hyatt -- Try down the road. Red Roof -- Sorry. Courtyard -- Nothing. Radisson -- All booked. Travelodge -- No vacancy. Marriott -- Full up. Hampton -- You should’ve called ahead. Ramada -- Shriners in town. Motel 6 -- You're in luck. David Jibson David Jibson (past contributor) lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the managing editor of 3rd Wednesday, an independent quarterly journal of literary and visual arts, a board member of the Poetry Society of Michigan and an events coordinator for The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle. He is retired from a long career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. His poetry has been published in dozens of journals in print and online. ** The (Timeless) Adoration of the Magi, by Van Bredael Long before peasants or kings gave a darn,And long before Ann Landers; Jesus was born in a ramshackle barn In 18th-century Flanders. Magi and peasants, St. Mary and Joe Wear clothes in the old fashion, Down in the corner, crown-bearer in tow, A Prince bends knee with passion. He wears a cape and a Renaissance sword, A clear anachronism. So is the skyline that he’s looking toward, A time-travel collision. Jesus seems neither to notice nor care; He stretches out his fingers. Then, for us now, with us here, with them there, His Incarnation lingers. James A. Tweedie James A. Tweedie is a formal poet living in Long Beach, Washington, with four books of poetry published by Dunecrest Press. He is the winner of the 2021 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition, a Laureate's Choice in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, a First Prize winner in the 2022 100 Days of Dante Poetry Competition, and recipient of the quarterly prize for Best Poem by the Lyric. ** Fresh From Above The heavens are opening and delivering light In the form of flesh, fresh from above To those in ramshackled shelters or gilded glory. News is breaking like the day, Washing away shadows and forms, And defining the face of hope. The cry of a babe takes away the breath Of wanderers, seekers, and finders, A birth, known before conceived, is being recorded. The Word is becoming known by word of mouth, Surety is being captured, captivating us, All the earth is Bethlehem. We are there, all of us, Juxtaposed with those opposed, Being united by one who can’t yet speak. Donna Harlan Donna Harlan has published one collection of poetry titled Bench by the Pond. She is a reader for three literary journals and has had her works featured in several publications. She resides in Jonesborough, Tennessee with her husband where they delight in watching the sun rise and set over the lake every day. ** Denial It's the things on the periphery that don't get noticed. The falcon in the white of the cloud. The dark cloud retreating (we know why). To the left, the town in its grey stone stiffness, no apology to the life in the foreground. The buildings on the right, pushing against each other and the river, going about business denying the distraction, oblivious of what is to come. There are people ignoring the commotion, hawking their wares or walking a horse into the river in anticipation of future baptisms. This is the world, this is the steely cast of life that spreads beyond whatever miracle is hatching in the foreground. So why is the falcon not joining the small birds on the roof of the barn? Amy Jones Sedivy Amy Jones Sedivy grew up in Los Angeles and has lived in many of L.A.’s neighbourhoods. She admits that the best was her childhood home a block from the beach. Amy currently lives in the NELA neighborhood of Highland Park with her artist-husband and their princess-dog. She spends her time reading, writing, and exploring the rest of Los Angeles. Amy’s most recent stories have been published in (mac)ro(mic), Made in L.A. Beyond the Precipice anthology, Big Whoopie Deal, and The Write Launch. ** It's About Knowing Jesus Those two in the middle look like a marriage and the one on his own in a starlit carriage seen cradling a star above his nodding crown looking like an infant in a glowing kaftan gown. Those five lit candles of different shapes & sizes could they have a significant meaning? The three in the foreground share gifts & spices like three wise Kings, come supervening. I mean, there is something here familiar. Thou I've never visited this Bethlehem town there is something here, here like, sand scripture it's about knowing Jesus didn't die and didn't drown. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. He has poems published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He resides in the UK and is from Manchester. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** In Bethlehem... Oh come! Let us adore him! know not the reason he is born to pave our way Oh come! Let us adore him! questions unasked answered in him today Oh come! Let us adore him! follow his footsteps peasant, scribe humble serf Oh come! Let us adore him! while his life unfolds therein lies our worth Jane Lang Jane Lang’s work has appeared in online publications including Quill and Parchment, the Avocet, Creative Inspirations, The Ekphrastic Review, and published in several anthologies. She has written and given two chap books to family and friends in lieu of Christmas cards. Jane lives in the Pacific Northwest. ** Too Many Walked Into an Inn The painter Joe Van B had stopped to paint the throng he saw that gathered out in back. Confessing that he had a slight constraint-- his funds were sparse since income had been slack. “I’m sorry, there’s no place for you to stay; the manger has a pregnant bride and groom. You see, we’re celebrating Three Kings Day. I’m booked up to the hilt, so there’s no room.” But since the innkeep loved the finer arts he offered him a cot behind the bar and though, at best, he’d sleep in fits and starts, he’d get to paint before his au revoir. The hotelier allowed him one free drink, obliging him, since he lacked wherewithal, to paint his mistress, washing at the sink. Her painting tantalizes from their wall. An old man and a lady wandered in-- “Big Joe and Mary! Say, long time no see. This day, each year, I wonder how you’ve been. Your room’s upstairs, the one out back’s not free.” The night wore on and three more guys arrived, dressed up like magi, tipping on the cheap. They asked the innkeep, could it be contrived for them to feed their camels and to sleep. The barkeep poured—the water changed its hue. Amazed, he said, “Out back, behind the shed, to make accommodations maybe you can turn some hay into a king-sized bed.” That’s how it’s told in Barkeep Twelve, verse Nine, “The Guys Who Turned Their Water Into Wine.” Ken Gosse Ken Gosse prefers to write rhymed, humorous verse using traditional forms. He was first published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in The Ekphrastic Review, Pure Slush, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Home Planet News, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot. ** Saviour Tiny hut of hay. Inside a baby is born, the king, our saviour. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Adoration The inn’s roof, windows and shed are broken but not sad – they knew they were made to come to that state at that exact moment in order to set up the manger to accommodate the birth of the humblest hearts changer. It was a census time, so math ruled the day in many ways, forms and shapes – from his immaculate conception to his birth, converged with the Magi’s promptly calculated trip, crisscrossed with the comet’s precise guiding, paralleled by the shepherds timely welcoming, all enshrined into an inn’s marginal backstage – a world coming of age on history’s blank page. The birds knew it perfect right and, on their part, they flew around to scheme the perspectives of these coinciding lines. The comet, on its side, shined in so bright a contrast over this so grey a place, it was pointless to try escape its spells. The people, themselves, were magnetized by the gracious babe and his serene mum, so their upshot was plump and prime – awe. Today’s draw: how did those bookless farmers know when, how, why, what was happening in the world and were aware of its significance from the start, while we, after ages of wonders and miles of pages, still keep searching for proof crumbs like some pathetic existential glums. Math is not a poet, yet here its exacting vein cuts through each event as a poetic refrain embracing contrasts better than any rhetoric tract and so poignantly against that crumbling old fact ready to clear the space for the newborn’s divine plan to take place. Roman governor’s carpe diem live – by fine metrics and aligned antipodes he’s made alert to an all-changing birth. The bird on the hanging window sees our predicament and ponders in disbelief while balancing the old timber’s wobbling by deftly tuning to the matrix of the universal rhymed throbbing, which at that moment is so openly astonishing that the crowd keeps coming and pouring swerving everyone on the way and trooping around the three Magi whose arrival turns into a festival celebrating the divine in our very own human form for the very first time. Adoration is thy name. In governor’s tongue - ad/to orare/speak, adorare, or – the word, the one in the beginning of all beginnings, tuned to the meaning of all meanings, so, what we are witnessing here is an ever-expanding adoring without which the gist can’t be grasped in the vast and loud speaking space, unless we take our daily bread – the mathematical refrain that keeps us rhymed during our peripatetic soul searching like the bird’s equilibrium on the rostrum’s wobbling. Their landing’s balancing act. Our adoration’s subliminal impact. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, has studied and taught linguistics and culture at Universities of Sofia, Delhi and London and authored a book on Mediaeval Art for the British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have been honoured by the The Ekphrastic Review pleasurably often. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** A Remarkable Day "He's God in human form!" whispers the crowd In motley clothes and groups of twos and threes Beneath the bulky, partly-aqua sky. As nighttime slowly drops, birds meet the breeze And soar towards the heavens, grand and proud. Under the shanty's thatched roof sits a mother. A blue cloak, one white tunic, and a veil Make up her dress. Her eyes endear The Child All humbly, and her soul is chanting, 'Hail!', Aware her Son is not like any other. Three men of kingly rank have gathered here To show their reverence to Him through gold Censers and myrrh while bowing. They are garbed In striking gowns, have horses, and look old. Their true devotion fills the atmosphere. Although The King is born, His home is small, Haunted by cats and pigeons, and straw-made, To show God chose to dwell among the simple And that He's only Son has come to aid Humanity and deliver us all. None knew they were to get abundant grace Yet rushed on hearing "Come and see the Boy!"-- Some children, elderlies, and Roman guards; Though some hearts harbour doubts and some great joy, Each eye's fixed to this Baby's lucent face. Shamik Banerjee Shamik Banerjee is a poet from India. When he is not writing, he can be found strolling the hills surrounding his homestead. His poems have appeared in Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and Westward Quarterly, among others. **
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Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, We would like to present you an Ekphrastic challenge with an exciting art piece by Benjamin Von Wong. He is an artist and activist on the quest to make a positive, unforgettable impact…and that seems quite right challenge-wise, right at the end of 2023, while being ushered into 2024! Your prompt for this challenge is Von Wong’s installation called the Giant Plastic Tap, an art piece that spews out the plastics that were collected from the large slums of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. It was set up at the United Nations’ Office in Nairobi (10 miles from Kibera!), when meetings were held there to discuss a Global Plastic Treaty. You can look for more information @ https://turnofftheplastictap.com/ ; other work by Von Wong is at hand @ https://www.vonwong.com/ (Please, do take a look at his fascinating portfolio, e.g. his Epic Stormchasing Portraits re Cowspiracy & Climate Change…surreal!). I think Von Wong’s work is just amazing and very inspiring…and I think it will surely enable you to write some fine words to highlight your ideas on the “plastic conversation”. Thank you for submitting your writing, I am looking forward to reading your pieces. Thank you Benjamin for granting us permission, and thank you Lorette for making this ekphrastic challenge happen! Be well, wishing you a healthy and safe 2024 already, Kate Copeland ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Giant Plastic Tap, by Benjamin Von Wong. Deadline is January 5, 2024. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include VON WONG CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 5, 2024. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. War Then suddenly, from the clouds beyond the street lights and broken city full of maybes and broad cuts in the asphalt, hate plowed into the cul-de-sac of our world. It was after the full moon rose behind the storm clouds and after those clouds turned the night to liquid, when October turned fire-weather--lightning or bombs, it was hard to tell which--burst from sky and left a momentary sketch on the retinas of our surprise. Evolving from an imagined backstory, I see pieces of the war machine sweeping away everything: a circus wheel, a gear, a wing, a broken window, a table tennis game, a book, a stolen poet, a fractured child. And I wonder how much more must break, how much more must we watch fall apart. Julene Waffle Julene Waffle, a graduate of Hartwick College and Binghamton University, is a teacher in rural NYS, an entrepreneur, a nature lover, a wife, a mother of three boys, two dogs, three cats, a bearded dragon, and, of course, she’s a writer. She finds pleasure in juggling these jobs while seeming like she has it all together. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal Blog, NCTE’s English Journal, Mslexia, The Bangalore Review, The Ekphrastic Review, among others. Her work also appears in several anthologies, and her chapbook So I Will Remember. Learn more at www.wafflepoetry.com. ** Flying Machines Were those dreams with you behind the counter through all your long years in retail purgatory? Or did they wait like seeds in the desert for the rains to come quickening at last to rise unfurling leaves like wings into the welcome air? Was the freedom you found in that small attic space what saints found in their bare cloisters prophets and philosophers in their barren caves? Freedom to unleash fantastic dreams rising higher than the eagles riding the updrafts like lethal angels full of grace free from earth with all the snags and stops that kept your wings clipped while you bought and sold each day's account one more stone to keep you grounded until you retired finding room enough in a narrow attic to unpack your dreams making endless images of flying machines drawn in ink and watercolour wash with such assurance even the most fanciful painted like a gypsy caravan looks ready to lift off the page and fly Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible is now available from Kelsay books. ** Casting No Shadows like fresh smoke stealing out the long-necked chimney far above the crematory walls, we drift atop the river of shimmer past space and time. We shift with rain that sent the earth wafting up the window by your very own bed. They are watering the plants you had said, then taking it all in your last breath. Splashes leap, spreads below a green solace mobbed by leathery brown peeling bark, almost pleasing. We meet and part like light and cloud swaying in the wind. We are lost to an empty dream. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** I Think I Am Flying I think I am flying! My mind...double-sided art. Inhabited by thoughts, ideas, and dreams impossible to fake. Now, I am ending up looking with my closed eyes into my burning heart. An intricate mechanism of singularities. They are always there. When I wake up, when I sleep, when I stay, when I weep. When I feel...Sometimes I feel an immense precipice in myself, my throbbing aorta wanting to leave my still body, to live the life I am living inside, stubbornly, together with the festering riot of my sinews, my veins, and my skin. My wholeness aches in a metaphysical pain beyond myself. Deep innuendoes are crawling into my aching self. The one who wants to evade my life’s circularity, travelling in my space of flying wheels. There is nothing like it. It is my cabinet of curiosities. When it is too much, it is the only place that contains me, being like a mirror to my intimation, where things are smooth. But, until today, I couldn’t find the key. It is the first time in ages that I can enter. The key was there the whole time. In the same spot. Thus, I couldn’t see it because it was me who was not there. My flying wheels—my happy place, a realm of my experimental joy. Oppressive, the barometric pressure, disguised in excitement, invites my normality-shaped loneliness to wait for me. Eventually, I am stepping into the imponderability of the room, into my freedom, caged in a thought. In my room of flying wonders, my eyes become spinning wheels, guilty of making me suspiciously alive, as my ears contribute to the noise of my silence, ill-heard by my mind. Worn, I kiss my morning with hope, and the wheels give me a timeless merriment. I think I am flying! In daring volutes of foreign loops. I am there... flying in my secret departure, unaware of my destination but inconceivably happy. I am playing, swinging, in this whirlpool of flying machines that are carrying out a radious siege of circles, twists, and upside-down dreams. Suddenly, the stern doctor opens the door brutally, with an inexplicable sense of entitlement. I am indulging myself in the pleasure of righteous indignation. Then, falling is my only choice. Falling into the same bed where gravity has been dragging me into a painful reality. The reality… etching deeper into my ultimate verse of pain. Since the accident, the bed has been my pre-elegiac station, where I haven’t got other alternatives but flying with my mind, committing a majestic censorship of my thoughts, parched well, linked to my numb body, which forgot to wander. ‘’How are we today?’’ I cried so many times, with no voice. I screamed, buried in my weeping moan, repeating all over again in my head. I think I am flying! Laura (Grá) Adumitroaie Laura (Grá) Adumitroaie is an Irish-Romanian children’s book author, poetess, Monessori teacher, writer, therapist, blogger, and linguist with a PhD in Semiotics, living in Blessingtom, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. She published a book called Poems of Absolution to honour the presence of her daughter in her life. She is a member of a few writing groups in Dublin and Blessington. She loves art in any form, being very fond of Klimt, Andy Warhol, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave. Laura is currently involved in a few writing projects regarding raising awareness for children’s mental health, as well as creative and therapeutic writing workshops. Her life is dedicated to children, art and dreams. To learn more about her, visit www.ajourneyto.net. ** Thank you Note to Charles Only an outsider artist can design an outsider other the flying machine able to reach the heavens of my dreamscape. Undefeated by failure, undaunted by ridicule and mockery--we lift, soar, and drift, fueled by imagined possibilities, and the silver lining of clouds -- to hover above an imaginary Spring in a Winter's dream. Karen "Fitz" FitzGerald Karen "Fitz" FitzGerald, genre fluid, continues along the path of emerging writer, ever grateful for opportunities to submit her work, and especially to affordable venues. ** I Have Questions Mr. Dellschau, You passed away 100 years ago, your work sat ignored for another 50, discovered by happenstance in a gutter after a fire in your house. I have questions. And I’ve enlisted the assistance of psychic J’air Boudare who has communicated with Da Vinci, Klint, and Bosch, and is herself the daughter of a pilot and flight attendant. For transparency, I’m afraid of flying myself though it’s more claustrophobia than anything; we don’t need to get into that here. J’air has agreed to conduct the interview and suggested I submit questions in advance for your consideration. I have a blog and a podcast called: I Have Questions. But we don’t need to go into what blogs and podcasts are. For all I know you may be familiar with them being the visionary you were, in addition to having been a butcher and early avid cyclist who worked in an attic, ahead of your time, fanciful in your imaginations, meticulous in your water colours, and incredibly original with your collages, which in my view are metaphors for life— pieces of art pasted, patched, and intricately woven together in original ways, like us; maybe the most organic of all expressions. > J’air, are you getting all this? Too much backstory? Am I excessively side-barring? I’m assuming Mr. Dellschau has nothing but time, but who knows. Okay, I’ll paint the picture for our interview. We’re in your attic studio, both of us under 5’ 5”, so we don’t need to duck under a slanted roof, there’s a glass dome and lots of light. Birds fly above, beside, and under us. Your pipe is unlit. On your bench sits a stack of sketchpads, butcher paper, and tea with strudel that stepdaughter Elizabeth brought on a tray. Well sir, I’m drawn to your art and drawn by your story. It must’ve surprised you when your work appeared in shows with DaVinci, exhibited in New York and abroad. Critics call you an original visionary artist. But I’d like to start at the beginning, or at least early on, a broad cut view of who you were, starting with your life as a butcher. I have questions. 1). How did you get your start as a butcher and what was your favourite tool? One knife in particular? Favourite cut of meat? And this may sound strange, but I wonder since you used a lot of red in your work, and Hemingway had an artist friend named John Fulton who rose though the bullfighting ranks in Spain, rare for a non-Spaniard, and who used blood from bulls he killed in his paintings, did you ever use blood from butchered meat in your own watercolours? > J’air. Is that too weird to ask?? Too creepy? Okay maybe so. Let me ask you this— when times were slow behind the counter did you ever paint on butcher paper and dream that someday you’d devote yourself to flying machines? 2). You belonged to a secret club of aeronauts in the Sonora desert. One member invented an anti-gravity gas for lift off and propulsion. Yet research was never able to confirm the existence of the Sonora Aero Club or any of its members. Did it exist? Why the secrecy? There were theories of possible alien encounters. Care to comment? 3). I understand you were a draftsman and not a pilot or builder. Did your own long and difficult overland and over-sea travels inspire your flying machine designs? 4). In your lifetime you never showed your work to anyone. Why did you keep your beautiful art secret? Does it bother you that you’ve became famous, your work widely seen in traveling exhibits, that you’ve inspired artists and writers alike to be visionary? That they’ve attached that name to your work and placed you in a genre, posted your art on Youtube and that today, right now in fact your work is being pondered, admired, written, and talked about? And if so, will you forgive me? > J’air I’m getting into the weeds here. Too many questions? Too much off topic and personal? Some label Dellschau’s art, stories, and journals pure fantasy. But does that even matter, or in any way limit the truth of his visions? That label just seems so beside the point. Okay. Let’s keep going. 5). You ended up in Texas, maybe California, too. Did you ever miss Prussia? Perhaps dream of flying back to where you were born, landing in a pasture, and giving others a thrill that exceeded their wildest dreams? 6). Did your Flying Machine exceed your own wildest dreams? Was it in fact a dream? A continuous one? Do you despise me for asking? 7). A late bloomer at 69, do you have any advice to others who wish to pursue their art after putting it off for most of their lives? 8). Your name was misspelled on your headstone. They also left off one of your two middle initials. So disrespectful. Would you like me to correct that? I could start a Go Fund me drive. Create an App. > J’air, would he know what an App is? I just don’t know if he is in some sort of all-knowing place or what, you know. I’m in the dark here. Obviously. Okay. 9). Finally, Mr. Dellschau I love your art, admire how you didn’t feel the need to show it, monetize it, or create a brand. So pure. You even used codes in your work. Would you prefer that I keep this interview in my sketchpad? (I use them, too, though I noticed you used grids. I prefer unlined myself!). If this is your preference, please tell J’air, or show me a sign. I respect your privacy, even 100 years later. Especially so. Yes, I have questions. I also understand some mysteries are best left intact. > J’air, did you get all that? Hey J’air, are you still with me here? Guy Biederman Guy Biederman is a card-carrying genius with a fake ID. He’s a short story midwife, pareidolia doula, and a Tuxedo cat valet who writes between naps, lives on a houseboat, and walks the planks daily. It’s all true, especially the fiction. Except for the part about not liking to fly. ** NB Super Star But what of fiction, what of fact, incredible men, Wright or not, Da Vinci codes that whirl about, and Swift Laputa, flying high, for Texas, San Antonio? From magic carpets to balloons, dirigibles, for him in draught, flights of fancy, Sonora Club, his Aero bubbles, Gas NB, noted fuel, gravity free. In ornamental borders style, those watercolours, likened jewels, imagination in full flight - these circus banners, advert clowns, domain of Fool who wears the crown. Though Dellschau - name means Super Star - his works were serendipity, their preservation also chance. A grave mistake, his spell ignored, but mood flew on, think Pythonesque. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** 1911 and Then Some… Before he became ‘my father’ he was an astronaut. No, not to the moon, just into the sky on dodgy wings. He tested the new contraptions. Most test pilots died. He told me that he ‘listened to the engine’… and knew. They had this communion. Later he became an engineer. But before he could settle on solid earth, he took this brand-new toy to join a far-away war and promptly crashed into a Bulgarian spinach field; the local black smith and the local apothecary got him back on his… no, not feet, allowed him to continue his way to Turkey. Through the Balkans, not above and over. There were upwinds and downwinds bouncing his flimsy flying machine between the unforgiving mountains. Looked like Snoopy as pilot. God only knows who took the photo. Showing off, he crashed into a river near Istanbul. At the time it was still known as Constantinople. He and his passenger, a Turkish officer, spent the rest of their war in a hospital overlooking the Bosphorus-- eyes travelling all the way to Asia. He didn’t want to fight, just fly. Didn’t do either. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Her latest: Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. A new collection, Life Stuff, has been published by Kelsay Books. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Wonder Yes, it will also be comfortable. The two of us standing, talking as the slow wheels turn in a multitude of colours, like the intricate workings of the brain, a most extraordinary invention. I can see quite clearly the beauty of the universe. It’s jewelled borders, it’s names and numbers, and how we can float above it yet also fit within it exactly, It is rather like a dream or a fancy but exciting. Would you like to join me? Louise Warren Louise Warren’s first collection A Child’s Last Picture of the Zoo won the Cinnamon Press debut poetry competition and was published in 2012. A pamphlet In the scullery with John Keats also published by Cinnamon came out in 2016. Her poems have been widely published in magazines including Ambit, The Butchers Dog, Stand, Poetry Wales and Rialto. In 2018 she won first prize in the Prole Laureate Poetry Competition with her poem The Marshes which appears in the pamphlet John Dust illustrated by the artist John Duffin and published in 2019 by V.Press. Her latest poetry pamphlet is Sometime, in a Churchyard, a collaboration with the artist Charlotte Harker published in 2023 by Paekakariki Press. ** Flying Machines That Also Teach Greek Step right up! Step right up to the incredible Ekphrastic Express! Where to, sir or madam? (idioekphrasis) Standard features of our Vogel 457 Series include patented anti-gravity technology, separate cabins for first and economy class, semi-private viewing windows, and a central dining and dancing area for your aviation pleasure. (panekphrasis) Complimentary in-flight phonographs play favorites from Blues, Broadway and Jazz. (phonoekphrasis) We’ve got experiences for every budget—anybody can travel from any place with new VR/AR Escapes. (neoekphrasis) Fancy a seat on our Time Travel Line, with routes direct to King Tut? (metaekphrasis) Let me call your attention to the Broad Cutt’s fully rotating propeller, offering luxurious maneuverability. (oligoekphrasis) This balanced four-cylinder design ensures every voyage is supersonicserene. (morphekphrasis) All Aeros fleet models were designed by visionary draftsman Charles A.A. Dellschau. (proekphrasis) Consider a visit to Alamo City heritage centres, which house his earliest works. (topoekphrasis) Judi Mae “JM” Huck Judi Mae “JM” Huck is an arts administrator currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is the Clark County Poet Laureate coordinator and a teaching artist for both literary and visual arts. Follow her on Instagram @bandittrl. ** It Seems Like Only Yesterday a pantoum It seems like only yesterday . . . The first time I flew in a plane. High over San Francisco Bay; It seemed I’d entered God’s domain. The first time I flew in a plane I soared into bright heaven’s skies. I felt I’d entered God’s domain, To see the world through angels’ eyes. I soared into bright heaven’s skies, The world below looked, oh-so small. To see the world through angel’s eyes From where I soared above it all. The world below looked, oh-so small-- And even the suburban sprawl From where I soared above it all Was beautiful, as I recall. And even the suburban sprawl High over San Francisco Bay Was beautiful, as I recall. It seems like only yesterday . . . James A. Tweedie James A. Tweedie has lived in California, Utah, Scotland, Australia, Hawaii, and presently in Long Beach, Washington. He has published six novels, four collections of poetry, and one collection of short stories with Dunecrest Press. His award-winning poetry has appeared both nationally and internationally in both online and print media. Among his awards for poetry are First Place honours in the Society of Classical Poets 2021 International Poetry Competition; Quarterly Prize Best Poem from The Lyric; First Place in the 2022 100 Days of Dante Poetry Competition; and the Laureate Choice Award in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. ** she was given many names Waste of space. Never be worth a damn. Daydreamer, mind-wanderer, head full of fluff. Hearer of ugly words that floated past. Never-let-them-sticker. Receiver of whallops that landed across the back of the neck, kicks on the behind. Bone-song singer, cut mender, jaw clencher, skull healer. Lifting-chin-out-of-the-dirt expert. Girl getting on with it. Nose stuck in a book. Imagineer. Scryer, diviner. Second-sight seer, third-eye wrangler, fourth-generation witch. Never focussed on the here-and-now. Needlesmith. Stitch saver. Fabric salvager. Green magic user. Branch bender. Willow weaver. Tent pitcher of a space-bound teepee. Binder of the incantations of control. Wielder of the hazel bough. Maker of cunning devices. Hidden message revealer. Shaper of ends. Whisperer of words of power. Flame trainer. Keen-eyed watcher of the birds, gleaner of the secrets of thermal hover, the lifting thrust of a wing. Balloon inflator. Gravity tamer. Close companion of the moon, a confidant privy to its moods and passions, its orbital vagaries, its beautiful sulks and pouts, its winsome tidal tiffs. Shaman of rockets, blesser of intricate mechanisms. Cloud mapper. Craft steerer, obstacle navigator. Celestial pilot. Conjurer of alchemical energy. Miracle worker. Escape artist. Freedom taster. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review challenges, Visual Verse, Blue Heron Review, Scavengers Lit and elsewhere online, and in print with Poetry Scotland and Sunday Mornings at the River's Poetry Diary 2024. She lives in the UK. ** A Well Grounded Gentleman The ginger dessert undulates below like the orange zest on last night’s Old Fashioneds. My head swims from too much bourbon and the machine’s buzzing reverberates painfully. The engine rumbles and roars and we continue to ascend. When Marie and I were first courting, we enjoyed a hot-air balloon ride and the delight of feeling weightless in the wind, but rocket ships are not my thing. As my ears pop, I contemplate why I ever acquiesced to this flight. I stand encased in metal—rivets and bolts sealing out the natural air and thick glass windows reminding me of my aerial captivity. Charles should never have insisted we drink so much, if he intended to fly this high. Now I wonder whether I can endure the whole journey without evacuating last night’s indulgences. Charles thinks he’s sharing a privilege. That I, his former business partner, should consider myself fortunate to be joining one of his maiden voyages. And yet, I can’t help considering the cost. He’s spent the better part of a decade on this project and sacrificed dozens of relationships in service of this machine. Maybe I’m too simple a man, but I see no need to fly higher than the clouds. What more is there to see? Give me terra firma every day. Give me horses and cars that streak across the land, and fine-boned beauties who lay across the grass. True splendor is in surface contact, not in levitation. We used to build buildings. Now Charles insists upon escaping our foundations. But what if these bolts don’t hold? What if we simply explode as the pressure overwhelms? Maybe that’s his plan. Maybe he has no desire to return to Earth. I suspect he’s never gotten over my rejection. My lack of interest in any partnership beyond business. Still, I have done nothing to make him feel small. If anything, I’ve gone out of my way to pretend he never crossed a line. Why else would I be here? And yet, I must return. I must insist he bring me back down. To my beloved Marie and to my girls. To my horses and to my gardens. To my Eden, that awaits below. I’m sorry he doesn’t have love on the ground, but he’s no more likely to find it in the sky. And every man who has ever flown ends up buried in the soil. Coleman Bigelow Coleman Bigelow is a Pushcart Prize and Best MicroFiction nominated author whose work has appeared recently in Bending Genres, Emerge Journal, Hyacinth Review and The Dribble Drabble Review. His first chapbook In Rare Cases and Other Unfortunate Circumstances was published in May. Find more at: www.colemanbigelow.com or follow him on Twitter: @ColemanBigelow and Instagram: @cbigswrites. ** Flying Machines For early aviators of the sky, Log-cabin-like designs are comic, as You cannot fly a circus wagon high: Its comfort tantalizes, but it has No force to lift it up and make the earth Grow distant. They would say the pictures are Miraculous as art, but have no worth As blueprints for a means to travel far ... Charles Dellschau would dissent. He would have said His quaint designs weren't meant for flights that go In space, but flights of fancy, which can head North, east, south, west, straight up or down below Earth's oceans—they can take you anywhere, So long as you imagine it is there! Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is The Adoration of the Magi, by Joseph van Bredael. Deadline is December 22, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include VAN BREDAEL CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, December 22, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. Dear Writers, Thanks for all the fascinating submissions to the Bongé Challenge. These biweekly offerings are actually challenges on two fronts: first for the writers, second for the judges. Choosing from so many intriguing takes on this abstract piece was its own swirling whirlpool of words and images and reflections. I hope you enjoy reading these selections, and that, like me, you will appreciate the perspective that each writer brings to this work of art. With best wishes for your continued creativity, Sandi Stromberg ** Dusti Bongé Exhibit, Hollis Taggart Gallery, 2022 Bring Dusti back to New York, sunflowers in one hand, Biloxi oysters in the other. Yellow. Orange. Green. Blue. In the Ab Ex Boys Club of Gorky, De Kooning, Gottlieb, and Pollock, a woman wielded her own brush and palette knife, stretched her own canvas on beams of Southern pine. Scents of turpentine and linseed oil seeped into the waves of her long blonde hair. It was the 1950s. Paint exploded. Betty Parsons picked her up, begged her to stay. Canvas gessoed, scratched in purple, blooming red, floating angles, falling water. Back in Harrison County, rumors flew, all the details—real and imagined—whispered loudly at Christ Church the Redeemer Ladies Club Weekly Potluck Supper. The men of Biloxi watched her slim arms plant red lilies across a driveway, graft camellias, hide narcissus bulbs deep in the Mississippi soil. She stirred fiery pots of gumbo, lifted cast iron skillets of cornbread, wore white on the hottest days of August, sipped her Chardonnay with ice crystals. Today, back in Chelsea, a solo show. Opening night, a sea of pearls, silver trays, the flutes of Veuve Clicquot, deconstructed sushi, Sanskrit tattoos, and violet lipstick. Suede jackets, Armani pumps, triple-pierced ears, all the black-stockinged legs stand in awe. Manhattan bows. The artist smiles. From a grave in the South, she is still holding her own. Gabrielle Langley Gabrielle Langley is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Fairy Tale (Sable Books, 2023) and Azaleas on Fire (Sable Books, 2019). With work appearing in a variety of literary journals, she has been awarded the Lorene Pouncey Poetry Award and the Vivian Nellis Memorial Award for Creative Writing. She has been Houston Poetry Fest's Featured Poet, a national ARTlines finalist, and a recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations. Ms. Langley was also a spearhead and co-editor for the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the global epidemic of violence against women (Sable Books, 2016). Additional information about this poet is available at http://www.gabriellelangley.com. ** Whirlpool America’s top diplomat says “far too many Palestinians have been killed.” 11/10/23 NYT In a cold and relentless prairie wind, here in November west of Chicago, the trees have lost track of their leaves, swirling down in ocher, red, and gold. But what’s it like to be a tree, losing its children, rooting deeply and dark, praying to withstand even further loss? Laurence Musgrove Laurence Musgrove is a professor of English at Angelo State University in Central West Texas where he teaches composition, literature, and creative writing from a Buddhist perspective. He is the author of, three volumes of poetry: Local Bird (2015), The Bluebonnet Sutras (2019), and A Stranger’s Heart (2023) all from Lamar University Literary Press. ** A Little Man A little man, a vaguely yellowed apparition holding up the whole evolving universe of everything entangled in the garden, summer roses, fallen autumn leaves scattered, lonely, spindly trees stretching, longing, reaching up beyond the darkly narrowed confines clearly to the sun, a simple bird arched studiously aside, entangled in the fabulous invention of a little man, curiously portraying, purposely displaying the complicated contours of his own creation. Enrico Cumbo Enrico Cumbo was born in Sicily in the last century and emigrated to Canada when 9 years old. He is an historian (Ph.D, University of Toronto, 1996) and has just retired from teaching in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program at a school in Toronto. He now has a great deal of time on his hands which he uses for ongoing research (in ethnic studies and historiography), rediscovering family, writing poetry, and generally contemplating the state of the world in this century, an increasing ordeal. ** There is Light A prodigy at eleven years of age, she wondered where all this would lead. She focused on experimenting with a stub of black eyeliner from her mother’s bathroom, deviously hid it inside a shiny red pencil box which sat on the top of an old cedar hewn dresser, within plain view. She horded hours, traced the maze of black stairs swirling ever upward, reaching for the plexiglass window at the very edge of the slanted attic roof where she yearned and struggled to set aside pre-teen angst and fly into the music like Poe’s black raven, feel the sheer joy of release from a dark, dank, blackened hole as it worried within her mind. A violin, her violin, handed down from virtuoso to virtuoso, inside a scarred, dilapidated case that touched, traveled to Bergen-Belsen and came out intact, had heard it all: the continual dirge of lost freedom, lost hope, despair as the bow cried for new life, new beginnings and somehow reunited with her family, her hands, her growing understanding of the pull, the call held within those two white nooses of trailing tomorrows. Jane Lang Jane Lang’s work has appeared in online publications including Quill and Parchment, the Avocet, Creative Inspirations, The Ekphrastic Review, and published in several anthologies. She has written and given two chap books to family and friends in lieu of Christmas cards. Jane lives in the Pacific Northwest. ** Charybdis I believed suffering real, if God existed or no god existed, this did, even if untouched by it, passing through other patient faces or the frozen grimace on some. Nothing had hurt me, nothing, not even nothing itself could harm. * Why do we look for pain in eyes, photos of eyes, open in death, weeping, or blank reflectors of sky passing, unburdened of any meanings? Why not use the lanky body, naked, as the news repeated, naked, moved face down on the cold floor. After the harm was done, nothing helped, nothing recycled the breath, not even the protocol of massage, rough on the dying skin, or to open those eyes where our eyes see only nothing, except ourselves staring back. * All night digits of twigs and rigid branches scratched the old wood of the window frames. The web they made contained nests of shadows where a few leaves left through the winter filled places where other leaf-shapes failed this year to come. Do trees feel like veterans who wake with nightly pain in phantom limbs, flexing a tight glove of hurting around a hand permanently gone, or a leg's weight pressing nothing where a foot once stepped, or once danced or stamped the earth? * I had alone escaped the seven blazes, the ancient curses we inherit. The file of razor teeth, the roar of blood on a predator's jaw -- these had never even nicked my skin. The lion was caught in a net lying among lambs, at peace, with their soft-leather tongues licking milk like its cubs. And the dark stone of cursing, falling on me, tumbling me down to hell where the seven judges silently wait, rose, instead, like a buoyant meteor. The black waters -- flooding the land, filling lungs -- that flung lifeless forms in whirlpools to the bottom retreated when they barely touched me. Nothing could ever hurt what is nothing. * And then there was you your damp hand on my neck as you kissed the top of my head "You are all right," you said "Everything will be alright," you repeated to me, over and over, in those few soul-murdering words. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes, poet and retired educator, studied and taught classical Greek and Roman texts for many years. He resides now in rural Ohio. ** Awakening Swirling dark chaos, enclosing in our minds, awakening truth. Clasping A darkening sight, swirling in states of abyss, clasping sanity. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** To Dusti Bongé Regarding Whirlpool Where freedom and constraint collide my eye is drawn to depth inside the static swirl of gifted mind awash in wonder where I find that things perhaps still yearn to be what would have been where now I see that suction of impulsive brush has blurred creative plunging rush to sink tradition into trend where means themselves become the end though books — I swear — and manuscripts still waken wisdom, moving lips to signal, as they drift apart, preoccupation proving art. Portly Bard Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Vortex There I was: resting but not enjoying it, as rest first requires work. Brown soggy, leafy weeds, fragile bleached reed tips hinted connection to submerged, drowned, obscured earth. My foot on the wet rock slipped, elbow off knee, chin off hand, body off smooth, tilted boulder. I made little splash for all my dread, sucked into murkiness in silence. Optimistic feet stretched down to greet the bottom; body followed in submission, anticipated the upward spring. The bottom wasn’t there. Hands and feet flailed in uncoordinated panic. Gravity was bested by centripetal force, current I’d overlooked from my listless perch. A gang of smarmy stalks, rangy and spastic, surrounded me; the more I fought, the more they wrapped slimy tendrils around limbs and trunk. I thrashed: a fish on a hook, twisted in twining weeds until I did not know up from down. I opened underwater eyes, glimpsed dim light. I retracted my extremities, wrapped arms around knees, tucked head. Vines lost their purchase. The torrent ejected me for being unwilling to spar. I bobbed to the surface, buoyant and still. Sheila Murphy Sheila Murphy writes poems to slow down. She is a spiritual director, cancer survivor, retreat leader and adventurer. She is a music director and pub fiddler. She has published poems in Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction and The Ekphrastic Review. Sheila lives in coastal Maine, is married and has two adult offspring. She plays fiddle, guitar and piano. ** In The Beginning It was not only the swirling whirling of wind and water that began it all. Not only the sharp grey slabs thrown up and dashed around or rocks coated brown with mud. and slime No, beneath all of that was fire the burning heart that flamed towards the surface ready for that day when everything would be burned. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Lucky Escape What started as a stiff breeze whipped up all of a sudden. We were walking under the canopy of the autumn trees, green, brown, red, orange leaves flying about us, eddies swirling, tumble twirling in a maelstrom, like a whirlpool, season's icy breath a cool reminder of unease as stormy rain began its spritzing. Shrugging farther into coats we hunkered, the path now rising with tree thickets bunkering as we neared the railway bridge, our footfalls on the natural ridge beside the valley with tracks below. Then we heard the rapid steps approaching, almost tip-tapping, clopping. It made us glance around, nearly stopping, expecting to find a stray dog, a hound of large size coming round that bend within the bridge's walls. To our surprise and also shock it wasn't a canine shape but a large buck, head low otherwise we'd have clocked the rack of antlers. Our eyes locked. The beast had a feverish look, the alarm within them not to be mistook, and it turned, leapt and then was gone. We checked the bridge - empty, none crossing there, but by the corner a gap large enough for a deer? Perhaps. We chose to turn around the way we'd come. Seconds later a large oak tree fell blocking the bridge where we'd have been walking. The leaves flew still and the storm raged on so we fought the storm's whirlpool lashes to get home. And in the calm and warm and dry we asked where the deer had come from and why. We asked ourselves did we believe it - was the magnificent creature really there? Did we really see it? And in the stillness away from the storm, we wondered if it was the forest's spirit charging us down? Was it just there to chase us off, to warn, raise the alarm? Whatever the creature was, real or make-believe, we were very grateful for our reprieve. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in Visual Verse, Blue Heron Review and elsewhere online, and in print in Poetry Scotland and Sunday Mornings at the River's Poetry Diary 2024 anthology. She lives in the UK. ** A Song of Survival Entwined–the vermilion bud, the flower, petalled cream- blossom through hurricanes, chanting their anthem ‘Matter, We Matter.’ Two’s not just a number. Two’s all they need. Two’s a team. Entwined–the vermilion bud, the flower, petalled cream- whirlpool the icy winds. Pungent the thorns. ‘Touch winter’s beam,’ challenge the tangerine storms. The petals shoot, spark, spring, scatter their scent across squalls’ chatter. Entwined–the vermilion bud, the flower, petalled cream- blossom through hurricanes, chanting their anthem ‘Matter, We Matter.’ Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in several magazines such as Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Visual Verse, Quill & Parchment, Shotglass journal, Sparks of Calliope, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press, Ink, sweat & Tears and various other journals. Her microchaps A Single Moment and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. ** Becoming Acquainted with Dusti As Thanksgiving approaches on the American side of the boundary and my country has become a whirlpool of dark foreboding, slashes of hatred, violence, vengeance and lies, with fire reds and oranges burning in the background, I become acquainted with the artist Dusti Bonge born in deep Mississippi at a time when dark foreboding whirlpools of hate and lies was like daily bread, common and ordinary, perhaps her painting 'Whirlpool' uses slashes of dark trees and twisting shapes pulling the viewer toward burning reds and oranges, as a warning, a way of saying "no", I can't write of her motives only that becoming acquainted with an unfamiliar artist such as Dusti and viewing her remarkable body of work as the seasons change to an unknown new year somehow makes life a little easier to accept and a grace of thanks is a little easier to recite. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musicianand Chronogram Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond to Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** Outlier In Whirlpool, by Dusti (Eunice) Bongé, the white’s so bright it shimmers on the edges like sunlight, and winds its way out of the black like water. The two big patches of colour eclipse the dull background They float atop stands, or stems like a showy pair of flowers in a wrought-iron enclosure. Clearly the white and red are too much, and need to be held in by those curved black bars. Welcome to the 1950s, heyday of abstraction! While some artists stuck to two dimensions and others smeared thick paint across the canvas Dusti valued depth and composition. Whirlpool is composed, planned, red and red, black and black, white and white balanced around a central point. Such a dance between freedom and restraint! Above the white paint pooled at the bottom the black forms a shape like ancient writing. Depth, control, gold triangles, black bars The red and white burn on, but nothing escapes the cage except the meandering line of light, or water, the bright white blob, like a tiny fish, and on the bottom right a little gold explosion. Karen Kebarle Karen Kebarle was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and now lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She holds an MA and PhD in English and has taught literature, writing, and English as a second language. One of her favourite jobs was her two years working as an art interpreter at the National Gallery of Canada, where she got to experience works by Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Marcelle Ferron, and other abstract painters. ** A Drift I have become an abstraction, more linear than fully formed. A mere echo of the body that once contained me. Disruptions leave me stranded in my mind. Full of sound, fragments of shadow-thought. Words fail to cohere. The shift is subtle, deft, and nearly complete Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Walking into a Burning Forest Once I whirled in light roped for cedar scent. The space between branches splotched softly as white ash. The last occurrence was thirty-eight years ago. I lost the pathway of ferns singed when my lover died. The smell is now ripe orange clove. My knees are missing. I want creamed apricot antenna that touch. Oh, for joints to knot. If I could own quartz and tiger’s eye. John Milkereit John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including The Comstock Review and The Ekphrastic Review. His fourth collection of poems, Lost Sonnets for My Unvaccinated Lover, is forthcoming soon from Kelsay Books. ** Maelstrom school confuses him especially words all squiggly print and swirls his belly awash with the swash and churn of learning he thinks of the spin cycle of his mother’s machine or the whirlpool he saw on YouTube undercurrents dragging him down in the turmoil of tides back home his grandmother sits in the recliner stirring tepid tea watching small bubbles like the froth that fills her head her words are long gone rusted in the grind of age but she silently strokes his hand the circular motion surprisingly soothing Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published in the next month. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Whirlpool Ode Wonder of a draining tub, How we played together, Me, plunging my fingers into you, You, dis- and re-appearing like A magician’s trick. How I have stirred You into tea/coffee/soup/juice/milk Anything that mixes–you, the blender’s Secret, sucking every ingredient towards Oblivion, the center mess of spinning blades. How I imagined you in video games: Transport to another world, the opening Mouth of an impossible monster, Entrance to the ship graveyard, An endgame spell to seek out. How you have come around and Around in every stage of life: You, clockwise/counterclockwise myth Of the hemispheres’ flushing toilets. You, vortex of Pirates and Little Mermaids, You, Yates’s Widening Gyre, You, symbol Of the spiral curriculum, You, coming back ‘Round again, You, sweeping lines on Bonge’s Canvas, the top of you, an open eye, the Bottom of you pointed in like the legs Of a tomato cage, a black wire Funnel sifting beige, bending More like a wooded path Than an endpoint. Inverted swirling water cone, I am caught in your drift, and have been For years, a penny circling the rim of The donation jar, ever-descending in In tighter arcs awaiting that final, Inevitable Drop. Ian Evans Ian Evans is a writer and teacher with a B.A. in English and an Ed.M. in Secondary English Education and the 2023 recipient of Somerset County Teacher of the Year. He has previously co-created “The Mechanic,” a graphic poem, and his words have appeared on Thanatos Review and The Ekphrastic Review. He lives in Highland Park, New Jersey, with his wife, who is also a writer and teacher. ** Skylight that let the moon slide by the walls long rusted-- the night of white shadows moon spread over you. That night of fragrance and the earthen lamp when the incense burned-- the flame crawled into cracked corners and peace rested on your face. I kept the flame ablaze, watched the ashes drop. In silence, by the writing desk until the light broke the night-- the night of fragrance and the flame. Each day the birdsong fills the air, by now I set the stalks of tuberoses. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Dream Whispers Haunted by rural landscapes clad in frozen pellets from last night’s storm, I am touched by shadows of shag hickory, sassafras, and choke cherry boughs as I search for the trail’s opening-- beyond the underbrush, a fog-laden field is faintly outlined by silent silhouettes of towering hundred foot white pine. Maybe I’m still daydreaming about our time together under cranberry sunsets. Dr. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Nameless Roads (2019) and Driving Long Distance (forthcoming 2024). His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** Watery Grave When Charybdis swirled Ulysses into her vortex Scylla laughed her heads off When his ship of fools sailed into allegory between the devil and the deep blue sea The heinous ones chose the lesser of two evils And thrust Homer onto the horns of his own dilemma Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith so appreciates what she learns from exploring ekphrastic challenges. For example, she was woefully clueless about Homer’s work spawning so many allegories. ** Iron Corsets Corps de Fer, 1739: " A bodice with small iron plates for badly grown girls." French-German Dictionary "By 1944, Kahlo's doctor had recommended a steel metal corset instead of plaster." Frida Kahlo, Wiki Biography " Once there was a machine for breathing. It would embrace the body and make a kind of love. And when it was finished, it would rise like nothing at all above the earth." "The Iron Lung" Stanley Plumly The colours of the Fall evening were somber. The brightly coloured leaves -- the deciduous ones -- had been lost in a heavy rainfall. Storm faded for the promise of the first snow; the wind whispered a silent prayer for the left-over leaves, now like left-over fabric -- the remnants of fashion in burnt sienna and yellow ochre with flashes of white and red (blood and moon) a memory of work stored in a funnel-shaped, black wrought iron container its bars like a jail, or a door closed in a dungeon beneath the court of Catherine d'Medici a Queen in a gown of odd olive gold like fabric that showed through the slated sides of a black iron cage in the deserted costume room. It had been suggested (and later disproved) that Catherine was the first to wear a metal corset, her body like a rigid hour glass; and it's hard to imagine, in the 21st century, an armourer (or blacksmith) bending over corsets hammer held to shape "lingerie" heated by fire, not love. Cate paused to read information on a playbill, an historic adaptation of the Medicis' belief in prophecies; in the predictions of Nostradamus a political figure in Catherine's Court where armor and fashion were closely entwined. In medieval French, the word corset referred to doublets and gowns and body armor. Reading the playbill, Cate thought of Jean d'Arc wearing a breastplate her spiritual strength a vision as the morning light made the shining metal a mirror of the Crusades, Knights and the vagaries of life and death: When Men's & Women's bodies are crook'd and deformed medieval definition goes on to say, they wear iron bodies and will endure anything to make them straight again (Sermon, 1632, clergical author unknown.) On a stage in the Great Hall of the church, Cate had played Frida Kahlo wearing a white peasant blouse and the blood-red patterned skirt of a gypsy part of the material pieces left behind by a costume seamstress like hope for a miracle, Kahlo living after her body was impaled by a streetcar railing in Mexico City. For months she lay in a hospital her time occupied by painting flowers on the heavy plaster body cast that held her, broken and immobile until the plaster was exchanged for a metal cage to protect the pieces of her broken spine. Dark-haired Cate -- eyebrows reaching up like blackbird wings -- had been, she supposed, a "star" playing Frida, teardrops falling as they had in Kahlo's self-portrait, Broken Column, her performance motivated by tragedy -- the prediction that Kahlo's injuries were so great she would die..... But she survived, and the director had added a songbird in a cage -- an ethereal double -- a way for Kahlo to move upward -- to fly -- her imagination guided by life-giving dreams of an alternate world; one like her cousin had dreamed, a reality outside her body, trapped in an iron lung before Jonas Salk discovered a polio vaccine. Preparing for her role, Cate thought of the centuries of pain -- like a vortex individually illustrated with tattered images of history -- time spiraling downward to a single, simple everyday moment when she stirred her cafe latte, flecks of foam swirling in a caffeinated cosmos; or pages in a playbook caught in a maelstrom of words -- a dialogue of life and death -- a whirlpool; or an artist revealing the spirit fruits of heaven as Diego Rivera painted watermelons. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp writes of Frida Kahlo, a free spirit threatened by serious injury. Dusti Bonge is considered the first Abstract Expressionist in Mississippi. Kahlo appears in Iron Corsets, a poem suggested by Bonge's Whirlpool, because of the seeming rigidity of the black bars restraining the movement of the painting's colour swatches. Linked to crossing time as was Newendorp's poetry thesis, Crossing Time Lines: The Grandfather Journey (1992), Iron Corsets travels from the 16th century Medicis to Kahlo's crippling injury; and to Stanley Plumly's beautiful poem, "The Iron Lung," his impression of what the mind can create when the diseased body is immobile. Laurie Newendorp's book, When Dreams Were Poems, attempts to weave poetry and art with nature and life. Honoured many times by The Ekphrastic Review challenges, she lives in Houston, her writing enriched by ekphrastics as she works on her next book of poems. Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Flying Machines, by Charles A.A. Dellschau. Deadline is Dec. 8, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include DELLSCHAU CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, December 8, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, Thank you so much for submitting your Hamlet Shakespeariana pieces to The Ekphrastic Review. I am ever so content that you have responded to this prompt with such enthusiasm, wit and craftsmanship…it was really a delight to read your words! Thank you!! This amazing challenge has prompted a heroic compilation indeed, I hope you will enjoy reading it. Congratulations to everyone, hurrah for TER and The Amazing Lorette, and… Fare ye well! Kate Copeland ** Alas I may have known him well but he did not know me He thought so, but as I hold his head in hand, I see him crowned of nothing but laughter, yes, provided that but none else and looking on his demise, it’s clear that our fate of life and love does not imply understanding, nay truth spoken in fact knows only death Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson writes Ekphrastic as well as other forms of poetry often, from prompts, memories and nature. She advocates for feral cats and captive elephants, spends time with her young grandson crafting in play doh, and reads voraciously.Her work is seen in over 70 publications, including Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien and The Ekphrastic Review. Her full length works are available on Amazon. ** Ophelia’s Dream The sky was blue, balcony strangely light, Quite different from bleak Elsinore. For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings. A dagger by my side, I wore Lord Hamlet’s shirt, his promissory ring. My crown I am but still my griefs are mine. The skull I balanced, fingers outstretched, fine, Bore a strange antique script. I looked instead, Impassive, undisturbed, without a frown, At kingship’s symbol on the dead man’s head. Uneasy is the head that wears a crown. I am alarmed this dream bodes ill for all. Lightness, attire, skull, calm - fears won’t cease. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. I dread the outcome this vision portends: Some evil act will lead to cruel revenge, To bloodshed, madness. What it means for me I cannot understand but sure I am ‘tis not Divinity will shape our ends. Carolyn Thomas Carolyn Thomas is from the Neath Valley in South Wales, UK. After a career of teaching in Further, Higher and Adult Education, she is now enjoying the freedom to write. She has published poetry in Impossible Archetype, The Ekphrastic Review (Luna Challenge), A Pride of Lines (Coin Operated Press), the UK Places of Poetry project and collections published by Sunderland University's Spectral Visions Press.She has reviewed for Stand magazine and her account of life as a gay a woman in the 1970s is published in the Honno Press Collection, Painting the Beauty Queens Orange. She now lives in Tyneside with a misanthropic cat and sports a dragon tattoo. ** Alas for Laughs A lass for Yorick—would she show and tell, orating of the finite jests she bore upon her back; the way his fancy’d swell a thousand times, yet which she would abhor? His loose-hung lips no orgy would arise; she’d mock the grin she’d never dare to kiss yet gamboled him with gibes of laughed surprise, her gorge restricting entrance to his miss. Chop-fallen, then, her chamber locked up tight, no ride upon her back—nor she on him. Imagination put off one more night, the paint they both wear fades upon life’s whim. The lass’s time would also come, they tell, but long before, it seems she slew him well. Ken Gosse Ken Gosse prefers writing metric, rhymed verse, usually humorous, often with traditional forms. He was first published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, and since then in online and print anthologies by Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Pure Slush, The Ekphrastic Review, Home Planet News Online, Spillwords, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot. ** Ophelia Unveils it All -- an alternate reading Gothick script that inks your skull gives dreamlike memories to mull. Did I kiss your fleshy lip and ride your playful, bouncing hip, as stoic nobles forced a smile, while fancy masks disguised their guile? I quickly learned their courtly art -- how shards of ice had filled each heart. Within these walls of Elsinore, they curtsied -- rotten to the core. A schoolboy, late from Wittenberg -- a place that stumps each dramaturg -- proclaimed: To be or not to be, but showed no interest in me. He seemed so jealous of his mother and how she bed his father's brother. Hamlet's lover, Laertes (flirty, yet who feared disease), used Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as playthings when they took their turn, and made the English execute them, lest their gossip bear some fruit. And then they tried to tell the town that, heartsick, fate led me to drown. But I survived this clueless lot. Alas, that Avon scribbler's plot now starred a melancholy prince, whose monologues should make one wince. He told me: Seek a nunnery where wanton girls greet lechery. But see today: Ophelia rises! And women claim their rightful prizes. Male egos pose as history, but women wove the tapestry. So Yorick, here beside your grave we see that Death makes kings its slave. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who lives in the farmland of Ohio. His poems and humorous works have appeared in: Snakeskin Poetry, Lighten-Up, Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, and elsewhere. ** Note to Fernando Vicente What would they make of your Hamlet? My students of the millennium, age 17, sitting in college-prep English. Most tried to get Shakespeare’s English, but as one girl said, “Spanish is easier”. The only foreign language offered. I referenced the King James Bible, but even then in rural Bible-belt Missouri church and Bible reading was falling away. I supplemented with the decade-old movie, macho Mel Gibson as Hamlet drowning the “This is so gay” back-row chorus. Still every red-neck male sneered when I emphasized the poetry of lines, the sensitivities of Hamlet’s deliberations. They struggled over words and struggle still over their own children’s choices. The tattooed neck, the ruffled collar, The high cheek bones under a blush, the manicured nails. Their nails wore lines of grease or were chewed to the quick. Fernando Vicente, you’ve captured well that duality I saw in Hamlet, but dared not dwell on. Did I betray that student who came out in college and the boy who later became a senator passing laws against gender transitioning? Did I betray the girl who as a doctor had her clinic shut down? Was I too cowardly to act? Yorick’s skull made the play for them. Girls screamed “Yuck.” Boys cheered. Thank you for crowning it. Victoria Garton Victoria Garton’s books are Venice Comes Clean (Flying Ketchup Press, 2023), Pout of Tangerine Tango (Finishing Line Press, 2022), and Kisses in the Raw Night (BkMk Press,1989.) The anthology, From K.C., MO to East St. Lou, (Spartan Press, 2022) featured ten of her poems. Recent acceptances are from Cosmic Daffodil, I-70 Review, Proud to Be, Sparks of Calliope, WayWords Literary Journal, The Penwood Review, The Seraphic Review, Thorny Locust, and Vital Minutiae. ** Something is Rotten in the State What use is a golden crown atop a skull? O, why do we seek power at any cost, so that our dominions grow, enemies perish? This lust for control, power, revenge - is it too predictable, driven by our long histories, too easy to fall into the old destructive ways, solid in our faith that we, and only we, are right? Flesh and bone, tooth and claw, an eye for an eye. Would we have it any other way? And victory? Foes melt away, destroyed. Bones ground to dust. No thaw in our icy will, we must stay strong of purpose and not be fooled by appearances. The enemy's resolve never wavers in their desire to hurt and kill, itself enough to warrant their demise, all of them, sent into oblivion. We'll stay strong, ignore the laments, wails. A bloodied toll paid by all, the red mist settling like dew. Emily Tee [Note: A Golden Shovel poem using the quotation from Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2: ”O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”] Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, Blue Heron Review and elsewhere online, and in print with Poetry Scotland. Emily is the editor of the new monthly Ekphrastic Challenge Contest by The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. She lives in the UK. ** Aspect Absent His crown kind of matches my hair, but I wonder where the bottom of his face is. Not the fleshy meaty bits, I get what happened to them, but the hard bony part. There was a lower jaw once, and teeth, an arc of them. I don’t like the way his uppers rest on my palm. It’s undignified for him, and he wouldn’t approve. I go along with that. If it were here, the lower jaw, would the mouth be opened or closed? When a skull sits with the mouth closed, complete and on top of a whole skeleton, the grin can look scary and grim. Let the same skull display with the lower jaw hanging and the mouth wide open, it’s a happy aspect, silly and shouting Howdy at anyone looking in. This is likely a mouth closed skull if we can ever find the rest of his face. A word like Alas doesn’t match up with Howdy very well. Poor feller. Carl Damhesel Carl Damhesel lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is a member of Old Pueblo Playwrights and his plays have been presented as in their annual New Play Festivals, and also in the Tucson Community Players' One Act Play Festival. He has had poems and short works published in The Ekphrastic Review and in joyful! magazine. ** Breeches Buoy Translate the complement, to be in roundel gloss, fine fingers, frills, bone china, zygomatic arch, inked neck sans Adam’s apple lump. Scene balcony, scape, nimbus cloud, but jut of jaw, rouge, ginger flow cannot distract from focus, skull, or is it crown draws, overcomes? To fore lies gothic Yorick script - not centred so we see entire - alas, our lass must nail the weight of cranial, so teeth on edge. The canon roars - survey the field - with tragicomic histories, in human makeup lie the flaws, those doors through which the mighty fall. In genderbending stagecraft art, bright entry from the upper left, from groundlings’ yard to heaven’s roof, in tiring house, the globe, the world. This player, smokescreen, Hamlet seen, an acting man, proscenium, but what has been for what to be, war theatre, stage exeunt. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Yorick Hello poor Yorick At last we meet, for the first time alas. You still have your crown worn often in irony. What a joke that was when you pranced around in jest to entertain the one whose head wore a different crown. Both gone now. Long gone. Which king was he? Alas no one remembers. It’s you Yorick who’ll be remembered. Your name is writ large and, at last, inked on your boney forehead. So it’s you who’ll last forever, at last. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Talisman: tattooed, lucky charm, bone on bone, a string of light, the half of me who knew the ownership of words and immortality long before I could walk or talk. My powers paled. The death of my womb and soul mate left me with no authority, no looking backward nor forward. Shared bone structure did nothing but remind me I was still alive; lean and mean, most suggested. It’s impossible to look into the eyes of what once was. A twin no longer: Me in my tower, forgetting there was horizon or river or the Most High. And though, long ago, I’d arrived minutes earlier, I’d long prayed to be the first to leave. Patty Joslyn Patty Joslyn lives in Vermont. She’s fascinated with death and birth as passages into new realms. She has been published in El Calendario de Todos Santos, poetsonline.org, VOYA (Voices of Youth Advocates), Tupelo Press-30/30 Project-March 2015, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and several anthologies. Patty’s book ru mi nate was born in 2017. Patty has never fully recovered from empty nest syndrome or the fact she can no longer do a cartwheel. www.22pearls.blogspot.com & www.22pearls.org ** Can You Ever Really Know Someone? You took me to your favourite play and when I asked why Hamlet? You said because Ophelia kills herself for the love of a broken man We swapped stories of death Your father—my best friend And I thought those blue bands Would bind our claws forever We walked through our backstories Your mother’s strange remarriage My home with the blue mountain view Stumbling over all the things that might have been We must have laughed sometimes But I know the very bones of us Were laid in loss and longings And always in the wings your hungry ghosts We must have kissed a thousand times Yet I never saw the vicious thorns Trapped beneath your turned up collar Or the dagger neatly hidden behind your back All these years later I visit your grave To try and put to rest the tragedy of us A kindly gravedigger asks me if I’m okay I nod and say ‘”You see I knew him once.” Adele Evershed Adele Evershed was born in Wales. Her prose and poetry have been widely published. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net for poetry and the Pushcart Prize for poetry and short fiction. Finishing Line Press published Adele’s first poetry chapbook, Turbulence in Small Places, in July. Her novella-in-flash, Wannabe, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Her second poetry collection, The Brink of Silence, is available from Bottlecap Press ** To Fernando Vicente Regarding Hamlet Shakespeariana Here face to face with cusp of fate young Hamlet well you illustrate as princely heir to sexton's wit that hallows truth of hollowed pit where layers of remains abound beneath the sacred abbey ground, forever rotting in their place to make, for yet another, space where flesh to water giving way is soon the dust again of clay but bone will longer stay intact to hone for death its artifact like skull of fool beloved in hand as weapon Hamlet could command in "madness" feigned to ably joust with comic spirit he would roust. "So even here you entertain... ...where heart I've loved will soon be lain no longer fearing whether sane or victim of the inhumane "whose lust for power blood has wrought in veins of those who never fought descended as competing heirs to realm embattled seized as theirs "from others who had claimed it too so long as strength let them subdue the conquered who became possessed, and yet obliged to feel as blessed, "by those so noble who so vain would murder kin with sheer disdain convinced that reign indemnifies, by crown that church solemnifies, "whatever evil must be done to see that faith in power's won despite no basis where decay will mark damnation's final say. "Oh, Yorick, still you are the balm that humours dank and dreaded calm." Portly Bard Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Questions Before Students Read Hamlet l. Has a death ever made you feel like that person or animal remained close by for several days? If yes, did you share this with anyone else? 2. Has a dream inspired you to do something unexpected? 3. Have you ever watched a TV show or movie that resonated with what your life is like? 4. Do you know a young man who seems confused? Or worried? A young woman who is in love but sad? 5. Do you know an old person who gives unhelpful advice? 6. Have you done something you didn’t want to do even though it seems like the right thing? 7. Has one of your parents ever disappointed you? 8. Do you have a brother or sister who would protect you when you are in danger? 9. Have you ever found yourself talking to a dead person? Or to the skull of dead person? 10. Do you ever feel the world would be a better place if you did exactly what you feel called to do? 11. Is the world you know at war? Have you experienced chaos? If you are able to answer yes to more than two of these questions, you will understand the play. If more than two, start talking to a friend. Tricia Knoll Tricia Knoll is an aging Vermont poet who taught high school English – including Hamlet–for ten years. Her work appears widely in journals, anthologies, and seven collections. Her newest chapbook The Unknown Daughter is on pre-sale from Finishing Line Press through January 5, 2024 for a March 1 publication. Website: triciaknoll.com ** Sacred Crown Luminous red head, exquisite in ruffled white, holding sacred crown. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** memento mori yorick you ol' fool forget me knot tis in the memory of it wherefore art the key of it your ghost runs clear my chthonic friend of every lasting suffering for my second coming hamlet dear a daisy chain wouldst keep me afloat Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith resides in Montreal with Sir Henry, a Norwegian Forest feline of some personality & weight. ** The Ghost Inside a Dream Serie Heroines Literarias, "Hamlet Shakespeariana," Fernando Vincente (Spain) 2022 "Sometimes in the night I feel it Near as my next breath, and yet untouchable. Silently the past comes stealing..." “Ghosts,” Dan Fogelberg (lyrics) "Ah! Mounte sou le bel Troubaire Mestre d'amour!" (Where is he, the handsome Troubadour? past master of love?) Strange Images of Death, Barbara Cleverly "Send her outside when the room rises..." film, Woman Walks Ahead "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him...a fellow of infinite jest, most excellent fancy." Hamlet, William Shakespeare You said my red hair was a talisman of the Sun; and of the earth -- the copper mined in Falun -- where, beneath our reality (the awfulness of death lay precisely in the absence of consciousness)* someone had scrawled a picture of a Tree, a pine in the shape of Christmas decorated with glyphic initials, tattooed by winter spirits when ice on the canals were frozen in Sweden and Denmark, a dream in cold and midnight blue. The world seemed perfect when we married -- I wore the rings of Saturn, platinum as the moon. Ophelia drowned in the bathtub of a Pre-Raphaelite artist, her red hair waved with roses in the water, and I came to life on a Spanish canvas. We never spoke of my past love, Yorick, the symbols on my arms made with a dove's beak. And Pierrot's beautiful Columbine (he was her funny clown) had a name that meant she was his little dove. I wore a blouse in pearl-white satin, an attempt at purity because my ancestress said red hair meant I was a witch; she prayed to save me from a proclivity for sexual suggestion. Your lips, soft as the touch of a paint brush. You did not know, when you were consumed by your work and did not come to bed I consulted Yorick, whose sweet skull gave me thoughts, swirling like snow flakes; how we'd shared the message in a crystal ball, the past and future like the moment when you felt the emptiness of space where once my warmth had filled your arms. I laugh out loud sometimes, a victim of your timeless charms. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp's love of literature led to a semester with Shakespeare's language and his unforgettable characters Shakespeare is timeless and so Fernando Vincente is influenced by his work in the 21st century in his series Heroines Literarias. Some of the canvases are more visceral, as Lady Macbeth, her clasped hands covered with blood; but in Hamlet Shakespeariana, there is an intimation of purity, Ophelia in white, drowned as a virgin in a royal suicide. Vincente "modernizes" his Shakespeariana by giving Ophelia (and Yorick's skull) tattoos, her copper-red hair flaming above flowers tattooed on her throat as if Shakespeare is both her voice and Vincente's art. Laurie Newendorp's book, When Dreams Were Poems, focuses on the relationships between poetry, life and art. She has been honoured many times in the ekphrastic challenge and continues to embrace art as a muse. ** Cordelia’s Recollections I knew someone with the same name, I said as the museum attendant handed me the skull from the Elizabethan display. I recalled Yorick as an elderly cashier at Burger King where my mother and I went for lunch once a week when I was in preschool. On every visit he would place a colourful paper crown on my head before I left the front counter. Staring at the skull, I paused and wondered years later what happened to him. I hoped he hadn’t spent his entire life preparing flame-grilled Whoppers. He told me many times I was cute. If he could only see the mature version of that little redhead now-- a pale face powdered with makeup, white ruffled blouse accented by a bead necklace, the black and white tattoo on my neck, haunting blue eyes staring into sunken sockets wondering if he would even remember that four-year old as I stand near a museum window totally oblivious to gathering cloud formations hovering over distant hills. Dr. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Nameless Roads (2019) and Driving Long Distance (forthcoming 2024). His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), CrosswaysLiterary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland)and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom).He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** To Be, or Not to Be I turn the crumbled earth, seeking reminders of permanence: a golden crown, skull marked in ink, delicately held remains of the dead. I watch as daybreak announces fate's farflung cry, circuitous and transient. Elanur Eroglu Williams Elanur Eroglu Williams teaches reading and writing at an Adult Learning Center in the Bronx. In addition to her work as a GED Teacher, she is a writing tutor for elementary school students. She lives and writes in New York City with her husband and her dog, Luna. ** Shakespeariana Stay here, stay close, but pray stay you away from those who would remove you from my sight-- speak softly to me, lest your speech betray the anguish that is burning through my heart. If you don’t love me, don’t tell me—tell me a story instead—help me to hold on to life—tell me secrets in poetry-- hide your apathy, seduce me with song. Once we have threaded the needle, what then? entanglements are inevitable-- deceptions, distrust, interrogation-- each subplot possible, impossible. It matters not who committed the crime-- We stand here ensembled—cast out of time. Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Listen Well, Listen All, of My Tale to Caution All You see her from afar: sun glinting in her auburn hair, fair skin glowing in the light, the red of her lips and the blush on her cheeks. She looks feminine except for the slanted, curved sheath and handle of a sword secure at her hip, and a dagger hidden within the folds of her white linen shirt. She has your heart as soon as her cerulean blue eyes Turn to stare at you. Within days, you’re married, no doubt in your mind. You don’t know each other, but you make the time to learn about the other. You find common interests, and you learn things that were hidden. She finds herself with you by her side, where she no longer has to be someone that she despises. She wears breeches, tunics, her hair short as her golden jewelry glints on her fingers and ears with an added pearl necklace the only thing that declares: “I’m a woman and the Queen, don't mess with me.” You rule the kingdom in fairness and love. Not a soul complains of a starving home, or a suffering family for all are cared for, and are known, to the rulers of their land. Your people are happy, celebrating life and liberty. But then one day it all changes. It all falls apart from one ill-timed mistake. Visitors come and look upon this lovely land in wonder. One particular set of eyes catches your attention, and just like that, it is all over. Your Queen looked at you with love. She gave her all to you, body, mind, and soul. But when you cheated, she took inspiration: “Off with your head, Crown and all!” You’re no longer King of York, but a Dork jester: forever forgotten from the kingdom you reigned over together. Katie Davey Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. Her first published piece was for The Ekphrasitc Review’s Richard Challenge, titled Hidden Prophecies. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern and is a member of Stephens College’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. She will earn her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024. ** Lady Hamlet Framed in a Renaissance style vignette, Like Mary and Gabriel, an Ionic column to the left, A brilliant blue sky with cumulous clouds in the center, And the ever-present mysterious city on a hill To the right, we find our modern lady And the person who commands her attention. She has done so much to decorate herself-- The hair dyed red, eyebrows plucked, Blush, carefully brushed up her cheekbone. We only see half of her in this silhouette, But two rings circle her wedding finger, Her nails are long and manicured, Her left ear pierced with another ring, And the right ear also, probably. On the side of her long neck, a large tattoo Of two familiar bunches of flowers Takes up all the space. She is bony and thin, anorexic perhaps, Her hair, tucked down the back of her ruffled White blouse, and of course the hilt of a sword At her side and a skull in her hand. After all, she is Hamlet, with her puffy sleeves Tied at the wrist in bows. And on the skull, with a gold crown, somehow still attached, Or perhaps posthumously added, are the letters “Yor,” for Yorick, in case we hadn’t noticed, Since the artist only shows us half of her, And half of poor dear Yorick’s dead head. Underneath this painterly facade, Is she more interesting than Shakespeare’s anxious prince? Does she share his regret, his seething anger, his hopeless despair? Can she speak his wistful words? Maybe we need to listen, watch and Even read the play. Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of British Literature, Shakespeare, Japanese Literature and Poetry. Recently her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poets Online, The Avocet, The Agape Review, Americamedia.org, and Integrated Catholic Life. With her niece, Kathleen Pedulla, she is the co-author of thewebsite myteaplanner.com, which also publishes her monthly blog, Tea and Travels. Many of her haiku and lyric poems appear in these publications. Rose Anna lives in Honolulu with her husband of sixty years, Wayne Higashi. ** Infinite Jest I could tell by her face she was a thinker, the type who sees beneath the layers, my skin, my skull on show, my own teeth grinning at my patent status as a fool. I knew I'd remember her, even after death: her shining copper hair, gorgeous as autumn, her ice blue eyes eager as a Danish winter. She’d laugh at my jokes, and I'm proud of that - men are made immortal by less. She was buoyed by my smile, and I cherish that too. The best I can hope is that she'll think of me, perhaps in a dream: my face in her hands contemplating eyes that always saw the funny side, and remember the wisdom only foolery can teach. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Press, 2023). Paul McDonald Amazon Author Page ** If I could speak to you again, I would hold your royal head before me and tell you this If I had known you would arrive, back then, when I was withering away, shriveling from neglect and despair—if I had known, would I still have stood in line at McDonald’s, listening to the Beatles sing “Will you still love me when I’m 64?” Would I have turned to my husband, who had one foot out the door, with that question lingering in my ear and his eyes answering, “No”? If I had known it was you in that dream, jumping up and down on the bed like a five-year-old. You who would quote Shakespeare and walk me back into possibility. If I had known in that fast-food joint that I was near where the double-decker of happiness was about to pass, I would have let go of that man who looked at me with dead- fish eyes. I would have run sooner toward that magic bus stop singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg’s full-length collection Frogs Don't Sing Red (Kelsay Books, April 2023) includes several works nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is an editor at The Ekphrastic Review, edited Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press, 2015) and co-edited Echoes of the Cordillera (Museum of the Big Bend, 2018), an anthology of ekphrastic poems in conversation with the photography of Jim Bones. Her poems have appeared recently in Panoply (new Pushcart Prize nominee), San Pedro River Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and MockingHeart Review. Translations of her poetry into Dutch can be found at Brabant Cultureel and on the website of Dutch poet, Albert Hagenaars. ** Not to Be Wrong time, wrong place, wrong man. Power is the clash of swords Dawn attacks over the ice Nights on the bare mountain Carousing of wine, bawdy laughter Using, abusing of women World of physical challenge Thoughts, ideas, philosophies Doors to the female psyche Death a feasible proposition that lies beyond the battle? No decisions can be made Before they are outdated Out of joint, at war with his moment Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher from near Cambridge, UK who has also taught in India and Tanzania. Her work has been published in many magazines/anthologies from over 12 countries, including: US, UK, Australia, Canada, India, Germany, Croatia and Romania. ** I Can’t Feel My Face When I’m With You* because the map of your skin unfolds and resists refolding because the map of your skin strikes matches against my decorated skull because the map of your skin is visible only in certain light (candle) because the map of your skin is outlined in black ink, still decipherable under water because the map of your skin is smooth to the touch, tip, tongue, this loose goose chase you lead me on because the map of your skin sends me sureño again and again in search of stolen minutes, miles, smiles I would voluntarily drown in if drowning is the punishment for such witchery, I’ll take it because look, my love, how perfectly we fit together Crystal Karlberg *Title from Can’t Feel My Face, written by Max Martin, Peter Svensson, Ali Payami, Savan Kotecha and the Weeknd Crystal Karlberg is a Library Assistant at her local public library and a speaker for Greater Boston PFLAG. ** Comeuppance If his arrogance wasn’t so off-putting, if she hadn’t resented him for the years of denigration, wordlessly bottling up negative emotions emerging in their marriage, unsure if Indifference would have saved them; hadn’t he made her feel like a shattered porcelain doll with every snide remark delivered in a condescending voice, putting up with his belittlement for as long as she could remember; hadn’t she lost the gist for her artistic expression after his narcissistic Self hijacked her grand opening last month, knowing full well how much it meant to her career, peer recognition, blaming it all on her insecure nature once confronted; ohh… and that sarcastic look in his eyes melting her into a puddle of self-doubts, shattering her spirits to smithereens because that was his power over her; she wouldn’t have allowed herself to lose control under the thousands of shimmering lights in the gloaming of her bare spring garden as the skies wept for her, but what’s done is erstwhile and silencing him was the only way to tip the balance of power. A glance through the bedroom window at the exploding beds of asphodel and white lilies, a tiny sting of remorse vanishing at the speed of light, the memory of last spring expunged with the pure willpower of constraint before it took root. Andrea Damic Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She’s an amateur photographer and author of prose and poetry. She thinks there is something cathartic about seeing your words and art out in the world. Her literary art appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Sky Island Journal, The Dribble Drabble Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She spends many an hour fiddling around with her website https://damicandrea.wordpress.com/. ** With Sappho's Blessing I had her paint on your skull like she would with a needle. Bearing your last name - which should’ve been mine. You’re my one thing from home he said I could bring. There is nowhere I’d go where you would not come. This crown on my head should be on yours. We could be the first. Queens together. No king. But I’m sorry, so sorry, this must be my fault. If I could’ve been normal - we would be together. Now he has taken me to rule in his kingdom. He’s fine, he’s knightly. But he’s not you. My beloved, I need you. I’ll miss you forever. My everything, darling. The queen to my queen. Maeson Roucoulet Maeson Roucoulet (they/them) currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and is originally from Connecticut. They've been writing poetry since around the fourth grade, and were published in The Ram Page and The Ekphrastic Review. Maeson is now interested in creative writing, literature, and music. ** Where be Your Jibes Now? From Hamlet, By William Shakespeare I gaze into the sockets of your eyes, See mischief there, embedded in your skull, As if pale bone and shadow could disguise The memory of jest, before the days were dull. And now my one true love Ophelia Has slipped beneath the lake, her golden hair threaded into the silky weeds, skin a ghostly shade of moonshine cast in prayer. Yorick, is it fair to seek revenge? I miss the rhythmic skip of childhood, Your smiling face and mine a mirrored lens But nothing breathes where once you stood. We all return our bones to soil and earth, We are but spectres, we have no worth. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar and ukulele. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published in the next month. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Eternal Grin You made us howl, primed our pumps with spurts of laughter that - at last - exploded in geyser guffaws, soaked with tears. Your last line echoed inside, erupting in spastic dribbling giggles long after your schtick was done. As a child, I assumed you fed us funny fluff. Later, I noticed glinting diamonds in the mix, brilliance for the brave, razor edges making their mark. You mocked everything, even the King, to his face. You grabbed your manhood to proclaim my father as ever-protective of the Crown Jewels. Or not. Reckless, foolish, suicidal. Honest. Beneath your eternal grin, you still mean it. Life is brief; Choose with the end in mind. What constitutes an adequate choice? One in which you die trying and never miss the Joke. Sheila Murphy Sheila Murphy writes poems to slow down. She is a spiritual director, cancer survivor, retreat leader and adventurer. She is a music director and pub fiddler. She has published poems in Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction and The Ekphrastic Review. Sheila lives in coastal Maine, is married and has two adult offspring. She plays fiddle, guitar and piano. ** A Reflection Of Dignity “While if not in jest; we speak of life.” One should easily be able to distinguish the premises- What is Good and what is Right. My death… A concept- Of past lives lived-on to recount new visions. This skewed view of progress-watched. From above. Recounting- Having grown old enough to see- Bones that rejoice! Flesh, and the air ! I had loved. Once Michael W Piercy "At the intersection of Art, Poetry and Contradiction you will find my work, you will find me. Taking on memories and the present moment. Thinking- with an eye that shadows the natural world. Philosophy, Theology and Science are at the core of my writing. I have found that I am a synthesizer-managing ideas which to not always cohere. Trying to manipulate- Ideas." Michael W. Piercy ** I hold in tattoos the diary pages, fossilized last spoken now I want no more- I hold the hollows of time soaked in cries, I hold an evening falling quiet. Beyond ashen white is coloring the sky, dusty gold mounting in steppe meadows- impregnated air falters forgiveness into hollows in my hand I hold. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Hamletiana Shakespeariana Heavy is the golden crown - its cold pushing from top down until history’s contender, once mouthful with pride, is reduced to clenched teeth fitting even into a girl’s palm – Zen flesh, Zen bones – fixed gaze taming the ghost caved into the bony orbits, while her other hand gracefully guides her intent to pat the being that is not. What fancy drives this curiosity? To touch or not to touch the un-being? That is the moment of Vicente’s screening into the trial of a Zen flesh to extract from a Zen bone the meaning. To be or not to be? Was Hamlet right or wrong to pose that brief and fateful polar question that bites the mankind’s lips ever since he aired it on that eventful Shakespearean page – as if on the heavenly stage. To be or not to be? Was he asking the earth or the heaven? This is uncertain, so, as each forfeits the other, Hamlet stood between these two contrary judges, who live in balanced tension for all ages, while he - pained, alone, to crown sworn, mind on earth, heart in heaven, took the enemy’s blade while his hand dropped his sword into the heart of his unrequited question. Now she tries to draw the answer from the teeth clenching it - maybe or maybe not - her pat may un-bite that tight knot, but until then while looking straight into his un-being eyes as in a trance she tells him her answer: thinking outside the box, be it golden crown or carton hoax, and being not prince Hamlet but from any hamlet on the planet freely flying my orange banner of a hair, over my white romantic frills, covering my heart’s beats, above my eyes’ inquisitive trills, seems a sufficiently noble reason for being and never put anything squeezing over my head, save heaven – a crown for each and all, auspicious for the mind’s orbital descend to the voiceless sound of Hamlet’s answer as written in the stars and these Zen bones. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA in linguistics and culture has studied and taught at Universities of Sofia, Delhi and London and authored a book on Mediaeval art for The British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems feature on often on The Ekphrastic Review, among others. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni, 2021. ** Ophelia Lives On a different balcony, Or on a different page, The fool’s skull wears the king’s crown, And Ophelia lives To have an existential crisis of her own. Hamlet had hated the neck tattoo, It (nearly) drove him mad. “But you know how I love flowers, love,” she said, But he didn’t seem to hear. “Alas, poor Yorick,” she said to the skull, “You poor memento mori, you prop, Nothing more than what you stand for now, not what you really were. You were a man of infinite jest, but no one is laughing now. Only a man would harp on the inevitability of death Instead of remembering the possibilities of life. Life is only futile to those who fail to truly live. Sure, Alex the Great is naught but dust now, But damn did his life seem fun. Pillage and plunder and all.” Ophelia put down Yorick’s skull, tucked her long hair into her shirt to create the illusion of manhood, and felt the hilt of her sword at her side. A voice called her name from off stage. “I do not know, my lord, what I should think,” she answered, gripping the sword and smiling. “Though I have a few ideas.” Maggi McGettigan Maggi McGettigan is a writer and literature lover living in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Her work has most recently been published in the beautiful Creatopia magazine, Capsule Stories, and The Stonecrop Review, and can be found at maggimcgettigan.com. ** Alas, Poor Yorick, You Knew Me too Well You, the Fool, most often recognized as the smartest man at court, but only to those with sharp minds themselves – you remain masked by buffoonery, me by beauty, both locked into our accepted roles. Such a shame! Two star-crossed lovers who could have had it all, but for your silly obsession with virtue. That second night after my arrival, you s o m e r s a u l t e d across the banquet hall, a rose between your lips, as you bowed and presented it to me. Milady, the rumors are true! But your niece Ophelia is a pale version of you. What remarkable beauty for a woman of 517 years! A cacophony of laughter eclipsed the band of musicians. I laughed, too. My dear Yore? Yock? Yammer? Pray you, forgive my forgetting your name. You are so kind and generous in your praise for a woman of 666 winters. Laughter exploded again as our eyes locked on each other, recognizing the truth. We could neither one be trusted to keep the other’s secrets. You would lie dead within the week. Death upon death, madness upon madness followed according to plan. Yet, all these years later, you remain my only regret. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she picked up her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Retired now, Alarie delights in having more time to read, write poetry, and hang out at The Ekphrastic Review. Alarie was thrilled to win Lorette C. Luzajic’s first Editor’s Pick for the Ekphrastic Fantastic Award and to have her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, named Director’s Choice at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 2022. alariepoet.com ** Reality Mends Cowards I ate some food today. I don’t remember what I ate. Just that I wasn’t hungry. What terrifies me more than grief and fear? It’s apathy. Indifference. I think. The numbness spreads and suddenly I have another tattoo. Still can’t feel the grief. They know not getting out of bed is a sign. The only thing that makes me eat is habit. All everlasting kingdoms fall to dust and here old Yorick stands, a mockery. I don’t think people understand all this. If they understood, maybe they’d offer help. All power stripped away and nought remains. I smiled for the first time in a year. It felt unsettling, like the wrong size shoe. Is depression made only for princes? Maureen Martin Maureen Martin is an aspiring writer from Ohio. Her passions include Shakespeare, literature and film criticism, overindulging in herbal teas, and working as an underpaid English and Theatre teacher. She has acted, directed and written her way through her undergraduate years, which are now safely behind her. She is a published poet, with several pieces appearing online at the The Ekphrastic Review. ** Your Dagger Look Hello again fine-fashion crisp murderess. Here we are, some time since my pooled blood washed-up in the lure of this blind-white-white, and all the blues have cooled, less royal dark than I recall. They no longer arrow, but bend lithe over the curve of your iced lyse-blue eye, onto classy cuff-ruffles, silken but stiff enough to hold in the tonnage of leaden deeds. Here now, touching dabs of child-green accenting, clean, clean. And a grey- tinged green veins along through, like a sequined spider’s micro-snipped web, within your sprawling neck tattoo, then wisps up into the reign of (oh-wow-it’s-grown) an ever-sharpening—nearly a jab of rosy cheekbone. You must to be sure, again, I am still tangibly dead. (my yellow-gold skull un-convincing) And so, can only threaten you from afar. But the dead have little to say on matters of state. You must keep piercing me however long it takes to sever a word or stab one clear out, clueless to what the rest of us access first: the little the dead have left to give, poor we are in words. We’re numbers of globed worlds away from where this is. And you won’t reflect on how like us you really are, as your framed word-pearls empty-out officially at the end of every day, tip elegant, back to the base of your taut neck, too rigid to ever betray—but in the flattened press of dirty red hair blunt cut just yesterday, there it is, a redder red-trickle along your severe midline part. You cannot see it very well in the million mirrors turning to follow you. Your brutal cold eyes pin you apart from a critical view. SP Singer I hope to always be starting over as a poet, satisfaction a good stretch ahead, blind-illumina colours in most directions as I slowly go. ** Yorick of Mine Alas, Yorick, lover of mine, I stole your life, As you stole my heart. You loved Ophelia best, My poor sister, Not of blood, but of my soul. You, my silent king, I still watch you closely, Searching for your fancy. Corrie Pappas Corrie Pappas is a small business owner living outside Boston. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and she is the author of the children’s book, Come Along and Dream. ** Memento Mori Yorick, you are beautiful in death I rubbed your skull with soft cloths until it shone And wrote your name in black letters on the front So no-one would mistake the skull for mine. On your head, I placed a golden crown To remember that this is how all mortals end Kings, and the sons of kings, and the kings’ fair daughters My books, my spotless linen shirt My lustrous hair, of which I am so vain Will turn to dust, will crumble into earth. As an aside, what gives, Señor Vicente? At least, unlike my sisters, I have clothes Still, I’m in some kind of pre-Raphaelite freak show My neck’s too long, my hands, impossible A hundred years from now, when gravediggers find my bones Beneath crumbling stone, the letters worn away They will call me Spider because of my long, long hands. Karen Kebarle Karen Kebarle was born in Edmonton, Alberta, but has lived in Ottawa, Ontario for the last 27 years. She holds an MA and PhD in English and has always had a soft spot for Shakespeare. She has taught grade school, college, and university, and now teaches English as a Second Language to public servants in the Government of Canada. One of her favourite jobs was her two years working as an art interpreter at the National Gallery of Canada. Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Whirlpool, by Dusti Bonge. Deadline is November 24, 2023. Curator and judge for this challenge is TER editor Sandi Stromberg. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. ** Dear Writers and Lovers of The Ekphrastic Review, One of the wonderful gifts of being an editor at The Ekphrastic Review is that on occasion I’m able to offer a biweekly challenge. The possibility has me constantly on the alert. As I wander through museums, galleries, art fairs, thumb through books on art, I’m always considering possibilities: Would this artwork be evocative enough? Would this artist’s life intrigue? Would writers feel driven to respond, to commit images and thoughts to paper? Recently, in one of life’s delicious moments of synchronicity, I became friends with a man affiliated with the Dusti Bongé Foundation. As he told me about this remarkable artist—who is finally receiving the accolades and recognition she deserves—I was intrigued. I hope you will be, too. See her short bio below with news about her current exhibition and a video in which she shares her Life as an Artist. In the meantime, I offer you Bongé’s Whirlpool and hope it will inspire! Sandi Stromberg Dusti Bongé (1903-1993), née Eunice Swetman, was a member of the first generation of abstract expressionist painters. A native of Biloxi, Mississippi, she showed with the groundbreaking Betty Parsons Gallery in New York from the 1940s through the 1970s, in the company of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and the other major players of that time. though her part in that revolutionary chapter of American art history is only now being recognized. 30 years after her passing. Dusti Bongé: The Creative Life is currently on exhibit at the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama, July 13, 2023-September 14, 2024. A video of her in her studio discussing her life as an artist is available here Dusti Bonge' | MPB. ** The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include BONGE CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, November 24, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. Upon Peering at an Untitled Reverse Glass Painting Fir trees surround the halls of the courtyard complex with reverse-facing rooms, side houses, and an entrance gate shielded by a spirit screen of inkstone engraved with terrain mirroring the landscape beyond the walls. Bellflowers are somewhere. Plum blossoms are somewhere. Floral motifs decorate red and blue garments. A pearl necklace adorns a neck and a headpiece is like a flat crown. Someone points to the sky. He says things with confidence. Someone sighs. Her court needs to tend to other matters. Messengers argue. Fog thickens around the terraces. No page walks through a courtyard. Moss grows on sculptures in a rock garden and stone arrangements resemble far-off mountains. A passerby cups a blossom, pondering a trek through Huashan. Lilac wisteria spirals around a monument. Flute melodies reach the court from a distant chamber. Tempos sync to phoenix birds twittering above the Hill of Wang Fu. Efren Laya Cruzada Efren Laya Cruzada is a poet who was born in the Philippines and grew up in a small town in South Texas. He studied English and American Literature and Creative Writing at New York University. He is the author of Grand Flood: a poem. His poems have been published in several journals, with work forthcoming in The Tiger Moth Review, The Stardust Review, and Tiny Seed Literary Journal. Currently, he is working on a poetry collection based on his travels throughout Latin America and Asia. His day jobs have included coaching chess, teaching ESL, and writing for blockchain media companies. He now resides in Austin, Texas. ** You Dare And Impress What a pose! A beauty that glows Your hands you unfold Able to power hold You assert authority And bury fragility A voice not to suppress You dare and impress A myriad of pearls You earned with no fears You uncover stories True fights not fancies You rise within an Empire A tiger’s fur your attire Your high ranking a pride Reversing history tide. Besma Riabi Dziri Besma Riabi Dziri is a teacher of the English language in high school in Tunis. She was born in Tunis, Tunisia on September 20th, 1966. She graduated from Manouba University of Arts. She has a great passion for creative writing. She writes short stories and fables. Poetry has gripped her very ink and captured her heart and soul. Through her poetry, Besma Riabi Dziri expresses her thoughts which include serving and enlightening Humanity, tolerance of beliefs and the importance of Love, benevolence, forgiveness in the soul’s renewal and growth. She avidly believes in the ability of poetry to transcend our limitations as human beings, beautify and elevate the soul and shine Love and Light into Humanity. ** The Qianlong Emperor's Consort Being Entertained in His Absence The windows on the universe were closed behind translucent screens. His senses: eyes and nostrils, ears and mouth, the hours he dozed, noted no new kingdoms fall or rise. Jade and jewels stud the mural walls; inside and out, extinctions multiply. The skies are overheated, fire falls when stars explode, the oceans pale. We try to kill whole species, not just one by one. Preserving what is wild is self-defeating. We mourn the glut of nature, saving none, but creatures do not mourn our moral bleating. A sage once dreamt he was a butterfly. Or was the dream the insect's? Toss the die! Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who has had a long fascination with the art and history of the Middle Kingdom. He has taught a large number of students from China. His poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Lyric, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and a number of other places. ** Red I was spat forth from the mouth of Changbai, the volcano: my beautiful molten self so red hot I ate everything in my path. I leapt off the orb of the sun: I crept into rowan berries and the goji, the lychee and the jujubi. From there to the palette of Zhu Da, diminutive painter of emperors and empresses; thence imperially decreed the royal colour on robes, pennants, standards such a red as I am! Piercing the sky with victory and valour primping the chests and Pom poms of warriors and court eunuchs alike billowing in the breeze - oh ecstasy! - across the mountains of Guangdong. There will be other colours, of course, dull lapis lazuli or insipid egg yolk yellow- but I am the colour of China. Taste, touch and feel - I am everywhere. Lucie Payne Lucie is a retired Librarian who is writing in and around Oxfordshire and Sussex; sometimes getting published in the wonderful Ekphrastic Review and other places. ** The [A]lternative [W]orldview for Shaohua Yan "He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." J. W. von Goethe 1. Book Time “Voila! … Now, this discourse – 1421: The Year China Discovered America (G. Menzies) – is Le Portal to the [A]lternative [W]orldview—id est, contrary to the (in)famous Christopher Columbus, The Explorer, grand narrative,” I ensure that I’m amply audible to her eardrums, so she knows ‘tis Book Time for me, “ … the Chinese were the original inventors of: paper making (105CE) AND type printing (960–1279 CE) AND gunpowder (1100 CE) AND compass (2nd century BCE–1st century CE) AND mechanical clock (715 CE) AND tea production (2,737 BCE) AND silk (4,000 BCE) AND umbrella (300 CE) AND iron smelting (1050–256 BCE) AND earthquake detector/seismograph (132 CE) AND rocket (228 CE) AND kite (muyuan: wooden kite) (1,000BCE) AND seed drill (1,500 BCE) AND paper money (9th century CE) AND acupuncture (300s BCE) AND … .” But, I don’t read this chronological account out loud, ‘cause I don’t need to, ‘cause she’s CHINESE – she knows her [H]istory! … “Now, that’sNews! This definitely calls for the Grand/Meta-Narratives—especially, the ones floating around in the West (under the canopy of Modernism)—to be revisited! … [Re]visited in the manner of a Deconstruction of the Civilisation – exempli gratia, in the Post-Modernist / Post-Structuralist context!”[1] The philosopher in me is provoked, but I keep the agitation(s) from treading onto the tongue. 2. Rhetorical Questions “Hmm. So, how come the Arabs (the Bedouins) still had to use the animal hides to document their folklores and poetry and songs back then (6th–7th century CE)? Hmm. And would the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) by the Turks—by Sultan Mehmet II (The Fetih/Gazi) (1453 CE)—even have been possible without the gun powder/guns/cannons, in the first place? Hmm. And what of the Islamic Renaissance – with the Al-Mu’tazilites et alia (8th–9th century CE) –[2] and the European Renaissance – with the Medici Family et alia (15th century CE) –[3] would these historical epochs even have materialised without the Chinese Factor? Hmm.” I can see/hear/smell/touch these – and multifaceted other – rhetorical questions ricocheting off each other inside my thalamus now; but, I spare my grey matter the immaterial labour. 3. Bedtime As I contemplate braving the idea of turning a dozen+ more pages over to sort the assist of the said scholar with the hunt for the theses to the aforesaid hodgepodge in my walnut shaped mind: enveloped in the Chinese-red nighty, wearing my favourite Eau de Toilette (Floral Aquatic Cool Water – Davidoff), 2-3 wine glasses of La Rosa down; she relays a signal to me with her cat eyes: (put the book away // screw the cap back on the pen // switch the table lamp off) ‘tis Bedtime! Saad Ali [1]. Postmodernism/Poststructuralism: An Intellectual Movement that rejects the objectivism/determinism/rationalism of the (European) Modernity, or the so-called Age of Enlightenment (18th–19th century CE), i.e., ‘one frame fits all the portraits.’ The movement professes relativism/pluralism/subjectivity as opposed to the ideology of the ‘universal truth,’ or ‘universal meaning,’ or ‘universal language,’ or ‘universal human nature,’ et cetera, i.e., there’re multiple truths/realities and meanings, and that every culture and language is valid in its own (unique) way. [2]. Al-Mu’tazilites (The Separated): A Philosophical/Theological School of Thought—proponents of: 1) ‘something comes from something’ metaphysics, 2) atomism (following the classical Greek tradition), 3) speculative theology, 4) man’s free will, 5) power of human intelligence and reasoning, et cetera. Some of the significant figures of the Movement included: Al-Kindi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Ishaq, Al-Mahamali, Al-Asturlabiyya, et alia – who were also the key members of the Graeco-Arabic Translation Project. [3]. The House of Medici: The Family is also known as: 1) The Godfathers of the (European) Renaissance, and 2) Makers of Popes, Queens, and Artists. They are also famous for funding the inventions of the piano and opera, and being the Patrons of da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Galileo, et alia. Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is a poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Tagore. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com, or www.facebook.com/owlofpines. ** Come to Us, Come to Us Come to us, come to us, our empress beckons you forth. Shout to us, shout to us! What news brings you from the North? Tell us this story, what is it you know? Your brave tales of glory, none more filled with woe. The bard starts to laugh! A victory song! Bring our carafes! We're here, we belong! You needed success, my empress, we brought it. We'd bring nothing less, you've said it, we've fought it. Please, celebrate, all! Today is so joyous! No need for more brawls. No one can destroy us. Relax, my brave soldiers. Lay down to rest. No more weight on your shoulders. From you, we are blessed. Maeson Roucoulet Maeson Roucoulet (they/them) currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and is originally from Connecticut. They've been writing poetry since around the fourth grade, and were published in The Ram Page. Maeson is now interested in creative writing, literature, and music. ** Composition in Green The empress calls her court the Qing — 清 — qīng -- compounded splash of 'water,' block of 'green' yet not just one but all the shades of spring signify together Pure. Bright. Clean. 'Green is from blue and green is more than blue.' From inky depth flows life into the sheaves each year edenic. Troops scythe pale bamboo among blue hills, green ponds, black leaves. Thus she knows herself immortal: all is one blurred coluor swimming in the sleepy grass blooming at edges. Belly-up the sun pours half-light mediate through glass. Katy Borobia Katy Borobia is a recent graduate of Hillsdale College. She studied Mandarin Chinese for four years. Her poems and prose have been published by Ekstasis, Glass Mountain, and several others. After trying her hand at service, horticulture, 4-H education, and editing, Katy still doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up. ** The Qing Dynasty As the youngest, one must earn her respect. I dance and twirl trying to win mother over. A facial heatwave when I make the connection: My siblings before me received life on gold platters. Their smug stares burning holes in my backside She glares, I know she reads minds. Ellen Canarelli Ellen Canarelli is a lifelong artist and writer who resides in Cassville, New York, where there are more cows than people. She spends all winter skiing, something she'd loved doing with her family since she was a very little girl. In the summer, she spends her days running for miles, soaking up the sun. ** Celebration Cheerful noise fills the area dancing, laughing, and joy As I sit on my throne and look from afar I appreciate nature's beauty– the trees swaying “hello” and the wispy smells from the garden Today is a day of celebration As they continue to laugh and dance I sit on my throne feeling content Tyler Carr Tyler Carr is a writer from Middletown, New York. She enjoys journaling and photography during her free time. ** The Purity Shines The purity shines hiding the hostility reds and blues draw the eye away from the pain the violence the individual hides their face behind the glass ignoring the blood spilled mixing with the paint Mo Flanagan Mo Flanagan is an author out of Boylston, Massachusetts. They enjoy reading prose and poetry. ** About-Face Who can shade upside down? Not one from the comfort of a death- rattle recliner or from boots tied to a gallows rope. Not one from the other side of the equator. Reverse engineering. Deconstruction. The first is the first and the last shall be last (in a non-Biblical manner). Facial hair. Beards. Brows. Lashes. Darks and blacks. Smirks. Crooked lines of nostrils. Crowns and caps. Clothes. Outer layers wait on belts and swords. Shameless hubris of cheeks lie tidy before the already shadowed hands brush their spears. Todd Sukany Todd Sukany, a Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over 40 years. His work recently appears in The Christian Century and Fireflies’ Light. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, and caring for three rescue dogs and three cats. ** Besotted I'll hold a parasol above your head, though my palms sweat blood on the handle, fingers close to breaking with the strain, the long hours. I'll present you with a scroll, lacquered tube to hold it, hung with braided tassels. The scroll will say I love you, calligraphed a thousand times in sumi ink. I'll have my dancers dance for you in soft leather slippers, embroidered cloaks, gold-threaded caps with scarlet pom poms. Their beards will be clipped for the occasion, waxed to a point a yard beneath the chin, scented with the sweetest mountain flowers: harebells, pennyroyal, peony. My jesters will impress you, tugging jokes from their throats like knotted scarves: endless hilarity, enough to make you helpless. They'll cease at my command, but I'll bide my time, waiting till you turn to me with wonder, gratitude, and love. Look what he can do, you'll say, this besotted man, devoted bearer of the parasol: he commands the sun, and everything beneath. I'll take your face in my aching hands, kiss your pale, shadow-cool forehead, my triumph tinged with sadness: we both know in our hearts I'll regret it, except in that moment when I had it all. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Publishing, 2023) ** Was This Richard Scarry’s Inspiration? Was this 1800s Qing Court scene Richard Scarry’s inspiration for his ultra detailed portrayals of modern homes, schools, even plain air pictures? Or perhaps he traveled through time and saw for himself that Empress holding court her jester, her advisor, her garden and the lands beyond? Perhaps he’s the one who painted it? If there are symbols here among these elements my old eyes, my mind, both flummoxed and distracted by so much detail, leaps from place to place in the painting. Scarry was a favourite of my laser-focused daughter who easily moved among Scarry’s many points of interest cataloguing , organizing all in her logical mind. My son and I put Scarry aside preferring pictures with fewer foci. Here, I note the Empress is smiling from under the arbor, and that she is robed in red silks of happiness. Perhaps her smile is aimed at the entertainer—is he swallowing a snake or sword or juggling for her? The others are so serious—maybe they will smile in the next picture, released from sober countenance only after the Empress smiles? My safest point of reference, if this were my only picture of the court, would be, are the two birds in the far-left corner gliding above, maintaining a good distance from all of this human interaction while gracing the sky with their gentle presence. I think my son would also have liked them best. Scarry drew his equally busy scenes for children to give them a safe view of the busy adult world all around them. I wonder how many Chinese children “read” about the court using this painting? I wonder how many of them, like my son and I were tired by these views and wished the painting and real life was simpler? Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales of food, family, strong women. Internationally published as an 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 appear in Impspired, Ekphrastic Review, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, Ovunquesiamo, Synkroniciti, MacQueen’s Quinterly, SoFLoPoJo, and many others in US, UK, Australia, Germany, and more. Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, (Finishing Line) and Feathers on Stone, (Main Street Rag). ** Victory Celebration On a mild spring afternoon ginkgo and Chinese elm trees gently sway in a light breeze while a rust-coloured sky embraces distant mountains. Adorned in red ceremonial attire embroidered in gold and silver threads, Empress Cixi is ensconced on a hand-carved wooden throne, where she holds court with artisans. Like a victorious soldier, I hold the red dynasty victory banner behind her. Wei, a musician, plays the erhu for her listening pleasure until the last orange strands of daylight pale. Dr. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Nameless Roads (2019) and Driving Long Distance (forthcoming 2024). His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** The Noble Dowager (for Kenneth Rexroth) Everything is ornament for her brocades and lavish swirls are the formal dress of a seated Empress along with her courtiers and palace guards in their plumage. Vivid Autumn colors that shame the trees and sky, The extravagance of each costume is a temple unto itself. I realize Lady you are the pure light of heaven though from a distance to a man whose crops are dust and who watches his family starve all this grandeur and pomp, these most intricate patterns are not beautiful but are a fire raging through his country and his belly. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** The Emperor of the Moon Since antiquity, there have been many emperors. The emperor of the moon is the most mystical. Riding bareback above clouds like a lost explorer Galloping towards white stars, he grew critical Looking for his bride; oh, where art thou my - Juliet? I have remained faithful during my ceaseless searching But your distance has always remained the same, I regret. There are too many stars twinkling that are pretending- To be in keeping with my carnal desires, but those, Those stars were never in his thoughts, never his tempting. The emperor of the moon was now predisposed To idly hiding or occasionally peeping Rather than dashing across the skies, he hid in the dark Rather than crying, oh, where art thou my - Juliet? He sent his people to look; he sent a meadowlark Men did shout, and the meadowlark sang the alphabet. His men returned to their quarters each evening solemn The meadowlark flew and flew, singing in the heavens The emperor felt abandoned and in the doldrums As each morning, it sang and was lit incandescent. Why on earth does it sing so triumphant and happy? And while his back was turned, he felt a glowing warmth. And his men came running; here is your bride and aptly She arrives behind your throne brightly and adorned. The emperor gasped at her radiance of gold In all his endless days of looking, he couldn't find her Until she found him in a story that is often retold A few centuries later - about how he found her? Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. He has poems published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He resides in the UK and is from Manchester. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** Whom Shall I Blame or Groom? I’m cleaned, prepped, reversed, glistening. Lying in greedy-hungry, heavily scented, oiled-soiled palms like stolen gold coins, ready to play. In beds or casinos. My disrespect is not sanctioned by Gods. So, whom shall I blame for breakage, confusion, pain-leaving, bloody stain? Or whom shall I groom for luck, rethinking, piety, improved-swapped mentality? Or whom shall I groom in wonderous faith? Humans? Animals? Animals may not seek mirrors, glass, or gold. And the mean don’t see them; they just destroy. And court jesters are punished, ridiculed, never to be set free. Roads are blocked. Passages gloated. Brains are lard-clogged. I hang my coat on the stand. Throw open the tight, molding windows. Watch the queen on the throne. Watch the hungry men drool and prepare for antics. Watch nature mingle with my thoughts, my fears, my smiles, and my promises, like nervous pregnant mothers, human or animal, just before delivery. Whom shall I blame, and whom shall I groom? Anita Nahal Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP, is a two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author-academic. Her third poetry collection, What’s wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021) was nominated by Cyril Dabydeen as the best poetry book, 2021 for British Ars Notoria, and is mandatory reading in a multicultural society course at Utrecht University. Her just released novel, drenched thoughts is also prescribed in the same course and university. Anita is the editor of the Newsletter, Poetry Virginia Society and secretary of the Montgomery Chapter, Maryland Writers Association. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC. Anita is the daughter of Sahitya Akademi award-winning Indian novelist, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and educationist Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal. www.anitanahal.com ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Hamlet Shakespeariana, by Fernando Vicente. Deadline is November 10, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. We are thrilled to have Kate Copeland as our challenge editor and curator for this session. She has been a guest editor several times already, and brings a wonderful variety of artistic styles and talents to our attention. We are also delighted to announce that Kate has joined our editorial team here at The Ekphrastic Review and will continue to serve our readers as a challenge editor approximately every other month. Please join us in welcoming her. She generously shares her time and her curious eye on behalf of the journal, our writers, and our readers. THANK YOU KATE!!!! ** Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, This ekphrastic challenge offers you the incredible work of Spanish artist Fernando Vicente! Fernando is a self-taught illustrator, whose work was first published in magazines during “la movida madrileña," the countercultural movement in Madrid during the Spanish transition to democracy. His art has appeared in newspapers and various (cultural) supplements, Fernando has also illustrated book covers and record sleeves. Find his work via: https://www.fernandovicente.es/en/ The artwork I have chosen is part of the series Heroinas Literarias and is called Hamlet Shakespeariana (see for the whole series: https://www.fernandovicente.es/en/fine-art/heroinas-literarias/ ). It is an amazing piece and I know it will just prompt you into writing the most beautiful lines and stanzas! Thank you so much for submitting your writing, I am very much looking forward to reading your work. And thank you Lorette, for having me on board as challenge-editor and curator for TER, I am looking forward to choosing art and reading beautiful words every two months indeed. I feel very honoured to be included in your wonderful Ekphrastic Review! Enjoy the Vicente Shakespeariana challenge everyone, Kate Copeland ** The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include VICENTE CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, November 10, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. |
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