My Dali A teenager, I was a poster Christ crucified in a sky above a cove and dried blue tac on my bedroom wall lets Christ lets me fall at one edge. I was a swan reflecting elephants the need for it to be other my fingers mirrored rocks. I was a spoon on crutches, anything but me. Paul Brookes Paul Brookes has performed in poetry performance group "Rats for Love" and is included in their "Rats for Love: The Book" Bristol Broadsides, 1989. His first chapbook "The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley" by Dearne Community Arts, 1993. He has read his work on BBC Radio Bristol and had a creative writing workshop for sixth formers broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live.
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On Goya’s “The Submerged Dog”
52 inches of pallid yellow Pouring down vertically - its incessant Visual silence invites screaming. Its Formlessness defies definition. Is It a sprawling, sick sallow sky? Or a Massive mountain, bearing no footholds? Your Eyes pan down, down. 52 inches might As well be eternity. Its horrors Height and simplicity – un-scalable, Insurmountable - its pathos pervades Your crevices. Then suddenly. Just. Stops. Abruptly, you now confront an up-arced brown form. Is this Earth? Is it quicksand? Murky sea? An illusory refuge promising Sanctuary? And then you notice it. A flash of broad black brush stroke, it bisects Up and down, sky and ground: an agent of Between-ness. Suspended below yellow, Submerged in brown: it’s the solitary Head of a dog. Wide with fear (or despair), Its white-flecked eyes gaze imploringly out Beyond the interminable up-ness To some hypothetical salvation. Is its torso petrified within that Swathe of earth-brown oil? Or do its unseen Legs flurry to keep it afloat? Is this Wasted wanting in sure defeat’s face? No – To keep desire’s vessel - the head – abreast, However absent the body or vast The abyss – we can aspire no higher than this. Mindy Watson Mindy Watson is a DC/Northern Virginia-based creative nonfiction writer and federal writer/editor. She holds an MA in Writing (Nonfiction) from The Johns Hopkins University and a BA in English for Illinois Wesleyan University. Her nonfiction has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Ars Medica and Thread: A Literary Journal; her poetry has appeared in The Quarterday Review. Wine and Art I write a column at Good Food Revolution on wine and art. In may 2014, I was fortunate enough to view a special collection of works, including Leonard Cohen's art, during a wine tasting. Click here to read about it. Lorette Sisters, Hear Me
Men write our myths. Watch out for yourselves. Only Helios himself believed he was the sun. I was never blinded by his light. He abducted me. The dry air chafed my skin. It was easy to slip back into the sea, stay hidden. Time let his lies die. Not many people talk of sirens or water nymphs these days. We still flourish in the ocean’s womb. Fishermen sometimes catch a glimpse, swear we have tails like porpoises. Men lie. Like Pandora, like Eve, like you, I have curiosity. I think for myself. Men hate that. Blame you for their failings. Alarie Tennille This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. The Old Oak
People with places to go don’t look back The artist the only observer of this wild landscape Travel through quickly on horse or foot Escape from it to the security and warmth of town, of other people. Now look forward Even that artist-observer couldn’t imagine today Wilderness, peaceful, cherished Small patches to linger Escape to it from the city’s heat and noise from too many other people The track now marked for bushwalking The road a six lane highway Virginia Lowe Dr Virginia Lowe has had poems published in seven anthologies as well as Silver Birch Press and Australian Children’s Poetry and various other journals as well as books for children. She is a prize winner in the Melbourne Poets’ Union competition. Her book is Stories, Pictures and Reality (Routledge) and she has published extensively on children’s literature. She has been a university lecturer, a librarian, and for the last twenty years has run a manuscript assessment agency http://www.createakidsbook.com.au/. Ars Poetica
We practice moving our hands. We hope to get it right later (it will be like this, we say). What is there in a watercolour painting of weeds and grass? German speedwell, hound’s-tongue, and yarrow. We study to improve our grasp on what is real. Creeping bent-grass, smooth meadow-grass. They sprout from mud. Dandelion, greater plantain, cock’s foot. Every thing has a name. Adam Pollak Adam Pollak is an MFA candidate and College Writing Instructor at American University, where he also serves as the poetry editor for FOLIO. His poems have most recently appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal, Little Patuxent Review, The Allegheny Review, and Prairie Margins. He lives—quite happily—outside of Washington, D.C. with his wife and dog. Ilse Weber
Her music seems to understand that it is the simplest of C major progressions which can show us the valley beyond the bridge, that songs without medicine might soothe if not heal, that only old-fashioned tonality might unlock the gates of Theresienstadt, that farewells are best phrased like blown kisses, concise gestures from railway cattle-trucks, that it is the womb-rocking of Wiegenlieder returning us to long-forgotten sleep that is most needed when children are praying beneath pesticide showers. Jonathan Taylor Poet's note: Ilse Weber (1903-44) was a Jewish poet, children’s writer, broadcaster, producer and musician. Along with her husband and second son, she was sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942, where she nursed sick Jewish children in the infirmary, and continued writing songs and poems. Eventually, she was voluntarily deported with many of her patients to Auschwitz, where she, her son and the children were gassed on arrival. Jonathan Taylor's books include the novel Melissa (Salt, 2015), the memoir Take Me Home: Parkinson's, My Father, Myself (Granta, 2007), and the poetry collection Musicolepsy (Shoestring, 2013). He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester in the UK. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk. Four Round Bales. Photo by Todd Klassy. To see more of Todd's rural photography, visit www.toddklassy.com. Montana Man He squints from under a John Deere cap even when there is no sun. It's late fall now, the hay—enough this year—baled for January feeding if the pickup makes it to the herd—huddled, wooly, steamy breath to match his own, pitch fork separating clouds of gold, strewing it like loaves and fishes-- that kind of pride, though pride's a wobbly perch when drought and blight's the norm, when the pickup needs a fuel pump, barn needs shingles. But this morning, the sky's wide and blue and bare, and Waylon's singing Ramblin' Man while he hums along. Bernice'll have coffee scalding hot at the cafe, and prices were up on the farm report this morning. Folks and steers ain't so different, he reckons, herd gathering, keeping with their kind. Sarah Russell Sarah Russell has returned to her first love after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her poetry has appeared in Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, The Houseboat, Shot Glass Journal, Bijou Poetry Review and Poppy Road Review, among others. Her poem “Denouement” won the GR poetry contest in February, 2014. Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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