The artworks for this ekphrastic prompt are here, on Paul Brookes’ blog, along with all the poetry they inspired.
Dancing
Rain dance, sun dance,
hand in scarlet hand,
unbroken circle back to when
time ran river-smooth,
and we would sow and reap,
plant seed, rooted deep
beneath golden sun, bright rain,
indigo-swirling skirts and light feet
that danced the dance,
back and forth, the broad plain,
the furrows laboured, when we
took our part and nothing more.
A poem, self-consciously surreal for the NaPoWriMo prompt. The list of words to use to construct the poem is (I think) an interesting one. I chose: owl, river, oyster, thunder, gutter, mercurial, salt, acorn and quahog. I have no idea what a quahog is, so I imagined the kind of wild pig that crashes about around here.
Association of ideas, I expect, but I noticed that one or two of the initial words cropped up in the questions suggested by other words, like oystercatcher answering the salt question, and quahog answering the thunder question.
A piece of dying
A piece of the sky calls me home
where the rugged skins of raw stones go,
when the angler fish swishes its light bulb tail,
and constellations close in tight ridged ranks,
spit out moon pips.
Higher still, quahog hooves
pound the drumskin of the sky,
striking sparks from clouds.
Thunderer, along…
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Anjum Wasim Dar responds to Day 2 images as part of my annual poetry month ekphrastic challenge.
Inspired by Artwork By BB- OVP SARA FM Day 2
Hand in hand, true, they stand
leave them not in blue, they
are half the band- of family
in every land or island.
What designs exist
hidden in secret waters
new life growing wet
Color of passion
spilling over to express
Art reveals itself
BB2
In the Emerald Sea (OVP2)-Superstition Review
SaraFM2
AB2
Patchwork in blue and green
(BB2)
I’m determined not to turn into a football analogy,
especially as there are several balls on the pitch
and there is something going on in each box.
So, there it is, and I owe you an apology
as this is a handmade quilt sewn as a cross-stitch.
Three vases each presented with green blocks.
Streeks of indigo or is it Prussian blue?
A counterattack or the wingers on the charge
no, no! Sorry! I’m offside, it’s wrapping paper.
They are present, from a spurned lover to you
resembling his ego and his belly, over large.
It’s a still life, just a painting depicting nature.
Frank Colley
Odd One Out
She was the odd one out
always looked the other way
knew that life was not about
your looks, your man, your pay.
She wouldn’t grasp their hand
fall in line and sing their song,
dance their tune, wear their brand;
knew what was right, what was wrong.
Her wit made enemies it’s true,
they didn’t like her cutting words –
her intellect and wisdom too –
so they made sure she wasn’t heard.
Where she went, no one can say;
the girl that looked the other way.
Heart
Shattered bright red glass
formed in the shape of a heart
that cannot be fixed
Tim Fellows
Connected Points Influenced mainly by AB2 and BB2
Three women, three generations,
three fates
gaze forward and stare back,
like the wind in holding patterns of cerulean,
then in great, grey bird-winged gusts–
both true–
here and gone,
gone, but here
held within,
you carry us
we carry you—
grandmother, mother, child–
three points on a circling comet, sparkling dust
and infinite tail.
Merril D Smith
Ashes, Ashes And All
BB2
All wore blue, and the playground grew
minuscule; they stepped behind
three cutouts of womanhood;
still in azure, hand in hand
as if they would hum, “Ashes, ashes,
and we all fall down.”
The friends would not meet enough
and when would do their hands
were not inside each other’s.
Something acted as a door-stopper.
Through the ajar entrance they could
see one husband or two, a few exes,
gimlets and children rafting in
the hostile streams, refrigerator light,
cold pies and mixed veg casserole,
pills and piles and rusting away
‘Forget-me-not’ pledge magnets.
The friends would murmur; their
apparition would look phosphorus,
and their words would predict
the fall of an emperor.
Kushal Poddar
wind advisory (AB2)
gusty gutsy guns-y
weather report weapon retort
faces remember features distemper
lovers picnic under branches
burrow beneath a blanket
blank it out ignore the news
ignore the pews
god draws breath draws death
mourners keen
women clean
guns
Lynne Jensen Lampe
That Snow Episode (AB2)
in Pine Barrows
or Yellowjackets
my lips burn bluer than my eyes
tired confusion distracts
glitter in the snow
gods in the sky
faces in trees
I’m sure it’s a trick
I don’t have a choice
my axe rains
splinters on the white
a flint and steel
sparks your lifeless branches
and leafless arms burn
so I can stay alive
Jamie Woods
Dancing (OVP, BB)
Rain dance, sun dance,
hand in scarlet hand,
unbroken circle back to when
time ran river-smooth,
and we would sow and reap,
plant seed, rooted deep
beneath golden sun, bright rain,
indigo-swirling skirts and light feet
that danced the dance,
back and forth, the broad plain,
the furrows laboured, when we
took our part and nothing more.
Jane Dougherty
Paul Dyson
Two for Joy (Inspired by AB2, BB2 and OVP2)
Joy feels like a line of ladies
dancing hand-in-hand. Warm exchange
in a grapevine across a spung floor.
Sashay, shimmy, salsa.
Joy looks like you and your lover’s face
in a tree, smiles in silver bark, the knots
of pupils looking back at you;
recognising your pure heart wood.
Joy tastes like oranges, just picked
from the tree and freshly squeezed.
Served on a sunlit patio with an ornamental
wrought iron table and chairs—breakfast for two.
Gaynor Kane
Hand Hold One
inspired by all
Hand hold one another in your quantum
Orbit in dance of your kitchen disco
Lead and follow in another’s warm sum
Doubling, inspiring through their to and fro.
Find the mouth, the eyes in the trees scribble
Awestruck at the sense mind makes of random
Collection of twigs and leaves meaningful
Extrapolation to some wild wisdom.
Zoom into the fruits, juiced slices buried
Expelled as half eaten waste, source and seed
Surrendering and becoming hurried
To the dance of creations want and need.
Imagination bounced out of making,
bounces, holds faces zest in creating
Paul Brookes
Bios and Links
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation. Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings
Sara Fatima Mir
Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez
Beth Brooke
is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.
Aaron Bowker
based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.
Robert Frede Kenter
is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.
Jamie Woods
Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com
Jane Dougherty
lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.
Paul Dyson
is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –
“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”
Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.
Merril D. Smith
lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.
Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org
Tim Fellows
is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.
Lynne Jensen Lampe’s
debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. Her poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Figure 1, and Yemassee. A finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she edits academic research in mid-Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; on Twitter/Spoutible @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.
Gaynor Kane
An intriguing title leads the reader into a kaleidoscopic and scintillating poetry collection by Dónall Dempsey. There is a great variety of wit and humour in these poems. ‘My Molecules are Revolting’ uses dialogue as a device to illustrate the repartee between the Universe and a couple of molecules that currently inhabit the narrator’s body while they wait for ‘the Big Bang/of Death’ and the chance of belonging to a more interesting formation in the future.
An amusing concept but it is always Death that hovers in the background. In the title poem there is the nightmarish texture of an aunt’s fox-fur stole which has ‘beady eyes alive with death.’ Every item of clothing in the dark wardrobe is ‘rotten now/eaten by time.’ Everything once belonging to loved ones is dead.‘I cry for the death of summer,’ says the narrator. ‘I cry for the death of them all.’
Concern for…
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Paul Brookes is celebrating National poetry month with an ekphrastic challenge. The poems are inspired by artwork posted every day of April on his blog. You can see them here.
Spring walking
Walking these lanes where trees bow and sigh,
spring-budding between ploughed fields,
while wind sings
ancient songs.
Spring-budding between ploughed fields,
already green blowing,
magpie-pied,
while wind sings
of feathered
nests,
ancient songs
for
lovers.
Day 1: Inspired by all 4 artworks.
Wanderer
I was a boy, a prince in a fairytale world
destroyed by death’s-head invaders.
The magpie–one for sorrow–
followed me across the sea
to remind me I was alone, but so was he,
alone together
like so many. The green mounds and chalk downs
became my refuge, this foreign fossil-filled soil
fertilized love and fostered hearts—bandaging
mine, strengthening me with a steady diet of affection.
What’s left of my hair is grey now,
my stouter step supported by a stick.
I walk through my memories, the hill where I stumbled,
the dale where I proposed—
this is home now. The squeak of garden gate,
the kaleidoscope of blooms—and butterflies.
A magpie couple call to each other—I think,
two for joy.
For Paul Brookes’ Ekphrastic Challenge featuring the work of artists Aaron Bowker, Beth Brooke, Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, and Sara Fatima Mir. You…
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I suppose it’s something of a responsibility to be selected as a new poetry press’ first pamphlet, particularly in today’s unhelpful economic climate. Though Flight of the Dragonfly Press had published a magazine earlier in 2022, it selected Niki Strange as the author of their debut pamphlet. I’m pleased to be able to say that this turned out to be an excellent decision. Body Talk (Flight of the Dragonfly Press, 2022)is a fine debut, featuring authentic poems of courage, resilience, and optimism, which test the boundaries of form in imaginative and appropriate ways.
The pamphlet begins with the profoundly moving prose poem, Float. It is written in the first-person, making it close and personal, as if we are inside the narrator’s head. The syntax is fragmented, the rhythm broken, erratic, capturing the life-changing effect of cancer diagnosis and treatment: ‘Bedtime stories. Swings and roundabouts, And sandpits. Go again. Two…
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AB1
BB1
Continuum (OVP1)– published in Tales from the Forest, Ireland.
SFM1
Paul Dyson
Racecourse
It’s quiet and grey on the racecourse today.
The old grandstand sleeps, no bets placed,
no winners or losers, no tickets torn.
The winners enclosure is empty,
no chestnut or white flanks steaming
in the cool spring air. No cheers
for the mud-spattered jockey, adrenaline
still coursing through human and horse.
The silky shirt, green stars on a blue background,
yellow sleeves. Sparkling wine all round from
the owners, smacking the trainer on the back.
Number 7, 18/1, Paddy’s Point. Going heavy, soft
in places. Bookie pockets his cash. It’s the last race
of the day and the punters leave, the horses cooled
and led to their boxes. Everything is swept clean.
The noise slowly fades to the sound of birds and
a grey sky that dulled even the lushness of the
turf and the whiteness of the rails. Until the next race day.
A monochrome day
Drizzle coats an April land
Colours lost in time
The haiku was inspired by Beth Brooke’s monochrome image, extended to a haibun after a visit to Market Rasen racecourse.
Tim Fellows
One For Sorrow (inspired by all four images)
One is dead
and the rest of the tribe mourn;
their keening bouncing off
the chapel walls like antique pistol percussion.
Harbingers of sadness, reminders of grief.
We stand in lines of black and white
to salute you on your final journey.
You are laid out, not walking with the blackthorn stick
that we didn’t get the time to buy you.
You’re signature pocket watch, keeps time no longer.
I picture you tentatively walking away
across a tenebrous landscape,
monochrome mountains,
question mark tree silhouettes
cliffs born from fire.
Canvas tent pitched within a glade.
You arrive at the campfire
to cast keys and brooches from molten bronze.
Sparks drift away like tiny butterflies
in search of summer blooms
Gaynor Kane
The Old Man and His Cane
Time travels where the hair goes.
‘I can’ becomes ‘I cane’ and an old chestnut.
The first time the pun makes one laugh,
sometimes even on the second time
and then the carcass of the punchline
hangs in an abattoir. In one of his dream
my father limps down the rows of skinned bodies.
His memories’ flesh, fresh in such dreams, rot
the moment he wakes up. We pay no attention
to his complaints about the smell. The issue
seems similar to the joke. Time stinks, we know.
Kushal Poddar
Your Placard Alone Is Not Enough (BB1)
The mound protests
head above the battlefield and strategic water
standing firm against the incoming blur
of misted confusion and redirection.
A pimple to be burst,
a fly to be swatted out of the way
of Tiananmen tanks and riot police,
kettles boiling and crushed.
Change needs a mountain,
linked arms, daisy-chains and superglue,
height and precarious ledges alone
aren’t always enough
to prevent the grey fog bombing
from coercive skies
clouding peaks and smothering trees.
Jamie Woods
Spring walking (using AB, BB and OVP)
Walking these lanes where trees bow and sigh,
spring-budding between ploughed fields,
while wind sings
ancient songs.
Spring-budding between ploughed fields,
already green blowing,
magpie-pied,
while wind sings
of feathered
nests,
ancient songs
for
lovers.
Jane Dougherty
Robert Frede Kemter
The Newly Petalled
butterfly dries before maiden flight. Furls in
to air, blossoms above wings of flowers
feathering pushed from winters grave, Morning
Mr Magpie. Three legged man walks away
from the world, a magpie looking for a
key that is behind him, unused and still.
Not true. All shakes. Nothing is ever still.
Stone moves, is moved. No permanence. Change in
this world is the only certainty a
vase in flux and in flux the cut flowers
and still images decay, photos still
discolour over time. Magpie morning
is never always forever morning.
Maintenance and restoration all still
conservation make memories a way
of keeping the freshness of flowers,
preservation, caught before loss, held in
before alterations, the drop of a
wing, decay of petals, the turn of a
page, the back of the old, unsteady morning
perhaps it carries freshly bought flowers
to the cemetery, home of the still,
even the dead alte, ever change in
their mouldering, always becoming away
never nearer movement ever away
as we grow older our images a
walking away or is it towards in
the living key of this magpie morning
we all wish all could be a dream of still
where nothing decays, nor rots like flowers
preservation of the fleeting flowers
prevention of endless going away
holding on with both steady hands to still
Can’t last as arms get tired, unsteady a
photograph, a painting holds the morning
at a slower decay rate than the life we’re in
(still, flowers) (in, away) (a, morning)
Paul Brookes
Bios and Links
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation. Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings
Sara Fatima Mir
Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez
Beth Brooke
is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.
Aaron Bowker
based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.
Robert Frede Kenter
is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.
Jamie Woods
Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com
Jane Dougherty
lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.
Paul Dyson
is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –
“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”
Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.
Merril D. Smith
lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.
Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org
Tim Fellows
is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.
The Wombwell Rainbow 