Ekphrastic Challenge 2025. Day Seven. Please join Debbie Ross, Matt Guntrip, Saraswati Nagpal, Alan McGinn, Anish Gupta, Phil Hyde, Donna Faulkner, Francis H Powell, Judy Smith , Sheikha A, Rituparna, John Armstrong, Oormila V. Prahlad and I as we respond to the daily artworks of Sara Elizabeth Bell, Jenn Zed, and Spriha Kant. Day Seven. April 7th.

/ The Wombwell Rainbow

JZ7

SEB7

SK7

Scorpio (lateral descendant of Pluto) 
 
in response to artwork ‘Murder at Sunset’ by Sara Bell
 
after Pippa Phillips 
 
Philosophical lego is not your tendency game; scratch your cards right. At precise hour of purple plume day break, push blue whale back into the ocean. Let soundwaves from an undiscovered planet guide your resolve — reinstate past to nocturnal realities. What comes from nowhere reaches nowhere; apply instinct to logic and proceed. Waves between clouds pronounce rumble. Watch horizon scintillate as one with auburn soil. Don’t be alarmed by blood in the sky — a murder gathers and gleans only that is left behind. Forsake. Your direction north may trigger thunder. 
 
-Sheikha A.
 

7 Jz7

 

Is it a look into the future

or back to past

design of perfection

or the coldness of glass

would it adorn

somebody’s wall

be cherished adored

what does it say

what does it mean

-Francis H. Powell

 

Call of the Unseen ( Based on Artwork Inspired by SEB7 )

A crowd gathers beneath the trees,
faces tilted toward the fading light.
Some see endings, others beginnings.
One whispers goodbye to a joy long gone.
Another clings to the warmth still lingering.
Shadows stretch, uncertain and honest.
The sky tells no one truth.
We look together, alone in our meanings.
Evening comes.
The light leaves.

We remain, wondering—
was it a crow’s call for life,
or a call for the end?

Before the Gaze (Based on Artwork inspired by SK7)

Love undressed her gently;
not of cloth,
but of fear.

She sits, spine like a vow,
on stone carved from patience.
The earth listens.
Her hair, a black waterfall,
holds the weight of wanting.

No eyes, no gaze,
just the wind’s slow kiss
on shoulder blades of becoming.

She is not waiting.
She is.
Bare as the first thought
before it learns its name. 
 
-Anish Gupta
 
 
 
Jz 7
 
Windows of Perception
 
We stare at form,
and pretend we understand.
 
But it does not ask to be understood.
It waits.
It absorbs.
It reflects.
 
Each surface demands something different:
compliance, curiosity, memory, grief.
The black void at its center
is not emptiness.
It is everything
we refuse to see.
 
Light does not reach it,
not because it cannot,
but because we turn away.
 
We name the shape
to feel safe.
We frame it in color
to feel alive.
But beneath that
is the ache of not knowing,
the violence of certainty,
the unbearable silence
between perception
and truth.
 
 
SEB 7
 
They Still Come
 
Even now,
they perch on the dying branches
of what we once called forever.
 
Each bird is a fragment of us,
what we said,
what we couldn’t.
 
This sunset is the color
of your last silence.
Not anger.
Not sorrow.
Just that unbearable knowing
that love could not save
what time came to claim.
 
The trees remember
how your hands trembled
before they let go.
The roots have clutched every ache
I buried beneath whispered promises.
 
You left like dusk.
Slow. Inevitable.
Turning everything tender,
then cold.
 
And still,
they gather.
Black shapes against a bruised sky.
The only ones
who never stopped
coming back.
 
 
SK 7
 
Where the Silence Still Breathes
 
She sat where the grass remembered his footsteps.
Her back, bare to the breeze, still carried the warmth of his hands.
Not a word spoken.
Only the hush of moments that once breathed between them.
 
The silence now was not peace.
It was ache.
It was memory pressing against skin,
a ghost of love that never fully left.
 
She had loved him like monsoon loves parched earth,
without asking,
without pause.
He had left like morning slips out of night,
quiet, inevitable.
 
She did not cry.
Instead, she listened.
To leaves brushing against wind.
To her breath.
To that space in her chest
where he once lived
and still does.
 
-Rituparna

-Donna Faulkner

 

SEB7

Case of The Scrivener’s Murdered Heart


Case notes;




Charges:

That the Scrivener did knowingly and with premeditated metaphor

murder the silence between the stars 

by committing breaths upon his unspoken soul.


Presiding Judge:

Hon. Jack Kerouac

(Unshaven, barefoot, his gavel? Many fist punched typewriter keys )


Prosecution:

The poets inner keeper of snow globed hush

An ancient crow who only sings inside.


Defense:

The Poet himself —

ink-stained soul, star stray eyes,fire word starter


Jury?

– The Reader–



I. Opening Statement (Prosecution)

All souls,Beasts and fallen ghosts of all – you the jury —

I submit this:

I murdered silence.

Stole the hush from dusk’s soft maw,

caged it on a page,

called it fire like sunset edge

The crows are complicit!

Each line a black-winged voweling out infinities. 

Kept still upon the sacred bark skins of quietude



II. The Crows Interrupt



From the groves of greengage and broken cathedral arches —

the crows rustle.

First like scratchling twigs

Then like unsheathed hymns in a storm.

Then, like untethered Kites.


They shout:

This is not murder —



You call it sacred silence,

but it was never an echo of cathedral vespers.

We carried feral fragments

from branch to wind,

from treebone to thunder sky.


Poems are not solitary prisons —

They are the dawn crack of birth

 in splintering eggshell voices


‘Order!’ shouts Judge Kerouac,

through teeth he left

on motel chairs in ’57.




III.  Statement (Defense)

But who else would speak for the silence

In my bones?

Yes, I cracked the wings of cuneiform dusks,

but only to let the wind shape the valleys of lost souls

The crows don’t care

From where they stole their caw

I’m guilty of telling joy to my heart.



IV. The Judge (Kerouac, unsmiling)

You know what I know,

when the thought is fought,

it burns like starlight

on a planet of the blind.

But when on page,

it’s in a zoo —

kicking,

poking,

dusts up the floor of heaven’s stairs

That’s your sentence ( Now,lets buy him a gallon jug of wine)

V. Final Notes 

(Court Clerk, a blind Raven cawing Poe,Poe)


The jury?


Ahh,They were already at the bar,

drunk on juiced riffling script —

and some,

high on bell jarred Sylvia Plath.

-John Armstrong

 

-Judy Smith

 

Artworker Bios

Jenn Zed
Ms. Zed is an artist, writer, and musician who lives in Bath, England, with the ghost of her cat.
She studied art, art history, and design MA at Bath and Cambridge Universities.

Sara Elizabeth Bell

Says:

I’ve always loved drawing. It’s a form of meditation for me and has now become a way for me to find peace and sanity when my world gets too overwhelming, which, as a single mom with a neuro-divergent teen, happens quite often. When it does, I follow John Muir’s quote, “Off into the woods I go to loose my mind and find my soul.”
The results of those trips are  sketches of the forests around me and photos. I work from the photos to create my watercolors and intaglio prints. I hope you enjoy them and can find a place in your home to adopt one or more.

Spriha Kant

Writer Bios

Debbie Ross,

Debbie is a poet, author, artist, photographer, and baker. She lives 400m from the sea, in the far north Scottish Highlands, and can be mostly be found in the kitchen, at the beach, or at her writing table.

Matt Guntrip,

Matt Guntrip is a guitarist, song writer and indie musician from the UK. He has published four albums & five singles via CD Baby, available on most channels. He was a nominated solo artist on the New Music Generator Show, Cambridge 105FM.

Through creative writing he explores themes of nature, time, love, loss, rejection, injustice and hope, with a view to learning, improving and thus to writing better songs.

Matt’s writing has been published in The Belfast Review, The Broken Spine,  Fevers of The Mind, Folkheart Press Blog, GAS Poetry (YouTube), The Starbeck Orion (Substack) & The Wombwell Rainbow website.

Donna Faulkner,

Donna  Faulkner lives in a cottage in Rangiora, New Zealand with her husband , two sons and Emily, the black Labrador.  She’s been published in 300 Days of Sun, Havik, Windward Review, Havik, Fieldstone Review,  New Myths, Bacopa Literary Review and others. Her debut poetry book ‘In Silver Majesty’ was published by erbacce press(UK) 2024. 

Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/ Twitter @nee_miller. https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner

Alan McGinn,

Anish Gupta,

Dr. Anish K. Gupta is an Indian urologist and an impassioned poet who writes mainly in English but also dabbles in Hindi and Urdu. His work seamlessly intertwines the exactitude of medical science with the subtleties of human emotion. Grounded in the complementary realms of medicine and art, his path reflects a profound quest for understanding, healing, and the expression of love and life. In the operating room or on the page, Dr. Gupta delves into the intricacies of both body and soul, approaching each with care, curiosity, and compassion. His poetry captures the subtle epiphanies of daily life, the fragility of the human condition, and the deep connections between love and existence. He goes by the #uropoet on X where his handle is @optionurol.

Phil Hyde,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

Rituparna,

Rituparna Ghosh is an alumna of the National University of Singapore, an AI engineer, and the founder of Whizzstep. With a passion for poetry, she enjoys crafting verses, particularly in the genres of free verse and reflective poetry. A lover of nature, Rituparna finds peace in her walks by the beach, where the tranquility of the ocean inspires both her creativity and personal reflection. Coding is her profession, and she thrives on solving complex problems through technology. She also has a deep love for traveling, reading, learning new languages, and horse riding, connecting with the outdoors in a unique and fulfilling way.

Francis H Powell,

Judy Smith ,

Judy Smith lives in East Yorkshire. Retired from a career in health and education, she is an emerging poet. She has had poems published in several anthologies, including Spelt, 14, Black Bough, Artemis, High Wolds, Dreich, York Literary Review, The Starbeck Orion. She has a passion for wildlife gardening and community tree planting.

Sheikha A,

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poems appear in a variety of literary venues both print and online, and some of them have been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com

John Armstrong,

John Armstrong is a poet whose work blends metaphysical inquiry with vivid, elemental imagery. Drawing from a deep reverence for nature, memory, and the cosmic, Armstrong’s poetry explores dualistic and trinitarian themes of love, transformation, and the spiritual texture of existence.Armstrong sees poetry not merely as a literary form but as a living, animistic force—language shaped by the earth itself. His work is a personal quest, a surrender to the unknown, finding beauty in ambiguity and meaning in the mist between words and life.

Spare time: He grows Cosmos flowers and wills them on way past the first frosts.

Saraswati Nagpal,


			


	



				
	
			



	
	
	
		

		
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