The Butterfly and the Branch
A branch sways
A butterfly changes course,
its wings the wind
A branch reflects on its situation,
draws a butterfly
A butterfly succumbs to obscurity
A branch sways in the wind
This poem is my response to Reena’s Exploration Challenge #154,
which offers the image for inspiration.
Image source: Gerd Altmann / Pixabay
Empty Landscape
What is parting
when neither wishes to leave?
Far from ignoring the distance
between us, we embrace a landscape
that becomes more barren
the greater that distance.
Once close, it seems we are meant to be
apart, even as we are together.
This poem was written as a response to an ekphrastic challenge at The Ekphrastic Review, but it didn’t make the cut. Even as I submitted it I knew it’s a poem that is still unfinished. Perhaps that’s a reflection of a scene that is, itself, unfinished. In the painting, “Figures in a Landscape,” by Bertram Brooker, I see the despair of having a need to part without the willingness to do so.
Responses to the challenge can be found here,
including two fine examples by Merril Smith and Kim Russel.
Image source: Art Canada Institute
I’ve decided to try to create a “haiga sort of image” for Mother Nature, a poem inspired by Catrin Welz-Stein’s Listen, which was posted yesterday as a response to the dVerse prompt Let the Words Be Your Paintbrush! from Lillian at dVerse ~ Poets Pub. I’ve attempted two different text formats with Catrin’s image
Mother Nature
Below, as above
the mother of all
that is interconnected
holds true in her vision
of what is right.
She cannot do otherwise.
It is in her nature.
The artwork of Catrin Welz-Stein can be found here.
Mother Nature
Below, as above
the mother of all
that is interconnected
holds true in her vision
of what is right.
She cannot do otherwise.
It is in her nature.
This poem is my response to Let the Words Be Your Paintbrush! The prompt, from Lillian at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, is to write a poem inspired by one of four images by Catrin Welz-Stein. This one is titled, Listen and is used with her permission. Her gallery can be found here.
The New Bucephalus
From both great heights
and the most common level,
many have fallen, and more
will follow. Decide for yourself.
Are you invincible in your little corner
of the world? There is no comfort
when all is in shadow and many
have succumbed to a tyrant
wearing a crown of death.
The Ekphrastic Review offered Edgar Ende’s The New Bucephalus in Ekphrastic Writing Challenge Prompt: Edgar Ende. While my submission did not meet the bar, there are some wonderful selections that were chosen, including those by Kerfe Roig, Merril Smith, and Kim Russel, and they can be read here.
One of the most famous horses of antiquity,
Bucephalus was the horse of Alexander the Great.
Image source: artnet.com
fragments of a tune
a body manifested
with each measured note
This senryū is inspired by Pablo Picasso’s
“Girl with a Mandolin” and is in response to
Reena’s Exploration Challenge #146: Cubism,
which asks us to explore cubism.
Image source: Wikipedia – Girl with a Mandolin, by Pablo Picasso
My poem, “If Only” is featured today with other selections for Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior. The inspiration for the challenge is the artist’s painting “Model’s Rest.”
My thanks go to Lorette C. Luzajic, Editor at The Ekphrastic Review, for including my poem.
Ken G.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons – Model’s Rest, by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior
As Above
so below, within the pulse that emerges
star fields forming just beyond
flames engulfing, just as quickly receding
depth in layers revealing what was always there
currents that conceal nothing and everything
eclipsing perception even as stars dance
their light washing away all you perceive
offering instead an amorphous birth
life in starlight
This ekphrastic poem is my response to the prompt for Reena’s Exploration Challenge #141 – Free Flow, which is to express a free flow of thoughts inspired by As Above, a video by artist Roman Hill showing the surface of a fluid chemical reaction accompanied by a pensive score.
Also shared with Open Link Night #269 at dVerse Poets Pub.
Image: screenshot from the video “As Above”
AS ABOVE from Roman Hill on Vimeo.
The Only Way
This life, spent for so long in one place, was not a life spent at a standstill. The directions taken may not have been direct, but they’ve brought me to where I am, today. The shortest route is not always the quickest.
Knowing the streets in the towns around me like the back of my hand meant never getting lost while making deliveries when, and where, they were needed. There is a comfort in knowing a place so well, but other elements in life have a way of interceding.
So it happened, that my last time behind the wheel of a truck was on the direct, cross-country route that brought me here, following my heart to a new home.
falling leaf
taken by the wind
shifting scenes
This ekphrastic haibun is my response to Haibun Monday: Meet Piet,
from Kim at dVerse Poets Pub, with the prompt to write a haibun
inspired by “Broadway Boogie Woogie” by Piet Mondrian.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons – “Broadway Boogie Woogie”, by Piet Mondrian
My poem “without, as within” appears at Ekphrastic Writing Challenge Responses: Guillermo Wiedemann. It can be seen here, with many other deserving reads. The inspiration for the challenge is the painting “Figure (1959),” by Guillermo Wiedemann. Something tells me the current pandemic had something to say about this painting.
My thanks go to Lorette C. Luzajic, Editor at The Ekphrastic Review, for including my poem.
Ken G.
