Best Ekphrasis Poems
Like no one before, nor since
you painted that starry night in oils
superimposing your life story.
I feel I know this idyllic village
blanketed by tranquil rolling hills
embraced by calming olive trees
their very branches a symbol of peace
the steadfast church steeple
a sacred echo of the stalwart cypress.
But never have I witnessed
hills so inflamed - burning to tell the world their history
a moon so agitated - suffering from an incurable insanity
the night sky so frenzied - seeking answers to life's suffering
such undulating indigo eddies of despondency and confusion
or stars radiating with such feverish beauty - concentric circles of passion.
That starry night
you painted stars that, like you, are light years away from anyone else
looking on the serene village scene from an insurmountable distance
for you saw things, Vincent,
like no one before, nor since.
[free verse ekphrasis of the painting "The Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh]
Written 5 Jul 2020
Painting by Edvard Munch, 1895: "Moon Light"
your soft hand trembles in mine
no words are spoken
we observe our ascending full moon
as we have every month for forty years
empyrean empress rises to her throne
queen regent of the night sky reigning
over brooding blue bay and melancholic mountains
as predictable as death
we again sit in our folding chairs
whispering under our favorite tree
anticipating the coming light show
enjoying her long bridal veil
shimmering in the existential ripples
a nocturne of nebulous narratives
stopping at the shore line
stopping
she inevitably will descend
the shroud of shadow will cover the land
comforted that tomorrow will awaken
to a resplendent sun
and next month will bring another full moon
the doctor said three weeks
so this will probably be our last
your soft hand trembles in mine
no words are spoken
written 11 July 2023
Frozen flames pressed between each sheet
I flip every page while taking notes
Censoring every event in my past
I fall deep when staring at the painting on the wall
Every blink feels the same when in love
However, on this one night, I stumbled
On a certain page, I found my heart beating twice
The roof at this moment allowed the moon to illuminate inside.
A memory unfolded while I held your hand,
Repainting our years, a devoted love
At the heart of everything, I've forgotten this feeling
The canvas opens more than an old chapter
the beautiful canvas, tied by solid gold.
Flames brush every wall as we age as one
In perfect harmony. TOGETHER
Laminating our love forever
1-06-2016
from beyond his
vibrant palette
that bore all his
lifelong scars
is what I see
beneath his sky
and myriad
of stars
a scene of shades
and silhouettes
formed by the
yellow light
that hints at
The Last Supper
at that café
in the night?
Note : This poem is inspired by the artwork and we chose to focus on it from a mental health perspective and how inner demons can play a significant role in relationships as well as considering siren myth and legend.
I am the eclipsed dawn,
swathed in searing blooms,
hemorrhaging the heat of restless smoke
into perfumed thorns
and sighing thistles ~
whilst aching to be loved
beyond the damage I cast,
like the queen of darkness,
dancing with demons.
Let your exhaustion cascade into me,
all being healed between this madness and rest.
Incessant pull caresses insistent longing;
collapse and captivation fuse to desire.
Flesh and energy intoxicate these bodies
in the time before hunger evaporates.
Death charges on
as you follow me into the stillness.
And what if the first spark of stars
hardened our night into a kingdom
of ice and frost,
of hurt and hollowness ~
would we not remain infatuated lovers,
pouring poison into
the grass that breathes
in chronic colors of this doomed devotion?
Without surrender, we sing in silence,
yet our swooned hearts remain drowsy from swirling strings,
twisting and turning on a surface seared severely by the sun.
What better way to fill the air with the fragrance of our thirst?
Let us fade into the dim fog
as we cosmically flourish ~
a forest of lustrous chaos, unseen, unbound.
Hold me in a cluster of all your stars,
the delicate ones you’ve laminated and fear might scar.
I’ll cradle them in the softest scarves ~
but even roses carry thorns all the way down their stems.
You were sly with your wanton stare
How you seduced me with only a look
Neither classic nor found in any book
Unique to you it was somewhat unfair
While I was naked just standing there
The strokes so quick we barely...met
I do not know how the pallet had felt
But I feared my whiskers would melt
As I kissed the canvas, us two a duet
A miracle occurred as the paints...set
I the paint brush marveled at your smile
You - The Mona Lisa the epitome of style
01~13~2015
Sponsor: Rick Parise
Inspired By The Mona Lisa
Painted By Leonardo da Vinci
oh ...
Gustav, how you pique the senses
captured passion's plural tenses
lovers twined in percale folds
caught supine with spattered golds
porcelain dolls in fetal slumbers
brushed sublime in tans and umbers
bold, the bleeds of Burnt Sienna
stippling scapes of fair Vienna
Yellow Ochre, Prussian Green
Cadmium Yellow, Blue Indanthrene
trees like soldiers, lilting boughs
abstractions spun of silken vows
ceilings meant to thus adorn
gilded graces - Heaven-borne
waters, tranquil - tresses, bare
a world composing textures, rare
you struggled long to e'er refine
your critics and uncommon line
subjects some then found appalling
yet, remained, your faithful calling
imbibing absinthe, sans a chaser
life you sketched with no eraser
and while we mortals can but dream
you left the world your gauzy gleam
so death would not define the worth
of genius meant to shake ...
the earth.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Klimt" Poetry Contest, Anthony Slausen, Judge & Sponsor.
nothing spoils this surface view ~ see me
crave attention, gift empty touch
tonal mask veils flaws and vices
face alter ego and kneel
to feed the shallow shadow that circles
~ around gossamer tears of the grieving moon,
as silenced streaks of tongue-twisted lines,
undress a puddle of poisoned stars
pull force imperceptible, attraction
lost in blissful contemplation
comatose until that last equation
gravitational persuasion creating longing
but will the lake that flows with fears
thaw words tangled in golden chains?
for I’ve drowned in liquified lies,
drawing perfection from imperfect reflections
delve to the depths of my spun world
peripheral interference dissipates in darkness
only requirement is carved version of self
that steadies my hand and drags me in
sinking beneath Narcissus's polluted undertow
tainted oxygen leaves my expanding lungs
hitting jagged rocks, spoiled skin shreds,
exposing a forgotten empath ~ salvation rises
you are my air… and I,
the blazing breeze
before the sphinx silence,
stretching beyond
the thunder-struck touch
of perplexed thoughts
as soul whispers in warm waves
letting go of stained stars
~ trace me like
I’m a decaying dandelion trap ~
look into the fixated flames
within these sunset eyes,
O defenseless divinity
my lips quiver in quintessence
to devour the bottomless depth
of your designed devotion ~
the sanctified slivers
of the rising dawn ~
your aura of aromatic aesthetics
carved too captivatingly
to be conquered
as my curved catharsis,
a clandestine curation
no color could recreate ...
I feel the night tighten
within your pensive veins
passively pressed
and paralyzed
amidst the perfumed pulse
of my passionate k i s s
so allow the hallelujahs
of this hyacinth heart
erase erratic remnants of doubt
clouding the clarity
of our conversed confessions
we’ve held
like secret 3 a.m. scars
for I will lead
you and your dusk
to the magnetic light
where language of longing
does not taste
like lament
nor love is phrased
with rhymes of bleeding
thorns and thistles
but becomes a hallowed prophecy
of a kinetic kismet
knitted with bewitching bliss
a gravitational grey
emanating the
despair within
fleeting seconds
as I am risking ~ tripping
everything and anything
to be your eternal mirror
musing ... succumbing ... sinking
the paradise ....burning
for
your timeless pull...
*inspired by the art ; The kiss of the Sphinx, Franz Von Stuck
h o l d me
when the world w e
e p s
and the wounds w a n e
like frayed
threads of fear,
as I, a gilded frame,
long to mirror your lyrical light,
to be the ethereal echo
tethered to the
warm orbit of you…
while mind unlocks
its secret Milky Way,
as love whispers
in soft cadence,
finding words to
erase learned woes.
O beloved sunrise,
color me in
sighs of silence,
like rhymes of roses,
a vanilla villanelle
etched from
the exquisite essence
of a cosmic consequence,
leading me into
the arms of light,
as the lamented night
bent its empathetic knee
to the seraphic sight
of soul-satisfaction,
whilst pained pulse kept
solar seconds ~
counting constellations
within my chest,
curating confessions
from crestfallen stars,
sewing scars with
sparks of saffron and salmon…
and I ponder ~
is this a diamond dream
spun within
an awakened dawn
of glistening gold,
to home me in the
healed harmony
of your tender heart,
with acrylic
incantations of citrus flame,
as I am luminous layers of
a complex canvas,
aching for compassion,
awake in
e c l i p s e d
stillness,
like the supernova sun
devouring
the silk of its own sky…
yet even in this
aesthetic
fulfillment of
faultless infatuation,
I memorized your meteor showers,
flourishing in the thought
of rising beyond
the demise of despair,
to become the only pattern
across the fabric of faith
in your duvet of damask devotion,
no longer tripping
on temptations,
but
t r a c i n g
the cashmere curves of
reality ~
picturesque portrait
of a
passionate promise, paradise painted
forevermore…
I trace the blushing texture
of smoked allure
with aching fingers,
fervent and blue ~
inhaling the intense incense,
exhaling the iron thorn
of love sabotaged
for I feel your hands ferociously
roaming my flawed frames
eager to taste the fragments
of the sunrise you seek
in hues of hostile gold...
while the tales within
your eyes reveal
the truth of my tongue
twirling and teasing
colors of confession
and amethyst reveries
stroking the weight of want
in soft butterfly ink blooms
kissing your fears
into fluorescence
bringing your armored spirit
to kneel at the altar of attachment,
glued to the crimson of craving,
as an inamorato trembling ~
struck by the fever of fixation...
there is no escape, O beloved
from this inexcusable
intoxication of passion ablaze...
longing has no logic to philosophize
and you are now sitting
imprisoned as an impassioned
Antony’s portraitist
upon Cleopatra’s pedestal
wedded to the edges of infinity ~
a torn canvas is two paintings
oblivious to the galleries of grief
as healing hums through walls
that feel the melodious mists
falling like rain of rippling roses
pulling and pushing nevermore
but soaked in the dews
of quivering seconds
tuning time through heartbeats...
we are dreamers of what would be
if the acrylic carves wounds
into an ineffable masterpiece
the dawn never asked for more than
a constellation
untouched and unmoved by doubt
the sun never questioned
the sands of sorrow
so melt these tears
into your sweet fire ~
breathe my demons
into your warm sky
release all resistance
you are no longer trapped, but free
in the arms of undeniable moonlight
engrossed in the perfumed spell
of wild heat ~
there is no threat in deep devotion;
love blossoms
as a sketched sanctuary
of softened colors and trust…
In London fog, the river stills.
In silver sleep, it cools and fills
with cobalt mist as dawn unfolds;
above the Thames, the sun bleeds gold.
Into the haze, it pours and pools
like melting opal, liquid jewels
until the brume of morning fades
to prune the sky with unseen blades
that slice the flaming clouds in two
to frame a glimpse of Waterloo.
*Inspired by Monet's painting, "Waterloo Bridge: Sun in a Fog"
She left one day, her Kiowa village
And stood proudly in the sun
Beneath the Tabletop Mountains
And walked among the golden sea
Of waving grass, fearless and alone
Waiting, with keen ears and sacred breath
For the setting sun to call her name
So that her spirit could cross the great divide
No more would she walk
Across my night or my day...
Except on the wind that touches my face
Or the laughter from a child
Or perhaps in the song a meadow lark sings
And surely in the pleasure of my dreams
And in slumber I can rest, knowing full well
That her spirit has entered the land of green pastures.
Inspired by t.c.cannon and his wonderful artwork
Stir my moonlight coffee
with your freshly dipped brush
in bright yellow ochre ~
I will not complain.
Sprinkle pigments from
from your pallets
on my unflavoured coffee~
I will not complain.
Even when
your indigo eyes
spill Prussian blue
to veil my night sky~
I will not complain.
Come sit with me
share this coloured coffee
on this café terrace
where unfinished canvases
lean on metaphoric walls,
where unwritten poems
bathe beneath starry nights.
The searing sun has long been a revolving revelation of angst,
repelling songs of the skies, sung by the strings of the wings.
Pallid, poised only by muscle memory - a compositional backdrop,
past the point of revival, yet something inside me still ticks.
A trembling truth that never drifts,
these broken blues: a silent shadow with loud hues.
The bones of me, tunelessly picked out,
until I'm the aching hollow of unamplified sound.
Where do breathing colors of me sleep,
when deadly nights of the air eclipse upon the web once woven by whispers?
Death just a dropped chin and averted eye,
the slow slump of a sinner's stagnant dirge plays out.
Let those cobalt stones cease writings from vicious veins,
where wilting roses dip their thorns in starry puddles with no name.
Now begging for exsanguination of my pain,
the measure of a man captured, still, in expired offerings of disdain.