Ekphrasis XIV 2025 Online Exhibition
SET 6. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders, cont.
SET 6
R. MARY T ANDERSON, Ghost Fish. Response by writer BETH SPENCER: An Elegance, .
S. DEBRA B LENNOX May Day! May Day!. Response by author HOLLY TANNEN: .Unbearable.
T. STEPHEN GARNER, Reflexio. Response by poet ELIZABETH KIRKPATRICK VRENIOSE: Joy! Joy!
SET 6. Writer Initiators and their Visual Artist Responders, cont.
SET 6
R. MARY T ANDERSON, Ghost Fish. Response by writer BETH SPENCER: An Elegance, .
S. DEBRA B LENNOX May Day! May Day!. Response by author HOLLY TANNEN: .Unbearable.
T. STEPHEN GARNER, Reflexio. Response by poet ELIZABETH KIRKPATRICK VRENIOSE: Joy! Joy!
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R. MARY T ANDERSON, Ghost Fish. .
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R. Response by writer BETH SPENCER: An Elegance,
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The long body of the fish lies half in, half
out of the river, some flesh fallen from the bones. Tendrils of a water plant shimmy in the current, brush against the fish every so often in casual benediction. A horseshoe crab, gold in the sunlight, sidles in to feed on the fish then scuttles away—a flash of carapace, rogue glimmer in the shallows. There is an elegance to passing on in water, through water, to end on the bottommost note of the scale, where everything settles in time, even the city of Baiae after the quake that sank it, finally, in the Mediterranean, its mosaics still bright after two thousand years. Maybe it was a fall morning when the fish rested near shore after its journey upriver to spawn. Perhaps a great ease came into it then, the old hunger leaving, and the air shimmering with winged bodies that, a little longer, would live on. |
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S. DEBRA B LENNOX May Day! May Day!.
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S. Response by author HOLLY TANNEN: .
Unbearable
Before the boiling blood and searing skin Before life on Earth becomes finally Impossible, it will for a long time Have become completely unbearable Says the Angel - she’s crashed through the ceiling - To the dying Prophet who sweats in bed. Sepia angel, screaming or singing: This land is their land, it is not our land Unmarked cars, masked men and warrantless raids, Downtown empty, all the homeless gone - where? Desert tents? Cages in the Everglades? I’m fine, we tell each other. Have a peach. Welcome, persecuted Afrikaaners Come to California, lie on the beach (First verse paraphrased from Tony Kushner’s Angels in America) |
T. STEPHEN GARNER, Reflectio.
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T. This response, Joy! Joy! is by poet
ELIZABETH KIRKPATRICK VRENIOSE: The air, air all around me, run, run, feeling through my ears, hair, ruffly tail. Run, run, round round, joy, joy. What is marvel on ground? Old turd stiff & brown, sniff. Sniff, some old distant sweet leaf mold, ancient grass, wet & whiff, I piss here. What is against wall? Happy, wonder smell. Sniff, sniff. Who left message? This me yesterday? Disappointing, but piss anyway. Joy, joy. My human hurls a flinger, a rounder, ball he calls it, hurls earth off for me, off under my legs, hurls my heart gold & running. Can’t resist, bounce, bounce must, must run, run. Yes, he must have it. What is this? Smell rain behind wind, yes, promise in July sun-sky, joy joy. Water, water falling miracle. Whistle, whistle. Run, run across green, green. Coming back to you my human, (you know I always will) Run, lift heart, eyes, lift air, jump jump in your arms. Do you smell what’s coming? I fill myself out with myself, braced in your arms against wind, wind, joy, joy. |
