Ekphrastic Poetry: Imago Gallery Collaboration
We had a very successful event between the Ocean State Poets and Imago Art Gallery in Warren Rhode Island in March. Poets responded to artworks in a monthly show called: Cast Shadows. I wrote two poems which were later published in The Ekphrastic Review. Many thanks to the editor Lorette C. Luzajic. Here are the images and poems below:
Black Lightning
after Fan-tasy dell’autunno by Howard Rotblat-Walker
Insects crawl along the road to Kyif,
tanks on their backs as the world
watches on TV what seems a fantasy,
a wargame that can’t be stopped.
It started with static in the air,
clouds amassed on the border.
Invasion so often predicted
that when it did,
it took a while for us to look up
from the television’s glare —
an aura of black lightening
kaleidoscoped everywhere.
From the east, south and north
the war machine thunders in
while citizens in black fatigue, block
the roads, lock arms in solidarity.
It’s another far away war —
on and off with the remote,
scroll the mouse and click:
we post sunflowers and click:
profile a blue and yellow flag.
A stone lodged in our stomachs,
as each day breaks and slides away
We are 6000 miles from there,
seven hours behind and sleeping.
as they wake to sirens. Our eyes
closed, hallucinating black lightning,
the charred skeleton of trees
behind ensanguined lids.
—Diana Cole
Peril Unknow
after The Space In-between by Yolanda Mazzoni
The woman in custody
folds into shadow, flames
of hair fall lethargic.
Glacial light zeros in,
her back riddled with eyes
that accuse without mercy.
What is she guilty of,
huddled with bent limbs
like a spotted fawn
in the sights of a gun?
Already you condemn her
with your curiosity.
Does she silence herself
to a marriage she deserves,
or so believes,
when he opens fire
every chance he gets?
By now her spine porous.
Or is she detained
at the Mexican border
behind a chain link mistrust,
the floodlights of liberty
flickering. endless
circles of interrogation?
Make what you will of her peril
But note the softened edge,
color that bleeds into shadow
brings warmth to the space
in-between light and dark
pleading clemency.
—Diana Cole