February 2015
Having published almost 1,000 poems, I have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Rhysling Award. My poetry appears in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. In 2013, I published my first full-length collection, Parallels: Selected Ekphrastic Poetry, 2009-2012.
F I V E E K P H R A S T I C P O E M S
Rhyme
(after the collage by Robert Rauschenberg)
With their own reason and rhyme
at the end of their time
by instinct and the repetitions
of their sounds and shapes on the edge
almost falling off
into the silence of their death
where red rhymes with gray
and everything with black
there is so little time
for the simplest of rhymes
at the end of their lines.
(after the collage by Robert Rauschenberg)
With their own reason and rhyme
at the end of their time
by instinct and the repetitions
of their sounds and shapes on the edge
almost falling off
into the silence of their death
where red rhymes with gray
and everything with black
there is so little time
for the simplest of rhymes
at the end of their lines.
Physiognomy of a Dream
(after the drawing by Paul Klee)
The faces you see in a dream
are not the ones you know
neither as friends nor neighbors
nor as foes
nor as paramours from the past
but just for a moment a woman
with a voice like the rattle of a snake
yet soft, affectionate, and wise
and then, as sudden,
of a man with glowering eyes
and an angel’s glow.
It is of someones and no ones at all
Some vaguely familiar pastiche
of everyone ever imagined and real
in a troubled life troubled by dreams
along with somethings of oneself
without a mirror’s proof of what they are.
Dreams create their own reality, not yours,
in images their own in a world
inhabited by faces of their own
who know your name
as well as they know their own.
Destruction and Hope
(after the lithograph by Paul Klee)
I
To say there is hope
when the shape of it is lost
like a candle burning
to its wick
is to say that there is light
in the darkest corners
of the darkest cave
without a shadow framed
to cast its image on the wall.
II
Out of hope
desolation and destruction
out of the wish
miscarried faith
out of ambition
the char of discontent
from prayer
the hollowness of grace.
One More and We Will Be More Than Half Way There
(after the screenprint by Robert Rauschenberg)
Half way there and more than half
are not enough
one more, I pray, and the glass half-fllled
will overflow
my eyes with victory and gold
another mile and I will see
the other side of where I’ve been
by half of half and halved again
better by a half
but little closer than I can ever be
Breakthrough I
(after the lithograph by Robert Rauchebnberg)
Penetrate the impenetrable.
Permeate the impermeable.
Breach the unbreachable.
Pry open the tight-fist grip of time
and split the atom to its soul.
Break through to the other side
where stars, grown dark,
have left an empty space.
Puncture heaven itself
and insinuate your dreams
where none had ever been
then carve out a Zodiac with an image
of yourself
to lord it over the universe
as if you can.
©2014 Neil Ellman