February 2016
Neil Ellman
ellmans@comcast.net
ellmans@comcast.net
I am a poet from New Jersey, which almost seems a contradiction in terms, but the state has an active and renowned artistic community. Having published more than 1,200 poems, many of which are ekphrastic, I have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Rhysling Award. My latest chapbook, Mind Over Matta (Flutter Press, 2015), is based on the creations of one of my favorite artists, Roberto Matta Echauren, a Chilean abstract surrealist.
THREE POEMS BASED ON PAINTINGS BY PICASSO
Three Musicians
The three of us
no more than three
no less
make a ternion
of sound in reds
yellows blues
a perfect harmony
of squares
in angled tones
imperfect symmetry
of forms
without a sound
everything in threes
no more than we
a silent trinity
who play in triple notes
these figures
masked as men.
no more than three
no less
make a ternion
of sound in reds
yellows blues
a perfect harmony
of squares
in angled tones
imperfect symmetry
of forms
without a sound
everything in threes
no more than we
a silent trinity
who play in triple notes
these figures
masked as men.
Night Fishing at Antibes
The fishes of the sea
at the harbor of Antibes
circle eagerly
the lure and hasp
the point of the spear
never knowing
this meal of worms
would be their last.
By the lanterns’ light
they eye the bait
that draws them
nearer to the place
where they would die
among the reeds
their bodies pierced
by rusting hooks.
At Antibes
as at waterloo and Ypres
in too many seas
fishes and fishermen alike
feed on the carcasses
of the dead.
at the harbor of Antibes
circle eagerly
the lure and hasp
the point of the spear
never knowing
this meal of worms
would be their last.
By the lanterns’ light
they eye the bait
that draws them
nearer to the place
where they would die
among the reeds
their bodies pierced
by rusting hooks.
At Antibes
as at waterloo and Ypres
in too many seas
fishes and fishermen alike
feed on the carcasses
of the dead.
The Old Guitarist
Time had its way
with the old musician
bowed by the weight
of his memories
on this blue-lit afternoon
and the music
he would no longer play,
his fingers, stiff and bent,
like the branches of a tree
in the season of wind and rain
The music he made
to the rhythms
of his Catalan birth
are lost in the din
of the darkening days
of his age
lost, too, in the hurried chaos
of the streets
and the braking screech of wheels
amplified as if a jackdaw’s cry
from the steeple of a church
while the young, torn and scattered
from their unforgiving roots,
make a music of their own.
Play on. old man,
until the day you die
play the music of your past
upon your old guitar
for when you pass
a world will die with you.
with the old musician
bowed by the weight
of his memories
on this blue-lit afternoon
and the music
he would no longer play,
his fingers, stiff and bent,
like the branches of a tree
in the season of wind and rain
The music he made
to the rhythms
of his Catalan birth
are lost in the din
of the darkening days
of his age
lost, too, in the hurried chaos
of the streets
and the braking screech of wheels
amplified as if a jackdaw’s cry
from the steeple of a church
while the young, torn and scattered
from their unforgiving roots,
make a music of their own.
Play on. old man,
until the day you die
play the music of your past
upon your old guitar
for when you pass
a world will die with you.
©2016 Neil Ellman