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Mother Mushroom Midwinter gloom seemed lightened by the hats Of Mother Mushroom and her kids, which glow To distant eyes. But closer eyes know that's How distance tends to lend, to views, a faux Enchantment. Underneath her hat there lurked Regret. The tears in Mother Mushroom's eyes Mourned days gone by when Nature's magic worked Unfalteringly to revitalize Spent forest. Yet today no fauna stay Here. Moths are gone, the birds have flown and deer Refuse to graze. The erstwhile forest way Of life has disappeared. A creeping fear, Of what may come, alarms the children and Makes Mother Mushroom weep for her old land. (First published in the Ekphrastic Review on 13th January, 2023 as a response to Mother Mushroom and Her Children by Edward Okun) |
Flying Machines For early aviators of the sky, Log-cabin-like designs are comic, as You cannot fly a circus wagon high: Its comfort tantalizes, but it has No force to lift it up and make the earth Grow distant. They would say the pictures are Miraculous as art, but have no worth As blueprints for a means to travel far ... Charles Dellschau would dissent. He would have said His quaint designs weren't meant for flights that go In space, but flights of fancy, which can head North, east, south, west, straight up or down below Earth's oceans—they can take you anywhere, So long as you imagine it is there! (First published in the Ekphrastic Review on 15th December, 2023 as a response to Flying Machines (double sided artwork) by Charles A.A. Dellschau) |
Rain On The River Rains falling on the Hudson River zone And deluging the pathways in a park, Inhibiting the progress of a lone New Yorker splashing through the semi-dark Of daylight under leaden clouds, emit No sound—in physics terms—from forceful strokes That Bellows used to paint the grime and grit He juxtaposed with grass and trees, to coax Enchantment out of gloom ... But don't you hear Rails clanking, plumes of hissing steam, the spray In hurried footsteps, and a neigh? The mere Veracity of physics can't gainsay Eyes predisposed to hear as well as see: Rain On The River captures sounds for me! (First published in the Ekphrastic Review on 26th July, 2024 as a response to Rain On The River by George Bellows) |
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Halloween Haunt Heathrow is where a witch will hitch a ride At dusk on Halloween. She'll leave the ground Laid flat beneath a jumbo's underside— Latched safely to the plane, she's Boston-bound. On Halloween, this witch, whose children fled West long ago to haunt the States at night, Embarks upon a trip that she'd find dead Exhausting if she used her broom all flight. Nocturnal pilots have no means to see Her broom and she are stowed below the rear And flying to America for free— Until they land, and then she does appear, Not one bit weary, whizzing through the air To greet her waiting grandkids with a scare! (First published on October 31, 2021 in the Creativity Webzine. Reprinted in the Ekphrastic Review on 1st November, 2024 as a response to The Old Hall by John Anster Fitzgerald) |