UPON THE BEAUTY OF COLOR

by Anne Herrick

Ducks Likely OK As Trump Admin Dumps Hydrogen Peroxide Into Green Reflecting Pool —HuffPost, June 19, 2026

Days after his administration claimed the pool was actually “crystal clear,” despite an unmistakably green hue, the US president acknowledged issues—and, without evidence, blamed foul play. —The Guardian, June 20, 2026

Who doesn’t agonize over color

for a kitchen, bathroom, house siding,

a fence, the front door? Or

even the color for a pool, to make

it bright, enticing, exciting.

So you try strolling down past doors

and walls in Ireland, Italy, Mexico,  

or find yellows in Van Gogh’s flowers

his blues in Starry Night, perhaps examine

the deep and bright reds of Kahlo,

or even view the wide selection

of Monet’s greens. Some study flags,

like the yellow and blue of Ukraine,

the red, white, and blue of the UK,

or, for that matter, of proudly independent

America—the blue perfect to highlight

a very long pool, a tourist attraction

feting a famous president,

and perfect, too, to invite the beauty

of algae, that emerald green 

celebrating warmth, humidity, and sun.

Yes—such is the power of summer energy,

it gifts green to water, and even peels

blue paint, encouraging new tourists, 

ducks, to fly in for a visit hoping it is a snack

of duckweed, while men and women 

in waders, scoop and scoop, day after day,

until the pool eventually becomes dry.

Until, in fact it will lie still in peace

in its comfortable century-old familiar

worn grey coat.

 

 

Anne Herrick has published a few poems and prose in the US and UK.

UKRAINE, FLOWERING

by Janice Northerns

after Van Gogh’s “Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed”    

Stalks slashed, petals scattered along the road

to the bomb shelter. A country drained of color

 

waves its flag as a placeholder for the sky.

But spring will green the world again and seeds

 

crushed under the enemy’s boot will fire

with life. War’s buried relics will multiply

 

into bright bouquets, blood blossoming

into patches of helianthus coming up

 

volunteer. Shimmering in the blue breeze:

sun-soaked fields, lapping up the light.

Janice Northerns is the author of Some Electric Hum (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020), winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Nelson Poetry Book Award, and  a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in rural West Texas and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University. She and her husband live in southwest Kansas.

TELESCOPE AND NIGHT ORNAMENTS

by Debasis Mukhopadhyay

Image from “Museum of War Syria” by Tammam Azzam at Foreign Policy, April 29, 1913.

      Through the trap door of the night sky the telescope brings you the debris of million suns shimmering on a canvas you liked all along
      The bright night of Van Gogh crawling into your eyes makes you forget that the bone color priming can also be grown into a moonlit canvas
      Like History
      Everything in the underpainting is meant to be painted over
      The manna of bombs that astound the bodies with brightness
      And the bodies that gather in the pit waiting to grow wings of no consequence
      Yes but everything in the dead coloring is intended to be painted over
      To swallow such brightness in your canvas you can paint the clouds that glint ringing my brother's skull
      Into an hourglass that swells lolling on my mother's chest
      There is no blood between her breasts doves just coo and sugar ants lick all witness
      She pauses to dream
      The dreams that look into the muddy darkness beneath your feet for ornaments of tomorrows or yesterdays


Debasis Mukhopadhyay lives & writes in Montreal. Recent poems have appeared in The Curly Mind, Yellow Chair Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Of/With, I am not a silent poet, The New Verse News, With Painted Words, Silver Birch Press, Foliate Oak, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Snapping Twig, Eunoia Review, Revolution John, and Down in the Dirt.

THINKING IN THE ABSTRACT

by Kristina England

If the Amanda Knox trial was a piece of art,
it would be Van Gogh's ear,
something you know is lost
but, as with so many amputated ears --
Simpson, Zimmerman, Anthony --
there's no way to hear the truth
through all the muffled questions,
lack of evidence,
ours minds teetering back and forth
like an unbalanced scale,
heads pulsing with the footsteps
of a murderer
who will never be free.


Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Her writing is published or forthcoming at Extract(s), The New Verse News, The Story Shack, Tipton Poetry Journal, and other magazines.

THE ART OF SEEING VALUE

by Lylanne Musselman

Image source: HuffPost Detroit

I went to see Vincent

van Gogh’s painting

on loan from Paris,

Bedroom in Arles,

in Detroit, a place

so bankrupt, city

officials are looking in-

to assets the Detroit Institute

of Arts owns. Yes,

Michigan politicians

and many citizens

could prostitute

irreplaceable art. It exhibits

how some would

sell their souls, aid

the American idea

money saves

at all costs. In Detroit,

citizens comment:

Sell the DIA and open

a money making business

like a casino; Art is

just a perception, it might

evoke emotion for people

or nothing; If Detroit goes

bankrupt the museum collection

could be seized…

I stood less

than a foot away

from the painting

van Gogh brushed

life into. The awe of it all,

knowing he painted this

bedroom scene to show

his brother, Theo,

how tranquil Arles was,

to see his perspective,

his ever-present blues.

Lylanne Musselman lives in Toledo, Ohio. Her poems have appeared in Brevity Poetry Review, Literary Brushstrokes, The Rusty Nail, Pank, Tipton Poetry Journal, New Verse News, among others, and many literary anthologies. Lylanne has authored three chapbooks: Prickly Beer & Purple Panties (Bacon Tree Press, 2007), A Charm Bracelet for Cruising (Winged City Press, 2009) and Winged Graffiti (Finishing Line Press, 2011), and is a co-author of the recently published book, Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013).