THE BALLET DANCERS OF UKRAINE

by Suzanne Morris

      –after Alexei Ratmansky’s staging of “Giselle,”

        a romantic ballet in two acts

They fled from

all over Ukraine

screaming sirens the

new dance master

from towering wings

of concert halls

to air raid shelters’

indifferent walls

emerging, resolute

En avant! 

for the performance of

their lifetimes:

operatic defense of a

a venerated Art now

threatened with extinction.

Some took their positions

à la barre in the Hague,

others journeyed farther

into the arms of

Ratmansky’s Giselle

at Washington’s Kennedy Center:

Ghostly figures from the

18th century

swathed in clouds of

transparent tulle

float in an ethereal

pas de bourrée

returning to a place that

they once knew, but

now is no more

than an apparition

like the beautiful

peasant girl

beloved of one forbidden

to woo her 

pursued by another

jealous to own her

lost in a Potemkin village

where pantomime

and pirouettes fuse

in Act One’s show-stopping

conclusion:

Giselle’s tragic death

from heartbreak.

When the curtain ascends

the maid is mourned

flowers laid at her grave,

her spirit torn between

heaven and hell’s

treacherous pas de deux

...and yet au fil du temps...

the story’s hopeful end,

Ratmansky’s wish come true

the audience releasing

a long-held breath then

rising to their feet, Bravo!m

What will become of the

soul of Ukraine

when Russia’s

dance to the death concludes

and the grinding thud of

invaders’ boots

is but a ghostly echo?

Will her steps be mired

evermore 

in a Wilis encore of

revenge?

Or, will her soul

like the peasant girl’s

leave hate in the grave,

and forgive?

Au fil du temps… 

Suzanne Morris is a novelist and a poet.  Her poems have appeared in The New Verse News, The Texas Poetry Assignment, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Pine Cone Review, Emblazoned Soul Review, and other journals and anthologies.

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.

A TIME TO REST

by Tina M. MWP

after Jacob Lawrence’s "Daybreak - A Time to Rest," 1967.

in celebration of Harriet Tubman’s 200th Birthday

"Daybreak—A Time to Rest" (tempera on hardboard) by Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) is one in a series of panel paintings that tell the story of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913), the famed African-American woman who freed the enslaved using a fragile network of safe houses called the Underground Railroad. This abstracted image emphasizes Tubman's bravery in the face of constant danger. Lying on the hard ground beside a couple and their baby, she holds a rifle. Her face, pointing upward to the sky, occupies the near center of the canvas, her "body" surrounded by purple. Tubman's enormous feet, grossly out of proportion, become the focal point of the work. The lines delineating her toes and muscles look like carvings in a rock, as if to emphasize the arduous journeys she has made. Reeds in the foreground frame the prone runaways. Three insects(walking stick, beetle, and ant) are signs of activity at daybreak. —Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.9, no.3, June 2016

Blue bears down on the black horizon as twilight arrives

awakening an ant, a beetle and a walking stick.

The sandy bank of the lake, cooling all night from the days

harsh heat, offers a place to rest among the green reeds.

A family at last finds respite after trekking across perilous

terrain, the whites of their eyes disappear as the light rises.

But can they rest, people fleeing, trying to break free

from anvils strapped to their ankles? 

Even she, with resilient legs, brawny feet, calloused toes, 

toes that hold the silhouette of a mother cradling a baby,

half lays in the golden dunes, eyes to the sky, rests 

her fingers around the neck of the rifle.

Tina M. MWP (she/her) is committed to serving others through her professional life as an engineer and innovator in public health, and in her personal life, as a volunteer and tutor, and now, as a writer. She writes creative nonfiction and poems about belonging, identity, the power of language, and nature. She lives with her family in Rockville, MD.  

A MOTHER FLEES

by Jack Kristiansen

            after Marc Chagall’s Fire in the Snow (1942) 

"Fire in the Snow" (1942); Gouache on paper by Marc Chagall. Collection: Amy and Eric Huck, Lewisberry, Pennsylvania

 

It’s human  

to start fires 

and every so often 

people approve   

of villages going up 

in flame 

so tonight 

a mother flees. 

 

Like a statue 

that’s come alive 

just in time  

to jump down 

from her perch 

above the altar, 

a mother flees. 

 

Having awoke 

to the coughing 

of her child, 

their house flickering, 

a mother flees. 

 

No crown 

on her head 

to hold in place 

her flaring hair, 

a mother flees. 

 

The night’s gone green, 

the snow green, 

her clothes smoky green. 

Her calm dog 

waiting for her 

to catch up, 

a mother flees. 

             

No husband 

in sight, 

the angels gone 

in disbelief, 

left with a son 

to save, 

a mother flees. 

 

Her child 

too heavy  

to carry far, 

a mother flees. 

Jack Kristiansen exists in the notebooks and computer files of William Aarnes who hopes to move soon from South Carolina to Manhattan.  His new collection The Hum in Human is available from Main Street Rag.

STILL LIFE IN DISARRAY

by Suzanne Morris

after a photograph by Sergei Ilnitsky, 2015

Sergei Ilnitsky, a Russian photographer of the European Pressphoto Agency, won the 2015 World Press Photo First Prize in the General News Category, Singles, for this image of damaged goods lying in a kitchen in downtown Donetsk, in war-torn eastern Ukraine.

Imagine, just

moments before.

No artist could more deftly

arrange these few articles

while conjuring

a still life in Ukraine.

See the embroidered lace curtain

swept aside to reveal

a kitchen table covered in

dainty muslin,

on which are placed

a small bowl of ripe tomatoes,

a lidded porcelain teapot with

poppies on the side; nearby

stout mugs, an empty tin can,

a cutting board with knives.

The view, tilting from above

and to the left,

the artist’s palette dabbed with

simple colors in homespun hues–

vermilion red, salmon pink,

maize yellow, white, gray blue.

Not seen, but understood:

the chairs drawn near,

a hand reaching for the teapot

to fill the mugs 

and slice tomato wedges

for tea

in the midday light

streaming through the 

kitchen window.

What family had sat 

having tea?

Were the children

present?

Did all escape

the bomb,

exploding in near range:

still life impastoed with

shattered window glass

and dust?

But no, a new color,

burnt umber,

spatters the scene;

it soils the table cover and

collects in indentations of

lace flowers and leaves.

A novelist with eight published works, Suzanne Morris began writing poetry in the context of her fiction.  Eventually she shifted her creative focus from novels to poetry only.  Her poems appeared in No Season for Silence - Texas Poets and Pandemic (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020) and have frequently appeared online in Texas Poetry Assignment.

BIERSTADT'S CHIMNEY ROCK

by Bill Sullivan

on the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre,

December 29, 1880

From the Collection of Colby College Museum of Art: Albert Bierstadt, "View of Chimney Rock, Ohalilah Sioux Village in the Foreground" (1860).

Eighteen sixty—in his Manhattan studio

Albert Bierstadt studies his year-old photographs

and oil sketches of the Great Plains and foothills

of the Rockies. He then turns to his images of 

the Lakota, the Oglala Sioux and his collection

of their artifacts. He pauses, fills his brush with

oil paint, approaches the board sitting on the easel,

saying silently, "Everything must glow, must shine

like the soft rays of the sun." He adds more dove gray

to the last of the low clouds; steps back, saying, “Yes,

it's all there and more, the luminous amber sky,

the aquamarine river, the lush green bushes

on the bank, the soft shadows, the warmest of suns."

 

And there are the two horsemen in the shallow water,

one with child mounted in front, the other to his right

relaxed, but with a rifle at his side. Far right a woman,

water to her waist, ready to do the morning wash

and on the bank three tepees, shelter for this band

and just beyond another man riding off for the day's

hunt. And all the carefree children and unleashed dogs

scattered about. It is family, clan and tranquility,

life beyond what is and will be and he knows that.

 

Knows that when he includes Chimney Rock—

a storm shaped relic of a violent volcanic past,

a weathered cone that rose some three hundred feet

above the prairie grasses and became a marker for  

the fur traders, Mormons and pioneers tramping a trail

west—to Oregon and California. Knew it when he

and the government surveying team followed the North

Platte River reached the structure, examined the gifts,

messages and drawings left by previous travelers—

determined dreamers who heeded the prophets' call:

"Go west! Our destiny!  God's will! This land, ours from

the Atlantic to the Pacific." Now the creaking oxcart

and wagon, soon the hiss and steam of the locomotive.

 

He places the prominent rocky tower in the distant

background, makes it appear insignificant,

but knows his idyllic world would soon bleed.

He did not conjure up the brutal chapters then—

the butchery, expulsion, internment, deprivation

and suffering. But his life spanned the tale. Yes, he

lived long enough to read the reports of the massacre

at Wounded Knee. Lived long enough to examine

the photos of the corpses—men, women and children—

being tossed into a mass grave—lived long enough

to ponder the photo of Chief Big Foot's frozen body

lying in the blood-soaked snow—his cupped hands

outstretched as if reaching out for his slain followers.

 

And what did Albert say that late December day?

Did he think of that halcyon scene he had painted

thirty years earlier? Did he shrug his shoulders,

conclude that it had to be, or did he weep?       

 

 

Before retiring to Westerly, Rhode Island, Bill Sullivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College, the University System of NH. He has co-authored two studies of twentieth century poetry and co-produced two documentary films. Here Am I, Send Me, The Journey of Jonathan Daniels, aired by numerous PBS stations, streams at PBS.org. His poems have appeared in numerous print and on-line publications. Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose was published in 2015 by Grove Street Press. 

ON MAGRITTE'S LOVERS IN 2020

by Jack Kristiansen

"The Lovers II" (1928) by Rene Magritte

For years we were sure
there could be little joy

in their passion,
not much of a promise

in their commitment.
But what did we know?

Now that we see
why the veils

the kissing lovers wear
make some sense,

we still worry
about the risk.


Jack Kristiansen exists in the composition books and computer files of William Aarnes who lives in South Carolina.

BIDDING ON PICASSO

by Alejandro Escudé

Pablo Picasso's "Fillette à la corbeille fleurie"
Credit: Courtesy Christie's via CNN.
Christie's sale of a Picasso nude for $115 million
kick-started what some experts have been
calling "the sale of the century"—over 1,000
works of art and fine objects from the
storied collection of the late David and Peggy
Rockefeller. On Tuesday night, the first of
three auctions in New York achieved
a total sale of $646 million for works
from the 19th and 20th centuries. —CNN, May 9, 2018

The girl stares out beyond
an audience of paddles;
she balances herself

on a rose-colored floor;
she weeps for the adults
bidding on her body, seeping
in and out of the walls.

Her hair, uncombed. Her face
reveals a fatherless expression,
and she clutches flowers
that cannot replace
her mother’s coldness.

How much for that basket?
How much for the red towel
one cannot see?

Her eyes, slits of woe,
do not open enough
to fully ever love again.

Bought, she hangs on an avenue
of shallow breaths, inside
a house within
a thousand houses.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY

by James Penha

Large group of school children, with their teacher, standing in a town street, circa 1850s. Daguerreotype by an unknown photographer. Original in the Daguerreotypes Collection of the Library of Congress.

Which of these boys
in the back rows shucked
his suit for another uniform, packed
a Remington revolver 1858,
a Colt 1860,
or a Beaumont-Adams,
aimed a Pattern Enfield 1853 rifled musket,
a Springfield 1861,
or an M1841 Mississippi Rifle,
held high a Model 1832 foot Artillery Sword,
a Cutlass, or a Bowie knife,
before he was cranked
and grounded by a Gatling
or by J.D. Mill’s Coffee Mill Gun?

And how
many?

Which of their teachers?

Who among the girls cried
for the dead? Who
among the littler
boys?

Who craved
more?

James Penha edits TheNewVerse.News.

DECONSTRUCTING TEXAS

by James Penha

Jim Love’s homage to Texas, “Area Code” (1962) steel, cast iron and lead,
presently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX.

“The Texas takeover is like Obamacare death panels, or Sharia law coming to a court near you, or fluoride in the water supply. It doesn’t matter if the particular charge is proven to be completely false. Just getting the larger idea (don’t trust Obama’s feds, they want to un-cling you from your guns and religion) into the mainstream media is a victory. It validates the paranoia.” —Leslie Savan, The Nation, May 8, 2015

"Nearly every Republican in the Texas House is sponsoring a bill that would prohibit state and local officials from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples." —AP, May 13, 2015 

The every-which-wayness of tomahawking
oil drills, like Fred Astaire twerking against gravity
on walls and ceiling, does not surprise: Pan pipes after all
and the broad ten-gallon of a new Hermes
wings just above a bookend pedestal. Nor does a
chain-saw tumbleweed, nest of baby crankcases, wild
pig, arrowhead, milk bottle, longhorns and loblolly.
And at center stage a lone Rainmaker curries favor from his Lizzie;
it’s 110 in the shade on a stage a Broadway baby understands.

But that dour visage next to the lug wrench monstrance?
(Paul Frank’s simian Julius would worship a monkey wrench,
and snow monkeys swayed only briefly on Texas branches;
Iron Eyes Cody cried crocodiles for this land much later.)

No, within that overseeing mien
a Vitruvian wannabe struggles to set
his face and place the star on which
the whole of this sorry state depends.


James Penha edits The New Verse News.