Ekphrasis: a marriage of poetry and art

 Welcome to my ekphrastic gallery!  MLB

“Ekphrasis” or “ecphrasis” is the verbal description, often dramatic, of a visual work of art.  In ancient times it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ‘ek’ and ‘phrasis’, ‘out’ and ‘speak’ respectively . . . .”  Wikipedia

Therefore “ekphrastic” poetry (or writing, drama, etc.) is that which describes another art form, for example a poem about a painting or photograph.  The art on this page will be my own, as will be most of the poetry.  But occasionally I will include favorite selections by other poets, to “illustrate” my paintings or photos in words.

And then how about exphrastic art—created from the inspiration of a poem?  Sometimes I may take the liberty to extend ekphrasis to work both ways!  Artistic license!  🙂  MB

 Tatters of Time

Old books leather-bound, creased with age

evoking slower days . . . china chipped and crazed—

Wedgwood, Staffordshire, Minton, Royal Doulton,

flow blue platters mingled with a thread-bare bunny

clutched and cherished long ago by a devoted child.

Portraits in sepia, wrapped in weathered frames,

ancestors enshrined in memory ever-green

by legend and imagination . . . a sofa, brocaded relic

recalling nights of reading with dog-entangled feet

and drowsy kittens—furry divas dominating laps.

Hence we celebrate Today—camouflaging

appliances, electric cords behind old pottery and art,

draping computer screen in fringed, fragmented silk,

with faded lavender and rose of timeworn flowers . . .

bold anachronisms, savoring our final hours.

 

© Margaret L. Been, 2014

 

Deep quiet moment

jungle broken in the storm

with silent knowing . . .

Deep quiet moment

eschewing and forgetting

inane thrusted chin . . .

Deep quiet moment

breathing life beyond the din

of monkey jabber . . .

Art and poetry — ©Margaret Longenecker Been

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A favorite summer pastime of mine is reclining on our patio and watching clouds over the park outside our door.  Sometimes I photograph the clouds, and there are no two photos alike as the subject changes momentarily.  Every cloud is one of a kind.  Cloud watching is a meditative pastime, causing fragments of poetry to flow.

Poise

Quiet dignity

never assuming to know

even when one does . . .

(Poem and digitally enhanced photo , ©Margaret Longenecker Been.)

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I will sweep my rooms,

tend my cloistered garden, brew my tea . . .

and one who mocked my dreams will never know

the heart of me.

© Margaret Longenecker Been

Published in MORNING IN MY EYES . . . poems of the meadows, rivers, woodlands, and seasons of life, by Margaret Longenecker Been.

Note:  A few years ago my musically gifted granddaughter, Nicole, set the words to a four-part madrigal which she composed specifically for the poem.  That is the greatest honor I’ve ever received in connection with my poetry!  MLB

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It is quite evident, from recent posts, that I have WATER ON MY MIND!  🙂

April Canoe 

We love this day, the ducks and I,

When branches drip their jewels from the sky,

And swollen streams

dispatch their winter burdens to the sea.

Waterproofed in down, we greet the spring.

The ducks and I delight in wandering!

©Margaret L. Been

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For several days I’ve been straining at the brain to write a poem about a painting, but nothing significant has resulted.  On the other hand, the paintings keep flowing from my brushes.  I can’t stop the flow!

Meanwhile, words from beloved poems surge through my head on a regular basis.  Lately it has been John Masefield’s Sea Fever.  Oh how I love that poem!  It literally rocks me to sleep some nights!  So last night I created the above ↑ painting to go with this wonderful classic ↓:

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

John Masefield

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Land of Courte Oreilles Ojibwa ↑ ↓

Edge of wildness . . .

northern banks of pickerel weed,

swamp buttercups, golden hedge-hyssop,

cobalt water rimmed and pressed

beneath the sky.

Fallen trees grope water-wise

from wild bank—perspective framed

in gnarled branches, Oriental clusters

of three, five, seven.

Double crested cormorants

nest high among blue-black ribbons

of primal shore where ancient pines

hid centuries of moccasin-worn paths,

then fell beneath the ax and died

to live again in denser, thicker brush.

Flowage waters sigh, singing stories

ancients told around their winter fires . . .

forgotten stories, lost in time, 

while shadows spread, remembering—

painting colors of Eternity, 

God’s landscape in watercolor.

©Margaret Longenecker Been

↑  In the Cleft of the Rock — watercolor on Yupo Paper inspired by a favorite hymn, “He Hideth My Soul in the Cleft of the Rock” by George Bennard

TO LIVE AGAIN

Summer night . . .

stillness hovers over barren sky.

Dare I remember yesternight —

rejoicing under a million stars

while rippling water accompanied

the clacking of frogs in the cattails?

Rivers rush in, rivers of memory

flooding our dying, promising Life!

Margaret Longenecker Been ©2011 ____________________________________________________________________________

Winding Down

 And now the darkling days . . .

when maples shed their burdens–

torn and sodden–to the earth,

and tawny corn

breaks beneath the reaper’s blade.

Demise of daylight

turns us inward to our dens,

burrows we’ve designed,

hollows carved in ancient oak,

cabins hewn from fallen pine.

These are the darkling days . . .

when keening west wind yields

to saber rattling from the north,

bringing time devoid of sound

while life pulsates underground.

Margaret Longenecker Been ã 2010

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 August . . .

. . . rejoicing in gleaming paint pots of paisleys,

morning glories tripping ankles, riotous color circles

cascading from berry-stained arms, ruby dollops

dripping from dangling gold, cheekbones blushing mauve,

stormy drapes valancing her languid summer eyes.

Behold her richly tangled gardens,

randomly nurtured with whimsical panache,

where cicadas thrum and chipmunks scurry,

where dynasties of rabbits glean chamomile and mint

from shards of clay—and crackled china plates

line hidden treasure paths unearthed by robins

and hidden again in snaggles of sage intermingled

with poignant lavender’s bouquet.

Behold her star-embroidered nights,

throbbing with song of wind and owl

and coyotes calling out the moon—praising

the Author of beauty, recalling yesterday,

remembering a long-forgotten dream.

© Margaret Longenecker Been

Published in A TIME UNDER HEAVEN . . . seasonal reflections and poems,

by Margaret Longenecker Been

Elk River Press, 2005

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May Night

Star-shot . . .

resonant with wind, whippoorwill,

and threnody of distant loon,

and coyotes

calling out the moon.

©1999, Margaret Longenecker Been

Published in the 2001 WISCONSIN Poets’ Calendar, published by Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and in A TIME UNDER HEAVEN . . . seasonal reflections and poems . . . by Margaret Longenecker Been, ©2005, ELK RIVER PRESS.

Note:  The above illustration is not a painting, but rather a painterly photo enhanced on my Photo Suite program.  It is a shot of our beloved Big Elk River, at our northern home.  MLB

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What is a Poem?

Only those who truly read can know

The soil in which a poem must grow!

A poem is more than prose strung out in line;

A poem is imagery in musical design.

Regardless of how painterly they be,

Words simply are not poems, sans melody!

If a “poet” chooses not to rhyme,

Alliteration must prevail to set the clime . . .

Or else a cadence must enhance each phrase,

For readers to remember all their days!

How tragic that our language legacy

Is dimmed by current mediocrity!

©2010, Margaret Longenecker Been

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ANOTHER WALDEN

Eaves sagging, spidered shingles veiling squirrel-hewn beams . . .

A one-hinged door sashays and scrapes the splintered floor

where fieldmice scamper with their seedy stores.

Three chairs are here for you and me and company,

and caffeinated brew for toasting joy of mislaid schemes—

here among the shards of dusty dreams.

Margaret Longenecker Been—All Rights Reserved

“Another Walden” was published in WOMEN’S WRITES—a gathering of poetry by Wisconsin writers, and in A TIME UNDER HEAVEN . . . seasonal reflections and poems by Margaret Longenecker Been.

Author’s Note:  Henry David Thoreau is one of my most-beloved people who ever lived.  I love Thoreau for his nature observations, his wonderfully whimsical social satire, his beautiful writing, and his unquenchable YANKEE spirit—even while he suffered from tuberculosis in the final years of his all-too-short life.  What an American! 

In Walden, Thoreau wrote:  “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” 

My husband and I cherish that quote because it sums up our shared love for solitude.  And I love picturesque cabins, which I can’t resist photographing and sometimes painting. 

The sight of a small, isolated cabin always reminds me of Henry David Thoreau.  The above cabin was spotted in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains.  After returning home from the trip, I rendered the cabin in watercolors.  MLB

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MAPLE CANDY IN A NURSING HOME

 

Bite sized patterns . . .

fanned shells, rosettes,

fleur de lis

warmed and blended

in a gnarled hand.

Hand-clutched stickiness,

fleeting sweetness on the tongue . . .

maple-scented remnants of those years

when nights were clear,

and sap ran joyously in lusty March.

Margaret Longenecker Been—All Rights Reserved

This poem won 3rd place in the WISCONSIN REGIONAL WRITERS ASSOCIATION annual Jade Ring Contest, September 2003—and it was published in TIME UNDER HEAVEN, by Margaret Longenecker Been.

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River music . . .

rising, swirling, pulsing

in my soul.

River music . . .

old beyond recall, younger

than tomorrow.

River music . . .

ancient song, enthralling strains . . .

burgeoning life.

When River freezes

I close my eyes and dream

of April thaw.

When River freezes,

still I navigate upstream

in currents of dreams.

Margaret Longenecker Been—All Rights Reserved

Published in BRUSH STROKES, by Margaret Longenecker Been

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A POET RECALLS CREATION

I had a voice! Where did it go?

A lyrical voice, exiled in shame,

labeled “Anachronism”, my voice became

muted, muffled, unable to flow.

I had a voice, but I moved away

to words without music, lines sans form,

beauty obscured by nihilistic storm

of tone deaf script with little to say.

Hours may pass without mourning the loss . . .

then fragments of Yeats, Masefield, Millay,

Dylan Thomas or Dickinson haunt my day,

and I know I’ve abandoned gold for dross.

Through Mediocrity’s fog, memories seep.

I bury my head in my hands, and I weep!

Margaret Longenecker Been—All Rights Reserved

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To Our High Priest

We’ve not resisted unto blood . . .

No massive death, Royal Requiem,

But only little death—

A quiet lacrymosa to our Lord.

Yet He in all points touched

Suffered our infirmity . . .

This tiny splinter of a Larger Cross.

He knew the thorny sadness of our pain

And bore the aching nailprints of our loss.

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

Published in MORNING IN MY EYES–poems of the meadows, rivers, woodlands, and seasons of life–by Margaret Longenecker Been.

Reprinted in Time of Singing.

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Winter Feet

Blanched and frozen

are the country ways

where Pentacostal flames

of dogwood blaze . . .

and upland to the wood

an owl’s retreat

of lonely echoing.

Ice worn and near despair,

these winter feet . . .

this heart that pleads

“but give me one more Spring!”

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

Published in MORNING IN MY EYES, by Margaret Longenecker Been

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Dreaming of Junking

For countless days of questing,
tracking county roads and off-beat trails,
seeking “gold” in worn enameled pots,
dented copper bowls and rusted pails . . .

For afternoons of sheer delight
in treasure flaked and faded over time . . .
clouded bottles, china chipped and crazed,
to cherish for a quarter or a dime . . .

For serendipity of junk acquired,
and troves of memories the years unfold,
I lift my coffee mug of battered tin
and toast the ecstasy of all things old!

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

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The Real World

Come to our kingdom in the wood

where years scurry backwards daylong,

like acrobatic squirrels climbing, scampering,

inhaling wild-honey secrets, finding treasure cache . . .

whitetail hair at rutting ground and double acorn–

hats intact, earth-fragrant lichen, peach umbrellas–

“taste not” beauties of the wood.  Scurry backwards

with the years meadow-wise, from forest snares,

fleeing from phantom gypsies who would steal

old changeling children and pack them off forever

on wild ponies in the fiddling wind.

Rush backwards night-long with the years,

nights of Hearts, Charades, sweet cider nights

ladled inexorably beside flickering lamps and thrum

of Celtic harp . . . nights of whispering

when games are through and slipping softly

into the dark beneath stars that glint like pistols

in a black holster, soundlessly pouring out

into midnight of the whip-poor-will

and coyotes carousing in their cups.

Come!

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

Published in MORNING IN MY EYES, by Margaret Longenecker Been

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Winter Promise

Cold descends to hug our home–

while sheltered from the sting

of wind’s embrace spewing ice

on my scarfed face,

I find the shed swathed in snow,

seeming bleak as winter without end.

And yet inside, a woolly warmth promising!

The lambs are due.  A shepherd’s winter glows

with germ of spring.

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

First published as “February Storm”, in MORNING IN MY EYES, by Margaret Longenecker Been.

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A Poet’s Place

A poet’s place . . .

where every aspen branch drips metaphors

like Dali’s clocks, and alliteration

echoes angelica-anemone

in primordial solitude

against the onomatopoeic thrum

of frogs.

A poet’s place

of imagery in river-clad forget-me-nots,

where figures of speech slide otterwise

from scruffy banks of sandy streams

on drowsy days, and symbols

pierce the lunar-nugget nights

in cadence with a Milky Way

of dreams.

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

Published in A TIME UNDER HEAVEN, by Margaret Longenecker Been

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Spinning Wheel

Drawing raw wool through my fingers,

into the orifice, to a whirring bobbin,

I treadle to the Chieftains’ pipes and drums

while dreaming of garments that I’ll fashion

to the tempo of an old loom’s “whacks and thrums”.

Treadling in Autumn’s waning sunlight,

I recall my flock of Cotswolds–the fragrance

of lanolined locks, the ewes’ lowering cries

at lambing time, the joy of holding squirmy babes

with four long legs and plaintive eyes.

Then backwards through the orifice of time,

I draw those sights and sounds I never knew

except in fancy of imagination’s range–

a Celtic ancestor spinning on a wheel like mine,

a centuries-old design that doesn’t change.

Time spins on like a whirling bobbin

layering technologies, bringing more to learn.

My life would be a score of toneless sums

if measured by a twenty-first century beat

rather than the Chieftains’ pipes and drums.

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

“Spinning Wheel” won 3rd place in the Time of Singing “Artifact Poem Contest, and was published in the Winter 07/08 issue of that magazine.

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Frozen Earth Allows No Accolades

 

Scant trace of life across unyielding ground

as if the heart had ceased, no grace appears

beneath a starchy sky devoid of tears.

Wind could reconcile the harshness of these days

and sun would warm remaining hours–

but frozen earth allows no accolades,

receives no flowers.

Margaret Longenecker Been–All Rights Reserved

First published in MORNING IN MY EYES, by Margaret Longenecker Been