February 7 -- Thomas Thomas

Paul Klee Cat and Bird

bird nests

above the cat's eye

free in danger

-----

Piet Mondrian White Rose in a Glass

rose drinking its last

draught of life - bathed within

severe orange fire

-----

Frederic Edwin Church The iceberg

tiny ship towered

over by small iceberg

in little ocean

insignificant planet

speck of solar system

-----

Edgar Degas Laundry Girls Ironing

to cloud the pain

hasten the rush to death

escape life

-----

Pablo Picasso Le Vieux Roi

power distorts

turns beauty - satisfaction

unobtainable

-----

Georges Seurat Angelica at the rock (After ingres)

in this shame

eternity dressed

with your wealth

-----

Blake's prints on Milton's Paradise Lost

Satan watches

Adam and Eve adoring embrace

Jealous of love

February 6 -- Don Kingfisher Campbell

Source of inspiration:

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/calacademy-bigpicture-photos-planet-earth/?mbid=social_fb#slide-9

Photographers and titles of their photos:

1)      Paul Souders “The Luckiest Penguin”

2)      Scott Marmer “Leap of Faith”

3)      Alex Varani “The Boxer and Its Eggs”

4)      Emmanuel Rondeau “Rhino Bodyguards”

5)      Graham McGeorge “Master of Disguise”

6)      Morgan Heim “Beast in the Garden”

7)      Paul Souders “The Ice Bear”

8)      Pal Hermansen “Attack”

9)      Ray Collins “Snow-Capped Mountain”

10)  Ben Cranke “Reach for the Stars”

11)  Luciano Candisani “Sustainable But Threatened”

12)  Josh Anon “Aurora Over Lagoon”

13)  Todd Bretl “Bobtail Summetry”

14)  Emanuel Biggi “Curvy king”

15)  Russell Laman “Seals On Iceberg”

On a Planet Where

A penguin leaps away from a seal

A wildebeest jumps into a river

A boxer crab belly holds its hundred orange eggs

A white rhinoceros is protected by rifle-toting soldiers

An owl blends into a tree’s bark

A mountain lion nighthunts a wood-decked backyard

A polar bear dives between ice floes

A taloned sparrowhawk attacks a jay

An ocean wave mistaken for a snow-capped mountain

Bare trees like zombies reach up at night to the stars

A goggled boy floats in clear shallow ocean seeking starfish to place in his lipped plastic bowl

An aurora borealis streaks pink over an icy blue lagoon

A bobtail squid has eight curling symmetrical arms lined with nodules

A hook-horned Alpine ibex stares down from a cliff ledge

Seals sleep on an iceberg in Antarctica

Some humans internet search for nature photos to post on their Facebook feeds

February 5 -- Kathleen McClung

Carol Greene, Self-Portrait, 2009

 

You paint not troubled souls but harmony:

Calm, bare-armed girl, first flute. Gray-goateed man

in white shirt, humming, burps a grandbaby.

You smile in aqua turtleneck. I can

imagine how you tucked your photograph

beside this canvas, looked long, listened, chose

a slender brush, embarked on song of self:

One shadowed cheek, one bright. Peach hues for nose.

Reflected glints in oval lenses. Eyes—

like Alice’s, like mine— the useful blue

of ocean, sky, and wing that shimmer, rise,

and blur beyond your studio, same blue

as backdrop cradling white crown, each wrinkle, fold

of flesh. New, lilting hymn to women’s faces, old.

 

Previously published as Sonnet 7 of “Lighter than Her Lace: A Crown of Borrowed Self-Portraits” in Unsplendid’s July 2014 double issue on women and form 5.3 + 6.1 www.unsplendid.com

Carol Greene lives and paints in San Jose, California. Her portraits may be viewed at www.carolgreene.org/home/paintings

February 4 -- Kathleen McClung

Behind the White Bird

     after Tatiana Lyskova’s painting, “White Bird,” 2008

 

Which one of us

holds tighter—you,

timid cockatiel, tall

as a snowman, crown

of green tendrils

curving above our heads?

 

Or me,

ruby red party dress

spraying past

my hairless thighs

into our kaleidoscope

of a room?

 

Entranced, claw

to wrist, I give you

a secret name,

whisper into your ear

a charm, a promise

I will break.

 

One palm

sinks in feathers,

the other, chiffon.

My lips, for now, press

only your white pillow skull.

We do not fly or sing.

 

 Previously published in Ekphrasis, Fall/Winter 2013

“White Bird” may be viewed at www.tatianalyskova.com

 

Kathleen McClung is the author of Almost the Rowboat (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and her award-winning work appears widely in journals and anthologies. She teaches at Skyline College and the Writing Salon and serves as judge for the sonnet category of the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. A native of California, she lives in San Francisco. www.kathleenmcclung.com

February 3 -- Neil Ellman

Early Sunday Morning

(Edward Hopper, painting)

On the seventh day

of the seventh month

in a six-day town

the stores are shuttered

and window shades drawn.

It is another early Sunday morning

without a sun

and the people have abandoned

their everyday lives

for their faith

or an extra hour of sleep.

Chop Suey

(Edward Hopper, painting)

The streets are filled

with those who wonder

where they have been.

while the two of us

who eat Chop Suey

in Chinatown

at 11:00 pm

ponder what it will be like

at the end of time.

Nighthawks

(Edward Hopper, painting)

Nighthawks speak

in the dim of night

alight where few can hear

their conversations

with the dark—

plaintiff questions

without an answer or a sound.

February 2 -- B. J. Buckley

ANGELUS NOVUS,  Paul Klee, 1930/32

Last night I saw the angel in the pines,

nearly naked, shivering (icy rain

fell in torrents), her heavy wings sodden,

barred like an owl's, blown back and wide open

by merciless wind – as if hovering –

hands skin and bone, clenched talons, eyes glaring

gold. From her beautiful mouth, scorched singing:

grief and desolation, flayed bell ringing,

a body by voice cracked too far open

to ever be closed again. The sodden

branches were a wreath around her, a nest:

her owl eyes, gold, and blood wet on her breast,

this new angel, orphaned out of heaven,

into the mortal reign of history, fallen.

February 1 -- B.J. Buckley

MONDRIAN IN MONTANA

He'd be at home
in that scar-sharp stretch of fence
drawing pasture,
in the ache
of boundary: stone
against earth against
post against wire tensioned up

to breaking:
black barbs, red
dirt, yellow grass,
blue
(even the sky) squared
in a measured frame
of vision,
the canvas
snow
or cloud:
transcendent tyranny
of field,
corner,
line.