New Jersey poet Neil Ellman has twice been nominated for Best of the Net, as well
as for the Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Ellman
has published more than 850 poems in print and online journals, anthologies, and
chapbooks worldwide. His ekphrastic poetry appears in more than 100 publications,
including nine chapbooks devoted individually to the works of Dalí, Miró, and
other modern and contemporary artists. Parallels: Selected Ekphrastic
Poetry, 2009-2012, is his
first full-length collection.
 |
| Matta in 1960 |
 |
Here Sir Fire, Eat!
Roberto Matta Echaurren, 1942 |
Here Sir Fire, Eat!
Eat, my Lord,
consume
the air
wood and
stars
time
itself
upon your
plate
satisfy
your
appetite
for death
it is
yours
to taste,
devour
swallow
whole
the
universe
of light
it is
yours
as it was
meant
to be
yours
dear Lord
of
entropy
the fire
that eats
the universe
and then
yourself
extinguished
in the
midnight ashes
of the
gods.
 |
| L’unité de l’absolut, Roberto Matta Echaurren, 1942 |
L’unité
de l’absolut
We imagine the absolute
as a single fact
unquestioned, self-evident
in the apple-glow of certainty
one thought
the perfect fruit
on a perfect tree
as palpable and firm
as its skin and flesh
as full of confidence
as its spreading roots
neither vague nor hesitant
a thing and of itself
when its irony
is more the crackle
of rain on dry-fall leaves
wind spreading seeds
on arid soil
and the myriad song
of a single nightingale
perched in an infinite tree.
X-Space and the Ego
We imagine the absolute
as a single fact
unquestioned, self-evident
in the apple-glow of certainty
one thought
the perfect fruit
on a perfect tree
as palpable and firm
as its skin and flesh
as full of confidence
as its spreading roots
neither vague nor hesitant
a thing and of itself
when its irony
is more the crackle
of rain on dry-fall leaves
wind spreading seeds
on arid soil
and the myriad song
of a single nightingale
perched in an infinite tree.
 |
| X-Space and the Ego, 1945 |
In X-Space a comet
without its wings
a star without its tail
the ego soars
in the vacuum
it creates
a featherless bird
alone
where mind implodes
into itself
in X-Space
where the ego goes
to die.
without its wings
a star without its tail
the ego soars
in the vacuum
it creates
a featherless bird
alone
where mind implodes
into itself
in X-Space
where the ego goes
to die.
painters and poets
ekphrastic
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