Poet Neil Ellman: Triumphant Trees and Misplaced Faces

Triumph of the Tree

(Ele D’Artagnon, né Michele Lombardi-Toscanini)

  

When the past is prologue to itself

and the gutter rats and voles

have by their right inherited the earth

for their brief moment in the light

when the builders are gone

and the buildings emptied of

their keepsakes, furniture

and souls

when life crawls back to the sea

from which it came

and then dissolves as it once was

when the earth was young

the triumph of the tree

with an apple waiting to be picked

again
shall be complete.

Misplaced my face and dropped my eyes

and feeling somewhat empty

 (Debra Hampton, drawing)

I misplaced my face in a closet full

of old shoes, shirts and sweaters

nowhere to be found

perhaps intentionally to forget

what I last saw in the mirror on the wall

perhaps by accident

the way I lost my hearing from a fall.

Leering too hard or not at all

I also dropped my eyes

and they rolled into the gutter

and through the sewer grate

never to be seen or see again.

I’m feeling somewhat empty now

much like a taxidermist’s fish

having lost my heart and lungs

my pancreas and brain

as well my bearings in this troubled life

when too much is made of normalcy

and having all your parts.

Before My Birth

(Hans Arp, collage)

Before my birth

the wonder of darkness

filled my veins

and coursed through

transparent skin

and unformed bones

a river without a source

without, like me,  a name

or reason to be born

before the silence

of my dreams

could turn to sound

and dark to light

as I knew, somehow,

in the helix of my mind

they would.

  

The History of Her Life Written

Across Her Face

 (Margo Humphrey, lithograph)

In the furrows of her brow

the arch of her lips

in the history written

like hieroglyphs across her face

she remains enigmatic,

Cleopatra, a goddess,

a mystery inside

to the after-world

that barely knew her name.

  

In a face

a riddle.

in a mouth

an alphabet

without the words

to answer

the questions        

scratched upon

a pharaoh’s face.

A frequent contributor, New Jersey poet Neil Ellman has published more than 1,200 poems, many of which are ekphrastic, in print and online journals, anthologies, and chapbooks throughout the world. His latest chapbook, Mind Over Matta (Flutter Press, 2015), is based on the works of the Chilean abstract-surrealist, Roberto Matta Echaurren