By Christian Mack "December Storm" by Charles Ephraim Burchfield, 1941-1960 —and, fed-up, the sun walks outand i knew that he wouldn’t be coming back,this time. I soaked my hair inphosphorous and piss and iodine,gathered felled and dead leavesand the other chaff we keepgraveside; i tore down the shedand buried the shovels, i chokedthe birds and planted their … Continue reading crack an dawn

By Hayden Church "Still Life with Dead Game" by Willem van Aelst, 1661 Across the cattailled pond, clouds overcastLily pad the darling ocean glass sky,Hawkish portent becoming reborn inAubergine-specked shimmering nightfall.The hunting Bloodhound perceives the mallard’s grace,Spectacular array of mottled downRavaged viciously for the act’s beauty,Taming the fowl for morningtide’s glee.Blood-soil cotton sprouts oppugned perfectly—Chance … Continue reading The Art of Hunting

By Phillip Blank "View of Toledo" by El Greco, 1599-1600 I - Ode To The Wind  Look how her golden curls are tossed like salad leavesIn the evening breeze,How those thick folds flutter and danceTo smells from bakery and lake.  The tree tops rustle kind-lily,Bushy heads twittering to easy hush;Welcomed in the heat of summer’s day.  Airless rooms … Continue reading Three Odes and a Lament

By Liam Holbrook "Dynamism of a Car" by Luigi Russolo, 1913 Flashing colors echo, break sound,And taste like the infinite sky!An expanding-all-ways wave where colorFuses the one with the other; whereIncestuously they bind themselves to movementWhen the sound breaks airAs wheels turn gentlyOn the asphalt seared.As movement breaks under momentum's gainAll bends, all bleeds and … Continue reading The Wheels

By Stephanie Yue Duhem "A Man and a Woman by a Well" by G. D. Calland, 1848 When, into the fountain, I pitch my dimeTo sink beside yearnings silver and brown,The great amours of some forgotten time—Even yesterday’s love, all settled down,I think, is it not tragically trueThat metal outlives the passions of men,Or that … Continue reading The Suitor’s Sonnet

By Hayden Church "Lake Suwa in Shinano Province" by Katsushika Hokusai, c. 1830-1832 Daring countryside,Poking snake headsEntombed in weeds—Orchids surviving still,Placid and historic.And even the chicksAre out now, dancingTo a song in the grassThat says, I hear God.Pondside insects hiddenBy volumes of rainingPetals of leaves to beRaked by the followingBreeze into the rippling,Humming body—A fish, … Continue reading Songs in the Grass

By Ted Metrakas Selection from "Bacchus and Ariadne" by Titian, 1520-1523 Ariadne is the horizon.Her smile is the earth itself smiling.That is what the horizon is,The earth’s smile to itself. Just as the earth smiles to itself, so tooDoes Ariadne. Why does she smile?As the earth smiles,A world is opened — that’s the horizon.The horizon is … Continue reading Horizon

By Roddy O'Hare "Grotesque" by Roddy O'Hare, 2017       I.Our modern grotto —BacklitBy damp eastern genii —Closed door blushing To be splitBy some arcade hand of Sugarcane — And skipping past  Walls will lay ashy Finger vain Down to unbreatheThe word —Basement ponds flickerShards of slicker oil And curdClotted, unfixed findsA soundUnheard by skin —           II.By cherry treeBoundRivering bodies TwineIn grounded soul In plasticine hand … Continue reading Two Diptychs

By John Pelech A poem on Euclid's first four definitions The frontispiece of Sir Henry Billingsley's first English version of Euclid's Elements, 1570 i am following corpses in deepest rotmost precise of parts the point here playdots arrange and form a first orderthose skinny bones are length unornamentedfrom a deathly thinness a most narrownessfat-less sides constrict the erosive … Continue reading Euclid, Definitions I-IV

By Christian Mack "Orpheus Charming the Animals" by Peregrino da Cesena, 1490-1510 I.The heart sings a song of black diamonds— Beauty, nature-crafted, ephemeral, barely lingering— Onyx rose, glinting obsidian thorns; and Orpheus twirling among the petals, twirling in crimson, twirling in shade, rapturous vertigo, Grace-- how has she come to be so sharp? And how … Continue reading Three Poems from a Chicago Winter