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Sunday, February 15, 2015

Neil Ellman, Aficionado of Ekphrasis

Valium

(Damien Hirst, painting)

Folded like an origami bird
my mind unfolds
to count the spots—1, 2
yellow red and blue
3, 4 sparking
on a color wheel
5, 6 a hundred planets
in a hundred orbs
around the sun
I choose the ones
that put my mind
my universe
the passage of the stars
across my eyes
to rest.


Abelone Acetone Powder

(Damien Hirst, painting)

White dwarfs
luminous and blue
reds yellows greens
one by one by one
Rigel and Regulus
side by side
before the end
the stars await
aligned in even rows
equals at the last
in their silence know
the final coming
is at hand.


Botulinium Toxin A

(Damien Hirst, painting)

Biology dictates
chemistry directs
mathematics orders
our place in the chaos
of the universe
lined up one by one
never touching
equidistant from the sun
as obedient slaves
to the gods of evolution
entropy and decay
we march lock-step
shoulder to shoulder
never knowing when
but certain that the end
will come.

Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published more than 1,000 poems, many of which are ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern and contemporary art, in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world.