#ekphrastic
By The Drifter From Heaven
After Arnold Böcklin’s Die Lebensinsel
Amidst the vibrant colors, I saw two silhouettes,
Perhaps two lovers who lived in the dark, but frolic in the light;
Two drifting souls, still trapped in the mortal life.
They are bound by the beauty of life's song and dance,
The weight of love and friendship an anchor of heavy chains,
Tethered to the mortal realm by the graceful wake of nature's claim,
Waiting for the night to reclaim the sun's blessing.
Apr 12
Apr 12, 2026 at 5:13 PM UTC
After Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa
By: The-Drifter-From-Heaven
As I look deep within her ancient eyes,
I’m drawn away to where her smile resides.
I hear a chanting hymn within her gaze,
But in her smile, a dirge for dying days.
Her eyes may whisper songs of hidden light,
Yet lips betray the music to the night.
I’m caught between the two, a silent game,
Like some small bird within a golden frame.
Apr 12
Apr 12, 2026 at 4:54 PM UTC
By The Drifter From Heaven
After Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead
A macabre scene: a cold, misty, uninhabited phantom island,
Where the river is as still as a corpse.
A sudden apparition, a ghostly, white-clad abomination,
It consumes all reason, isolating my mind from all distraction.
I find my peace and solitude in this Island of Isolation.
Apr 12
Apr 12, 2026 at 7:13 AM UTC
Pluto, the color of grass used to be green
How does it feel to be obsessed with your queen?
Picking flowers while surrounded by ewe
It stank, and I knew it was you!
Order your horses to hold your chariot back
As she never wanted to be your jack
Proserpina, the woman in sculpted marble
How does it feel to be a ruler in his world?
It stinks, and suddenly it was Gian!
With his great hammer, behind it all, began
As we might thank him for telling our stories
The pious prodigy, full of creations he could not resist
Jun 10, 2025
Jun 10, 2025 at 6:47 AM UTC
On our east-side Detroit neighborhood: brick two-family flats with wide porches. Buildings so close together, windows open in summer (no one had AC; it was the 50s) we could hear noises of daily living, toilets flushing and pots and pans banging. The entire block across from us was open except for two houses attached by an enclosed bridge. This was the "recreation center". Beside the buildings on the south, basketball net and tennis court and sandbox pits with stakes for pitching horseshoes. On the north side, the children's playground with swings, monkey bars, and sandbox. The open field to the west, all the way to the next street, held baseball diamonds and soccer/football fields. In the winter, some of that area was turned into an ice skating rink. Bradley Recreation Center -- our go-to place every day.
Where we grew up, thrived
Took chances on ourselves
Met possibilities
Apr 27, 2025
Apr 27, 2025 at 4:09 PM UTC
A Deer Priestess is standing on the sea, and
I watch as she coaxes jellyfish from the ocean,
to sing songs of oscillating neutrinos that crackle
and fizz with insatiable longing
to knit universes together from this briny sea.
Helios wanders across the sky, his sun-disk
neatly tucked into his chariot, smoking a cigar.
Text fades and re-forms across the sky
and the sky starts to peel,
and words fall into my body and my body is text.
I edge closer to the stage,
yet I’m afraid of the sea, of the deep.
I don’t know what it means.
A dolphin swims below, outlined by inky black,
ready to leap. “Come,” says the Deer Priestess,
beckoning. I hear a steady da-dum, da-dum,
realise it’s my heartbeat. Death shuffles
past — I think he’s in the wrong play.
The Cheshire Cat appears and disappears,
leaving only his grin flecked with froth from waves
that flick and lick and I can taste the salt from
the spray. I teeter on the edge and time dissolves
into a myriad tiny suns.
“Get on with it!” someone shouts from the audience
behind me. “What does it mean?!” I shout back, but the
words fall from my mouth in paper fragments, as
Kafka floats by, atop a beetle.
The Deer Priestess is closer now and I realise that she is me.
Upon waking, I watch as my reflection,
shapeshift, dances, into the sea.
Dec 7, 2024
Dec 7, 2024 at 7:31 PM UTC
Honoring Buckethead Halloween
romaniac bucketb0t love
De la asta am plecat,
De aceea am continuat
Fără sa am vreo așteptare
De faptul ca am fost invitat,
De unde doar am menționat
Jason and Nick, Faustian Echoes dialogues my thoughts in regards to ours, lips my feelings.
"They lie outside the boundaries that words can address; and man can only grasp those thoughts which language can express."
In eggphrastic way, I end and say
The sun gets its own shadow under Buckethead's light.
Nov 24, 2024
Nov 24, 2024 at 11:20 AM UTC
Oh Vincent
whatever did you do
ripening fields of summer corn
and sunflowers of a brilliant hue
a shade no other eyes could see
except for God and you
Feb 29, 2024
Feb 29, 2024 at 1:07 PM UTC
Nothing
but a thought
ful
misinterpreted metal man
carved of an art
ist's
chisel block,
tarn
ished by history and hate
red
roses always bloom be
hind
The light that illuminates
the beach watchers.
my
beach watchers.
I will alter for you.
May 9, 2021
May 9, 2021 at 1:53 AM UTC
Dear, Pa –
it’s your once-son
Danny – or better known
as Sandy, or Annie or;
Ann-Marie and to some
folks on 19th Street,
I’m known as a sinner, a ******
My life is a movie, like
a catwalk model; and
I play a very special person, who’s got
no-one to lean on, no mommy to hold, and;
Wait, I know her. She’s familiar to me like,
I’ve known her since the beginning of time, but
right now, in physical form, she stands
in front of me in the;
mirror, Pa. Yes, I am her reflection, no
I mean she’s my reflection and I realize
that; all along, this whole time, I told myself
a big-fat lie; as a child, hatred and anger
were the tears I cried. So –
this one’s for you, my king,
my liege; this one’s the promise
that we’ll keep; this one’s the bond
between our sheets; but this one’s the
one that’ll point at you; before I lift
the middle one, to say, ***** You!”
But hey, Pa – here I am. A
woman, not a man. A bonafide,
sophisticated lady in minx
with, real diamond earrings and
fierce wings; those nails, my nose
and my lips – make me feel like I’ve
power at my fingertips.
Tonight is my show – it’s my time
to shine. And I’m going to **** it
like I know I can – so thank you Pa,
and thank you, ma’am. For giving
me the strength to be who I am.
Feb 10, 2021
Feb 10, 2021 at 7:13 PM UTC
The sound of the leaves written primarily by trees.
As such was the beauty heard plainly with ease.
Up mountains, round rivers.
A song for the birds.
For the people that fly there.
Across valleys was heard.
Now what be the mention of this, you may wonder,
Alone to unravel the blur from down under.
A song can be sung from the language of trees.
I heard in the sky and then carried to thee.
https://www.susykamber.com/
Ekphrastic Poetry Explores Art
Oct 25, 2020
Oct 25, 2020 at 9:09 AM UTC
I wasn't on earth, not anymore
I wend one's way to a tranquil ambience whilst transcending my divine self
to a higher Cosmic Celestial being
at the time of eternal halcyon...
the Lacuna,that's what they called it in this time (Space was highly praised)
Suddenly life was unending
I guess that's why they use
light years here
it's counter intuitive
A cosmic pilgrim,
in a buoyantly state..
I peregrinated my way to the place in space
I seeked to fill my existence or of it to fill its existence the aftermath resulted twins
My burning hanker being doused with every feeling of passing an atom, I began to feel more drawned to my destination
From a distance, a visual perception of my terminus appeared before me
Jupiter
The third realm to the
East of my origin with
the four daemons seated in
an aligned parallel order manifesting themselves before my eyes..
Ganymede the colossal daemon
The ancient of them all
Callisto the Cherry blossom
the most alluring, artistic and gratifying in sight of all daemons.
Io the Sun's sister
The last daemon, Europa
the soft Pearl
The sight juxtaposed one's eyes for God's
I never felt so alive before
this was the cream of the crop
of the peacefull atmosphere in space..
sending an aesthetic tsunami tide to my soul's core
I belonged
Dec 10, 2019
Dec 10, 2019 at 7:21 PM UTC
(in heavy breath)
my eyes take her in
her body lying prone.
her smile, smothered in her pillow.
back arched,
she releases a moan.
(moaning, quite sharply)
my hands stroke with her cadence
staggered gasp
and with a click
i lock my screen
as her moans send me to space.
my own fluids are now
the fluid for stimulus,
for an eye rolling **** numbing high.
but in thirty seconds
i crash.
i am tasting myself now
with desire
with disgust
like raw eggs mixed with salt
like water laced with crushed paracetamol
exactly *** mixed with spit.
i sink into the dark musty scent
of stale air, *** and sweat.
and i awake
and once again
my eyes do hunger
and so does my ****
Eshu, end your tricks now
it’s not funny anymore.
my gaze ***** everyone it meets.
it strips them bare
of their skin
of their flesh
it turns them into meat.
it grinds a person into produce.
these eyes are battered and harmful.
may they now rest, please?
Dec 8, 2019
Dec 8, 2019 at 9:59 PM UTC
Here, in this village,
I, am unpigmented canvas
my suburban skin,
unfamiliar.
Where the trees
bleed colors of resurgence
into the vacant
and vibrant damp,
dark, earth below
to begin and paint again.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 9:38 AM UTC
As I stood,
on the wet street
in solitude, behind
the external lens
in my hands,
I could hear the passing
of painted, ticking clock hands
as they whispered and waved
through static noise
from precipitation
around me–
I wondered,
if a past soul
of mine, contributed
to a time of white flight,
when a financial crisis
sprawled like a crack
on a windshield, from a chip
in glass, created
by another battle
between politicians.
My present soul,
resides,
in Heidelberg,
where
stories of others
become painted dots
on buildings
climbing walls
like spiders,
their painted eyes
against the stark white,
doted house
seeing all.
Nov 30, 2019
Nov 30, 2019 at 2:49 PM UTC
There is a melody that sings,
of a dream lost in time, with music
that fits the space
that can’t be filled.
She is as real to you,
as the wood in your hands
and at night, beyond the timbre of your guitar
that murmurs melodies about a world
too many understand.
What once was elegant boulevards
in Madrid, are now
a melodic strain
of fleeting moments, trapped
in colorless discontent.
Nov 29, 2019
Nov 29, 2019 at 9:06 AM UTC
there were golden forests
and skies like seas
feathered magenta sunrise
floating on silver breeze
and under rosy ecstasy
the grass sang
"all is but a dream"
there were boundless scarlet sunsets
spidery grey trees
slender green shadows
yellow sidewalks agleam
and as spindly limbs swung quietly
the grass sang
"all is but a dream"
there were blood orange moons
seeping like molasses through
blackened open wounds
sandy-grey clouds swallow the skies
their toothy gaping mouths smothering cries
and as the sun turns to ash and steam
and dusky fields burn at the seams
the rotting grass hisses
"all was but a dream"
Nov 11, 2019
Nov 11, 2019 at 12:08 AM UTC
In my dream, there is a broken bridge.
That bridge impossible to cross.
Yet, all is possible
in the land of dreams.
So,
why fret?
Except, this:
In my dream, there exist this broken bridge.
Sep 20, 2019
Sep 20, 2019 at 11:19 PM UTC
Art is a hell of a *******
drug, I tell you
it surreptitiously creeps
into you in a way that is
utterly indecipherable,
and lures you deep;
deep into it as the void above...
For the eye loves
what it sees,
and what's been seen
by the eye
is rather fascinating to the soul,
Amidst all these
Overwhelming emotions,
a harmonic converge
between the eye and the soul
is created,
Fostering a sui generis ecstatic rhapsody!
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019 at 10:31 AM UTC
Living a life for another, made by others,
Anticipating and considering all these expectations,
Especially, for the fans who tolerate the process of expanding education and inspiration,
We’re doing everything we have to do to fulfill the next agent.
We are the creators of a new generation, influencing teens with the power of our platforms,
Reinforcing the idea of an effortless motivation.
To plan ahead, we’re moving forward,
Toward the subsequent destination.
We are the driving forces of multimedia nations,
Narcissism and low self-esteem are the feelings we’re morally inclined to,
Feeling our own bodies test addiction to a single notification,
We’re living in endless rotation.
Our minds have grown accustomed to the routines of checking the number,
Of likes and comments on the recent,
Even, lurking and giving into the guilty pleasure of stalking,
If the previous line resonates, then you’ve just justified our statistics and analytics.
The only way out is through resuscitation,
Deactivating can be deemed the easier option,
However, those who signed up for it can argue that widespread messages are the modern communication for our adolescents,
Setting a model for the next, following, and upcoming conversation.
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 9:27 AM UTC
they’re pouring out of the
woodwork
those pretentious machiavellians
in ailing albino frames
eccentric masked figures
milling about the glow light
like night moths
in a london fog
lunatic gazers
with seeping moles
pinned by frogmen and twine
spider climbers
in hell fire
splitting seams
on the fading
and hideous ink
guards of the perch
stand on hades hand
while monsters and demons
with severed limbs
taunt the condemned
and wanting
souls of the ******
cauldron fire
in blood red sky
silent screams
hack and wheeze
gas lines broken
words unspoken
teetering backwards
in the dark shadows
of a phantom abyss
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 2:08 PM UTC
(an ekphrastic poem based on the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper)
Four
solemn faces,
doused in gold,
like moths to flame,
seek warmth from the cold.
Darkness leers, but harsh light shields
these lonely creatures from their feelings untold.
One
diner desolate,
a waiter old,
and three weary visitors
are portrayed. The scene unfolds.
Most eat under the sunlight, unlike
these nighthawks who flocked from their households.
Some
loneliness darkens
hearts like blindfolds;
nighthawks’ hearts aren’t exceptions.
The woman red and bold,
the man in shadows, and another
man with a cigarette in his hold
are
isolated together.
They are controlled
and defined by solitude.
They don’t belong. No mold
fits them. They only have a
diner, each other, and lonesome souls unconsoled.
Jun 2, 2018
Jun 2, 2018 at 1:33 AM UTC
What is it about the water?
Like misshaped tiles the ripples scatter;
shifting at every swift motion and quake,
staring back at a man lost in a reflective gaze
Lost in a pool of his own thoughts;
He recognizes the drowning body
that sinks deeper as his mind descends
Should he linger behind inches of safety;
or should he let himself fall into ponderous
depths of transparent glass;
Eyes closed, he lets go and joins his enemy,
like a sail his body floats, effortlessly.
May 9, 2018
May 9, 2018 at 12:18 AM UTC