Followers

Sunday, January 6, 2013

For Real Toads: Escher ekphrasis


Two very talented poets at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads came up with a new kind of picture prompt for the first Sunday of 2013.

Hedgewitch suggested and Kerry accepted the concept of ekphrasis, "the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art..."

To this end, Kerry chose for us the stylized work of Dutch surrealist M.C. Escher, offered us some examples of his work, and provided a link to the Escher gallery at wikipaintings.

Although unable to manage anything dramatic, I wrote the following rhyme about Escher's work entitled "Castle in the Air":



www.wikipaintings.org


we dream castles in the air
try to reach them
get nowhere
when suddenly our walking speed
becomes a tortoise for a steed
plodding, plodding
ever slower
sinking
lower
low
er
l
o
w
e
r
Kay L. Davies, January, 2013

9 comments:

Hannah said...

I love this, Kay!! Everything about it...the shape and the tortoise for a steed! So cool and have you seen, "The Never-ending Story," the movie? It looks like this is what inspired that film! Great write!

Kerry O'Connor said...

Ooh..I love the shape of this poem. It's like the reflected castle, and right on target with the opposition often present in Escher's work.

Madeleine Begun Kane said...

That's delightful. And I really like the formatting!

Madeleine Begun Kane

Helen said...

Kay, you certainly did not need 'dramatic' to make your poem work ~~ I love everything about it.

Susan said...

What they all said!
Reaching for castles really should make us drip away like that, but it can and it does.

Anonymous said...

Very cool - I think of a tortoise balancing the world - or maybe that's on the back of an elephant? Cool either way. k.

PS _ enjoy your upcoming trip. k.

Penelope Notes said...

I love this, too, Kay! The content and pattern of the words fit like hand and glove.

Kay said...

Wonderful poem, Kay! I love how you formatted your words.

Jenn Jilks said...

You are good! I love the poem.