‘Javelin Ekphrastic​’ and Other Poetry by Neal Dachstadter

Javelin Ekphrastic

Out of the air and shot from a thrust,
Clout of the spear, forethought where it must,
Wrought from the ancient and taut and released,
Slaughtered and blatant, when caught be the beast.

Note: Ekphrastic is a Greek word meaning a poem to a work of art

Photo Credit: Brandon Alfond

Julius IV

Half – past Britain, Half – past France,
Old School, Liberal had their dance,
Cut a rug and stomped the floor,
Musket, cannon, bar the door.

Half – colonial, Half – “that’s bull,”
Presby, Jew, Episcopal,
Deist, Catholic, each would vote,
No man strangled at the throat.

Earth with bated breath would hear,
Begin the end of slavery / clear-
– ly perfect? Nay but preferable,
Checkered? Yea, but credible.

River Ekphrastic

He stood on a continent’s river,
Beholding a swath of the land,
Distilled into silt and delivered,
Southward in mud and in sand,

To ponder the task of the waters,
The task of the waters was great,
Burden du bonne terre verte:
A basket of land was her freight.

Photo credit: Hovick and Field

Synergy

Without boredom, without dull
Not insipid was the pull
Dialectic her and he
Bon eclectic, bon espirit

Untitled Ekphrastic

Weary Earth Declining Sun
Creak of wheel at brink of night,
Hiss of steam as day be dead,
Industry lift up thy head.

Work be wrought of sweat and grin;
Shirking not beget again.

Photo credit: Hayden Hall

Neal Dachstadter is a poet living in Tennessee.  His work has been printed in Decanto Poetry Magazine (UK), Western Viewpoints and Poetic Images: the Great American West (Woodinville, Washington), Society of Classical Poets Journal 2015 (Mt Hope, New York), Rocky Point Times (Puerto Peñasco, Mexico) and The Lyric (Jericho, Vermont).  A member of the Demosthenian Literary Society at the University of Georgia, he deployed to Hawija, then wrote on Lookout Mountain, continuing with Delta Kappa Epsilon International.  Berkeley, Ann Arbor, and Athens encouraged him as a writer.  In 2015 he wrote in Arizona at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument five miles north of Mexico.