Neil Ellman-

Winter Windows 

(after the painting by Jane Frank)

1

At the edges rime

cold-to-the-touch

slipping through the cracks

bitter shadows

gray-squealing witchery

cold words

hanging in the air

like stars

dripping icycles.

2

It is the last day

of the twelfth month

of a shivering year

street lights sparkling

disquieting psalms

frore on bitten skin

on shaking bones

alone.

3

She traces a word

on glass

again

an illusion

a name

frosting over

as if

it had never been.

The Bat

(after the painting by Hans Hofmann)

It listens

for its echoes

in a cave

waits for

the feeding hour

to terrify

the moon

suck wind

and blood from sky

reasoning

with its maw

and gut while

clicking songs

of hunger

on the wing.

Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey (USA).  He has published numerous poems, many of them ekphrastic, in print and online journals throughout the world.  He is particularly attracted to surreal images and has published separate chapbooks devoted to the works of Dalí and Miró.