Yes, by the Euphrates a bush is burning, but flawed.
No, this is not the voice of god,
just Virgil’s flammae burning long into the night,
just the monsters gazing long into the night.
Eyes that see you from afar
even so smashed as you are,
needing the flare of Latin song.
How many voices? Are they wrong?
& what is she singing, lonely swan?
An eye for an eye is not a lullaby.
The flame cries goodbye, but is not gone.
Listen, you moths who can’t help but draw near,
come closer. Closer. What on earth do you fear?
Ellen Wiener (right) is a painter and printmaker whose latest work concentrates on literary sources and pictorial language. Recent exhibitions include work at PS1-MOMA, The National Academy, Lori Bookstein and Central Booking Galleries. She has held faculty appointments at Sarah Lawrence Writers Institute, Princeton University, SUNY Stony Brook.
LB Thompson studied poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from NYU. She has received awards for emerging writers from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. Her chapbook, Tendered Notes: Poems of Love and Money, won the Center For Book Arts prize. Her poems and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, and Stonecutter as well as other literary magazines and websites. She teaches writing at The New School and at Suffolk County Community College.
“Drawing Closer,” a show exhibiting work from the Fibonacci Monstrosity, is at Vanderbilt University’s Sarrett Gallery September 1 to October 5, 2015.
Pine Hills Review 