I’ve always enjoyed ekphrastic poetry because it combines two of my loves: poetry and visual art. So, for this issue, I asked two local poet friends to join me in responding to paintings by Miami painter Carlos Antonio Rancaño. Their poems are featured alongside the paintings that inspired their words.
Carlos Antonio Rancaño was born in Miami to Cuban/Panamanian parents. His work is saturated with bright, warm colors and his sharp, rigid brush strokes form a pedestal for the subjects in his work.
Macho as Object, as Still Life, as Portrait
By Caridad Moro-Gronlier
—Inspired by Carlos Rancaño’s A Blind Eye
The way he bares
his brunette chest
seems geared to impress
with all he reveals,
but beneath my stare
his bold undress
guards the skin
he keeps concealed.
I want to know
the rooted scar
beneath the rose
ink bloom,
raise the guardrail
of his arm
his guarded gaze
exhume.
Unboxing
By Jen Karetnick
—Inspired by Carlos Rancaño’s Guard Down
Haven’t we always expected an upstanding
blossom to mask the sprung lip’s gush
of blood? From the beginning, flowers
stoplighted disease, death. Pollen was found
with Neanderthal skeletons 62,000 years ago
in caves in Northern Iraq, petals thrown
at the end of every match in 688 B.C. Olympia,
when both opponents swaddled their knuckles
in the cured skins of animals, bereft of fur
but feral with metal spikes like spider eyes,
though only one left the stadium alive. Today
we can uproot the rose from the modern cestus,
red for power, dominance, danger, or white
for optimism, fresh as a punch. Uncurl the fist
as if steaming a dress shirt free from wrinkles.
Unzip the Velcro from the wrist, rip the interior
foam from the leather cradling it. Bring back
Jack Broughton’s stuffing of horsehair
in plain brown gloves, then refurbish the hide
of the stallion for which it had been slaughtered.
Hungry ghost, the horse will chew hay, far from
Mongolia, which harvests 900 tons of tails and manes
every year. Ride it to Las Vegas where Greek rituals
are still enacted by just-formed men who believe
the rules of mortality don’t apply to the youngest
among them. Pluck the cup of booze from the hands
of the referee and replace it with the scales of judgment,
along with a license. Let him stop the Fight Night
“for charity,” concede there’s no altruism in brain damage
and allow the frat brother, unequipped, to graduate the ring.
Between The Lines
By Nicole Tallman
—Inspired by Carlos Rancaño’s Between The Lines
If a painting is a poem, then paint
with the light. Light like the nakedness
of truth. Of the lightest touch of a hand
or a brush. Of a woman in a vulnerable
state or an ecstatic gaze. Aren’t they
one and the same? We’re all waiting
for something that will never
come. If I lie alone on the cold wood floor,
the sun always comes to find me. I can
never block her out. Soft light. Warm touch.
Black curtains or gauzy white. The sun
shines through to say: Just stay a little
longer. Lie in my blinding white light.
I say: Make of my body a shadow,
not a cross. Touch me. It’s not my time
to die. And between the darkest lines
of a body, of a canvas, of a page
in our lives, let there be
a little touch. Let there be
a little light.
