Upside Down and Inside Out
Ekphrastic Challenge August 2022 #2
This poem was written in response to the Rattle® Poetry Ekphrastic Challenge for August 2022 and was ultimately not selected. You can find more information here.
https://www.rattle.com/ekphrastic/
The image that this poem was specifically written about can be found here. (August 2022 – Enne Tess’s “Worm”)
https://i0.wp.com/www.rattle.com/ekphrasis/EC22Aug.jpg?ssl=1
Upside Down and Inside Out
I gaze upon this peculiarity
A sketch garnered from an interesting mind
An imagination allowed to run wild, to float free
I muse over it, pour over its lines
Trying to find a meaning
And gather from its image
The great wheel of metamorphosis
A transformation and transfiguration
Of creation, of living, of reproducing, of dying
The journey all living things must make
And suddenly I am faced with my own mortality
My own finite existence and the fate that will befall me
I turn the image over
Hmm, I must have had it upside down
Right side up, I see a different thing
My head it pounds from this new thinking
I see, in strange detail, a monstrous creature
A worm stuck up a fish’s ass
Vomiting out a mushroom
I don’t know
Perhaps I am halfway dreaming
Or hallucinating
Maybe I am drunk on hard liquor
And should lay off the bottle tonight
Submitted under MRB
About the Creator
Rae Fairchild (MRB)
I love to write; putting pen to paper fills my heart and calms my soul!
Rae Fairchild is my pen name. (Because why not? Pseudonyms are cool!)
I do publish elsewhere under my real name, Mary Rae Butler. (Fairchild, an old family surname.)
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Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
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Compelling and original writing
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Comments (1)
Excellent. I love this poem. It speaks from the heart.