Neil Ellman- A Poem

The Earth is a Man

(after the painting by Roberto Sebastián

Antonio Matta Echaurren)

Not like any you know

not with a face

but nevertheless

gapes surprise

at its own odd shape

or with a mind

it somehow sees

reason in its

thoughtless seas

it almost remembers

in its shale and schist

the infant child

then man

craggy-eyed

pitted on wobbly feet

confused

by its own conceit—

the earth is a man

or was.

Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey.  His poems, many of which are ekphrastic and based on works of modern art, appear in numerous print and online journals throughout the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe.  The latest of his eight chapbooks, Convergence & Conversion, is now available from The Knives Forks and Spoons Press.