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  • euphony 2020 ▼
    • table of contents
    • about euphony
    • poetry
    • poetry [ekphrastic]
    • prose [short stories]
    • prose [microfiction]
    • photo essays
  • euphony 2019 ▼
    • staff
    • mission
    • thank you
    • table of contents
    • capsule i
    • capsule ii
    • capsule iii
    • capsule iv
    • teachers!
  • euphony 2020 ▼
    • table of contents
    • about euphony
    • poetry
    • poetry [ekphrastic]
    • prose [short stories]
    • prose [microfiction]
    • photo essays
  • euphony 2019 ▼
    • staff
    • mission
    • thank you
    • table of contents
    • capsule i
    • capsule ii
    • capsule iii
    • capsule iv
    • teachers!

the poetry of shs

presenting our [ekphrastic poetry] submissions
​The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit 
John Singer Sargent (1882) 
The MFA
Picture
Three Daughters, Pt. Ⅰ

Stand here, the man tells us. Point your toe like this. 
No—a little to the right. Perfect. All right. 
He sets up his easel and peers out, owlish, dabbing. 
Hmmm. Not qui—yes, all right.
He puts me in darkness, against the big blue-patterned vase. 
I hardly touch it, because if it cracks I might dissolve. Or calcify, 
And they’ll prop me against the wall and let me grow dusty. 
Jane tugs on my dress. Stop that, he says. You must remain still. 
Daddy said, he’ll paint your picture. He’s very good. And we’ll hang it 
On the wall, so I can always remember your faces. 
The painter turns my face away, with Jane’s hanging 
Moonlike in the dark. 
Isa is very still. Her toe poses, her arms rest, 
But I can see them gripping the back of her dress. 
Julia, who keeps forgetting 
To look at the artist. She whispers to her dolly,
Walks her across the carpet. 
Julia scuffles, draws her toes out of their
Forward-back pose, oscillates them like a pendulum. 
Yes, alright, he says. But slowly, please. 
Julia leans, bounces dolly on Isa’s stone foot, 
And back to place. 
Isa bursts. 
Open-mouthed and out pours a tension-hardened giggle, 
Yes, that’s it, he says. That’s right. 
But quickly, her eyes dart, mouth clamps again, stiffens.
I let my back faintly touch the cold porcelain.
And so I sink. 
Jane’s face still glimmers wraith-like. 

Three Daughters, Pt. ⅠⅠ 

Daddy shows us the painting 
He is prouder than the artist, beaming redly. 
We look like a deer in headlights, I think. 
Jane is a ghost, and I am a piece of furniture. 
Daddy is happy with it. He boasts to his friends, 
Look at the light here. Those vases were so expensive.
We’re old friends, you know, we paint together.

Daddy, I ask, didn’t you want to see our faces? 
He gazes at the painting fondly, and his head never turns. 
As the artist was leaving, he hovered a hand 
Over Julia’s head, gazed at us, and his eyes 
Crinkled a bit like parchment.
He has caught the curl at the top of Isa’s head, 
And my lean against the vase is as fragile as ever. 
The artist has done something strange, though, 
He has filled in the little tug, like Jane is trying to pull me
To face the light. 
by Sylvia Woodbury, Class of 2023
So Long
Picture
Train Station
Jeff Rowland
Standing on the cold platform, watching you go,
Far away. 
The rigid bottom of the scuffed black shoes hitting the ramp,
Taking you away from me. 
You enter the train, as our eyes met once more. 
You said you loved me, but you wanted to see the world, 
So I said go.
The bell is rung, by the man who only seems like he wants to go,go,go.
The wheels turn and your figure becomes a memory. 
So long.
Tears fall, no feeling left.
My feet become their own, and take me to the car. 
Flabbergasted by your actions, part of me becomes follicles of air. 
So as you go, I only wish you the best
 But if you opened your eyes, you would’ve seen you were my world, and maybe I would’ve been yours. 
​
​
by Emma Botelho, Class of 2022

Picture

​(Haphazardly tape on)
re's a box where more is drawn
And the lines are being drawn darker in the box
And this is a prety boring drawing its not even a painting or anything
And the car is only partialy drawn
And the person is drawn in blue but the car is black 
Also there isnt any details and  there are some wierd confusing lines drawn around that don't make sense
And theres a person being on the carwith a green wind shield
Also the lines drawn that around the plus are really confusing
And also theAnd also the

​
Untitled study for Untitled (policeman))

​"30 ft h".

"20' 6ft".
A brief code
To oneself
​

I sit
Carefully posed
Concrete
Yet transparent
Blocks
Lines
Yearning for shape
​Residing on a surface
Barely present
Fading outside this box
Existent only as necessary

Name: Untitled
Purpose: Untitled
The only scrap of truth: "Policeman"
A destiny
Of detail
Hat with emblem
Shining nose of patrol car
Deep blue, badge-spangled coat
A dream of form
To come

The hope
Of a sketch


by Nathaniel Waterman, Class of 2022
Freedom
A Sestina
The Poppy Field near Argenteuil,
Claude Monet (1873)

Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Interior Window of Schloss Kirchberg,
Paul Kauzmann (1874)
Picture
Picture
The field is open.
It feels like a dream. 
A chill in the air. 
Now I am safe,
Running free.
The flowers whisper.
 
The trees whisper.
I see a door open,
A bird flying free.
That is my dream,
Safe, 
Floating through the air. 
 
There is a chill in the air.
I can hear it whisper.
Are we safe
Out here in the open?
In my dream,
I felt free.
 
Maybe we are free.
I breath in cold air.
Maybe it was a dream,
Just a whisper.
Here in the open,
We are safe.
 I am safe
​ But not free.
​Outside, I see a parasol open,
​A bird in the air,

And the trees as they whisper.  
But I can only dream.

 In my dream,
​I was safe
To whisper.
Outside and free,
Feeling the cool air,
​Pushing the doors open.

The flowers open.
The birds fly through the air.
​They all want to be free.
by Suzanne Silver, Class of 2023
             C’est La Meilleure Vie 

Come one, come all!

             It’s the 1880s in Paris 

Every dream is captured here, vous saisez, 

             Il y a tout! 

Everybody is coming to the Chat Noir. 

             See, the poster, the display, 

Le chat perches on the red banner.

             Look at his bristling fur!

The yellow globes of his malevolent eyes, 

             And the curvature of his sarcastic tail, 

The perk of his whiskers prick the air. 

             Absinthe and abject misery, but oui,

C’est la vie, c’est de l’art!

             All the feelings, here, 

Look at the dansers, hear the music, 

             Pouring like wine! 

Le chat, il sait! 

             The tempo swings, can you hear le concert

The scents permeate, 

             La Tour thrusts into the sky!    

See the whirling dress and coquettish eyes,        
                                       
             The heady mixture of parfum and smoke

(Also piss and cheap beer)

             See, the cat is fier, proud, 

His torso elongates and boasts his velvet coat, 

             Claws sharp-edged. 

Look at his smirk!

             ​Le chat noir!

​
 Le Chat Noir 
Théophile Steinlen (1881)
 Le Chat Noir Collection
Picture
by Sylvia Woodbury, Class of 2023
My Florist
A Pantoum
Picture
Young Woman with Peonies
Frédéric Bazille (1870), Oil on Canvas
The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

​
Her fingers trembled gently against the flower’s thin little stem
Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
Because they had punched and kicked until she could no longer cough up phlegm
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones

Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
Every other time she had arranged the blooms’s rose cousins, the whites of her teeth shone bright
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones
And that the fact her lover might not wake was keeping her up at night

Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
Still the blossom heard her heart beating much too fast
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones
The pursed lips from the treasured happiness she had thought would last

Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
The blossoms she picked out told of her love for her
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones
Yet it also knew the love for her girlfriend would never deter

Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
She would visit the hospital, the flower’s vase in her right hand
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones
Yet it smiled when it saw, at the bottom of his vase, a slim silver band

Usually so joyful yet now her face was carved of stones
The blossom saw that she would hate those men until her very last breath
And so the flower knew she could still hear the cracking of her bones
Because the prejudiced had beat her girlfriend almost to her death

The blossom saw that she would hate those men until her very last breath
Because they had punched her and kicked until she could no longer cough up phlegm
Because the prejudiced had beat her girlfriend almost to her death
Her fingers trembled gently against the flower’s thin little stem
​


by Kaitlin Wiebe, Class of 2023
16 Images Generated by an Artificial Intelligence
A Palindrome​
Picture
Images beautiful and perfect, melted, reborn into abominations, mere rearranging.
Masterpieces into mixes, art uninteresting.
Better, wasn't it – humans, not machines, making art?

NO.

ART-MAKING MACHINES, NOT HUMANS. IT WASN'T BETTER.
UNINTERESTING ART MIXES INTO MASTERPIECES.
REARRANGING MERE ABOMINATIONS INTO REBORN, MELTED, PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL IMAGES.


​by Nathaniel Waterman, Class of 2022
Letter from Me to You
​
​
Picture
Fire Escape Collapses
Stanley Forman (1975)
When I reached the ground, 
They say I landed on you. 
The softness of your
Broken flesh slowing my fall.
The dust cloaked, choked and settled. 

I don’t remember, 
But I dream of falling at night. 
I wake up so suddenly. 
Is that maybe what it is, 
To die? When you hit, was it?

What I remember:
Momma crying loud for you.
A faint impression:
You flew down like an angel,
Like Icarus piercing earth. 

Don’t worry, it was 
Fast and over in a blink.
It hurt a litle, 
But your nightmares drag on, and
It’s not like that at all. 

It’s okay, forget.
You don’t have to keep it all, 
Just take me and you 
Without everything else, just
Us together in the flat. 

We used to play there, 
When your Momma was at work. 
With your plastic truck. 
I would rumble out
vroom, vroom
Like your Momma did for me. 

​
​
by Sylvia Woodbury, Class of 2023
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