by Thomas Riesner
Force 9: Lament of the Albatross
envy is a force
akin to greed
torrential a cursedness
born of a strong gale
it’s a coveting of albatrosses
their good luck their good wings
of a giant buoyant above
their good piety their good dexterity
in flight
the cross-bowed archer strikes
we would kill the good omen
from time immemorial
man has committed the deadly sin
in the fury of envy
we would prey on pelagic
sea birds torment them
claim dominion over them
smiting the intricate web
we would forget the mariner’s warning
forget the avenging angel overhead
we would sail on
blown about at the mercy
of the elements driven
mad by great gusts
of cruelty
Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection is My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars, and published in January 2022 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and assistant editor and poetry book reviewer emerita for The Centrifugal Eye. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; Instagram: karlalinnm; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.
Thomas Riesner is based in based in Leipzig, Germany and has been self-taught and intensively involved with painting and graphics since 1990. In addition to acrylic and ink paintings, drypoint etching is one of his artistic means of expression. Quite spontaneously and suddenly, it literally bubbles out of him. His expressive, intuitive style of painting is reflected in his seemingly archaic figures and pictorial elements. His pictures exude an atmosphere of originality and spontaneity, although most of the motifs are rather gloomy.