Dear Blue Prince,
The sad news of your death
reached me here inevitably,
belatedly, to say the least.
Mareia somehow already knew.
She’d always known.
For years I wept. I wept for miracles.
For the sky to cease its blue blind madness.
For snow to fill the well of g-d’s eye.
My trembling scars, bunkers of death,
I offer at a deep discount to anyone
willing to climb the moonless ladder.
Now I am dry. Childless again. I’d blame g-d
for both of us, but he is visiting in Golgotha
with distant relatives, and is otherwise occupied.
I’m sure he would send his best.
Richard Weaver
Richard Weaver’s ekphrastic poems, inspired by the German Expressionist painter Franz Marc, have appeared in 2River View, Repurposed Magazine, Clade Song, Sheila-na-gig, Adelaide, Conjunctions, Aberration Landscape, Birmingham Arts Journal, POETiCA Review, Underfoot, Allegro, Magnolia Review, and elsewhere. Weaver is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press), and provided the libretto for the symphony, Of Sea and Stars. He also admits to being one of the founders of the Black Warrior Review, now 47 years in service, and once upon a time its PE.
Artwork: Franz Marc, “Tower of Painted Horses” (postcard to Else Lasker-Schueler), 1913
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 