An Ekphrastic Poem: Reinventing The Scream ©

Reinventing The Scream

How agreeable it is to live

under a blue sky.

To watch garden roses budding

and crimping; fragrant hybrids

unfolding their cream/carmine skirts

into a garden system 

of care and sunshine.

How terrible then, an expression on a face,

standing on a bridge, swirl of dark water beneath,

a red sky full of pain. And so many

steadfast hours going into the work

of a silent, yet unsettling scream.

Nothing about Edvard Munch’s scene

will ever change. Yet I want to reinvent

that unhappy face. Lower hands to pockets,

zero in with a pencil-point of smile.

Bridge gone, water gone, a swirl of blue

should enliven Machiavellian thought.

I want the screamer, nosey as a ladybird,

bum up, inhaling an Iceberg rose.

The view should be this urban garden

where rough beds thirst

and a stocky Butcherbird on the tippy

buoyancy of a branch turns,

catching that depressive moment

an instant before the scream.

An Ekphrastic poem inspired by The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893, Oil, tempera, pastel and crayon on cardboard. Dimensions 91 cm × 73.5 cm (36 in × 28.9 in). Location: National Gallery, Oslo, Norway