Neil Ellman- A Poem

Woman IV

(after the painting by Willem de Kooning)

Mother

vampiric bride

holiest of the holy

whore

let me suckle at your breasts

and feel your love

and you feel me

upon your lips

shivering between your thighs

and yours on mine

so much contempt

conceived in love

and born to loathe

what you desire

and have become.

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.