The Scream

April sunshine has given me the courage to take on the challenge of writing Ekphrastic poems. I have never attempted to translate the emotion from paintings, drawings, sculptures, or other visual works of art into words. The challenge will require me to dig deep to tap into the passions such works of art create inside a person. Most of what I write will be speculative. There will be times when I will place myself into the mind of the artist. Still other times, I will express the emotions I experience gazing at the work of art. If I get creative, I might even tell the story from an element within the work of art. This Ekphrastic poems is based on a painting by Edvard Munch entitled The Scream.   

The Scream

It was a pleasant walk until the bridge

Nature screamed and the sky turned red

My insides quaked and I teetered on the edge.

Darkness filled my mind as the sky bleed

Behind me walked the shadows of my friends

Who were too busy looking over the ridge

To witness how the world suddenly ends

I painted the scream alone in my room

I tried to capture my anxiety

Mingled with a feeling of doom

In the top-left hand corner

I penciled in a mystery

“can only have been painted by a mad man.”

My assessment wasn’t fair,

But I honestly believed it was true.

Until the unfolding of history

Made my Scream the perfect hue

Two World Wars and atomic gloom

Global warming and a pandemic

Place it all in a giant saucepan

These days my vision doesn’t seem so schizophrenic

But modern-day prophets

Are never understood

Because their predictions end in death and despair

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

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