Destressing (a poem)

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see its wrinkles

An ekphrastic homage

By Moristotle

Did it sternly proclaim,
or did it utter softly?
Did it warn, or reassure?
Its wrinkles tell the answers.

Whatever weighed and tightened
humans’ minds and muscles
has dried and stretched the wood,
its wrinkles attesting it is so.

Highways and Byways: The Seduction

By Maik Strosahl

I currently have a hundred browser pages open on my iPhone. Ridiculous, I know, but they are open to many items I hope to use for future pieces.
    This poem was started in May from a challenge prompt put out by The Ekphrastic Review.
    The challenge was to write something about the painting “Hylas and the Nymphs,” created in 1896 by John William Waterhouse.

Highways and Byways: A Bad Day for Casey

By Maik Strosahl

It’s baseball season! 
    I have mentioned before a favorite project I got to be involved with where our poems inspired by museum pieces were put on display along with the art pieces. This poem also was created from that walk through the now defunct National Art Museum of Sport in Indianapolis.
    Outside the main building was a courtyard containing a sculpture titled “Casey Stengel,” by Rhonda Sherbell. It captures the “Old Perfessor” toward the end of his career when he was the coach of the expansion New York Mets from 1962-65.
    The Mets were a replacement team for many New Yorkers after both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants left for California. Casey was hired out of retirement to manage the team, but even with his winning reputation he could not lead the severely short-talented players to success.
    As with the sculpture, the poem attempts to capture the frustration of a successful player and manager leading a team that was going nowhere.

Highways and Byways: Waiting for a Trailer

By Maik Strosahl

I tend to write in cycles and lately I have been feeling a bit bound-up. I do not really enjoy winter, so I try to write my way out of it. But every year, shortly before spring, I find the ideas don’t quite work, the words just do not flow, every thought gets jumbled into a mess until one day the sun shines just right and all is right with the world again.
    Oh, I have had longer streaks of the dreaded writer’s block. The last few years of my first marriage were less than inspiring and I wrote very sparingly, but for the most part, this yearly cycle has become my way.
    This last Saturday, apparently, was the day. I didn’t see it coming, but it hit while waiting for a trailer.
    I started the day just outside of Des Moines, my Friday cut short by a brake problem that developed on the road. I found a truck stop to get some help and was shut down for the night. A mobile mechanic arrived during my 10-hour off-time to repair it while I slept. By morning, I was back on the road, heading to the Distribution Center for another load.

Highways and Byways: Flight

By Maik Strosahl

—inspired by the song “Fly from Here”
by the English rock band Yes


Those days of flight
still come to me in slumber,
two souls unbound by gravity,
two wings joined by hands
through the mists and
breaking free into clear blue
eyes shining with wonder
as to what we would see,
where would we go together?

Highways and Byways: A Poem for Roy Dean

By Maik Strosahl

“You know, you may be right, Roy Dean.
I watched that. In fact, that was a damn
bit of poetry, that was.”
—From the movie Pastime



He’s been there,
had his cup of coffee,
put two pitches by The Man.
His next was sent soaring
to a great roar in St. Louis,
and no sooner,
his cup dry,
he was sent back to the farm,
thirsting for another taste.

Highways and Byways: Irises across the Floor

By Maik Strosahl

—inspired by the painting
“Towards One” by Lee Krasner



To my mother,
it was a “vahz,”
fine cut crystal,
heavy glass hoisted to the mantel.
To my father,
it was just another
goddamn vase,
and who would miss it
when it broke to carelessness,
shattering and
scattering the blossoms
gathered in the morning sun?