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      May 23, 2019In the Nostalgia ChairMatthew Murrey

      Image: “Kandinsky’s Slippers” by Denise Zygadlo. “In the Nostalgia Chair” was written by Matthew Murrey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2019, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
      I unfold Florida
      days when I had my first
      apartment, when I plugged in
      a second-hand record player
      and listened to my life.
      It was small town, good
      walking in the waking
      morning while the sun
      reinvented the horizon,
      good night strolls
      where stars kept track
      above wires leaves and moss
      and churches were dark
      empty, unlocked, and holy.
      We had some times:
      that night of wine, that morning
      of coffee and rain. One time
      we smoked and couldn’t stop
      laughing after we’d stared
      at each other until you said
      “I’m not feeling it.”
      And when I was alone
      and holy, nights were for falling,
      Look Homeward Angel, asleep.
      That was a different state,
      a thousand novels ago. It’s a lie
      to say I never looked back.
      I still think about Keith Jarett
      and the radio in the kitchen
      and a bridge over a brown river
      and a red-brick train station
      and an afternoon of blue
      thunder and broken branches.
      Remember how the blinds
      divvied up beauty on the wall
      near the end of so many days,
      and how green the world was
      when we opened them? They
      have fallen apart, like lovers,
      like the loafers I wore when you left,
      the ones, I’m sorry to say,
      I threw away a long time ago.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the artist, Denise Zygadlo

      “I found this poem very evocative; it created an atmosphere I felt went well with the image and took us beyond it into another world. The poet beckons us into his past and shares those important moments that lodge in his memory, without giving too much away, so that we find ourselves sitting in that deckchair reflecting with the sitter and composing our own pictures. In my collage it was Kandinsky, but it could be anyone transporting us into a world of nostalgia. I love that it summoned up such a rich love story for the poet, whilst retaining the essential elements of the image; the blinds, the loafers and the sense of a Florida landscape amongst palm trees. I also have a past with Keith Jarett records and liked how the allusions at the beginning of the poem were picked up at the end. Very lovely, well done Mr. Murrey, thank you.”