A Month of Writing Negative Space Poetry
An ekphrastic poem after Gustave Courbet’s Le Désespéré
The Space Between
there must be a place
between what has happened
and what happens next
where one can put
this terrible knowing.
but thought has no walls,
no door to beat against,
no window to break.
despair, to be both the hand
and the thing it cannot hold.
somewhere beyond one’s eyes,
the world goes on
without waiting.
Written for Writer’s Digest NovPAD Chapbook Challenge. Prompt: Write a portrait poem. ©Misky 2006-2026. Scomtoma is a partially diminished or degenerated field of vision, ie, a negative space in visual acuity. Photo: the ruins of West Pier, Brighton.
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