Neil Ellman - One Poem

Tangent

(after the painting by Adolph Gottlieb)

Not quite straight, not yet fallen
like an old oak
leaning ever so slightly to the wind
right to left then righted
then at an angle
from the center of my life
becoming a tangent
against the grain of greatest resistance
flying in the face of implacable odds
and denying the ineffable pull of stars
mine is the distance between
the straight-and-narrow and the bent
off on a journey on a path forsaken
you go your way and Ill go mine.



Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Rhysling Award. More than 1,000 of his poems, many of which are ekphrastic and written in response to works of modern and contemporary art, appear in print and online journal, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world.