Ekphrastics.

My usual morning routine is to make breakfast, and then looking a cartoons and reading the 'Poem of the Day' at the Poetry Foundation. If I like the poem, I may check out other poems by the same author. To get to them, I go through the author biography, which usually includes a picture. Sometimes, the picture was as interesting as the poetry.
Ekphraastics is writing a poem about an existing work of art. The best-known example is probably W.H. Auden's HHhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/159364/musee-des-beaux-arts-63a1efde036cdMusee des Beaux Arts.
For a while, I was writing ekphrastics responding to the photos. Here are six of them.
There are links to the photos in the titles.

I stare at the picture
of the poet 
the Foundation has kindly provided
to no doubt help forge a bond
between reader and writer.
A woman of indeterminate age 
stares frankly into the camera,
aware of her self,
a presence,
aware of all the people staring
from behind the camera.
Her lips are the first thing I notice—
firm, full, closed,
but with the ends turned up
slightly
a hint of a smile. 
Wistful, winsome, 
little half-moons testifying
to a lifetime of smiling
But her eyes.
These eyes are not windows to a soul,
they are windows to a life.
These eyes have known tears,
pain, sadness,
have known joy, happiness,
show maturity, wisdom, 
have comprehended 
and contained the world.
It is all too much, too much,
as she looks unblinking 
into my eyes 
seeking a spark, understanding,
recognition. common ground,
a lived life.
Above all, one small ringlet of hair
escape from all the rest
just off the center of the brow.
I cannot be sure,
but I’d be willing to bet
that curl drove her mother to distraction
refusing 
to behave,
a mark of character
an approach to life—
playful, a bit unruly,
a life open to possibilities.

Now this guy looks angry,
no, more irritated
we don’t know why.
When I look like that
mouth set firmly, brow knit,
I am having my picture taken
a process I have never enjoyed,
either formal, posed,
with the cameraman chirping 
directions
“turn your head to the left
your body clockwise
no not as much now tuck your chin
into your collarbone smile!
Look natural!”
A waste of time.
Maybe the guy in the picture thinks
that the newly arrived gray
in his beard means his days
as an enfant terrible 
are behind him, or the students 
in the creative writing class
have not asked a good (or new)
question since 1997.
But still there is a softness in his eyes,
in addition to challenge
and query,
belying the fierceness in his face
around them.
Maybe he had a thought
for a new poem, a good poem
about impermanence,
wants to get to it, 
to capture the tension 
between writing about impermanence and
publishing in a permanent medium, 
where the words are frozen forever in time,
like the soft scowl on his face.

He is a hard one to write about,
in this age,
in the fading of his glory, his eminence,
his popularity, his dominance,
a driver of the canon
but making it harder 
to distinguish
the persona from the person
the person from the people
who populate his poems
his posturing
his obvious desire 
to be the king
while,
at the back of our heads, 
we wonder if he had
the same problems
with peaches
and aging
as his disingenuously drawn
characters,
counting the teaspoons
we use to measure—
or used—
it doesn’t matter
poseurs all.
Too late this elegy,
his fate, his legacy,
already on the wane 
or on the rise
the fickle, vagarious winds
of time and fashion,
winds he used to guide
readers and critics known 
and unknowing
thrown against the shore
of Delos, hidden and adrift.

A puff of smoke hangs in the air,
in the unlikely shape of a chicken,
the thinnest of tendrils
holding it to its source,
the stub of a cigar
held between thumb and fingers.
Light pours in from behind
brightening the already white hair
that touches his collar.
To his left, a wave of paper
threatens to topple,
while a wall of books waits patiently
in the shadows.
He sports a bow tie and suit
a grandfatherly figure waiting
to be called to Sunday dinner
with the family.
He gazes forward reflectively, 
no particular destination in mind,
no intensity,
wrapped in reverie.
He might be thinking about the good times
of his socialist past,
prowling the gritty streets
of the gritty city he calls home,
his transformation into a gentleman
of letters, a scholar,  
or maybe he is staring into the future—
new subjects,
new adventures, 
new revelations,
new conquests.

He blends quietly
into the background,
a wall of windows
letting in a view of a wooded landscape,
directly behind, a telephone, a case of CDs, a geranium,
common items

in the landscape of a common life.
On another wall a working library,
books shelved at all angles,
stacked one on the other.
An orange tabby stands 
on the blue chair 
sniffing at the wrist 
of the chair’s other occupant, both 
oblivious to the camera.
He stares at the cat fondly,
even though the cat ignores him too,
his chin tucked into his chest,
the unsniffed hand on the cat’s back,
caught up in the moment.
The worn, lined face
Is caught in the present,
Nothing mattering 
besides the cat.
This is the way 
that poems work,
simple moments, 
simple distractions
single moments
the brain churning 
perception.

the face
from the forehead down
fills the frame
forcing certain elements 
from his consciousness
to ours.
the mustache,
a presence unto itself
looks like it's growing
from the nostrils,
a fine mustache cascading
around the mouth,
showing little bits of dark
at the bottom.
The neatly trimmed hair 
hides the upper lip
and curls around the mouth,
one end longer than the other,
a detail that might indicate
like the day-old stubble on cheeks and chin
casual, careless or studied,
or maybe nothing at all. 
A little wisp of hair escaped
behind the right ear,
remarkable only for its presence.
in the eyes, patience and wisdom,
the eyes of a teacher
assessing, probing, but waiting,
flanked by laugh lines
the ribbons awarded 
after many encounters
with life.
the visible bits of mouth, 
with barely contained bemusement,
proclaim the presence 
of a perceiver of the world.
Or maybe he is out of patience with the photographer,
tired of being pent up,
the encounter milked of any worth,
a restless man wanting
to re-engage with the world,
to write, to teach,
to be the object of observation.