Mark Russell Brown

Evil Iago, Who Is Seen Eavesdropping at the Left

After Othello Relating His Adventures
by Alexandre Cabanel

He’s in dark wine, a shade
of lurk, and skulks
behind the marble stairs.

But the jealousy,
you’d think Iago would dress
in the green

that paints a forest, stippled
with pine cones
and layered in moss, a green deeper

than the underbrush.
Othello glows in gold. His sword
foreskinned in a blue sheath.

Desdemona, moon white,
aching to rise
from Brabantio’s lap, is tethered

by her father’s noble mass—
all merely players
in a French Romantic’s universe

bruised dark wine
in the lower left-hand corner.

~Mark Russell Brown, used by permission of the author

Mark Russell Brown grew up in Hardinsburg, Kentucky but lives and writes now in Louisville. He is another of the poets with whose voice and friendship I have been gifted by the Green River Writers. Mark has an MFA from Spaulding University; he writes a regular column, “Beyond the Words,” in the Green River Writers newsletter. He blogs and posts his poetry at Cuddle Ugly and on Facebook.

The painting on which Mark’s ekphrastic poem is based hangs in the Speed Museum in Louisville.