Making a ghost town 
a State Historic Park 
with a museum 

does not let ghosts gather 
any ectoplasm, 

bring back the Gold Rush, 
fill the bars and bedrooms 
with thirsty and hungry 

miners and dancing girls, 
pianos and laughter. 

Now, stamp mill tours, 
mustard remedies, 
cemetery walks, 

a peek at a blackout 
diamond in a window, 

a stack of syllables. 

—Inspired by this photograph:

Photograph of window in Bodie ghost town copyrighted © 2024
by Chuck Kimmerle. All rights reserved. Appears here with artist’s permission.

For details about this image, see Kimmerle’s Facebook page
dated 10 December 2024, with a note which begins,
“Visited the Bodie ghost town for the first time last week...”

Chuck Kimmerle

is a U.S. based, fine art, landscape photographer who prefers to work in the reticent and quiet areas located in-between the popular, overcrowded, and over-photographed destinations of grand beauty.

While his style is rooted within the foundations of traditional landscape photography, his observations and interactions are both contemporary and introspective.

More details at: www.chuckkimmerle.com

You can also follow his work on Instagram and Facebook.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Portrait of Manzanar at 82 by Gary S. Rosin, inspired by Chuck Kimmerle’s photograph Four Stairs, both of which appear in Issue 23 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (April 2024)

⚡ Photographing in Black and White: Seeing Beyond Color, an article by Chuck Kimmerle at PetaPixel (17 September 2021), courtesy of ELEMENTS Magazine

Gary S. Rosin

is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. His poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary reviews and anthologies, including Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press, 2023); contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022); Concho River Review; The Ekphrastic Review; Sulphur River Literary Review; Texas Poetry Calendar; and Visions International.

Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). Rosin is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008). His poems “Black Dogs” and “Viewing the Dead” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Icelandic Reflections by Gary S. Rosin in The Ekphrastic Review (4 August 2024)

⚡ Four Poems After Photographs by Gary S. Rosin in The Ekphrastic Review (4 June 2023)

⚡ Night Wind, ekphrastic poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 15, September 2022); nominated for Best of the Net

⚡ Black Dogs, poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022), which was subsequently nominated by MacQ for the Pushcart Prize.

See also Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014).

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in Issue 7 of MacQ (March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem