Crones Tell Me Wonderments

R. Pico

Crones Tell Me Wonderments

Crones tell me wonderments
of times they were near death
womb warm…light beckoning…
followed by harsh second birth
to awareness of pain flashes
and return to gray unfolding.

Crones tell me of their dreams
for they dwell often there.
Then… like returned travelers…
they recount amazements
of places they have been.
“I dreamed happy babies
invited me to dance.”

Her voice trailed thin laughter.
“What do you think of that…”
She wasn’t questioning…
just gazing past me…reflective,
mind back into that world.
“How lovely it would be…”
Reflection then…was mine.

Bonnie Marshall

blurred vision

Steven F. Udgar-Hazy Center

here in a hangar
in oppressive…stagnant air
I pay a visit where above me
dust motes sift to aircraft
there in suspended instants
of arrested flight

below these…parked…
in angled strategy
are salvaged planes
some with human names…
Jenny, George, Enola Gay
Genevieve and Nick

here is neatness…here is order
where no black oil drips
to gray smooth pavement…
and battle disarray is washed
to near vanishing

my viewing hours are ending
and visitors are few…
sound is muffled
here where laughter bursts
are sparse as merriment
in a funeral home

I take a final look above me
and movement blurs my sight…
where barn swallows swoop
and dip and glide and slip and bank…
and amplify regret

bonnie marshall

Without a Safety Net

Roberto Weigand

Without a Safety Net

Morning wakefulness
untangles day from night
and orients a starting place
for poet acrobats
to think…of necessity…
about a high wire
of images and timing…
to step poetry to print
across a line of thoughts
without a safety net.

Bonnie Marshall

In Presence of a Rain

Photo Credit: Frank Christopher Talbot

In Presence of a Rain

In presence of a rain
grey-dry stalks of ocotillo
desert flame pines…
spined with thorns…
slit to leafing.

At their tips bloom
scarlet blossom torches
luring ministrations
of persistent droning bees
and ticking hummingbirds.

Again the southwest desert
sunburns…inevitable… to aridity
and leaves drop…deciduous…
while this spindly evolution
spikes still viable
against heat-wavering blue…
a testament.. to resiliency.

Bonnie Marshall

Lunar Rorschach

Credit: Museum Victoria

Lunar Rorschach

Moon watchers in Buenos Aires
Southern Hemisphere
imagine a minstrel
sitting on a rock
hatchet poised…menacing
a hatted chicken
…or fowl of some sort…
with an imp upon its back
to freeze frame hacking doom…
grim

Shift one-eighty
to a Northern Hemisphere
and a hill in Nova Scotia.
The Moon’s image changes.
There imagination flips
an emoticon in space
…wide-eyed gaze…
to become a rabbit
long-eared and askew
a stare…a distorted hare…
glum

No matter…
for I’m a Pollyanna
so I’ll bask in moonbeams
thrill to the pulse of tides
think gibbous is a funny word
know gravity…is grace.

Bonnie Marshall

songs ease

songs ease

you tortoise-shell harps
you reeds turned into flutes
you leopard skin drums
you copper pots upended into bells
make music in the now
‘till we forget eternity
where no songs ease us
to transcendent sleep

Bonnie Marshall

Shapeshifting

Eyvind Earle

Shapeshifting

She watched…
white light spindles
appear in darkness
then shape to spheres
trailing luminescence
across Texas range.

She watched…
a crystal palace waver
on a shoreline edged in forest,
illusions…Fata Morgana
along a Sicilian coast.

She watched…
Yellowstone tule fog
erase pine tree sameness
around her nighttime fire
where wood sounds cottoned into silence
as she shifted to the shape of dreams.

Bonnie Marshall

On the Cusp

Vincent van Gogh

On the Cusp

Deep…deep beneath Dad’s land
and still cooling from beginnings,
tectonic plates expand…subduct…
slip slide with incremental tension,
slight tremors on a Richter scale…
yet not enough for red ants
in his woods beyond the barn
to swarm out from their mounds,
nor for his canary in the kitchen
to bash its feathered body
against the metal cage.
He knows those warnings
to move horses from the stable.

Lately, we’ve all noticed
he doesn’t pay much mind
to TV news and such…
only reads the local paper
and books from the living room…
like the Bible and Farmer’s Almanac
and plays here and there by Shakespeare.
He spends more time out on the porch,
and senses weather changes
even before the metal rooster
on the old barn arcs from east to west,
and notes balances tipping
like horizon sun flash…on the cusp
just before the set.

Bonnie Marshall

Panache

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Panache
I sense it in a crowd…
one person set apart…
a certain flair…an arrogance
like once…at a party
I met a laughing woman
who’d pinned fresh fruit
all ’round the crown
of her floppy hat…
red cherries…tokay grapes.
Occasionally she’d pick one
to pop into her mouth…
or toss to others.
I commented. “Unusual.”
“Of course my dear
I’ve worn these every April 10th
for years…well, decades…
to celebrate my lost chastity
doesn’t everyone at some time or another…”

I think of variations on her theme,
…and people who wear hats.
I should wear a hat…a straw one…
…often…in the summer…
one with wide blue ribbons
brimming down the back.
Yet there’s that difference
between panache and being odd..
and being odd… and not caring…
not caring…that’s the catch.

Bonnie Marshall

Third Remove Romance

Credit: App Art Arart

Third Remove Romance

“Sadie I ♥ u.” 
“Owen I ♥ u 2.” 

is expedience…a hug
second remove illusion
of emoticons and symbols
without intensity of gaze
or sincerity of smile.
Other times and places
the lovers Photoshop with apps
with healing tools and healing brushes…
magic wands… magic erasers,
and puppet warp…
for third remove illusion
centuries removed
from cavern walls in Greece
where puppet masters
threw shadows on a wall.

Bonnie Marshall