mea culpa

nubbin teeth budded in my pink mouth
enough for me to chew bland mush my
giants spooned to me for nourishment;
damn them…for I deep needed tart lemon
sour pickle…sweet vanilla on my tongue

 
their Santa lies transmogrified wonder
to fat laps fake beards…fly specked nasty
so abhorrent even outstretched fingers
on a Sistine ceiling cannot heal my wound

 
and I regret…regret…oh damn me;
my malnourished words moistened
beige I…now enormous with their
power…I dutiful and diligent…slip
pale listless to the innocent

 
Bonnie Marshall

Art by Claude Monet

 

Hamlet and the Piraha

“There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?” William Shakespeare   (Hamlet, 5.2.214)

To live as Brazilian Pirahã
is to be wholly in the present
where mists of past and future
are intangibles of time.

To live with Pirahã worldview
is to have no word for worry.
Dreamtime is the same as waketime…
seamless experience.

To live on the Meici River
is to flow one with the moment
where death is observation
eyes close…breath stops…
and readiness is all.

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Salvador Dali

surreal by the sea

 

 

milky news pods
pendulous
drip from data clouds
to clamshell i-Things
discarded
pre-metamorphic
memory erased
on a waveless beach
where tongues twitter whisper
and facemask photo shards
disperse to glitter litter
across infinite sand

Bonnie Marshall

Photo: Robert Smithson

green grazing pastures

keep silent…silent…and listen
listen…to these words…sieve
for wisdom like your need for breathing air,
then, when you speak…sing arias of words
with silver clarity like the ringing of a coin

dance meaning with your hands arms shoulders
for they’re the angels of your mind…they’re the
touching and the pinching and the caressing reach
for a human amplitude

pace the walking of your days for new risk
to follow comfort paths to exploration
where stepping is tentative to bold with
the going and the coming of a rich intent

bless the beating of your heart…touch
its stroking in your pulse…note its rippling
under the dear marvel of your skin

engage more life aware…splash cool water
on your face…your arms…your neck…
from the kitchen faucet, from the garden hose,
from the river, from the lake, from the sea…
to feel brisk…awake

Bonnie Marshall

Poem Reading: Permission of Kenneth Brauchler

Artwork by Richard Diebenkorn

in the buttery

his mother calls it the buttery,
their root cellar in the cave…
where raw milk awaits cleavage
of acidic watermilk beneath
ascending cream

son enters…flames a match
to stub candles on a barrel…
along walls are bins of apples
carrots squash potatoes all
arrested…chilled in the dark;
a shiver sweats across his back

he skims sweet milk…thickened
to his mouth…across his tongue
in cool solitary…needs its satin
satisfaction after haying swelter
monotonous with row and row;
straw prickles on his arms…his legs

then…in a summer barn with cows
full uddered warm above his hand
his fingers stroke a rhythm…milking;
and he is drawn to memory of breast

 

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Mary Cassatt