Impromptu and with Ease

Impromptu and with Ease

Westminster bells
partition through the air
to orient for place
a pacing in the hours

 and cockcrows wake
to first ordain the dawn
with much the surety
of rows of daffodils
unclenching in the sun

it is a gentle doing

it is not blast ordained
like thunder lightning storm
from heavy-lidded clouds
decreeing lines for rain

oh, let us dance…my love
impromptu and with ease
to relegate our days
in measured roundelay

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork: Vincent van Gogh
“Wheat Fields in Rain” 1889

ancient in me is a Viking nature

ancient in me is a Viking nature
its chords are in the sinews of my hand
a brief tendency to claw I tender touch
a raw inheritance…a boon to thought

for days when breeze is from the north
I am drawn to roughness and to vagrancy
I know the urgency of sail with sea wind
bass keel push…moaning of the hull

then it is I exit through low windows
choose rain pooled muddy trails
gnaw on wintergreen and sorrel
climb mulberry…cram fulsome to
my mouth its sour sweet stain

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Nicholas Roerich

Thinking Mobius

Thinking Mobius…and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
ends of being and ideal grace
all…at the same time…
synapses firing in my brain
glister sparked like fireflies
seeking instant satisfaction
in dark recess evening trees
of acrobatic whimsy stretch.

I’ll slide idea surface in my
playland mind around around
until sheer dizziness…or boredom
spins me tumbling from the loop
abrupt to contemplate a stop…
that Mobii don’t merge unless
they’re quantum…linear
equations in a genius mind
primed to such disintegration.

I’ll think integral…especially
not damaged…be complete…
and lacking nothing…content
and undiminished…and…
contemplating…everything.

Bonnie Marshall

Sculpture: Instituto Nacional de Mathematica
Pura e Aplicado (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

going for distract

 

oh, Dear Reader…let’s go for distract…
pretend it’s a rainy day…or blazing hot
or something’s wrong with our setting
and we can’t change the world…at least
not these very moments

now consider the reward  of thinking
boustrophedon…come on…stay with
me on this one, for it’s a marvel, and
will prove advantage in a curious life
once you get the knack of it…like
computer glasses…or tapping apps

 

 

there…you  just “boused”…might
tease your eyes a bit at first until you
find the motion knack of it…the plow
of it, like oxen forward backward on
a field, the way some Greeks…some
Romans incised glyphs into their clay

use it now…you’re ready… you…
could try it with van Gogh…his great
“Rain – Auvers”…1890…one from
his final works

start top left…scan seeing thinking
left to right and right to left across
its levels blue to gold to blue…stop
now and then to ponder what he shows
for it will wonder you

and then…there is…his rain

 

Bonnie Marshall

Painting by Vincent van Gogh
“Rain – Auvers” (1890)

extended metaphor…a life flight

we take off and we land
our necessity of days
take on…take off into
the charting of our years
on routes long-established
by others…by ourselves

and we fly passengers…
are attendant to their needs
accordingly in first class…
business…coach…we transport
parcels luggage mail…and we tank
energy to fuel them safely into sky

and we accumulate and jettison desire
not to weigh us heavy into earth…
not to limit soar…not to impair
workings of our parts and send us
crashing into mountains…sinking
into seas…barely reaching shores
we’ve charted on our maps and
lifted to in dreams

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Kaye Bishop