All Manner of Things

 

as needful to our being,
we partake of the essential
nourishment of air and water
and swallowing of bread and milk
and savoring of salt

we endure the sufferance
of idle conversation dispersed to nothing
(god, keep me from the spider’s web)
and abide time’s slide to otherness

so that if and when our worlds disperse
in gravity of a quasar blasting passion
and firm new courses in existence
frighten us with strangeness

then we shall hold to knowing
that breath means life
and water is abundant absolution
and bread and milk are nurturing
and salt … is preserving certainty
of  friendship … wisdom … love

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Pieter Claesz, 1644

 

against constraint…the descants

prairie fever

windburst currents furrow prairie mounds
sweep Big Bluestem tallgrass into havoc
confuse Brown-eyed Susans into bowing
spell wet sheets on a line to bone dry

storm clouds, bruise gray, cells growing
charge atmosphere with ozone’s bleach aroma,
and lightning tongues…impersonal…predict
likelihood of a tornado’s visit

there…homesteaders fearing madness
from infinity of space and scarcity of talk
cling to one another…whisper prayers
and listen on the porch to cricket tremble
and await the onset of a prairie fever

Bonnie Marshall

Note: Prairie Fever, a mental health condition,  occurred when homesteaders on the Great Plains endured limited contact with others.

if it were to be

if it were to be
it would be now…
surf the deep-sea wave
swelling the horizon…
lock to the moment…
signal for release
into a zone where shouts
and jet ski throttle
disperse to silence

plummet from the brink
down…down…down
as if a cable snapped…
rip the board against
a gathering sea wall
where sound becomes
white noise…then
thrumming of the plane
chih-chih, chih-chi

surf its kinetic change…
slant horizontal left
mere seconds in the barrel…
spit through for chase and beat down
in whitewater crashing far from shore
he now is…
surface spent in foam
awed to awareness core
complete in a being moment
prompt of circumstance

Bonnie Marshall

she dares her world

a red geranium
once on her windowsill
dries to lifeless
in the rain barrel
withers like their chickens
and their cows
and their children…

long Kansas drought
where anything with lungs
breathes dusty air
and infants cough brown spots
and locusts gnaw ax handles
and black-widow spiders
spin erratic webs
beneath dresser drawers

as Oklahoma…Texas
blow from dirt horizons
break to silting layers
sift finely into slits
through doors and roofs and windows
muffle sounds…drift into mounds

when John enters from the barn
she swears he breathes dust smoke
through his pale cracked lips…
he says wind makes her crazy
not crazy…

she slips behind a screen
confirms there is no red
from a monthly flow
dreams of April
and prairie grass
spreading green again
across the gray…
and dares her world to blow away

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Joan Fullerton

small act of mercy

what the hell she do that for
her goldfish on the desk
gasped for life…still water glistening
its gill slits opened… closed
to sip burning oxygen

my fish…just felt like doing it
experiment…a testing of their nerve
perhaps they’d let it die this year
not buck authority…and teach is boss
her property…and she’s a crazy woman
to dip her hand into the bowl
to kill in front of them

hey….do something
some dying in its eye
a slowing will to breathe
no thrashing in its tail
no cavalry in sight

oh, Christ…I’ll do it
he splashed it to the bowl
it floated on its side

it’s dead…
then awareness righting
and orienting thrust to
claim its element

it’s yours now…
her implication dawned
some cheered…some jeered
his rash accomplishment…
she left it to them to think
the sense or nonsense of it
and…she never lost a fish

Bonnie Marshall

Note to dear Readers…this is a true story.

 

Artwork by Color Jar

The Women Descants

After Her Divorce

After her divorce…
she lived with paintings
rented month to month…
much like borrowed books
or casual acquaintance.
She bought flowers freshly cut,
not plants…for she would stay
distant from commitment.

Leased one vaguely abstract
yellow peach green blue
March to June…still with
no long-term contract,
and no binding promise…
she placed it on a bedroom
wall to cover gouges there.

March…day and day after,
all seeming arbitrary,
drew her in the night to
Rorschach introspection
of that painting’s certitude,

until one April morning
when sunshine lit it golden…
she sensed tumblers fall
within assurance locks.

She patched the bedroom wall in May,
moved that painting to her den
to hang it where it would not fade.
In June she bought the thing.

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Maeve Harris

 

not graffiti prone

handprints on fresh paint
impetuous gesture
my handprints on fresh paint…
why not use aerosol
to claim that wall…
then I reflect
that women are not
graffiti prone

where is their fire
to cast life drawn large
across imagined space
like Michelangelo’s
naked…sacred homilies
scraped and frescoed
on a Sistine dome

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by banksy

 A Wilderness in Women

I’m old…
I can tell you this.
Women need wilderness
…especially when they’re young.
For in wilderness they learn
not to trust worn maps;
and to swim cold streams
when bridges are down.

In wilderness…
they hear honest sounds,
know when nestlings cry
for raw, sustaining flesh
they’re healthy calls,
…not the noise of whining.
And on the day they die,
women raised in wilderness
whisper remembered songs
to take them from this world
to the next.

Bonnie Marshall
Revised September, 2013

Artwork by Balthasar Denner

Down from the Pedestal

Grief showers
chilled her
to immobility
there in the middle
of a crowded city sidewalk.
I’m lost without him.
Don’t know where I’m going.

No medical emergency,
it was a sorrow spell
where street sounds
turned to hissing
a static in the senses.
I cannot move…
I’m statue…

Now, for this living Galatea
there was no longer
a Pygmalion
to smooth her into life
with his strong, warm hands.
Is this what dying is?
Am I invisible?

“WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, LADY!”

The rough jostle
shook her mind
back to awareness,
and city sounds and colors
merged to coherency.

She resumed walking.
Steps…just steps.
I’m taking steps…
down from the pedestal.

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Childe Hassam

Lincoln Descants

Smolder in the Marble

his hands
at the memorial
are rumored signing
his initials…how crass
how uncomprehending
is his sculptor to imply
such conceited vanity

so out of touch
with that great man
who smolders in the marble
gaunt framed, grim,
distracted…
with those famous hands
tense primed to intent,
hard work knuckled…swollen
from a thousand signings
and the wrestling
with a nation
* * * * *

Greatcoat

There is a gray quilted lining
for his black wool greatcoat
where an emblematic eagle
spreads defensive wings
as from its beak furl two banners:
“One Country”…”One Destiny.”

Yes…it is that greatcoat
the one he wore that night…
that awful night.

As he occasionally laughed
at the comedy below,
he became distracted
by a sudden chill.

He retrieved that greatcoat
to chase the cold away,
wrapping his tall spare frame
in the eagle and the banners.

Then oblivion of mind
while his strong heart kept beating
beneath the useless warmth
where an eagle spread its wings
above one country…one destiny.

* * * * *

The Gaze

the gaze…
the penetrating awareness
the importance of the moment
for he still held his glasses…a pencil
to stay his body for a camera shot
just as if he knew…he knew
this picture would be the forever
look at us…at us…years to future
as if to say… this… is who I am

 

Bonnie Marshall

Photo Credits:
The Gaze: Photographer, Alexander Gardner, February 5, 1865
Greatcoat: National Park Services, Ford’s Theater Lincoln Museum
Smolder in the Marble: Sculptor/Designer, Alexander Chester French