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

 

For Their Deserving Notions

she told me…
she…being my Mother…one day at Church…
never to place a book upon a Holy Bible
and her caveat stays me…to this day,
though not like The Ten Commandments
that I should not break…for the No Book
on Top caution was Her bent, not mine

he told me…
he…being a law student Prince from Africa
that his Father…the Kisi tribal King…told him
his oath on a bible in a British court was illegal
for it’s someone else’s foreign sacred thought
yet…a Human Blood Oath…now That to him
was Holy…not indifferent like a beer oath, or
one sworn with chicken blood, depending
as they did, upon individual intent

on occasion when I shelve my Books
aged faintly aromatic vanilla almond hay,
the ones I cherish near me place to place…
their sweet fragrance on occasion keys my
Saturday remembrance of Mother…me…on
Communion Service duty in a damp Church
basement breaking shortbread wafers onto
silver plated trays…and pouring  grape juice
into tiny plastic cups

I drank the Blood…I ate the Body

my Mother banished me

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Welsh Dragon

my star is in Electra

 

 

my star is in Electra…
my place in the Pleiades…in Taurus
where I’m B6174556 etcetera because
he gifted it to me…gilt framed registered
on parchment one year for my birthday

gave me a cosmos print complete
with triangulated lines centered to my
spark so I shall know where I always am
and where I’ve always been and always…
where I’ll be nailed to a hallway wall with
a painted still life and family photographs

no matter…I’m no believer…I shall cast within
the cosmos of my mind…watch dry crystal hurricanes,
hear clang of three tone chimes brake scrape like trains,
breathe deep rum raspberry gunpowder charred steak
and welding fumes in that so iced and flamed a world

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Kenneth Brauchler