A Dominance of Lines

 

 

In Spring, when Aeolus breathes
across their farms, girls boys lift
diamond butcher paper balsa wood
tied kites into his breath to feel out
currents, pull and sway…to test for
dominance of distance draft and lift.

Should such taunting pastime flag…
especially when Zeus streaks bolts
of lightning from his distant clouds…
their sporting turns to trouting with
live worms on hooks on lines on fish
poles by Naiades’ stream, in wordless
rivalry for the longest rainbow…best
tussle with a catch…finesse in reeling
out a gasping fish onto the grass.

When distant shouts bell whistle,
or the slant of shadow from a tree,
summon them to home, they end
camaraderie for one last sport…
these young contenders on a field.

They grasp hands tight slippery
with dirt spit sweat…link a ragged
crack-the-whip-snap for one last
quick elbow jab, foot trip, arm jerk,
stubbed toe, let go, fall dizzy to the
ground…as they play out their mythic
childhood of no tears, first middle last,
win lose…high tension…limit testing
dominance of lines.

 

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Winslow Homer, 1872

 

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)

Money Mecca in the Desert

Money mecca first is glow behind dark hills
then flames to razzle-dazzle boulevards of sidewalked
believers seeing visions…offering flashing idols
metal paper plastic…handing chips and cards to proxies
in temples where prayers of the faithful…please god please
rise to heaven through tobacco incense haze toward
all seeing watchers over them.

Where devotion…caffeine stoked…blurs lines
of day and night as acolytes peak intensity
with alcohol and speed, and where testosterone
sifts in city air to blend with auto fumes.
Where dulled disciples receive comfort
at the altars of buffet, and toss trample
paper icons of nude gods and goddesses
offered from street stationed church of
Eros zealots.

Where each Monday, delegated deacons
follow morning rites, bag chips left in
collection plates at Sunday’s mecca churches,
appear at the temples’ gates for a ritual
of redemption.

Bonnie Marshall

 

Artwork by Leroy Neiman

I Know Him Like He Knows His Name

When I hear e nerve its sting in needle
the power of my thinking in the margin
makes skin prick on my scalp
there just behind my ears…
and I feel the tiniest annoyance
in my brain corners as I read of births
where mere Roman numerals confer lineage
prestige and preferment nearly royal
to a new born son…and I sense resentment dash
my female mind, for it is rarely daughter true.

There’s mystic power in a name…
shades of understanding that a Debbie
is not Deborah, and a Jimmie is not James.
And, when I asked Sam if he liked his name
or would ever change it…he looked away,
eyes hooded like a lizard in the sun,
and took long slow breaths and smiled.

“I’m glad they named me Sam…ever since
some green egg story Mother read me
when I learned that Sams know how
to question and to listen…take notice
how people change their mind and it’s
no matter…not like a Theophilus…although
a Theo might stay to hear you for a while.”

Then I remember…thinking just behind my ears
and in nether margins of my brain how amply
absolutely fits his name no sham am is Sam.

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Anastasia Tversky

 

call to arms

the young expect it…
some slow hunch that
a tension easing break
will come with evening
before their commitment to
the letting go of sleep

then a rooftop trumpeter
plays his call to arms
to fast gather them
intent…with pillows
to join the chaos
now forming in the yards

hilarity grows slowly as
they shuffle restless feet
circling…anticipating…with
darting eyes and muscles taut
waiting…waiting for the blast
to charge…charge…charge them
into raucous cushioned battle

to aim high… feint low,
launch the forced blow,
lash grab swing to falling,
let fly epithets and groans
and moans and laughter
and victory shouting as
foam and feathers fill
arenas of their passion
neediness

Bonnie Marshall