Time in the Full of Empty

 

these are times for vases
I’ll leave vacant
and not cut the roses lilies daffodils
blooming in my garden

 I’ll feed house crickets to the song finch
for this is its molting season
it will sing again … or die
like the crickets
time

once a dove flew against my window
to drop hurt … still breathing
I caged and healed it
watched it orient and fly
watched it taloned by a diving hawk
time

oh,  now is time in the full of empty
when smiles are merely stretch-ed lips
and fog trails from my fingertips
and I wear his slippers

 I shall sit upon my lawn
close to the roses lilies daffodils
and breath the fragrance
of invisible of presence

 

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Qi Baishi

Charring Bell

 

 

 

we glance appraised
and bought us with a gaze
intended … intimate … a vow
to mingle sweat and breath

oh, we were dream inebriates
intemperate of passion hours
intoxicating days

now in more sober concert
we play a carillon of years
blent together in a chord
of belled unbroken melody

we are smoke within our whiskey
flavor linger charred bond
savoring our fine distinctions
distill tuned within our love

 

Bonnie Marshall
Artist: Hoitsu Sakhi

Dear Readers:  Reception of my second book of poetry, Chance and Timing, on Amazon.com  is quite heartening.  The old “word of mouth” and the new social media avenues seem to be working.  Should you purchase a copy, let me know so I may thank you. Even if not,  I appreciate your comments and “likes” very much.   Smiles … Bonnie

 

Into a Flight of Arcane Meaningless

 

should it be arcane to think Fibonacci numbers
push to inevitable distance … inexorable with
a gravid thought … then I shall gladly play
that hand … though no mathematician I
to cover walls with numbers spiraled for design

content am I to squander solitaire progression
of numbered cards upon a plane for nothing
is at stake … neither wealth nor fame nor love
for it is abstraction distraction’s swirling center
emptiness of real

content am I to count knives forks spoons
into a sectioned drawer … not toss them
disarrayed onto my kitchen table in a heap
of tangled angles of imprecision art

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork: Henri Matisse
“Golden Rectangle”  Antonio Gutierrez

 

Note to always valued readers … A second volume to follow The Taste of Bees in Honey will be available at Amazon next month in August.  This revised poem will be included there.  Smiles …

 

 

To Lucid Dream You

 

if awake is land … and sea is sleep
and shore is verging orient
a borderland … like autumn
where drowsy now seams next
and dream is litter strewn

and shard shell vision trace
and sea grass drifting mood
and torn thought wrack
tide luminous in waves

then I shall lucid dream you
float lambent in two spheres
sense presence of your undertow,
and surrender to the riptide
of your oblivion

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artist: Claude Monet

Note to readers … Reception of The Taste of Bees in Honey is most decidedly good. To those who purchased a copy through Amazon, I am very grateful.    I send special appreciation to those generous and kind people who wrote reviews.

I’ve been composing a second volume which should be available in the next few months.  “To Lucid Dream You” will be included there.

To Love Like Alchemists

 

 

They … love like alchemists
choosing costly feeling shades
from their essential palate
reduced in the immediate
to rare precious elements
they refine like lead to gold.

She … pinches saffron pistils
in cool morning harvests
their moist crimson threads
she finger tips from crocus
to distill a golden savor
to increase their passion.

He …  plucks iridescent beetles
from arid desert cacti
choice dew sipping jewels
he pestles in a mortar
with salt and oil to scarlet
for their lips and kisses.

They … from Grecian cliffs
pick spiny snails
to milk for Tyrian dye.

They … stain purple love knots
upon each other’s wrists
and a place upon the neck
to reify lacunae.

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Peter Lee