Quick Bright Things

 

quick bright things
traverse thought
from outside in
to inside out

revealing implication
like apples ready … dropped
and gravity implied

they slip receptive
to our mind from
this is that to …
perhaps  … that is this

like rainbow shades
from sunshine rain
that prismed thought
so then was found … eventually
a frequency in starlight

yes, we think quick bright
from outside in and inside out
now … then … this … that

life is a quick bright thing
think this world
to the next

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork: Anonymous
“Flammarion” 1888

soul I tear

 

these days my brain
is incessant solitaire…
it flips present moment
into bits and pieces
through a shuffled time

no matter…luck of the draw…
my flimsy card slip apprehension
plays sequential consequence of now
with all time wasted…scattered to a table
where a three dimensioned plane
is littered with distraction

oh…there is no damnation…none

somewhere beyond this sphere
that pulls upon me…holds me down
spreads immensity of space
where stars collapse and recombine
in chaos of a deep design
I cannot think to think

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Salvador Dali

green grazing pastures

keep silent…silent…and listen
listen…to these words…sieve
for wisdom like your need for breathing air,
then, when you speak…sing arias of words
with silver clarity like the ringing of a coin

dance meaning with your hands arms shoulders
for they’re the angels of your mind…they’re the
touching and the pinching and the caressing reach
for a human amplitude

pace the walking of your days for new risk
to follow comfort paths to exploration
where stepping is tentative to bold with
the going and the coming of a rich intent

bless the beating of your heart…touch
its stroking in your pulse…note its rippling
under the dear marvel of your skin

engage more life aware…splash cool water
on your face…your arms…your neck…
from the kitchen faucet, from the garden hose,
from the river, from the lake, from the sea…
to feel brisk…awake

Bonnie Marshall

Poem Reading: Permission of Kenneth Brauchler

Artwork by Richard Diebenkorn

as at a birthing

spread day clean within your mind…
unfold it into waves of knowing
from first waking to the geometry
of room…of so many rectangles
predictable in place behind the clutter

rouse day with frequency of sounds
of wind in trees…of traffic motor rub;
enact the pretense it is waves abrading
shore…a white noise wash irregular
as driftwood of first thoughts

smooth initial moments…lift
them…easy…to shower warmth
then rough cotton them to life
as at a birthing

 

Bonnie Marshall
Art by John Singer Sargent

the complex easy

he sketched her…soft grounded her dark
to pale from his pen…from his spider brain…
and I procured a  numbered print of her
to hang spot lit in the downstairs hall…

his face turned slouching woman… awkward
back stretch angled on rectangles of chair

I recess lit her stark frameless to
a cream white wall…and for a month
or two we lived together…amiably
and then began disquiet for I
no longer studied her…no longer
lit or looked at her

I could not hum mutter whistle her
being present simple in my complexities
of wrinkled cotton islands on wood dusty
floors, my mismatched shoes upon the
stairs…my stale racked stacked emails
my listless voice-ed messages cued
faceless in my cell

she haunted me…and then epiphany…
I turned her almost upside down…
spilled her comfortable into the complex
easy of my life

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork by Richard Diebenkorn