In Vocation of the Muse II: by Bonnie McClellan

In my map of things you are confounded with
grey-green clouds
pressing against
bright ground,
like Shiva’s foot.
Creating – uncreating
spring.

Though properly your colours belong
to summer of golden
gulf-beach sand and
blazing,
hephaestian-hematite sweat
against the cuffs and
collar of
field, cotton white and
August sky or shallow
water running over
stones.

Water running over stones - copyright Matthew Broussard 2006

Implied subject || sottofondo: by Bonnie McClellan

It is the thing that lies under
under lies
below the foundation
like a time signature
signalling in silence:
there
there
there
there
we are.

È la cosa che sta sotto
sotto    stante.
sotto il fondo.…….
come il tempo quaternario
segnalando in silenzio
ci……..
ci……..
ci……..
ci……..
siamo.

On the occasion of the municipality posting a letter asking people to pay their cemetery dues – by Bonnie McClellan

On the occasion of the municipality posting a letter asking people to pay their cemetery dues

 

Boxes of disremembered bones

expatriated into/out of locus

sad berth

the heartbreak of a January

blossoming cherry.

Paranoia by Bonnie McClellan

Paranoia

 

Her eyes slide to the side

like a Sienese saint

Painted by the brothers who died in the plague

back when there were 100 stories to tell

while bodies rotted,

left where they fell.

Escape into a place where

 we can’t smell

we can’t feel

we can’t fear

But she’s convinced it’s coming:

selfie snapping

facial mapping

the lost weekend

the bottom

of the barrel.

 

Three Saints (oil on panel) by Lorenzetti