Mark Bonica
White Out
the wind blows the powdered snow
from about the season-worn graves
of the Puritan dead.
the white squalls cross the asphalt in my headlights
like ghosts -
ghosts rushing about on their knees.
they leave trails of snow
where the road would have drawn blood:
sin still enrages them
even as I pass through their prayers
on into darkness.
Falling Away
It is late fall in the world.
We dangle our legs off the dock above a river somewhere.
The water is doing its moving/not moving thing
of being here and on its way elsewhere.
Everything but the river and the dock begins to fade away:
first the things behind us become like smoke
because we are not holding them in place with our gaze,
then the trees on the far bank become hazy,
and even as they drift downriver like vapor
we look skyward and see that the blue has dissolved
leaving a starry blackness.
We are now flowing through the universe,
powered by the river's gentle current.
You lay back, feeling the wood through your t-shirt
against your shoulder blades,
and you begin to count the stars.
I look down river to where we have been –
it seems impossible to look up river
as that would be to know something before it happened,
which of course
is not possible.
Mark Bonica was a soldier once, and young, but neither of these anymore. Instead, he teaches at the University of New Hampshire, where he enjoys helping launch young people on their own grand adventures. His poetry and fiction have appeared in the Loch Raven Review, Words Dance, Oak Bend Review, Vagabondage, and others.
White Out
the wind blows the powdered snow
from about the season-worn graves
of the Puritan dead.
the white squalls cross the asphalt in my headlights
like ghosts -
ghosts rushing about on their knees.
they leave trails of snow
where the road would have drawn blood:
sin still enrages them
even as I pass through their prayers
on into darkness.
Falling Away
It is late fall in the world.
We dangle our legs off the dock above a river somewhere.
The water is doing its moving/not moving thing
of being here and on its way elsewhere.
Everything but the river and the dock begins to fade away:
first the things behind us become like smoke
because we are not holding them in place with our gaze,
then the trees on the far bank become hazy,
and even as they drift downriver like vapor
we look skyward and see that the blue has dissolved
leaving a starry blackness.
We are now flowing through the universe,
powered by the river's gentle current.
You lay back, feeling the wood through your t-shirt
against your shoulder blades,
and you begin to count the stars.
I look down river to where we have been –
it seems impossible to look up river
as that would be to know something before it happened,
which of course
is not possible.
Mark Bonica was a soldier once, and young, but neither of these anymore. Instead, he teaches at the University of New Hampshire, where he enjoys helping launch young people on their own grand adventures. His poetry and fiction have appeared in the Loch Raven Review, Words Dance, Oak Bend Review, Vagabondage, and others.
