Bonnard: A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn and one in which to practice his art. Dickinson in a letter to Sue: We are the only poets and everyone else is prose.
Savage gardens bend quiet as a mouse. It’s nine o’clock under the ticking bell. If this is the afterlife then I must be in heaven. I thought he was dead but he is alive; he thought he was alive but he is dead; like William Blake and Emily.
The sting of dusting a butterfly’s wing. Desire purrs like an owl singing at the moon. I imagine what it would be like to sit next to you in that room while aluminum wings fly me to you. Knocking on the door looking out a window she writes the score in sand: Shelly and her Frankincense.
Crystal beans tipsy on nectar blow North searching for the sparrow’s heart before it dies of cold; I lift an empty cup to lips while changing form, growing wings. A blackbird taking place of a dove.
I’ve seen you before have we met?
Your face is familiar your dress complete.
I’ve seen you before but not sure where?
Perhaps in a moment that turned into fate
I’m sorry does this upsets you?
The turning of dusk.
Passing the chorus in a straight line of golden thread, they stop to look behind while catching breath. Take these tears to the swallow with honeydew for wings.
Fetch me a bracelet with inverted spears; wrap my wrist until the skin breaks. The blood of stigmata forms iridescent shine on each black feather, as we dine under a falling star.
Pick up the lone quill and document this reading, as I put on the red shoes, trading water for electric bees. We met the moment turned to fate; I’m sorry if it is too late. As your voice turns the next theory, wearing a black bracelet with silver stars, hands grip obsidian plastic covers, hard.
A memory buried in the black soil of dry bone leans down with regret. The man who held snow to melt absolution is praying like the mantis to a spoonful of inspiration. Identity is lost, given away to the beast who held my broken heart.
The soldier who gave me faith, forever grateful, you led the way sacrificing heaven for fear. Waiting for sound of distant fire like a snake. A soldier in the field does not feel the heat as that soldier just took his last breath.
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Maggie Hall is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and writer who lives in the coastal suburb of Merewether, Newcastle, NSW Australia with a degree in Fine Arts, Master of Creative Industries, and other related studies. Her practice enlists the application of pattern and behaviour through each chosen medium. Ms. Hall traditionally works through a stream of consciousness between each form of art and chosen script and her craft covers the visual arts; written; ekphrastic; and symbolic translation. During these times of isolation and metamorphic social change she has been an active member in the global online community of the poetic arts.
From the artist: “With intuition as my guide, and an awareness of artistic tradition, I attempt to reveal a presence that may give us clues to what is living between the real and unreal. I am not seeking a form of aesthetic contemplation, but a way of guidance, and my art is the documentation of this search.”
Lightwood 