1.14.2017

rowing to Kiev


RAZOR BEAK

The human family of human
families – clay
honeycomb array
in earth-colors – aims for a zone

of radiant plenitude – sustained
chord from a horn of plenty,
hived in community –
a milk-&-honey land, ingrained

along a cedar path of goodness
clear as winter air
warm as Apollinaire
chanting his biplane with finesse

Parisienne.  A Spirit of St. Louis
circling the blazing crown
of Liberté floats down
into the eagle-nest of Chartres

whose rose rim complements that Gate
of soaring human freedom
anchored to the thrum
of one great river’s beating heart.

So pictures flicker in the stream
of Mississippi dream
for one forlorn sunbeam
or hazel-mote, her gypsy scheme...

one footloose soul, one rambler
who would be gone from jail
before the frozen hail
of Hitler-Stalin-Xi-Putin (& gambler

Kim Jong-un) congeals into one
mammoth concrete hulk
of tearful despot-sulk –
one massive Man of Unknown

Snowjobs – Don the Golden Duck-
&-Coverling, the Beast
who gives offense the most
& smears the human face with muck.

So honchos of the earth lift up
their horns, a little while;
they cannot reconcile
their pride with that ineffable fop

who spins the elegant galaxies
here to infinity

              *

right from eternity
& lifts the heart to ecstasies

of fellowship & harmony –
the sparkling of justice
mercy   righteousness
high paths of gentle charity

Saturnian rings of human union
knotting the universe
within one Paradise
plainsong (trompette marine).

The turbid tumult of the beaten-down
rattles the reeds, troubles
the swarming crows – bubbles
explode – all the high-flown

rhetoric disintegrates under
the trampling of grass
by panicked herds (alas).
& yet there is another thunder

gathering in clouds above the oaks,
beneath the sea – low hum
of some beehive continuum –
sun-wheel, whose fiery spokes

feather to wings of Thunderbird –
enormous golden shade
whose raptor-beak’s a blade
of dragon-prow – Norsemen’s weird

serpent-egg on river-tree
sailing to Kiev, now –
St. George’s silver plow
upturning soil to poetry

salting the roots of tyranny
to shrivel them at last
beneath a trumpet-blast
of global human sovereignty –

the almond salience of a union-dome
bright coins of humanism
ringing a cataclysm
for every fraudulent kingdom

& every despot on the earth.
This eagle’s razor beak
has just begun to speak –
a tender rain, wisdom & truth.

1.14.17

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