the crumbling infrastructure of democracy

TURTLE-DOME

On Coney Island of the West

in Lake Waconia

some paraphernalia

of archaeological interest

has surfaced.  Shards, arrowheads

of prehistoric hunters

peek from beachcombers’

pebble-piles, a gravel shed’s

debris (shale chips, random limestone

scrap).  America

was born of such disjecta

membranes.  Origins are alien.

The poem is gratuitous.

Nature is useless too –

a toy made out of blue

marble, flotsam, detritus.

Ocean is grey as morning twilight.

Clouds, frail shells, gull-

feathers.  Breakers roll

the whole toward a more perfect

Union (not quite).  The whole thing

needs but the slightest

nudge to knock the rest

into a nest of lovable, hurtling

good will... like Roger Williams’

Rogues’ Island – Rog’s

Island – paradox

of durable Rose Lighthouse beams

                     *

outlasting slander & contempt

spilled from sharp fork-

tongued human mark-

of-Cain mistrust.  None be exempt,

Pilgrim.  We all fall in the ditch

led by Venetian blinds men.

We have to clamber again

toward mutual forgiveness (each

to each) if we would be free, just

free (happy).  Restore

the crumbling infrastructure

of democracy – liable to rust –

with a sense of gratitude... play!

This is the order of the day

quadratic creatures cry

mounted on the fiery rim of a sky-

born Thunderbird.  Red Wing

was where she landed –

one cosmic six-handed

octahedral diamond bling-a-ling

like a yellow gyroscope   spinning

from the calyx of a rose

aubade   the center glows

with its own light... the winning

smile   an Okie restoration

out of an almond shell

riding her great sea-swell

vast   turtle-dome   Reunion

3.13.17