green buds are just -

TROMPETTE MARINE

Giuliana opens a ceramic shop

on Ravenna back street.

The “Old Man of Concrete”

surrounded by gray pots of slop

paints himself into a nearby corner;

Giuliana’s little boy

paralyzed (Guillain-Barré?)

plays with his yellow gyroscope.  Her

lover mopes, lost... (ambivalent

professional).  Red Desert,

Deserto Rosso.  Hurt

blooms in the sea-salt spring (Lent...

Easter).  Lofty kind eyes in shadowed

stone (Pantocrator, &

Theotokos) still stare down

from hollow warehouses (A.D. 600).

Green buds are just emerging here,

Psyche, Persephone

in center of the country

(Center, N.D.).  Land mass, a sphere

from sea to sea (theoretically) –

a glop of potter’s clay

in solar roundelay;

Palm Sunday to Good Friday (bloody

travesty, Ford Theatre).  Then

the turtle at the finish line

emerges from the brine

reborn – Rabbit in acute cartoon

(Metamorphosis at Minnaheehee

Falls).  Dante, Beatrice

step through the sun (hey

ey yo) astride Dakota prairie

hoisted on stray lambswool thread

like Vallejo’s poncho

(wheat-gold Paris gaucho-

robe)   or galactic Temple shroud

woven from smoke of calumet

& Camels   (veteran

Guillaume   a crimson crown

swathed round his beaming pate)

so Theseus & Ariadne   circle-dance

the gold pavement   grey Chartres

                   *

matrix   womb of silence

&   clear light   joy of the makers

On an upward path, the labyrinth

becomes a spiral, &

the Minotaur’s command

the envy of a shadow (absinthe

green).  Your quipu-knot records

an anchor weight – the rings

of one stone, tempering

the river-sweeps... only soft words

like flute-sounds, scattered seeds.

Stricken Giuliana,

limping hopeful Natasha –

Nadezhda, too – resilient reeds

walk in solemn palm procession

round the sea-wall

& the sparse green hill;

the bald truth of clay   passion

& its aftermath   high keening

sea-bell   through   seraphic blue

the ultramarine   (Pacific

hue).  Jonah   always coming, going

always being born   out of the waves

of infinite agape

lifts old sails   away

for Columbia   & Liberty   she waves

the light torch   over homely harbors

mangers of refugees

fleeing plaited Caesars

(their cracked saucer seizures)

as the integral of   furnace fiddleheads

the deep-sprung source

of Everyland   smokes Morse

code goodness   penetrating sadness

like undying Hope   into the arms

of Osip   or Goldie the Finch

your friend   in the clinch

of Hart’s woe   John’s alarms

the desolation of a lonely child

a hearth-star   shines for her

the safety net   saves her

Love blazes from the center   wild

onlie-Begetter   mild   trompette marine

4.13.17