hobo takes upward path

ITASCA SPRINGS

This deep translucent honeycomb,

this palimpsest of green

beside the bronze serpent

of midmost river, mother-stream.

Hobo must climb from his log-bed

of lassitude & diffidence.

He sees the circumference

of his enormous creaking sad

forsaken solitary double

ferris wheel – his rusted

rose or Island Road,

a lonely spark of conscience-trouble

(ancient Roger Williams port

for Puritan & exiled

Quaker, reconciled

by Narragansett welcome-heart).

He must un-knot his mumbling

& speak to the res publica.

Tender Mnemosyne

leans like a wispy cedar, trembling

against the scorpion-twister

of learned viciousness

& bland unconsciousness –

conceited treason like a blister-

burn, compound of avarice

& vanity – unreason

squawking each lesson

through megaphones of fraudulence

                  *

– corpse-flowers of corruption

breeding in rotten logs

of oligarchy – hogs

& coyotes preying on the children

of the designated sacrifice

(the under-underclass

under the overpass,

who pay for our convenience – twice).

The Minotaur of twisted love

contorts against grace,

O Hamlet Falcon-Ace –

his den of hate-mark drove the dove

out of her rightful nesting-place.

Her forum of good will –

Columbian windowsill

of human fellowship (Dante’s

& Aristotle’s animale

compagnevole) – sheds

reflective limestone beds

of ever-new Itasca springs (ey

yo) out of unfathomable depths

of Manitou-benevolence

(Ghost who in silence

walks beside you, sweet Princeps).

Ophelia, Horatio, Francesco,

Juliet... heart-Jonahs

surfacing from Okeanos –

anchored fresco-arc astride Frisco.

5.4.17