flesh-tone bridge

MAZY CHARTER

The wistful twirling of a yellow leaf

falling from a book of leaves

by the big river.  Waves

of leaves, infinite beyond belief

slanting down through a universe

beyond fall’s azure,

through its perfect mirror

of ineffable air.  The woodpecker’s

not waxwing, but a twin-bird –

matching Thunderbird

like third wing, or word

thing – in Red Wing, we’ve heard.

& they’ve buffed the naked concrete

of the Franklin Bridge

to warm flesh-tone (Wedge

whistling to Jay : almost complete,

they say).  Like hands arching across

the tingling serpent below

someone signals so –

right, all right.  The frail cosmos

is built of moss & dogwood leaves;

made like a dream-song

on a thread so long

from inner lining of young Osip-sleeves.

Hid in a nightfall of Apollon-wrath.

The child-heart trembles

when the chief dissembles –

ice winking in the barrel underneath

                   *

encompassing a land in shambles,

wasted by Behemoth

& Metheboss (cloth-

of-gold twin skimlords, crashing cymbals).

El-Moloch asked for the heart of your son.

For your son the king,

the bloom of everything –

Aztec football in place of the sun.

Apotropaic sign or mirror-pharmakon,

the murmured word of love

becomes a catcher’s glove –

inside-out Osip net (for rescuing someone).

You search the scryptics, yet you

do not come to Me.

Gold almond cider, see?

Where Mendelssohn defeats Deep Blue.

She’s by your side, a kelson, smiling,

spinnaker through gray wall

of seamless cloud – whale

of light fog, swallowing Jonah – a ring

of stone, becoming breathing feathers

for a child of Ocean River,

borne downstream from Neva-

Neva-Heavenland (all-planetary weathers).

Her green eye walks through doors, through gates.

That crossroad in the mirror

overwhelms birth-terror –

seals mazy charter (Liberty checkmates).

9.28.17