we must carve a consensus

MOON-SHADOW

The Seekers gathered on the shore

of Providence River.

Canonicus (Indian giver)

steered them to festal hearth, & more.

Warm wholeness, understood by all.

We must carve a consensus

like log canoe, he says.

All flows from Manitou – not full

of vanity & pride, but like

a farmer in disguise –

gentle kenosis-

metamorphosis (Nokomis Lake).

The raging trickster flings flaming

orange bars into stream

burnt like a furnace-dream –

a grasping Minotaur, defaming

Imogen... moon-shadow (of the sun

of Man).  Eurydice,

Psyche...  Clover’s Henri,

en camouflage (homespun)...

Light on the river frames a simple

cloverleaf of spring.

Fond Pocahontas-swing

where fern unfurls (from ample

fiddlehead to wavy palm).

Whisper me back to you,

Morning.  The crown’s U-

turn rivets an oak bee-hum.

11.30.17

the ordinary Union

KNIT WOOL

                 Eternity, O Eternity! That is our business.

                                                       – Roger Williams

She watches crows play in the sky

above her balcony.

Her dregs of memory

transmute to gaiety, give death the lie.

Cautantowwit was Raven-Lord

of Narragansetts.  Old

Canonicus told

Roger how dead souls were borne toward

Mexico, far off southwest...

Rog quilled it down.

That chief of great renown

was kind to him.  Knit wool is best

around head, limbs & heart

when winter ice descends.

I’m dreaming, friends.

One campfire (circling) is all my art.

The Red Wing river-clay is heavy,

as my mother knows.

O the harsh blows

that fall like thunder (Romeo, Julie)...

The body’s weight is catenary

Golden Gate (so

Jasper shows).  Blow,

Manitou... bring back the glory

of the ordinary Union.  It shall be

– when we return to Thee,

from sea to shining sea –

uncommon good (benevolent Eternity).

11.29.17

Thanksgiving cranberries

11 million light-years from Rhode Island

MORNING DEW

They’ve found another habitable planet

just in time for Thanksgiving –

around Ross 128, winking

only 11 million light-

years from Rhode Island (quiet

little red dwarf, dreaming

on its milky way).  Wing

me back to Pilgrim days... what

legend for a habitable continent

will do, now that we seem

to have gone off the beam

as human beings?  Erect a tent

for native & for refugee?

Bring in the gratitude

we understand is owed?

Who will say grace for grace?  Who, me?

The source of wonder is a mystery.

Great Rio del Espiritu

begins as wellspring too –

the stream itself is but a simile

for that invisible soul-smile

we sense, walking along

(like an unearthly song

or ghost of melody).  That aisle

of poplars on a shoreline trail...

the morris dance we trod

beneath your dome of gold

sunlight, O angel of Emanu-El...

                  *

– as when Natasha’s limping stride

befriended one forlorn

poet.  Teacher, librarian...

Philology’s sweet sister-bride...

a soul-companion, by your side.

Flowers are immortal,

& tomorrow... is for all –

Love’s welling fountain will abide.

Autumn is in the air.  Ides

of November, by the iron

Eads Bridge.  Low sun,

harsh crows.  Temperature slides.

That legend of Thanksgiving Day

(tables for everyone,

Pilgrim & Indian)

echoes via dream-song roundelay –

Henry, Hobo – Hart, John Berryman –

Dante, at Ravenn –

Black Elk, Martin...

reeling in Psyche-Restoration;

bright Rhodos-Imogen of Liberty

harbored in moss-green

robes of copper sheen;

the rippling well of Lincoln penny

radiating hopeful trust (humility).

An arc out of river water

sparkles like dancing laughter –

morning dew splashing basilica (for free).

11.16.17

matrix of the capital

TINY ANCHOR

Charles L’Enfant painted a watercolor

panorama, 14 inches

by 7 feet long, which shows

the Continental Army by the Hudson River

at Verplanck’s Point (1782).

Its curator (Phil Mead)

once noticed what appeared

to be a mini-tepee notched in view –

looking vaguely familiar...

why?  That very canvas

tent (George Washington’s)

was standing in a nearby corner

of his own museum.  From tiny sketches

mighty plants may grow –

L’Enfant would later sow

the plans for D.C.’s marble stretches

(George’s tent of meeting thus

the matrix of the capital).

We are all infants, after all.

Whence comes this rolling wondrous

theatre in the round?  Each regiment

on the accompanying chart

plays its own part –

a seahorse anchor figuring Rhode Island

(Providence for African, Native 

American recruits).

Even Okean has roots –

one sign given, that we might live

                  *

like Jonah (which means turtledove)

descending, by enormous

& galactic routes

from lambent & egalitarian beehive

on high – the very cosmopolitan

& chaste kingdom of God –

chaste, as out of Novgorod

by way of Osip (Mandelstamian)...

Each local soul circles toward Providence

as moth toward firelight.

Only fly right

into the center of her blazing salience –

you’ll see the laws of city & country

meld to conformity

with that great mutuality

Martin proclaimed – God’s wakan charity.

                  *

This lonely river-path of Hobo

down the sky’s time-lapse

touches a key, perhaps.

His mother’s clay is rolling, so;

out of that gray whale’s brow of sadness

flows a solidarity

escried by Raven – see?

Au mer... À Mère I caw (southwest,

southwest)... Cautantowwit, or Noah’s

pilot, feeding crumbs...

deep distant drums

of Thunderbird.  Silence (Cahokia’s).

11.15.17

evening of the year

TIRED HAND

November is the evening of the year.

Peasants in Bruegel scenes,

old Hobo has-beens

cluster by each barnyard bonfire.

Smells of farm & mill & stream,

the salt of drying fish.

Legends of Gilgamesh,

Leviathan.  Earth’s drowsy dream

wherein these van der Weyden faces

peer, like wildflowers

(like elemental creatures).

Matrix of sky & sea places,

of perishable limestone prints

from whence a soul emerges

smiling... Demiurge’s

horsehair, flickering (Francesca’s hints).

Medieval bread & wine of things.

Cascade of bridges over

other bridges – river

washing under massive rings.

The solidarity of timebound

beasts, breathing together

under whip, rein, tether.

Muddy, between Arch & Mound

looms... pregnant with Spiritu.

What Piero knew,

Bruegel & Jasper too –

shade-palm, surrounding you

                    *

& me – stretching toward Pacific blue.

I layer watercolors so,

over crepuscular canoe

hid in Italian garage (one almond clue).

The limestone waterfalls in Rimini

like tears across a scallop-

sign.  The curtains drop,

the veil gives way... a human unity

of suffering is all our play.

Da Vinci, with tired hand

limns one command –

love one another, every day.

For we are one.  A multitude,

personified.  Benevolent

Ancient of Days bent

each into the mirror’s flood,

together – riverflow of heart-

veins from the earth

welling to fiery hearth –

lenticular sunset, plangent cloud-art.

So spinning from primordial rose

the golden maize of Chartres

guides you to its Artist...

Daedalus, not Minotaur; Grace

Ravlin, not some puppet-master

in the Kremlin.  Shadow

of Mona Lisa grin... you

rise before the fall (Easter).

11.10.17

hurrah for the green black & blue

DREAM SONGS

Early cold air makes light more clear

toward Veteran’s Day.

Only whisper a ray

through the Mexican mirror, my hero (here

& now).  Who gave a last full measure

to the metronome of fate –

her solemn bell drones late

over these midnight hexagons (white hair

of graves).  Whisper it back to me,

quietly, quietly.  Dark

wake of Noah’s Cutty Sark,

trailing to Southern Cross, Black Sea.

Your raven circles to the end of speech.

These crumbs will be enough.

Twin shoulders lift the rough

yoke – walk a path to Ocean Beach.

A stone like diamond lost in Voronezh –

gray pebble, agate

hidden in the gate...

forged fate of Man as Uncle George

the Unknown Soldier... gardener

outside her smithy-cave,

their humus-world to save.

Come in.  These stones weather

Siberian winter – like Finnish sauna

finished in Hyperborea;

out of Lake Victoria

or Sydney, Australia (hurrah

                  *

for the green black & blue)... faint echo

out of Mexico,

where all the monarchs go.

The earth will be redeemed... but very slow.

Up the street from your view of heaven

in another neighborhood

hearts hard for good

pitch darkness toward Pacific Union –

money grooves & spectral hates

congeal in orange ogre-

hats... scared morgue-

hacks... guile of guppy hypocrites...

All politics is local, sez.

In Minneapolis

black is really less

skin in the game (the realtor biz);

up at the lake, the fishermen

cash in their walleyes;

hunters in disguise

carry the venison for Uncle Ben

(Rice Lake).  The joker’s going wild.

He’s up by White Bear –

FBI got there?

Over near Mound – which bullets?  Piled?

Dream songs must leave behind the fear,

greed, hate.  Earth clay is one,

& Manitou is

done (for today).  Help with the bier?

11.9.17

in the grave of the Griffin Warrior

SERPENT THREADS

A stone in the grave of the Griffin Warrior.

Lowly agate (rough

exterior).  What

unknown soldier, pebble on the shore

flung from what Cretan Argo-prow

lay crypted here?

His name’s no more.

Near-sighted magnifying glasses show

how microscopic serpent-threads

wound round the pommel

of a vanquished blade – whorl-

vortex of a maze from Hell (where heads

will roll).  The Minotaur is in –

will see you now.  He’s you.

A stone makes hearty stew,

you know (a wilderness of sin).

The kilty boys are losers here,

for once – the codpiece wins,

his dagger thrusting in... so

war defines its atmosphere.

The agate labyrinth congeals,

like threads of matière

Bretagne.  Lodged somewhere

in the brain – with royal seals

& white election... Hamlet’s pause

(like Abraham’s)... the sword

held back by muttered word

to brand an emerald chimp’s impasse

                  *

with emblems of a lost accord.

‘Tis way of the world, alas –

each fence a sacrifice

for peace (a chain-link, scored

for Queequeg scar).  That little cap

of Mithras-happiness...

that victor’s haughty prance

over the bleeding bull (himself, mayhap)...

As if an intricate expensive ship

– Mayflower? Monitor? –

long-sunk to Black Sea floor

drifted to shore.  The salty lip

of Ocean whispered her afloat again.

The Norway of the year

gave way to Danish cheer

when Hamlet’s amulet (against the grain)

pressed echoes of a gentle man

into the oaken captain’s

table (so that crimson

icon sped a providential plan).

Ah, Psyche, lift your agate lamp!

& Ariadne, thread

my path... open the dead

tomb for your spider-tramp!

There is an agon for the soul

of man – relinquish force

or buy it with remorse.

You choose.  Sweep, safety net; seas, roll.

11.7.17

restoration will abolish dice

HOBO-MAP

The calm oval of the bridge

floats in the stream

like bubble on a beam.

A fringe of green trees edge

the shoreline... memory of summer.

Water seeks its own

level.  Every stone

melts in its riverbed.  Your humor,

Hobo, settles into Ocean State

as silky Mississippi

seeps into the mighty

estuary of the Gulf (trompette

marine).  So your melodious

escapism is salted too,

with fire – there ain’t no

place that doesn’t see you, Mose.

Cradle him in your coracle

of creamy wisdom, Sophie –

let light from a tree

of galaxies be his menorah (Huck,

that is – Huck Finn).  Your soaring

arc (beside Cahokia)

hovers, a stealth utopia –

eagle-prong, heat-seeking

beak from heaven.  Like that rapt

golden raptor, diving

on rainbow wing

toward his vanishing point

                *

(infinity) which Joachim (mulish

Franciscan hermit)

signed, Age of the Spirit...

Fusion of molten phoenix, starfish

turtledove... risen to dance

lightfooted on the grave

of death (one palm-wave

soothes her brow-circumference).

Only leave him his primitive wood-burnt

etching from Rhode Island.

Someone might understand

its clambit rhythm somehow – learnt

by beachcomber, drifted to sound

of sea-wash... steady laving

for pain... life-saving

Island Rose (from rocky ground).

The Word sings out of rosy shell chambers,

complex inflected folds,

ineffable.  She breaks molds

by clash of scalloping tambours –

beams smiling splendor in a glance;

beholds the Earth, clipped

into chains, gripped

by small potentates (from Bossy Manse)...

My hobo-map of Paradise

includes Newport (Jackie

& Jack wed, merrily);

my restoration will abolish dice.

11.6.17

Who killed Robin Redbreast?

HAGIA SOPHIA

Already the first snow saunters down

at dusk (All Saints’ Day).

Robins nibble cherry

crabapples; waxwings are flown.

Some gray squirrel (squirreled away

in Book Depository?)

broke the back of Sophie’s

jack o’lantern... strange display

splayed into Dia de los Muertes.

So Jeff the Fireman

crossed into a bar (man

overboard).  Barranca... Beatrice...

man who went to live with Indians.

Ghost dance, compadre;

Dennis Banks (hey ey

yo).  Eagle feathers in the grandstands

quoting LBJ, ironically (“treaties”).

Home, home on the range

(small fry).  My ange

d’or – in the abyss, like Cassiopeia’s

fireball.  Wax melted in the wings.

Hamlet, his father’s vortex

seal – lay off that, Tex.

Untouchable guitar strings

(hellhound on my trail).  The man’s

in jail.  A thin blue line

separates the whisper mine

from outer darkness (someone plans

                    *

ahead ahead).  Pumpkin or Trumpkin,

orange oak bolete...

mushroom cloud.  Yeti...

this is the forest primeval (again).

American robins gather by the fire.

In the Bruegel scene –

where the old women

stoke the blaze with bones (ire

smoke-signals, from Columba).

Globilized indifference

in a culture of comforts

– soap bubbles... insubstantial... ah

King of Pumpkins!  How the wax melts!

My soul leans inward

toward your abject & absurd

reward, Coatlicue – so many wolf pelts!

In the bright snow of Siberia

the cold blue fire burns

through bronze lids.  Eyes

turn in your direction...  Selah,

my friend.  La vida es sueño.

Poetry = transcript.

Out of the drowsy crypt

she glances, see... muy bueno.

The double doves of the peacock dome

resolve the red & blue

to violet... so you

are Hagia Sophia (hippodrome).

11.1.17