ship of wind

EGYPTIAN BARGE

A prairie fire like a freight train

fed by wind (your searing

Word).  Not for hearing

but for doing... here it comes again.

Will cauterize your poetry

to cinder of Egyptian

barge.  Lips burn

ice friezes (hay society).

A replica of ancient Greece,

delicate, peevish...

stern Rome’s thievish

siblings (disguised in fleece).

The Pilgrims’ covenant of winter

light – bewildered, free –

a broken redwood tree

(toppled by Oldman’s greedy splinter-

group).  The milk train of the nations

merges with its blistered

rails.  Longfellow heard

rain fall... Berryman damnations.

Who shivers like a flame against

the edge?  Is it Henry

hisself (decrepit Limentani)?

The canoe in the garage (All Saints’

Day shrine)?  Her candle, wavering

above extinction... hum

of rock-dove (columbarium).

Rose bridge of lips, life-savoring.

4.18.18