Watch Night

LAMBENT GHOST

A satellite streaks past Ultima Thule

at the rim, beyond Pluto.

Starlight, emitted long ago

marks the limit of what we know, Julie.

You took it to the limit, too –

plummeting on his birthday

into San Francisco Bay.

The scar on my heart stays blue.

A lifeline in my palm... tracing

your twirling halcyon-

descent.  Eccentric swan-

dives of deflected passion swing

the human pendulum to no return –

so you became my silent

witness to an absent

safety net (grave spirit-urn).

In a backyard garden, in Montrose Park

(on Avon Place, off R Street)

a weathered zodiac (fleet

beam for sailing time) still makes its mark.

The evening sun at vernal equinox

touching its circumference

sends streaming photons

in array, toward Washington’s matrix –

that sleepy apple tree, the founder’s

fault (first gentleman

surveyor’s lie-of-land).

& will our prime star, speaking, founder

                     *

backward, under night-sea sand?

The morning star, the pole

star’s mate – your sister-soul –

whose flickers lead our sarabande?

Hobo lumbers after Henry’s shade,

lugging the telescopes.

Who drowns their hopes

might lift them up again.  Maid

Marion, or Liberty, Virgo-Columbia

(the various nicknames

for Jonah-dove)... dream’s

figurehead for Watch Night... hallelujah!

Ice gathers on the Mississippi.

River-flow & starlight

comprehend Time’s might,

rewind the spring, recall the sea –

Pacific now, beyond the redwood tree;

beyond eld oak grove

where an infant strove

with Roundheads... & a maypole (merrily)

spun feet toward Pentecost;

beyond Sons of Liberty

into a whorled Equality

wrapt, spindled on a lambent ghost –

that quipu-knot, that safety net,

that weaver-coracle

from Galilee.  Slight miracle-

Thunderwren... walking on water, Juliet.

12.31.18

Idea of Order at Port-au-Prince

PIED-DU-ROI

The mysteries of the tree of life

wafted in pine-scent,

loon-call.  Where she went?

My tiny Haitian house (Hiram Abiff?)

flattened into iron, painted

sea-coral (for joy).

That illegible toy

Advent ball of light – Levite,

anointed by black sun (yellow-

black Torah).  Sister-

dove?  Little tree

of Jessie, O (hidden willow-

canoe of Providence).  Chip

off the sloop Francesca

(pale arte povera,

woven from raven-ink on quipu

stone).  These are the quadrants

of my quatrain train

with a hey, ho, the wind

& the rain (Earth birth-bangs, pants).

You will carry Ariadne’s Crown,

Cordelia – innocence

to crystalline prescience

at perihelion of night (black noon).

Palladium of cornbelt Maggy –

out of Byzantium

into some quonset dome

of little Rhody (heart’s domain).

12.30.18

under the sign of the Virgin

WRITING HAND

Herod the Great is out hunting tonight

to make himself great again.

History, all over.  Hen

clucks in pigpen.  Overhead, bright

Star of Stars yet hovers (esoteric,

weightless).  Invisible world

of worlds to come – squirreled

away in a barn (near Bethlehem, Pa).

Maximus, transfixed by history,

his writing hand severed,

still corresponded

with his nephew (far end of Black Sea).

Hen’s fishing for sense, like Hobo

the limp lamprey (curled

on the riverbank).  Churl?

Fisher King?  Overhead – Virgo.

Not the Twins, but something like.

Twin sitters.  Throned

drones, long retired

from hive (72 bricks of...).

Not trying to be obscure here,

that f’sure.  Innocence

dances through the universe

unfathomed on our faithless sphere.

On her Milky Way.  Here Grace Ravlin

sketches a summer evening

at Mt. Vernon – fingering

the treasure map (Pennsylvanian)

                  *

tracing a quiet constellation

echoed on the ground.

Her wisdom is profound

through purity.  Just perfection

mirrored in frame of Providence;

sunlit warmth of hearth

stirring Pig’s Eye from death

to life (St. Paul to Minneapolis).

The artist makes an eye with fingertips

at edge of scabbard.

Ariadne-thread.

Clue to labyrinth.  Slips

into Gloucester (blind man’s buff)

to paint twin boats

nestled in soft coats

of emerald.  Grace is enough.

Ceres, under Sirius... sparrows,

hysterica passio...

madness of Angelo

or any other tyrannos

threatening an alien child

(warped in labyrinth

of jealousy).  Absinthe,

minted at Fort Knox – wild

wrath of slighted boar (the king’s

own Fury).  Here’s the church,

here’s the steeple – open

the door... (where the sea-choir sings).

12.28.18

Grace Ravlin, Overlooking George Washington's Garden, 1922

wee bauble of Providence

MANGY TRUTH

Mark Twain, pilot, plummets

to the river-depths.

Hobo-poet steps

Twin Cities morris-dance (let’s

follow him).  The deep dive

of the mystery of each

child – landed on a beach

in Egypt, or in Bethlehem (I’ve

got a certain kid in mind).  Already

requiem in Alexandria

(the library).  Memento mori.

Osiris?  Full of bookworms, Henry.

A Master Mason?  Hire ‘im.

11.32 ft/sec...

– wait a sec – ham

radio?  In RI?  The signal’s dim.

Garfield died 23.5 degrees

off Library pedestal.

So we meet the eternal –

a starry Book Depository (seas

rising... queasy feeling) charms

the assassin into travesty

(sick temper, see).

O westward course of life’s alarms!

I don’t know where we’re going, Hobo

Henry wails.  An infant

Providence is born.  Want

mangy truth?  Frail monarch is a rainbow.

12.24.18

White Buffalo will dance

PRAIRIE GRASS

That men invented the entire horoscope

looking up at the silken knots

of stars – their slow thoughts

tracing remote ellipses with a rope

on sand.  That the soul configures

these pantomimes of fate,

explaining (Bantu or Sanskrit)

why the king had to die, the princess

dance upon her own grave, once.

Ironies of the old men,

& that sybil-crone

left with her grieving remonstrance.

My mother painted an oil of early spring

in Hopkins, 1960s –

solitary white house

over brune & barren slopes, folding

down to Mirror Lake, a few leafless trees

& the soaring robin’s-egg sky

in its firmament of high

stratus (midwestern hopefulness).

With Virgo ascendant over his plantation

Washington will walk the garden,

taste the measureless serene –

the unfinished pyramid of the nation

soaked in honeydew tears of Evening Star.

Yet White Buffalo will dance

on prairie grass... her light

lance touch the forehead of the War.

12.23.18

petit songe du solstice

MASS PLANTING

The soaring voices of the Rose Ensemble

filled the cavernous wooden vault

of St. Mary’s with green light

on solstice night.  Meek humble

faces in a crowd become limestone

architecture of high song –

a van der Weyden throng,

a Bruegel mass planting a cornerstone.

When the tender light falls first

& softly on the muddy fringe

of some new edifice... strange

dewy glinting, where the stone burst

from whale-mouth of the earth

(Jonah-Persephone’s deep

crypt, where ages keep)

with fluttery breath of infant birth.

Jonah... Osiris... buried Man...

little Nutcracker King

solving his Sphinx thing,

finally.  Sibylline Isis (Belgian)

murmuring – I am that which was

& is & ever shall be;

no mortal has ever

lifted the veil which covers me.  Cuz,

tell Henry : Rex Pacificus

has found his mate

beyond the Golden Gate –

Magdalen, her gardener (Jesus).

12.22.18

winter river

MOTTLED BEND

Driving through wintry Iowa

in the rain (at the end

of autumn).  Mottled bend

of browns & grays... the tall silo

lost in a sea of plowed soil;

Theophilus, with his lonesome

boat (Grandpa’s handsome

grain elevator).  Fruits of toil –

pyramid for wheat-rain

in a grain-ear (last

trump, sounding).  Blast

of train-horn... all over again?

The hearth-stone flares like a bald eagle

lost on the road (between

La Porte City &

Davenport).  Feathered angle

set upon shoulders.  Nobody.

Just a Memphis priest,

Melchizedek... last

shall be first (least greatest, boy).

They laid the foundation stone

like Chartres rock.

Under the most black

dirt they could find (the Masons, son) –

on 15th April, 1791

(two generation

before Abe Lincoln).

Hearth-blaze in corner (soldered one).

12.20.18

& know the place for the first time

STEEP HEART

The mystery of the Incas, how

they filed those giant stones

at the top of mountains

into close-fitting knots (above, below).

The slim knife-edge, the penetration.

On behalf of balance,

lamb-tethered violence...

one must die, for the sake of the nation.

Something about moss-covered stone,

arctic lichen.  Colors

on a rough-hewn wall (yours,

mine).  Collage of blood & bone.

Memory, mother of muses

lead me back to your

stone milk-splashed door.

Ancient well-bench (sea-roses).

The eunuchs of the kingdom come

& go... their simple habit

underneath the gibbet

simply to repeat the sacred OM.

Alpha, Omega.  History unwinds.

He’s humble, sheepish

as a goat – Ish-

mael, or Solomon.  Pay him no mind.

The one thing that happened, historically

was that an innocent nobody

became king for a day.

Steep heart, remind me... let us pray.

12.15.18

guarding the garden

painting by Phoebe Gould (ca. 1992?)

GREEN CORN

Half-moon tonight, like a silver flask

of molten lava.  On this date

George Washington was translate

(1799).  Here’s his life-mask :

fine profile.  Merging in white clay,

like a peaceful moon.

Landlord, when all’s said & done.

Valley Forger, sensing Californ-i-ay

in the green corn of his plantation

garden.  Grace Ravlin

etched that evening scene –

sweet Virgo in Virginia (dawning nation).

The myth rides with the Indian.

Scars limbs of slaves.

Everyone behaves.

A raven-crumb plummets into ocean.

Something’s lugged back, out of clay...

the lunar wilderness.

Innocence, blessedness –

Sophia twirling in the calm of day.

Like young Hal emerging from a golden egg

(his father’s legacy).

Attainted crown, see –

buried bones in Resurrection (Pig’s

Eye) Cemetery.  Across the river,

on Lakota Bluff.

Two swords – it is enough.

Gesthemane is haunted, Indian-giver.

12.14.18

with pigeon feathers for stone walls

SPRING BREEZE

As in one of those primitive

Sienese masters,

a pained St. Francis

fits inside a pastel arch.  Give

me your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free...

Over there stands Liberty

vaunting her mural crown (tresses

awash beneath W.P.A. murals).

Sister to Columbia,

dove-principezza

with pigeon feathers for stone walls.

They’re tripping a Troy-town maze

around the cave entrance;

priming some freelance

to buzz the Republic’s toxic haze.

Where Everyman is king

no man is king.

To the sheep he’ll cling,

to the underside of everything.

Like the span of a soft retina

in Providence, RI.

Like the women nearby

when they crucified the guy, selah.

Man or woman, brother, sister...

hearken to the wind.

Spring breeze, unwind –

a breath of renaissance, tongue-twister.

12.13.18

north of Pig's Eye

ERICA-TREE

Giuliana opens a pottery shop

in Red Desert (the film).

Destination of the earth –

Slim Pickens, Strange Love (stop!).

The mystery of desolation.

Calcified lava

Under the Volcano.

Monarchs, Mexico (extinction).

Henry’s buried north of Pig’s Eye

inside an Erica-tree.

Come back for you & me,

someday.  Maybe.  I don’t know why.

He’s Osiris, in a hoary

Hobo boot.  Isis

is us.  She’s

barely there (yesterday’s story).

Somebody’s Mom no doubt, planted

in Cahokia clay (naturally).

The river is a lonesome bee,

rolling honey-balls out of decay (putrid!).

Henry strays onto mountain, in the sun

shouting, we’re Everyone!

Lightning jets down

lighting whole plateau (goodbye, platoon).

In the heart of the burble-stream

Hobo-prospector

strikes a vein, in the ore.

Honey bleeds from lava dream.

12.12.18

Pearl Harbor Day

MOON-TIDE

Prospero, home in Milan,

dozes in winter sun.

Hobo, on the run,

hands Henry his drownèd plan.

Pearl Harbor Day.  His Juliet,

her father-love unmet,

unmatched, flings it

(on his birthday) off the Golden Gate.

Incest breeds in the wounded psyche

trapped in regression-mirrors.

Henry’s his own father’s

worst enemy (Knight to Queen 3).

Hal speeds to Falstaff’s hideaway.

Idleness debauchery

& trickery will be

his refuge from a father’s eye.

So Henry runs to poetry –

where Hobo rules the sleepy

riverbank, all lotus-weedy

with papyrus-infancy

(Atlantis-libraries of Alexandria).

He seeks his sweet cousin

for soul reunion – one

shady psyche for another ghost.  Selah!

Prospero!  You’ve gone all cranky

& explicit now.  Don’t drown

your book just yet, man –

Henry threads a maze of hanky-panky.

Full fathom five   thy father lies

these are pearls   his eyes

the moon-tide hurls  (sailors

sleep beneath waves, where firelight dies)

The flame in the heart surges, or is

deflected into shallows.

Juliet of the swallows

flittering at dusk... Henry’s paralysis...

shady pining for the sister-dove –

Orpheus, Eurydice

Alighieri, Beatrice

Ray by Nile, yearning for Eye of love...

Hobo’s intellect of mother-wit

tangential, tacit

               *

star, Cautantowwit

Raven-shade of Narragansett

Buried god Osiris, burdened Berryman

weeps on his barbed-wire fence

of psychic violence.

Angry sons are on the march again,

the envious ones – misled by signs

of fraught deflected love;

the Dragon’s treasure-trove,

the Minotaur’s deceit (threadlines,

snarled cul-de-sacs of self-defeat).

Manxmen of tyranny –

their island fantasy

a sunken travesty (Narcissus-fleet).

I remember your weaver’s baton

in Providence, Francesca.

The shuttle flying (rock-a-

bye, baby) to shape a golden woolen

poncho – gift for a San Francisco

poet (from Rhode Island).

Like a wand in your hand,

unspoken, felt – taking flight so

from one heart to another, at

speed of light – what

equilibrium you wrought

there!  Or an image of it –

warm, wearable, at human scale.

From the heart, the earth

shines – ruby hearth,

or emerald (blue-cloudy pearl).

The mystery of Providence

is as a rose in flower,

full of people-power –

origami of experience

unfolded in a safety-net

concordance –

each fold in silence

married to the others – what

complete rose blossoming!

Inexpressible

joy of a grateful Abel,

poncho-whorled into a golden ring!

12.7.18

Meditation on a funeral

HONOR GUARD

Soft muted early winter light

outside the National

Cathedral.  Great whorl

of reds & blues, at dazzling height

O rose window, still glowing bright.

The honor guard (Marines,

Army, Navy) forms lines

like intricate toy soldiers (boy’s delight) –

maneuvering, in wonderful coordination

powerful precision

beneath the boom of cannon,

brass band’s hopeful invocation.

The dignitaries have assembled.

Paired front aisles unveil

in allegorical detail

old icons of authority (kings trembled

once, when they beheld such signs 

of a succession crisis).

On the right, witness

the mourning son & heir – thin lines

of tears streak from his hawk’s eye,

flank his aquiline profile,

his anxious beak.  Meanwhile,

on his left, an accidental guy –

the crown-usurper (with a face

like a disgruntled frog).

Even Sully the dog

got more headlines than such disgrace,

the preacher said (speaking in tongues).

Haunted, defunct princes,

princesses acquiesce...

the fatal, dominant thug belongs

                 *

to us.  Chief executive,

or executioner?

Headsman (for our

gentler Republic)?  How can we live

in a democracy, ruled by despot?

We cannot.  Our choice

is clear, as once we faced

when Lincoln gave it voice – the violet

is trodden underfoot by hate.

What’s at the root

of all our discontent?

Man’s thirst for domination, set

in place since his umbilical was cut;

rage at the shrinking womb.

Like Jonah’s boat-turned-tomb

of alien Leviathan, the doors of Night

close, flooding, overhead... the child’s

unconscious & primordial

nightmare (abyssal

mystery).  Note each tyrant’s wild

psycho-disgust... the fluttering hands,

the flickering deceit

– detached from all sweet

reconciliations, lawful bonds.

The flag-draped casket of the patriarch

squares with the glowing rose

window.  Still hearth glows,

somehow – Wisdom’s scintillating ark.

12.6.18

OSIRIS-REx & the Bennu-bird

THUNDER-SPOKES

Quiet in the wintry Capitol.

Where father & son, in

the flag-draped coffin,

on the wooden catafalque, are still.

Where son (& father too)

sheds tears.  Innocence

belies its marble semblance.

Upright humility.  High over you,

at night, by day, Polaris glows;

not flags, but shrouded

origins – Bennu-bird

or Horus-ray (Icarus was

here); your ghostlier, spectral

interpretations – secret

resource identifications...

regal, lithic harbors, for a grail

of springy asteroids (boing

boing).  All that Libertà

of space, Lauretta

(almond muse, lithe dancing

branch of J) – inheritance

of every heaven-child

out of a kinder, gentler

Cosmopolis (to come).  Lance

of St. George or of Shakespeare

aiming magnetically toward

immovable light-word

beyond all temporary tyrants, here

                      *

on earth – ever-bright abode

reflected in the clear

Rio Espiritu Santo (where

we return, to be reborn, for good).

O muse of Jonah, in the maelstrom

of the Minotaur... your words

of the sea, rocking OSIRIS

toward... immaculate portals of home!

Your mild ray beaming from the prow

a living microcosm,

shining through the storm

of blinding dread – they do not know!

Mandorla of the sister-dove –

whose realm impends

beyond dead-ends

of Minotaur & twin-taboo... from above

your Dioscuri plant twin oaks,

whose lightning breaks

the chains Time makes –

prophets of the Thunder-spokes!

& from that gemstone casket

of the six directions,

whence four streams dance

breathing through each human heart

innocence & charity join hands

with strength & fortitude

& courage – score a prelude

for a planetful of promised lands.

12.4.18

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18