heights & depths

LOVE LEADS

In the phosphorus dwelling-place of the Most High

Dante, murmured Hobo

will I be able to hear

that melancholy train-horn cry

so-so long gone?  His pal Henry

felt that ol’ pulsing flame

of lonesombrero, becomin’

churnagogue (centripetal clay) –

that emerald lichen-moss of Giuliana,

flanking a time-hewn sepulcher

with it still whorl

of tesseratic Emperors & Empresses... ah

Psyche, from those regions which

are Holy-Land!  Smoky

incense signals eye-

in-hand, Galla (yon casket-niche).

The soul is feminine.  The turbulent

churnagogue is melting

galaxies, in buttermilk –

hamlets of sacred discontent;

YHWH, detached from patriarchal kings

unveils a weird Coatlicue-

possessed & epileptic Dante-

muse... Venusian fire – & Jonah sings

Love leads us up like moth to flame

from steel-train Iron Range

down to Delta... strange

diamond, Latrobe (El MLK mandala-frame).

7.29.19

under the Memory Wing

A-FRAME

Henry’s ancient mother in the Memory Wing

shows him how dying &

amnesia are kin.

When coarse indifference is the thing,

my countryfolk, how to redeem the time?

Henry tumbles down with Hobo

to wallow like a gator now

in river muck – fish out the paradigm.

Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, O

Thunderbird of Red Wing’s

olden days – you being

transcendental I AM – hey ey yo...

The metaphysical is just outside

your A-frame, Hobo sez –

& as such, pivot of the rez

(or any reasonable maze of hide).

You get me, Hen?  Might be

the shadow of that Jonah-

bird – ur-meta-Noah

J’waytroulife, clear to eternity.

So this rough clay my mother molded

with bare hands (these

Mexique 4-face planters)

might morph a continent – dead

rising altogether from each cold silo

into the dream-sponge –

Providential plunge

uncoiling slowly (at Cahokia Ground Zero).

7.28.19

hidden by Ocean in an oak

BLITHE MONARCH

Henry’s troubled mind sends him in search

of Hobo, down by the riverbank

as usual.  He’d never think

of working on the Sabbath, in a church

or anywhere else, or any other day,

either.  Tarries by the stream

Espiritu Santo – off-beam,

at ease.  & murmurs thus to Henry –

Born to trouble like the moth flies upward;

like my uncle Zack – bartender

in Pig’s Eye.  Took a gander

from a sycamore – & suddenly soared

up tippy-top, full of T-total joy!

Clambered down, & followed

that young’un, Jay – he’d

never be the same again.  & I say,

ol’ Hen, the comfort’s hidden in your mind –

an equanimity & rest

that plummets to your birdnest

straight from yonder Pole Star, friend.

Love’s quicker than muscle, nerve.

Is there already, waiting on you –

wing-form, wave-form, arrow-

true.  But – such a swerve she gave me,

Hobo!  Bed empty, whole place cleaned out

on Sycamore!  Off to D.C.!

Take it from me Henry,

was all deservedly, you woolly lout.

Grace gave you a reprieve – your whole

lamentable life.  Coiled

at the source, like a cockle-

shell of plenty – to restore your soul

& the whole damn world.  Some morn you’ll wake

like that blithe monarch

hidden by Ocean in an oak,

& see the Restoration – like an earthquake

coming with the Child of Woman.

You will no longer pine

lovesick as lamb (in cotton-

wood, or buttonwood) but rise & stand

like Abraham, by them great trees

in Mamre, or Ogygia –

& watch that little acacia

of Jessie reach on up to Paradise.

& then Henry saw his shadow on the path

blend with the branching shadows

of the cottonwoods.  He goes

as it is determined, through sluiceways

of wrath, up to the blazing Southern Cross;

faces jangled music

of a Minotaur’s acrostic

(all this New World torment) – at a loss;

& yet he feels the light breeze of that grace

Hobo made plain as trees,

American as any poetry’s –

dark gold fleshtone foundation, keeping pace.

7.26.19

until this firefly leaps

BLACK SWALLOWTAIL

The flickering faintness of a hobo fire

grew steadier as Henry drew

near.  All for you,

muttered Hobo.  Your Falstaff, sire.

The heart’s a cracked & splintering

toy drum, he droned...

Henry just groaned.

He felt pangs of fibrillating

Providence – inviolate rose island

in the hearthland of the sea,

where what might have been might free

one Bonnard fête from tragedy (a sand

mandala, slipping under the wave

of pewter experience).

Imperfect sense is

normal, Hobo (hustling to the grave).

Look at that butterfly in Whitman’s weeds,

Henry!  Monarch, Hobo?

No – black swallowtail.  So

azure constellates, where black clay bleeds.

Ouroboros universalis – until

this firefly leaps... a spark

your gemstone soul to mark –

the pure gold’s melting to fulfill.

                   *

Like a gyroscope, the soul balances

on threads of conscience

& the normal universe

awaits your restoration, Hobo Eli sez.

7.23.19

serpent in the clay

SLOW WHEEL

Henry leans on Hobo, stumbling along

the river path.

Sullen serpent of wrath,

her mud-green bronze glistening

mutely as she goes, her banks

tight-lipped, angry with Man,

older than Man.  The sun

barely registers on shady flanks

slipping by, tongue flickering.

The plot thickens.  Clouds

darken where crowds

hearken – listen! – princes, bickering...

& who shall have the succession?

A cast of characters –

kings, clerics, warriors –

mime St. Vitus in scared possession –

sleepwalk their sacrificial totem

for a perennial repetition

of the same (again, again).

& armies marshal around Bethlehem

to protect the kingdom from its violence;

a convenient woman shall

be found, to dance the ritual

in their place (a chosen princess)

& her cacophonous Parisian Rite of Spring

will set the keynote for a war

to end all wars (for

a while).  Meanwhile the black spring

                     *

of Rio Mississippi coils in anger

on the Iron Range, under

the North Star.  Thunder,

Hobo, Henry says.  It’s Woodpecker

come back – alight near Red Wing,

so they say.  What

does it mean, old mutt?

He muttered back : it don’t mean anything

to many, Hen.  She walks beside you

like an iron canoe,

the spiral J of Synagoga –

like that Micòl in Ferrara, like a shadow

of Our Lady.  Spiritu – loving you,

who don’t deserve her –

sacrificed for Minotaur

on every altar, from Cahokia to now.

Then Henry saw a little emerald

almond leaf, shaped

like a boat... wrapped

in a river-whorl, spun, twirled

downstream.  The Delta beckoned,

where dark Mère Lousine

grinned from the deep.  Lean

over some more, Henry, Hobo intoned.

There’s Benjamin Latrobe & Son,

sunk like a foundation

in the Gulf.  An American

sun blinked, dark.  A slow wheel spun.

7.21.19

have you never loved & suffered?

MOON-BEAR

Hobo crawled out of a hollow log

like a moon-bear from hibernation.

The River held him in suspension

between breaths, heartbeats (in a fog).

Have you never loved & suffered, Henry?

Do you comprehend soul-agony?

He was a Man of Sorrows, he –

acquainted with grief – like a lost penny

(Lincoln?) at the bottom of a well.

I have, Hobo.

If you want to know

I too be tarnished imago, two steps from hell.

Like who.  But I carry this flashlight

handed me by Lightning

Littletree one morning

(way back, in Providence).  It all right.

Or going to.  Everything you see

is a fresco-dream,

June-bug – the triple beam

searchlights all round (Imogen Dovie

in your mind).  I see you grinning,

Beatrice.  Bunny Rabbi

and Ignatz O’Lamb, too (hi).

This IGNIS NATURA RENOVATUR thing –

will it spin in the sky?  Little Bear,

Big Bear?  In a sloppy gyre

you may bespiral somewhere

sometime, Hobo... in your underwear?

King David hopped like a rabbi

alongside the canoe.  Micòl

was like... O well.

The pure fire is restoration, Jun-eye.

7.17.19

call him Halfway Hank

FICTIONAL GARAGE

Hobo staggers along the riverbank

halfway between Henry

& Osiris (bury-

man).  Call him Halfway Hank.

Like Bluejay all out of mummer’s tricks

memories of a Myth America

detach from his hat (ha-ha,

caw-caw).  Tall Tale of Two-Sticks

maybe – or The Time We Had a Picnic.

Nostalgia for infinity

invokes our Plenty-

Big-Prairie; mysterieux Henri Pick

was anonymous, along with Alexander P.

These meadowlands are Russian.

Thunder’s Oblomovian this

afternoon (American iz you & me).

So memory would like to dab a fresco

containing a continent.

As when a canoe is bent

around a bough of yew, or spent willow...

in some fictional garage in Ferrara

where recent immigrants

gather for sustenance

like Jonah huddled in a whale’s cantina

& the eye in your hand opens like a tear

& the river streams into the Gulf

where Wolfram & Beowulf

celebrate Thanksgiving (more Grail? – here).

7.16.19

upon St. Swithin's Day

MONARCH MILK

‘Tis hot & muggy in the octagon

upon St. Swithin’s Day.

& will it rain?  Say.

St. Emperor Henry’s (Holy Roman)

also, once upon a time.  It’s stifling.

An unreal toad usurps

the garden throne, & burps.

His orange tongue is mean, & trifling;

his fire-red refuge-chair is for a child

who hasn’t come home

in 33 years.  Christendom

conquered the Holy Sepulchre... wild

slaughter & rejoicing on this day,
1099.  But will his Ghost

lift from that gloomy host?

Joachim daubs a fingerpaint contrary

blindly, with bare feet (a cave-fresco

for San Francisco).  & Henry

plots his own obscure & minatory

figure : double wheels.  Of milky glow

& river-clay – Cahokia, North Star.

To turn the Great Year

5 29s... & spin from here

some monarch milk (a little almond to restore).

7.15.19

for washing Washington

GOLDEN MOSS

Before you can enter the realm of God

you must imagine it

& you can’t imagine it

until you turn & become a little child

again.  As a red-black monarch

dances over a mauve

milkweed cluster, like a hive

of honey – so the Ghost in her Ark

skims with light shadow wings

through unconscious nature,

& lifts, here & there

the heavy hearts of human beings.

Grace Truth is her name; Liberty

her gift; & the joy

that shines like equality

throughout the cosmos sets you free.

The Ghost courses through human veins

like shade of a rose,

like a prism of rainbows –

wherever Imago walks, listens, leans...

Like a Mississippi made of murmurs

or a clay flute molded

out of golden moss,

the Ghost in us surges toward a chorus –

a waterfall of sound, for washing

Washington – bringing

Vierge-Astraea, singing

from the Delta (milky monarch thing).

7.13.19

otherness of the Someone

IRON WHEEL

Her fingers fondled Red Wing clay

on the circling wheel

into Northwoods bowl

or Mexican flowerpot.  Wheels, say,

within wheels... microcosmic canoes,

Arks of the Covenant...

even Charon’s punt,

Henry (we who have passed

over Lethe).  The woman with child

in her apocalyptic

mandorla, chased by Dick

the Drag to the edge of the wild

(up north, near the Boundary Waters,

in the Iron Range, near

Itasca).  Fresco a veneer

across Ravenna beams – Jordan River’s

sleepy patron god.  Sort of like Hobo

witnessing the fire-dove

skim down Cottonwood Cove

& settle on the shepherd kid... just so...

but I just don’t know.

Iconoclasm sets in,

considering we’re human –

liable to make it up as we go.

The otherness of the Someone.

Your friend, your judge

(merciful – but won’t budge,

won’t fudge the facts).  Solomon

petitioned humbly for wisdom,

sensing the dire burden

beyond each king’s ken :

the destiny of Jerusalem

                *

under a blood moon of violent men

& the everyday mayhem

the grinding paroxysm

of atrocious cruelties – shifting pain

to the weak (convenient scapegoat,

ordinary poor).

Even blindfold Synagoga

might remember something critical, something

our mosaic Pantocrator forgot.

A little gray-brown moth

settles on Hobo’s mouth,

like a fingertip.  Hush, seraph.  That

maybe we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

Solomon was wise

to be humble before the Shekinah.

& Hobo was a mumbling bumbler

more like a river than a man

more like clay than person.

& Thunderbird was a rumbler

in Red Wing, churning the rusted wheel

until it sparked like gold;

helping her to fold

the wet clay of America on steel

braces... evenly rotating... Source

to Delta... Sea-Rose

to Golden Gate... flows

through the arch... Mud-Morse...

7.12.19

mark how red dust leaps

GATEWAY RING

The trickster-shaman & the prickly prophet

frame a stumbling-block

you can’t dislodge... mock

as you may, puffy lectern-puppet.

It is a fundamental moral world

they dramatize, a place

of breathing flames – their science

is conscience, this life a dream unfurled

on stage (his banner over me was love).

On board a fellowship

from birth, we skip, we slip

& slide toward the deep (sky-alcove,

ocean-sepulchre... Osiris-canoe

full of Isis-candles... grave

of MLK, our architrave).

As if returning to our own soul (true).

In West Branch, Iowa (my grandmother’s

home town) there is a dark

moss-green catafalque

of Isis, adamant earth-mother (who remembers).

& the North Star of the martyrs shines

like a seminal spark

over the Iron Range.  Mark

how red dust leaps into lifelines –

how a merry-go-round of American clay

swings toward the gateway ring

upstream, down.  Shaping

newborn, translated children – maize, hay hey.

7.11.19

all the unspoken waltzing things

SEA-GRAVE

Henry has his scribbly hobbies.

Hobo is obsessed.

Osiris in his nest

buried (maybe touches the Keys).

A Viking ship in Minnesota

sleeps near Lake Itasca

like a Moses-mandorla

or canoe (garaged in Ferrara);

a pregnant Virgo by Francesca

curves in an oval

like a miniature whale.

These fish are scaled to hallelujah

& back – one swallow swallowing

a smaller, swifter swallow –

& water seems shallow

until you measure it (by hollowing

a sea-grave in the Milky Way).

& so Jonah yodels,

while Akhmatova spells

lowly on an ocarina (hey ey

yo).  A warbling robin sings

out of Mississippi clay

her infinite wedding day –

all the unspoken waltzing things

logrolling like a planet made of grace

in a dream-songe dream, Henri.

Near that Melusina-sea

glistens in memory (her San Fran face).

7.10.19

let me orchestrate a pantomime

NUT-BRIDGE

Epileptic Dante struggling like a trapped ant

in his centaur-world

in medias res, Gould –

in RI, for example (not so pleasant).

& nothing gets better in Minneapolis

immediately, automatically

or even slowly, gradually

& verbiage without chasteness

is only noise, eh.  We all agree, eh?

IGNIS NATURA RENOVATUR INTEGRA

– fire renews nature as a

whole – spiritual telos of poetry...

So let me orchestrate a pantomime

rooted in that ancient flame

proceeding from a paradigm

of our immaculate Ariadne-dame;

the shoreline seething with desire

under a summer moon again,

& memory of lambent pain

(Ocean’s infinite suspire).

As when Hart’s Hobo settles down

at last... rolls on to sea

& stubborn ghost of MLK

becomes triform Medusa-Charon

only to deliver newborns (on

St. Christopher’s Day).

Naked Nut-bridge, say –

or eye-in-hand (almonds in Mendelssohn).

7.7.19

on the 3rd of July

DREAM-WORK

On the 3rd of July, looking out of this

rain-soaked gazebo into

the yard, I’d like you,

cameradi, to digest my curious

thesis.  Because every moment is a choice

on an axle of light and dark,

& who knows?  Some dream-work

might lead a soul to Paradise.

Out of the Iron Age of infantile aggression

where malign honchos rule

by gun; out of the school

of bully shocks & clinical repression

locked tight by rapacity & fraud;

out of the surly tank parade

Czar Minotaur has made

his own amazement... into the wide

milk-meadows of a Golden Age.

But you have to recognize –

these lightning-bug sparklers

kids wave over mosquito grass image

some more graceful & inexplicable

coherence.  Someone breathing

nearby, in your ear.  A thing

beyond abstraction... elementary table

of an I AM dream-cosmos.  Someone – 

Brother?  Sister?  Mary?

– calling you by name.  See?

Here.  Hearth-dance of Daniel.  Be reborn.

7.3.19

toward the 4th of Juliette

DOUBLE WHEELS

Lone robin yodeling his evening threnody

plaintive, solitary

on June’s last day

what would he intimate to me?

That summer was immense & infinite

beyond the figuring

of our (almost) unerring

memory of planetary things.  That what

our dreaming signified was plain

(glory beyond our ken).

Tomorrow’s now & then

only a ghost might fold again

into the origami of a labyrinth

of Chartres granite, Mary

blue – like this contrary

stubborn root, trapped in cement

blooming, bleu Ming, nevertheless

along an Ariadne thread

signed (calligraphy by Ted

the Mason) in a matrix of finesse

by its ineffable Makar (aye

laddie, on a tear

shed from everywhere –

like Ocean River, or the Milky Way)

& the stone drones below human hearing

it rhythmous b-flat bass

someplace in Memphis

where Osiris met his fate, shearing

                     *

Love from its neverending source

(like Jackie K’s wing

saddled to her hat thing

flying off convertible, in Dallas).

Was it a Lincoln?  Was it a star

mobile, from galaxy?

Something moving in the clay

rotates like Ezekiel wheels – where

Louis Armstrong melted to el P

& X marked the spot

(Montale’s really not

at home – it’s Giorgio who has the key

to the garage, muttered the lovely

Michal of Ferrara dunes).

We don’t recall these tunes!

Ecclesia et Synagoga cousins be –

double-wheels within wheels, sez

Zeke, in Minneapolis.

Where Juliet was, once

before she lost face... fell from grace...

– how tender floats the human form,

ephemeral!  Until

we knot yon safety spiel –

until that lightning robin find his worm

& like a Caliban, or Jordan weed

begin to mold the clay

into slow-moving roundelay

(American)... Cahokia high meed.

7.2.19