Minnesota Mining & Meditation

BRASS COIL

Among the North American tribes

Ojibwe midéwé medicine

was considered, bar none

dark & strong.  Copper for earlobes,

iron for arrowheads.  The beetling sky

barreled down over tamaracks

as wind made tracks

disappear in shifty drifts... hey ey

yo, winter raven!  Iron mother-bird.

Little Henry Limp

climbed out of the stump

of his papa’s grave (obsequious word,

weaker than puff of cottonwood).

Up there in Rez Cemetery

overlooking Mississippi –

him foolish-fond Ski-Neighborhood,

him dream-nest, reconciling every pain.

Down below on the floodplain

wimpy Abel, mean Cain

wrassled for the gilded unclean

scepter of dominion – going insane;

in that negative snow-light

your abject, self-abasing wight

is king of the weak, the outcast, in his rain.

& who shall have the succession, lil Hamlet?

The brass coil Vengeance

around your wrist, the dance

of California, D.C.... where’d my safety net?

10.21.19