on long feet

LIGHT RABBI

Calm evening at the end of April.

Wisdom of the ancients –

unity of changing constants.

A continuum… a synthesis… a will

to find a meaning in the whole;

a portion of instinctive

gratitude – the urge to live

unfolding origami in the soul.

We dwell beneath an aegis of benevolent ideas

like clouds (reflecting sunlight,

bringing rain).  & everything

will be all right, my father said – his palm

over my flooding eyes.  This the providence

of sparrows & tall kings –

of all those feathered things

that soar so bravely into turbulence.

So then… who’s your imaginary friend,

Henry?  That loony Hobo

drifting from his local slough

down to the Gulf of Mexico?  Just a bend

in the river?  See thou, Hart says

– touches a key, perhaps.

After the world-collapse

he’ll still be burbling his sabbath-sense;

planting a tender middle C

between Ocean & me

where clay & sea

are cleft at last, to rescue Thee 

                *

– the clé to my ecclesia, Julie – 

a soft glissando pour l’église

from San Francisco to Louise

(grey Dolphy surfacing beside me).

& if reality is simply a supremely poetic idea

then the Imago of images

is like a seed of peacefulness –

a still point (painted on a bowl in Cahokia)

or that eye-in-hand Hobo held out to me

the wad of river-mud

Rabbi patterns for the blind

saying, Ephphatha… (gently, gently).

Everything has already been redeemed

& an orb rests in Hobo’s eye

with dewfall of memory

& earth-pangs for the not-yet-dreamed.

Everything rising with the soeur-coulombe

the sister-dove, the Jonah-Joan

the twin, O my beloved one

light Rabbi hopping through the gloom

on long feet   heading for the nest

on crest of wave

that vertical canoe-nave

pronged   at heart of Southern Cross

6 tracks of Black Elk diamond

ghost dance of Rio del

Espiritu   sprung up

for you & me   out of dis April pond

4.30.20

ice-breaking spring

SMOOTH FAN

This simple cup of Red Wing clay –

I thought it might be cracked.

A thick dark zigzag tracked

the rim.  Some dragon gone astray?

Quickening lightning, heavy thunder…

power of ice-breaking spring.

The bursting-forth of everything

in moss-green gold & violet splendor.

Or something darker, circuiting its wheel.

Cold-blooded Serpent, shattering

Anansi’s web (her glittering

fishnet, awash with dew)… to steal,

to kill.  Ouroboros-pelt of power

peeled from its fountain (O

omnipresent sweet communion

threaded like planetary Venus-flower).

The poet’s voice lurks with the refugees.

Exiled flint mirror, casting back

the shadow of one seamless lack

of liberty, justice – life’s guarantees.

It is a tool, a sharpened raven-knife

polished in Voronezh.

That river-town, at edge

of steppe.  O Evening Star, O sister-wife…

The river sways its coppery smooth fan

from forest spring to Okeanos.  One

willowy limb of oaken

mast… grounding the flash where it began.

4.29.20

if I could gather all 9 muses

IRON HORSESHOE

If I could gather all 9 muses

around the iron horseshoe

Hobo found along the shore…

a middle C stranded by silted rivers.

If I could loop a thread-corral

around the bullish history

of bardic poetry…

Whitman & Olson, the whole passel

of a thousand Pounds – a ton

of raw American aggression

packed in Julian tin can

of salmon absolute (O prodigal son).

You must bind up the strong man

if you would rob his house,

strums Shep Jesus –

the Son of Man opposes Czar Ivan

K. Trump (& all his lawless minions).

For Moses was an anti-

Pharaoh, & his text a fey

neutrino-trace – reversing their dominions

(anti-matter realms of fearful absence).

Their malice plays for keeps –

the quasi-Reagan creeps

who stigmatize Abe Lincoln’s conscience

of profound Union.  A government

of people, by & for people

whose penny is a steep

L-rectitude – the normative ligament

                   *

of every child of God (my soul to keep);

the stony fundament

that grounds each document

hedging the tyrant (as ye sow, shall reap). 

For this Hobo bent toward St. Louis,

where clays rotate

around an elder potentate;

the foolish king, whose power was on lease

to that familial mutuality

(the kinfolk circle

& the starry wheel)

Jesus displayed in his nativity.

Star of David, hidden in the clouds

like 4-leaf clover

in a rainbow cover –

ark or Argo of celestial crowds.

So history plays out as Tauromachia.

Watch Minotaur succumb

to Ariadne’s plumb,

Man lifted up beyond Monarchia;

that restoration of all things

the servant-son proclaimed,

chanting beside the famed

Magdala Stone (rose of sharing) –

when Clover twirls in Hobo’s fingertips

& Isis-eye looks from his palm;

when JFK comes home

& Venus blooms… & Sophie Coulombe skips.

4.28.20

through Narragansett smokehole

AGATE LAMP

A peaceful evening in late April

the trees barely budding

in mild light   while brooding

darkness rings   the besieged people

& this dissonance of visible   invisible

an indivisible fire   smoldering

criminals & saints   revealing

callous inhumanity    with humble

solidarity   courageous   all-compassionate

& in my flimsy gazebo

octagonal coracle or   Argo

with Sophie’s wind-chime   over the gate

delicate oak-leaf butter-knife design

tingling in the calm air   O

here in my Ariadne-lair   where

a Chartres J coils  toward her Eschaton

& my whisper follows Cautantowwit

through Narragansett smokehole 

southwest, southwest   while a soul-

hart sails back   to her monarch nest –

that circling square dance of Ocean beams

where the spirit of Jessie Ophelia

& Juliet Ravlin   abide in Thee   &

Eternity, O Eternity! cries Roger Williams

& you lift your agate lamp, Psyche

like a fiddlehead   in Holy-Land

& the soeur-coulombe of the Son

of Man   swerves   with a shining eye

4.27.20

set to sound

SIMPLE SPACE

Henry was just an American poet,

not well-known, born

in Minneapolis… a plain-

speaking, ordinary place, a cold spot

on the planet.  He had his talents

& his quirks – his great

advantages, pensive disquiet,

the serious focus of his mind, his diffidence…

but none of these things mattered in the end.

Poetry is neither marketplace

nor museum.  It is a simple space

for flighty conversation, set to sound;

a fatal stage, a public theater

where fantasy rings true –

YHWH appears to you

disguised as sister, holy fool, butler…

anything but king (or slave-herder).

King David plucked his harp,

made his obeisance sharp

& clear – YHWH is holier

than I, or any man on earth.

Henry drew back the curtain.

In his poem, all was done –

la vida es sueño… from Fort Worth

to Dallas is but a short drive.

Righteous ones must die

until the message (IN RI) bears

fruit – honey flows from her beehive.

4.25.20

Georges Rouault, The Old King

mountain crossroad

HIGH JUBILEE

As the flashy plumage of the peacocks

contrasts with the somber wall

of a hunchbacked cathedral… so

the worldly chit-chat of the literati mocks

the stark lofty simplicity

of a mountain crossroad –

where a mule bites goad

with gritted teeth (stubborn humility).

& I think of those high stony passes

of Armenia tonight

as I foot my way, right

back to bright horseplay of Itasca

primavera springs.  Up there, young

Ojibwe (generation after

generation) took the fast

of separation from the world (a brave-sprung

discipline) – & he awoke & found it truth.

So (as I inch toward the close

of my rheumy, 8-years’

rêve-glose) I want to emulate that youth

& drink the clear spring water, sing my fast

manifest the rabbit frame

these longish footprints form…

untwist my Huckleberry ruse at last.

Tell me what is a human soul & spirit

& you will say what I mean.

What they have always been –

a knot of everlasting life, the whit-

                  *

sun wedding of the nodding twain.

Theseus, Ariadne… Adam,

Eve… – til Jesus came

& lifted every limb to Paradise (again).

All’s figures.  Here’s a 4-leaf clover;

twirl it between your fingers.

See where Hobo lingers,

lost in his maze… only a cavernous nave

overhead (synagogue of Always-There).

Can you conceptualize

the structure of the Bible?  Is

your mind glazed yet, by the seven spare

sparks of Pentecost?  Has the Spirit

settled upon you as a dove

& vaulted you to eaves of love?

This is the salt that fires each aspirant

& burns away the dross around the urn –

kindling Dante, Roger Williams –

forging those adamant amalgams

melding heaven-earth, sacred-profane…

prophetic copper work of Providence.

For the covenant of God

with Man is happy seed-

grain of the common good – equivalence

of Golden Rule & last commitment;

liberty from tyranny

is predicated on glory… high

Jubilee of restoration (in a dreamer’s tent).

4.24.20