Advent Found Poem (found just now)

     UNEXPECTED LIGHT

       courtesy of Dennis Overbye & NY Times (12.8.20)

Slight threads of Agnes Martin

touch their way across a night sea.

The universe is a shade too bright.

…more very faint galaxies or star clusters

     contributing to the background light.

The most likely explanation, he said…

    a less exciting possibility… “we messed up

    and missed a light source or camera

    artifact that we should have figured out.

    This is what I worry about the most.”

But how dark is dark? …the measurement

    had a 5 percent chance of being a fluke.

       “Your distant neighbor eating leftover turkey

    at three in the morning is not going to

    wake you up at night from the glare.”

A leafless oak with its arms thrown out

like a knot of knots in the arctic wind

– thin memory of warmth (hearth,

heartbeat).  Presumably, in an infinite

    static universe, every line of sight

        ends at a star, so shouldn’t the sky appear

    as bright as the sun?  But astronomers

    now know… But how dark is dark?

        2 sigma – far cry from gold standard

    for discovery of 5 sigma… zoomed past

Arrokoth, formerly Ultima Thule

(7.14.2015).  We imagine a manger

in drear December.  One ox-eyed

bare exile, burbling in a steaming barn

beneath caved-in roof… placid beasts, 

primitive smiles.  In the Darkness

    of Empty Space, Unexpected Light.

From the human heart steps the King

    of Fools… now her serene lowliness

nurses the Emperor of Poverty in peace.

         12.10.20

snowflakes on Presidents' Day

SPLINTER-WORD

George III was buried yesterday

200 years ago.

The mad King Bluster-Tyro

pressed New England into granite liberty.

Ceremonies of the royal tomb

reverberate across a nation

scarred by assassination.

Abraham, Jack… William, Jim…

framed by wide wings of Martin

(& Bobby too).  They stand

elongate, with palm frond –

archangels in a nave-cavern

of fluted oaks.  Stone tears well

from republican cenotaphs

when that Ant-Leader laughs

who foments red-black wars (from home

to hell).  So long waves coalesce

magnificent Pharaoh & Osiris

in theopolitical impasse

with alien slave throngs – witness

the fissure of Red Sea by their God!

Tyrant & people, king

& kin… a knotty kenning;

Agnes Martin might trace a grid

to simplify ratios of power & myth.

A single snowflake amid crows

of winter, in the beginning was

the splinter-word.  Her spark was in the pith.

2.17.20

stone, water, light, fire

DOUBLE RING

The agitations of a stone thrown in the stream

make ripples that become

a smooth continuum

of moving wheels.  One Gothic beam

draws light through stone and water –

blending elements

into high bafflements

of rainbow glass, mind with nature

beyond nature, reason with wonder.

Agnes – her exacting threads

trace Ariadne’s leads

through wilderness of sea & thunder.

Grant – his strange & strict constructions

spin a decussated

dream landscape – fated

black dirt looming beneath confections

of late sunset West Branch foliage.

Why, then, this mirage

of images?  The poet’s rage

wells from embodied fury – & her voice

– Arachne’s, Ariadne’s – is mortal

as that scar-calendar

of dread Coatlicue

unsnagged by force from Mexican corral.

Her poem is cast-iron Poseidon-net

straight from the furnace,

thus : a human face

veiled by the smoke of calumet

                     *

morphing brute fraudulence to peace,

transmuting blank white

voids to violet

& moss-green habitats of paradise.

St. Maximus Confessor, musing

monk, articulated

in theory what unfolded

in reality – fusion of divine choosing

with human liberty in understanding,

in enactment, as the spirit

moves us : radiant

tangle of wheels into a double ring.

All spokes are joined there, in the personal –

as in a room near Golgotha

babble turned glossolalia

& tongues aflame lit one bright coronal.

The poet chants out of that mental fire

& dances like a Nazirite

her intellectual delight

inviting you & me to join the choir

around that altar of a rolling stone –

a living hearth-fire

of the Earth’s desire

for equilibrium, once we throw down

the Minotaur lodged in our hearts.

Malevolent violence & lust

& greed for dominance must

be renounced... & so the dancing starts.

7.17.18

wave-factor

ARBOR DAY

The wave-factor on a riverboat

differs downstream (or

up).  Rocking the shore

like thread of Agnes Martin’s Night

Sea.  & we are far from home.

Waves of corny grain,

of grass, of wheat... Main

Street.  Grant Wood’s metronome.

He lived four blocks from Henry Negus.

Farmer turned lawyer-

transportation czar

(bus co.) in Iowa City – is

my namesake (great grandfather).

Quaker-shlepherd genehaulogy.

American Gothic, see (flea!) –

straight from dry-humus bow-bent flower.

Arbor Day.  Planting families

of fanatics in the grass –

another word for pass

the ammunition, Grandma.  Crazies,

huh?  All-American.  Beyond

the scope of Scopes Trial,

Solomon... we’re all

afloat upon some stinkin’ frogpond

paddle-wheeler.  Gothic was light

pontoon (Jerusalem).

Grail-Sepulchre rim.

Gitchee-Pollen-Air, up & walkin’... right?

7.15.18

human with human, clay with clay

Bde Maka Ska, 9.1.17

GREEK GALLEY

Now as high summer light ripens

for departure, I remember

how the slight high-wire figure

teetered with tinker shuffle – he bends

his magnetic pole like a long-legged

water-spider, concentrating,

pursuing path P (humming

under his breath) – like a ragged

American robin yodeling, like Francis

the mule on his slight dogwood

perch – so Mayflower would

not sink to sea-floor, so helpless

crowds not tumble from twin towers

to be men not destroyers

his mind moves with those powers

preternatural, avian – showers

of coruscate sparks   from Night Sea

mind   of Okean-reality

heart of   gratitude-mentality

a rustic Thanksgiving   Massasoit will see

to it   along with Black Elk   &

that woodpecker   Thunderbird

a red-streak   flute-word

seeking the common factor   grain

of sand   salt   the personal touch

her hand moves   back & forth

her footsteps   north, south

with his   east, west   in a torch-

                  *

song dream   a melody of Sabbath

silence   invisible liberty

simplicity of   soul poverty

& touch of palm   Grace   have no wrath

So you enter the fiery mind-hearth

of heart-mine   the flame

that never dies   who came

from Sky-Whale   to the earth

Jonah   turtledove   blinding Phoenix

so that disconsolate disunion

of father & daughter be undone

with mother & son   a catenary

parallax   twin for twin   tower

for gate   dark green Atlantic

azure-tangerine Pacific

primavera robin   in woodpecker bower

raven & bluejay & eagle   looking on

all these old threads   a nest

or safety net (good, better, best)

for wounded souls   yearning for dawn

So take firm hold   like little Philippe

the water-spider’s   shaking   handlebar

& skip   like Juliet   there

on the sandy shore   where Okean-Ship

embarks for a feast   of reconciliation

human with human   clay

with clay   like a Greek galley

with smiling eye   aye-aye   cosmopolitan

9.11.17

i.m. Don Peppino Diana

SEA-SALTS

Late summer by the Mississippi

yields an agon by the Po.

Fording his Rubicon, Hobo

hunkers by crossroad (at path P).

The stubborn soul, a milky diamond

in the murk, seasons a world

of wounds with salt – hurled

Don Peppino to the ground,

who fell as lightly as a moth wing

to the concrete men of Moloch –

smiling firmly, struck

a blow with kiss of peace (like visiting

ange d’or).  Take him to heart,

Henry, the mirror said;

that mensch you left for dead

leaps like a saltimbanco to his part

bench pressed against each prison wall.

Melchizedek demurred

Don’s invitation to world

domination – orange towers fall;

that milky mutter from a cloudy center

framed Ariadne’s nets

(enmeshed with quipu knots)

into a corn-gold maze.  You enter

Notre Dame like a gray wave

of seamless limestone

turning emerald... bone

by bone, like Jonah from the grave

                 *

her naval spine arches a dolphin

gray on gray – her eye

a waterspider... golden fly

fleeced with fine thread... riverine

almond, flanked by an equal sign.

This acorn fell from heaven;

here it shall remain,

be not removed – a seed from Okean

(Kiev domain).  While the Son of Man

through the murmur of murk

will shine, & do his work –

his echo in green shade, his twin

like Thunderbird flares out her wings

& rustles in the poplar leaves

where Peppy Di conceives,

Maria Retina perceives – brings

everyone to that shade garden throne.

It is a cryptic gravity

1132 feet high

& etched with J, or eagle eye – lone

outline from a deep loom’s frame

(Martin A. might say)

or copper penny for the Day

of Jubilee – ineffable clear cipher-game;

Tommy the Woodpeck’s narrow marrow-

proof; the oakleaf’s laugh,

or Death’s own epitaph –

lifting grey sea-salts into fresh tomorrow.

8.30.17

a flower for Bloomsday

CIRQUE MATRIX

Gray Hobo-bird faces a problem :

how to save his own long

featherweight fern song?

How to rewind a strung-out poem?

Effigies & icons flashing by

like ripples in his eye –

Burchfield, El Anatsui...

Hartley, Martin, Klimt... Johnny

Jasper... fond winter raven-

oeuil of Master Bruegel...

Pompey, in the empty well

of Yahweh, was befuddled – No One

There.  The clear plein air of Quaker

meeting house, of Shaker

chair.  The carpenter’s

simplicity of Philadelphian law-

oracles.  We hold these truths...

But Hobo’s murmuring his

Nil Reed Candace house;

his prairie wind blows wild (Ruth’s

trail through mazy corn, tracking

Boaz from Goshen-land).

With poem-in-a-can

in hand (his pemmican) & Red Wing

Thunderbird-Woodpecker perched

atop his hat, he moseys,

slouching, sea to sea;

aboard his polar bear canoe (birch-

                 *

light) he circulates a mystery –

where be this Henry Church

round whom leaf-sundials march?

Planted in Resurrection Cemetery?

Or hidden in a holm oak tree?

The painted whisper gallery

enshades invisibility.

Will he sleepwalk forever, Poetry?

The milkweed monarch fans meekness.

This moth is camouflaged

brown dust.  The sagebrush

rolls through red deserts, the cedars

pine for Juniper (slate-blue).

Time’s broom sweeps clean

but tiny seeds remain.

A microcosmic mustard-yellow

gyroscope (spun in Ravenna

backwater) balances

Galilee on Providence;

the bicycle with one duo-antenna

twirls its silver spokes into

a rose-wheel window.

Where did Harry go,

Hobo?  He’s hidden in Otranto

glass.  He’s riding Pegasus

into a cirque matrix –

cartwheeling carny tricks

as Henry Flower Wilderness.

6.16.17

haunted scent

ANCIENT SPRING

My soul, like a woodchuck hidden

in Old Charley’s Oak,

must be lit by a stroke

of lightning even to begin –

like that gold spearman on the dome

in Providence, icon

of limpid Everywomban –

Williams’ independent spirit, come

to revolve like Gabriel Crozier-Torch

around his merry Morning

Rose (see Alighieri’s singing

sky).  An Ocean Island (search

Queequeg’s tattoos).  A green Tahiti

lapped by peaceful Ocean

River – Night Sea span,

gold-threaded geometric Ratio,

squared rail-split Israel rondure

(Galilee of Lincoln-

logos, all for one

& one for all).  O armature

of lovely Law!  Fleet safety net

bracing each breathing sheep

with her own fleece... keep

dangling in catenary grace!  Yet

lift the lilies of your haunted scent

until the spirit in us

brims past avarice,

hot pride – guide to your tent

                *

under Polaris & the prancing

Bears, where free children

ripple the utmost common

well.  Like Addams, balancing

book-learning with hand-work,

art with science, freedom

with obligation... some

justice for the beaten fork –

the disenfranchised, cheated poor,

collateral damage

beneath our idol-image

(smoking low sulfuric Boor

of plump kin-pride & greed).

So Hobo Henry muttered

by the mud-brown flood

of Mississippi river.  Honey-mead,

sweet sea-salt air of tamaracks...

the vaulting spire of Dante-

tracks filter the ray

that flies orthogonal – strikes

Roman iron with Hebrew vine.

Gold thread (Apollinaire’s

trompette marine) bears

light into the grain combine –

sun through the moss-green shade

above the ancient spring

(a Restoration thing).

So in a Maker’s aye all things are made.

4.28.17

night sea journey

SALT-SPARK

                          I mean the bedrock of our freedom – a bedrock of our

                          freedom is the right to worship freely. – G.W. Bush, 2.27.17

A light snow fell the first of March.

Ash Wednesday,

Will Blackstone would say.

Antithesis to Caesar’s march,

this errant solitaire into Rhode Island.

Where his friend Rog Williams

established bedrock freedoms,

planting Providence to stand

all time to come.  Like some great cedar

rooted in the granite eye

of personal soul liberty –

Milk River journey (if you dare).

Dark night of Jonah’s foundering.

Black scar of raven-

knife, Earth’s oven-

kiln.  Poe’s ghastly pondering...

Job’s pain.  Pound’s acid bath of hate.

So take this flake of ash.

Solder hexagonal gash

ice red across your brow, ingrate.

Within the creaking iron rose mandala

where Time slowly, slowly

runs to stillness.  Sea-

rose, sea-bell... whispers, ephphatha.

When the Eternal comes, emerging

from Leviathan

like an infant infantryman.

Unknown soldier, Everyhen, merging

                    *

with your sunken sun... a crown surging

from Lake Vermilion

– soul-memoire’s pain

et vin (violet lilac, ever-urging).

So the shy brown hermit lends his Lent

for ghost dance baptism

to Roger’s freedom-rhythm.

Chaste kamen of Magdalen, arc-bent

in parallax beneath the surface –

retinal curve of stone

lifted, of death undone

by innocence... & you will trace

the light thread-path, proportional –

like hazel-wand, or Blue

Morpho – wing true

monarch (black-yellow jag, regal)

from Providence to Mexico.

Across the night sea

gulf, Psyche, Persephone –

along an agate spiral go

into your copper spring turned green.

Slow wheel in clay...

a simple Lincoln penny,

twirling planet on a mast of pine –

the fiery root – Cautantowwit

& Manitou – the Spirit

blazing perfect light –

salt-spark of snow – sun-chariot.

3.1.17

poet goes to the movies

TWILIGHT WING

                                  It must be abstract.

The trees grow slowly in the sacred wood,

quietly, unnoticed.

Oscar night I missed.

The little gold-plated crusader stood

on his black pentagon of film

(the royal Real reeled in).

I recall those figures hidden

in moonlit home movies – Requiem

for Camelot – Jackie & Juliet

on the beach in Manchester,

Henry falling off the fence (Her

See-Saw Trap) – traipsing all wet

from Gull Lake (North of Galilee)

– the memory’s a blur.

Something about her –

Mary?  Rose? – abstracted, free...

like a cousin from Cuzco, nested in quipu

with bow & arrow.  This tall

old Norway pine, with her small

sibling cedar... standing close to you,

like a hamlet in Denmark... old foundations

digging down deep, old roots

in raven-dark red deserts,

old Incan knots of sacrifice, old bones.

As if the moss-grey Italian movie

were projected onto two

dimensions – the hollow

curvature of holy lapis lazuli

                   *

a flickering shadow in the sybil’s leaves.

The shadow of a red wing

echoed in a lapsing

thread of golden fleece, or sheaves

in limestone lattice, out of ultramarine –

the scar it sang from the ravine

(Quauhnahuac, Afghanistan)

like Night Sea waves (remote, Martian)

emerging just at early dawn.

Methodical crossweave

of whirling squares... conceive

this integral chart – piñon-spun

vernal thread leaping an orange span.

Maid manifest beyond

this world... my dark fond

twin, eye of Medusa-hurricane...

O double knot-rosette of Providence!

Of Maximus theoria

the illustration – mirror-

W lacing an iron fence

like glinting fleece out of Black Sea –

divine & human being

whispered into seeing

as if east of Eden rose again, to be

grey sheltering twilight wing

of Jonah – shell, whale,

Ocean – bird & sail –

one lambent mauve (living, loving).

 2.27.17

all caw-caw raven now

SPELLING BEE

The fire in the hearth of heaven & earth

is a quipu-knot of flame.

& she plainly a gamin

hide-&-seek – May den o’ pent-up mirth?

Jonah Noddy Ark? – in the canoe

all caw-caw raven, now?

No way.  Anyhow,

Hobo followed her, down by the slough –

down by the Mississippi, see.

Henry’s late hideaway,

in salty snow.  Say,

Osseo, if yuh know – why done the sea

surge through them limestone banks

outem prehistory?

For water tower, maybe?

Could be.  Manitou-Give-Thanks

stood up to Minna-Tor – locks in

him cowrie-eye – him

fastens agate rim

(candled Ferrara hexagon).

You lose the thread... but it can

hear you.  It co-hear.

Her lip sweeps very near

your ear.  One sad revolution

                   *

           *              *

                  *

vaults the lead-yewn atmosphere

into a convolution

of suspended animation

(catenary star... a Feininger

prismato-chanticleer).  Agnes

would understudy.  Martian

cross rude centurion

snores through Easter-eggness

of yewnevaverse... dream-songe,

Apollinaris.  She

your crash (& Povertà).

We lifted nothing halfen so strange

as vinegar & gall a pain a spear

up to him lip... who, Mona?

Uncle Djinn?  A tuna

fork.  Ev’rychile skip scotch, here.

It OK if you messed up the lacture.

Alethea in the hoax tree

won the spelling bee

(“hollow” begin w’ H – sure).

& the earth was specifically grave as

death, salt... & Henry

Rustypin.  Ternity,

O Ternity! – that our bi’ness...

It a personal store.  Your steel soul

yearn for light, like a clam

pine for raven-shiv... Am

brother Sundial, sister Maryknoll.

1.8.17

stranger in the land

WELDED KEYS

The old words climb from the well of time

like a Norway spruce,

aquamarine – set loose

like fiery needles from the flame

of Psyche-Liberty (breaching

Columbia, rose-grey

dauphin).  Light spray

from Ocean’s breathing-hole – the sting

of Cuban salt.  Strange emissary,

stranger in the land,

your phantom clock-hand

gravitates toward Harper’s Ferry –

ticks back, between slate gray

clouds, the frozen sword

over its chessboard hoard

(gold poison-cup, primed to betray

the Union).  Carlsen’s hesitation

in hamlet-limping lines

of Sabbath silence... Martin’s

magnanimous memory... the unknown

veteran, shrouding a still-life

Lincoln penny (pinned

atop his heart).  Sound

heard in Ramah... Rachel’s life-

saver, bobbing Caribbean blues.

Queequeg on welded keys

surfacing velocities

Atlantis-radiant... bright jasper hues.

12.1.16

                          "Reminiscences of 1865", by John F. Peto (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

bobbing like a robin's nest

OKIE STUMP

Out of a thousand painted threads,

Agnes, you warp a frame

for some belle dame

of sanded mercy.  Mounds of pebble-

heads, broken by force... the list

of useless tears... unspoken

outrage in the caravan...

the camel’s otfe-hump (if you insist).

Henrigold the river-god

bobbers oiled Jordan

with Lorelei (raison

d’étoile – mosaic mermaid).

It was the frame, Agnes, it was

the bloom, encircling

a gold bee-sting –

it was the Viennese princess

who rose from copper strands of wire –

who lifted bottlecaps,

ineffable mayhaps

into a mossy petroglyphic spire.

O spider-thread of nothingness

O Hamlet’s hesitation

Guillaume Bier creation

bobbing like a robin’s nest

around an Okie stump (of Manitou)

twin-man   twine sister-span

love’s Everywoman

Miriam   a   song in C major   (for you)

11.30.16

Don't ask me

Not much to say about this, except that it's part of a series, and that Stephano and Nunzio are father & son from Sicily (my regular haircut here in Providence).  "Agnes" is Agnes Eizenberger, from Vienna, my Uncle Jim's onetime companion.  (Also thinking of another icon-maker & diagram artist, Agnes Martin.)

VIENNA VEINS

Klimt was a kind of crooked wicket

out on a creaky limb

in Cricket City (rim

of Rimini, Parisian rivulet).

Gold.  Vienna veins of Ravlin

violins (we were there,

Agnes).  Do not compare.

It’s only an American Robin

Redbreast, hooded, yodeling...

he’s calling out your name.

Not Stephano (fair game

for Fame) nor Nunzio (clipping

the locks that flood across your face)

– though they are near.  The Boot

strides on.  The man is moot.

Your Crown is Everwhirr – mesh-lace

of spy-veil, ambling the source...

a poverty of materials

in a land of burials

& sunshine (Italy, of course).

Klimt limns the anguish in your eyes.

Through vales of Solomon

or Sheba, all the broken

kingdoms, poppy-fields (Grandpappy’s

ripe Epiphany).  Pain circulates

through straitened means

somehow – corny Earth-scenes

beyond our ken (Thanksgiving plates).

8.17.15

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907)