what child is this

HOLIDAY MUSIC

The empty duplex is quiet tonight

though not completely silent.

Drumming in the basement –

Khaled rehearsing our old duet.

From different corners of the same planet

immigrants & refugees

hasten to the Twin Cities

as to gemütlich haven or warm magnet.

& history is like a palimpsest of pelts

trapped in somebody’s woods

before there were neighborhoods

or streetlights – only raw scalps, rotting guilts.

When we were that City on a Hill

of our imagination –

special paragon of Creation,

establishing law-&-order by God’s will

on earth.  But it wasn’t so beautiful.

The Magi rode by camel

across a parochial hell

subject to Herod & his trumpets (terrible);

the angels remained invisible, mostly;

& both the Ark of the Covenant

& ironclad Ship of State

came to resemble that drafty, mangy

manger itself.  Where Mary lay

& her shivering baby sighed

& Joseph almost died

of inhumanity.  Hush little baby, don’t you cry.

12.24.19

unfinished business

LIGHT CANOE

Cold Minneapolis.  White flakes

float solo, lazily

toward frozen sod.  He

sleepy too, Great Harry – shakes

his fusty bearskin (Mister Rabbi

tucked into his cave).

Wish they would behave.

A wayward dolor over fly-by

country ekes the bile from bunny-fur.

Infinitely gentle,

infinitely... mental

clamps inhibit memory, yessir.

Over the mantle in the dim apartment

Lafayette was dancing

just for Washington.  Sing

victory, Columbia – our true intent

was Liberty.  Hail to the Chief

in Indian Country –

arctic blue pine tree

sheds secret home (Sending Relief).

Grandpa’s got amnesia now.

The old brass shell from

Belgium mourns like a bell

in the pipe-smoky corner.  Plow

up the rose from the deep well of France,

Willa – that spiral dance

Crane zigzagged in a trance,

Atlantis echoing in weedy elegance.

                      *

Unfinished business crowds a heavy

surf onto the canvas.

Painter sticks to grass

with orange tar-baby.  Chevy

waves from Davy’s Locker – swings

his palm toward magnetic

north.  D.C. frantic –

Empire stuns fleet – Mort brings

us to us knees.  Only a wee

green island merman,

imperturbable, remain –

Pacific mule (Admiral of Ocean Sea).

A little grey jay (Whisky Jack)

whistles through her veil

of salt-shaking.  Sail

on, Peace Corps – Pearl’s Clamshack!

Under the turbid rotoring

of pyramid schemes –

when trumpery becomes

a weird mudfish – a rippling

stone floats to the surface, springs

to hover – catenary

honeycomb (or berry-

gem).  All minions, toughs & underlings

flee suddenly, like shady characters

out of a bad novel

(their plots unravel).

Blue J’s light canoe threads jasper piers.

12.7.16

the palm, the fiery gates

PRAIRIE ROUNDELAY

American robin on my fence

I sense you are a friend

& neighbor – here to lend

your orange breast, for salience –

swell-sign of aerial fellowship

in gravid cave-adventure

(blue waves of chicory

pacing old roads, from Boston slip

to San Francisco).  How your edgy

yodeling interrogates

our grubby, wormy hates –

sclerotic, squamous tragedy

of shriveled hearts, rancid hypocrisy!

You diagram with song

a madrigal so strong,

so many voices in emergency

merge into blueprint buoyancy –

manifest (garnet clay

prairie roundelay)

a ship-shape evening constancy.

Mute gesture from crow’s-nest G-ray!

Memory, beyond time

salts a Boethian rhyme-

beat... in quella Roma onde

Cristo è Romano.  Staunch ruddy

steersman indicates

the palm, the fiery gates,

Pacific O... – Eternity! is all his study.

6.7.16

Map of Rhode Island, 1780