that hexed hexagon

PRICKLY ROOFTOP

Only a light whisper of April snow

feathers the riverbank today.

The wind-serpent will flay

with rippling wings its own mud-brown

flow.  The cottonwoods lean overhead

like ribs on a canoe.  Gray veins

of some cast-off snakeskin.

Glass fane of Great Worm (empty, shed).

Where are the springs of yesteryear?

This April curls from cold

& back to cold.  From cold

to cold – inhuman, viral (some Shakespeare

Villon).  So the chill indifference

of animal aggression marks

its seal on each snowflake.

Each one unlike (unique monstrance).

So who invented this immaculate snow?

A mind of winter?  Or

a dreaming Melchior – his

clouds on high, his Bethlehem below?

We sleep, we wake… like soft snowflakes.

We drift, we float… we land

& melt upon a child’s hand.

The soul is like that dark green pine, makes

rough & prickly rooftop – root foundation

for each spindrift, wayfaring

Romany light-traveling

human earth-heart time-migration

*

– so hear the art then, O spiraling 

hearth!  Martian enfoldment

like arms of Odin, bent

around himself – whole tree corralling!

For Snowflake is that hexèd hexagon

of heaven & earth, joined

in your heart, coined

Abraham – red copper of the gun;

that regal object-dart of adoration

– tangled boomerang, returned

upon itself – urned

at the apex of our celebration;

the bread & wine of every sacrifice

offered by universal Everyman

each time she lifts the can

for mite or gold doubloon… our price.

The light snow sweeps across Ireland

& Minneapolis-St. Paul.

A sweet lamb looks from wall

of van Eyck emerald, almost human (sand

or salt will reveal her, underneath

Mississippi varnish).  Flowers

are eternal, soul-power

is substantial… MELEK shall bequeath

his welcome-gift of bread & wine

on his way to Memphis

for the garbage men.  This

my body… this my blood.  Lamp, shine.

4.3.20

slab of puddingstone

ALMOND LEAF

My lovely Providence, a microcosm

in the ruins of modernity.

Gray pebble by the sea,

colonial casque.  Slow periplum

around a clamshell iron rim –

like horseshoe crab

with buttresses, or slab

of puddingstone Bermuda-dream.

Today’s your birthday, spiny Jenny.

Evergreen of grief

& joy – almond leaf

of love’s firm spiral (funny

soul’s integrity).  You showed me

Piero della Francesca –

candid paisan Maria

pendulous with incendiary

monochord (trompette marine).

You showed me Providence

over your mother’s dense

grass gravestone (swan depression).

April is your azimuth;

mine too.  The cave

where Earth’s a voided grave,

where Berryman’s a vernal mouth.

Cicadas of Apollinaire

buzz over Île-de-France.

The veil of Adams’ Isis

tears – Columbia croons everywhere.

1.30.17

Newport, RI (near Berkeley's Seat)

National Poetry Month begins with April Fools

SPRINGLIGHT

                                       i.m. Jim Harrison

April by the ancient river.

The old bones of the king

remember everything

that he forgot – his yellowed quiver

like a scrollful of desire, old goat,

old Harry son of Harry,

with his dogs, with his ’44,

a massif in a cave, disconsolate –

world like a bungled maze, a hive

of killer bees, in a hole

in the ground.  Old King Cole

with his pipe & his bowl, still alive

somehow.  A dust-mote labyrinth

horned by his own shade.

I met a straw-blonde maid

of Provençal, spruce terebinth

from Marseille, or Toulouse – name’s

Quitterie – who kissed

me sweetly, once

outside St. Martin-in-the-Fields...

                     *

Turn again, O Man, from thy insect

wickedness... a dust-storm

swarms the bristlecone

pine, high in her cold dry cleft,

still evergreen.  Through yon spiderweb

of desperate cities

one clear flute-breeze

intones a major melody (B-

flat) – frail threads transmogrified

like griffin-chords into

transparent unison – blue

octave through twin pillars (pied,

squared).  It was an iteration

out of alienation, empty

heart of vanity –

whose nothingness nested creation.

                     *

Long ago el Rio del Espiritu Santo

rolled, a mighty glacier-

torrent, out of here –

before your dream-songe Manitou

brought you to tent among these timbers,

People.  April was Earth

before a human birth

lent gentleness & poison (hers,

yours, mine).  I found a moss-green coin

locked in a cedar fork,

swept past the flooded park

into this punted limb.  Begin the Beguine,

spun the vapid strings... the War to End

All Wars is ended.  An old

king crawls from the blistered

bole (emptied orphanman, around

the bend) – shines in the springlight

like a babe newborn.

Roland honks his horn;

Guillaume unwraps his gauze (a Calumet).

4.1.16