quirky rustic poet battles orange Goliath

MEMPHIS FLOOD

It was the winter of our ill-advised

& misconsent.  Embouldered

Julius the Quartered,

housed within his wanton witness,

raged (a savage orange walrus

full of fetid fire) against

that bad news feminist

in flight from Rus (hilarious!) –

while he, with his false staff, embarked

upon a cross rubes’ con

(some matryoshka manikin!)

against Old Ironsides... which worked!

– for temporizing (time... & two times

at a time).  The war was on.

“Where is the server, then?”

barked Julius again, again.  Crimes

filtered down like snow from Kremlin

gremlins.  Stark treason,

trickling out its own raison

d’état, took aim at Mississippian

Columbia.  One fiery wheat grain

in her heart – one star-

quintessence of her

pyramid – opened its eye again;

the child she harbored in her arms

across the Memphis flood

cried – “Human brotherhood!”

– & smiled.  Light pierced the storms.

1.25.20

where the wheel pivots

VIA FRANCIGENA

My path of J, my Via Francigena.

You can read it on the Q-

line train, between St. Lou

& Monk’s Mound (clay Cahokia).

Choo-choo, J-J, Joanna, Giuliana...

on the milk train way,

your dewy morning ray –

autumnal hoot of helmeted Athena

(hooya-hey).  Fled with her child

from rude dragon.  Nightmare

tyranny (unveiling there

the root of human woe).  So the scald

burns his tattoo into each trumpet call –

the empty mirror of the king

crowns him equal to everything.

So gather him weird into your iris squall,

milky Sophia – gold sunflower

stretched into an almond

ark of mustard limbs (wand

blooming with abject surrender).

Because I love, because I love...

Behold, my child, I have

no wrath.  & in the hive

of clay lips, trace her architrave –

tacit surrender to a violet

sown by storm (below

these wars of villain & hero).

Where the wheel pivots, my river-pilot.

10.26.19

I'm only thinking of you

SIMPLE MUTTER

Snow-canyons decorate the streets

of staid Minneapolis;

sparkling crystals

coagulate in mountains, glacier sheets.

Ripe grain of whole, deep faith,

murmured epileptic

Osip – stamping his shtick

of shaman-Pushkinite (limpid wraith).

Tiny hexagons of Siberian ice.

The glowing eyes of thief-

wolves, killing for life.

Vast evanescent Paradise

in an infinite complexity

of human innocence

destroyed by violence –

Patmos St.-Vitus peripety

of mangled lambs.  I’m only

thinking of you, dear

spark (unknown Shakespeare

pebble-soldier... yearning mystery).

Gemstones of civilization glitter

through the drab darkness.

You are only weakness

squeezed into clay – a simple mutter,

oscillating like a reddish agate

in a muddy kid’s palm

(copper reunion-psalm).

Jamie discovered it – I won’t forget.

2.24.19

like a dream

BLIND EYE

Like a dream in the womb, in the mind of a maid

before all things were made.

Came naturally, she said

when the foundations of reality were laid.

Providence, burnished by smoky November.

Like a canoe on the edge

of the cataract of knowledge...

at Prospect Terrace.  You remember.

Roger Williams, sturdy son of man.

Dark grayish blue

Hope Diamond, you

whisper (below junk jewelry scams) your plan

for Providence.  Triangulated eye

over the Mammon-pyramid.

Re’s Eye, long hid

in our blind eye – to crucify,

Henry (in RI).  That woman in the wilderness

of last things (Chinese vase

still circuiting her stillness).

French, blue, Jeanne.  Fiery duress...

Only a child’s distress.  Cordelia.

Le coeur de Lear, de l’ear...

Coeur de Lion, here.

Skinny crane-bag (of ocean spray)...

St. Paul’s most blazing eloquence

out of heart’s Pig’s Eye.

South of the city –

Mississippi limestone (fossil evidence).

11.16.18

like variations on a theme

FIRST SNOW

It was a first snow falling on your birthday, Alex

38 years ago.

Cesca’s labor so slow

& painful, there in Miriam Obstetrics

under the klieg lights & the surgeons

she took the C-section

at last (proud, stubborn

mother) while the soft newborn

stars sloped across the parking lot

in silent counterpoint.

The time was out of joint –

your father, too.  Every hamlet

screens its circular pilot plot

through every heart;

Henry left his hearth

to wander Cain-like into Camelot

(his Ars, his land of Nod).

The story is familiar.

Eros sparks war

for Adams unwilling to plow the meek sod,

buster.  Adonis was a narcissist.

Henry plucked his Clover

(tuneful Faustian lover)

& spun the wheel no heel resists –

the veils of Isis & Osiris (masonry,

mummified fire).

Venus, Morning Star

shone pallidly, across the whole country

                  *

a kind of Cairo-Poe magnet (wherever

you are).  Middle C

on the piano, tenderly

(Ravlin Princess, Ravel).  Life-saver

played out to Juliet, by Hart.

Like Bach, young Alex –

one sea-tempest X

along path P (where all the tempers start).

Grief comes in waves.  These little ripples

echo from the pangs

of Providence (where swings

a cosmic jewelry show).  Dilated pupils

merge in swarms of busy drones

(watch-birds for smoke-

signals).  Go for broke,

the Iago of the capital intones.

Unleash the dogs of war.  They hated

me without a cause...

Faust is no Santa Claus;

the raging boar will not be sated

‘til the last woman on earth

flees with her child

into that desert wild

nursing one lonely human birth.

11.14.18