still life life still

STANDARD MODEL

So summer, Susanna, slowly, slowly

decelerates, among the weeds

& celery, the radish seeds.

&, painted into a corner, quietly

arrives full stop.  Like Peto

still life.  Or Adagietto

seeping on the Lido.

Gradually.  More things, Horatio,

than are dreamt of...  Plumb pleroma

if you can, Hobo –

speak what we feel we know,

somehow.  Premonitions (like a

wind-blown pennant toppling

at Little Big Horn).

Do not compare, Son

of the Morning Star (glass tippling);

you are the only one of a kind

Wakan Tanka.  To come

back from the grave... some

stretch, Hermione.  Out of your mind?

The Blue Morpho of Vladimir

eludes his abstract net –

yet he’ll catch a Hazel.

Bet.  Meet your double in a mirror

(is good luck, not bad).  The way

a doubting Peter folds

a king of hearts, & holds

the diamond.  One homing ray

                *

unlocks the elephant casket (gold-

lined interior, with keys

to inside story)

figured by Jonah, Susanna – double

coracles conveying chronicles

to Finland, now, for you.

Finis.  He’s us, too.

With eyes like Mirror Lakes

in Mendelssohn, down Arthur Street

(the once & future thing).

Two heavy charms, making

an up-quark reddish baryon, Snoopy –

hiccups of a Higgs bison, maybe?

Concerns which we cannot

discern at CERN, just yet.

Professor Nyet beside the Neva...

– Knock it off, Nobby.  That Large

Hadron won’t bunt the Standard

Model for 1000 millionths of

a billionth of a second, pard.  No, Sarge.

I was just napping by the meteor,

that’s all.  It rolled away

(under the elements, maybe).

Not Hobo, not Pope... Columbus, neither.

Those deep brown hazel eyes absorb

Persephone-phenomena...

monarchs on milkweed... ah,

she weeps.  Who spans her glistening orb?

7.7.17

elephant fig tree

TWISTY CALUMET

The grey matter beneath the gray dome

over the elephant’s

great brow.  Intelligent

murmur through muted horn, become

flute-sound of turtledove – a rose-

gray granite labyrinth

in miniature (by mouth

of elephant-gate) whose lid will close

this casket blossoming with images.

A concordance of old & new,

the synagogue-ecclesia

of you & me (through corny stages

of a mystery play).  Tall gnomon

of a totem pole (Raven

shadow in the grim ravine,

the wooden idol in its barren

cul-de-sac) points toward the sun.

It is Cautantowwit,

testing your trickster-wit,

lifting his twisty calumet (smoke, son).

Ineffable infinity of Manitou

embodied now – made

manifest in mode

of neighbor Nazarene, addressing you.

Come into my garden, urges he;

the Magdalen has found me,

so shall thee –

her almond eye’s polarity

    *

seeps Providential clarity

as clear as spring rain,

clear as tears.  Enter

my garden, friend – you’ll see.

My Providence was like a field

where Hobo limped through

wildflowers, bumbled into

common day – let childhood yield

to manhood, womanhood – O bright

ripe liberty to keep

sweet civil peace (a steep

ascension to the morning light).

The message of the good grey elephant

is like an invitation,

then – to taste Creation

as a gift of vine & wheat... sent

from grey clouds like rain, or as

a green palm spokes its wheel

with light.  Let it reveal

itself – ultramarine, topaz,

gold, diamond.  In articulate shade

of elephant fig tree

cresting azure Sydney,

reckon the pattern starlight made –

an octahedral Southern Cross

lifts through your heart

transporting human light

to everlasting dwelling-place.

6.22.17

Hobo's dream-sponge

MILK-CRATE

The pearl shines at the bottom of the harbor

as a lamp glows in the darkness.

Color of St. Francis’

donkey (silver-grey, St. Thomas More).

Henry’s church is in the grey-scale too;

a weathered pebble, like

an unknown soldier (Psyche-

cloud, veiling the ocean’s blue).

Bright pennants of the jungle world

(green, orange, black) are

silky glass, refracting back

primary triplets of an orb unfurled –

gold sun, red clay, & midnight sea.

Her mouth is milky ivory

from Santa Giulia, in Brescia...

her parabolic harmony dovetails for me

into a grail from good grey Elephant

(whose queen is dark & comely

Africa).  So Henry’s comedy

plumbs bottomland; its hierophant

is Hobo in disguise, pearl-diving

from the Golden Gate;

his Beatrice-Juliet

is Orpheus-Eurydice – is every living

soul, sleeping to swim the wake

of Lake Victoria.

Birth-rite of Jonah –

rock-dove sparked for Zion’s sake

                *

& all Creation’s sign of Noah.

Suddenly, like lightning

we are made – brightening

kids from adamant stone – Aloha,

planet-people!  Welcome to Providence!

A grey Rabbi heeds

my mumbling... new needles

green the stems of an immense

Jerusalem spear-flower... Juno

to Juneteenth, July to Jubilee,

the fallow air grows milky

& the Glory of the Lord will show

petals of pink & indigo

before too long.  Behold

the twin mirror-doors of bold

St. Thomas – he who was slow

to believe.  Now the dream-sponge

out of Resurrection Cemetery

sucks Lazarus like Henry

into a mystery play.  Plunge,

Cautantowwit-Raven, into the deep

Black Sea.  A Thunderbird

breaches your salty word

in spumy clouds of Neva-Sleep,

& Woodpecker hammers out Twin

Oak’s mandorla-canoe –

a Restoration Day, for you.

Casket of Lazarus – a milk-crate tin.

6.19.17

poem for Father's Day

John Gould rowing in Oxford, ca. 1995

COPPER SEAL

Father’s Day.  Here’s a quiet hallway.

Grandpa’s twilit apartment

on Delaware Street.

Cozy, gemutlichkeit, OK.

Grandma’s old Revolutionary print

over the dining table.

George Washington & nimble

Lafayette – their filial détente

confirmed in pizzicato minuet.

Grandpa’s brass cannon

shell shines dans le coin –

Et nous voilà, sieur Lafayette.

So the crimson seal in melting wax

like Hamlet’s father’s ring

purls out, expanding

into undiscovered final acts –

Pacific reconciliations, palm-

print circumferences...

the moss-green salience

of Liberty’s majestic calm.

The Son of Man looks to his father

as to an anchorage –

firm stay against dry rage,

banal amnesia, unruly weather;

history would lose its thread

& be estranged, without

a commonality of thought,

that human constancy – dead

                *

center of the curly sprout

who springs up (fed

by seedy Shakespeare’s Head)

to brazen River of the Holy Spirit

(Father of Waters).  Before all times

the soul looks out in joy

upon a wide Creation Day

like mossy meadowlands – rhymes

with Honest Abraham in his

absinthe mandorla – bright

JFK & MLK – light-foot

Truth come marching in (this

copper seal of Peaceable Kingdom).

Light of fathers everywhere,

the milky dawn-lair

of the race, breathing soul freedom –

like whisper of Lipsanothek

(cross-braced in elephant

ivory from distant

Brescia) – a life made perfect

sustenance.  So a little acorn

from William’s Catholic Oak

(in windy Providence) spoke

to me once, as father to son;

as a green man in emerald coat

smiles from a heart of sunny

gold, so dauntless – funny!

Lifting my heart to his coracle-boat.

6.18.17

John Gould, U.S. Navy, 1945