she is a mason too

FAMILIAR EYE

When the farmwoman goes out to sow

a scattering of cornseed

or fleurette africaine (dark weed

flung wide), she is a mason, too –

planting a cornerstone at dawn

to the northeast (between

the subtle nightshade of illusion

& nuanced elaborations of the sun).

Hope being the common denominator

of all our troubled labor

buried out there, somewhere.

Does language know?  Prickly pear,

prickly pear... where the shadow falls

across an exact location.

33 light-years... (someone

WW knew – at Kitty Hawk?).  Tiny candles

flicker in the hot wind from the crypt.

Presently details of the little

room emerge.  Her title

to the seasoned sailor, found amidships

after the ashes scattered like black raven-

doves into infinity –

where Mr. Sunborn’s akme

of knowledge curled its crown toward heaven.

This the mandala the builders left me.

Jenny with her Book of J – my

golden lamb of Ghent... familiar eye

peeled back, unvarnished (dyeing history).

1.30.20

Minneapolis in purple light

UNIVERSAL AUTUMN

Beatrice at the vanishing point

or Juliet on the bridge

mark infinite edge

to Alighieri goat-trails (figure 8).

The leaves of universal autumn

rain like parchment tears

from planetary spheres

& sea-grey eyes (too close to home)

to say goodbye, to wander streets

vacant & desolate

& drift   (disconsolate

refugee)   where only fleets

of shadows meet   (lonely nightmare)

& still the yearning heavens

wheel   manna leavens

their deep imperturbable desire

rooted in unfathomable joy

– Eternity, O Eternity!

he crowed (with penny-

whistle, raven-quill) – meek Roy

nestled in evergreen holm oak

like Ariadne’s emerald

corona... like straw-gold

Acorn Maid, among the little folk.

The drowsy King of Love bowed

his trompette marine –

umbilical fountain

of spiral clay (Galilean mode).

10.7.16

Solominka in the black gunshine

HENRY’S COULOMBE

Muggy August, month of Emperors

& seizures.  Hobo Henry

lies in Sharon’s Ferry

under the sluggish limestone (worms,

mollusckies, protozoa).  He’s

coming back to Tuscany,

the Bore (some prophesy).

Huffy, bossy Henry holds the keys,

he thunk.  Amid a bole of oaktrees,

under his acorn crown –

like that green Corny Maiden,

one of Igor’s fresh catastrophes

(in Paris, 1913).  High sign

of times – the pharmakon,

the scapegoat, Chosen One –

The barking Kingly Queen

of Carnival, her last crowd scene

(crowing).  Guillaume was there,

too – orphic Apollinaire,

sighing for Minka in the black gunshine

of Dallas.  Jenny, we hardly knew ye –

your sea-cloud camouflage

a fluttery montage

of yellow-black, afloat toward Iona...

America in Henry’s coulombe, now.

The bird croons at the gates

where Francis celebrates

Pacific pipestone... sea-grey Manitou.

8.9.16