the river is a strong brown god

AZTEC ALPHABET

The brazen serpent of the Mississippi

runs through my veins,

cantinnas Hobo (in vain).

How to tell my own (con version) story?

The antic disposition of these shelves

of incunabulae (obscure

revoluminous curious lore)

ripples off Norse keels – revolves

around my cranium (son of

McCain I am) – the worm

a canker, iced like berm

at Sutton Hoo (& strong as

love).  He will lift himself up

into his father’s affection

(this child of deflection)

at last, & be first in the stirrup

at the gates of his sly enemies –

he will be the son

who twists there (frozen

image of abjection) underneath greed-

seas of rifle-toting angels

(Cuzco school).  Spleen

of Hamlet, by the bedroom

screen – cunning de Kooning angles –

that Master of Gray, backed in a corner

of Ravenna – or raving

Coatlicue, stoning

the Consul in the dog-ravine (here,

                  *

Fido)... someone lurks in a mirror

with double doves (tin-

whistle Hobo-child of sin).

Abandona-donna’s abbatoir?

Some Aztec alphabête of yesteryear?

Hazel the moth-goddess

flits into brown recess

of brown recluse... (the spider’s... her).

The sacrifice of sacrifices –

hunters’ offering,

a shiny golden ring –

is like this image from ice-fisher’s

thing (icon of everything);

is like this light bread

Moses left for dead,

or Aaron molded into iron Sing-Sing –

a memory of Psyche-crimes

no one can heal,

nor break the lead seal

from the dark backyard (abysmal

time) until the flutter of a wing

like a mind from the sea

Hobo’s thirsty misery

slakes   or forsakes   a palm, circling

through the gray salt latitudes

like blistered sword

blessing   like sunshade

père-sol   ultramarine   (beatitudes)

9.25.17

poet goes to the movies

TWILIGHT WING

                                  It must be abstract.

The trees grow slowly in the sacred wood,

quietly, unnoticed.

Oscar night I missed.

The little gold-plated crusader stood

on his black pentagon of film

(the royal Real reeled in).

I recall those figures hidden

in moonlit home movies – Requiem

for Camelot – Jackie & Juliet

on the beach in Manchester,

Henry falling off the fence (Her

See-Saw Trap) – traipsing all wet

from Gull Lake (North of Galilee)

– the memory’s a blur.

Something about her –

Mary?  Rose? – abstracted, free...

like a cousin from Cuzco, nested in quipu

with bow & arrow.  This tall

old Norway pine, with her small

sibling cedar... standing close to you,

like a hamlet in Denmark... old foundations

digging down deep, old roots

in raven-dark red deserts,

old Incan knots of sacrifice, old bones.

As if the moss-grey Italian movie

were projected onto two

dimensions – the hollow

curvature of holy lapis lazuli

                   *

a flickering shadow in the sybil’s leaves.

The shadow of a red wing

echoed in a lapsing

thread of golden fleece, or sheaves

in limestone lattice, out of ultramarine –

the scar it sang from the ravine

(Quauhnahuac, Afghanistan)

like Night Sea waves (remote, Martian)

emerging just at early dawn.

Methodical crossweave

of whirling squares... conceive

this integral chart – piñon-spun

vernal thread leaping an orange span.

Maid manifest beyond

this world... my dark fond

twin, eye of Medusa-hurricane...

O double knot-rosette of Providence!

Of Maximus theoria

the illustration – mirror-

W lacing an iron fence

like glinting fleece out of Black Sea –

divine & human being

whispered into seeing

as if east of Eden rose again, to be

grey sheltering twilight wing

of Jonah – shell, whale,

Ocean – bird & sail –

one lambent mauve (living, loving).

 2.27.17

Mississippi sundown

INCA BIRD

Mississippi sundown.  Meek

flock of cottonwoods

leans toward sand-

bank... listen to the river speak.

Noah’s raven criss-crossed the ocean

weaving black on blue, 

salt over salt (sez you).

My splotchy gouache representation

wings away north, south... follows

Big Muddy to her delta

denouement, selah.

Breathes on clay (rows, rose).

This Inca bird, like a Cuzco condor

(or Marshall St. bridge

bald eagle)... no prison-

pigeon, but flight to the rondure –

a well of black water, with stars

in a lattice (for stories).

The Ghost, says Maximus,

prehends the insolence of wars –

lift up your hearts, she cries,

lift up.  Paradise

is a habit of eyes &

hands, not formulae;

lips rim a coracle (of cedar

curve & silver plow)

so that you too may know,

my child – the Earth (from a star).

11.21.15