least coin of Union provenance

WING-BEAT

The American poem makes do with what’s

right there.  Like a penny in a well

or Peto trompe l’oeuil.

Reminiscences of 1865… hook for hats

on an absinthe wall.  Unlike electricate

sweet Alighieri, burbling Italian

honey-rhyme into his Pythian

pylon – a vertical refulgent ziggurat,

as opposed to our stretched-horizontal

(catenary) system of safety

nets (dangling from Frisco Bay

to DC).  Quipu knots of Neanderthal

design – z-twist, s-twist in a 3-ply

twine, spun with dry grass

or pine bark from Abri du Maras

anchoring light matrices of solidarity.

Ah, nested Rose of Dante’s alta fantasia!

Here lies a homely Providence

cresting seven hills, dense

with ignoble Henry’s disjecta membra.

Plain facts of what happened, what was

made manifest in clay.  Bearing

pinned-up mementos (sprung

Ford’s Theatre tickets… Jimi Hendrix

poster?) – cornered in a coign

of copper maize, a corn

maze.  Dropped in a forlorn

well off North Main St. – least coin

                    *

of Union provenance – silver Penny’s

golden meaning (Love

welded to treasure-trove…

chaste equilibrium of all equalities).

The gift that unfolds at the heart of things –

Francesca’s golden poncho (Peruvian)

spun at Sheep’s Clothing (on Wickenden)

for Dave the California bard (who springs

from Rhody roots himself).  Gift

that is already there in the earth,

shining quietly… an Ocean mirth

salted with grief & everlasting life.

In the heart of remorse & gratitude

rose memories well…

the flaming throne planted in Hell

transmuted to Paris park-bench habitude.

I know whom to thank for this Rose Jubilee.

Stony Magdalen, in Galilee

rolled away, set free

the Rabbi of a rescued Julie-bee.  Recovery!

He was already gone, but she showed us

the way.  & the catenary

curve of Argo’s aerie

twinkles with lights, up there – a million eyes

suddenly flash joy from blue-black sky

pouring Milky Way & Ocean Stream.

La vida es sueño – life is a dream;

the wing-beat of Thunderbird only a sigh.

 4.14.20

sketch by Michael N. Gould

on the North Shore of the North Star state

SOFT KISS

Not far from Berryman’s Witch’s Hat

in Prospect Park, off Arthur Ave

Henry beholds spring showers lave

his plague-burnt Vale of Josaphat

(in Minneapolis).  It is a hard Lent

& shrunken plain to see –

April trundling mournfully

to graveyards.  Brash head bent,

hobo Henry Hal recounts his crimes

(near Purgatory Chasm,

in Newport).  Hopes a chrism

helps redeem his own end times

along Humility Way – the icy treason

of a lodestone heart.

His mother’s art

pierces also, beyond reason –

those 4 unsoldered quarters of clay tile

where Henry & Francesca swim

below a swirling rim

of Gooseberry Falls (old Ravlin file)

in the blithe innocence of marriage

unbetrayed… unmade,

not yet.  Like Longfellow glade,

or negative of Dante’s personal stage

(Circle of Lust) the two of us

will splash, forever smiling

in that riverine, beguiling

clay lost Paradise of faithfulness

                   *

& O the hubris of Superior Prince Hal!

To think he’d play the alpha male

to Berryman, beyond the pale –

snow-bent J. Beerust, in his dream-corral!

My clay ticks slowly on its glitter-wheel

toward kiln of Judgement Day.

But you might take another way,

Kidron – follow the foamy V of keel

into that Ocean River of the galaxies;

gaze up into the Royal Arch

where smile-canoe arcs

over candescent happiness... frees

hearts & souls into the wholeness

they were meant to seize!

That Charity of charities,

that source of every brimming goodness...

the grace of Miriam-consent (to give)...

true North Star of the Sea!

Friend Berryman would be

beside me here, in this infinitive

to live – an evergreen, emerald

eternity of growth –

an exponential for a moth

(or butterfly) to find – New World

born from the Old, as wings from chrysalis

when Spirit strokes like Thunder

through clay rings… & under

your rose aye of Providence (soft kiss).

3.25.20

Dante caught the bug

FORSAKEN MINOTAUR

Somewhere between Venice & Ravenna

(Rimini?) – on an errand

for Lord Guido, friend

& host – Dante caught the bug (malaria?).

All those goat-paths of exile

all those curial corridors

mostly meant chores.

The heart stays just a brief while.

A trembling bird unfurls wing-feathers

in the still woods of March;

hear her voice catch

racing through the final chapters

of winter.  While every ghost of Alighieri

clusters by the Rubicon…

that stream of lethal human

fish-traps (Caesar-veins of slavery).

Henry, his curly churl, would stalk

through the rose cloud

of his quatrain (loud

quarantine) to sit upon his dark

& Rheingold throne (where Caesars reign).

The desolations… how

to begin?  Let’s start now.

Assemble palms to ease real pain.

Clap him in irons, or set him free.

Exiled from sybil-sylph

the rage becomes himself –

forsaken Minotaur of you & me.

3.15.20

plague stalks the King

PIN OAK

When the great cities are covered in grass

& nomads return, to forage & hunt

will they remember President Blunt

who saved them from civilization?  Alas!

President Blunt is anonymous too

his towers demolished

where servants once polished

his golden doorknobs, his superb statue.

What happened?  A corona followed him home

from the golf course, one day…

did his nation betray.  Now

his dogie named Money no longer will roam.

Plague stalks the King, going blind

as of old.  Old Oedipus

(our homo sapiens rebus) must

die for the herd (driven into the blind)

& civilization, our slave-driving hub

must await the next trickster

to merge at the mixer

& shatter the wiles of absurd Beelzebub.

Thus time-gravity, suffused with vertigo

informs our animale compagnevole

how pride goeth before a fall.

The voice you heard (long time ago)

out of the cave, whispering low

was your own ghost, human.

Soft-yodeling Robin, on

pin oak branch (before Cahokia).

3.13.20

to imagine governance anew

CURVE-MIRROR

Everything resolves into the question

of good will.  The mystery

of this most simple anti-

gravity (11.32 ft/sec, a-falling down).

Firebranded sign of imago Dei.

So we desire the good –

wholeness (soul food).

The skeleton key of MLK,

the metaphysical hope informing

scapegrace Providence;

little Ocean State’s immense

rose light (perpetually intensifying).

Only a memory of Henry’s youth.

That community-building élan

of the VISTA legion –

to imagine governance anew, in truth

& conspicuous joy (Roger’s liberty

of conscience).  Dante

& his animale compagnevole

on Dante Street (on Federal Hill)… si, si!

Canopic geometry – vanishing point.

The apse at Sant’Apollinare.

One solitary shepherd, & the sky

a coracle of stars around one smile (anoint

her compassionate Pilot over Kings).

In the curve-mirror of the dome

you sense her light.  Calm

Shekinah… mild restoration of all things.

3.12.20

the secret joy

DRIFTWOOD FIGURE

Hobo, driftwood figure, with his pal

Oblomov, headed south

aboard their pallid frigate

under the North Star (fleurs du mal).

Lent was coming on, when every

scrivener is shriven

or be damned.  Even

Isaiah, with that meteor (so very

hot) beneath his tongue, bent down

into the dust… awaiting

his Participating

Angel of the Harvest (Whitsun

shine).  The 50th, the Pentecost.

At very end of May.

One grain of precious clay,

one grey pebble… one lamp not lost.

Gravity looms there like a thundercloud.

Not Rome, but Man’s place

in the universe (ace

in the hole, casket buried in a field).

The secret joy, il ben del’intelletto –

Dante’s apprehension

of that Beatrician

quiddity.  Incorruptible glow

shed by her smiling shade… felt, so.

Bright alba in the diamond

of your emerald almond;

hopeful coracle (Micòl’s canoe).

3.6.20