for Notre Dame

PACIFIC ARC

April air, so clear today.  The quiet sea-

blue sky.  Clear as that great bell

ringing in Paris – for the swell

of hearts, for Notre Dame (in her infirmity).

In Minneapolis, as everywhere, the plague

confines each to monastic cell.

For contemplation, just as well…

for dreams, these patchworks made with rag.

My own dream surfaced in a film – Deserto Rosso

(M. Antonioni).  Monica Vitti, in

moss-green – damaged angelo-mammi;

her little boy, gone lame (povero bambino)

at her ceramic studio; those indecisive men

full of morose indifference

battered by commercial arrogance,

industrial violence… & the wistful omen

of the desolate cathedral (windswept, hollow

Sant’Apollinare).  Alighieri

stood in this nave once; calmly

pondered the tall wraiths, gleaming in shadow –

Justinian, & Theodora… all the martyrs

in procession, holding their lamps

lifted, unmoving… lambs

in a moss-green meadow, by the still waters.

Just so each poet carries in their heart

like robin’s egg in oak leaf nest

a Paradise, made roughly manifest –

as Langland’s Imaginativa would impart

dream-visions of the human Temple

hidden there.  So Henry Church

would make a supreme sketch

on local limestone, an American example –

one Venn diamond, rimmed with Jonah-pen

borrowed from humble Maximus

whose subtlest partitas mass

the radiant matrix of divine & human

(union of the two-in-one, distinct

without division or confusion).

Curl, then, into this acorn

nest of light, this Rose of every precinct –

Apollinaire & Mary Magdalen   together

witness at the sepulcher

*

Grace attentive   through Hell-sulfur

Love revive   on silver loon-feather

When the local materials begin to coalesce

& the collage takes shape & form

& the design of Maximus, his dream

translates (in waves) our constitutional mess –

for that incarnate Union of the two-in-one

implies a like distinction between

Church & State – salvation

neither by Emperor nor Pope, but won

deep within each living human soul

in liberty of conscience

loving freedom of response –

so that the invisible Churnagogue is whole

& multi-confessional – universal – hidden

like Micòl’s almond canoe

in the garage, in Ferrara (you

know what I mean).  So we begin again

where we ended before – in dreams

in shadow-lands of fiction

in the feathery benediction

under that granite palm of Roger Williams

in the old town of Providence, the rose

rood of Rhode Island

with an origami flower-bend

beside the humble stream of San Francesco

flowing to sky-tinged Gulf, flowing to Sea

under a firm Pacific arc

lit by candescent sunset spark

far off there   breathing   with you & me

4.16.20

in Deserto Rosso

LITTLE ROOM

Like Giuliana’s little boy, in Deserto Rosso

for 6 weeks I was on a ventilator

(“iron lung” back then).  For

Guillain-Barré.  That was 1956 or so.

Paralysis for Henry Fish Quattoir -

great reckoning in little room.

Like coffin-casket, in full bloom;

like April, breathing frailty to power.

Who shall restore the sickly Lord?

There is no temple on the earth,

no glorious basilica that’s worth

the wonder of a single child (a word

once heard with flooding tears, in Ramah).

You who are sum of all

creation – telos, quintessence, lovely corona…

behold the Argos-eyed canoe of Noah.

How the universe giulianizes in you,

Giuliana (as Cusanus wrote)!

You are both verde crown & mote

of mustard seed… the whole tree, Julio!

Now Henry faints… his epileptic storm

of vertigo (at sight of blood)

flings him to Frisco neighborhood.

Where Juliet ascends… to join a swarm

of victims, falling like rain from Golden Gate

(our Twin Towers).  He stretches

out his arms… the King of Wretches,

Grail King.  Melek, MLK (Good Friday fate).

4.1.20

mercurial transit of the Martian sun

GRAND MARQUIS

Armistice Day.  For all veterans.

For memory of an end

to hostilities.  Promised Land

or Providence... high limbs of the ones

who came before, palms lifted (orans).

From martyrs of brave speech,

whole truth, let us beseech

ineffable blessing.  Alighieri stands

nigh frozen Sant’Apollinaire

trasumanare in Ravenna.

Where mossy Giuliana

calls me from her potter’s lair

(soft aviator from a sunken realm).

Like that Tim Taylor, seeker

at Pacific depth (1132

ft. down... USS Grayback graven on its helm).

Project Lost 52 – to bring to light

every forsaken sheep-canoe

& let them float anew

somewhere divine (mercurial transit

of the Martian sun).  She’s calling me.

Like salt-grain in the war-engine,

a kernel from the Corn Maiden

of Grant Wood haunts... her Grand Marquis

a black blind spot across that gilded orb,

Ferrari Rio Santo Spiritu –

she snakes toward you (& you)

from her smile-park (topaz to curb).

11.11.19

translated to an island

SIMPLE IMMANENCE

Constitution Day.  Coke’s legacy,

translated to an island rose –

mother & nurse of repose

on the throne of Imago Dei – si?

Your lambswool, Giuliana – moss-green

through the red-dust desert.

Alighieri’s tomb, in quiet

(such as lie, smothered in grass, by San

Vitale).  Twin peacocks, maybe –

between two almond trees?

In the Ferrara freeze

(Micòl shivering in her garage)... see?

Your solar emblems not for me,

Ezra.  Marble from Ravenna

swiped for Rimini, & gloria –

the simple immanence of meek Marie

shunned like a ghetto-child.  & so

the merry-go-round of sacrifice

creaks back to 1913, Paris...

Ugo, Parisina, burnt to ash once more

for the war to end all wars (before

the end).  A rust-bronze Penny

blackens backward, in Gehenna –

from dim crossroad will she soar

like diamond Southern Cross.  She is

lips’ ghost dance ring-

around-the-rosy... clear spring

Pax-water (your West Branch Isis).

9.17.19

photo from Ballets Russes

ALMOND ARGO

Old Hobo-&-Henry, down by Big Muddy.

Hobo lounges in cottonwood shade.

Twirls a bright curving blade

of tiger-lily, so orange & black, idly

between finger & thumb.  Henry

thought of mossy Giuliana

walking away from her pottery

shop, entering the gloom of Sant’Apollinari –

high frieze of majestic virgin martyrs

carrying their crowns.

The photo from Ballets Russes,

Paris, 1913 – spring maids, en fleurs...

& the black dot of Juliet in the distance

crossing the tensile spine 

of orange tiger-dragon

one last time (beneath frost-cobalt silence).

Strange oak, epileptic, near the shore.

Bent like a lyre before

a cluster of cottonwoods – your

humble servant, it seems.  Kingly no more.

Hobo eyed it.  Washing their leaves

with hers, maybe, he said.

Like San Francesco & his bride,

his sister, Povertà.  Humility cleaves

to the pivot of this world, the matrix –

to the crossroad, to the tree

of life.  I look into you, Henri –

to your salty heart.  I read the asterisk

                        *

you scribble for a star, approximately –

I scan the fresco-sketch

you offer for a spirit-potlatch

replica of New World Galilee.  It’s funny.

Earth is in its birth-pang death-throes,

Hobo.  Hope is hard to find.

Yet... the kingdom’s in your mind.

Your heart, my friend.  The Shadow knows.

& you were right to shape the Southern Cross

surrounded by Sydney fig trees

into a diamond-figure Paradise –

to stem four rivers from St. Louis

like emerald casket for the Eucharist;

for Micòl in her black canoe

& MLK in Memphis too

sustain that central martyrdom of Mars

just as Dante foresaw, in his basilica –

where little sylvan J

circumferences her almond tree

delightfully... & the grail of tears (Ephphatha)

opens broken hearts across the globe

to each one’s almond Argo

Isis-eyed Hagia Sophia...

see, Henry Church?  & like a strobe

light suddenly unfolded, Henry felt

what Osip felt – accompanied

the rapture of the universe (sighed

with bold Marian... watched iron melt).

8.8.19

heights & depths

LOVE LEADS

In the phosphorus dwelling-place of the Most High

Dante, murmured Hobo

will I be able to hear

that melancholy train-horn cry

so-so long gone?  His pal Henry

felt that ol’ pulsing flame

of lonesombrero, becomin’

churnagogue (centripetal clay) –

that emerald lichen-moss of Giuliana,

flanking a time-hewn sepulcher

with it still whorl

of tesseratic Emperors & Empresses... ah

Psyche, from those regions which

are Holy-Land!  Smoky

incense signals eye-

in-hand, Galla (yon casket-niche).

The soul is feminine.  The turbulent

churnagogue is melting

galaxies, in buttermilk –

hamlets of sacred discontent;

YHWH, detached from patriarchal kings

unveils a weird Coatlicue-

possessed & epileptic Dante-

muse... Venusian fire – & Jonah sings

Love leads us up like moth to flame

from steel-train Iron Range

down to Delta... strange

diamond, Latrobe (El MLK mandala-frame).

7.29.19

wheezing in an iron lung

PATIENT BURRO

Utterly subjective universe

of the poet, Hamlet

dreaming action... what

was I thinking?  A serious nurse

stood by my cradle (Abbott Hospital).

I was four years old,

wheezing in a cold

iron lung.  Paralysis (total).

1956.  Guillain-Barré.

Dr. Pohl – I

don’t remember (sigh).

Osiris in his casket, hey

ey yo.  The photo in the Star-

Tribune – toothy Henry

hugs his scarlet monkey

in a wheelchair.  Recovery! (Bizarre.)

Like the slight son of Giuliana

in a clinic in Ravenna.

Watch her parabola –

purple violet (or cypripedium

reginae) fringes the pottery;

congregate, massive

unguent jar, evocative

lure (hand of Lippo Memmi)

harboring anointment oil.

Milk, sap, honey,

wine, blood...  See

the star-eye riding the sea-roil

                  *

on her prow, lancing the Black Sea!

Magnet of gold foil,

handle for plow-soil –

wave of personae-galaxy!

As if the searching character of Isis

were encapsulated in

this matryoshka-queen.

Vierge Ouvrante (Hagia Sophia’s

magnifying glass, or Henry Church)

sums up significance

of eucharist – each instance

in a suffering kenosis, the human lurch

(from safe beatitude to surf

beat attitude)

leading to passionate

étude (H. Gorecki... – it is enough).

Prow like a beak, eye like star,

the solidarity of Polar

Bear – it is our

birthright, people everywhere!

Metaphysical, incomprehensible

Love, that finds an echo

in the infinitely patient burro

suffering everything.  Your fable

inches toward the human heart

on light footsteps...

so Nora’s rose keeps

Eros innocent (sweet garden violet).

1.25.19

north of Pig's Eye

ERICA-TREE

Giuliana opens a pottery shop

in Red Desert (the film).

Destination of the earth –

Slim Pickens, Strange Love (stop!).

The mystery of desolation.

Calcified lava

Under the Volcano.

Monarchs, Mexico (extinction).

Henry’s buried north of Pig’s Eye

inside an Erica-tree.

Come back for you & me,

someday.  Maybe.  I don’t know why.

He’s Osiris, in a hoary

Hobo boot.  Isis

is us.  She’s

barely there (yesterday’s story).

Somebody’s Mom no doubt, planted

in Cahokia clay (naturally).

The river is a lonesome bee,

rolling honey-balls out of decay (putrid!).

Henry strays onto mountain, in the sun

shouting, we’re Everyone!

Lightning jets down

lighting whole plateau (goodbye, platoon).

In the heart of the burble-stream

Hobo-prospector

strikes a vein, in the ore.

Honey bleeds from lava dream.

12.12.18

where everything is born

GREAT BRIDGES

When summer is a woven synthesis

of differences, a music

of what happens, homesick

Hobo thinks of Providence – yes,

Ocean State – that tiny place

where everything is born.

Microcosm, on a horn

of sea-salt... on a wave of seamless

grace.  There dreamt his dream

of mater Giuliana,

in her moss-green llama-

shawl (Francescan almond-gleam

within Ravenna).  Dante found Christ

in Beatrice’s almond joy;

hypostasis in our eye;

omnipresence of the Holy Ghost.

That fusion in Jerusalem –

gemstone of solid air;

communion of river

& sky great bridges ravel, hem

by curving hem (triplicate

unruffled grace).

Traveling eucharist,

friendship seal... rose safety net...

personification (into human

rainbow) of a humble

kiss.  Gold bumblebee,

sweet Henry-awk... sunken, risen.

7.21.18

my Bruegel panorama

AUTUMN AIR

The little gold galleys of the butternut

navigate through autumn air.

My Bruegel panorama

of proverbial bird-wit is fading out.

The motherland calls Hobo.  Every leaf

a chaste canoe... Rus, Rus.

The enemy be us,

pugnacious Pogo cries – war is grief

between brothers.  Apollinaire

drifts in gray whiffs

of wistfulness... his skiff’s

more tangled up with Minotaur

than was before, sighs Psyche-

Ariadne.  That graybeard

on Ravenna guard

surrounded by gray paint-debris –

he might be me.  Ocean is gray

as wing of turtledove today.

Way in the middle of the air

Ezekiel saw them wheels a’glory

Louis sang (on path LP

somewhere in Tuscany).

Leonardo da Vinci

drew Vitruvian Man like a Kali

on a microcosmic wheel of fire –

he was such a star!

& in the Last Supper

Judas & Jesus in sfumato-mirror

                  *

reach together across girlish Jean –

or do they reach for her?

Shocked faces of the men –

is it betrayal, or espousal sign?

Some knot of gravitational waves

whorls into matrix-vortex.

Beloved spindrift Rex

emergent from that sea of graves –

a eucharist or mystical body

encircled by a palm

inscrutable as that helm

of Jonah, breaching the cloudy

surf of Ocean River – O font

of soul-transfigurement!

So rooted in the fundament

we rise as citizens of Turtle-Tent –

when the Eternal comes, & we

are summoned to a wedding-

feast.  Melodious syrinx

of Orpheus-Nazir... blithe epi-

thalamium from sparkle-profundum.

Wrath of Kali-Coatlicue-

Moloch subsides away

& Leonardo frames his simulacrum

of one vernal smile... Mona Lisa

bubbly as Virgin

on the Rocks.  Come in,

she says; God’s blessing in persona.

10.19.17

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