up in Montrose Park

PINE-SMOKES

The war to end all wars was done.

On May 29th, 1919

Sir Arthur Eddington

tested heavy light, suspended

in a thread around the moon-black sun;

so gravity bent clay

toward refining accuracy.

Black Elk extends to six directions

silent gratitude & recognition,

just as an icon speaks

in speechless pine-smokes

or a painting glows with valedictory

emotion.  Around the summer solstice

rose-phosphorus sunset

seals the monuments’ regret

in Washington – western promise

magnifies & coalesces, in a microcosm

(up in Montrose Park,

at Avon Place, by River R).

That armillary zodiac, or star-prism

revealing violence, imperial dominance

(diagonal to its redeeming

countersign) – entangling

mn-mutter, amid all circumstance…

sweet Angel, levitant above the cancer

of the Capital; fleet-

footed Evening Star, bright

Pocahontas (waterlogged Delta, triangular).

2.24.20

in the shadow of Notre Dame

TO YOU

To you who have walked with me

all along this many poem.

I would translate my diagram

of raven wing into quick algebra.

As daylight stretches into spring

I would head to Beltrami

a worn-out refugee –

Itasca hearts to weld by wring.

The Iron Range is as our life,

cold for sunrise, fire

by dusk.  Evening Star,

Dove-Bird, be thou my wife

                 *

whose effigy is coppery Peg

centered in Big Muddy silt

at Pentecost, green to the hilt.

Cahokia palm (with Easter egg).

She danced in the shadow of Notre Dame

a firebird, on 5/29

with flammable cardboard mural crown

for Apollinaire to remember (at the Somme).

& she wheeled across flat American clay

from West Branch, a circumference

of byzantine raven-sense...

to lift sad Earth toward the Realm of Day.

1.8.20

from a painting by Phoebe Gould

signum of yearning

DOOM-BELL

The simple poem sets its seal on the day

(signum of yearning, lack

& bronze heartbreak).

It doesn’t create, but confirms, I say –

tacit equipoise of universe,

with roaring hearth

mirroring each heart

in Milky Way (our fiery nurse).

& of that translucent softest koinonia

the poem’s just a line.

Graven tattoo or riverine

El (whorled conscience of Columbia).

So when the Rabbi hums a restoration of all things

we understand what he means

& feel it in our bones –

sunlight in the kitchen supersedes all kings.

Liberty-tyranny-liberty; light-dark-light...

your Florentine chessboard

migrates its word-hoard

to Skye, & beyond (stern Ocean slate).

Your buoy rides the moiling salt

like a lucky pawn

become kingpin again;

Hamlet swings the doom-bell... halt,

who goes there? – solo Ophelia

hoovers up all Denmark

from her West Branch park,

& Evening Star glows like Astraea.

12.9.19

one mustard spark

RAINBOW MOUTH

The splendor of dangling catenary arcs

of orange steel & azure

sparkling with slim sure

stride, sprinting beyond the bayside parks.

I saw you, iridescent Golden Gate

on a sunny day in 1974.

Where Juliet had gone before,

plunged into her absence... my jeune Fate.

These tears in the inescapable network

of mutuality, these tears

of things.  What heart bears

at eye of hurricane (one mustard spark).

In the still, small world, along the keel

of a trim equilibrium skims

love’s unconditional hum

of humble surrender.  Like a simple meal.

Like a mother or father who is always there

ahead of time, before

you are aware.  Will soar

with eagles & doves, your Aviator-

Mediator – volant-violet Adonis, lifted up

(beyond the rivalry of red

& blue) into the thunderhead

of Thunderbird (Jonah grail-cup).

Hum now, Evening Star, Columbia...

your rainbow mouth, Osiris-

child.  Over the crisis-

cradle, full of infant cries – la realtà.

10.22.19

Watch Night

LAMBENT GHOST

A satellite streaks past Ultima Thule

at the rim, beyond Pluto.

Starlight, emitted long ago

marks the limit of what we know, Julie.

You took it to the limit, too –

plummeting on his birthday

into San Francisco Bay.

The scar on my heart stays blue.

A lifeline in my palm... tracing

your twirling halcyon-

descent.  Eccentric swan-

dives of deflected passion swing

the human pendulum to no return –

so you became my silent

witness to an absent

safety net (grave spirit-urn).

In a backyard garden, in Montrose Park

(on Avon Place, off R Street)

a weathered zodiac (fleet

beam for sailing time) still makes its mark.

The evening sun at vernal equinox

touching its circumference

sends streaming photons

in array, toward Washington’s matrix –

that sleepy apple tree, the founder’s

fault (first gentleman

surveyor’s lie-of-land).

& will our prime star, speaking, founder

                     *

backward, under night-sea sand?

The morning star, the pole

star’s mate – your sister-soul –

whose flickers lead our sarabande?

Hobo lumbers after Henry’s shade,

lugging the telescopes.

Who drowns their hopes

might lift them up again.  Maid

Marion, or Liberty, Virgo-Columbia

(the various nicknames

for Jonah-dove)... dream’s

figurehead for Watch Night... hallelujah!

Ice gathers on the Mississippi.

River-flow & starlight

comprehend Time’s might,

rewind the spring, recall the sea –

Pacific now, beyond the redwood tree;

beyond eld oak grove

where an infant strove

with Roundheads... & a maypole (merrily)

spun feet toward Pentecost;

beyond Sons of Liberty

into a whorled Equality

wrapt, spindled on a lambent ghost –

that quipu-knot, that safety net,

that weaver-coracle

from Galilee.  Slight miracle-

Thunderwren... walking on water, Juliet.

12.31.18

Morning to Evening Star

CIRCLE LAKE

Blindly, Hobo inches toward

the Keys.  In Florida.

Toward the delta,

in Louisiana.  His handy old

eye-in-hand in hand (light

portable fire-drill).

Ply all your skill,

Hobo.  Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.  A muddy ray

from cold Atlantic

like some frantic

foundering Santa Maria

threads yarns toward that western

Garden of Evening Star.

Across his eyelid, sure –

like Sire Henry, in his baby coffin

(six weeks encrypted with Guillain-Barré).

Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.

Autumn leaves of disenchanted

authors, sighing in their libraries...

(the Roger Williams version,

for piano).  Dispersion

through each mental prison (Henry’s,

yours).  Dread of ocean void

spirals up from deep

Le-Hev-Hev keep –

Coatlicue (the cut-up) is annoyed

                    *

& threatens Everyman – her sheep

is black & bloody red!

– Nana, you might be dead

before you know it.  Go to sleep.

The dream song reconfigures all

within its top-spin

in your heart-garden.

Your father was a gentleman narwhal;

your son was dancing on the shore

of Circle Lake, in Midway

Mirror-Land (in Galilee).

The crucifixion of the Evening Star

will not unveil her night-reality.

Observe this family

photograph, Henry.

Miss Padgett’s ancient book quarry –

the massive double-panes of glass,

a mandorla for owlish

Actaeons (Horus,

searching for Columbia?  Atlas,

looking for the moon?)  Nana,

dancing Sophie calls me.

Grandpa.  Hiawatha

had a friend, Hart Ibis Artemis – yah...

yawning from the deep, Jonah.

You must become the dove

still dancing, love –

spun from the heart of things.  Selah.

11.30.18

like Lear in rags

FRESH WELL

Hobo hides out among his cottonwoods,

a shade in camouflage

of cotton shade.  Mirage

of dreaming limbs.  She’s Robin Hood’s

Maid Marion, mayhap, he wheezes

in his sleep.  Across the road

(under the Shriners’ bold

benevolent scimitar) three turkeys

elegant & dainty as Enlightenment

grande dames mime

their quadrille parallelogram

athwart a sump pump drainage vent.

America drowses in Sargasso Sea.

The frigate Rachel picks

up Ishmael, sticks

him in her hold for an Eternity –

Queequeg’s confessions will be written

on his skin, with milky raven-

ink.  Temple of heaven

& earth, your living image (spit-on)...

Every inch a king.  Take physic,

pomp.  O, I have taken

too little care!  Reason

is gone, Regan is Goneril – my wick

sputters waxy blood, not gentleness!

Old man Pound rages

like Lear in striped rags –

Who shall succeed this rookie wilderness?

                     *

My cottonwood sap is like a floating mote

in Ezra’s crochet eye.

Lend him humility

for Lent – he’ll shrive his peacock boat

like Provençal Guillem d’Orange –

warlord who gave it all

away – the pride, the gall –

for fasting, prayer... passing strange

peace.  She is our peace – Star

of the Sea, the Evening Star;

ange of Apollinaire,

pirhouetting fée to end all war –

green child in her basilica

outlasting Stravinsky’s

thundering infamies

against her limping bull’s-eye

crane-dance labyrinth –

Natasha’s temple

limpid, humble, simple

climbing a ridge in Voronezh.

The temple of her body (yours,

mine).  A little salt

savors that azure vault –

elfin leap across the years

into the pond where Hobo swims

& Ishmael paddles... Jonah

surfs... Rachel’s Magdala-

spring (where the fresh well brims).

3.8.17

Hobo's continental centrifuge

PACIFIC VOYAGE

Hobo, hunching by the great river

in winter’s clamp, peers

like an Okie Okeanos

through the ice-floes’ ripple-shivers –

through the wavy shimmer, down

through faint diffractions

where the light shines

back... a silver mirror-sun,

layering her limestone shells.

A simple madeleine

(stone crumblevine,

gray rock-dove oval) wells

from the giddy stream in limpid echoes.

Raven in Voronezh,

Cautantowwit knife-edge

grips sun in her beak – light glows

like Pearl Harbor in eclipse.

Her lunar lance shall pierce

the mule’s gray hide.  Ears

perk for Jonah’s salty lips

molded like canoe gunnel

to mime Columbia.

Her dove-insignia

frames Sophie-ship – her funnel

rays its calumet of light

above the pyramid

(violent power-grid

of barbed-wire fraud, not quite

                 *

extinguishing that Evening Star

glancing so tender yet

steadfast – a mauve fishnet

looping beneath flame’s Icarus-car).

Hobo is Jonah now, in Ocean River.

The voice beneath the sea

is like a Kievan harmony –

perpetual melody of live-forever;

her flute-throat flickering dusky rings

like rain-drenched iris

round the throne of Isis –

Hagia Sophia in a peacock’s wings.

The river chimes in Hobo’s ears

of many waters, laughing,

crying.  Wingèd seraph,

sister-sibyl, swirl his tears

& yours into the continental

centrifuge (in Center,

North Dakota).  There

the massive gravity of all

Columbia hums into monarch flight –

a raven-transmutation

of infernal nation

to green cedar habitation (night

Pacific voyage of your soul).

Hobo watched the fluttering

lift-off, slowly muttering –

milkweed seed, sail; Ocean, roll.

1.26.17