in the Grand Army of the Republic

CLEAR BREEZE

Hank limps onward, like a lost private

in the Grand Army of the Republic

through swamps above Nilotic

Memphis – or plug of gneiss granite

broken loose from Superior shoreline

(euphoric azure of sea air

lifting over the spare

curves of rusted railroad iron).

We carry so much indifferent amnesia,

sleepwalking across Earth.

A measureless unplumbed worth

overshadows our shadows (ecclesia

del girasole… sunflower’s rotation

in the silence of Ravenna

backwater).  Antenna-

headed cave figures, in Papillon

foreshadow these elongate, lantern-

eyed hierarchs of grace –

a shadow ladder, on a base

of basalt (box-within-a-box of Lincoln

logs).  A matryoshka puzzle toy

from Kiev, or Constantinople;

an emerald imago of all people

in mild irises of Maximus (old boy-

martyr).  Matrix, crosshair lens –

vertigo of San Francesco

whorled to the point of zero,

razor-sharp.  Star of St. Stephen’s,

                  *

or the sea.  Is shadow-hero

of millions of shadows, round-

about… perceptible ground

or incarnation of your own heart’s

broken-down ego (melted to music).

Is Jonah of your ocean,

Columba… is feminine

Adonai of Morning Star (mystic

bloom, afloat over Cahokia).  Is

Gateway steel of your

clear breeze, Superior –

Osiris to your adamantine Isis

(Psyche-Amor).  In Ford Theatre

the violence comes to a head.

A Service of the Dead

melds Abraham to one frail butterfly-

phantom – one solidarity of soul.

Whim’s monarch, hoboing

from Mexico, to spring

the news… Pinetop’s True-Loving Honor Roll.

In the heart of the heart of hearts

where all the waters start,

we’re no longer apart –

little acorn coracle sea-charts

mark the almond center of the diagram.

Here the luminous shadow

smiles out of clay wheelbarrow,

& love never ends (warbling I AM).

2.11.20

Reminiscences of 1865

GREY FEATHER

Today we recall the tall gaunt pioneer

with Peruvian cheekbones.

His fifth scene atones

for all that blood shed in anger

at the righting of wrongs; his brief turn

by the Gettysburg graveyard

consumes, with a perfect word,

our kindled rage in bright compassion.

The creaking panorama of all wars

since Cain killed Abel, here

slows, crawls... Ford Theatre –

whose British farce on Yankee manners

stumbles from play to traitor’s hour.

Dusky similitudes...

old King of the Woods

hung from an oak (in Raven’s power)...

the tragic pattern rotates on a string.

Tyro, dangling puppets

tangled on parapets,

shuffles the script – the play’s the thing.

Your clear-eyed servant laughs his last,

cries, Come to my Thanksgiving

feast!  An overlay of evening

wash soaks its river of papyrus bast

in crimson, indigo, & brown.

Still life.  Peto.

Reminiscences on Yew.

Grey feather you must make your own.

4.14.18