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

for Dina Tagliabue

SUNNY SISTER

                                 for Dina Tagliabue

I never made it to the Mimbres Ranch,

Dina – though Alex & Phoebe did,

& brother Jim did, too – up

in them hardscrabble cactus hills, with a bunch

of hippies.  You chugged out there back when

in your VW bus, dragging along

stray hitches from Michigan –

getting the farm going, the pottery kiln...

Bob was there early, I guess, plying

the seasonal pickers’ fields

& his carpentry (& sprout yields

from the bathtub hydroponic mung-bean

enterprises).  Early & late he was –

composting with you to Sicily,

your garlic plot of earthy

transplants (care of kind Erica, & Grace).

It wasn’t my life, it was yours –

tied close to soil

by musing love-wrung toil

until this planet glazes bronze, & grows...

your joy, your blazing smile, Dina!

You were the sunny sister

to my moon’s iris – her

Inca-mauve Sheep’s Clothing (Francesca);

& now I see you foot the potter’s wheel

& knead your human clay

into a memory of joy...

molding earth to sunlight, in a laughing reel.

1.26.20

lingo & experience

SMOKING PYRE

O the glittering golden champagne world

the sparkle of human Honigwein!

& Henry skulking on the margin

ever – shy & sluggish, owlish Thunderbird.

At the intersection of Congdon & Morris

in the Honig house, in Providence

whereat Berryman lay, once

with his books, bourbon & cigarettes

a smoking pyre of lingo & experience

where the poet stands – a matrix

Jessifying the cosmos (X

raptor).  & Henry maunders after... silence

& gravity his only friends, he thinks

(1132 feet down, beneath

132 6th St).  Bequeath

his Sloop John B. to them steeply drinks,

drafts of your Ocean State, O bookish

Cesca-Fay!  Where Cautantowwit

calumeets Columbia, knit

together in your Seine – sweet swish-

mel Arno-Androscoggin – rosy net!

As the planet in the distance,

like an intricate replica, spins

its miniature J (illustrious Celt)

you cut your figure on the dancing floor

(smooth sliding all-akimbo

smile) like a capital C, or O

out of Jericho – my Tosca to thy Carib shore.

1.3.20

if I walk through this wormhole

LEAN MUSIC

If I walk with Hobo through this wormhole

at the bottom of a zigzag

Mississippi... will I see Cesca Tag

again, when we were young (my soul)?

In Providence?  Et tu, S2?

Picketing the perimeter

of Sagittarius A*,

noting that gravitational tug, you

sense her there, the ghost star...

back of an ecce-crypt

time-vacancy you slipped

through (holeworm, treacherous sailor).

Lean music of the sunflower.

Tall spirit loyal to the sky.

Your gravity a steel gateway,

oar-eye – florescing tacit power.

So this gold Einstein-Rosen bridge

domed by the Milky Way

shines like a lighthouse ray

into a monarch’s heart.  You wedge

there, anxiously, between her wings,

like the child in the blindfold

when a Black Ship sailed...

til tenderly his midnight origami brings

enfoldment to the nth dimension;

Liberty her royal seal

in beeswax, breathing... feel,

Hamlet, soft sunlight’s restoration!

11.19.19

perhaps we are Hagia Sophia

JAPANESE NOTE

Down by Mirror Lakes, in Mendelssohn

Henry collects the silver

trading cards of a younger

self.  Still innocent (the future Hobo-man).

In that Providence springtime,

when we were setting out.

Pure Japanese note

of your own childhood (high chime

of Tokyo folksong).  Your Florentine

round pallor, papery

sheepglow (Butterfly).

Who knew I’d be the priggish Pinkerton

of Rensselaerville epithalamia?

Til that blindfolded boy

waving a Yankee flag (say,

can you see?) – sows stony drama...

Puccini’s on the turntable, at Amiata.

Her spectral Iris-wings

loft LIBERTY (to thee we sing)

unto this microcosm of liublyu stigmata.

Yet, perhaps... we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

The crucifixion of surprise

curves down, humbled with apatheia

– still time, still time, to turn

from the spent spirit

to that glad esprit

reflecting oui (edging Ravenna urn).

11.18.19

Rab Ravlin was a weaver bred

SILVER TRACK

Summer’s gliding toward those falls.

The sumac swords are rusted

iron.  Below the nested

locks (St. Anthony), swift sculls

are water-spiders on a dragon’s back.

Hobo Larva... Henry

Woodpecker, monarch (maybe)...

all worm, Noman?  Whose silver track,

mercurial, serpentine?  I was

the wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,

tearing Ariadne’s weaving,

trading lux for lechery (luxurious);

I was the shadow of the waxing moon

purling beneath Pearl Harbor

Day – casting her bitter

part across the bar (Frisco Lagoon).

Now crickets rattle in the looming dusk,

a chorus, waiting in its wings.

1132, the catgut sings –

our heavy grave (in one cicada husk).

Only the lightest antigravity

can spark the dark menorah

in the heart of King Henrah.

Lonely almond of sheer pity

welling forth Father of Waters...

what was Magdala stone

becoming human Union

(steely pontoon, welding 4 quarters).

9.16.19

oracles from the Henry Couch

LOVE NEIGHBOR

While the planet bakes, heats up

like the moon... Henry,

like Winnie the Puer

Aeternus, idly rotates his kaleidoscope

full of little bits of brass cymbal.

Hibernal, he turns

this way & that; his urn’s

an ointment jar from Mary Magdala

full of tiny frozen stars of royal

palm oil.  His screech-owl

habitat’s a cypress bole,

an Erica-tree (washed up by Nile).

Osiris is a long brown river

searching for the sea.

A muddy throne for Henry,

couched like round-headed Cavalier

in the living room of an argot Argosy.

Whose vessel wavers

on the waves, & shivers

when the keel spokes (glossy Lady) –

a buoyant kind of synagogue-canoe

or pileated coracle –

high honeycomb cenacle,

multiocular almond (with ox-eye prow).

The Golden Fleece dangled in Providence

like a unicorn in a cloister;

in Sheep’s Clothing (her

murmur nest) Francesca wove the dense

                     *

gold poncho for young Dionysus

out of San Francisco.

Light moves now

through the window, Theseus;

Ariadne is a widow, & young Helle

sleeps with the shellfish

south of Phrixos (Frisco);

all shall be well, & all thing shall

be well, &... who shall lift up

the great acorn of light?

Not Henry, with all his might –

but Grace (who bears the Bear-man cup).

That donkey-man of Apuleius,

cousin to St. Francis,

steered the figurehead of Isis

to the throne of Henry’s soul-crisis.

Pressure from the Left to dispossess

the thriving bourgeoisie

leads (see 20th century)

to misery.  Children, beware forgetfulness!

Pressure from the Right to still maintain

luxurious plutocracy

leads (see 21st century)

to misery.  Children, beware unrighteousness!

Old Coke & his disciple, Williams

joined ancient lawful right

with each & all – O passionate

recognition!  Love neighbor, & be happy clams!

1.25.19

Idea of Order at Port-au-Prince

PIED-DU-ROI

The mysteries of the tree of life

wafted in pine-scent,

loon-call.  Where she went?

My tiny Haitian house (Hiram Abiff?)

flattened into iron, painted

sea-coral (for joy).

That illegible toy

Advent ball of light – Levite,

anointed by black sun (yellow-

black Torah).  Sister-

dove?  Little tree

of Jessie, O (hidden willow-

canoe of Providence).  Chip

off the sloop Francesca

(pale arte povera,

woven from raven-ink on quipu

stone).  These are the quadrants

of my quatrain train

with a hey, ho, the wind

& the rain (Earth birth-bangs, pants).

You will carry Ariadne’s Crown,

Cordelia – innocence

to crystalline prescience

at perihelion of night (black noon).

Palladium of cornbelt Maggy –

out of Byzantium

into some quonset dome

of little Rhody (heart’s domain).

12.30.18

Pearl Harbor Day

MOON-TIDE

Prospero, home in Milan,

dozes in winter sun.

Hobo, on the run,

hands Henry his drownèd plan.

Pearl Harbor Day.  His Juliet,

her father-love unmet,

unmatched, flings it

(on his birthday) off the Golden Gate.

Incest breeds in the wounded psyche

trapped in regression-mirrors.

Henry’s his own father’s

worst enemy (Knight to Queen 3).

Hal speeds to Falstaff’s hideaway.

Idleness debauchery

& trickery will be

his refuge from a father’s eye.

So Henry runs to poetry –

where Hobo rules the sleepy

riverbank, all lotus-weedy

with papyrus-infancy

(Atlantis-libraries of Alexandria).

He seeks his sweet cousin

for soul reunion – one

shady psyche for another ghost.  Selah!

Prospero!  You’ve gone all cranky

& explicit now.  Don’t drown

your book just yet, man –

Henry threads a maze of hanky-panky.

Full fathom five   thy father lies

these are pearls   his eyes

the moon-tide hurls  (sailors

sleep beneath waves, where firelight dies)

The flame in the heart surges, or is

deflected into shallows.

Juliet of the swallows

flittering at dusk... Henry’s paralysis...

shady pining for the sister-dove –

Orpheus, Eurydice

Alighieri, Beatrice

Ray by Nile, yearning for Eye of love...

Hobo’s intellect of mother-wit

tangential, tacit

               *

star, Cautantowwit

Raven-shade of Narragansett

Buried god Osiris, burdened Berryman

weeps on his barbed-wire fence

of psychic violence.

Angry sons are on the march again,

the envious ones – misled by signs

of fraught deflected love;

the Dragon’s treasure-trove,

the Minotaur’s deceit (threadlines,

snarled cul-de-sacs of self-defeat).

Manxmen of tyranny –

their island fantasy

a sunken travesty (Narcissus-fleet).

I remember your weaver’s baton

in Providence, Francesca.

The shuttle flying (rock-a-

bye, baby) to shape a golden woolen

poncho – gift for a San Francisco

poet (from Rhode Island).

Like a wand in your hand,

unspoken, felt – taking flight so

from one heart to another, at

speed of light – what

equilibrium you wrought

there!  Or an image of it –

warm, wearable, at human scale.

From the heart, the earth

shines – ruby hearth,

or emerald (blue-cloudy pearl).

The mystery of Providence

is as a rose in flower,

full of people-power –

origami of experience

unfolded in a safety-net

concordance –

each fold in silence

married to the others – what

complete rose blossoming!

Inexpressible

joy of a grateful Abel,

poncho-whorled into a golden ring!

12.7.18

like variations on a theme

FIRST SNOW

It was a first snow falling on your birthday, Alex

38 years ago.

Cesca’s labor so slow

& painful, there in Miriam Obstetrics

under the klieg lights & the surgeons

she took the C-section

at last (proud, stubborn

mother) while the soft newborn

stars sloped across the parking lot

in silent counterpoint.

The time was out of joint –

your father, too.  Every hamlet

screens its circular pilot plot

through every heart;

Henry left his hearth

to wander Cain-like into Camelot

(his Ars, his land of Nod).

The story is familiar.

Eros sparks war

for Adams unwilling to plow the meek sod,

buster.  Adonis was a narcissist.

Henry plucked his Clover

(tuneful Faustian lover)

& spun the wheel no heel resists –

the veils of Isis & Osiris (masonry,

mummified fire).

Venus, Morning Star

shone pallidly, across the whole country

                  *

a kind of Cairo-Poe magnet (wherever

you are).  Middle C

on the piano, tenderly

(Ravlin Princess, Ravel).  Life-saver

played out to Juliet, by Hart.

Like Bach, young Alex –

one sea-tempest X

along path P (where all the tempers start).

Grief comes in waves.  These little ripples

echo from the pangs

of Providence (where swings

a cosmic jewelry show).  Dilated pupils

merge in swarms of busy drones

(watch-birds for smoke-

signals).  Go for broke,

the Iago of the capital intones.

Unleash the dogs of war.  They hated

me without a cause...

Faust is no Santa Claus;

the raging boar will not be sated

‘til the last woman on earth

flees with her child

into that desert wild

nursing one lonely human birth.

11.14.18