Ides of July

MARBLE TOY

On this defunct St. Emperor Henry’s Day

the cavaliers of Christ broke down the walls

massacred the cityfolk, & found

the Holy Sepulchre.  & it was empty.

His midget kingdom was a bit of ground

6 ft. x 6.  Beneath Jo’s linen palls

that Body slept, 3 nights… then slipped away.

So Earth corrals the sun again (at mid-July).

Old Henry rotates his lugubrious clay

like cenotaph, or marble toy.  Through hells

of blinded crowds – mesmeric crown

for snobbish mobs, heartless autocracy –

deracinated tribes, bent for destruction.

So humankind spins round its Book of Kells

by fiddlehead bronze… on heaven’s way.

                                                          7.15.20

upon St. Swithin's Day

MONARCH MILK

‘Tis hot & muggy in the octagon

upon St. Swithin’s Day.

& will it rain?  Say.

St. Emperor Henry’s (Holy Roman)

also, once upon a time.  It’s stifling.

An unreal toad usurps

the garden throne, & burps.

His orange tongue is mean, & trifling;

his fire-red refuge-chair is for a child

who hasn’t come home

in 33 years.  Christendom

conquered the Holy Sepulchre... wild

slaughter & rejoicing on this day,
1099.  But will his Ghost

lift from that gloomy host?

Joachim daubs a fingerpaint contrary

blindly, with bare feet (a cave-fresco

for San Francisco).  & Henry

plots his own obscure & minatory

figure : double wheels.  Of milky glow

& river-clay – Cahokia, North Star.

To turn the Great Year

5 29s... & spin from here

some monarch milk (a little almond to restore).

7.15.19

transcendental & irrational path P

THIN BANDS

The outer circle of this diagram

is drawing to a close.

The path P we chose

here loops into its ruddy oriflamme.

An old man’s line of numbers,

transcendental &

irrational.  Thin bands,

ketched for riding heavy combers –

sea-path between good & evil.

One people’s destiny

doubled in duality;

twin circles on their parallel

                **

emerge (amid stars & stripes

& iron bars).  History

halts here : between Rimini

& Ravenna (Venice-Paris) overlaps.

The pilot at the wheel of Providence

eyes the prow of his canoe.

Her figurehead (1132)

blooms from the sepulcher – immense

Redemption, like a Stonehenge grail

from 44 B.C. to 4.14.

Melchizedek stands in between.

The plummet-eye of Joachim sets sail.

3.14.19

wave-factor

ARBOR DAY

The wave-factor on a riverboat

differs downstream (or

up).  Rocking the shore

like thread of Agnes Martin’s Night

Sea.  & we are far from home.

Waves of corny grain,

of grass, of wheat... Main

Street.  Grant Wood’s metronome.

He lived four blocks from Henry Negus.

Farmer turned lawyer-

transportation czar

(bus co.) in Iowa City – is

my namesake (great grandfather).

Quaker-shlepherd genehaulogy.

American Gothic, see (flea!) –

straight from dry-humus bow-bent flower.

Arbor Day.  Planting families

of fanatics in the grass –

another word for pass

the ammunition, Grandma.  Crazies,

huh?  All-American.  Beyond

the scope of Scopes Trial,

Solomon... we’re all

afloat upon some stinkin’ frogpond

paddle-wheeler.  Gothic was light

pontoon (Jerusalem).

Grail-Sepulchre rim.

Gitchee-Pollen-Air, up & walkin’... right?

7.15.18

like spinning Jenny Gyre

SAFETY LINES

The late-May lilacs are long gone

but light grey limbs

& the green leaves rim

the grass with shade yet, absent one.

The sound of an ocean softly seething

in the branches overhead.

Is she alive or dead –

my sainted, tainted Juliet?  Still breathing

somewhere?  Imago or Imogen...

merely some ghoulish Ravlin-

Gouldash revenant, then?

Some Beatrice-crystal-Poe routine,

arising ghastly from dank ditch-ravine?

But no... a memory

lifts all azury

from sparkle-spray beneath benign

leap of wide Golden Gate.  Almond-

eyed sprite, a-whirl

like spinning Jenny Gyre

balanced on catenary wire... light bond

that ravels tout le monde... infinite

undisplaceable safety net

& cloudy calumet

confirming universal concord... so be it!

Grave knot that tightens less & less

toward infinite regress

of infinitesimal kiss

(minute atomic balm of tenderness

                     *

merging without mixture or separateness).

Maximus once limned it thus,

the monk who bore witness

(with loss of limb) for concept Orthodox –

incarnate knot of human & divine,

united unlikeness – like

that tomb slab, a limestone block

marked by what seems a breaking line

but only seems; the two are one

in one Person, of three

in all; still guarantee

amid the waltz of turning sun & moon

of Love’s immoveable eternity.

Out of deep matrix

of Ocean – intergalactic

scheme of merry stars in that sea...

inconceivable conception of

all origins (harmonic

correlations, thick

with measureless & dancing life).

The Manitou all people know,

Aquinas wrote.  The God

who dreamed this serenade...

we meet you in the shady slough

beneath great knots of wild grapevines

beside the muddy Jordan –

down by where solitary John

once cast a seine for Jonah (safety lines).

7.11.18

the poem is a sort of Edicule

MODEL DOME

So then, the poem is a sort of Edicule?

My allegory’s all unglued.

Runny gouache, stewed

river clay.  Some no-count school.

The building, trembling in devolution

shored up like a veteran

with iron-rivet skeleton.

Metamorphosis by desperation.

My babble-model of the cosmos –

molded on a mini-dome

within a dome (Jerusalem-

fond matryoshka doll).  The keys

to a box, where lie a bunch of keys.

Over meleki limestone

slab, one forest olive-green

icon.  Your madre of collapsing gaze

rains down (with her clay ointment jar).

He is not here, he

is not here.  She’s

muted as trumpet, or Morning Star –

an eye-in-hand, an ocean tear.

Light blazes (calmly

coruscant undying day).

He is not here, he is not here.

Wind mews in muscular oak tree.

They’re up in Galilee,

maybe Cahokia... you’ll see.

Inventing deeds of agape – live poetry.

7.2.18

only Osage land

WHAT SMILE

July... all the baby flags.

Every bright young lamb

tuck to torment in Vietnam.

Lyndon moon-face – how it sags.

Hubris... alien, demonic force

unhinged from humility

(vomitgreen parrot pity).

Folds bomber-wings in remorse

after all.  Neither national

nor international;

only irrational

(November’s double coronal).

I’ll finish off this work in progress

now, Columbia –

OK?  Oklahoma’s

only Osage land (but I digress).

& poetry?  Is just a conversation

among singed beans.

You joint it, Henrythin,

to ease U-Haul into elation

(somehow).  That OK.  The heart

is made of meleki limestone

(royal).  43 lamps shine

down upon them groove.  What

now, Henry?  What hum?  What ghost

flit as yum turtledove

‘bove fry Friday pirate cove?

What smile lightum up (coruscant host)?

7.1.18

ledge of regal limestone

HUMAN PLEDGE

The cool dry tesserae congeal

in Sant’ Apollinaris –

dance, coalesce

into high figures of a royal seal.

Exalted features... recognizable.

Your neighbors (Limentani).

Riding bikes to the sea

to get away from scent of stable

(Mussolini’s racehorses).

That was then; this

is placid Minneapolis.

We’re not like them, of course (off-course).

The constitution of a human pledge

blazons these images

from pencil-boxes... pages

scratched out.  Natasha’s ledge

of regal limestone – living rock,

streaked honey-colored

marble.  Moss-layered

icon, limpid under chopping block.

Our covenants of disputation

rest on implicit ground;

Rhode Island in the round,

an Ocean State of transmutation.

The bond of love is clean as salt,

as plain as day.  We are

redeemed by holy fire.

The one you seek has left the vault.

6.30.18

conversation for kids

LITTLE PEARL

The Hebrews found a verbal replica

for Pharaoh’s pyramids.

Conversation for kids

(& sheep, & goats).  It was Jehovah

came to intervene, to interview.

Some saw an Oedipal

triangle – shadow wall

of mud-baked bricolage (dream stew);

some saw trois anges, craning down

from Paradise – to speak

with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac

(that lightning twin would play the clown).

The pyramids are office towers.

No one will explain

how so much pain

depends on callous fingers (ours).

The just one wears a diamond pin

stuck through the heart –

QUADRANS IN IMO ET

IN SUMMA SUBTILIS (wide-eyed dolphin).

The Middle of the World, he said

& made the sign of six

ways (willow sticks,

or cottonwood).  So truth’s inbred.

Her little pearl of rectitude

is portable – rides

water as a cheek glides

tears.  That’s all (beatitude).

6.28.18

May-time

ALMOND FLING

Palmers wayfare toward Jerusalem

& Holy Sepulchre –

empty signifier

for an Easter hymn (they’ve taken him

away).  A grail of ever-floating joy –

love’s Pentecost

fire-fizz Ghost

Dance for 50 stars (Old Glory

stitched anew from burial shroud).

Rivers of Paradise

(Tigris, Euphrates,

Nile, Big Muddy) circle back to cloud

of Ocean-Stream – source of sky-waters,

like round limestone

beaded with ripple-shine

to emerald gleam (through grisaille shutters).

Hobo, fish-eyed Fisher King,

beheld this vision

through a wavy octagon

of old gazebo planks.  & sinking

down upon his quaint Vienne étable

his head (like Bran of Grain

Elevator) made moan

for Miriam, or Marian, as in the fable.

Until your May-time dawn refulgence

metamorphosed everything

into one almond fling –

Oak Restoration (eye-in-palm, perchance).

5.20.18

i.m. Don Peppino Diana

SEA-SALTS

Late summer by the Mississippi

yields an agon by the Po.

Fording his Rubicon, Hobo

hunkers by crossroad (at path P).

The stubborn soul, a milky diamond

in the murk, seasons a world

of wounds with salt – hurled

Don Peppino to the ground,

who fell as lightly as a moth wing

to the concrete men of Moloch –

smiling firmly, struck

a blow with kiss of peace (like visiting

ange d’or).  Take him to heart,

Henry, the mirror said;

that mensch you left for dead

leaps like a saltimbanco to his part

bench pressed against each prison wall.

Melchizedek demurred

Don’s invitation to world

domination – orange towers fall;

that milky mutter from a cloudy center

framed Ariadne’s nets

(enmeshed with quipu knots)

into a corn-gold maze.  You enter

Notre Dame like a gray wave

of seamless limestone

turning emerald... bone

by bone, like Jonah from the grave

                 *

her naval spine arches a dolphin

gray on gray – her eye

a waterspider... golden fly

fleeced with fine thread... riverine

almond, flanked by an equal sign.

This acorn fell from heaven;

here it shall remain,

be not removed – a seed from Okean

(Kiev domain).  While the Son of Man

through the murmur of murk

will shine, & do his work –

his echo in green shade, his twin

like Thunderbird flares out her wings

& rustles in the poplar leaves

where Peppy Di conceives,

Maria Retina perceives – brings

everyone to that shade garden throne.

It is a cryptic gravity

1132 feet high

& etched with J, or eagle eye – lone

outline from a deep loom’s frame

(Martin A. might say)

or copper penny for the Day

of Jubilee – ineffable clear cipher-game;

Tommy the Woodpeck’s narrow marrow-

proof; the oakleaf’s laugh,

or Death’s own epitaph –

lifting grey sea-salts into fresh tomorrow.

8.30.17

St. Henry's Day

GRACIE MANSION

Hobo (the Holey Roamin’ Umpire)

waits on a pitch from Sleepy-Eye

Hank.  It is his day.

Home plate always Big Mother Star-

Fish play (a hide-seek curve ball –

Dad’s Scrambled Hamlet).

Around 9 innings yet.

Black diamond in Elkhart... St. Paul

stole bases off that pokey Cobb

(guess – tie).  The Twins

still mirroring last year’s

lost wins.  The ball can wobble

1132 feet per sec – 33 miles

per the union (1099).

Hank Aaron was my man.

Hit the dead aim toss, all smiles –

black pay-dirt (out of Elkhart minors

graveyard).  Rod bloomed,

the whole world boomed –

from Thunder Winnebago Hen (majors,

truly) into found pro (his Red-Eye Land).

Only a game, anyway.

If somebody tries to say

who started it... sweet Joanny Hand

of Gracie Mansion, twirling down

on Monday morning

(twilight grey).  So swing

on, Homer Hank – de day’s yo own.

7.15.17

the flicker of a flicker

SHADY IMAGO

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of a raven overhead

with the sun in his beak – dead

noon in Jerusalem – I will fear no

evil.  The rabid orangutan

with his orange comb

trumpets drastic doom

for milky stars – the Black Son

of Memphis & his Romany

Hobos (a gospel band)

– he doesn’t understand

the music.  Where‘s the harmony?

Under a ruin of reconstruction,

the rusty copper scaffold

of jealousy (green mold)

they glimpsed a revelation

of plain limestone floor – the sepulchre

where Jesus lies in state,

briefly (before the great

grey wings translate to their obscure

futurity).  Along a Mississippi

sedimentary ridge, I spied

the quick white-gold

Ionian flicker of a flicker (underbelly

lambsdown curvature aloft)...

Io?  from Iowa?

Some swift sky-cow

out of Abyssinian abyss?  Soft...

                    *

I hear her owl’s wing whisper

through the silence.  Nut-

brown acorn chariot,

a whorl of grey cloud-matière...

Gödel’s self-interference, weft

of Maximus bard-

beard (sun tangled

with midnight, O infinitely deft

monarch)... Apollinaire in blue

kepi (the unknown soldier

waiting out the end of war)...

twin silver doves that mirror you

upon a double door from Mexico.

O Guadalupe – heart-

encrypted grail-casket –

cedar & cypress womb-Argo

whose planet is moss-green tomorrow –

bend down to sister Psyche

now, unknot my

Tauromachia; Raven’s shady Imago

unfolds a lantern crown of light.

Out of the cthonic hills

of frightened, haunted wills

a laughing stream called Make-It-Right

(the Minnehaha of the minnow tar)

floats Moses-coracle

to Dawn (original

lodestone – morning North Star).

11.4.16

casket from Samarkand

GREAT RECKONING

Crusaders racing to the Tomb,

an historical pinpoint

in 1099.  Where He went

at 33 (a little room

for some great reckoning).  Daggers

in the eye turn every way –

shark swordfish play

for nightmare realms, & beggars

follow San Francisco up a narrow

fuse (to blessedness).

Stigmata (foolish meekness,

humble mulishness).  A wheelbarrow

carries mild infant Majesty

into his palmy kingdom,

spiky Jerusalem

(sea-rose of sandy history,

Rome’s  crabapple).  The viney mind

demands firm scaffold,

grid to climb, hold

fast – casket from Samarkand,

mercurial chasm, golden

kaleidoscope... meanwhile

one half-moon wafer-smile

of blinding white sail’s sudden

eminence rides on gray wave –

the plummet of an eagle

etches his grave seal,

marking 1132 (full fathom five).

7.15.16

Dartmoor pixie cross

One golden witchetty grub

Once again, I countermand my own resolution... the urge to share is hard to resist.

FINAL ACT

They’ve found a fracture in the stone

unnoticed before.

The Holy Sepulchre

is buckling beneath the weight of its own

chapel.  & the confessions have

at last made common vow –

the alpha & omega

of restorations.  Centuries of

soot from votive candles must

be wiped clean; the vault

shored with titanium bolts

& stabilizing mortar, all the dust

blown free – for a strange energy

is here.  The Holy One

has set his seal upon

Jerusalem – the seal of a kiss (hey

ey yo).  Blind King Oedipus

is pharmakon – both

curse & cure; an oath

of the Aranda limns a sacred circus

for the Origin beyond hunger

& prey.  Man is both Man

& Grub; one handspan

joins them, sacred totem-pair

distinct without division, separation

or confusion.  Would

you return to the Wood

where, riven-branching, all began?

                      *

All the world’s a stage.  The Totem

glimmers in earth-cavern

like a mémoire of perfection;

handprint of omni-profundum,

quiet & invisible as wind.

The hand carves a circle

over gray sea, pearl

of adamantine quiddity – your mind

& heart, your soul, my wounded Psyche.

What will they find then,

beneath the slab?  One

golden Witchetty Grub?  One Nike,

linen, soiled by jogging Time?

I think they might unveil

a lost fresco – pale

replica (by Piero) of the same

design that, through the Ice Age,

lifts the crocus.  Stubborn,

indomitable baton,

both crozier & calumet – rage

will not overwhelm your calm beauty.

I think of Late Romances

revolving into dances

all around the Globe... O, we

have not yet seen the final act!

Ineffable victory

of meekness... it shall be,

because it is, always.  O blooming Fact!

6.26.16