digging in the dirty green

AYE-AYE

The dirty green of the dollar bill.

Gardener George, earwigged

on one side (with a big

little Mona Lisa smile).

The eye over the pyramid (annuit

coeptis) on the other.

Levitating, mother!

Mammon, touching his limit –

a gilded pharaoh, forced to step

sideways (into the river-

sand).  Busy beaver

out of Illinois might be princeps

round here (nobody knows

til all the votes are counted).

We are all the Lord’s anointed

Preacher-Judge (siege perilous)

leers in the face of b-flat storm –

Cordelia, ascend

your throne, bend

everyone to teeming agape (love’s form).

The government shall be upon

his shoulder (right to left)

until the desolate bereft

& greedy soul relents – a human

Imogen emerges, lowly

& victorious.

Dancing the periplus

of Arg-Noah (144, aye-aye).

12.12.17

traveling Walter Whitman

ALMOND-SEAL

A luminosity of grays

above the winter river.

Bands of peach, & silver.

A quiet surge past Pig’s Eye,

which became St. Paul.  John

Berryman sleeps on a bluff

nearby.  Once is enough

for everyone (a long time gone).

One casket will suffice.  Paul

was Saul once; an orange

angel flared so strange

his blade curved into burial.

He felt the change upon his skin.

So Queequeg tingled

where the needle angled

in.  The tattoo (Ecuadorian

gold) blood-red – indelible

recapitulation

(via serpentine

Cain-crozier) of Abe-Ape’s edible

ancestry (just incredible).

The primate history

of human mystery

incarnate in a star (blind, Oedipal)

                   *

who fell to earth, not far from here.

& like Walt Whitman, wandered

swamp-deltas... milk-&-honeyed

Hobo meadows... (poplar, cedar)...

all the way to San Francisco.

Golden Gate grandeur

sparkling orange-azure

not one whit less marvelo

than Solomon’s Templo.  Yet neither

will surpass one friar wight

who flutes across deep night

his piccolo arpeggios (Breather-

Bro to Sister Sigh-Nature)

lifting his humble sign’s

Venetian-blind design

beneath that glory-span – sheer

delicatesse of silver threads

raveling safety net

for one slight violet

(shorn, scarred by callous crowds).

She is your Imogen, who keeps

weight balanced on a wire;

fleet-footed candlefire,

light houseboat over frosty deeps,

your witty Sophie – at the wheel

of supernatural law –

sailing toward Awe

full-smile (lips compassing her almond-seal).

1.11.17