& know the place for the first time

STEEP HEART

The mystery of the Incas, how

they filed those giant stones

at the top of mountains

into close-fitting knots (above, below).

The slim knife-edge, the penetration.

On behalf of balance,

lamb-tethered violence...

one must die, for the sake of the nation.

Something about moss-covered stone,

arctic lichen.  Colors

on a rough-hewn wall (yours,

mine).  Collage of blood & bone.

Memory, mother of muses

lead me back to your

stone milk-splashed door.

Ancient well-bench (sea-roses).

The eunuchs of the kingdom come

& go... their simple habit

underneath the gibbet

simply to repeat the sacred OM.

Alpha, Omega.  History unwinds.

He’s humble, sheepish

as a goat – Ish-

mael, or Solomon.  Pay him no mind.

The one thing that happened, historically

was that an innocent nobody

became king for a day.

Steep heart, remind me... let us pray.

12.15.18

Shakespearean marzipan

THREE BEARS

Behind fine axe-hewn basalt

of the Incan hive, an eye

like Aaron Siskind, maybe –

quick, delicate, alert.

Mortised ramparts of any state

mark its mandala-border;

stone blooms of order

warp twisters of love & hate.

Only this human heart of flesh

harbors invisible diamond –

petal-scent of almond,

marzipan snowstorm (baked fresh).

Imagine one simplified snowflake

in three dimensions, spinning

like a gyroscope (one wing,

one leg) after one thunder-shake

of glassy dome – Will’s trident, maybe

in a late romance (Blackfriar’s

globe).  King Henry sires

trouble for himself – falls into sea

pursued by Bear.  Near Normandy,

flagship goes down – she’s lost,

it seems – until at last

Hermione steps forth, sleepy...

La Paix (familial, civil, global)

breathes yet, to dance once more.

It was Sir Thomas More,

lapped in bearskin, at the North Pole

                 *

who played the bear, who played the fool;

who played Disoriented Lamb

bleating I am, I am,

who flit the snowflake (melting soul);

his mother (Everywoman, from

Mulberry Street) wept

for the shame; she slept,

& it was glory in the end.  Hum

flickers (pictures in a whisper gallery).

The cranium of Unknown

Soldier wears the crown.

Empires of high frozen sophistry

shudder beneath an infant’s smiling

gaze.  It’s not the wise

who find the way (surprise!)

but every lovey-dovey Sing-Sing

resident – repentant heart, meek

mule.  Chaste planetary

hearth, Psyche-egalité –

bright thunder-akme... slant, oblique

world-pirouette... Hagia Sophia

in a peacock’s fan.  Tango,

barefoot kid’s fandango

under the sky-vaults in Ravenna –

light of my light & yours,

Waltz of Three Bears

by Mendelssohn.  Flares

Franciscan, by Pacific shores.

6.14.17

Circus leaps

RAVENNA DOOR

This winter Mississippi, silver-

blue as a kingfisher,

must be my Ocean here,

now.  Old Rhode Island (Roger

Williams tugging at his oar

along the Narragansett

shore) is like an inlet

glinting on Ravenna door.

This plain flatland’s no nacre

objet d’art – no Rimini-

Jiminy jingle-tree

nor fizzle-pop of firecracker.

It’s the tip of a massive iceberg

mound, with Ojibwa scrawls 

from International Falls.

It’s a raven-furled ironwork

Father of Waters (del Espiritu

Santo).  The dark ink spills

from Andean condor hills

like shade from a single pine... you,

yew.  One sinuous dove-grey thread

from woolen crown (above

almond eyes) – Love’s

quipu, drawn from riverbed –

the peacock bow of freedom’s O

(a circuit of Noahtic leaps

that signal seamanship).

Her line grips like a sheepfold

fence (through centuries of snow).

12.3.15

Mississippi sundown

INCA BIRD

Mississippi sundown.  Meek

flock of cottonwoods

leans toward sand-

bank... listen to the river speak.

Noah’s raven criss-crossed the ocean

weaving black on blue, 

salt over salt (sez you).

My splotchy gouache representation

wings away north, south... follows

Big Muddy to her delta

denouement, selah.

Breathes on clay (rows, rose).

This Inca bird, like a Cuzco condor

(or Marshall St. bridge

bald eagle)... no prison-

pigeon, but flight to the rondure –

a well of black water, with stars

in a lattice (for stories).

The Ghost, says Maximus,

prehends the insolence of wars –

lift up your hearts, she cries,

lift up.  Paradise

is a habit of eyes &

hands, not formulae;

lips rim a coracle (of cedar

curve & silver plow)

so that you too may know,

my child – the Earth (from a star).

11.21.15