winter river

MOTTLED BEND

Driving through wintry Iowa

in the rain (at the end

of autumn).  Mottled bend

of browns & grays... the tall silo

lost in a sea of plowed soil;

Theophilus, with his lonesome

boat (Grandpa’s handsome

grain elevator).  Fruits of toil –

pyramid for wheat-rain

in a grain-ear (last

trump, sounding).  Blast

of train-horn... all over again?

The hearth-stone flares like a bald eagle

lost on the road (between

La Porte City &

Davenport).  Feathered angle

set upon shoulders.  Nobody.

Just a Memphis priest,

Melchizedek... last

shall be first (least greatest, boy).

They laid the foundation stone

like Chartres rock.

Under the most black

dirt they could find (the Masons, son) –

on 15th April, 1791

(two generation

before Abe Lincoln).

Hearth-blaze in corner (soldered one).

12.20.18

gash of a calm current

CALM CURRENT

The daggers of the sumac (plum-

red, maroon) accent

the gash of a calm current

between these knotted forks of autumn

cottonwood.  The knot itself

an ellipse, like bole

of oak (hollow hole...

screech owl?) – for an emerald elf.

The Green Man in the green glade.

Prehistoric American?

Or an Irish cousin.

Gardener in the garden (maid

Magdalen’s Gesthemane).

The river is a strong

brown Gould.  Unstrung

out of New Hampshire (Alleghany?

Ohio?).  Or maybe Negus, Ravlin...

leading the flock mesmerized

to Iowa (West Branch, 

shepherd).  Buzzing a Quaker violin.

We have dawdled long enough

in Babylon, children.

The labyrinth (Parisian)

folds Theseus into a trough

much like a Mississippi mirror

dreamscape, umbilical

(& smoothly paradoxical).

We mumble into the interior.

10.29.18

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

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

In the vein of Atlantis

SUNSET GATE

Spring, a project of the Earth.

While she waits for Homo Sapiens

to get over his aggressions –

revert to innocence (a Maypole mirth).

In the beginning... all the begins

of the Beguines... the big

innings.  Whirligig

of river-prairie syncopations...

I went down into the Bottomland,

down to Monk’s Mound.

A Mississippi sound,

a tuning fork of lightning (&

thunder).  I looked into my hand

& felt a gentle eye

look back (speaks Ioway).

Fishnet... veil of mystery... grand

Isis-Life.  Her cryptic tripod

out of Flanders fields

(a Jenna-quivering) yields

Triple-Flem – from Seeker linchpad

over Providence, through keystone

arc, westward... stray

crois (her sunset Gate) –

one orange firetread in the ozone,

warped on muddy waters (surging

to Lousanna).  So

the shield of Buffalo-

Mandan feathers her circlet (corralling).

5.10.16

from Monk's Mound (Cahokia, Illinois)

Statue of Isis (West Branch, Iowa)

Lilacs in West Branch

WOOLLY FLOCK

Soon the lilacs will be blooming

in West Branch, Iowa.

Old John Brown’s hideaway

among earth Quakers (humming

his grave tune, without the guns).

There Harriet’s railroad

tugged through Negus-made

tornado shelters – Grandma’s cousins

too.  I trace an equilibrium

through reams of loveletters

in turquoise blue (scatters

from Scattergood to end of time).

The clay looms closer on those farms.

Isis herself unveils

just past our Hoovervilles –

beckons with Everlasting Arms.

A refuge from the storm, where corn

& flowers grow.  Mild Shaidlock

led a mighty woolly flock

from Ohio to Muscatine, in 1849

(they write); his great-granddaughter Mary

married Jack Ravlin, & thus

they came to Minneapolis...

they rest, remain.  Spring memory.

The silence of unvarnished truth

glances from shepherd eyes.

Proud histories of lies

axed by one pine (standing on earth).

4.20.16

Henry Negus farm (Springdale Township, Iowa, ca. 1900)

The one who got away

TRAIN-HORNS

The raven-message in the ink gets blurred

in the dark.  Signal fades

over badlands.  Wade’s

gone upstream, Charlie – overheard

her talking about the telephone.

One with the wheel-dial

we used to use.  I’ll

call you in three days, Persephone.

Grace made this little linen hanging

with palm greenery, with

red specks for eyes.  So Phoebe

set to compass-pointing in a painting –

hand-prints, fingerprints, green

dolphins breaching in

a fling... theremin

flute-song – ghost dance for Iowa

maiden (midden remains).  400 years

in Utah, seems like,

they danced.  A snake

coppered up in a trance – cheers

for the livid buffalo (the one

who got away)!  I

don’t know, Charlie –

she’s pretty mad.  The whole corn

crop is blown to smithereens.

Hazel threw her whistle

in the purple thistle –

thorns crown hills.  Train-horns...

10.2.15