near the pin of the spoke

ALMOND BOAT

Love & harmony are the spring of song

murmured the little holm oak

near the pin of the spoke

& sanction of same, she sapped along;

so I task you, febrile Henry Hobo,

tiny A-grade acorn, flow.

So down to Gulf of Mexico

adrifted on the current, shady Penny-O

& me.  Time was an arc of aquamarine,

with cloud-ships for dreaming;

transumptive Ocean, circuiting

the galaxies, checkmating history (unseen,

almost).  Our boat was an ovoid ovum

chicken-coop (Rhode Island

Red) ruddered by hand –

she wove you liberty & welcome

for your immersive infancy of joy –

sails belling with sweet air

of solidarity & friendly care,

infinity of each one in our eye.

& Penny dreamt alongside, inside me

in the same language, dark

& light – Lady of the Ark

closer than whisper, vaster than sea.

Like Beatrice or Eurydice or Mary,

she’s Iris in her almond boat –

shimmering beyond this moat

gripped by the Minotaur, to set us free.

2.7.20

the sense of being right

GREEN EYE

The sense of being right, said Mandelstam

confronted by the Kremlin

goons.  Gumilev’s vision

of sweet radiance (chaste equilibrium

of morning dew).  The restoration

of all things might not be

some dystopic unreality

but a balancing of earth & heaven –

the way a canoe takes wing downstream

like feathery kayak

or golden bubble-track

across the sky (the Ocean River of your dream).

Kennedy, Jack.  A 4-leaf clover

assassinated every day

along with brother Bobby, &

King, Martin Luther (justice-lover).

A green eye floats, engraved over

the pyramid.  I calibrate

the shifting angles of a late

Atlantis – one heartbroken sky-rover

whose tears will magnify an Iris

in transit, like Venus

(from luxuria to lux

aeternam).  She was born for this –

to be the eye-in-hand of muddy clay

transmitting Jonah to Columbia;

to launch a hallelujah

from Monk’s Mound to D.C. (U.S.A.).

11.17.19

where the wheel pivots

VIA FRANCIGENA

My path of J, my Via Francigena.

You can read it on the Q-

line train, between St. Lou

& Monk’s Mound (clay Cahokia).

Choo-choo, J-J, Joanna, Giuliana...

on the milk train way,

your dewy morning ray –

autumnal hoot of helmeted Athena

(hooya-hey).  Fled with her child

from rude dragon.  Nightmare

tyranny (unveiling there

the root of human woe).  So the scald

burns his tattoo into each trumpet call –

the empty mirror of the king

crowns him equal to everything.

So gather him weird into your iris squall,

milky Sophia – gold sunflower

stretched into an almond

ark of mustard limbs (wand

blooming with abject surrender).

Because I love, because I love...

Behold, my child, I have

no wrath.  & in the hive

of clay lips, trace her architrave –

tacit surrender to a violet

sown by storm (below

these wars of villain & hero).

Where the wheel pivots, my river-pilot.

10.26.19

narrow waist of driftwood

SPINDLY FENCE

Summer fading into gray skullcap.

Henry with his brass trombone

& Hobo his hypnotic loon

shore up the railroad tracks with sap

of clammy shellfish scree (Rhode Island

sound).  My Providence,

your looming salience;

lines on a brow dwindled by sand

down a narrow waist of driftwood

sundial.  Stentorian

Henry, like a milk train

wreck, bundles through the neighborhood...

but it shall not be so with you.

Glance of dark green

(like black-eyed Susan)

measuring its circuit-wheel of blue

& blazing gold.  Iris of promise

under one lead sentence

(autumn rain).  A spindly

fence holds back the dunes for this,

my gift of dried-up horseshoe crab –

like a seahorse Pegasus

planted on Cain’s verses

(Falcon-Ace, clipped in rehab).

I’m only whispering to you.

From now on, friend,

faithful to the end –

where love is borne (rosemary, rue).

9.9.19

bring it all to bear (she-bear)

OPEN SEA

This Hobo, then – who he?

Lounging by Mississippi

lumpy, caw-caw-hokey

groaning accidentally for She-

Bear – as for primordial Iris.

Great purple monarch,

Theodora in birchbark –

like unto Micòl, or MLK (who is

& was & will be, by the light

of Milky Way).  His Big

Rock Candy brig

like a Black Sea barred-owl frigate

slants downstream, toward Colchis

or N’Orleans golden fleece –

& that arc, that St. Louis

centerpiece, shaped an L for his

Osiris lance (his buoyant flatboat

horizontal).  Troubled in mind,

some perpetual blind

haunt (old King Unfort, behind his moat).

& the whole American Dream lies

like dustbowl wasteland

of frosted heart, hard hand.

Sleepwalkers, unredeemed Henries

                     *

                     *

yoked to their stock.  An iron band

for an age of iron years,

until they can weep tears

again... up to the waist in river-sand.

Providence is in our eye,

he mumbles to himself.

In Ocean State – elf-

green, Rose Island red... (sigh).

Immaculate, born from the sea...

baptism for Columbia,

the Jonah-Dove.  Selah.

An overlay, a palimpsest... a little tree

of life & liberty... an ark

bearing a covenant

of loving-loyal parent,

child – for you, America.  Embark.

Into the open sea of universality,

where the human fingerprint

whorls to its fundament –

that knot of radiant mutuality –

the heart’s own ruby (in a sapphire ring).

So melt the iron with a diamond

flame, graft flowering almond

to the great oak’s mistletoe, & bring

the limping Hobo-King into her limpid

shade, moss-green & grey...

Hagia Sophia, who shall be

statutes of Liberty – dancing, embodied.

6.8.18

by old Bronze River

PROVIDENCE ROSE

Every day’s a sabbath day

for Hobo in retirement.

He drowses, full content

by old Bronze River (jasper, say –

carnelian, or sard).  On an empty bench

left for Henry once

in Dante’s Providence;

muttering seek ye the good, mensch –

avoid evil.  That would be a start.

The natural conscience

inheres in us; hence

dignity of life abides at heart

like some inalienable hearth-fire,

wants but a spark

to swivel toward magnetic

North (up near Itasca, where

scampers el Baby Rio del Espiritu).

That’s his geography –

some Hart-biography

sketched by the circle of a grey-blue

palm (O Thou smoky Hand

of Fire) – lightening the clouds

with limestone pigeon-crowds

& Jonah-spray... playful Leviathan!

O chaste & ancient liberties

free men & women found

promising iris-ground

out of primordial charities

              *

when Pharaoh was scapegoat too

& idols of the king

morph into Arty-thing

or potsherd red-white-blue

jewel-eye... old Noah’s galley

wakening in Galilee,

when ordinary Mary

hums a grass-green prairie

ray.  The light of Providence

shines out of living things

her omnipresence – springs

on breezy air (moist & immense)

into the metamorphoses

of human times, places –

so many steeplechases

in one race!  Four horses

at Clop-Clop Ellipse rounded

the bend by Hobo’s bench –

each iron bit they clench

forged in a molten sun-crowned

whisper-salience.  Providence

Rose crossed over the line

in first.  Bright human-

divine dervish foot-dance –

key pivoter in clay, O starfish

sun-Leviathan –

O luminous Kid of Man

in cloud-basilica (original Ish).

6.5.17

Iris was a messenger

ROYAL FLUSH

This winter light is innocent,

salted with snow.  Downstream

from Franklin Bridge, steam

lifts by gawky crane, afloat

like nautical giraffe (all finished

now).  Henry Hobo

seeps his moonshine so

far down... devoutly to be wished,

that well-being.  Dante was agile

in the Tuscan sun, seeking

also – her flame leaking

through trumpet vine (light, fragile

grace).  Men search for causes

& neglect their ends.

Ophelia’s betrayal bends

into a sea of stinging roses

where Earth replies with Mendelssohn

& Paradise was felt

before her deck was dealt

(52 weeks of sun – Apollinairean

royal flush).  She seeks you too,

his glinting Beatrice.

Iris on her way

from infinite mercy (blue

rondure, flecked with gold, aswirl

from blazing central star)

brings home to where you are –

in thicket night, a glowing coal.

2.6.17