on the 3rd of July

DREAM-WORK

On the 3rd of July, looking out of this

rain-soaked gazebo into

the yard, I’d like you,

cameradi, to digest my curious

thesis.  Because every moment is a choice

on an axle of light and dark,

& who knows?  Some dream-work

might lead a soul to Paradise.

Out of the Iron Age of infantile aggression

where malign honchos rule

by gun; out of the school

of bully shocks & clinical repression

locked tight by rapacity & fraud;

out of the surly tank parade

Czar Minotaur has made

his own amazement... into the wide

milk-meadows of a Golden Age.

But you have to recognize –

these lightning-bug sparklers

kids wave over mosquito grass image

some more graceful & inexplicable

coherence.  Someone breathing

nearby, in your ear.  A thing

beyond abstraction... elementary table

of an I AM dream-cosmos.  Someone – 

Brother?  Sister?  Mary?

– calling you by name.  See?

Here.  Hearth-dance of Daniel.  Be reborn.

7.3.19

moss-green lamb-rock

CHERRY PETALS

Anniversaries, conjunctions... Latrobe’s

bell tower in New Orleans

& a birthday (Walter Whitman’s)

twine reverberations, stellar probes.

This lone outcrop in far north wood

furred-over with green

& phosphorescent lichen

mimes in lime our original Head –

primordial earth-ram (sheepish lamb)

upon the adamant of Time –

Isis, or Miriam –

Virgin bedrock of the bright I AM.

Inexorability of violent history –

labyrinth of Minotaur –

wolf-trap for who we are

spooled out in filmy, rusty tragedy

after tragedy – the pile-up of ’68

the green redhead in Dallas

the blue blackbird in Memphis

& it all seems endless – infernal hate –

O brazen, obdurate Iron Age

of malice toward all!  Only

the slant eye of poetry

mourning on a misty Montauk stage

might warble a different kingdom comin’ –

chaste infant equality.

Your hummingbird infantry,

Walter – your cherry petals, Benjamin.

5.30.19

Dark backward & abysm of time

RUSTIC HAY

Like a Prince Hal of the Iron Age,

surrounded by a full staff

of devices (every gaffe

in the book) Henry took a page

from Stealing Drums in Trinidad

as they slubbered through the murk

of a flood plain, like turkeys

in a hurricane.  It was that bad.

Had to go, blind fool, from Addis Ababa

to Babylon – from Lake Tana

to Concrete Cavern (ah,

Bull-Dance of Hummy Blah-Blah!)

& recapitulate his fancy

infancy – in a shed

built of old dry blood

& scarecrow straw, with Nancy

the Cow & Her Yodeling Shepherds

making rustic hay.

He lived a year & a day

on all fours – eating grass, curds

& whey, locusts, honey, in a swamp

by the Jordan, in Judea...

It’s all there, Maria –

in Miriam’s mandorla (under the lamp).

Henry wandered thus through drowsy realm

plucking mandolin...

one silver star over dark green pine,

one cirque of gold at the Argo helm.

4.19.16