find the unicorn

HUNGRY RAVEN

Fear of another is fear of death.

Instinctual reaction

to deadly situation – a

primitive contagion, or jaguar teeth.

So history’s abacus shuttles

red & black, or blue

& green... just for you,

little black-&-yellow Moth of Battles.

These stately river-cottonwoods

flare mossy banners

now; Hobo’s many spanners

choke the bridge-works.  Shaker bloods

from Puget Sound redeem themselves

with help from epileptic

shaman-chants... pep-talk

of buried elderberry souls (elves’

yodels, echoing their green on green).

The Word circles like

a hungry raven – pike

or spearmint (Mermaid Queen).

St. Louie, with his trumpet, now

brings up the nondescript

rear-guard.  The script

calls for Ezekiel, or sunflower –

Iris in the limestone cliff

curls into Unknown

Soldier.  Soddy Brown

they called him (working stiff)

                 *

whose star skims from the evening murk

anonymous Firebird

or twinkling agate-shard

in snarl of spiral Melville shark-

tooth, spouting salty balderdash

crossing the Portland bar

– whose thunder-straits are

worse than Frisco Bay mish-mash.

O the gray shade-vault of chilly Chartres!

The golden limestone cave

framed with architrave

of ancient enmity – Synagogue-martyr!

The fractal fault-line of an old polemic

circulating ossified

eddies of Johnny’s gospel

spleen... (tragic & epidemic

unintended consequences).

O the smiling Word

chants resurrection... heard

in Ramah & Ravenna, Rimini (Ez

kowtowing to voracious Rule).

Crossroad strictly abstract

for everyone – the trick’s

to find the unicorn (a holy fool

who paces like St. Francis through

the prairie steppes).  Someone

calls you... homespun

Natasha, limping toward the sun (ey yo).

4.25.17

alongside the canoe

SHIP’S EYE

John Slocum fell into a swoon

in the sea-tinged woods

by Puget Sound; his words

of hope shook many Shaker men

out of their sins.  Sparks fly far

from cedar blaze – the sea

booms in a ship’s eye

lashed by yardarm to the polestar.

It’s not the size of the cosmos

but the color of the scales,

gilded when dawn pales

rippling on ice-floes

across the horizon, back to Ocean –

over hide rooftops

sun-parched corn crops

in the jungle (Squaxin, Galilean).

When Davy the Song Prince pranced

alongside the canoe

Maggie saw what she knew

was hers, & grew embarrassed –

yet her almond eye looks to the sea

& the song endures.  A stone

fell from turtle-grey heaven –

the flare of a meteor, a mystery;

an infinite cloud-bank shaped like wing

a feather of ring-dove

signifying love

left brush-marks down by Slocum Spring.

9.26.16

Memory is full of Providence

FALL STEPS

                           i.m. Henry Shelton

Fall steps softly to the door

beside the river now.

Memory, somehow

is full of Providence today – your

little hideaway of brave

adorable & free

spirits, whom to thee

were given – opening, wave on wave

sea-gates of joy & liberty.

Like that dear one

on Petersburg pontoon

floated to town – Elena, she

of the midnight sun – as if an emerald

kamen-ring of Gumilev

(tattooed ghost-brave)

stood there, incarnate – held

my hand, like Word made Flesh – began

to dance & sing; as if

Columba on his acorn skiff

arrived in New York harbor – shine,

Franco-Irish lantern – beam

your torch around the globe!

Moss-copper robe

whose folds encompass freedom’s dream

whose web of mutuality

is wind-blown sail

on cosmic Ocean trail

chaste vision of equality

                 *

tall northern pine who will prevail

like massive cedar tree

in Puget Sound   like she

who danced the Shaker upland trail

to soul freedom, with John Slocum

or Henry Shelton in

Rhode Eye   Franciscan

mule of social justice   plumb

spine of Blackstone’s Catholic Oak

or Williams’ open hand

give me your poor... stand

in my healing shade... Manitou spoke

on Wisdom’s dancing-wheel of joy!

& my hoarse scar-tattoo

on Queequeg’s silver-blue

casket – my burbled Jaybird cry,

confessional – only an ochre scratch

on earliest cave-wall;

only a golden ball

of Ariadne-wool, wet sheepish match

balled-up by selfishness.  Who lit out

for that stony kingdom –

ancient Big Rock Mountain,

deeper firmament, beneath the shout

of pokey politics – that Cosmosphere

of lovingkindness, where

the soul finds Primavera air

& breathes... & sighs... & lives forever.

9.23.16

4th of July, Providence harbor

"Can you enter the great acorn of light?"

BLACK DIAMOND

This heart-shaped leaf from cottonwood

dark green & silver-gray

may float down other rivers – say

the Don, by Voronezh... or Eridanos,

through Ravenna (north of Hades)... &

each windblown plum sails

off a shakedy limb, whose spiral

roots corkscrew (like S.S. Normandie

propeller) down into a labyrinthine

seine of mounded knots...

a weedy sea-change (plot

of plots).  Black Diamond is crystalline –

common as salt; an octochoron,

regular, complex;

cubic prismatic Rex

or tesseractic honeycomb (acorn

beanie, maybe).  From her, La Paix

like some Hermione

dances to life again – see

there!  Her coracle – l’Éternité!

My raven-tesserae form nature morte.

Venn diagram for Orpheus

bent to his Beatrice-dust

in Adriatic backwater – ‘til brought

up short, like Slocum, John (Shaker

Indian of Puget Sound)

or like Black Elk, who found

her sun-spun gyroscope (stung-sweet Makar).

7.22.16

Atlantic weather

HOME FREE

Set adrift down Providence streets,

blown along by chilly air,

this autumn Atlantic weather

in the Ocean State... gray cloud-fleets

follow birthday Hobo, his big-baby

muttering – a nonsense

tremolo from Jonah’s

whale-gut habitat (her kingdom’s maybe

someday).  Like Apollinaire slaloming

dolphin-rime atop a marble

door in Rimini, warbling

his trompette marine (something

about a Frisco treasure chest

in a hurricane eye) – or

Bluejay Slocum, Shaker

salt in pauper’s Dauphin-quest...

your sailor’s air, so fortunate

pipes down from the future

on Ariadne lure.

Hookline for deep sinker – bright

hand who flew from the poop deck

waving from waves his

palm-leaf radius

(JJ-pendant, octahedral speck).

Wisdom’s justified in all her children

plays out the line from high-

strung Miriam.  Sky milk-

train sounds – all home free then.

10.1.15

October periscope