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

figure for equality

DOUBLE LINE

The Mississippi mottled with ice

a milky translucence

in the limpid air.  Sense

of coral rings solidifying.  Twice

& twice... smoky astigmatism

of a sundog rainbow.

Miss Destiny, Hobo.

Frescoed Siena formalism –

sweet couch of Pax, Justitia,

grave horsehair salience.

A gray circumference

of flags, targets... the palm of Jonah

read into fragile cat’s-cradle

or spiderweb.  A disk

of gold nailed to a casque

(louis, doubloon) – mandala-medal

for Hamlet’s mettle (or Macbeth).

Time circles on a nail;

therein hangs a tail.

Serious blasts off the mast of death.

The little copperplate landscape

of Tower Hill (the Witch’s

Hat) my mother etched

reminds me of Big Bear’s last scrape –

Henry’s author – the buried man

on Arthur Ave.,

#33 (just below

that rise) – black Denmark sun

                   *

son of Dragon Pen.  & round

the table in my heart

Little Bear will shout

for joy – recomposing the sound

of Mendelssohn, his neighborhood

(old Arthur St., where

we’d begun).  Circular

the agate labyrinth, dark with the blood

of Jonah Fisher-King.  The gray

bird croons in the tamarack.

The rigid Minotaur is back –

orange Leviathan in search of prey;

only a copper penny in a well

might draw the milky-grey

dolphin to leap this way,

& breach his livid traitor’s spell.

Only a moon-shot Camelot;

only a breathing dream.

Green island scheme

lifted from pyramidal plot

to float – an almond eye within

a double line, one lofty

figure for equality.

Sign of a Jonah resurrection

(life-saver up from hurricane). 

So pearls shine from a shell

beneath deep ocean-swell,

Earth circling Maypole again.

2.5.17

like waves of the sea

Occasionally I'm going to disobey my own resolution, and post new poems from Ravenna Diagram.  Happy Midsummer Day...

GREEN PILLARS

Spell me the poem including history

if Providence on earth

blooms, Rhodian... Arthur

ever returning, like waves of the sea –

mesmerized & mesmerizing,

in disguise (as George

the gardener).  So merge,

now, emerge, with enterprising

pioneers of happiness, your

boon companions, in

loon-call theremin

borne toward a Lake Superior

of dreams – one cup of fresh water

lifted to the moon

of manna-honey – one

mute field note in the Chronicle of Mutter-

Patter.  A flimsy paper nautilus

skims her light pinnace

over the sea-surface –

her brood chamber full of caprice,

her Ocean State a colony

of Turtledove Cloud-

World.  A dream-word

sang out of a rooted cedar tree –

so old, Time had forgotten her;

so strong, her smile

threads from green pillars

outlasting the Wars to End All War.

6.24.16