mysteries of the oval garage

BENIGN SPECTACLES

Those benign spectacles of the Franklin Bridge

were long frozen over.

Inside & outside were

captured in a mickle mirror (garage

at the edge of Ferrara).  It wasn’t a map

of America, so much;

only Hobo’s tender clutch

(Falstaff) of Henry’s hand (old chap).

He wants to show you something.  Opens

one puffy palm, and there

tattooed in coppery-red scar

– soft oval eye, mandorla lens.

America sleeps in her own green fields.

Feminine Hamlet croons

to her, lit by Hobo-moons...

Turn back to thy La Paix, Ophelia.

That Egyptian Art-Deco monolith

of Roger, stepping off

the cliff – out of his skiff

into a void of air, the whole dream-myth...

– & it was underfoot all the time.

Like a grail-dish, or agate

eye; a lamp on a frigate

or arc of a torch, Lazarus-rhyme

or Jonah-wing.  The harbor’s safety-net

for flowery Juliet –

buoyant, incarnate

Normandie (gilding Henry’s Mayflower signet).

2.26.19

Shakespearean marzipan

THREE BEARS

Behind fine axe-hewn basalt

of the Incan hive, an eye

like Aaron Siskind, maybe –

quick, delicate, alert.

Mortised ramparts of any state

mark its mandala-border;

stone blooms of order

warp twisters of love & hate.

Only this human heart of flesh

harbors invisible diamond –

petal-scent of almond,

marzipan snowstorm (baked fresh).

Imagine one simplified snowflake

in three dimensions, spinning

like a gyroscope (one wing,

one leg) after one thunder-shake

of glassy dome – Will’s trident, maybe

in a late romance (Blackfriar’s

globe).  King Henry sires

trouble for himself – falls into sea

pursued by Bear.  Near Normandy,

flagship goes down – she’s lost,

it seems – until at last

Hermione steps forth, sleepy...

La Paix (familial, civil, global)

breathes yet, to dance once more.

It was Sir Thomas More,

lapped in bearskin, at the North Pole

                 *

who played the bear, who played the fool;

who played Disoriented Lamb

bleating I am, I am,

who flit the snowflake (melting soul);

his mother (Everywoman, from

Mulberry Street) wept

for the shame; she slept,

& it was glory in the end.  Hum

flickers (pictures in a whisper gallery).

The cranium of Unknown

Soldier wears the crown.

Empires of high frozen sophistry

shudder beneath an infant’s smiling

gaze.  It’s not the wise

who find the way (surprise!)

but every lovey-dovey Sing-Sing

resident – repentant heart, meek

mule.  Chaste planetary

hearth, Psyche-egalité –

bright thunder-akme... slant, oblique

world-pirouette... Hagia Sophia

in a peacock’s fan.  Tango,

barefoot kid’s fandango

under the sky-vaults in Ravenna –

light of my light & yours,

Waltz of Three Bears

by Mendelssohn.  Flares

Franciscan, by Pacific shores.

6.14.17

when the Eternal comes

AUTUMN DRUMS

Shards of a spectrum scatter flashing

by the old twin-doored

twin-dovetail mirror

out of Mexico.  Light faceting

(from purple candlestick, late

afternoon, October).

All Souls’, beyond Tiber

or Po, where goat-sheep congregate

beneath the tiny pumpkin lamps

of Chinese lanterns.  We

lift them with you, Psyche –

4-dimensional temple!  Clamps

of copper from an iron ribcage

breathe out now with you

your Scattergood milieu,

egalitarian Link-o-pen; rage

cannot stem your dissemination,

nor malevolence

of Minotaur silence

muted trompette marine.  O nation

sowing disintegrated diamonds

of personhood – like rain

of milkweed seeds!  A grain

for monarch feathers (Solomon’s)

or living stones, or silver pennies

American .925

recursive light from hive

2 dozen bronze lamps from your base

                       *

Rick Stocks has gathered in 3 warehouses

brass railings from the stairs

for climbing to the Bears

who dance around your Ariadne’s

Crown, Leviathanic brow;

soul liberty, she said,

& rising from the dead –

these hieroglyphs tattoo my prow.

The lamp lifts in an evening light.

The crossroads (dying –

living – loving – giving)

focus, like a lens (Hittite

or Italian – Roma, Ethiopian...)

how my heart emigrated

toward your implicated

face (memory of Raphaelian

grace, nested in Providence).

So the quiddity of soul

shows Psyche (personal);

how you live, what happens

gradually fold to perfection

when the Eternal comes

& autumn drums

refracted through her leafy prison

echo under circling stars

the Three Bears dance

beyond Pacific romance   &

La Paix rises   from Venus, Mars

10.20.16

Path P in six directions

ROSE CIRCLET

The immeasurable quiddity

of a point in spacetime.

An icon turns on a dime

flashing silver corona (so free)

– as green almond eyes shine

with smiles of recognition

a beloved face is one

whole star – 4-dimensional mine-

shaft to the planetary helm

or meteoric stone

no one can own

coming down from sea-grey realm

of milk & honey (Northern Lights

a mirror for a horn

of plenty).  So being born

thus, river-clay triangulates

Path P in six directions

diamond octahedron

finished in the sun

like plates my mother hexagons –

weathered oak-leaf hands (brown

in the round, rolled

out of clay, from old

dishevelments of tumble-down

autumn).  & where the tree-rings

circulate the marrow

spacetime’s arrow

coils into chestnut Sphinx

                  *

whose crumbled wine one drinks

out of the Nile-delta –

steps northeast  selah

toward the dome (when nobody thinks

one will) resembling a bronze acorn

of evergreen holm oak.

One ruddy spoke

upon a node of blinding sunshine –

ice-hewn clarity of Everyhon

beside the glowing hearth

of agape – the earth

in equilibrium – Son

& Father & the Holy Ghost

waltzing a crane-dance

to the drone of Magdalen’s

accordion (hale Mary’s host)...

& once the orgulous organ’s

dismantled, & the light

flows through violet

rose circlet (there in Jacqueline’s

seatown) – a naiad will emerge,

a sundance figure (on

the prow of Lincoln’s own

logos).  Sophie her demiurge,

love-waves her rite – La Paix

or Buffalo Woman,

Morning Star... pine-

green majestic Liberté.

10.19.16

from the bottom of the sea

JOSEPH’S COAT

Those howling Oklahoma twisters

are more than metaphor

for the ravenous bonfire,

the rabid war in the man-monster –

the Minotaur in the guilty coil

on the Chartres floor

(beneath wooden choir

where Theseus & Ariadne smile,

are reconciled).  Who can lift

the great icosahedron?

Unbind our Gordian

distempered steel – the feral gift

of chimp dominion?  One copper penny

spinning heads-&-tails

goes gyroscope.  Tall sails

press on from stony Normandy

(led by that spine of Juliet-Perdita)

past Flanders wars

into La Paix.  Who soars,

now, from the bottom of the sea...

an Acorn Maid, in a rite of spring

flecked from a deeper wound.

Crevasse of raven-sound,

convenient cripple-victim-thing

turns inside-out; one Joseph’s coat

patchwork mosaic spells

Liberty – swings bells

of Jubilee (round vibrant note).

9.27.16

"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

her smile shall win

GAZEBO SKEIN

Sultry evening in the Twin Cities.

The earth.  My mother’s kiln

stoked like Jersey landfill

with Dante’s willful souls – at ease

like oil on fire.  My moss-green vines

climb the gazebo skein.

Oblomov lived in vain

& died, sweet gentleman.  My light declines.

Oblomov dreamt a febrile dream,

icon of idle summer

grace.  Her lips murmur

& tickle his ear – Awake, Sunbeam...

Dante, shaken, shudders with Love

& epileptic ecstasy;

parallactic Ocean Sea

& shadowy Argo up above,

Emperor Henry on chariot-throne

of Rhodian charity.

A band of silver-grey

light-thread knots chords – the drone

of universal B-flat (Kingdom Come

with trombones, clarinet

& flute) – At Last.  FIAT.

Oblomov lifts his balding dome,

his heavy lashes... orange twin

pillars hold one Ariadne-

loop.  Pacific naiad?

Juliet?  La Paix?  Her smile shall win.

7.21.16