Meditation on a funeral

HONOR GUARD

Soft muted early winter light

outside the National

Cathedral.  Great whorl

of reds & blues, at dazzling height

O rose window, still glowing bright.

The honor guard (Marines,

Army, Navy) forms lines

like intricate toy soldiers (boy’s delight) –

maneuvering, in wonderful coordination

powerful precision

beneath the boom of cannon,

brass band’s hopeful invocation.

The dignitaries have assembled.

Paired front aisles unveil

in allegorical detail

old icons of authority (kings trembled

once, when they beheld such signs 

of a succession crisis).

On the right, witness

the mourning son & heir – thin lines

of tears streak from his hawk’s eye,

flank his aquiline profile,

his anxious beak.  Meanwhile,

on his left, an accidental guy –

the crown-usurper (with a face

like a disgruntled frog).

Even Sully the dog

got more headlines than such disgrace,

the preacher said (speaking in tongues).

Haunted, defunct princes,

princesses acquiesce...

the fatal, dominant thug belongs

                 *

to us.  Chief executive,

or executioner?

Headsman (for our

gentler Republic)?  How can we live

in a democracy, ruled by despot?

We cannot.  Our choice

is clear, as once we faced

when Lincoln gave it voice – the violet

is trodden underfoot by hate.

What’s at the root

of all our discontent?

Man’s thirst for domination, set

in place since his umbilical was cut;

rage at the shrinking womb.

Like Jonah’s boat-turned-tomb

of alien Leviathan, the doors of Night

close, flooding, overhead... the child’s

unconscious & primordial

nightmare (abyssal

mystery).  Note each tyrant’s wild

psycho-disgust... the fluttering hands,

the flickering deceit

– detached from all sweet

reconciliations, lawful bonds.

The flag-draped casket of the patriarch

squares with the glowing rose

window.  Still hearth glows,

somehow – Wisdom’s scintillating ark.

12.6.18

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18

those double doors

DEEP RESCUE

Those double doors of the Baptistery

in Florence, where Alighieri

was restrained from returning.  He

might have admired the mastery

of Lorenzo Ghiberti – that golden river

of perfection, surging from

Eden to Gesthemani... some

inscrutable summa of Prime Mover

spoked in parables of heartbreak

& confusion (Miriam, lifting

both hands in agony).  So bring

what you have to a blindman’s break-

fast, to her Thanksgiving feast.

From the belly of a whale

came Jonah – whole & hale

as dolphin-breach (O swift grey beast)!

The linèd forehead of Leviathan

is like your own... therefore

be not dismayed.  Footsore

mule, flinty thin Prophet Stan,

your Livingstone (still at the Nile)

holds firm against the flow

of time – your steadfast glow

upon the brow of them who show.  Smile,

Indigo!  Passage to more than blue!

– these equilibria

of gyroscape... mute

mutualità, below the soil... deep rescue!

5.16.18

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

only Ophelia remained

AGATE LEVIATHAN

A little Hamlet, on remote planet

in Denmark, was troubled

with Mors – he stumbled

as against a stone, to understand it.

Pebbles flung from anxious Hell

pinged against his helmet;

a pearl-toothed kismet

glimmered from the poisoned well.

It was a union greatly to be wished.

Its whorl unfathomable

shone... like Luna in a fable,

agate Leviathan (unfished).

A curse enclosed it, like a shell;

a nightmare of the sea –

a beast called Jealousy

clutched, rang it like a bell

from bottomlands.  It was his grail.

The angry Minotaur

grunted through Knossos-tar

in the crusted mirror – you must fail.

Denmark was full of hardened criminals.

Only Ophelia remained

to pluck the sweet Beltane

of innocence (from sordid halls).

Hamlet stepped up, to meet his fate.

He smiled into the teeth

of Sheol – sensed beneath

basalt of gladness, past debate.

11.24.16