rattlesnakes & wild hogs

woodcut by Mary R. Gould

BLANK MIRROR

Hobo & Henry (mirror lakes of ice)

hunker down by the Miss

in apocalyptic freeze.

Global worming – ain’t nice,

offers Hobo.  Henry stands on a log

of spongy cottonwood,

to speechify.  I would

gather everyone in D.C. – slug

it out with themeny!  Hobo : Who he?

King Henny Gowanabe?

Beware Coatlicue,

m’deer!  She got that panoply

um rattlesnakes & wild hogs,

rootin’ all around –

Iagoons, Macboars... ground

Z for Camazone swamp hellhound dogs!

In the blank mirror of unconsciousness

the stone-cold powers

& the lotus-flowers

collide in a collusion...  Heartlessness,

she mutters.  Hobo sunk down.

Cheer up, old boy,

sez Hank.  My Book of J

opines beneath Cordelia’s Crown;

she shone me that Madonna del Parto

flaring like Indian mound –

high Sophie’s dancing ground

(who shall restore our humane Beneficio).

1.30.19

slow crane-dance

SQUARE DANCE

The beech, a symphony of copper & grey

shimmers her palimpsest

of summer light.  Her host

of rust-green leaves filters the day

with fleecy shade.  In Providence

her hidden rings girdle

a slow crane-dance, a Gödel

harmony (irrational coherence)

stepped on the diagonal, a zigzag

pattern toward the center

while her limbs counter

equivocal winds.  Like a limping stag

the Minotaur (a forsworn king)

marks ink-scratches in concrete

with his third (wooden) foot.

They cannot be erased – the bee-sting

on the tongue of that stung beast

is like a humming bumble-

bird, bearing his humble

master on a mule (the least

shall be the greatest in your midst,

Great Scot).  When fair

is foul, weird sister,

and a hole is in the wholeness,

& the onion odor of this Union

hovers through the orange

facade of rough strange

battlements... the regal One

                   *

comes drifting like an eagle-sun.

Immaculate integrity

of breathing Truth will be

the seal on that bright Lincoln-coin –

of the people, by the people, for

the people... after the .44

that brings black milk before

the beech flowers (in Mendelssohn).  Our

infinitely gentle bunny Rabbi

– sire of reconciliation,

smiling Sun of Man –

shall stand again in one rose eye

of green & copper Liberty

whose burning torch will come

to this dunce inane – wisdom

will shine from Bozo Nana (dotty

Henry with his dancing bear,

jaded whit-knight from

Column B) despite him-

self : because a solidarity there

glows like green limestone from the depths

a city of straight pines

out of the matrix shines

where Jason is plowman   & Jonas

mans the prow   & merry Magdalen

raises her almond lens

yodeling earth-&-heaven’s

rhombic square dance (Topsy Ravenn).

4.3.17

wedding ring-structure

FINGER-DAB

These sibylline papyrus leaves,

so many shades of raven-

ink, scribe-feathered Ocean

etched with moony mesmer-waves...

The earth’s a musty limestone book

Psyche a palimpsest

charting gilt-emerald quest

through eerie oreille (slant rook

to woody isle, Macbête) – a flickering

archaic pain-matière

or wedding ring-structure

spring Geraldine Fitzgerald flung

for blue-eyed boys & one grey heir.

The old man frets in dust

& stone; his ferryman

(Rouget Blackstone) fins through the air

from northern Iowa to Eire;

the turtledove they seek

has grown so pigeon-meek

her flutings barely skim the lyre-

string.  Once in Calabria

flint-hermit Joachim

pictured a raptor-flame

plummet through time (vera-

mente Kiev-pointing).  Gentle

Columbia, please ravel up

my rusty finger-dab...

lips’ labyrinth, rose-granite mantle.

2.25.16