if I could gather all 9 muses

IRON HORSESHOE

If I could gather all 9 muses

around the iron horseshoe

Hobo found along the shore…

a middle C stranded by silted rivers.

If I could loop a thread-corral

around the bullish history

of bardic poetry…

Whitman & Olson, the whole passel

of a thousand Pounds – a ton

of raw American aggression

packed in Julian tin can

of salmon absolute (O prodigal son).

You must bind up the strong man

if you would rob his house,

strums Shep Jesus –

the Son of Man opposes Czar Ivan

K. Trump (& all his lawless minions).

For Moses was an anti-

Pharaoh, & his text a fey

neutrino-trace – reversing their dominions

(anti-matter realms of fearful absence).

Their malice plays for keeps –

the quasi-Reagan creeps

who stigmatize Abe Lincoln’s conscience

of profound Union.  A government

of people, by & for people

whose penny is a steep

L-rectitude – the normative ligament

                   *

of every child of God (my soul to keep);

the stony fundament

that grounds each document

hedging the tyrant (as ye sow, shall reap). 

For this Hobo bent toward St. Louis,

where clays rotate

around an elder potentate;

the foolish king, whose power was on lease

to that familial mutuality

(the kinfolk circle

& the starry wheel)

Jesus displayed in his nativity.

Star of David, hidden in the clouds

like 4-leaf clover

in a rainbow cover –

ark or Argo of celestial crowds.

So history plays out as Tauromachia.

Watch Minotaur succumb

to Ariadne’s plumb,

Man lifted up beyond Monarchia;

that restoration of all things

the servant-son proclaimed,

chanting beside the famed

Magdala Stone (rose of sharing) –

when Clover twirls in Hobo’s fingertips

& Isis-eye looks from his palm;

when JFK comes home

& Venus blooms… & Sophie Coulombe skips.

4.28.20

Rab Ravlin was a weaver bred

SILVER TRACK

Summer’s gliding toward those falls.

The sumac swords are rusted

iron.  Below the nested

locks (St. Anthony), swift sculls

are water-spiders on a dragon’s back.

Hobo Larva... Henry

Woodpecker, monarch (maybe)...

all worm, Noman?  Whose silver track,

mercurial, serpentine?  I was

the wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,

tearing Ariadne’s weaving,

trading lux for lechery (luxurious);

I was the shadow of the waxing moon

purling beneath Pearl Harbor

Day – casting her bitter

part across the bar (Frisco Lagoon).

Now crickets rattle in the looming dusk,

a chorus, waiting in its wings.

1132, the catgut sings –

our heavy grave (in one cicada husk).

Only the lightest antigravity

can spark the dark menorah

in the heart of King Henrah.

Lonely almond of sheer pity

welling forth Father of Waters...

what was Magdala stone

becoming human Union

(steely pontoon, welding 4 quarters).

9.16.19

yodeling in Mendelssohn

LITTLE MIRROR

The mind is like a little mirror

& the word is like

a mirror in that lake.

We skated there, one ancient year –

across the icy glass, Heidi.

In Mendelssohn, sweet

neighborhood (complete

Garden of Cyrus now, in memory).

A melody of day-lilies cheers Henry

Hobo (by the Mississippi).

He might be somebody

you know – booked into penitentiary?

Sol.  Solo.  Absent Sheba

browses in another aisle

(archived in old Rhode Isle).

Her ship’s in search of Colchia

lambswool – seamless gold web,

mute mutuality –

griot reality

lofted to laughter (on Mount Horeb).

Square triangles of pyramids

fit into portable log

cabin logarithms, Mag.

Your stone’s a tiny tablet, hid

beside that lake, in Galilee –

a solidarity

sodality, a party

writ on water.  Fountain, artistry.

6.27.18

limestone eyelid

TEXAS HERON

The smoking poilu, in his pink turban

like a blasted basilica

bent over Ravenna

marshland.  Many thousand gone.

His ferrous requiem for Texas heron –

wings on migration,

Zion to destination

unknown (indifferent shotgun).

A ghost dance of repetitive waves.

Arthur in Otranto,

Geo in Ferrara...

Micòl & Black Elk (lead-gray graves

in crowds).  A quiet cemetery

full of new-mown grass.

They Shall Not Pass.

Heaven & earth... won’t fade away.

The Magdala Stone... hasn’t figured

yet.  Her equilibrium

of magnanimity (come,

stay!) – like rain over the weird

Mammon of idle selfishness...

a motive for release.

She’s coming, Orpheus –

returning, Willy – rose of Inverness

or little almond tree – Mary

shedding lambent grace

or Jenny Falcon-Ace –

Love’s fiery knot (bright quipu-tree).

4.25.18

as in a game of hide-&-seek

PINE ARK

Piero the geometer

graphed the perfect dome

(that marvelous human home

& winking sea of gray matter)

beneath the curvature of San Francesco

in Arezzo – a flock of swans

of radiant intelligence

about their Queen, before the portico

(Temple of Solomon).  He’s hidden

as in a game of hide-&-seek

the wooden matrix (meek

logbox from Tree of Life).  When

Helena comes to Jerusalem

she’ll draw it out again –

sliver from a lion’s

paw, grim rib from Adam’s

galley mast.  Constantine dreams

his tiny golden honey-cross.

Mary’s Pneuma-moss

wells in the quiet kitchen... gleams.

Sweet psyche-legends circulate

around a forgotten rock

in Magdala.  The flock

is scatter-gathered... salty fate

& jittery salts plank-walk the yellow-

black monarchs of love.

Their cedar treasure-trove

is one pine ark (Jonah chi-rho).

7.28.16

experimental Restoration Play

RAVEN-SPELT

Cedar shade of Galilee,

Aesculapian shepherd

staff of serpent-

skin, shed (leafing royalty

in vernal memory).  Magdala

Stone of good deeds done

O spouse of rustic sun

& witness won... lowly Messiah

come & gone (& come again).

Time flowers on the lips

& salty fate slips

into diamond lantern (homespun

dream of overflowing glee) – a shout

of joy from a windblown seed

of newness sown (whorled

Jubilee) – canoe-galleon, afloat

round Milky Road (unquenchable

Eternity) – that lights

gold Magna Carta rights

welded in smiling crucible

of Manitou.  So on this day

Canonicus & Charles II

framed (raven-spelt) new

Charter, for primordial Way –

experimental Restoration Play

within green cedar

fane – firm oaken chair

of planetary cheer (our Ripening Day).

7.8.16

Roger Williams Memorial, Prospect Terrace, Providence

* Note : on this day in 1663, King Charles II of England signed the charter creating the new colony of Rhode Island.  Written, and sponsored (in London) by Roger Williams and Thomas Clarke, the charter pioneered a new form of government, founded on principles of religious toleration and popular sovereignty.

the Ariadne pattern

INGLE EYE

A wild white rose at the side of the house

bloomed just today

like the city of Dioce

on green clover stairway   Spouse

Sister   in clusters of stars

Who are you?   Magdala

Stone   mosaic   of gala

winefest   little swirl of squares

corn-maze   around an ingle eye

your single sigh

the keystone   by-&-by

(little fiddlehead fern   turning pern-

kernel   the axle of the ax)

as Icarus   burning wax

falls   cataracts

into Grotto J   (relax)

on Chartres nave-pavement   discern

the Ariadne pattern

that angry monks   learn

magnanimity   & turn

again   as falcons gyre   into

the sun   (mild   smile

on earth   mile upon mile)

the Son of Man   is fashioned true

whisper those lips   of windblown rue

Jessie Ophelia   your

leaves of grace   empowered

to plow   deep rose   to emerald blue

5.31.16

Moss-green idiom

PRIMITIVE FRESCO

These cottonwood sentinels beside the river

in the early March sunlight.

May their sense of being right

prevail, Persephone return (forever).

My draft of yearning whispers from

bare cave.  Slight air

of seashore lingers there,

like early dream of motherland.  Home

in a memory of pinewoods, tamarack;

Ravenna in a film

of moss-green idiom –

child-realm of Umbrian yak-yak,

Firenze burble-babble.  One gold hinge

arcs sheltering lintel

over intelligible

gate of Jubilee... & it is so arranged

we never leave the shining ring.

Like a rock of Magdala

muttering ephphatha

our bread & wine are splashed with brine,

salted with everlastingness;

my primitive fresco

roughly points to show

how everything begins to bless –

when Psyche lifts from waterfall

& Raven (with a flick

of wing) is suddenly quick

Turtledove (threshold within us all).

3.2.16

Occasional poem (from Ravenna Diagram)

Francis Opens a Holy Door

Carved Stone Block Found in Israel Upends Assumptions about Ancient Judaism

DARK HEART

A droning of iron chariots on

U.S. 80.  Straight through

Elkhart.  Winnebago

memory (in the amygdala).  One

whisper groans like an oak in Mendelssohn.

Becomes a benevolence,

a shade for Sabbath silence.

Word become flesh (my father’s own

right hand, gripping mine, until

he was gone).  Amygdala,

a tower, a butterfly

net for memory (little

Rorschach mirror-wings); the stone

with the 12-leafed rosette,

with Abraham’s whetted

blade, upheld in time... (atone,

atone).  Little portable temple,

your body (innocent son

of mine) – odd grail-stone

now, for a trial in Jerusalem.

Where they open bronze doors for Jubilee.

Let the land rest every 50

years, in the name of mercy;

let the mind roam in humility

of Franciscan donkey (chariot

of Elijah, sparking fire

of futurity).  Dear

Mary, with your high dark heart...

12.9.15

Tower Hill (Minneapolis)