We few, we happy few

PARIS JACK

                        i.m. John Berryman (on his birthday)

October burnishes the oaks

to ruddy bronze.  Ancient

St. Crispin’s Day, meant

for veterans, the player-folks

of Agincourt & Balaclava

(ours not to reason

why)... bright caparison

of mental mists, pink pillbox (ah,

Jackie).  Man, the intelligence

of his soil... what triggers wars?

Mobs of blood & tears...

flame, shadow-boxing with a fence...

In chessboard worlds of red & black

for every victor there’s

a loser too – King Henry’s

brother-band meets Paris Jack,

sad Roy du Jour.  So each Garfield

meets his Guiteau – the best

& worst, the first & last,

the wheat & tares blent in a field

of glory (shriven up in sheaves).

Was it for blood & soil?

Intelligence of soul

says no.  What man or woman loves

in battlefield or study is

glory itself, & fellowship

in pain (joined at the hip) –

not flags or nationalities

                  *

but one star over Ark & Argo-ship.

Light from a tiny acorn

grows resplendent Okean –

sunlight of restoration (skip,

Jackie, Jean, around that Minotaur

of stupid pride – a hollow

idol full of nothing, O).

This living Imogen is where you are.

Let’s stand with that Shakespearean

from this day to the ending

of the world.  His battling

with fright (mother loss & father gun)

an inward thing, not of the arrogance

of windy crowds (a victory

over himself the only

guarantee of happiness).  An instance

for the rest of us (the human race,

that is).  Restoration

of an idea – of a nation

of united nations, reconciled by grace

& with humility.  Familia of Man.

As Imogen stepped from the cave

so Henry might rise from his grave

– somehow Franciscan, now.  His plan

simply to walk across these states

barefoot, like Mark Baumer –

glad-handing poet-palmer,

Johnny Appleseed (with acorns, dates).

10.25.17

to the Open Road

PINE-SAP

Hobo took to the Open Road,

from Minneapolis

to ancient Providence.

Like Mark Baumer, or Johnny Appleseed

or Pippin, off the deck of Pequod

unto lustrous ebony

of kings (their feathery

full fathom five... old sacred wood).

Gray tintype of elder Whitman,

stiff lead butterfly perched

on his hand.  We searched

for you, O monarch soul – your Plan

a prairie zigzag into Mexico.

Across the Rio Grande

to feathered-serpent land

pacing a shadow like raven-arrow

(Narragansett shade).  Crumbs

for Elijah-bird, Joachim-

eagle (from the seraphim).

Who plummets (wings like snare drums

thundering).  A way of traveling back

into deep green earth,

Hobo – measure your worth

for cedar berth (from Hackensack

to heavenly Jerusalem).  Transfiguration

chicken shack – here Hen

gathers his brood again

into the spare refectory (Franciscan

                *

cornerstone) where Piero limned

an emerald almond branch

lit by a thread (match-

fuse flaring) like sun-skimmed

honey-milk.  So Hobo burbles home

downstream.  The Gulf beckons.

Blue radiance of suns

(YHWH, YInMn) out of Pacific foam...

& in RI, in San Francisco Bay

orange arcs of rainbow

(mulitocular O-show)

fan skyward Hagia Sophia spark-display.

A yellow-black viceroy wavers

from Petersburg, southwest.

Grave resurrection, chaste

Akme-vision... dark cherry life-savers

Persephone crane-dances

limping to the spring.

Natasha’s creaky swing

for Julietta 484   rusty romances

when we dead shall rise   ghost-dancing

circling into the cloud

of dust   meek now, not proud

Frank Muleteer   Jennifer Sing-Sing

abracadabra... Alcatraz

rock flung from sky

become canoe   your eye

be dew   pine-sap    river to Paradise

5.31.17

poem in memory of Mark Baumer

DOVE’S FEET

                             i.m. Mark Baumer

The poem’s wobbly orrery

of airy ore is self-

correcting, like an elf

inside a gyroscope.  Unwary

cheerful troubadour, he walked

barefoot across these states

joking at potentates

to heal a hurt planet – balked

by Mammon, Moloch (vanity,

acedia).  The white van,

an indifference machine

in seething Florida... such petty

wreckage snaps a sapling tree.

The jungle broods, silent.

Her gentle ape’s extinct.

Minotaur mutters his poetry.

We have not learned the lesson of

the golden bowl.  We tread

the fractures on a head

of Incan stone (grey mourning dove).

Coatlicue is raging at

her funeral.  Splinters

of daylight almost pierce

the warped crossweave – chariot-

spokes of angry Manitou.

Thunder comes soon.

The light’s deep green.

The land is ripe for tornado

                  *

when Francis ambles right past you.

A river of pink peonies

surges through cities...

salty labyrinth in Dallas blue.

Her pillbox hat, his scattered bran.

Unnatural shocks (that flesh

is air, too).  Gold mesh

of tangled fleece... your Ariadne-

champion.  All-suffering rabbi

who declares : the violent

bear it away   rent

robes of kind Melchizedek   mild

eye of Isis   throned in adamant

warm heart of Magdalen

at almond gate   Open...

Joseph’s weathered rainbow-garment.

The poem’s just an ornery gray stone.

The slash of Cain that clouds

its brow irks human crowds –

has not been stitched til now.  Atone,

Adams.  Icons through unworthy

lips break into clay

rivulets & melt away –

your only balm is Charity,

sole antidote to Jealousy.

Spring comes on mild

dove’s feet... her wild

breeze from the open sea.

1.23.17