a gargoyle versus Mars

ROSE EYE

Henry, Seeker, trails Hobo down.

Molting to Hobo in his sleep.

A baby spring flows deep...

soft ripple, brimming delicate renown

amidst angels, & water nymphs.

His almond lens mists over

out of focus (blurred,

all out of blue red).  His eye limps.

High in the dark sky chant the stars

above distraught Columbia.

Arcturus, Regulus, Spica –

framing a gargoyle versus Mars

(opposing men-o’-violence, that Man

of Lawlessness); a trio

in the Dragon’s Head (O

money jungle, African fleurette).  Tin pan

for Paris ghost-dance gold... your own

damn note, hunchback Igor

(boom boom Guillaume, poly-

poilu).  Viol sez, follow me down.

A purple prince from Minneapolis!

Adonis of grain elevators!

Lapped into clay (all yours,

A-frame).  A rose eye came – his sis,

Iris-Sophia.  Whorled full of vertigo,

gaunt San Francisco...

floored in the adamant, so

grand.  Your sky-blue motherland, Hobo.

1.27.20

etched in vernacular

BEEHIVE WITNESS

Dante’s rambles round the tamarack swamps

outside Ravenna.  Beached

hulks of Byzantium reach

toward the sea.  Inside, smoke-lamps

phosphoresce hieratic grandeur

(kind bovine gaze of Empress,

Emperor).  Alighieri’s

impressed – ecco l’ora serale

in those green sheepfold meadows

where Time does not run.

He pursues his martyrion –

Crusader grandfather, circle of Mars.

He etches in vernacular his answer

out of deep parish history

to the welded Roman panoply

(Arcadian melody, Virgilian whisper).

I am a scribe who when Love speaks

hastens after, hearkening

noting everything down.

I haven’t heard from Bea in weeks.

I remember lips set with a grim reproof.

Down at the borderland

(Texas to Samarkand) –

Coatlicue, Tezcalipoca... beetling roof

of squalling Raven years.  Esta

su iglesia, Henrique?

She’ll be coming like Elijah,

not Europa, now (beehive witness).

6.24.19

woodcut by Mary Ravlin Gould

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

with malice toward none, with charity for all

BIRCH-BEE

                  i.m. MLK

We walk together on a zigzag path

tracing the death of kings

miming crow’s wings

of trickster history – wrath

bursting yellow-orange (balloon

for Apollinaire,

strange signal-flare

scripted for carrier pigeon)

like scars of Mars across an unknown

martyr-soldat (Eeyore-

Verman, smoked as of yore

in mustard-bowl of Bosch-demon)...

Glassed like a pair of broken bifocals

the earth’s blind O

& heaven’s diving zero

mesh in the crosshairs (personals

coulombe).  Shepherd’s last calendar

(yours, mine, ours).

Beyond blank stares

of slate, in Arctic Cimetière –

beneath Jonah’s anchor, tattooed

by Minotaur... one homing

turtledove draws OMO

in red chalk.  Graphite étude

of pensive Milky Way... orant

abysmal honey-beard’s

raven-rose word

lifting light birch-bee ark (aslant).

1.15.17