& Miriam will dance

DRIED SAP

You can sense the salient resistance

of this old Norway pine

like a mast from Lebanon

in each crust of dried sap.  Straightness

of its upright stance.  Simplicity

of sea-green yearning

toward such bright-swelling

moon… half-dollar of Apollo mission (JFK

smile).  Our SUPERMOON, shedding a silver

reminiscence of sunshine

across crepuscular decline.

Rippling resistance.  What we were

reversing what we are (black sun

of trumped-up emperors

gnawing like rodent-raptors

at the heartwood of the law – treason).

The Song of Miriam, the hymn of exodus

out of the red waters

red white & blue tatters

your sister-dove murmured… passed over us.

My penny in the well, my dark reverberant

exile – the king of Israel

Melchizedek his trial

in Memphis, by the muddy Nile (our

hierophant).  Somehow the 4th of Set

rainbows a seventh 4th

& Juliet comes forth

& Miriam will dance (a Jubilee grande fête).

4.7.20

by John Gould's oak

ANCIENT MELODY

The air so clear, & the evening moon

a bright silver penny

as in the children’s story

walking along my mother’s old lane

(River Road).  Looking back through time

toward rust-bronze Penny

glinting in the well… you & me,

sweet riverbend friend (Rose I. William).

On middle C, in common time, imperfect

we will tap the ivories –

some Memphis honey blues

for Milkman, gone today (perfect

in charity).  I remember how we clung together

in the greenhouse, long time gone.

Now distance is the quarantine… yet

only temporary, Pen.  We’ll meet somewhere

by snowflake relativity – that Providence

where every soul has dignity,

disintegrated from the sea

of Ocean River (Osip’s salience – a

wee raznochinets bubble of pure silvery glee).

The sky.  So clear tonight.

Transparent memory.  A light

chord lingers in the heart (soul liberty

the ancient melody).  Freedom, equality,

respect… humanity.

Like Newport’s Jeremy – buried by

John Gould’s oak, in Hemel Hempstead (age 90).

4.4.20

on your dark retina

SEA-FROTH

The soft touch of watercolor

like a moist afterthought

on your dark retina.

The comeliness of ballet dancer

uprightness of innocent angel

her glance prematurely sad

– unfolding her fan of mustard

gold (butterfly wings on purple balsa)

beneath rough branches of jack pine

& beside the air conditioner,

a sunless window (in its lunar

TV efflorescence).  With her fine

naiad brow, brimming with thought

& the dignity of her wings

like a daughter of Memphis king

or mother… Isis or Hathor (Thoth

merging with dappled river pattern

yet again).  & in upper

right-hand corner a minor

violet cloud, a miniature icon –

Notre Dame (unburnt as yet?) – or

Statue of Liberty?  Unclear,

inchoate… like right now, here

in this charcoal-smoky, somewhere-

possible America – suffering glare

of phosphor-bomb campaigns

& camouflage engines –

blind canvas (some cimetière

                  *

marin) of noon.  & as the sun descends

west of the granite capital

& you sense (as the ineffable

arc of those feathers, wafting, bends

to rose Pacific horizon) the limpid

gloom of freedom’s evening

then she will be gathering

fragment-limbs of her beloved…

Isis, young dark dancer by the Nile.

Shades of live oaks,

holm oaks, holly oaks…

green Acorn Kings of Hollywood… will

stay awhile.  The restoration of the earth

will be a Morris dance –

as (in his happy trance)

the young king will relight the hearth

under the aegis of that Providence

kind Williams’ hand held forth

over the sea-froth

chasm of an Ocean State (whence

every liberty proceeds).  I mean

the heart’s imagination

of dove-divination,

when prancing St. Jeanne rose again

from dusty repetition of revenge

into a coracle of Union –

her canoe of sun-flotation,

Hobo’s freeway cloverleaf (Stonehenge).

2.21.20

in the Grand Army of the Republic

CLEAR BREEZE

Hank limps onward, like a lost private

in the Grand Army of the Republic

through swamps above Nilotic

Memphis – or plug of gneiss granite

broken loose from Superior shoreline

(euphoric azure of sea air

lifting over the spare

curves of rusted railroad iron).

We carry so much indifferent amnesia,

sleepwalking across Earth.

A measureless unplumbed worth

overshadows our shadows (ecclesia

del girasole… sunflower’s rotation

in the silence of Ravenna

backwater).  Antenna-

headed cave figures, in Papillon

foreshadow these elongate, lantern-

eyed hierarchs of grace –

a shadow ladder, on a base

of basalt (box-within-a-box of Lincoln

logs).  A matryoshka puzzle toy

from Kiev, or Constantinople;

an emerald imago of all people

in mild irises of Maximus (old boy-

martyr).  Matrix, crosshair lens –

vertigo of San Francesco

whorled to the point of zero,

razor-sharp.  Star of St. Stephen’s,

                  *

or the sea.  Is shadow-hero

of millions of shadows, round-

about… perceptible ground

or incarnation of your own heart’s

broken-down ego (melted to music).

Is Jonah of your ocean,

Columba… is feminine

Adonai of Morning Star (mystic

bloom, afloat over Cahokia).  Is

Gateway steel of your

clear breeze, Superior –

Osiris to your adamantine Isis

(Psyche-Amor).  In Ford Theatre

the violence comes to a head.

A Service of the Dead

melds Abraham to one frail butterfly-

phantom – one solidarity of soul.

Whim’s monarch, hoboing

from Mexico, to spring

the news… Pinetop’s True-Loving Honor Roll.

In the heart of the heart of hearts

where all the waters start,

we’re no longer apart –

little acorn coracle sea-charts

mark the almond center of the diagram.

Here the luminous shadow

smiles out of clay wheelbarrow,

& love never ends (warbling I AM).

2.11.20

a cornucopia of acorn habitats

UNDOING CAESAR

In this misty February pre-dawn dark

a Snow Moon, over silent

cedars, glows phosphorescent

silver.  Sacred thumbprint-mark

of first king (saturnine, defunct).

& I’m whorling his identity

for the FBI (maybe

some type of Memphis pharaoh-punk?)

in case we need to trace him back

to the source (Itasca

tourniquet? some kinda

hieroglyph?).  Small floaty Hobo-shack

in the heart of mudpie heartland.

Little coracle of clay

shaped for Lincoln’s birthday

maybe (Valentine’s Day).  Unmanned?

nay, manned – like a catamaran

by every air across the sun;

part of carnival season,

a gloss on Pentecost.  Mighty One

coming-forth, like hurricane or tornado

from a whisper, cave-

mouth… out of the south-

bound, multitudinous, incarnito

nexus of brownian river-motion…

out of the roaring flood

of driv-down dust, blood –

wind-sown, windblown clay… spun

                      *

into handmade UNION, like an eye-in-hand;

sliced from the Nile-bed,

bled from Osiris-head,

bricked in a pyramid of mason-sand…

our salt earth… squared beneath an almond

lamp like hovercraft

or hydrofoil (fore-&-aft

in quatrefoil) – little fylfot countermand

(counter-clockwise emerald) out of Iona;

like a coracle of Columba

or Camelot for JFK

her Isis-essence emanates from Iowa –

West Branch of western harmony

amassing trusty Athens

& Jerusalem-to-be (Hen’s

covenant of clear spring… see?

– translucent integral of truth).

& that tall rose window

tossed (like buckets of stone

water) to the skies, is massive, Ruth –

a cornucopia of acorn habitats,

a capital of washing

towns – a Kurbsky sting

against dim Ivan coups-d’état;

or Osip vs. Iosif – MLK

withstanding FBI –

Vindman in vindication (sigh) –

humanity undoing Caesar… Hallelujay

2.10.20

quirky rustic poet battles orange Goliath

MEMPHIS FLOOD

It was the winter of our ill-advised

& misconsent.  Embouldered

Julius the Quartered,

housed within his wanton witness,

raged (a savage orange walrus

full of fetid fire) against

that bad news feminist

in flight from Rus (hilarious!) –

while he, with his false staff, embarked

upon a cross rubes’ con

(some matryoshka manikin!)

against Old Ironsides... which worked!

– for temporizing (time... & two times

at a time).  The war was on.

“Where is the server, then?”

barked Julius again, again.  Crimes

filtered down like snow from Kremlin

gremlins.  Stark treason,

trickling out its own raison

d’état, took aim at Mississippian

Columbia.  One fiery wheat grain

in her heart – one star-

quintessence of her

pyramid – opened its eye again;

the child she harbored in her arms

across the Memphis flood

cried – “Human brotherhood!”

– & smiled.  Light pierced the storms.

1.25.20

whispers out of Colchis

painting by Michael Gould (acrylic and Elmer's Glue)

MILKY DOME

Henry hearkened to the dream song hum

along the stairwell of a crane

bone flute.  The black mane

of Mama Miriam Dodona waved to him.

As if a little tree anchored his coracle;

a branch of whispers out of Colchis,

woolen silky-shroud of Maximus –

his golden fleece a minor miracle

where twin wheels mesh to form one

almond (of almonds).  Mighty

mickle canoe, whose Isis-eye

looks from the prow (tease of the sun).

There is a vortex in the Black Sea

where the Great Year pivots –

Hamlet churns through his regrets

there, until Milky Way whorls like a G.

There is a grail of emerald stone

beckons from the bottom

of the sea.  Four rivers stream

out of a matrix there – exalted zone

of moody CHURNAGOGUE – the potter’s

center & circumference;

Ferrara ghetto-sense

mingled with Dante-radiance (all hers).

& the backward Nile flows down to Memphis

where the martyr at the bleak hotel

sipped from her cup, & cancelled Hell –

his milky dome hoisted to foamy wisdom-bliss.

8.8.19

toward the 4th of Juliette

DOUBLE WHEELS

Lone robin yodeling his evening threnody

plaintive, solitary

on June’s last day

what would he intimate to me?

That summer was immense & infinite

beyond the figuring

of our (almost) unerring

memory of planetary things.  That what

our dreaming signified was plain

(glory beyond our ken).

Tomorrow’s now & then

only a ghost might fold again

into the origami of a labyrinth

of Chartres granite, Mary

blue – like this contrary

stubborn root, trapped in cement

blooming, bleu Ming, nevertheless

along an Ariadne thread

signed (calligraphy by Ted

the Mason) in a matrix of finesse

by its ineffable Makar (aye

laddie, on a tear

shed from everywhere –

like Ocean River, or the Milky Way)

& the stone drones below human hearing

it rhythmous b-flat bass

someplace in Memphis

where Osiris met his fate, shearing

                     *

Love from its neverending source

(like Jackie K’s wing

saddled to her hat thing

flying off convertible, in Dallas).

Was it a Lincoln?  Was it a star

mobile, from galaxy?

Something moving in the clay

rotates like Ezekiel wheels – where

Louis Armstrong melted to el P

& X marked the spot

(Montale’s really not

at home – it’s Giorgio who has the key

to the garage, muttered the lovely

Michal of Ferrara dunes).

We don’t recall these tunes!

Ecclesia et Synagoga cousins be –

double-wheels within wheels, sez

Zeke, in Minneapolis.

Where Juliet was, once

before she lost face... fell from grace...

– how tender floats the human form,

ephemeral!  Until

we knot yon safety spiel –

until that lightning robin find his worm

& like a Caliban, or Jordan weed

begin to mold the clay

into slow-moving roundelay

(American)... Cahokia high meed.

7.2.19

just a particle of grit in the poetry gears

PAVEMENT SLIP

At the Arboretum today, the lightest

waves of pale green &

pink float over the barren

hills.  Pasque flowers make their violet

& furry nest.  Soft spring.  Far west

the Golden Gate flings waves

of steel over sea-caves.

A safety net shall be our rest –

all-purpose, drifting down from heaven.

From the Mother of Lights, from

Abba-Zero – coral hum

of Orizaba requiem (all the lost men

the sea shall render up again).

Ezra in the bughouse eyes

his Alexandrian apotheosis.

Spews hate & spite – riptorn

Osirian comedian, on glitter-stand;

& Henry has his Memphis

milkman : buried blackface

Pip-Pip (colonial ampersand).

The gravity-slide into darkness

is not so unavoidable.

Non spatio, sed sapientia

Anselm whispered; heaven’s kiss

is like a speech balloon, or Nile airship.

The kingdom’s for my child,

not for the Emperor, wild

Mary piped (basilica pavement slip).

4.27.19

not kingly oak

SPRY LIMBS

Not kingly oak, nor prescient almond...

just some pale cottonwood.

Moon milky-green, for good

measure.  Shedding vagabond

fluffballs – like poetry, or

cotton boles – bales

for Memphis, N’Orleans...

spry limbs bent into hangin’ tree.

I go into jags & eddies, dried

pemmican.  Downstream

from vinegar dream-

sponge (where the Bre’r-man died).

If the Word were truly a fluffball of light

I would be acorn coracle

green mote on miracle

worker spinal curvature (bent wight).

It gleams through red Pipestone

peacepipe – an emerald

happiness, turned gold

as sunshine.  Welcome, Everyone!

Translucent presence of a place

for you, before all places

cling to timespaces...

a nest for omnipresent Falcon-Ace.

Benevolent breeze, that moves these leaves

to waver into swing-time

antimatter – chime

morning with Hope (sings in the sheaves).

6.6.18

for Martin Luther King

DEEP SPRING

          for Martin Luther King

Late April snow.  A blinding white

50 years after Lorraine

Motel.  Memphis, again.

River-Land, seeking an Ocean State.

Rich port-of-call – the 51st, maybe?

Lost Black Sea pebble,

gray whale in trouble

(silent in the silence).  Who is she?

Grace filters into Providence

through stubborn darkness.

Rose Island light – less

diamond than dawn translucence –

only a signal for a wayward eye.

A Chartres chart, or maze

from Notre Dame (haze

mollifies her frozen sky).

The sleepwalkers smolder through smoke-

machines.  Father & son,

their colder war passed on –

unfriendly history (life’s but a joke).

Still roses bloom, in Galilee –

galactic Okean

become a local pond;

folksinging Nazir calling me

to dance, & calling you as well.

Deep spring’s Unknowability

leaps into charity –

a little Noah-boat skims out of hell.

4.4.18

what you might believe

kids climbing oaks on Arthur Street, in Mendelssohn, ca. 1958 (by Mary Gould)

PACIFIC SOMERSAULT

Childhood in Mendelssohn... my mother

helped us build an igloo.

Spiral parabola

of ice-blocks, framing up a doma

seamed so fine, snow-translucent –

its arctic arc an image

(Inuit bird-cage)

of the revolving deep blue firmament.

Complex reality’s concave enigma.

Mirror-image of

a winecup-face... dove-

Jonah diving from the ship – Mama!

– spewed out on shore by Moby Dick.

The Q in Queequeg, or

Coatlicue – the semaphore

of Joseph’s coat, turned inside-out (thick

darkness shrouding every mountain-top).

Fine rational weave

of what you might believe,

while dreaming (temple veil, torn up

from bottomlands to Memphis crown).

A knot in the cucumber twine,

Apollinaire in umber vine...

a fishnet made of golden fleece.  One

lifesaver-lead sinkers the weight

of the whole wide prairie –

like Cathedral Mary

or that flute-bone poet-fishbait

                 *

goes by name of Buried-Man’s Henry

– bright grandson of the late

star Morning Star, whose crate

floated Twin Cities to the Gulf (see,

Tommy, how the dead rise from the grave).

All 12 disciples died

by violence.  The Ghost plied

her woodcock back & forth, & wove

Ariadne’s safety-net (one grey thread

bent like accordion file

from Ocean vortex, mile

on mile).  Behold how us dead

rise from fleecy loam – your dream.

We dwell in a matrix-

creation – Beatrice

skips from Florence to the throne (beam,

Natasha, from your vault-chariot)

& Juliet will navigate

the high bar of the Gate

d’Orange (Pacific somersault).

The vertical of Dante’s Pole

balances Henry’s hobo-

equilibrium... so

the message in the oak bole

from the King of starry Heaven

sets a gyroscope

in motion – Henry’s hope

& Giuliana’s love (sweet corny leaven).

6.25.17

that river road to Memphis

CLEAR LIGHT

Again the baby crocuses

peek from the clay.

Blue as those starfish Mary

Ravlin molded, bright as seahorses.

The cottonwoods lean by the river,

hearkening to milder

time.  Spring child, your

mother flows to Memphis, where

one milky King came to his end

willing to walk that road –

real prophecy, he said.

Against our triple-headed fiend

(entrenchèd greed, malice & war)

to shape his earthy will

to one kiln-fired good Will

& forge a worldwide fellowship – soar,

mighty Martin, to that eagle’s lair!

Let your green trumpet sound

until a safety net is bound

with international orange there –

strong as titanic span & pillar

soft as a catenary

wing   shadowing gray

Ocean   in the sky’s wide azure

where twin doves from Mexico

open their double doors

hid among cedars

on a high hill   where monarchs go

                 *

so blinding sunshine grant us   second

sight   when we gaze upward

& behold   lenticular cloud

of mauve & rose   afloat   profound

over the wheeling ground   & fold

ourselves into that solid air

relinquish pride & fear

for spring’s renewal   as of old

your web of mutuality

yokes unknown soldiers trudging

to the Somme   frauds pledging

sacrifice   for unreality

just as they had in Vietnam

your solitary   freedom

walk   into Jerusalem

tattooed with beatific stigma   I am

coming like a thief, he said

so keep awake   the day

draws nigh   one April   Day

of Jubilee   when   rising from the dead

we’ll be that crocus   Kingdom Come

a long time coming   freedom

train   of joy & wisdom

supernatural glee   from heaven   home

to Earth   again   soul liberty

as promised in the whisper-

cave   of Galilee   your

clear light   ever-afloat   Eternity

4.4.17