when morning stars sang all together

ROSE QUARTZ

                  

The delicate crystallographer

chipped at rose quartz

in a mica mirror.  What’s

wrong with the signal?  Fuzzier,

now, out of Nazireth.  We’re

missing the calendar,

oh hazy November –

have to find a new atmosphere.

Hobo (along jungle river)

envied that lofty poet

on the hilltop.  What

brings you here, Indian-giver?

The Song of Minnehaha (Henry

Wordfish Lungfellow);

light black-&-yellow

swallowtail (aye, amen, Re).

In Happy Hunting Ground,

HHG.  Your twin

brother – like the sun

breaking through Narragansett Sound –

when morning stars sang all together,

hearty & brave (children

from incandescent freedom-

sun).  Under the tender tether

of ineffable Intellect   O

lambent   star (Grace

Ravlin   Falcon-Ace)

with Notre Dame   at zero-

                 *

hour.  Your brother is a simple

carpenter, Hobo.  He

studied Victimography

with Cyber-Ciphering, & Ample

Anthropology (Social Jeering) –

yet loved that golden

bubble (in the cauldron

of the level) more than anything.

Because the sense of being right

flows like a burbling

stream – wondering

into verbal dirigible... bright

speaking thundercloud... imaginary

friend of Liberty

(Decembrist charity –

Crimean exile, Pushkin-boy).

The government of Liberty

is of consent, not force;

our kingdom of remorse

enfolds Redemption at its source.  See,

child?  We have outlived the Minotaur;

Ariadne’s simple thread

leads to your kindred

by the glowing gemstone samovar

of hearthblaze – everlasting joy

warm crystalline kingdom

rose-violet   freedom

smokehole to Wakan Tanka   in the sky

11.25.18

I am what I ham

NIGHT TRAIN

The night train rumbles like a ghost

of iron over the bridge

over the river.  Sage

Minnehaha, Hobo loves you most.

He’s lying by the muddy bank

trying to clear his head.

Everything he’s read

demands – who am I to thank?

The driftwood spines of shattered books

surge downstream, sink.

Think, Hobo, think –

a deadman’s glancing you posthumous looks.

Twin humps in winter refuse

under the lamp-green

of young leaves...  Scene :

pillars try an almond (Moses, Jesus).

Through teenage foliage coheres

the rust-brown iron magnet

of one (hold tight!)

modal mine of shifting gears –

the rocky profile of a personal friend,

who’s center’s nowhere

& who’s hairline is (look there,

Horatio!) nowhere near the end.

A sibyl croons from the ancient world

whose prince is dancing

naked by the prow.  Sing,

mickle dam... like slingshot hurled.

5.7.18

cottonwood sky

BIG DIVE

In the steep ravine shading the river

Hobo’s eyes follow

smooth limbs upward, so –

into a cloud of silver-green shimmer,

Columbian sky-nest

of cottonwoods.  His squint

moseys like scattered flint –

mishmash out of Ocean states

into some kind of Land o’ Lakes

matryoshka doll, or Land 

o’ Goshen Big Rock Candy

Mountain.  The poet is a sacred

fool (or cataleptic converter)

& every shepherd’s an

effete abomination,

just a bump under a bumpkin tower.

Hobo keeps an eye on Henry,

ambling up there

on River Road.  Air-

head royale, full of acorn honey,

soldering his Goshen stone

into a manic-hollered

coat of caustic red

Rhode Island rooster-throne –

a sharpened archaic Goshen point

left at Minnehaha

Falls by some Ojibwa

dream-boat.  The time is out of joint

                *

he cries, with a Norwegian accent –

O Jessie, O Ophelia,

my little tree, Columbia!

Come tripping back unto the oak tent

once again, out of the Ocean foam!

Flip your big dive, big Dove,

into reverse – for love

of Yahweh, & of Manitou, & home

sweet home!  An infinite Intelligence

invisible as air,

kind as mon cher

Francesco, wise as Providence,

clear as the sky vaulting these gray

heart-leaves – our octave,

Henry, Hobo... wave

on wave, on wave (lithe sun-ray).

From the standpoint of ineffable Person –

an infinite free Spirit

(older than Cautantowwit,

with all his Raven-wit) – a Someone

omnipresent, serving restoration

to a hurt creation – mercy

exudes like oak-tree honey-

gall.  Some smiling heart-shaped cotton-

wooden crossroad Livingstone –

green-gowned Sophia

traipsing Milky Way-a

Sarabande (one, two, three... one).

6.12.17 

green buds are just -

TROMPETTE MARINE

Giuliana opens a ceramic shop

on Ravenna back street.

The “Old Man of Concrete”

surrounded by gray pots of slop

paints himself into a nearby corner;

Giuliana’s little boy

paralyzed (Guillain-Barré?)

plays with his yellow gyroscope.  Her

lover mopes, lost... (ambivalent

professional).  Red Desert,

Deserto Rosso.  Hurt

blooms in the sea-salt spring (Lent...

Easter).  Lofty kind eyes in shadowed

stone (Pantocrator, &

Theotokos) still stare down

from hollow warehouses (A.D. 600).

Green buds are just emerging here,

Psyche, Persephone

in center of the country

(Center, N.D.).  Land mass, a sphere

from sea to sea (theoretically) –

a glop of potter’s clay

in solar roundelay;

Palm Sunday to Good Friday (bloody

travesty, Ford Theatre).  Then

the turtle at the finish line

emerges from the brine

reborn – Rabbit in acute cartoon

(Metamorphosis at Minnaheehee

Falls).  Dante, Beatrice

step through the sun (hey

ey yo) astride Dakota prairie

hoisted on stray lambswool thread

like Vallejo’s poncho

(wheat-gold Paris gaucho-

robe)   or galactic Temple shroud

woven from smoke of calumet

& Camels   (veteran

Guillaume   a crimson crown

swathed round his beaming pate)

so Theseus & Ariadne   circle-dance

the gold pavement   grey Chartres

                   *

matrix   womb of silence

&   clear light   joy of the makers

On an upward path, the labyrinth

becomes a spiral, &

the Minotaur’s command

the envy of a shadow (absinthe

green).  Your quipu-knot records

an anchor weight – the rings

of one stone, tempering

the river-sweeps... only soft words

like flute-sounds, scattered seeds.

Stricken Giuliana,

limping hopeful Natasha –

Nadezhda, too – resilient reeds

walk in solemn palm procession

round the sea-wall

& the sparse green hill;

the bald truth of clay   passion

& its aftermath   high keening

sea-bell   through   seraphic blue

the ultramarine   (Pacific

hue).  Jonah   always coming, going

always being born   out of the waves

of infinite agape

lifts old sails   away

for Columbia   & Liberty   she waves

the light torch   over homely harbors

mangers of refugees

fleeing plaited Caesars

(their cracked saucer seizures)

as the integral of   furnace fiddleheads

the deep-sprung source

of Everyland   smokes Morse

code goodness   penetrating sadness

like undying Hope   into the arms

of Osip   or Goldie the Finch

your friend   in the clinch

of Hart’s woe   John’s alarms

the desolation of a lonely child

a hearth-star   shines for her

the safety net   saves her

Love blazes from the center   wild

onlie-Begetter   mild   trompette marine

4.13.17

a baby year

POLAR NIGHT

                               for Chris Kraemer

Begins, a baby year.  Crawls out,

survivor, bearded with ice.

Minnehaha Falls

not (b-flat, sustained).  Hobo is stout

now as Shostakovich – repairs

the floppy mosquito screen

on vacant gazebo.  Seen

more mangy homes, the bum declares.

Remembers that other Epiphany

50 years before...

with Chris the carpenter

in Soho, & Ernst Neizvestny –

three rootless cosmopolitans

christening his studio

with vodka – dla vashego

zdarovya!  Hunched on some Titan’s

crucifix of railroad ties

laid out across the floor.

Moira’s “Mask of Sorrow”

on the eastern wall (king-size

Golgotha-face, Vladivostok).

Troy’s brother Gabe

there, too – my chemo sabe

trying to toot the sunshine back

with his brass headpiece (soldered

to holey, breathy crown).

Fenced about with unknown

renown, we are, Hobo purred –

                     *

doddered.  The thatch be windblown.

The star be nowhere

to be seen.  The Minotaur

harried our return – he was like a stone

blocking all the arteries, squeezing

the flowers.  So we sang Kaddish

for the kids, in plain English –

scrannel our pennywhistles, wheezing

Pipestone smoke... remember now?

Down by Little Crow’s tent.

Where Thunderbird bent

his twisted contrails, laid so low.

St. Paul tied up in a Christmas bow

the whole Fort Snelling crew –

neat.  & they’ll forgive you, too,

Minneapolis – just let them Gypsies go.

Morning Star & Evening Star

are twins, brother & sister.

The planet limps... her

black burn-scars all covered are

in tender hexagoons of fleecy

tinder.  Let us pray.

One black-yellow butterfly

sleeps in gray winter crèche – she

furls her wispy shroud tight, tight.

The Minotaur has dropped

his cup.  It rolls... it stopped.

One pearl winks out of polar night.

1.3.17

hen hides under blanket

LITTLE RINGS

In the muted Bruegel colors now

a raven’s-eye view circles

round twin Mirror Lakes

in Mendelssohn, so long ago.

Heidi & Holly, Jamie Freeman –

kids in a panorama

skate across my retina

from a Flemish Ice Age (Union

Pearl, foundered in frozen cup).

Laertes, will you drink

with me?  I think

not, yet... & so I take it up.

How gravity spins round the Sampo,

Longfellow – how Minnehaha

eddies through Edina

like a maelstrom over Nanabozo

– silly wabbit in the old cartoon

of Manitou & Redman –

stormcloud, lightning (Hen

hides under blanket, ‘til monsoon-

tornado trundles off to Canada).

Rabbi, Rabbi... Raven-

priest, Melchizedek... when,

O Wind, will this wallowing miasma,

lethal raincloud, lift?  A voice

from hurricane murmured –

when the agate here immured

in North Sea tears, as in a vice

                    *

floats into primeval Paradise

upon a simple kayak-word

out of the lunar hoard

of acorn-candelabra : REJOICE.

The train rumbles over the bridge

in the iron night, in the rain.

I won’t be back again

until Ferrara meets the Iron Range

in a poem coming down from winking

Starry Night.  Those whorls

are fingerprints – pearls

whispered out of Ocean, drinking

planets, orbits, icons, emblems

drawn from infinite thirst

for a milky source (first

taste of infamous black diadems).

Bears navigate a starry circle

over Berryman.  The stone

crypt glows in the bone-

castle.  Jessie Ophelia will

step down from the riverboat

beaming for Minneapolis.

The sky is gray, is

Minneapolis, St. Paul... c’est tout.

In Mendelssohn the Mirror Lakes

are ripples ever-new.

You’ll understand... you

live there (little rings an iron makes).

11.26.16

the flicker of a flicker

SHADY IMAGO

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of a raven overhead

with the sun in his beak – dead

noon in Jerusalem – I will fear no

evil.  The rabid orangutan

with his orange comb

trumpets drastic doom

for milky stars – the Black Son

of Memphis & his Romany

Hobos (a gospel band)

– he doesn’t understand

the music.  Where‘s the harmony?

Under a ruin of reconstruction,

the rusty copper scaffold

of jealousy (green mold)

they glimpsed a revelation

of plain limestone floor – the sepulchre

where Jesus lies in state,

briefly (before the great

grey wings translate to their obscure

futurity).  Along a Mississippi

sedimentary ridge, I spied

the quick white-gold

Ionian flicker of a flicker (underbelly

lambsdown curvature aloft)...

Io?  from Iowa?

Some swift sky-cow

out of Abyssinian abyss?  Soft...

                    *

I hear her owl’s wing whisper

through the silence.  Nut-

brown acorn chariot,

a whorl of grey cloud-matière...

Gödel’s self-interference, weft

of Maximus bard-

beard (sun tangled

with midnight, O infinitely deft

monarch)... Apollinaire in blue

kepi (the unknown soldier

waiting out the end of war)...

twin silver doves that mirror you

upon a double door from Mexico.

O Guadalupe – heart-

encrypted grail-casket –

cedar & cypress womb-Argo

whose planet is moss-green tomorrow –

bend down to sister Psyche

now, unknot my

Tauromachia; Raven’s shady Imago

unfolds a lantern crown of light.

Out of the cthonic hills

of frightened, haunted wills

a laughing stream called Make-It-Right

(the Minnehaha of the minnow tar)

floats Moses-coracle

to Dawn (original

lodestone – morning North Star).

11.4.16

an aria of Ariel

SAFETY NETS

On the vast floor of the nave at Chartres

a golden labyrinth

circles the square.  Myth

of primal clay, where everything starts

over... springs up from the ground;

even the epic poem

circles back toward home –

Thanksgiving hearth of heaven, lost

& found.  It is an Ithaca

where Daphne-laurel molts

back to Penelope – bolts

from the yarn, like Minnehaha

laughing upstream toward Itasca –

primeval Persephone

(O veritas caput).  She

looms at warp speed, like an aria

of Ariel – zips through the Gateway

Arch, to Providence –

races around, from Florence

to the Golden Gate, where she will play

out safety nets, & save the day –

& from Pacific to New York

lift up her blazing fork

of sea-green, Lincoln-penny Liberté.

She is the almond in a nest of nests –

a hollow echo-tomb

from which Columbia will bloom

again, spring-fed by Galilean breasts.

9.20.16

facet of the grey sea

WOOF DAWN

Now vales of Maia give away

to peaks of June, plains

emerald after rains;

gold Ghana-threads of yesterday

(encircling Hermione,

her Perdita) are knotted

in one polyglot,

shade-silvered whisper-crown.

The dream-song of that melancholy

painter in the corner

(Henry Coroner,

or Richard Parking-Lot) might be

a facet of the grey sea’s matière –

portion of the human

globe (octagonalmond,

arched like Nut over the pearl-

sphere of the earth).  Hearth-sign

of futurity, through sleep

to an oasis – leaping

Minnehaha (Hobo river-mind).

Someone smiling in an acorn cap

shadows his Georgia garden.

Some apple-orchard man,

repairing limbs... his milky map

renews the face of day.  All things

woof dawn, old Prospero –

it happened long ago.

Her cartwheel (spun of gold bee-stings).

6.15.16

Minnehaha's moccasin

SPIRIT-WOOD

                             i.m. Edward Lewis Peckham

Step lightly in my mother’s house,

whispered a tiny elf

named ELP – himself

a watercolorist (a yellow lady’s

slipper’s footprint left the forest

on this day).  Cypripedia

reginae – Minnehaha’s

moccasin – graced this wilderness

as well, making a pair for Joy

& Beauty (graces

almost three).  Time paces

seasoned out of winter, so employ

your dancing shoes, fiery Hiawatha –

roll like Polar Bear

around that pinpoint star,

sing like a loon, like your happy

father (Thalia-glad).  Nature

& Manitou join hands;

a Turtledove blends

sea-sounds, all about green Eire;

urn burials, gardens of Sirius

swim synchronizing

rhombs on monarch wings

(a rugged Paradise for ladybugs)...

one dance-call through spirit-wood

or jadestone flute

sows dreams of Camelot

(like waves of wheat around a vineyard).

6.9.16

*Note : Edward Lewis Peckham, Rhode Island artist and naturalist, painted a watercolor of Cypripedium parviflorum - Yellow Lady's Slipper - on this day in 1866, 150 years ago.  See illustration here from the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Spooky distances (for 3.14159............).......)...

APPLE PIE

Hobo drowses in his Einstein field

of asphodel, spooky distances.

Life’s tender differences...

only mauve peonies on copper shield.

Irrational yearning for the earth

might be the shortest path

to Providence.  Wrath

of History’s a concave labyrinth –

your soul must wash a dusty planet

down Big Muddy, Hobo.

Rise from your bed of woe;

our Hero beckons from his granite

lintel toward the circling sun.

Path P (transcendental

for each chaste equal

guest of compassing compassion).

The one who went to live with Indians.

Blackstone, Yellow Sweeting

apple-man – his greeting

(like sweet Williams’ own) a Both-Hands

Welcome, Minnehaha flute –
ray of soul liberty,

loop of Easter Rabbi...

Hart, Malcolm, Giulietta’s route

bent (parallactic) toward the light.

A catenary smile

or Life-Saver will

thread sad grooves into a chariot.

3.14.16

Mississippi River, from Indian Mounds Park (St. Paul)

There's a whole in the bucket

PLAYGROUND SWING

When Joachim Fiore, hermit-monk

hidden in heel of Italy,

after many a fasting-day

frescoed his Fauve raptor-hawk

like a rainbow-feathered calumet

smoking the end of aeons...

When the dust returns

from whence it came (Osiris sunset-

raft, veering to purple bull’s-eye)

& bones of bearberry

revert to green hay

& Alma the Corn Maid heaves a sigh

for Land o’Lakes (their vanishing,

twinkling, hexagonal

bye-bye)... then shall we all

rise too, in a Sabbath playground swing

of the Pleiades – & wheel with Mama

Ursa Major, in a New

World Symphony (Ojibwa

Lullaby, scribbled on your way

from Minnehaha, Anthony).  Because

the whole in the silver bucket

is a river-song (Pawtuxet,

maybe) sweeter than ever was –

is your redemption-hymn, O Solomon.

Sheba the Buffalo Lady

knows it, as does Maggie

Galilee... The Eagle from the Oven-Sun.

3.10.16

In a Scattergood world

PURE SOUND

                              i.m. Robert Treuer

Back East, in Rhode Island, the big snow

coming.  Thinking of William

Blackstone, hermit-pilgrim – the

one who went to live with Miantonomi

& the other red-men.  To the House

of 4 Pines – under

cartouche of Little Bear,

North Star.  Out of Nazi Austria

sped a peregrine, by grace of God

& pity of strange braves

(Scattergood saviors,

anonymous donors... meek just good).

To a tree farm he fostered (in remote

forest).  Led into circle

of silent First People,

tending ashes (sitting shiva).  Little

prow of acacia, rocking near Itasca-

Nile... your upside-down

fire-drill will drown its

candle in stony Minnehaha.

Sigh, winging out into grey sound

(b-flat at midnight).

The musicologist

from Florence mutters back to ground

just so – back to the pigeon-clay

of primordial, steadfast

Bee (until the last

dragon of Sheol fades away).

1.22.16

Crossing the Rubicon, again...

ONE SPRING

The river across the street still flows

under thickening ice, ceaseless.

Its lesser tributaries

(Minnesota, Minnehaha) also

persist – all of them subsiding

into Ocean River

finally (only a quiver

rippling Time).  Julius is sliding

a handkerchief across his brow

in 49 B.C.

The die is cast, sez he.

Yokels on Rubicon blow

tubas now – let War decide.

World empire in his grip,

peace is ordained.  Slip

the noose over each parricide

(Brutus, Absalom); the father’s

kingdom will be certified,

et ratified, in blood.

Shadow of a kingfisher

rotating in graffiti’d alcove.

Boethius & father

(Symmachus) share

fort et dur... Ravenna love-

keen (after bronze millennium).

Time’s universal –

history’s rehearsal

for a mangy star-profundum

                 *

deeper in the soul o’man

than Solomon arrayed

or Emperor betrayed.

An agate, tossed in Jordan

sand.  Halcyon day (of almond

shade, & waterfall).

Life’s good, is all –

big benison de tout l’monde.

Reaches through the harvest of

your Martian scythe, O

Death, to something more –

the milky Rio of the Blest.

It is Beyond.  It’s over yonder.

Everywoman’s Eridanos,

Poe’s Eureka.  Moses

glimpsed it in his heart’s far

island (yours, mine) – soul

liberty’s Belle Isle –

Eternity (only

a smile from here).  Glows, whole.

There were 4 rivers flowing

out of Eden, toward

House of 4 Pines (word

lost on the wind).  All knowing

& loving, all doing & being

gathered in a khipu

knot... arc of yew

over limestone grave (one spring).

1.11.16

Minnehaha Falls

Family of Man

It's late at night on 5.28.  May 28.  We buried my father's ashes in St. Stephen's churchyard today (my mother was born on St. Stephen's Day - 12.26).  In a beautiful spot beside Minnehaha Creek.  My mother will be buried there too, someday.  She says she hopes the creek will flood sometime, & wash them all downstream.  My mother had her first drink (sherry) at the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (in Portland, Maine) at the age of about 12 or 13 (ca. 1940).  She was pals with the daughter of "Laughing Allegra".  "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee..." (- just a little further downstream stands the statue of Hiawatha carrying Minnehaha across the stream...)

5.28.  May 28.  I finished the long poem (about 600 pp.) Forth of July on 5.28.2000.  The poem circles around (among other things) the early New England Anglican minister & freethinker & librarian & orchardist & Seeker William Blackstone.  First exile from Boston.  Early settler (pre-Roger Williams) in Rhode Island.  He shows up in many of my poems (see the books Lanthanum, Dove Street...) - even a poem celebrating my father's birthday (4.12.27).  In fact a lot of my poems are numerically structured around the numbers 5, 28 (28 is a perfect number).

Forth of July.  My grandmother (John Gould's mother) was born on the 4th of July, 1900.  Florence Gould was the first Episcopalian (Anglican) in the family.

William Blackstone was buried on his property in Cumberland, RI on or around 5.28.1675.

It's kind of mysterious how life imitates art & art imitates life & the structures of the imagination are worked out in the dust to which thou shalt return.  All these strange shadows of many lives well lived (in the "Family of Man")!