to imagine governance anew

CURVE-MIRROR

Everything resolves into the question

of good will.  The mystery

of this most simple anti-

gravity (11.32 ft/sec, a-falling down).

Firebranded sign of imago Dei.

So we desire the good –

wholeness (soul food).

The skeleton key of MLK,

the metaphysical hope informing

scapegrace Providence;

little Ocean State’s immense

rose light (perpetually intensifying).

Only a memory of Henry’s youth.

That community-building élan

of the VISTA legion –

to imagine governance anew, in truth

& conspicuous joy (Roger’s liberty

of conscience).  Dante

& his animale compagnevole

on Dante Street (on Federal Hill)… si, si!

Canopic geometry – vanishing point.

The apse at Sant’Apollinare.

One solitary shepherd, & the sky

a coracle of stars around one smile (anoint

her compassionate Pilot over Kings).

In the curve-mirror of the dome

you sense her light.  Calm

Shekinah… mild restoration of all things.

3.12.20

in the dawn mirror

SINGLE SPOKE

These quiet late winter days.  My mother

lies in her small bed.

The past is not restored

but rows to its island across the water.

I see it in the distance, there –

dark rocks, pines wrapped

in mist.  What happened

to those springing years?  Vibrant affair

of VISTA volunteers… Rhode Island

skipping in my early heart.

JFK’s Newport.

A tiny sea-casket of azure, sand

in the dawn mirror of a rose lighthouse

casting Roger’s heart’s eye-

beam – his Providential replica

of conscience-liberty (human Cosmopolis).

You elevate my Minnesota grain

toward your red-violet wine

welding human & divine

on the river’s leaping arch – then

paddle further… through green pillars

from Columbia to Gravesend,

Pocahontas Williams (raven-

haired pilot for milky stars).

Where the Wain of Charles is chartered

to an evergreen holm oak –

your Ocean State a single spoke

spinning my reel & sarabande, wholehearted.

3.10.20

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

relativity behavior at the end of May

NEF-TUNE

& what if all the Seekers, Roger’s progeny

– that prophet-salt of the earth –

assembled in an ark (Bertha

the birth-canoe)?  Like an almond eye?

Like tall Sophia-Top, spiraling from sky?

The quintessential star

of relativity behavior

in the Great Congregation, at the end of May

(5.29.1919, to be exact).  When Albert

raised a toast to the memory

of time & space, & we

felt that fire... like Baked Alaska in the desert.

Birthday for Ocean, constellate;

malingering little reprobate

always castigated by Bay State,

always flaming in a pentagram – complete

salt sea-bird tugboat-gal

who lofts Old Ironsides

to cosmic shipyard one Ides

of July (my Galilean madrigal).

It is the nef-tune, from the underside

of the sea, of the mind;

Love’s ecliptic incline,

like one grain of sand.  Wave, light... abide;

to launch us from our shadowy shells

& melancholy corners

into this brilliancy of yours...

all-human cradle where the hearth-fire dwells.

1.29.20

beehive hop melds drones

SCRAMBLED EGGS

October in my spindly cedar octagon.

Oblomov in a quaint gazebo

waiting for his Olga, O.

Henry had an MRI today.  Beat.  Ochin.

His mini-RI, his Ocean State,

full of scrambled eggs &

mussels, canonical sand...

some Narragansett raving (will abate).

He can’t lift Juliet (or JB, either)

out of the bitter surf

with a pompous word, a mere

sniff to the wise.  Just take a breather,

Hen.  The heart is a mystery

who can plummet?  Purple

majesty amid all people,

8-ball in the Rabbi Shabbat sea –

where be wisdom be to found, Henri?

In love again with Heidi

or whole neighborhood, ey?

In Mendelssohn, where the bee-

hive hop melds drones to symphony...

where children laugh naturally

& Sophie will skip-to-me-

Lou through the live-oak gateway

immemorial... as toward you, gentes,

Jeannie, Juliet, Jonah,

the heartbeat (Shekinah)

skims near – overshadowy Benny Voluntas.

10.9.19

keep on pushkin, straight ahead

RED FOX

Under the silver shoreline of late cottonwoods

the quiet gray clouds

the dry river weeds (wounded

with scattered sumac) Hobo broods

as always.  Trying mightily to bring it all

into focus, under the aegis

of an ineffable Isis-

eye (black West Branch granite, under veil).

Seated on her throne, standing for a Mind

of grace.  The poets’ doctrine

as against the matter-men –

lambent clay mutter-shape (FOR BLIND).

Johnny, we hardly knew ye... Iona

clover, twirling like a dervish

in the shadow of an Irish

Tyche.  Liberté, coulombe, Columbia...

Jeanne, Jonah.  Up from pacific waters

of an Ocean Rose, an Okeanos

Newport oakenship – ceremonious

wedding (chaste prow, beyond all wars).

Like scrape of diamond on a coal-black

door.  Marking your graffiti-

passage, Henry Contumely –

he hath entered the realm of signs (alas,

alack).  You search the scriptures, lil Red

Fox – but do not come to ME.

Swift as cottonwood leaf

her sun-heart passes... (Dion-Isis?  Fled.)

10.2.19

like a lost Osiris

photo by Aaron Siskind (Cuzco)

WAVY LIPS

On the coldest night in a generation

on a bridge in Minneapolis

one delicate snowflake melts

into her crevices of Inca stone.

Berryman, like a lost Osiris

wavers on the railing...

& maidens will be wailing

in Ramah, because she is

no more.  A forgotten Muse

of Memory – figure

of a little almond tree –

stays hidden (somewhere in D.C.).

I gather the limbs of Osiris

whispers Isis (under

her obelisk of wonder

blundering toward Sirius).

She remains behind her veil

out there in West Branch,

like a soft eyelash

encircling the ark of Israel –

like the cow-eyed prow of Argo

or sea-tossed glance

of Magdalen-experience;

the wavy lips of the vessel flow

into a primavera Ocean State...

your dream-song Jonah

breathing – hallelujah! –

from polar ice to coracle checkmate.

1.27.19

leaves of shades

ALMOND PROW

Snow was gentle over Rhode Island

on the birthday of MLK.

It fell on tenement & highway

& on the gravestones (Irish & Italian)

near Mashapaug – where Narragansetts

warmed by winter fires

sang for their ancestors.

Henry remembered how sun sets

there, flaming the cauldron west of town –

suffusing with rich violet light

(flower of Ocean State)

seven hardscrabble hills.  Raven has flown.

Memory like a lonesome sepulcher

is quiet as the dust.

His loves (merged in one ghost

dance) circle Blackstone’s Catholic Oak.

& he walks by dark brooding Mississippi

through brown scrub

like Hobo in an empty tub,

or Orpheus without his head – see

the Maenads turn to friendly tadpoles

wriggling alongside, as

he wails downstream?  Alas!

High in his Ravenna dome, haloes

of milky starlight crown a shepherd’s brow.

Mosaic over Memphis

(or Atlanta)... Isis

enthroned, or Miriam?  Jonah’s almond prow.

1.15.19

12th Night fol-de-rol

ROYAL BEAN

This airy painted Christmas ball

with its river of snowflakes,

twin gondola remakes

wobbling between the RISD Market Hall

& Industrial National Bank –

old Providence downtown.

Little lonesome microcosm

some winter night.  World on the brink.

In New Orleans, in the French Quarter

they’re rifling a king cake

for the royal bean.  What make

& manner of lass or laddie shall be heir?

Assail the wassail; mayhap we’ll see.

Everything is topsy-turvy.

Plastic Jesus is a curvy

smiley-doll – wee replica of you & me.

Let’s party.  Okean River flows

down from Milky Way

to Ocean State... happy

birthday!  Queen Flower-Child knows

all about Path P; X mark ze spot

where little Charlie’s acorn

sprung into a tall greenhorn.

Watching over still – almond knot-

maze in flutestones of Chartres

(her name is Jessie)

wavering out of Galilee.

Canoes bear her palladium (& ours).

1.5.19

golden autumn of the codgers

CHASTE EQUALITY

A synthesis of reality

is the poet’s quarry –

the whole serene array

sweeping like wind over the sea.

Not that irritable reaching

after fact & reason

but a subtler conviction –

life’s laughing dolphin, breaching.

So lips’ continuum of air

sustains your sea-sounding,

reverberates in rounding

surf (os-scintillating there).

The light stems from another realm.

A gravity so dense

you’re pulled beyond sense

to transcend...  Owlish Athena’s helm

shines like an emerald acorn cap

out from that wilderness

of native lovingkindness

(Williams’ mayday just a maple tap).

The Ocean State is what we seek.

The Providence of Roger-

Seeker... golden codger

settled in his freedom, meek

and bold.  Like admirable Edward

Coke, who founded

justice vs. his confounded

king – a chaste equality (rood-hoard).

11.1.18

eye in the level

replica of Roger Williams' compass, pocket sundial

SURVEY LINE

The pilgrim in the wilderness

like young George Washington

will draw a survey line

in order to project his progress

straight ahead, from point to point.

Primordial Providence

the paradisal focus –

your pen’s first instance.  Appoint

your 2nd Adam, then, Most High

to be the gold eye

in the level – bead the way

with your Accordion of earth & sky,

dream-song of host & guest alike.

My Christianity

is primitive, really.

This nazir chanting by the lake

was also Elohim; we sponged the vinegary

wine together, soaked

the dry bread – smoked

the peace pipe in his company.

My Providence is primitive as well.

Young Roger at the river’s

edge, his seekers, strivers –

welcomed, welcoming – a lunar shell

for pattern of a little government

upon her shoulder (Ocean

State).  Mirroring Sine

of Wave... rinsing tomorrow’s present.

9.14.18

plastic leaves & bottlecaps

SALTY DEW

This autumn wind-chime Sophie made

like El Anatsui (African

weaver spider-man)

from plastic leaves & bottlecaps, tied

with bright ribbons – a key, a table knife,

a silver keychain ring,

a crystal ball... everything

needful for the voyage into afterlife

(October & November, winter

ice).  I hear it now,

an echo from the prow

of gray stone mothership.  Your

Notre Dame of infinite mercy,

villain François.  Or Chartres,

Hen – where light chartreuse

rhymes with sky-blues, calm sea

of sunset rose.  On the scarred floor

a labyrinthine feedback

loop speeds Argo-carrack

by umbilical thesis to Ari’s door.

Arachne, Ariadne...in Rhode Island?

One subterranean Ocean

Stream, Atlantean

where every son of J sails home again

across Medea’s Méditerranée – &

where Medusa’s stone frown

melts, to gleaming crown

of salty dew... grail of compassion.

9.11.18

the axis of the earth

ACORN-DHOU

The river moving through the cottonwoods

inspires Hobo-composer

to exceed his Oeuvre

Clumpy-Cloddy in the key of C.  Buds

trace their roots down limestone crevices

to seek that cave-lake

where dark streams make

ripples in a mirror-image (Beatrice’s

triune goddess?) in a palimpsest

of light reflections.  Mother,

lover, friend... your sister-

dove.  Affectionate witness –

Akhmatova’s golub-golubyanka

(an undertone beneath

the granite banks).  The wreath

Natasha flung into Fontanka –

today an angel, tomorrow only a worm

in the grave... only a promise.

Mary, in her distress,

beholds the gardener beside the tomb.

Hobo digs deeper, down his own

dream-channel.  Almond

eyes... the veil of Isis

in West Branch... curtains for Henry’s own

Clover, in Washington (where Adam delved

while Eve spun vortex-grief).

Vertigo in high relief

on Henry’s charcoal Chartres – shelved

Synagogue laid low, below Ecclesia –

belies a Nazarene concord

older than Byzantine crossword

shaded by almond-Hebrew Bona Dea.

Keep digging then, my clod.  You’ll find

the key, within a boxwood box

where lies a bunch of keys.

A black Egyptian Queequeg pine-

box, layered with tattoos

of hero-griffins – figures

of hexagonal stars

that shine like golden bees... Who’s

                    *

there?  Out of the mirror-wars

of courtly kangaroos,

through shady fig trees

shines her diamond Southern Cross –

the double trinity of Black Elk’s

six-way sign.  An acorn

emerald, lightly borne

as crown of Restoration Day : melek’s

JFK : Zion’s Nazir out of Galilee;

spume-signal from an Ocean

State – whale-oil ensign,

anointed Son... clé-figured Charity.

That old medieval Paris of Villon.

Pigments of blood, limestone

& sky.  Stained-glass zone

of intellectual Aquinas-light – reason

& faith cross-braided, interwoven

in the jewel-box of Suger,

in the emerald sepulcher

of Wolfram’s wayfaring communion-

wafer.  Omnipresent grail

of equal daughters, equal

sons... Love’s universal

sea-supremacy – each heart’s high sail.

So the rod of Aaron blossomed

over Nile sandbanks,

& a bronze serpent yanks

all eyes to Hobo’s Bottomland

Jonah.  Out of that Okie Okean,

out of that Osage eagle’s

den, your clay-born angels

rise to foot their river-span –

a bridge of International Orange

pillared like Jachin, Boaz

in wisdom’s corny maze

of adamantine joy.  So rich & strange!

Whispered by the Sybil through

these gold oak leaves,

for everyone who grieves.

A comfortable acorn-dhou

                   *

down Nile, or Mississippi, weaves

her zigzag victor-wake;

from Jordan to Lake

Galilee, her circle rings the sheaves.

7.20.18

serene enchantment

ROYAL SEAL

Springtime earth bears a secret promise

for that unknown child

somewhere, today – mild

summons of the midnight stars

foretell the coming of her Magi, too.

May burgeons toward her

flowery grand fanfare

beneath its vault (red, lilac, blue) –

a royal seal of lilac coronation;

within that dome’s one

multiocular panopticon

prophetic voices merge in exaltation –

serene enchantment of perennial life

blooming toward light itself

(O fragrant almond staff

sprouting sweetness – beyond all strife).

The infant nested in a great oak’s shade

smiles in soft seaborne air.

Ocean will prepare

her Restoration Day – as you were made

in the beginning, so shall you be again.

Shining in Paradise,

where all the rivers rise;

gemstones of blazing men & women

awakening from mind’s blindness.

Under an azure-orange arch

they sail... grail-search

fulfilled – Love’s everflowing happiness.

5.24.18

one Coke hand

LILAC-JOY

High fan of infant cottonwood leaves.

Their light-green spray,

pale sign of spring today.

Come late (come early May).  Cleaves

to the swollen river – spewing snowmelt,

winter flotsam, garbage.

Nature floats this mirage

of metaphors... for what the Sibyl spelt.

Your sister-dove (Jeannette-Columbia).

Shade of Beatrice –

plumb-bob Eurydice,

sounding the depths of Sheol (ephphatha).

On this day in 1775

Little Rhody broke the tie

with Mother England.  Die

is cast.  The wasps have left the hive.

Still an ineffable spider-bridge

dangles its catenary M

between two pillars.  Hymn

of Wisdom’s unbreakable pledge –

octave uniting heaven & human,

person to person – one

Coke hand, spun

to Ocean State... wide chordal span!

Your mirror of primordial Sea

(reflecting golden doors

of Baptistery) pours

lilac-joy – Love’s ripe To Be.

5.4.18