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

Tom the Woodpecker

LAST NIGHT

My muddled speech, this tangled veil...

like these mingled branches

of an oak triad – spring’s

catkins green-gold (skylight-pale).

Crane’s last night in the dark Gulf.

He teeters toward the sea

aboard the Orizaba –

absolute zero, Abba’s Tower... wolf-

shark mouth of heartless Minotaur.

Cracked glaze of Manitou

might double-cross you

into salt-grey void, pegged charioteer!

– while Hobo ambles blind toward

center of the maze.

Cassini, in a crystal haze

hugs close the knife-beak sword

of Saturn’s rings.  A Saarinen-

style ark, wind-surfing

into her 7th ring

of fire – fuse-molten onion-

dome (midéwé Mendelssohn).

Walk through mandorla,

hums submarine 484...

Specific massive planetary Galilean

gravity here clusters in a coal-

black hole of Memphis

diamond (direction 6).

At marrow of the tree : oak-bole

                 *

Thomas the Woodpecker ate

into a little apostolic

room.  Darkness so thick

only a Thunderbird might penetrate.

This quipu-knot of seared wood

is double-bound (veiled

mystery, inviolate).

Only the Nazir-dancer Ghost could

walk through walls, only the Twin

could feel his wounded palms.

As the film rewinds (alms

for a morning soul) a theremin

spooks everyone – the living flame

of Beatrice-Juliet

flares orange-emerald yet

through black flags   of the same

bridge   where Columbia flutters   red

white blue   & Jonah

(azure   jasper)   joins

wheel with salty wheel   the dead

rise   from their graves   the poison

scar of scary Scriptures

cured   with ironic sutures

when the Republic   of the all-human

makes mutual amends   in welded

fire   Saturnian arc

of painful truth   mark

twain   the river-depth   Elohim healed

4.26.17

Jasper circumference

GRAY PAINT

The vast Flemish panorama

coheres in a raven’s eye.

Through haunted oaks, high

wind tosses bugle-calls (taran 

tara).  Bruegel’s gray paint congeals

on the perimeter

of the sea... Demeter

wanders like a Walloon reels

caterwauling, Persephone!

In Flanders grass, poppy-

purpura (like the sea

around a stubby Orizaba) –

only the poem is humble

enough to bear the yoke

of a poshlost rude joke.

She won’t let you stumble,

Psyche, in your edgy sundance.

That quatrefoil in the blue

mortuary was for you,

poilu (Apollinaire) – entrance

to complete volume of sibylline

Mnemosyne.  Pine

tree pantomime... a line

of sketchy aquamarine (shan shui).

A jasper circumference defines

our Atlantean task,

to reconcile each mask

of pathos (in a matrix of threadlines).

4.8.16