Hermione's return

MAYPOLE CALCULUS

The park bench by the Father of Waters

is Hobo Henry’s throne.

Where he comes to his own

like Leontes (late to his daughter’s

recovery, Hermione’s return).

That sidewinding father

plays hide-&-seek – with another

voice, another fleece.  Like someone

you met once, on the road to Emmaus

or St. Petersburg – sly

Queequeg, tricksy Bluejay...

warbling red Robin in burnoose

of raven-ink.  His tattoo labyrinth

the cave he trails from –

a smoky-flutey hum

folding the whole into a ninth

symphonic inning (end-beginning).

This personal boomerang

widens your gyre, bright Milky-

Zed – like a shadow slowly shrinking

toward your noon.  Come back again.

Global res publica

out of Exodus.  A prairie

equal sign, Mississippian –

grass salience across the river (Monk’s

Mound) still reminder

we were slaves once, here

(Dred Scott & Gateway Arch plunk

                     *

side by side).  Slaves kept by others,

& slaves to ourselves.

Whose arrogance resolves

into a Minotaur of rival brothers

(orange vs. black – harsh prison stripes

mirrored across scarce

monarchs, dense cedars).

Vlad in Kiev?  One of them types.

Or Nabokov, in camouflage.

A Frisco safety net

might bolt this Nut

who stretches out her flamande bridge

into an arch, over the Nile –

osprey transfigurement

of J to fundament

(her spirit flaming into smile).

This late romance, Leontes-Hobo –

some Pygmalion’s design –

lifted La Paix from Brooklyn

mud, with Liberté (moss-emerald glow).

Her incarnation of a crocus rose

& spun gold gyroscopes,

kalimba-periscopes –

around a Maypole calculus

of loving fingerprints, & penny-clues.

The Earth, in shadow of

one flighty Jonah-dove...

your arc of fellowship (King of the Blues).

5.1.17

 

from the bottom of the sea

JOSEPH’S COAT

Those howling Oklahoma twisters

are more than metaphor

for the ravenous bonfire,

the rabid war in the man-monster –

the Minotaur in the guilty coil

on the Chartres floor

(beneath wooden choir

where Theseus & Ariadne smile,

are reconciled).  Who can lift

the great icosahedron?

Unbind our Gordian

distempered steel – the feral gift

of chimp dominion?  One copper penny

spinning heads-&-tails

goes gyroscope.  Tall sails

press on from stony Normandy

(led by that spine of Juliet-Perdita)

past Flanders wars

into La Paix.  Who soars,

now, from the bottom of the sea...

an Acorn Maid, in a rite of spring

flecked from a deeper wound.

Crevasse of raven-sound,

convenient cripple-victim-thing

turns inside-out; one Joseph’s coat

patchwork mosaic spells

Liberty – swings bells

of Jubilee (round vibrant note).

9.27.16

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

& the ship sails on

CAUTANTOWWIT

The sweet old pussy willow’s gone

that once o’ershadowed Pushkin’s

backyard grave (great Russian

cat).  Leaves not a leaf behind –

only an empty space (alas, 

alack) anchors a magic

carpet o’ masticated

stump.  So we hung up our lyres

on the bow of that stubby caravel,

Acacia – stuffed to the gills

with incoherent motorings,

burbling Barranca Straits – with Mal

& Papa consulting the cabinet

non-stop... coat, liquor...

What have I left her,

now, here?  These were all spirits,

veering toward Prince Eddy’s Island.

Wracking my brains... hollow

ravine in the pupil, valley

so low... black hole of Depression

Inlet.  Perdita, somewhere in

the safety net, under

the ark at Porta Aurea –

dear lightsome daughter!  Ravlin,

unraveled so.  Now rainbows flash

Medusa-shells, O

Mountainous Sad Shadowship –

to wit, to woo... (by Narragansett ash).

9.25.15

where was the willow once

Pushkin