Pearl Harbor Day

MOON-TIDE

Prospero, home in Milan,

dozes in winter sun.

Hobo, on the run,

hands Henry his drownèd plan.

Pearl Harbor Day.  His Juliet,

her father-love unmet,

unmatched, flings it

(on his birthday) off the Golden Gate.

Incest breeds in the wounded psyche

trapped in regression-mirrors.

Henry’s his own father’s

worst enemy (Knight to Queen 3).

Hal speeds to Falstaff’s hideaway.

Idleness debauchery

& trickery will be

his refuge from a father’s eye.

So Henry runs to poetry –

where Hobo rules the sleepy

riverbank, all lotus-weedy

with papyrus-infancy

(Atlantis-libraries of Alexandria).

He seeks his sweet cousin

for soul reunion – one

shady psyche for another ghost.  Selah!

Prospero!  You’ve gone all cranky

& explicit now.  Don’t drown

your book just yet, man –

Henry threads a maze of hanky-panky.

Full fathom five   thy father lies

these are pearls   his eyes

the moon-tide hurls  (sailors

sleep beneath waves, where firelight dies)

The flame in the heart surges, or is

deflected into shallows.

Juliet of the swallows

flittering at dusk... Henry’s paralysis...

shady pining for the sister-dove –

Orpheus, Eurydice

Alighieri, Beatrice

Ray by Nile, yearning for Eye of love...

Hobo’s intellect of mother-wit

tangential, tacit

               *

star, Cautantowwit

Raven-shade of Narragansett

Buried god Osiris, burdened Berryman

weeps on his barbed-wire fence

of psychic violence.

Angry sons are on the march again,

the envious ones – misled by signs

of fraught deflected love;

the Dragon’s treasure-trove,

the Minotaur’s deceit (threadlines,

snarled cul-de-sacs of self-defeat).

Manxmen of tyranny –

their island fantasy

a sunken travesty (Narcissus-fleet).

I remember your weaver’s baton

in Providence, Francesca.

The shuttle flying (rock-a-

bye, baby) to shape a golden woolen

poncho – gift for a San Francisco

poet (from Rhode Island).

Like a wand in your hand,

unspoken, felt – taking flight so

from one heart to another, at

speed of light – what

equilibrium you wrought

there!  Or an image of it –

warm, wearable, at human scale.

From the heart, the earth

shines – ruby hearth,

or emerald (blue-cloudy pearl).

The mystery of Providence

is as a rose in flower,

full of people-power –

origami of experience

unfolded in a safety-net

concordance –

each fold in silence

married to the others – what

complete rose blossoming!

Inexpressible

joy of a grateful Abel,

poncho-whorled into a golden ring!

12.7.18

sleek as raven-eel

LICHEN DOME

The last snow before Easter.

Sophie’s footprints etch

a squarish spiral sketch...

still photo (lento, Bruegelish faster).

From long distance, every

bird’s-eye view can fuse

with every other (sans

confusion).  Each waltzing orrery

links hands in Sydney – under those figs

whose natural majesty

anchors her panoply,

a fractal Dr. Octahydra (sky-digs

of Southern Cross, O dusky lady).

Bends toward akme

of the starfish now, Henry.

Meteor Hurtle Aboriginal Day.

The stone fell (odd fellow, ultramarine).

Fey otter – furry,

sleek as raven-eel –

into the gilded net of Saarinen

(Sibelius?  Some other fin).

Architrave swept (over

canoe).  Windhoover,

agile Harry Grizzly (buoy-woman,

boo-hoo – smoking Camel,

him calumet).  A Caliban

or Cain (Abel).  A Son

of Man – sad Prospero (blithe Ariel

                  *

is in the pine).  Where be the porpoise

here, Dauphin?  Your plow

scratches the surface now.

Her keen lengthens toward Paradise

(swell memory of Outremer).

The palm-lines slacken,

ease... shade thickens then

toward Wingy Rock (you know where,

Coatlicue).  The cedar forest

where the monarch dies,

lives.  Memorize

my speech, for its spooky taste

of dead bees (Finnish sacrifice).

There’s the arch, like

a prow (turn on the mike

now).  Spin the jenny, throw the dice.

Snow mantles the martyr’s tomb.

Green lichen dome

where breakers foam

from galaxies of Mendelssohn (home

run).  I don’t know where to go

from here.  The scared poem

swims down Rio del Hum

until your blues become a hollow

rhumba-Rome (flight-bud unknown).

Whispers vespers... purrs.

Her bop-team be yours,

egg-woman (inner-tube pontoon).

4.11.17

Maximus at Colchis

OUR SCENE

Late August light & humid air

through the antique slats

of gazebo, & mosquito

nets.  Ariel’s almost not there,

booky Prospero.  Miranda’s

playing chess, with Gene

& Giacomo – our scene

closes on island claritas

& calm.  Full fathom five, the song

takes hold... the anchor

swims into obscurer

depths.  Remote bronze sea-bells bong.

Those are pearls that were his eyes

treasure-chest of Solomon

impregnable soul of W-man

(– Maggie’s, Martin’s, JFK’s)

Black Elk’s airy diamond

Roger’s pole star

Edward Coke’s (Sir)

liberties & rights, crowned

offshore, in the harbor now.

Maximus at Colchis

wore the golden fleece

of his theoria : articulate prow

or figurehead, the cosmic union

unconfused – not-

separated-knot

of Christos-Nazir (breaching dolphin).

8.29.16

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

Gemstone of Paradise

NEVA-LAND

The poem is for lonely you

amidships (I-&-Thou

nailed coign to prow) –

& for that grubby neighbor too

next door (George or Georgina

with the garden hoe).

A solitary lamp-glow

lingers in the old cantina –

in William Blackstone’s study (man

who went to live with...)

– uphill, on the forest path

to Middy Wewe’s blithe fountain.

George Washington spins in his grave

to see how we behave

without a mind to save

us from ourselves.  Thee must be brave,

& true, & kind, & dedicated

to the perfect good –

that global neighborhood

that shines, wid’ green & delicate

kiwi-glow, beneath the rind

of blind & brutal night.

A callow grail-knight

stumbled on it once, near Samarkand –

spry Wolfram rings the tale – &

like an unknown soldier

leapt – O soulman Prospero! –

from here to Skye (in Neva-land).

5.20.16