vive la France

CALM RONDURE

This rustic humble tablecloth

from Vienne street fair

(crowding her amphitheatre

hewn by Rome) poses a math

problem : how can I square this

table ronde within

the weathered octagon

of an American gazebo?  Ms.

Emily might know, or maybe Marianne...

some mounded clay pitcher

of accurate grace.  Her

toss across a potter’s wheel (nine

innings for a feline Muse)

spins stars like comets

through snarled sailor knots –

Mary & Rachel, bearing news

of natural law so blazing sharp

as to make arrowhead

speed from seabed

(trompette marine like Jonah’s harp

reshuffling my raven coil

into the Argo figure

of a prow’s green furl).

Honey from spun goldfinch foil

will pour like waxen flame – the living

sœur de Jeanne d’Arc,

sourire of each undying spark –

calm rondure of a square (Thanksgiving).

5.8.17

like Lear in rags

FRESH WELL

Hobo hides out among his cottonwoods,

a shade in camouflage

of cotton shade.  Mirage

of dreaming limbs.  She’s Robin Hood’s

Maid Marion, mayhap, he wheezes

in his sleep.  Across the road

(under the Shriners’ bold

benevolent scimitar) three turkeys

elegant & dainty as Enlightenment

grande dames mime

their quadrille parallelogram

athwart a sump pump drainage vent.

America drowses in Sargasso Sea.

The frigate Rachel picks

up Ishmael, sticks

him in her hold for an Eternity –

Queequeg’s confessions will be written

on his skin, with milky raven-

ink.  Temple of heaven

& earth, your living image (spit-on)...

Every inch a king.  Take physic,

pomp.  O, I have taken

too little care!  Reason

is gone, Regan is Goneril – my wick

sputters waxy blood, not gentleness!

Old man Pound rages

like Lear in striped rags –

Who shall succeed this rookie wilderness?

                     *

My cottonwood sap is like a floating mote

in Ezra’s crochet eye.

Lend him humility

for Lent – he’ll shrive his peacock boat

like Provençal Guillem d’Orange –

warlord who gave it all

away – the pride, the gall –

for fasting, prayer... passing strange

peace.  She is our peace – Star

of the Sea, the Evening Star;

ange of Apollinaire,

pirhouetting fée to end all war –

green child in her basilica

outlasting Stravinsky’s

thundering infamies

against her limping bull’s-eye

crane-dance labyrinth –

Natasha’s temple

limpid, humble, simple

climbing a ridge in Voronezh.

The temple of her body (yours,

mine).  A little salt

savors that azure vault –

elfin leap across the years

into the pond where Hobo swims

& Ishmael paddles... Jonah

surfs... Rachel’s Magdala-

spring (where the fresh well brims).

3.8.17

fault-line tattoo

GLASS TEAR

Step by shaky step, lame Hobo

spirals the lead-grey hump,

an awkward salience – dump

or agate-hold?  He doesn’t know.

Like Doc Woodpecker, peppering

the old birchbark, testing

the ribs for air – a ring

of hollow knock-knock, worm-hurling.

The sap running... a red thread

of civet.  Venison

oozing from the cauldron.

There’s no going back to the dead.

In the splendor of the west window

a minute glass tear

bisects its mirror –

eggshell splinter twixt Église & you.

My almond diamond, mutters Hobo.

Ring around the rosy,

let’s all go see

Thunderbird (hear the wind blow).

Notes of a flute, along the river.

Ocarina in the woods.

Hums through stray moods

of autumn... Black Elk (Indian giver).

You trace the zigzag coral coil –

a Queequeg scar, knifed

into casket-crown.  Life-

line for Jonah.  Rachel’s whorl-oueil.

1.19.17

stranger in the land

WELDED KEYS

The old words climb from the well of time

like a Norway spruce,

aquamarine – set loose

like fiery needles from the flame

of Psyche-Liberty (breaching

Columbia, rose-grey

dauphin).  Light spray

from Ocean’s breathing-hole – the sting

of Cuban salt.  Strange emissary,

stranger in the land,

your phantom clock-hand

gravitates toward Harper’s Ferry –

ticks back, between slate gray

clouds, the frozen sword

over its chessboard hoard

(gold poison-cup, primed to betray

the Union).  Carlsen’s hesitation

in hamlet-limping lines

of Sabbath silence... Martin’s

magnanimous memory... the unknown

veteran, shrouding a still-life

Lincoln penny (pinned

atop his heart).  Sound

heard in Ramah... Rachel’s life-

saver, bobbing Caribbean blues.

Queequeg on welded keys

surfacing velocities

Atlantis-radiant... bright jasper hues.

12.1.16

                          "Reminiscences of 1865", by John F. Peto (Minneapolis Institute of Art)