Good Friday in Wales

MEDITATION ROOM

My mother’s late twin watercolor

(Bardsey Island, 2002).  Dark

room, light room.  Look

through the window to the cemetery –

crumbled walls in Wales, a stony cross.

Pale green as early April

outside the infirmary – still,

fresh, frail.  Her final brush with grass,

her hopeful air.  The Boanerges

were the Sons of Thunder –

redheads, most likely – Dioscuri

in their scarlet robes – woodpeckers,

Thunderbirds (like my two redhead brothers).

Dakota found him on the earth

near Red Wing – red-feathered

Thunder-Birdman (portent for Little Crow).

Thunder-&-lightning were one mighty Bird –

a firebird, roaring crimson.

Fire-flinging wingèd one –

a Persian peacock (Rhody Red?)

or Phoenix, soaring like a rainbow

from gray winter ash.

Woodpecker, with his calabash

tap-tapping oaks for golden honey-glow

Morse codes the closing of an Iron Age

& restoration of that Paradise

the Son of Davy Jonah scries

from his doom-rood.  Just turn the page,

                    *

he cries.  Along this feathered spine

where all the leaves are bound,

your legend of Twin-Town –

refuge for sacred monsters (in a pine

grove, under Ariadne’s Crown,

northward of everywhere).

The holy child of Mary

is such a singularity.  Scapegoat-twin,

divine-human, he will dethrone the kings

with goldenrod of charity;

rise from his bed of cruelty

with flames of sunflower – with Easter wings.

Just beyond my mother’s watercolor

David Jones grotto, I glimpse

tall flickering cave-nymphs…

a moonlit retina (of temple vault, pillar).

Twin rooms, of light & dark, enclosed

(like matryoshka dolls) inside

each other.  Casket-scaffold

for a model ship, perhaps?  Micòl's

canoe?  A meditation room

for mourning Magdalen.

Through tears of rage… vision.

A ragged almond tree, coming to bloom;

immense pressure of gravity, around a shell;

the coracle of wounded heart

lifting as purple columbine – a spurt

from humming bird-nest (thunder-sky-well).

4.10.20

driving around Kenwood

BLUE CLAY

Driving around Kenwood, the memories.

In the mist.  October

leaves me almost sober

(maples blushing maroon, umber).  The bees

have mostly flown to sleep (in the calyx

of a sunflower).  You’ll find

soft traces of the mind

in whorls of thumbprints – Red Wing phoenix

lifted out of blue clay & industrial (okay

now what?).  Zone of quiet

emotional measurement.  Whit-

mind, informing each & all.  Today

the Mississippi is a feathered serpent,

mirror of oak & maple,

cottonwood.  Oak-apple

galls the rotund roundhead tyrant –

harboring the charismatic prince

whose mother & bride is

Espiritu Santo, Sophia’s

father & son (green acorn salience).

The canoe downstream is almost invisible

like a pair of wooden lips

whispering across the gaps –

a miniature ark, whose rainbow burble

bubbles back her own Churnagogue wake;

she is the radiant candle

glowing through the cupped hand,

the clay grail mending each American mistake.

10.7.19

under the Memory Wing

A-FRAME

Henry’s ancient mother in the Memory Wing

shows him how dying &

amnesia are kin.

When coarse indifference is the thing,

my countryfolk, how to redeem the time?

Henry tumbles down with Hobo

to wallow like a gator now

in river muck – fish out the paradigm.

Wakan Tanka, Great Spirit, O

Thunderbird of Red Wing’s

olden days – you being

transcendental I AM – hey ey yo...

The metaphysical is just outside

your A-frame, Hobo sez –

& as such, pivot of the rez

(or any reasonable maze of hide).

You get me, Hen?  Might be

the shadow of that Jonah-

bird – ur-meta-Noah

J’waytroulife, clear to eternity.

So this rough clay my mother molded

with bare hands (these

Mexique 4-face planters)

might morph a continent – dead

rising altogether from each cold silo

into the dream-sponge –

Providential plunge

uncoiling slowly (at Cahokia Ground Zero).

7.28.19

otherness of the Someone

IRON WHEEL

Her fingers fondled Red Wing clay

on the circling wheel

into Northwoods bowl

or Mexican flowerpot.  Wheels, say,

within wheels... microcosmic canoes,

Arks of the Covenant...

even Charon’s punt,

Henry (we who have passed

over Lethe).  The woman with child

in her apocalyptic

mandorla, chased by Dick

the Drag to the edge of the wild

(up north, near the Boundary Waters,

in the Iron Range, near

Itasca).  Fresco a veneer

across Ravenna beams – Jordan River’s

sleepy patron god.  Sort of like Hobo

witnessing the fire-dove

skim down Cottonwood Cove

& settle on the shepherd kid... just so...

but I just don’t know.

Iconoclasm sets in,

considering we’re human –

liable to make it up as we go.

The otherness of the Someone.

Your friend, your judge

(merciful – but won’t budge,

won’t fudge the facts).  Solomon

petitioned humbly for wisdom,

sensing the dire burden

beyond each king’s ken :

the destiny of Jerusalem

                *

under a blood moon of violent men

& the everyday mayhem

the grinding paroxysm

of atrocious cruelties – shifting pain

to the weak (convenient scapegoat,

ordinary poor).

Even blindfold Synagoga

might remember something critical, something

our mosaic Pantocrator forgot.

A little gray-brown moth

settles on Hobo’s mouth,

like a fingertip.  Hush, seraph.  That

maybe we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

Solomon was wise

to be humble before the Shekinah.

& Hobo was a mumbling bumbler

more like a river than a man

more like clay than person.

& Thunderbird was a rumbler

in Red Wing, churning the rusted wheel

until it sparked like gold;

helping her to fold

the wet clay of America on steel

braces... evenly rotating... Source

to Delta... Sea-Rose

to Golden Gate... flows

through the arch... Mud-Morse...

7.12.19

like Red Wing clay

Mary Ravlin Gould

SKIP-JUMPS

My mother moves toward silence now.

Short wobbly steps

like printemps stumps

of Red Wing clay remainders.  So

I follow along now, too.  Two lumps,

like those she spun once

on a wheel.  Immense

maypole of Mendelssohn skip-jumps –

the way Rembrandt became his painting

(like seaweed-coated plank

of slick driftwood, anch-

ored in sand).  Memory, fainting.

I used to topple to the ground

in school.  An epileptic

pine, almost.  A cryptic

minor character, utterly unfound –

unbound within some fictional expanse

of 19th-century steppe

sunburnt peace-pipe

smoky distances (autumnal trance).

We thread the needle in a mummer’s play.

Ariadne draws the skein –

Dante’s oriflamme ancien

Parisian labyrinth for Beatrice

Jessie Ophelia, remembering her father

Jackson Quick, the river-

pilot, sounding Mount Ever-

Rest (full fathom 5/29... 29...) – Mt. Purgatoire.

5.28.19

inhabit they a shady arch

TABLE RONDE

Henry often stumbles off his perch

in his high Henry Poem.

Just try to follow him!

The pinetop sways... the oaks, the birch...

watch his Memorial to the Future lurch

from Mr. Groggy to A Hobo

Lunch.  Need not be so.

The poem simply tracks a search

for common speech, O inarticulate

idiot of  mewl-wander!

Only this, to ponder :

the universe is personal.  Its Fiat

Lux is founded in immeasurable heart,

compassionate & lovingkind –

one courier-pigeon from blind

adoration bears more light than any art.

The glittering mounds in Minneapolis

are tiny frozen hexagons.

Rough flesh-tone limestones

harbor prehistoric ocean memories.

Henry, with help from sluggish Hobo,

knots a river-seine

for safety-net.  Someone

might need a heartfelt rescue (at zero

below).  Inhabit they a shady arch

at center of the earth –

Lips Monastery berth;

her mandorla was a canoe for March

to paddle into April confluence,

her lips muttered an almond

salience – jazz Table Rond

with sweet Melchizedek (her Memphis

echoes with his vernal blues).

Ineffable seine of mutuality...

sign for soul liberty

from one Pole Star (High Rocky News)

we share out like a Lammas loaf

raised in grain elevators

west of St. Lou

& buried secretly (beneath the roof

of the mouth of a cave in Galilee).

Hobo hands Henry so

his eye-in-hand.  Its glow

is pure lovelight – it whispers : See.

& he saw the glittering waterfall

of wheat-grains slanting down

across a wide Missouri-nation

into midstream of each & all;

he felt the dream-song melding chords

(Ojibwa river-springs)

within Dakota Red Wing’s

Thunderbird – he touched the threads

of word-music, a glossolalia.

As round a high room

agate-fire will zoom –

lighting the prow of old Ecclesia.

3.3.19

sumac muse

AUTUMN SUMAC

The new Solomon will show

a spirit of discernment.

No more time spent

on wastes of shame, Sheba – no.

He might see the Parousia

if he takes care.

His friend Hobo (where’d

he go?) will likely not carouse

far, yah.  He’s by the river,

as per.  Autumn sumac

beads along railroad track.

Dry cotton bones, monsieur.

François might join him there,

under gibbous moon,

Paris monsoon...

cornered at the bridge of the stair.

Amigo Frank – piano soul of Frisco,

tempering tomorrow.

Palming witness so

to stigma of twinship, boy-o.

Thunderbird collects herself

over Red Wing swamps.

Imperial affliction stamps

[available in lobby]. Guelf

to Ghibelline, Dante wit Beatrice...

Moses and Elijah frame

their thorny throne (slim

acmé of suave pillars).  Touché.

9.24.18

the ordinary Union

KNIT WOOL

                 Eternity, O Eternity! That is our business.

                                                       – Roger Williams

She watches crows play in the sky

above her balcony.

Her dregs of memory

transmute to gaiety, give death the lie.

Cautantowwit was Raven-Lord

of Narragansetts.  Old

Canonicus told

Roger how dead souls were borne toward

Mexico, far off southwest...

Rog quilled it down.

That chief of great renown

was kind to him.  Knit wool is best

around head, limbs & heart

when winter ice descends.

I’m dreaming, friends.

One campfire (circling) is all my art.

The Red Wing river-clay is heavy,

as my mother knows.

O the harsh blows

that fall like thunder (Romeo, Julie)...

The body’s weight is catenary

Golden Gate (so

Jasper shows).  Blow,

Manitou... bring back the glory

of the ordinary Union.  It shall be

– when we return to Thee,

from sea to shining sea –

uncommon good (benevolent Eternity).

11.29.17

flesh-tone bridge

MAZY CHARTER

The wistful twirling of a yellow leaf

falling from a book of leaves

by the big river.  Waves

of leaves, infinite beyond belief

slanting down through a universe

beyond fall’s azure,

through its perfect mirror

of ineffable air.  The woodpecker’s

not waxwing, but a twin-bird –

matching Thunderbird

like third wing, or word

thing – in Red Wing, we’ve heard.

& they’ve buffed the naked concrete

of the Franklin Bridge

to warm flesh-tone (Wedge

whistling to Jay : almost complete,

they say).  Like hands arching across

the tingling serpent below

someone signals so –

right, all right.  The frail cosmos

is built of moss & dogwood leaves;

made like a dream-song

on a thread so long

from inner lining of young Osip-sleeves.

Hid in a nightfall of Apollon-wrath.

The child-heart trembles

when the chief dissembles –

ice winking in the barrel underneath

                   *

encompassing a land in shambles,

wasted by Behemoth

& Metheboss (cloth-

of-gold twin skimlords, crashing cymbals).

El-Moloch asked for the heart of your son.

For your son the king,

the bloom of everything –

Aztec football in place of the sun.

Apotropaic sign or mirror-pharmakon,

the murmured word of love

becomes a catcher’s glove –

inside-out Osip net (for rescuing someone).

You search the scryptics, yet you

do not come to Me.

Gold almond cider, see?

Where Mendelssohn defeats Deep Blue.

She’s by your side, a kelson, smiling,

spinnaker through gray wall

of seamless cloud – whale

of light fog, swallowing Jonah – a ring

of stone, becoming breathing feathers

for a child of Ocean River,

borne downstream from Neva-

Neva-Heavenland (all-planetary weathers).

Her green eye walks through doors, through gates.

That crossroad in the mirror

overwhelms birth-terror –

seals mazy charter (Liberty checkmates).

9.28.17

spoke of a water-wheel

SALT WAVE

Along the riverbank, these rich

dark green moss-terraces;

a miniature forest

spreading wide along each niche

of Pliocene sea-limestone.

Archive of mollusc-whorl

& sea-worm spiral

layers of plastered ivory linen.

An infinitely tiny bronze

french horn accompanies

trompette marine – Willie’s

gauzy smoke-signal de Paris;

petrified remains of carven

calumet from Red Wing,

maybe.  This is nothing

like a Pipestone atlatl, Raven

croaks.  Spoke of a water-wheel,

more likely.  Jessie O’s

clay potter swells

with gentle pats & frills – feel

how her spine of Fish-Man surfaces

profound supremacy of whale!

A wheel that will not fail

springs to its trickle-task, washes

the wilderness from every face

until its light-green glory

meshes Ezekiel’s story –

wheel wends with wheel (a carapace

                *

of pearl enfolds that golden bough)

until a plangent joy

beams from unfurling J

in spokes of rose aye-aye lands now –

one Great Red Spot, so thundery

& jovial – one Yahweh-

Manitou, in one streamway –

the Rio del Espiritu, at play

across prairies & meadowlands

in centrifugal fugue –

day-lily orange bugle-

calls, mauvelets a monarch understands –

until at last the torch of Liberty

lifts from her copper shroud

to chant moss-green out loud

& set the Mississippi free...

As when the labyrinth of St. Louis

glimmers wheat-gold amid

deep shade (Monk’s Mound)

– & signs the tidal drone (commence!)

to shift the Earth from fraudulence –

fallacious Midas-usura

whose Minotaur is US-

R-US – whose glow of carbon flatulence

burns orange rage (from White House

into every gilded cage)

& all the world’s a stage

for strutting tyros in malevolence...

                *

Peace is another way.  Humility.

How Eeyore-mule (San Fran)

transmutes to Eero Saarinen.

With the power  of soul   any-

thing is possible   the tacit poverty

of yearning love  bent

by Br’er Francesco’s Lent

into a welcoming   equality

chaste eye of akme equity

out of an almond branch

in Petersburg   will launch

once more   peals of humanity

from the great Rose of Providence

wheeling & swinging wide

with Chartres sunlight   O glide

with me   downstream, Hobo   immense

Pacific beckons   from the galaxies

where kind Melchizedek

pours milk of live-oak

acorn mead   shares bread   from nursing

YHWH’s heart   sweet Manitou’s   delight.

Enfolded in the subtle veil

of golden fleece   & gray whale-

oil   that infinite fine safety-net

swings like a hammock in the breeze

beneath twin flaming pillars

where a starfish falls

& lifts her   from salt wave   to Paradise

7.19.17

peregrinations of a chair

EQUAL SIGN

That blazing Paradisal throne

at apex of the Rose –

for lucky Henry, Dante’s

messianic king (whose arbitration

disinterested, just & fair

may foster restoration

for acerbic nation)

is not much like this baby chair

Sophie brought from Providence

its bright red plastic beached

in Minneapolis (porched

beneath a cedar octagon of silence,

anonymity).  Vertiginous

encompassing domain

of spiritual Zion...

that firmament Moses, Aquinas,

Aristotle wrought in brazen

ineradicable raven-

ink (the prophet’s organ-

groan, the scribe’s deep acumen)

out of the ghetto of Venetian

copper foundry, lifting

moss-green Liberty (sing,

Lazarus, your stormy consummation)

into wave-bent infinite prairie –

a horizontal plate

caressed by grassland fate

beneath high snowmelt of Persephone

                *

& Evening Star (ineffable complete

coniferous oak tree

whose almond amie

très jolie spreads acorns at her feet

into an ancient corn-maze wheel)

– O Henry, where’s

the seat of these empires?

Your throne’s only an acorn peel –

your realm a plastic kiddy chair.

Raven zigzags the gazebo –

traces Incan shadow

aslant cornices inscrutable (& bare).

Eagle or condor even higher.

Pure air (transparent)

laves the fundament.

An equal sign grounds every choir

in Lincoln-logos (quipu-fire).

Chaste diamond of snow

& Black Elk’s slow

Wakan Tanka (Vallejo-spire)

turning every way.  You’ll see

the back of me, until

you recognize Good Will

I Am.  In Red Wing country,

where grey Thunderbird came down

to meet his Galilean

twin – the two-in-one

Tom-Tom, guest-dancing (holy clown).

7.5.17

bearing her true report

ROSE TATTOO

This tenderness of moss-green light

in the craggy oaks around

the Witch’s Hat (ground

bass of Sibelius, to finish right).

The hat itself a darker green.

Twilight of thunderstorm –

fork-gyring twister-worm

over holm oak in Oklahoma (lonely

scene, brooding).  That mounded Pan

by Mississippi, in Rez

graveyard... his enormous

Rabbit-corpus.  Heavy Everyman

skittered, skating on ice

unswift as raven-wing

(Po-boy, kow-towing

Whitman’s rust-mold Providence

under the night-shade of Cautantowwit).

Earth shaken by thunder,

horns of Minotaur – 

titanic labyrinth of lies (knit

by yon dull orange cur, on fire).

Outcast beyond these walls

Jerusalem worm-hurls

against the black hole (central pyre

                *

of Man’s propensity to murder)

– bearing her true report

like tattered gun-shot

pennant under murk of war.

These damaged epitaphs of pride

& shame (twin Boanerges

buried for albino

snow-contagion).  No crypt can hide,

no script elide.  Vermilion Thunderbird

wheels down to Red Wing

tallying everything

& reckoning each deadman’s ford –

plumb eye of blistered Galilee,

eye of the hurricane.

Out of the depths, someone

traces an arc of palm, for Henry –

skipping from the sea like royalty

(posthumous Davy for

posterity).  Sea-floor

of grey Jonah.  Ocean-reality.

From Queequeg’s casket, like Osiris-

tomb, the rose tattoo

(framed by two-man canoe

of Manitou) slowly rises –

sweet grail of sunken Paradise.

The maze of Ariadne

beams from Milky Way –

meek penny-glow (seal’s copper glaze).

4.30.17