down by the River Road

Mpls. Star-Tribune, spring 1957

ALTER EGO

Hobo, out there in the wind & the rain

like a shattered King Lear.

An old-fashioned father.

Harmonica squeals – like brakes on a train.

Looks up toward the ridge, where Henry

mimes King of the Oak.

The Knot-King (royal joke).

Spidery threads cross buffoonery

with tacky mute muttering...

clay Eye-in-Hand

from Coatlicue-land.

Anne Boleyn territory (stuttering

terror).  He’s your 8th alter ego

this month, moony Earth –

been angry since birth.

Tsk, tsk.  Some boor’s addled Eddie, yo.

Divided-dividing, fibrillated

fibber... earthquake

salaud in pancake

make-up.  Henry?  Must be related.

Brothers, battling in his head

since Cain was able to kill –

equilibrium still

left out of the equation, love.  Sad!

There’s a buried man on the other side,

sire (near Pig’s Eye).  Emerald

green, her leaves unfold.

Big Muddy catfish will abide.

11.17.18

through clouds like whales

SOUL SCOUT

                              i.m. Fr. Jacques Hamel

You breathe a mist over stained glass,

like a cloud over Mirror Lake,

by the trolley road to Blake

(in Mendelssohn).  Rouen, alas.

In Chartres nave, one dark gray

thread still navigates

J-whorl, on golden agate –

Ariadne’s Way (sealed crypt to Day).

Her catenary smile will make

a lazy loop through Space

in Time; her carapace

a turtleshell – sweet curve you take

through clouds like whales, Jonah –

to find an old mercy-go-

round anew.  Like Jessie O.

on racy waterwheeler, sunray-

rain-bowed – Lady Liberty

an echo of Cahokia,

a salience of Royal Oak

(lips’ kayak lifting word to be).

Deep breath, Path P, Rhodos.

Out of a barbed-wire

cat’s-cradle (rust pyre

of Minotaur-empire) you rose –

winded with old George, the breadwinner,

& Maggie, of the veritas

caput – where Brandywine flows

into 4 Pine River (soul scout’s honor).

7.26.16