dialect of high & low

CLAY NAVEL

Literature might be political.

The dialect of high & low,

the pyramidical Pharaoh

& Erich Auerbach in Istanbul...

slaves muttering (familial)

athwart the exaltations

of regal Lion-Suns

& River-Moons (extra-terrestrial)

their jocular contra-dance lingo.

Dantean, obsolete

vernacular (obsidian);

mosaic featherweight, grave Galileo.

Everything formed from nothing... out

of a pinhole in the universe.

Clay navel – Osiris hearse

called up by current, cattail flute.

Whorls of tree-rings mantle each mortal eye.

Isis in Iowa,

Blackstone of raven-sigh –

Cautantowwit, under the Milky Way.

The tacit origin.  Your motherland,

O King.  Incipient

restoration, air apparent...

transparent equilibrium (beatitude).

Near the steel vault of St. Louis.

In the seine of the fishermen,

over the Mississippi.  Sign

from tree-logs, Jessie Ophelia... always.

6.23.19

the Ides of March in its idea

DOUBLE-BIND

That brilliant peacock-feathered eagle

Joachim fingerpainted

on parchment (ancient

plummet out of Calabrian ingle-

cave) figured the Holy Ghost –

monarch of the air,

white-haired regal raptor

rapt to avenge every Tuscan boast.

I marvel at the prestidigitation

of the priestly mind –

the Akeda, a double-bind,

knotting its pivotal vocation

under the shadow of those gilded wings...

that mountebank YHWH

in his coyote way

the widerruf of pyramidal things.

Folktales & myths were a defense.

Mechanism of the nurse

to lullaby the curse

& soothe the children in their tents...

they builded better than they knew.

The king is dead, long

live the king.  Bong

sounds the gong – old Caesar’s through.

Absolute control is crumbling.

Even now, the axe

is laid to the root... don’t

ask.  Meek Joachim is mumbling.

3.15.18