he was no Big Fish

SWEET CORDELIA

Like a Showy Ladyslipper in the woods

unseen by all except

chipmunks (scrabbling adept

through silent clerestories of dead

cedars) Hobo strayed, from Ursus

Major to St. Apollinaire;

he was no Big Fish, barely

a minnow Star du Nord (Jesus

his seine-maître, toiling away

upstream).  America

steamed on, formica-

sleek, pregnant with Labor Day

& White-Tailed Rabbit & Polar Bear

looked on, from cell blocks

melting in the superflux.

The Man of Concrete was no longer there

(he’d cried himself to sleep).  Henry

by a berried Berryman

stood by, his Resurrection

Plot cartooned in St. Paul snow (flaky);

apathetic Oblomov, at the gazebo

spied Olga in the distance –

wading through native plants

like sweet Cordelia coming to rescue

jet-bagged Lear.  Earth dangled

from one silver hair,

suspended over the bear-

cave (striped with blood, star-bangled).

9.7.16

"Pinecone", by Marcia McEachron

tricksters in the cricket cities

PATCHWORK SHEPHERD

The river sweeps by the bent cottonwoods

toward autumn.  Time

& history resolve to rim

their force into a wave, a wheel.  The goods

bob & drift downstream, with the detritus –

the tomb of Alighieri

& the other desperadi

all the tricksters in the cricket cities (Paris,

Petersburg, St. Paul) fiddling their gusli

merge into a chord

like an infant beechwood

or broken font in Florence – one little tree

of plumb transfigurement, beneath

the arms of a patchwork shepherd

(Sant’ Apollinaire).  One almond

word melds stars into a wreath

to crown that brow (who is Liberty) –

she mutters... You who incite

fools to violence, who delight

in murder & grief, know not Me;

you who terrorize your spouse, & oppress

your neighbor, know not Me;

the blind man can see

what you cannot see, the deaf woman hears

what you cannot hear, the 4-year-old child

knows Me better than you.

So the little tree (a beech, a yew)

marked X the spot (where Psyche smiled).

8.30.16

just east of Providence

LAST WORD

Scavenging Raven found a crust

of broken mirror for

his nest above the river,

in a craggy oak (Blackstone, dust-

laden, winding her copper yarn

just east of Providence).

Po (or Eridanus)

glinted in that shard; a purple crayon

traced a spiral crane-dance there,

pinned to a dove-grey water-

wheel (by hand).  The daughter

of Caesar trolled a welded cluster

of rust-rose keys just below the surface –

keys to the worm-riddled door

of haunted Sant’ Apollinaire

in Classe (where Pharos ghost-sails

teem for Stilicho, Galla Placidia).

At his perch, Cautantowwit

reads smokefires lit

from Paris – On 29th of May

Corn Maiden will pirouette

one Final Show (a Waltz

to End All Wars).  Salt

is good, croaks the haunted vet –

share salt amongst yourselves, &

be at peace.  The night bird

oars southwest – his last word

whistled into silence (prairie-land).

8.23.16

Note : on Aug. 23, 408, the great Byzantine general Stilicho was executed in Ravenna.

convex grassland cave-complex

PINK TUGBOAT

I retrace my steps again

along the River Road

past Granddad’s solid old

brick fortress.  A trumpet vine

shines orange & green, climbing

a mud-brown corner into

August light.  I’ll go

down to that riverbank now, rhyming

with Nile & Jordan, Voronezh, Po –

a stream that crosses borders,

winding atlatl corridors

so sinuous & serpentine, into

the gray matière, the mutter-mouth...

sea-grotto of an Ocean

State (salt origin

of shanty-song).  From north to south

diagonal, my yellow gyroscope

leans, vaulting on thread

from Gate of the Dead

(whose soft, dense orange-&-azure rope-

ladder lifts up the gravity of stolid

steel & staggered stone)

to Magdalenian

interior... & cartwheels there – Bride

of convex grassland cave-complex –

Cahokia coyote-

gal, whose Galilee

glee-zone (primordial) sketches a hex-

                  *

agon – galactic rumble-stir

of light-warp milky skein

or reign of windy Wayne,

pouring a Who-He? mirror-

ray into the rainbow trine

of spray-tossed clement

Clementine.  Cement

shoes will not keep her in the brine

of Poseidon forever – see her shadow

stride the surface now!

With pink tugboat in tow

paintered to Ariadne’s golden bow

– refracted ball of lambswool, bent

through Roger Williams’ granite

lintel – Dante’s bright

brooder-line.  The Great Commandment

coming down from Manitou

like light... it is

not liable to conquest –

conscience is free, a gift to you

who seek for Me.  A wheeling sword

glinted above a garden;

a ring of apple trees, hidden

in shade of Sant’Apollinaire.  Word

melody   green hummingbird vine

Guillaume’s trompette marine

a secret acorn   Queen

of Royal Oak   (she is a 5   & 29)

8.17.16

ineffable mosaic sky

CLOUD-FEATHERS

The air so brilliant & clear today

beside the Bronze Age river.

The railroad bridge hovers

over its reflection – a light play

of diagonals, like water-spiders

on a pond, or cloud-feathers

above the Jordan, tethered

to a steadfast figure (Jasper’s

orant mariner, circumferencing

gray sea with shady palm).

That chanting shepherd, calm

beneath an indigo wheel of blazing

stars... one cheerful face beaming

from the medallion

in Classe (Apollinarian)

under darkened wooden ceiling

of abandoned ship, beached in pine-

swamp, at Ravenna’s edge.

Mere icons of a human pledge

so simple, local, omni-Byzantine –

ineffable mosaic sky

where Love bends waves

to lift us from our graves

into a metamorphosis   kind Aye

above halo of tears   you streak

with serpentine arches

agios   agios   agios

one river-rainbow   in an eagle’s beak

7.29.16