like a small town playground

LIGHT GOLD

The restoration of all things…

what’s it about this phrase

corrals my shifty gaze?

Some infant stimulus it brings?

As at the source of vast rivers

(Mississippi, Danube)

a baby spring’s hubbub

purls out of ground… shimmers

in bitter February air & light.

The restoration of a truth

too plain, too clear, to booth

as Peter would (its glare so bright).

Universal constant, Einstein’s measure;

flexible cinch-thread

of muttering light gold

sent to bind man, through rose embrasure.

Power’s byzantine – but truth Franciscan.

Peaceable polity

is founded in equality

chaste as a child’s eye (Petersburgian).

The restoration of the human world

is like a small town playground,

where the rusty sound

of an ancient iron swing is curled

within your inner ear.  You heard it

years ago, once… now,

again.  No one knows how

the goldfinch’s tricolor obsignat.

2.16.20

like a transparent crane-bone flute

UPSTART FLARE

Under Siberian pale-blue ice

tiny frozen spirals form.

Where memories swarm

in whirlpools, counter-clockwise –

Hobo spring of vagrant musing.

Follow me down, she

murmurs, toward the sea –

limpid ocean floor of everything.

The coil of wet clay tightens, slowly.

Welterings of catkin passions

merge beneath an old man’s

glaze (welded to an osier orrery).

It is the Mississippi bottomland

of errant, febrile heart.

Hot kiln, or upstart

flinty flare; centripetal lampstand.

The bare simplicity of San Francesco

floats like a transparent

crane-bone flute –

an air set like a feather in the flow,

a bubble in the world of local trials.

Love the Lord your Wakan Tanka

& your neighbor, Raven Caw-

Caw – this call melts all frozen wiles.

So the clay wheel rotates slowly,

turns inexorably north

south east... & forth

to high Pacific gate – lofting her Liberty.

12.20.19

I dream a general restoration

CONTRA-DANCE

The early ice on the Mississippi

forms a maze of frozen

eddies, a chaos of cotton-

wood leaves on glass, all dark & ripply.

Somber November drawing on

toward JB’s Janus-mouth.

Slight man, moth-

light, leaf-blown from iron span.

I dream a general Restoration

cousin, cuz.  Because

our love that never was

lies crypted in a deeper congregation

of earthworms... Earth-life...

this pumpkin-celebration

where each seed is someone

like a minuscule canoe (collective

buoyancy, anchored in agape).

Not that Cyclops-utopia

ice-locked with Satana

– imperador del doloroso regno, nay!

Rather a contra-dance of Earth

& Sky, a balancing

of stillness with evolving –

clay vase molded into mirth

by humble presence of the king

(of servant-kings).  A single

molecule of brine (NaCl)

is tabernacle bread & wine (of everything)

                            *

& you will meet her in the ordinary courtyard

of the everyday (she’s Everywoman-

Everyman).  This is a vision

of figure & ground.  She’s walking toward

you, now... like Roger Williams, stepping through

twin pillars on the Terrace...

Providence, a place

of mercy & discretion (fair & true).

I cannot put it into words, this waltz

of swirling time & high

eternity.  It is the sky

spanning the sea.  It is the salt

in everything; it is the molten dove

dive-bombing into clay

who joins you in a sway

of hurtling dancers (Milky Way

a-sarabanding, up above).  I cannot

put it into words.

The brutal violence

(stone-hearted ignorance) surds in a knot

of self-destruction, planetary waste

& You must turn & repent

cries San Francesco, bent

upon his imitatio Christi (feet laced

with scars).  It is the Via Francigena.

You will walk back to the river

sped with such a pulse... her

springing from the graveyard (Magdalena).

11.7.19

shout it from the rooftops

CLEAR PINE

Hobo was playing solo crane bone flute

like an airy trompette marine

as he watched Henry puzzle on,

muttering his thumpy rhythms en route.

It’s the Union, the Union, Hobo intoned –

as your eye is clear & light

in the pasture breeze – right?

We wrestle with this violence, shark-boned

with vicious avarice – yet Sophie-gentleness

may rule at last, a restoration

of your soul’s volition –

the true child-wish, mild & harmonious

as that lamb-lily in the tiger’s eye;

as Sophie plays her middle Cs

at center of the keys

& swings all 88 into the sapphire sky.

Hope is our natural state – for a grace

bestowed, unbeknownst to us.

Lost & found – like that Tombs

Angel, swimming from the marble face

to lift a prisoner out of the dust –

Rebecca Salome Foster, spun

by Bitter-Lamb into the sun;

drawn out again (by Jeremy Ann) at last...

So Henry clutched the muddy wheel

& turned it, counter-clockwise;

from oceanic Providence

to clear pine river-source... you feel

                       *

it turning, turning... into San Francisco

& a rainbow pigeon-throat

blent with rainbow trout

all natural wonders for that footloose hobo

full of ecstatic spiritual deliverance

marked on his feet & palms

from walking, chanting psalms

all the way to the Delta – joyeux entrance

into azure Gulf, American trumpets

O when the saints

come marching in...

& the clay wheel turns bronze serpents

into flame-gold lambs, whose linking thread

folds limbs into a March on Washington :

where they will wash away corruption

& the violence greed breeds – the dead

shall climb up from their graves, & dance

the Beguine – the beginning again;

the restoration of all men & women

in the clay river-light of Cahokia’s immense

plateau – across Big Muddy from the sky-

blue angle of the Gateway Arch –

that silvery canoe, echoing the arc

of one invisible & omnipresent loving eye :

Aye-Aye of Providence.  Elliptical wafer

lifted from humble bowl...

Hagia Sophia (universal

soul) wearing her limestone life-saver.

8.9.19

photo from Ballets Russes

ALMOND ARGO

Old Hobo-&-Henry, down by Big Muddy.

Hobo lounges in cottonwood shade.

Twirls a bright curving blade

of tiger-lily, so orange & black, idly

between finger & thumb.  Henry

thought of mossy Giuliana

walking away from her pottery

shop, entering the gloom of Sant’Apollinari –

high frieze of majestic virgin martyrs

carrying their crowns.

The photo from Ballets Russes,

Paris, 1913 – spring maids, en fleurs...

& the black dot of Juliet in the distance

crossing the tensile spine 

of orange tiger-dragon

one last time (beneath frost-cobalt silence).

Strange oak, epileptic, near the shore.

Bent like a lyre before

a cluster of cottonwoods – your

humble servant, it seems.  Kingly no more.

Hobo eyed it.  Washing their leaves

with hers, maybe, he said.

Like San Francesco & his bride,

his sister, Povertà.  Humility cleaves

to the pivot of this world, the matrix –

to the crossroad, to the tree

of life.  I look into you, Henri –

to your salty heart.  I read the asterisk

                        *

you scribble for a star, approximately –

I scan the fresco-sketch

you offer for a spirit-potlatch

replica of New World Galilee.  It’s funny.

Earth is in its birth-pang death-throes,

Hobo.  Hope is hard to find.

Yet... the kingdom’s in your mind.

Your heart, my friend.  The Shadow knows.

& you were right to shape the Southern Cross

surrounded by Sydney fig trees

into a diamond-figure Paradise –

to stem four rivers from St. Louis

like emerald casket for the Eucharist;

for Micòl in her black canoe

& MLK in Memphis too

sustain that central martyrdom of Mars

just as Dante foresaw, in his basilica –

where little sylvan J

circumferences her almond tree

delightfully... & the grail of tears (Ephphatha)

opens broken hearts across the globe

to each one’s almond Argo

Isis-eyed Hagia Sophia...

see, Henry Church?  & like a strobe

light suddenly unfolded, Henry felt

what Osip felt – accompanied

the rapture of the universe (sighed

with bold Marian... watched iron melt).

8.8.19

upon St. Swithin's Day

MONARCH MILK

‘Tis hot & muggy in the octagon

upon St. Swithin’s Day.

& will it rain?  Say.

St. Emperor Henry’s (Holy Roman)

also, once upon a time.  It’s stifling.

An unreal toad usurps

the garden throne, & burps.

His orange tongue is mean, & trifling;

his fire-red refuge-chair is for a child

who hasn’t come home

in 33 years.  Christendom

conquered the Holy Sepulchre... wild

slaughter & rejoicing on this day,
1099.  But will his Ghost

lift from that gloomy host?

Joachim daubs a fingerpaint contrary

blindly, with bare feet (a cave-fresco

for San Francisco).  & Henry

plots his own obscure & minatory

figure : double wheels.  Of milky glow

& river-clay – Cahokia, North Star.

To turn the Great Year

5 29s... & spin from here

some monarch milk (a little almond to restore).

7.15.19

milk of Melchizedek

GUEST ROOM

The aftermath of Epiphany leaves a trace

on the phosphorus snowpath

to the river.  Wrath

versus innocence, my Falcon-Ace

overcome, once for all – in the grace

of a tumbledown guest room

south of Cairo.  (Khartoum,

Alabama?  Memphis?  Someplace.)

Milk of Melchizedek, from starry heights.

Flows through the stone

like Horus off his throne –

like that downward eagle (sights

set on Last Things, Illinois)

Joachim (Francisco boy)

daubed once (with joy)

on Dante’s lambskin rainbow eye.

Henry crawls to the riverbank,

with Hobo.  His numbers

match that Mediator-

Aviator’s, by the grace of Frank –

Tuscan Jesus-mime, Povertà-

swain – Hobo’s Frisco

fresco-twin (hey yo).

The word is cryptic in Columbia

(District)... flies back to mountains

overlooking Red Wing,

Galilee.  So sing,

old Rhody pioneer – Astraea understands.

1.7.19

with pigeon feathers for stone walls

SPRING BREEZE

As in one of those primitive

Sienese masters,

a pained St. Francis

fits inside a pastel arch.  Give

me your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free...

Over there stands Liberty

vaunting her mural crown (tresses

awash beneath W.P.A. murals).

Sister to Columbia,

dove-principezza

with pigeon feathers for stone walls.

They’re tripping a Troy-town maze

around the cave entrance;

priming some freelance

to buzz the Republic’s toxic haze.

Where Everyman is king

no man is king.

To the sheep he’ll cling,

to the underside of everything.

Like the span of a soft retina

in Providence, RI.

Like the women nearby

when they crucified the guy, selah.

Man or woman, brother, sister...

hearken to the wind.

Spring breeze, unwind –

a breath of renaissance, tongue-twister.

12.13.18

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

all glory, laud & honor

PUDGY PALM

The homeless Mandelshtams – Nadezhda,

Osip – shelter in the Hermitage

beneath a Rembrandt image.

Theotokos with Child – da, da –

the yellow-black goldfinch, perched

upon his pudgy palm.

Invisible museum

in the mind.  Like Hagia Sophia (arched

Argo of a million eyes) whorled

in one prow... her kelson

Love’s bright apparition –

equilibrium of peaceful world.

All glory, laud & honor...

the sensus comunis

of common good is

at your service (humble, poor) –

Franciscan mule of stubborn heart

whose fast is doing

(in twilight fast fading) –

out to the glimmer-rim of art

back to the ember-glowing hearth.

The honor of the civitas

so shaped by selflessness

into a form of equity – in truth

& mirth, transparency... your wings

in flight, O Tyche-Liberty –

humble Columbia (Black Sea

to Golden Gate) Nadezhda brings.

4.30.18

We few, we happy few

PARIS JACK

                        i.m. John Berryman (on his birthday)

October burnishes the oaks

to ruddy bronze.  Ancient

St. Crispin’s Day, meant

for veterans, the player-folks

of Agincourt & Balaclava

(ours not to reason

why)... bright caparison

of mental mists, pink pillbox (ah,

Jackie).  Man, the intelligence

of his soil... what triggers wars?

Mobs of blood & tears...

flame, shadow-boxing with a fence...

In chessboard worlds of red & black

for every victor there’s

a loser too – King Henry’s

brother-band meets Paris Jack,

sad Roy du Jour.  So each Garfield

meets his Guiteau – the best

& worst, the first & last,

the wheat & tares blent in a field

of glory (shriven up in sheaves).

Was it for blood & soil?

Intelligence of soul

says no.  What man or woman loves

in battlefield or study is

glory itself, & fellowship

in pain (joined at the hip) –

not flags or nationalities

                  *

but one star over Ark & Argo-ship.

Light from a tiny acorn

grows resplendent Okean –

sunlight of restoration (skip,

Jackie, Jean, around that Minotaur

of stupid pride – a hollow

idol full of nothing, O).

This living Imogen is where you are.

Let’s stand with that Shakespearean

from this day to the ending

of the world.  His battling

with fright (mother loss & father gun)

an inward thing, not of the arrogance

of windy crowds (a victory

over himself the only

guarantee of happiness).  An instance

for the rest of us (the human race,

that is).  Restoration

of an idea – of a nation

of united nations, reconciled by grace

& with humility.  Familia of Man.

As Imogen stepped from the cave

so Henry might rise from his grave

– somehow Franciscan, now.  His plan

simply to walk across these states

barefoot, like Mark Baumer –

glad-handing poet-palmer,

Johnny Appleseed (with acorns, dates).

10.25.17

stars of Jubilee

DARK PILLARS

The cottonwood leaves are golden,

beaten thin by frigid air.

Graphene hearts, everywhere

now (mid-October).  What is Man?

that Thou take heed of him?

Flesh tends to disappear.

To fade – but not before

these bright medallions of seraphim

sail swiftly from the autumn tree.

Invisible beehives

of honey-gold enclaves

cluster like galaxies, ring you & me –

it is that via media,

that midway midéwé

colloquy – humbly

clustering from 6-way

crystalline antipodes – path P

of Providence, the clear

circumference (here

now & everywhere) of high Sophie.

Nerve-center of the flesh-toned bridge

uniting matière, esprit;

Venn diagram, complete

ellipse of air, water & light – edge-

mingled man-&-woman bloom,

transmuting rage & fright

with wisdom’s calm delight

to reconcilement’s sun-filled room

                  *

from midnight Minneapolis

(by way of Providence)

into your honey-dense

dawn star-forest – Cosmopolis.

Stars in the deep blue flag echo

that secret Jubilee,

when all the nations will be

reconfigured from the roots of woe

into one level plain of soul

equality & liberty.

So Salvator Mundi

implies, through Leonardo’s ball

of crystal – meek & sheepish mule

of a Franciscan king

correcting everything

with one orthogonal gesture, one smile.

Jesus is for sale at Christie’s, now;

the Earth is up for grabs

as well, it seems; crabs

gather in their gaudy, gilded scow

to celebrate the arrogance of rule;

our men of violence

fill up sad prisons,

cemeteries.  Is Man a Fool?

No... just blind.  Tall cottonwoods

stand, lean together –

dark pillars, that weather

storms of gold in planetary neighborhoods.

10.16.17

like a Balinese cock-fight

FRISCO CROSSROAD

Poets’ business, like a ring

round a Bali cock-fight –

goodbye to all that.

Shake your kaleidoscope thing,

ping your kalimba – your bricolage

a grubby grab-bag

(seven pounds of brag

& rage, mixed up with garbage).

Meanwhile that flesh-tone bridge

(crossing my Mississippi

song-&-dance) will be

morphing some spider’s double-edge

Venn diagram – a stick figure

at hobo train junction

where sunny Everyman

remembers split Coatlicue.

Rumors of an impasse, whispered

through a chain-link fence.

Barbed lozenge of insistence

scarring Rome, Jerusalem... the word

made fishy (west of Galilee,

east of Athens, Georgia)

as a picnic smorgasbord

laid out beneath barren oak tree.

That smell gets into everything.

Like something baked

a week in a canal – like

messy string theories, untangling

                  *

a knotty plot of pots & pans, banging

the human family

to kingdom come (really?)

from seedy tribes to Nero’s hanging

gardens.  Shady Rome, where every

cosmic veil is torn –

& a black rock is borne

upon recalcitrant shoulders of slavery

into the center of a black hole’s

starry honeycomb.

What ass bears the whole

sum?  What shoe of prophet’s mule?

Maybe an offshoot of Coatlicue

wearing a flimsy linen

Joseph-coat.  A woman,

patient Pietà... La Pia, Psyche...

Ariadne or Arachne, raveling

path P... that rugged,

ragged Francine – plugged

at Frisco crossroad – traveling

freight.  Sometimes you meet a person

heavier than time & space.

Rough wind carves well-faces

lined with laughter, hope... pain...

She steps forth from black stone –

stirring bears in her arms,

palming clay amid storms

of adamant love (makar-maid, shown).

10.4.17

I have a dream

PLAIN CLAY

I have a dream, sang the buffalo-

voice, I have a dream –

when the will to redeem

lifts a heavy soul, bent low

amid murky murmurs of lost

innocence, out of the lake

of fire (nightmare). Take

my hand, come to this Pentecost –

harvest of kid from lambent cave

(wick drawn from water

up to Pharaoh’s daughter –

firefly corn-blaze, flickering in nave).

Lean petrified wraiths gaze, wingèd

through Ravenna gloom.

Dante walks home,

his lesson fin (carving INTREPID

into night’s milky ark of galaxies).

A net resolves to surf;

a seine makes common turf

out of plain clay – paradoxical

Francisco-mule, clip-clop clumping

until he climb the octahedral

keystone of the cathedral –

orange Chinese lantern, miming

remote & lonely lighthouses

(Rose Island Light, for

Narragansett raven-shore).

Sun in your beak (Cautantowwit’s).

8.28.17

Hobo's dream-sponge

MILK-CRATE

The pearl shines at the bottom of the harbor

as a lamp glows in the darkness.

Color of St. Francis’

donkey (silver-grey, St. Thomas More).

Henry’s church is in the grey-scale too;

a weathered pebble, like

an unknown soldier (Psyche-

cloud, veiling the ocean’s blue).

Bright pennants of the jungle world

(green, orange, black) are

silky glass, refracting back

primary triplets of an orb unfurled –

gold sun, red clay, & midnight sea.

Her mouth is milky ivory

from Santa Giulia, in Brescia...

her parabolic harmony dovetails for me

into a grail from good grey Elephant

(whose queen is dark & comely

Africa).  So Henry’s comedy

plumbs bottomland; its hierophant

is Hobo in disguise, pearl-diving

from the Golden Gate;

his Beatrice-Juliet

is Orpheus-Eurydice – is every living

soul, sleeping to swim the wake

of Lake Victoria.

Birth-rite of Jonah –

rock-dove sparked for Zion’s sake

                *

& all Creation’s sign of Noah.

Suddenly, like lightning

we are made – brightening

kids from adamant stone – Aloha,

planet-people!  Welcome to Providence!

A grey Rabbi heeds

my mumbling... new needles

green the stems of an immense

Jerusalem spear-flower... Juno

to Juneteenth, July to Jubilee,

the fallow air grows milky

& the Glory of the Lord will show

petals of pink & indigo

before too long.  Behold

the twin mirror-doors of bold

St. Thomas – he who was slow

to believe.  Now the dream-sponge

out of Resurrection Cemetery

sucks Lazarus like Henry

into a mystery play.  Plunge,

Cautantowwit-Raven, into the deep

Black Sea.  A Thunderbird

breaches your salty word

in spumy clouds of Neva-Sleep,

& Woodpecker hammers out Twin

Oak’s mandorla-canoe –

a Restoration Day, for you.

Casket of Lazarus – a milk-crate tin.

6.19.17

to the Open Road

PINE-SAP

Hobo took to the Open Road,

from Minneapolis

to ancient Providence.

Like Mark Baumer, or Johnny Appleseed

or Pippin, off the deck of Pequod

unto lustrous ebony

of kings (their feathery

full fathom five... old sacred wood).

Gray tintype of elder Whitman,

stiff lead butterfly perched

on his hand.  We searched

for you, O monarch soul – your Plan

a prairie zigzag into Mexico.

Across the Rio Grande

to feathered-serpent land

pacing a shadow like raven-arrow

(Narragansett shade).  Crumbs

for Elijah-bird, Joachim-

eagle (from the seraphim).

Who plummets (wings like snare drums

thundering).  A way of traveling back

into deep green earth,

Hobo – measure your worth

for cedar berth (from Hackensack

to heavenly Jerusalem).  Transfiguration

chicken shack – here Hen

gathers his brood again

into the spare refectory (Franciscan

                *

cornerstone) where Piero limned

an emerald almond branch

lit by a thread (match-

fuse flaring) like sun-skimmed

honey-milk.  So Hobo burbles home

downstream.  The Gulf beckons.

Blue radiance of suns

(YHWH, YInMn) out of Pacific foam...

& in RI, in San Francisco Bay

orange arcs of rainbow

(mulitocular O-show)

fan skyward Hagia Sophia spark-display.

A yellow-black viceroy wavers

from Petersburg, southwest.

Grave resurrection, chaste

Akme-vision... dark cherry life-savers

Persephone crane-dances

limping to the spring.

Natasha’s creaky swing

for Julietta 484   rusty romances

when we dead shall rise   ghost-dancing

circling into the cloud

of dust   meek now, not proud

Frank Muleteer   Jennifer Sing-Sing

abracadabra... Alcatraz

rock flung from sky

become canoe   your eye

be dew   pine-sap    river to Paradise

5.31.17