part of the main

HEARTH-FIRE

I stepped outside of the quarantine

early this morning (one quiet

crystalline April moment).

A mourning dove, sequestered in a pine

nearby, was practicing, solo (adagio

con molto sentimento d’affetto).

& therefore do not send to know

for whom the bell tolls – Adios, amigo.

We don’t hear them much now, here

as once in Rhode Island.

& it’s hard to comprehend

how time-space telescopes into the mirror

(O my clay-rimmed, worm-riddled heart

& soul)… yet her melancholy

plaint echoes, in me

the solitude that ripens all my art.

We do not belong just to ourselves.

We are part of the main.

I am a half-hitch in a seine

flung from an ark, whose kelson delves

across the Black Sea of the universe.

Borne by embattled star-murmurs,

this pressure on the king spurs

martyrs to out-run the royal curse –

so Socrates & Tommy More, Jesus

absolve the men who killed them;

so their normative love-law anthem

sighs out warm fire into cold sacrifice.

4.19.20

all manner of thing

LIGHT RAYS

Old Hobo drowses near the summit

of summer.  He sits

in the midst of his nitwit

desires, like Hobo King; he would not

harm a bug, much less a refugee

– plodding to the ports

with worn-out bags, hurt

babies on their backs... ay me!

Corruption is an empty shell

sans floor beneath.

Dons with shark teeth

bowl cannon balls in hell.

He muses on St. Thomas More

& Maximus, a little more;

Susanna’s chaste amour,

the hanging gardens of the Moor.

Lambs in their locality

taste the long grass

while summers pass,

yielding too much reality;

Hobo sleepwalks with the rest,

absorbed in his dream-

sponge.  Every seam

fans rain from peacock-fest –

an early-bird worm-hunters’ realm

inscaped with infinite

abundant life... articulate

splendor from the milky helm

               *

of Wisdom’s gratified delight.

No beast can overwhelm,

no tyrant flim-flam

microcosmic Man’s birth-right,

intones mild Maximus from his

ascetic prison-cell;

all shall be well,

all manner of thing – from fire-fizz

to salmon-grill, from trumpet-vine

to orange safety-net,

all shall be swell.  Get

you, my child, to the heart of Man –

it is no absence in Creation,

but flutter of a smile;

a wing-beat with no guile,

eyes’ icon of ineffable Person.

Draw near.  Hobo is dreaming now.

Rio del Espiritu...

a river-mystery.

Gazes at figurehead upon a prow.

One climbing from the grave.  Jonah?

Eurydice?  Mary

sleeps in the cemetery –

dreams within a dream.  Selah.

Calm-spinning, like a gyroscope,

the Hobo-King advances

toward the tomb of Lazarus.

Her mandorla... light rays the slope.

7.6.17

Shakespearean marzipan

THREE BEARS

Behind fine axe-hewn basalt

of the Incan hive, an eye

like Aaron Siskind, maybe –

quick, delicate, alert.

Mortised ramparts of any state

mark its mandala-border;

stone blooms of order

warp twisters of love & hate.

Only this human heart of flesh

harbors invisible diamond –

petal-scent of almond,

marzipan snowstorm (baked fresh).

Imagine one simplified snowflake

in three dimensions, spinning

like a gyroscope (one wing,

one leg) after one thunder-shake

of glassy dome – Will’s trident, maybe

in a late romance (Blackfriar’s

globe).  King Henry sires

trouble for himself – falls into sea

pursued by Bear.  Near Normandy,

flagship goes down – she’s lost,

it seems – until at last

Hermione steps forth, sleepy...

La Paix (familial, civil, global)

breathes yet, to dance once more.

It was Sir Thomas More,

lapped in bearskin, at the North Pole

                 *

who played the bear, who played the fool;

who played Disoriented Lamb

bleating I am, I am,

who flit the snowflake (melting soul);

his mother (Everywoman, from

Mulberry Street) wept

for the shame; she slept,

& it was glory in the end.  Hum

flickers (pictures in a whisper gallery).

The cranium of Unknown

Soldier wears the crown.

Empires of high frozen sophistry

shudder beneath an infant’s smiling

gaze.  It’s not the wise

who find the way (surprise!)

but every lovey-dovey Sing-Sing

resident – repentant heart, meek

mule.  Chaste planetary

hearth, Psyche-egalité –

bright thunder-akme... slant, oblique

world-pirouette... Hagia Sophia

in a peacock’s fan.  Tango,

barefoot kid’s fandango

under the sky-vaults in Ravenna –

light of my light & yours,

Waltz of Three Bears

by Mendelssohn.  Flares

Franciscan, by Pacific shores.

6.14.17