that hexed hexagon

PRICKLY ROOFTOP

Only a light whisper of April snow

feathers the riverbank today.

The wind-serpent will flay

with rippling wings its own mud-brown

flow.  The cottonwoods lean overhead

like ribs on a canoe.  Gray veins

of some cast-off snakeskin.

Glass fane of Great Worm (empty, shed).

Where are the springs of yesteryear?

This April curls from cold

& back to cold.  From cold

to cold – inhuman, viral (some Shakespeare

Villon).  So the chill indifference

of animal aggression marks

its seal on each snowflake.

Each one unlike (unique monstrance).

So who invented this immaculate snow?

A mind of winter?  Or

a dreaming Melchior – his

clouds on high, his Bethlehem below?

We sleep, we wake… like soft snowflakes.

We drift, we float… we land

& melt upon a child’s hand.

The soul is like that dark green pine, makes

rough & prickly rooftop – root foundation

for each spindrift, wayfaring

Romany light-traveling

human earth-heart time-migration

*

– so hear the art then, O spiraling 

hearth!  Martian enfoldment

like arms of Odin, bent

around himself – whole tree corralling!

For Snowflake is that hexèd hexagon

of heaven & earth, joined

in your heart, coined

Abraham – red copper of the gun;

that regal object-dart of adoration

– tangled boomerang, returned

upon itself – urned

at the apex of our celebration;

the bread & wine of every sacrifice

offered by universal Everyman

each time she lifts the can

for mite or gold doubloon… our price.

The light snow sweeps across Ireland

& Minneapolis-St. Paul.

A sweet lamb looks from wall

of van Eyck emerald, almost human (sand

or salt will reveal her, underneath

Mississippi varnish).  Flowers

are eternal, soul-power

is substantial… MELEK shall bequeath

his welcome-gift of bread & wine

on his way to Memphis

for the garbage men.  This

my body… this my blood.  Lamp, shine.

4.3.20

Hobo was King of Mars

AUTUMN VESTIGE

Observe the canoe, in the dusty garage

in Ferrara, if you can find it,

she said.  A Star of David,

sewn upon spectral autumn vestige

of threadbare overcoat, shines

in the gloom of late October

day.  My hobo-mutter

fritters into golden leaf-combines,

disintegrating fleets of ripeness.

August limbs go plain

beneath afternoon rain;

the tree stands like an empty chalice

ready to be topped with drifting flakes’

archaic frozen stars.

Hobo was King of Mars –

lifted up unto a throne of rakes,

crowned with a pile of leaves; his head

was a planetary pumpkin, &

his magic rattle-wand,

tufted with scorpions, was made

of lead.  The heart shrivels with dread

& melancolia

until the Tauromachia

twirls, milky moon... lifting the Dead

Sea of All Souls’ into a strange orbit

of anti-gravity –

like your gallant oak tree

that lived 600 years upstate

                    *

whose trunk was broader than her height

whose acorns sail

from Hudson to the Nile

& carve a reedy vessel (upright

Osiris in mosey-miroir)

to tack the ark of justice

toward mild Providence –

I hae ne wroth, her murmur

filtered through the Pharaoh-mask;

I am the Shekinah

behind Who-He-Who-She;

I am your Miryam at the matrix,

almond salience, unflagging J.

The stars waltz gently

round the Pole... we

dance beneath them, in a play –

late romance of a shakèd spear

or rustic ferris wheel

where Smolak will repeal

the bearish curse, the hunter’s fear.

Hobo might head back home again

to Basking Ridge, above

the Rio of the Turtledove...

a furrowed nut, a graybeard brain

whose love came surging from the sea –

a tidal wave of hungry

soul (his coulombee).

So turquoise panned gold embassy.

10.17.16