the mural crown

HIDDEN LIFE

This silvery light of a rainy day

in late December.  Neutral,

nested in its gray scale

along a standoffish Mississippi

(little Big Muddy).  Icons of vagrancy

are history.  Only

tell me, who is Tyche

now?  Who wears her mural crown of clay?

The mural crown is a martyr’s crown.

Seared semaphore of Liberty.

Tom, within his sanctuary

clocked by King Hank’s automaton.

& you, speechless ancient mother

of my tongue... Oaxaca pot

with 4 legs & 4 faces, hot

from kiln – my sis Jonah (there is no other).

A hidden life, in high green alps

of loving consciousness.

Where our union of Succession-

Restoration comes in great gulps

of transparency (over gnarled rivalries,

distempered lunacy,

frustrated tyranny...

Narcissus in the burnt oak trees).

All history now, Henry.  We drank

life’s Honigwein

with Weinsteins, in

torrid Odessa... felt unfathomable thanks.

12.29.19

goldenrod honeybee

LAMBENT FLUTE

This bumblebee on goldenrod,

hunting the crossroad

at close of summer.  Old

Hobo character – camouflaged

in yellow-black (almost).  Henry’s

obsession with absence.

I’d go the distance

into infinite cornfields, he says.

The river subculture, the dream

of floating back home.

Churnagogue palindrome

or unknown womb... clay baptism.

The cottonwood leaves seem to flow

like golden honey, then –

in Taurida, on the autumn

wind.  Like little heart-ships, so

they swim.  Out of the tight-knit shawl,

out of the everlasting

fire.  None shall be coming

to the Father except by Son, y’all –

by way of Mother.  That absolute

Somebody – a labyrinth

of stars, wherein we are hid

like lightning bugs, or lambent flute

reflections (crane-bone twins).

Flickering far beyond

woodpecker Trebizond,

sleepwalker Knossos – wheeling fins.

8.5.18

White Rose sets in the west

SHADOW-WELL

George Washington was born today;

Sophie Scholl was killed

as well.  Her cup was spilled

in order to brim up the bloody

mystery of iniquity that is

our history – an epic-

georgic bio-pic

or tragicomedy (blind Theseus

meets Ariadne in a maze

of corn – assumes she’s

golden Taurida... FINIS).

Wings waft into a purple haze.

The moon belongs to everyone.

She set this morning through

a window shade (pale blue

the air, drawn up from Galilean

shadow-well).  This labyrinth

contains a Minotaur

indeed – his name your

own.  The light is very thin

within retaining walls of iron

chicken-wire (chain link);

quincunctial conjunction

for plowman (Sir Thos. Browne).

Wisdom B. Justified (in all 

her children).  Madre moon

sheds rain upon human

travail... silvers the plow (selah).

2.22.16

Moonset, 6:35 a.m. (Minneapolis)