most August wind-chime

MIGRANT TABERNACLE

So another August 8th-month

inches toward its close.

Whatever Pilate says,

goes – IN RI, nailed to a terebinth.

Whatever happens, happens, now.

An old man is an oak leaf

skimming like a thief,

going to ground.  & when the winds blow

the silver pipes of Sophie’s chime

go tingle-tangle... melody

of sea-blue cherub, see?

Clasping Columbia, his sweet tame

turtledove.  While her fire-engine chair

waits in my octagon

beneath late-summer sun –

a migrant tabernacle... Amor-

Shalom... transportable to Paradise.

Her father is a recent

immigrant, & citizen.

The Shekinah is mercy for chaste eyes –

unquenchable fountain of pure love

for simple existence, for

its mysterious source.  Our

wisdom, Sophie – like your turtledove –

comes shimmering down... she permeates

all things, & everywhere.

As it was always, my dear –

the mind of Love revives, creates.

8.31.18

only Osage land

WHAT SMILE

July... all the baby flags.

Every bright young lamb

tuck to torment in Vietnam.

Lyndon moon-face – how it sags.

Hubris... alien, demonic force

unhinged from humility

(vomitgreen parrot pity).

Folds bomber-wings in remorse

after all.  Neither national

nor international;

only irrational

(November’s double coronal).

I’ll finish off this work in progress

now, Columbia –

OK?  Oklahoma’s

only Osage land (but I digress).

& poetry?  Is just a conversation

among singed beans.

You joint it, Henrythin,

to ease U-Haul into elation

(somehow).  That OK.  The heart

is made of meleki limestone

(royal).  43 lamps shine

down upon them groove.  What

now, Henry?  What hum?  What ghost

flit as yum turtledove

‘bove fry Friday pirate cove?

What smile lightum up (coruscant host)?

7.1.18

hummingbird hum

RIVER KING

A ruby-throated hummingbird

zips past my hideout

like a Feirefiz out

of Wolfram.  Parzival inquired

at last – What ails thee, unstrung king?

& tears of fellow-feeling

poured from that Grail-thing

wrapt from all eyes.  Dovewing-

featherlight, yet penetrating stone –

translucent as stained glass

above tall quarry-house

of God’s emerald-&-ruby throne;

& waves radiate from your Ocean-

Shadow, like the flowing beard

of an Ancient of Days.  Mild,

domestic weather.  We are all children

of one family, Turtledove coo-coos...

Come into the Riverboat

of Paradise, & float

upon a Fontegaia (green, chartreuse).

Dive into Dream River, Orpheus,

Eurydice... the River King

is on his dais, chanting

the origin of everything (in caritas).

We are all offspring of a Thunderbird

who lights the way with lightning –

guiding tears to clay, shaping

these bones into gemstones (flameward).

6.7.18

hope is the anchor of the soul

DRY THICKET

The salty bread & wine of commonweal

is not a partisan domain;

it came before Abel & Cain,

magnanimous magma of the real.

Like these green palm-prints in a ring

my daughter planted on a square

of Grace’s linen, whirling there

like burning wings of seraphim (wheeling,

wheeling)... the Power of the universe

flames through a hearth-fire

(undermining empire

with compassionate adhesiveness).

I watched this morning as a lone

bald eagle, gliding quickly

in great catenary

arcs (like Guillem de Gellone

or Joachim, the hermit of Fiore)

mimed curvature of bridge

along that autumn ridge

like a daguerrotype from Civil War –

the process signifying Liberty

teeters twin wings

an unknown soldier brings

to bear (O turtledove of solidarity).

The downward angle of the bird

that signifies nekuia

& kenosis (ah,

bright wings!) so anchoring the word

                    *

she flies – & radiates upward (selah)

that Shekinah you heard

wailing in Ramah (sword

rotating every way)... hey ey

yo, Ma!  Your motherland the Earth

is calling you, Hobo.

Only primordial blue

clay, replicating Ocean birth

can shape the high ship of the whole.

Those human ribs, breathing

from Galilee to Sing-Sing

slip the galley through a needle –

bear Arcturus to the North Pole

via waltz of galaxies –

salve memories

of lost sailors, & reconcile them all.

Hope is the anchor of the soul.

Light seed, planted in soil

of churnagogue, still

twirling on your milky way... scroll

out your almond gospel alms,

Melchizedek... your ray

through aquiline papyrus

lens, through Gilead pine-balms.

The clay awaits your bread & wine.

The heart yearns for it,

through dry thicket

retina of Man – your sappy pine.

10.26.17

a line in the road

GREY BIRD

Sarah found a baby turtle

this morning, inching along

a line in the road.  My song-

salience, or green volcano-yurt

on slow horizontal too... toward

her thorny rose-matrix;

my scrambled pick-up-sticks,

snarled with gold poncho thread

in limpid greys of dawn twilight.

This mutter-dome of whisper-

leaves, of zephyr-vespers

veils an agate lamp (magnet

for Blue Morpho & monarch flight)

pendant amid cedars –

like black-yellow flickers

gathered into marigold (O milky knight).

My abstract worming through its raving

scribble-babble, cartoon

peacock incarnation...

a myriad glancing-whorl becoming

the figure for your beaming face.

O the clear air of this

metaphysical silence!

Whose pause released one Finnish race

to lift her soaring steel mandorla

into lofty grace

planted in pivot-place

of riverine & prairie space – ah,

Psyche!  Sister Persephone!

I feel your sunny smile

now – lifting lilacs mile

on mile into an octave-harmony

                *

of active commonality –

Joy’s hero-trial!

Path P – Indian file –

thread-thin tattoo to Liberty!

So the little tree of J

is ever-living.  So

Jonah bee surfacing

tuned to your buzzing play,

high Sophie – through the fallen timbers

west of gray Verdun,

the world’s war-passion

settled in destruction.  Embers

from a wraith of spring, the sack of Prince

Henry’s royal oak...

one ashen acorn spoke

welded to purple wheel of Providence.

The crayon trembles in my hand.

The palm curves green

circumference – Iona

ray, from Ocean State (to every land);

the grey bird murmurs through the surf;

the Camelot of JFK

& blessedness of MLK

merge in the spray, resolve to turf.

So Thunderbird ruffles the stream.

The turtle is a Phoenix

swelling at the matrix –

agate child skipping (on waves of dream).

5.18.17

tender as a safety net

LION’S EYE

The cloudy voice of Okeanos

over snow-muted farms

hums Dakota charms

for fettered waters (under us).

The boredom of the barbed-wire

borders will dissolve,

disintegrate.  I have

a dream, sang Memphis Fire

into the tumbleweed.  Chalk lines

drawn from Grand Forks

to Santa Fe, these marks

scored by tornado, Time refines –

files into church basements & barns

bent cedar spines, weathered

by old sand.  Spare word

spun inside-out by drought yawns

into dappled pastel yarns – gray

background looming, warped

onto rainbear cube (tarp-

tepee tender as a safety net, hey

ey yo).  The fluted planes of brave

Dove-Turtle ring like wave-

tongs on your heart – weave

future pastures from a lichen grave.

Like some drab village near Drobdorf

transmuted by these panes

of plumb green-violet... the lion’s

eye, her peacock metamorph.

11.29.16

Lyonel Feininger, "Village Church in Thuringia (Drobdorf)"

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis

bebop robin

OKIE NOOK

Sophie’s sunny little birthday balloon

with the starry polka-dots

is losing air now – that’s

how it is with balloons.  Under octagon

of the gazebo roof, like a spiderweb

in golden brown.  The Sacred

Wood was reconfigured –

scarred & scored rough oak nub

rounded to slight chaste coracle.

Apollo’s memory of Daphne

wells near Mississippi

into gnarled pillars (maze or miracle?);

one bebop robin solos from 

an Okie nook, wears

pork-pie hat... & there’s

a poppy (rich red-purple plum)

unfolding down his chest – an origami

floating city, cordial

with accordions, with all

things orbital (inverted harmony,

fresco to Viennese).  An island rose

out of infinite green,

balanced on submarine

turtledove blimps (of caritas);

the loping soul of liberty

sprang from Goodwill

her dancing shoes – & (still

traipsing) turns opal Star of the Sea.

9.13.16

let her skip

DAKOTA HEXAGON

This quiet August day toward

the cusp of autumn.  Green

vine-light in the cavern

where Henry hides his raven-word.

That empty chair in Dante’s sky-

deep rose, for all the hoped-

for prophets, emperors...

& here’s Sophia’s little throne (my

dancing-master’s rosy resting-

spot).  Let her skip

fearless across the ship

of state, her toy basilica, questing;

the Greyhound of the Lord, her

vengeance, comes to this –

gray clouds of Providence

replete with rain; a pregnant mother

radiant with clearing day; the shades

of persecution blown away

by ocarinas (clay-

shell turtledoves, dolphin parades).

Ineffable golden Hephaestus-net...

veil of corn fleece over

a West Branch face.  Her

sister in D.C. (Adams duet) –

icon of Miriam & Magdalen,

Dakota hexagon

implicit in the sun

of Washington... cartwheels, Columbian.

8.13.16

Euxine seagull arcs

FISHING BOATS

The old watercolor over the mantle

in my mother’s house – the twin

gray fishing boats, the brown

warehouse, the whitewashed walls.  Gentle

Gloucester, Massachusetts (Grace

Ravlin pinxit – Grandpa’s

cousin, from Kaneville, Illinois).

Soft clouds, the upright crosspieces

of lank lanyards (still sea-green

harbor, granite walk).

Thinking of another work –

lone lady at Mount Vernon, culling

flowers for George Washington.

And of another Maximus –

not Gloucester’s famous

philosophe, but Maximus, blue unicorn

who sketched with Euxine seagull arcs

on stumps (his amputated

medium) one delicate

& sibylline solution.  Sparks

fly upward from the hearth of Love

– fly outward, penetrate

wolf-packs of gulag-state.

This heart simmers like kiln-hot stove

or croon of turtledove, hidden...

violet in tall field grass,

cricket near an underpass.

Willow by slow river (Magdalen).

7.11.16

Grace Ravlin, Gloucester Harbor (ca. 1928)

like waves of the sea

Occasionally I'm going to disobey my own resolution, and post new poems from Ravenna Diagram.  Happy Midsummer Day...

GREEN PILLARS

Spell me the poem including history

if Providence on earth

blooms, Rhodian... Arthur

ever returning, like waves of the sea –

mesmerized & mesmerizing,

in disguise (as George

the gardener).  So merge,

now, emerge, with enterprising

pioneers of happiness, your

boon companions, in

loon-call theremin

borne toward a Lake Superior

of dreams – one cup of fresh water

lifted to the moon

of manna-honey – one

mute field note in the Chronicle of Mutter-

Patter.  A flimsy paper nautilus

skims her light pinnace

over the sea-surface –

her brood chamber full of caprice,

her Ocean State a colony

of Turtledove Cloud-

World.  A dream-word

sang out of a rooted cedar tree –

so old, Time had forgotten her;

so strong, her smile

threads from green pillars

outlasting the Wars to End All War.

6.24.16 

Minnehaha's moccasin

SPIRIT-WOOD

                             i.m. Edward Lewis Peckham

Step lightly in my mother’s house,

whispered a tiny elf

named ELP – himself

a watercolorist (a yellow lady’s

slipper’s footprint left the forest

on this day).  Cypripedia

reginae – Minnehaha’s

moccasin – graced this wilderness

as well, making a pair for Joy

& Beauty (graces

almost three).  Time paces

seasoned out of winter, so employ

your dancing shoes, fiery Hiawatha –

roll like Polar Bear

around that pinpoint star,

sing like a loon, like your happy

father (Thalia-glad).  Nature

& Manitou join hands;

a Turtledove blends

sea-sounds, all about green Eire;

urn burials, gardens of Sirius

swim synchronizing

rhombs on monarch wings

(a rugged Paradise for ladybugs)...

one dance-call through spirit-wood

or jadestone flute

sows dreams of Camelot

(like waves of wheat around a vineyard).

6.9.16

*Note : Edward Lewis Peckham, Rhode Island artist and naturalist, painted a watercolor of Cypripedium parviflorum - Yellow Lady's Slipper - on this day in 1866, 150 years ago.  See illustration here from the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Center of the earth

COCOON-SHADE

We were scrambling through an endless cave,

Mark Trail & I, in the

cartoon – wait – uh...

that was a dream!  Mind, now – behave!

There was an independent chap with spear

all gold, atop a globe-

sized turtleshell, adobe –

yodeling (with shimmering lyre)

Good Will I am Good Will...

There was a lowly, sketchy

mule, named Eeyore, following

his master, Donkey Haute, until

they reached the center of the earth

– a vernal O, encompassing

an M, a W (whelmelding

vertiblur upon a sunlit hearth

all rosorangled in Pacific dawn).

& then I felt wings purring

in my sleep... a chirring

flutter-by of monarch (milky-spun

cocoon-shade of the teeming soil);

a turtledove was crooning

too, for old George – leaning

on his scythe, worn with grave toil. 

The axle of the earth, the axle...

muttered he – of rusty

us the icon, see.

Light waves from Chartres pinnacle.

4.22.16

Moss-green idiom

PRIMITIVE FRESCO

These cottonwood sentinels beside the river

in the early March sunlight.

May their sense of being right

prevail, Persephone return (forever).

My draft of yearning whispers from

bare cave.  Slight air

of seashore lingers there,

like early dream of motherland.  Home

in a memory of pinewoods, tamarack;

Ravenna in a film

of moss-green idiom –

child-realm of Umbrian yak-yak,

Firenze burble-babble.  One gold hinge

arcs sheltering lintel

over intelligible

gate of Jubilee... & it is so arranged

we never leave the shining ring.

Like a rock of Magdala

muttering ephphatha

our bread & wine are splashed with brine,

salted with everlastingness;

my primitive fresco

roughly points to show

how everything begins to bless –

when Psyche lifts from waterfall

& Raven (with a flick

of wing) is suddenly quick

Turtledove (threshold within us all).

3.2.16