mercurial transit of the Martian sun

GRAND MARQUIS

Armistice Day.  For all veterans.

For memory of an end

to hostilities.  Promised Land

or Providence... high limbs of the ones

who came before, palms lifted (orans).

From martyrs of brave speech,

whole truth, let us beseech

ineffable blessing.  Alighieri stands

nigh frozen Sant’Apollinaire

trasumanare in Ravenna.

Where mossy Giuliana

calls me from her potter’s lair

(soft aviator from a sunken realm).

Like that Tim Taylor, seeker

at Pacific depth (1132

ft. down... USS Grayback graven on its helm).

Project Lost 52 – to bring to light

every forsaken sheep-canoe

& let them float anew

somewhere divine (mercurial transit

of the Martian sun).  She’s calling me.

Like salt-grain in the war-engine,

a kernel from the Corn Maiden

of Grant Wood haunts... her Grand Marquis

a black blind spot across that gilded orb,

Ferrari Rio Santo Spiritu –

she snakes toward you (& you)

from her smile-park (topaz to curb).

11.11.19

Apollinaire lived in Paris, I live in Minneapolis (MN)

SNOW WHEEL

A little snow meanders down in Minneapolis

to cold November earth.

Guillaume, prince triste of mirth

was lowered from his balcony in Paris

two days before the Armistice.

Grandpa packed up his guns

one last time, near Verdun.

Spent rulers carpentered their peace.

Sacre du Printemps set the stage.

Russkaia Neva-sacrifice

summons her apotheosis –

leaps for the holocaust of banal rage

mounting to self-consuming poshlost peak.

Apollinaire was there

that night (under the sulfur-

flare, the guttering of Belle Epoque).

Grandpa field-marshaled the parades

on Armistice Day.  Lafayette,

we are here... the old print

over the dinner table (Revolutionary shades

trippin’ la gigue française, at Mt. Vernon).

My ghosts are here now,

in November snow.

The Rio fleuves inexorably on

down to St. Louee, New Orleans.

Jeanne spins with Jessie

to their Stagger Lee...

my snow wheel hums, Rose (oriens).

11.10.19

on Veterans' Day

OLD CANOE

They walked on the beach on Veterans’ Day,

Henry & Alex, 11-

11. Father & son. 

A peaceful drone from the Pacific, hey

ey yo.  Henry, oh Henry, what

have you done?  Broken

the lawful bonds of Christen-

dom.  Limps toward Yehoshephat,

your son, your son (beneath milky

ocean spray).  Laborious

struggle to restore justice...

the father’s crimes his legacy.

Innocence precedes the chaste

memorials of same;

children entering the game

adore that grass, to which they haste.

Endicott ripped the Cross out of

the Union, Jack – inspired

by Rog Wms (hired

Ajax?).  Puritanical ab ovum

back in Topsfield (prior Zaccheus

Gould).  Desecrations

rule the day.  Someone’s

idea of revenge, rebellion... us?

The Narragansetts have a word

for youthful arrogance

(I forget).  Once

Henry walked another beach (Rhode

                     *

Island) lugging remorse (mule, dunce).

The heavy waves pounded.

Ocean-soul sounded.

Cordelia’s quipu-crown (silence).

The madness works itself out (&

might end, someday) –

the greedy Boar will slay

& slay, until his tiny orange hand

is stayed.  Complacent cows of Bashan

wallow on the slopes

of Washington (one hopes

Starbucks will runneth over, son)

until berserkers finish slaughtering

(but that was in another

coffeeshop – it wasn’t her).

Columbia keens for her offspring

in Ramada Inn, who are no more.

Henry Oakillas, huffy

Henry, O... what now?  I

do not know.  To the bridge?  Claymore?

More clay?  Sword shall pierce

your own soul, Mary.

The air, soft here – sea-

air (light of a sweet lightness).

The chaste beginnings of Thanksgiving

in the myth, in the dream...

on the shore, by beam

of some old canoe.  Hoping, hoping.

11.12.18

hurrah for the green black & blue

DREAM SONGS

Early cold air makes light more clear

toward Veteran’s Day.

Only whisper a ray

through the Mexican mirror, my hero (here

& now).  Who gave a last full measure

to the metronome of fate –

her solemn bell drones late

over these midnight hexagons (white hair

of graves).  Whisper it back to me,

quietly, quietly.  Dark

wake of Noah’s Cutty Sark,

trailing to Southern Cross, Black Sea.

Your raven circles to the end of speech.

These crumbs will be enough.

Twin shoulders lift the rough

yoke – walk a path to Ocean Beach.

A stone like diamond lost in Voronezh –

gray pebble, agate

hidden in the gate...

forged fate of Man as Uncle George

the Unknown Soldier... gardener

outside her smithy-cave,

their humus-world to save.

Come in.  These stones weather

Siberian winter – like Finnish sauna

finished in Hyperborea;

out of Lake Victoria

or Sydney, Australia (hurrah

                  *

for the green black & blue)... faint echo

out of Mexico,

where all the monarchs go.

The earth will be redeemed... but very slow.

Up the street from your view of heaven

in another neighborhood

hearts hard for good

pitch darkness toward Pacific Union –

money grooves & spectral hates

congeal in orange ogre-

hats... scared morgue-

hacks... guile of guppy hypocrites...

All politics is local, sez.

In Minneapolis

black is really less

skin in the game (the realtor biz);

up at the lake, the fishermen

cash in their walleyes;

hunters in disguise

carry the venison for Uncle Ben

(Rice Lake).  The joker’s going wild.

He’s up by White Bear –

FBI got there?

Over near Mound – which bullets?  Piled?

Dream songs must leave behind the fear,

greed, hate.  Earth clay is one,

& Manitou is

done (for today).  Help with the bier?

11.9.17

bard owl hoot-yawp

DARK MANDALA

A dark mandala, with its threads of gilt

glinting in sepulchral gloom.

Brown recluse home

or poison farm – Potemkin-built

for subtle, shady beast (forma

tricorporis umbra).

Yessir – USSR – Usura

rapt the hack machine – some worm

robbed all the banks in Hungary

– sincerely, your servant

left with Nada (she went

under).  One black-wreath memory

laurels a World War grave,

limed with gold streaks

of tears.  Leaf breaks

hearts; stubborn moth digs nave.

Infinitely gentle, infinitely

suffering thing... Rabbi,

rabbi, your symmetry

of gravity pulls toward a parapet

or pole-star magnet – anti-matter

mutter at the gate

of timespace (intricate

constellate icosahedron footpad

rabbit-patter).  Yellow gyroscope

for the lad in Ravenna,

wheeling through Gehenna

into turtleshell domicile – Hope

                   *

Diamond southern bells – milky

over Memphis, chanting

out of slave-haunt... (sling

your wide human boomerang, Psyche).

Fraud loops fey pebbles into flagging

factories, for vanity –

haughty coyote-

greed howls babble onto bragging

piles of glare – why do the notions rage?

Out of a quiet well,

a widow’s mite will tell

another rustic peony tale.  Osage

cheekbones of Lincoln-Logos shine

in the fiery human sun –

Rhodos-Colossus Woman

radars an omnipresent beryl-pine

from silver harbor.  The retrograde

cannot delay reality –

their bubble-polity

will burst (too much steel air) – a Maid

of Orleans, or Land o’Lakes

shall lead the ring-dance

in a crayon trance

& sketch a reciprocity

of snakes & ladders, golden eagles

& grey turtledoves.

The peacock fan of Love’s

dominion flares... green acorn-angles.

11.11.16