May-time

ALMOND FLING

Palmers wayfare toward Jerusalem

& Holy Sepulchre –

empty signifier

for an Easter hymn (they’ve taken him

away).  A grail of ever-floating joy –

love’s Pentecost

fire-fizz Ghost

Dance for 50 stars (Old Glory

stitched anew from burial shroud).

Rivers of Paradise

(Tigris, Euphrates,

Nile, Big Muddy) circle back to cloud

of Ocean-Stream – source of sky-waters,

like round limestone

beaded with ripple-shine

to emerald gleam (through grisaille shutters).

Hobo, fish-eyed Fisher King,

beheld this vision

through a wavy octagon

of old gazebo planks.  & sinking

down upon his quaint Vienne étable

his head (like Bran of Grain

Elevator) made moan

for Miriam, or Marian, as in the fable.

Until your May-time dawn refulgence

metamorphosed everything

into one almond fling –

Oak Restoration (eye-in-palm, perchance).

5.20.18

vive la France

CALM RONDURE

This rustic humble tablecloth

from Vienne street fair

(crowding her amphitheatre

hewn by Rome) poses a math

problem : how can I square this

table ronde within

the weathered octagon

of an American gazebo?  Ms.

Emily might know, or maybe Marianne...

some mounded clay pitcher

of accurate grace.  Her

toss across a potter’s wheel (nine

innings for a feline Muse)

spins stars like comets

through snarled sailor knots –

Mary & Rachel, bearing news

of natural law so blazing sharp

as to make arrowhead

speed from seabed

(trompette marine like Jonah’s harp

reshuffling my raven coil

into the Argo figure

of a prow’s green furl).

Honey from spun goldfinch foil

will pour like waxen flame – the living

sœur de Jeanne d’Arc,

sourire of each undying spark –

calm rondure of a square (Thanksgiving).

5.8.17