all across Minneapolis

RABBI-PATH

All across Minneapolis

the poet’s left evidence

like tracks under a fence

– long fellow’s footprints –

Nana Bozo the Clown, or

Hiawatha in slippers

(snowshoes, Alberta

clippers).  Fella came before,

might hop here again (ghost

dance, dream song).

Sunday stretched so long.

He was with us in the Lammas-host

like lambchild in the field,

a white cloud drifting

bluegrass... otskèn:rha, sifting

right from wrong (at Lammas-tide).

Bozo Lambrogio breaks up

the woolly categories

of our feral cats – Caesar’s

imbroglios, lions of Judah, Egyptian

pups... will skip the rabbi-path

out of the lake of wrath

back into Nazareth

by August 1st (we’ll do the math

later).  Yolk-black Fabergé cracks

in the snow... imperial

theocracies unreel; almond

Vierge Ouvrante gives berth.  Relax.

2.19.19

in the end zone

MAJOR CHORDS

In the shadow of a song of songs

the anthems are always major

chords.  Mendelssohn... (our

home in Hopkins)... everyone belongs.

Tonight the rival city-states,

the patriots, blow

ram’s horns.  O

say can you see... big potentates’

eyes dilate... Vergo rolls out

Hail Mary feint (over

Washington Monument) –

Crazy Horse Rushmore... Touch-

stone!  The transfixated crowd

explodes.  Ghost dance

in the end-zone – Lance

Galahad will take the shroud!

The mob desires to crown a king,

a king of everything.

Sponsors oblige, with bling –

the glittering circlet is a diamond ring

for nubile Woody Berge Ouvrante

(Cheerleader from the Bronx

Will Marry Uncle Onx

Next Year).  Preview this fête galante!

Apollinaire heard the cicadas

droning in the oak –

of how the wind spoke

dry coracles of wheat to Colchis

                    *

& the streetlight in the snowy dark

zones a frozen cross

against the pavement (Loss

for Brady : Bells Will Boom for Belichick).

We’ll laugh about this tomorrow

(or maybe in 2020).

How the crowd, honey,

decides – & doesn’t care, somehow.

They insist on sacrifice – Sacre

du Printemps, ma chérie.

Tiptoe to thundery

finale... just before the war (nacre

& objets d’art, Guillaume).

Leap to the metronome

over the Metrodome,

Sophie – you will survive this doom

of frightened infants in their uniforms;

Thin Blade Societies

& Rudra puberty

sodalities... unconscious norms

(they know not what they do).  Thread

woven for a future prince –

hearts, purple sequins

imprint Valentine wreath for his head;

he’s singing of an anti-kingdom

where his anti-father

(shedding all that bother)

chords an unquenchable welcome home.

2.3.19

wheezing in an iron lung

PATIENT BURRO

Utterly subjective universe

of the poet, Hamlet

dreaming action... what

was I thinking?  A serious nurse

stood by my cradle (Abbott Hospital).

I was four years old,

wheezing in a cold

iron lung.  Paralysis (total).

1956.  Guillain-Barré.

Dr. Pohl – I

don’t remember (sigh).

Osiris in his casket, hey

ey yo.  The photo in the Star-

Tribune – toothy Henry

hugs his scarlet monkey

in a wheelchair.  Recovery! (Bizarre.)

Like the slight son of Giuliana

in a clinic in Ravenna.

Watch her parabola –

purple violet (or cypripedium

reginae) fringes the pottery;

congregate, massive

unguent jar, evocative

lure (hand of Lippo Memmi)

harboring anointment oil.

Milk, sap, honey,

wine, blood...  See

the star-eye riding the sea-roil

                  *

on her prow, lancing the Black Sea!

Magnet of gold foil,

handle for plow-soil –

wave of personae-galaxy!

As if the searching character of Isis

were encapsulated in

this matryoshka-queen.

Vierge Ouvrante (Hagia Sophia’s

magnifying glass, or Henry Church)

sums up significance

of eucharist – each instance

in a suffering kenosis, the human lurch

(from safe beatitude to surf

beat attitude)

leading to passionate

étude (H. Gorecki... – it is enough).

Prow like a beak, eye like star,

the solidarity of Polar

Bear – it is our

birthright, people everywhere!

Metaphysical, incomprehensible

Love, that finds an echo

in the infinitely patient burro

suffering everything.  Your fable

inches toward the human heart

on light footsteps...

so Nora’s rose keeps

Eros innocent (sweet garden violet).

1.25.19

I stir the Pythian gumbo of Apollinaire

BRONZE ANNALS

The Palladium forsook Byzantium

on a Black Wednesday

near Pentecost (hey

yo).  In the old Orpheum

Theatre (off Hennepin) Stravinsky

leads Ballet Russe

to rude cathartic truce

around the bonfire of a galaxy –

a human maypole (at the end of May).

She’s only Morning Star.

The young Apollinaire

is debonaire... they waltz away.

Salt sea-wash on another shore

throws up a Kennedy...

Melchizedek?  O, he

will pass through temple walls before

bronze annals of the oak tree close.

A little emerald windlass

winds your thread, Theseus.

A Selkie off the Newport coast,

a water-sprite from far-off Ocean...

laving heart of Berryman,

& salty Hart (Ohioan);

lifting Juliet from self-destruction.

Ineffable ark of Vierge Ouvrante,

imperishable human smile –

Love’s gentle campanile,

lofting aforesaid acorn-infant.

1.21.19

to restore a soul

SECRET WORLD

To restore a soul, to mend a broken heart

out of the wells of memory

for relief of misery

for your grace we pray.  A crane bone flute

keening her lonely call might still redeem

the wind that carries it

on the storm-clouds.  Fiat

lux – though the darkness loom.

This primitive wooden Vierge Ouvrante

unveils her secret world

with a copper hinge.  Old

masters of le Verbe significant

carved, flickered into form

a buoyant microcosm

within her oaken beam –

a human shelter from the storm.

Cicadas buzz amid burnt branches

of a poem framing history.

It is a mystery.

Isis on her throne, Ariadne’s hunches,

spider-Minotaur in his plangent web...

the sacrifice of innocence

behind a screen (some dense

thicket of Pig’s Eye Social Club).

The wind is clear & clean tonight.

Whole homesteads rise

toward ordinary Paradise,

warm lips forging a female Paraclete.

1.16.19