slow boat to Atlantis

archaic Mississippian ware (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

ADAMANT ACORN

The steady quiet of the river leads me,

& these monarchs afloat

toward Mexico.  Mote

of black-orange sail, tacking across a sea

of green... like a jasper flag of Jonah

(flickering calm coral

pinned over equatorial

squall).  Sextant from Alexandria,

sunken Heracleion – lamp from Atlantis

beaming through night sea;

matrix of Milky Way,

your Isis-canoe... assembling Osiris

from slow-roiling flatlands (Mississippian).

So Wolfram’s grail-witness

(ineffable justice

planted in lovingkindness) branches on

through Osip’s, Nikolai’s chaste vision –

adamant acorn of creation

(shining emerald of redemption

framed by buoyant casket-stone).

The red muscle pulses into veins.

A wheel turns versus gravity

rowing time to eternity;

the melancholy of Ravenna cranes,

the mortified forsaken innocence

of flighty Juliet

my filmy safety net

hugs tight – lifts up to cedar salience.

8.29.19

call him Halfway Hank

FICTIONAL GARAGE

Hobo staggers along the riverbank

halfway between Henry

& Osiris (bury-

man).  Call him Halfway Hank.

Like Bluejay all out of mummer’s tricks

memories of a Myth America

detach from his hat (ha-ha,

caw-caw).  Tall Tale of Two-Sticks

maybe – or The Time We Had a Picnic.

Nostalgia for infinity

invokes our Plenty-

Big-Prairie; mysterieux Henri Pick

was anonymous, along with Alexander P.

These meadowlands are Russian.

Thunder’s Oblomovian this

afternoon (American iz you & me).

So memory would like to dab a fresco

containing a continent.

As when a canoe is bent

around a bough of yew, or spent willow...

in some fictional garage in Ferrara

where recent immigrants

gather for sustenance

like Jonah huddled in a whale’s cantina

& the eye in your hand opens like a tear

& the river streams into the Gulf

where Wolfram & Beowulf

celebrate Thanksgiving (more Grail? – here).

7.16.19

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

serene enchantment

ROYAL SEAL

Springtime earth bears a secret promise

for that unknown child

somewhere, today – mild

summons of the midnight stars

foretell the coming of her Magi, too.

May burgeons toward her

flowery grand fanfare

beneath its vault (red, lilac, blue) –

a royal seal of lilac coronation;

within that dome’s one

multiocular panopticon

prophetic voices merge in exaltation –

serene enchantment of perennial life

blooming toward light itself

(O fragrant almond staff

sprouting sweetness – beyond all strife).

The infant nested in a great oak’s shade

smiles in soft seaborne air.

Ocean will prepare

her Restoration Day – as you were made

in the beginning, so shall you be again.

Shining in Paradise,

where all the rivers rise;

gemstones of blazing men & women

awakening from mind’s blindness.

Under an azure-orange arch

they sail... grail-search

fulfilled – Love’s everflowing happiness.

5.24.18

Whitsun yodeling

SHADY RIVER

Hobo goes with the flow of things,

he sinks into the green

entanglement of vine

& grape, the stream’s faint ripplings.

His logos is a Lincoln knot

scratched into driftwood

while Turtledove cooed

overhead (so reads Coyot’).

The knot binds everything, as with

her singing spine, the Argo

bound over il Mar Nero –

Noé’s noeud of adoration (myth

turned moth turned monarch seal).

Echoes from a cave

one vanished brave –

Love’s breadcrumb, who became a meal.

All come to bloom in memory...

as the canoe in the garage

scented with Micòl-image

breathes again inscript in Bassani.

A grail of dew sprinkles the summer grass

with Hobo’s oasis-gems;

yearning no one condemns

uplifted where it shall not pass –

into that monarch-realm of dark cedar

where a thrush warbles

& salt breeze marbles

lilac dusk (by Po-Boy River).

5.22.18

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

Gemstone of Paradise

NEVA-LAND

The poem is for lonely you

amidships (I-&-Thou

nailed coign to prow) –

& for that grubby neighbor too

next door (George or Georgina

with the garden hoe).

A solitary lamp-glow

lingers in the old cantina –

in William Blackstone’s study (man

who went to live with...)

– uphill, on the forest path

to Middy Wewe’s blithe fountain.

George Washington spins in his grave

to see how we behave

without a mind to save

us from ourselves.  Thee must be brave,

& true, & kind, & dedicated

to the perfect good –

that global neighborhood

that shines, wid’ green & delicate

kiwi-glow, beneath the rind

of blind & brutal night.

A callow grail-knight

stumbled on it once, near Samarkand –

spry Wolfram rings the tale – &

like an unknown soldier

leapt – O soulman Prospero! –

from here to Skye (in Neva-land).

5.20.16

Jordan is readin' Wolfram von Eschenbach. It's the 4th of July. Shucks, I mean the 5th. Bada-boom-boom - them thar is three dropsa blood in the Schweissen Schnee.