its talons are for real

RAPTOR-SEAL

We moved through a smog thicker than coal-dust

filled with angry cries.

I couldn’t recognize

my guide, only her humming through a gust

of wind.  The moon was a copper disk

printed faintly rust-green

over that desolation –

like a hovering fingerprint, a mask

for Queequeg, Abraham – a penny

for Liberty, glinting

from the dark well (hinting

freedom, good will, where there wasn’t any).

A doubloon for Mammon flickered so

below shrouds of the Pequod –

many an aching tattoo would

echo in blood that talent for woe.

Marine Corps taps (trompette marine).

Memory shapes emblems

like coral wreaths... drums

weave light fleece mandala, copper green

& gold.  Like an iron spring wound

taut into infinity,

one Mendelssohn memory

emerges from my swampy ground –

the ancient plow we found, Heidi

& dragged back home together

through April weather

(iris blooming like a peacock’s eye

                    *

out of dead bulbs that never die).

The tarnished metallurgy

Iron Age surgery

some Raven-shaman shall (with high

& fluting Light Warlpiri) bring

might lift our eyes again

to one galactic common

wheel, that voices in Ark-Argo sing –

Hagia Sophias in Yezidi throng

to harmonize their peacock

tongues, & nations flock

to chime each footnote of a brazen gong.

The Word flies backward so, before Babel.

Its talons (like a raptor-

seal of olive-arrows) are

for real – to carry us from Hell

to Paradise, fledged by free will;

its almond eye (above

the pyramid) is Love –

forever fair & kind & true, until

the splendor of infant Creation

shines like Sacajawea

from green Equadoria –

justice & liberty combine

in meek Franciscan poverty

to weld the planetary

flora into Primavera

sunlight-gold... bright solidarity.

3.21.17 

Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 3.21.17

among four pines

ABSOLUTE ZERO

The grey coal cars thunder slowly

over the rust-orange bridge

again.  & I pledge

allegiance to their gravity,

to the stern trumpet of the train horn

as they go.  Down the street

Grandpa’s brick Paraclete

among four pines awaits the morn

(birthday, today).  That carpenter’s

clear eye – a level’s bubble –

gazes out (chaste, equable)

into the turbulence of Zoroaster’s

Peacock Star (Yezidi refugee).

& ours.  A world of tears.

Absolute zero sears

the riverbanks.  The Mississippi

plunges under ice.  The dead of winter

sleep in Resurrection

Cemetery – Berryman,

Henry... each petrified splinter.

Massed in the clouds, a stone mizzen.

From profound Black Sea

she strains so steadily

toward me... a limpid sail, a friend.

Is she life, or death?  Her vault

is mourning.  Yet her smile

is joy – raven diagonal

coursing toward dawn (where Magi halt).

1.6.17 

Natasha Stempel, Voronezh(?) ca. 1936

in Aleppo

COMPLACENT WEATHER

A green kid from Appalachia

gone to fight in Fallujah

– someone explain?  Aya,

Babylon!  O generations!  A

late-night flashback (this time

not a war zone) – the stone

cave, the Mezzo-Eon...

the wooden man (half-lamb,

half-king) splayed on an axle

of Lebanon cedar.

Adam, 2nd mate (bare).

In Aleppo, the shells relax

theological distinctions

(strange how disaster

nets cousins together in

dense swallow-clouds).  Sons

remember their angry fathers

in another atmosphere –

benign, complacent weather,

a constant world.  Who bothers

to refit owlish waste places?

Earth presses toward

obstructed Adam, stymied

Eve – each watchful heart races

to reach Yezidi Paradise

(jade Peacock Angel,

over the next hill

from Sheol).  Sol breaks the ice.

6.11.16

 

Zoroastrians

Another sort of topical poem.  I'm on a Ravenna Diagram allegorical roll.  You, cher lecteur, are meant to look beneath the surface, as well as surf the surface.  For example : "prose Popeye" is a pun for the Greek rhetorical term prosopopeia.  A very old thing in poetry... in culture generally.  "Personification."  Archaic, prehistoric, in fact.  You put on a mask (persona) in order to represent something very hard to picture.  An absent Presence.  So the idea here is that fanaticism has a very weak or corrupted "picture" of the Good, the Divine, the Holy, the Person.  So they attack ancient religions they know nothing about.  ISIS, for example (so ironically, the ancient Egyptian goddess...).  What is your "picture" of God?  We are all imperfect, many of us suffering from various mental distortions... so this might affect the image in our minds.  I think of Jesus in the Gospels saying "You must become as little children to enter the kingdom of God.  For these little ones always behold the face of their Father who is in heaven..."  Think of the adoration of children for the image of that which they need & love.  This is a psychological insight, you might say... to which my silly "prose Popeye" is pointing.

SAILOR-SKETCH

O big zebra-striped cicada

with the Air Force wings

found adrift this morning

in Sophie’s baby-purple wading

pool – can I identify with you?

Or maybe only your husk

was left behind.  Ask

Jonah in his whale, or Zarathustra

in his Cyrus-shade (serene

weatherman).  Inquire

of the Yezidi-martyrs

on their mountain.  Savage scene

of human inhumanity

today.  The mimic-men

love Mickey Mouse – then

spool to hate such levity;

they kill what they deny (themselves)

persecuting poor Me

in the name of purity –

pure folly (petty peevish dwarves).

I’ll circulate the prose Popeye

instead.  A sailor-sketch

of Pappy in his ketch

(the Pope, perhaps?).  Only the sigh

of Peacock Angel – delicate thread,

goldfinch trompette marine...

yet you sense what I mean :

bright Joan – ah! – surfing from the dead.

8.12.14

A Game of Chess

MACAU MACAW

Another eleventh (August this time)

on brick-silly wasteland of

one shady summer patio.  Well

of hurry-up peas... bee-balm...

Joe-Pye weed... & yet this elfin

flower-team backyard

is not exempt.  The hard

news (frenzied shrunken headlines)

bearbaits me too.  From River Alph

to Yezidi desert, innocent

Peacock Angels get bent

down again.  The gibbering gulf

twixt glib libel & Guelf remains kiln-set

in demosthenic night.  Rainbows

of violets against violence? – how

coin bowl for Guinea-worm alphabet?

Sketches of Spain... Spanish Castle

Magic.  Convivial Jorge

the Gardenia been draggin’

me, all over.  Plays chess, too.

Iris, sez I, is a yurt-mother.

King’s taken baby steps

between crooks, bishops...

Q’s unreadable.  & here’s another

pawn to put in (yawning spacesuit).

A pair of carpenter asps

of the caduceus, Jasper –

dove from the deep.  Shalom (checkmate).

8.11.14