whispering the news

NESTED BRANCHES

When the Eternal comes, says the Rabbi,

& what does he mean?

May be the Ghost behind the scene;

the tear with grain of Ocean in your eye.

The truth is whole, the truth is one –

& what does this mean?

That Love’s criterion

is rectitude, in every human situation.

Gumilev, that Petersburg poet,

called it chaste vision –

welded like dew at dawn

to blades of grass, the spark of holy Paraclete.

The infant acorn was King of the Wood.

The leaves bent, whispering the news

through Ariadne’s arbor… (hers

the thread – her nested branches overhead).

The Rabbi is a child of God!

cried Mary Magdalen.

He dies on this occasion

since he bears the prophet’s spiral rod

twirling from heaven as from nothingness.

His smile defies your gravitation;

he will come again

after three days of stony sleepiness

like Jonah sprang from salty Milky Way;

the rule of theft & violence,

of Minotaur’s demonic fraudulence

is coming to an end.  Truth shines like day.

4.2.20

so in such straits

GOLD FLEECE

In the blank depths, at nadir of winter.

An acid stain of turpentine.

Peto’s absinthe green

in the still life; drumbeats in the mirror.

Lincoln & Kennedy… Kennedy & King.

Black silk around the photographs.

Time, summarized in epitaphs –

a rocket glare that freezes everything.

& traitors cluster in a mortis-ring

about great Yggdrasil,

composing lizard doggerel

with fangs of trumpery & sting

of fraud.  Shaping a lattice for a type

of self-enclosing anti-Christ,

whose mesmerism none resist –

Rumored Injustice To Be Smashed By Hype.

So in such straits we huddle round the mast.

No longer measure progress

by the steam pipe’s hiss

& whistle of alarms.  It’s in the past,

a memory of island buoyancy

elliptical & calm

we’ll find that palm;

amid light’s brilliance, a transparency

as if an eye looked down from azure dome

as acorn witness for an apple kingdom –

as if the citizens of heaven-home

were you & I… gold fleece of human freedom.

2.12.20

near the pin of the spoke

ALMOND BOAT

Love & harmony are the spring of song

murmured the little holm oak

near the pin of the spoke

& sanction of same, she sapped along;

so I task you, febrile Henry Hobo,

tiny A-grade acorn, flow.

So down to Gulf of Mexico

adrifted on the current, shady Penny-O

& me.  Time was an arc of aquamarine,

with cloud-ships for dreaming;

transumptive Ocean, circuiting

the galaxies, checkmating history (unseen,

almost).  Our boat was an ovoid ovum

chicken-coop (Rhode Island

Red) ruddered by hand –

she wove you liberty & welcome

for your immersive infancy of joy –

sails belling with sweet air

of solidarity & friendly care,

infinity of each one in our eye.

& Penny dreamt alongside, inside me

in the same language, dark

& light – Lady of the Ark

closer than whisper, vaster than sea.

Like Beatrice or Eurydice or Mary,

she’s Iris in her almond boat –

shimmering beyond this moat

gripped by the Minotaur, to set us free.

2.7.20

like San Francisco vertigo

PAINFUL CORNS

Henry’s inching toward the center

of his poem – bright high gyre

like William Golding’s Spire

(splintered, keening, full of ire).

In the Cathedral at Rodez, we saw

its balsa-wood replica

(like seedling, or amoeba-

virus) – Jocelyn’s vanishing awe

lifted to depths of infinite regress

like San Francisco vertigo.

Yet it shall not be so

with you.  Your realm is humbleness.

Your solar crown, a crown of thorns

your aureole a poor halo

picked up (after the show)

by crotchety vets (painful corns).

Somebody tell me where we’re going

with all this, Henry!

The acorn in an almond tree

makes not much sense; canoeing

(not a major sport in Italy) is

unlikely to resolve the fight

between the mining money’s might

& piping pioneers of wilderness

(attainted Oz).  Henry dozes

in his miniature oak tree –

a mythological Charlie...

& will he wake?  Check JB’s glozes.

6.29.19

the American dreamwork

NAVE RESTORATION

The American dreamwork seems to grow

of itself, like a vagrant

acorn’s buried descendant

branches roots into veins of air, so –

leaving yourself behind, then

as in a park playground

at dusk, all around

echoing shouts of kids having fun

within the green lamps of those trees

& the circle of daydreaming

grownups, their evening

rest emerging at last – the iron wheeze

of the swing-set beginning to mesmerize

with its creaky metronome –

& you have a premonition of home,

like a matryoshka doll of paradise

or a houseboat nested in a boathouse.

American as they don’t get?

Anonymous as a planet

without name, yet – Isis, Osiris...

A figure stands at the dream door.

They put the body there?

Now it’s not anywhere.

He gone, she gone (to tell them more).

Hobo Ulysses glides toward New Orleans,

St.-Jeanne of the Delta,

Jonah.  Coracle fella,

acorn Cap.  Nave restoration’s what it means.

5.17.19

golden autumn of the codgers

CHASTE EQUALITY

A synthesis of reality

is the poet’s quarry –

the whole serene array

sweeping like wind over the sea.

Not that irritable reaching

after fact & reason

but a subtler conviction –

life’s laughing dolphin, breaching.

So lips’ continuum of air

sustains your sea-sounding,

reverberates in rounding

surf (os-scintillating there).

The light stems from another realm.

A gravity so dense

you’re pulled beyond sense

to transcend...  Owlish Athena’s helm

shines like an emerald acorn cap

out from that wilderness

of native lovingkindness

(Williams’ mayday just a maple tap).

The Ocean State is what we seek.

The Providence of Roger-

Seeker... golden codger

settled in his freedom, meek

and bold.  Like admirable Edward

Coke, who founded

justice vs. his confounded

king – a chaste equality (rood-hoard).

11.1.18

the axis of the earth

ACORN-DHOU

The river moving through the cottonwoods

inspires Hobo-composer

to exceed his Oeuvre

Clumpy-Cloddy in the key of C.  Buds

trace their roots down limestone crevices

to seek that cave-lake

where dark streams make

ripples in a mirror-image (Beatrice’s

triune goddess?) in a palimpsest

of light reflections.  Mother,

lover, friend... your sister-

dove.  Affectionate witness –

Akhmatova’s golub-golubyanka

(an undertone beneath

the granite banks).  The wreath

Natasha flung into Fontanka –

today an angel, tomorrow only a worm

in the grave... only a promise.

Mary, in her distress,

beholds the gardener beside the tomb.

Hobo digs deeper, down his own

dream-channel.  Almond

eyes... the veil of Isis

in West Branch... curtains for Henry’s own

Clover, in Washington (where Adam delved

while Eve spun vortex-grief).

Vertigo in high relief

on Henry’s charcoal Chartres – shelved

Synagogue laid low, below Ecclesia –

belies a Nazarene concord

older than Byzantine crossword

shaded by almond-Hebrew Bona Dea.

Keep digging then, my clod.  You’ll find

the key, within a boxwood box

where lies a bunch of keys.

A black Egyptian Queequeg pine-

box, layered with tattoos

of hero-griffins – figures

of hexagonal stars

that shine like golden bees... Who’s

                    *

there?  Out of the mirror-wars

of courtly kangaroos,

through shady fig trees

shines her diamond Southern Cross –

the double trinity of Black Elk’s

six-way sign.  An acorn

emerald, lightly borne

as crown of Restoration Day : melek’s

JFK : Zion’s Nazir out of Galilee;

spume-signal from an Ocean

State – whale-oil ensign,

anointed Son... clé-figured Charity.

That old medieval Paris of Villon.

Pigments of blood, limestone

& sky.  Stained-glass zone

of intellectual Aquinas-light – reason

& faith cross-braided, interwoven

in the jewel-box of Suger,

in the emerald sepulcher

of Wolfram’s wayfaring communion-

wafer.  Omnipresent grail

of equal daughters, equal

sons... Love’s universal

sea-supremacy – each heart’s high sail.

So the rod of Aaron blossomed

over Nile sandbanks,

& a bronze serpent yanks

all eyes to Hobo’s Bottomland

Jonah.  Out of that Okie Okean,

out of that Osage eagle’s

den, your clay-born angels

rise to foot their river-span –

a bridge of International Orange

pillared like Jachin, Boaz

in wisdom’s corny maze

of adamantine joy.  So rich & strange!

Whispered by the Sybil through

these gold oak leaves,

for everyone who grieves.

A comfortable acorn-dhou

                   *

down Nile, or Mississippi, weaves

her zigzag victor-wake;

from Jordan to Lake

Galilee, her circle rings the sheaves.

7.20.18

rolling logos contest

SWAMP SEASON

Like the 1001 Nights, or a man

facing a firing squad

who just keeps talking (odd

bird – Cassandra in a coal mine,

prophet without honor) so

I go on.  Smoking

bloody forest of broken

ships – keening keel of Argo...

who can lift the great acorn

model Constitution?

Strong whiff of glue,

my son.  The safety net is gone.

Impalement of the nations

on Stalagmite 17.

Thin poets bleed between

the cracks in their creations.

Somehow the acorn is a lightweight

coracle.  Behold an order

older than disorder –

Aurora Borealis, lifting slate

steps up to bonfire (Milky Way).

Your molten magnanimity

from nothingness – to be...

becomes a Minotaur’s nightmare (hey

yo).  The absence of a Someone,

croaks Crow (Solomon

anti-authoritarian) –

presence of a maze (swamp season).

4.26.18

it hovers outside

FATAL SALIENCE

Hobo mumbles along the riverbank

as October air grows cool

& clear.  The leaves, old fool,

the leavings... swift canoes, that sank

like royal palms into an azure sky,

into a fiery wheel

of oven-clay.  A seal

baked into bright red wax... on our way

to London, Guildenstern.  Or to

Verona, Ferrara...

mirrors of Ravenna

(fatal salience, Ursiana’s woe).

Surrounded by wolf-raven, Juliet.

You dance the sacrifice

like unto death (Paris

1913) – knifed in the clammy sweat

of granite vault, the stony silence

of the lie – artillery

deployed (ply over ply).

& does she live or die?  Hence,

Hobo-Romeo – you’ll roam

like Orpheus in hell,

sleepwalk a frozen spell

(so buried man goes skipping home,

strange hierophant).  Ineffable

grey granary of wisdom,

Ursiana’s 8-pt. dome

gathered to a grain of sable

                  *

sand... one little grain of sand.

As in articulate horsehair-

dream of Leonardo, air

figures crystal acorn – understand,

it hovers outside everything, & so

transmits clear folds

of Salvator’s bold

Nazir-songe.  Swing low,

sweet chariot... ray forth your fire

out of an almond eye

blazing   you shall not die

with gallant measure to inspire

the rooster of the Earth to crow

like Voronezh raven, or

like Vitruvian Man

from center of the Earth grow

feathers   coppery feathers   Ferrarese

Veronese  hazy

morris-dancing   mazy

corn mandala   limping   A-Z

sweet librarian   Natasha

or Nadezhda   sister-doves

swelling   dawn alcoves

of spring   primordial   selah

in the mandorla   of the casket-

womb   you must be borne

aloft   grey   Valentine

your sepulchre   1132   (kismet)

10.23.17

in the whisper gallery

BROKEN SHELLS

My mater’s feet, that spun the heavy

wheel of Red Wing clay

dancing with gravity

to shape a starfish gaiety

for these galactic lunch plates, pink

& blue & white... her Ravlin

hands (out of that Iowan

earth Quaker Negus trunk)

were muddy with the garden soil

of Minneapolis-

St. Paul... O this

most plain midwestern gopher hole!

The soul stages a circus act

of spacy time, perchance –

her gyroscopic balance

tops an unknown Planet X, in fact

& dream.  Mary’s crafty fingers

rhymed those blue-&-white

starbeams with one fleet

bathtub tug... her name lingers

in flame & memory (Sophie).

Like Firebird in the Russian

symphony, my swan-

boat swallowed up Eternity

consumed by cigarette-smoke blaze

in Petersburg poet’s

birdnest (Elena Shvarts) –

pipestoned into a purple haze.

                   *

I pace your clay circumference

in sleep.  My blind alley

or whisper gallery

is domed – an acorn’s happiness

or Okie’s California – inward

mother-of-pearl, bent

parallactic as a mint

wrapper... green mirror-bird

soaring from rusty copper frame

into the theatre of sky.

Your crossroad, ply on ply

flexed on sine-wave of Ever-Same

& in the dust of the Ecclesiast

of human brokenness

inherited faiblesse

& all the suffering, from East to West

one mighty spindly tree, one pine

of cloudy poetry

swirls, fiddlehead – sea?

Transmodulation of the sign,

en face!  To pivot on the least

of these... gray wing

of Jonah, mutely lifting

from the broken shells... the Beast

stung by remorse (Guillem d’Orange)

– stick figure of the Son of Man

familiar, somehow – someone

you must have met, somewhere... étrange!

1.18.17

tomorrow another American vote

ANOTHER JONAH

A solitary bald eagle, by the shore

of Shady Oak Lake

surveys us as we take

a warm November walk, where

kids went splashing 50 years ago.

28 young men,

adored by one young woman

from her lonesome Whitman window...

Tomorrow another American vote.

Steeped in the mud of Brown

Decades, Walter was known

for sharp talons, a monitory note.

Writhing oaks & the dark river

seem to conspire toward

iron & blood – another Ford

Theatre, in Dallas, forever & ever.

Apollinaire, after the war,

released one thin smoke-

column (a silver rook-

feather) toward North Star.

He mocked up Brooklyn fancy-flights

for Walter’s funeral – Walt,

who traveled (trusty salt)

to Baltimore, for Poe’s last rites.

Eureka! I have found her – Psyche,

with her agate lamp.

She climbs out of the damp

stream like a Jonah from Milwaukee

                       *

lifting her mossy torch, sweet Liberty.

The copper sunrays circling

her brow are reinforcing

for the mind’s soul freedom – see!

A ring of sparks around her tall room

spoke the wheel of Union

to the local Human –

truth & justice, woven on a loom

of reciprocity (affectionate

acknowledgement of friend

& neighbor, refugee &

stranger).  Dear Walt, I tip my hat!

The Rio slips across her limestone floor.

Time’s womb, an acorn shell,

spirals an eddy-swell –

an infant turtle at creation’s door.

Gold flecks the curve of smiling threads

anchored on air... your grave

ghost dance, your wave

on wave of feathered blues & reds,

whitecaps – flashing bright angles

through a raptor’s eye.

A raven dawdles in the sky.

Night battles echo – blindness mangles

hope with sour hatreds, fear...

& yet grey-eyed Columbia

may draw another Jonah

gasping from the deep – lift clear.

11.7.16

the flicker of a flicker

SHADY IMAGO

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of a raven overhead

with the sun in his beak – dead

noon in Jerusalem – I will fear no

evil.  The rabid orangutan

with his orange comb

trumpets drastic doom

for milky stars – the Black Son

of Memphis & his Romany

Hobos (a gospel band)

– he doesn’t understand

the music.  Where‘s the harmony?

Under a ruin of reconstruction,

the rusty copper scaffold

of jealousy (green mold)

they glimpsed a revelation

of plain limestone floor – the sepulchre

where Jesus lies in state,

briefly (before the great

grey wings translate to their obscure

futurity).  Along a Mississippi

sedimentary ridge, I spied

the quick white-gold

Ionian flicker of a flicker (underbelly

lambsdown curvature aloft)...

Io?  from Iowa?

Some swift sky-cow

out of Abyssinian abyss?  Soft...

                    *

I hear her owl’s wing whisper

through the silence.  Nut-

brown acorn chariot,

a whorl of grey cloud-matière...

Gödel’s self-interference, weft

of Maximus bard-

beard (sun tangled

with midnight, O infinitely deft

monarch)... Apollinaire in blue

kepi (the unknown soldier

waiting out the end of war)...

twin silver doves that mirror you

upon a double door from Mexico.

O Guadalupe – heart-

encrypted grail-casket –

cedar & cypress womb-Argo

whose planet is moss-green tomorrow –

bend down to sister Psyche

now, unknot my

Tauromachia; Raven’s shady Imago

unfolds a lantern crown of light.

Out of the cthonic hills

of frightened, haunted wills

a laughing stream called Make-It-Right

(the Minnehaha of the minnow tar)

floats Moses-coracle

to Dawn (original

lodestone – morning North Star).

11.4.16

Mosey up the Nile

WAVY CUPOLA

The child in her acorn coracle

moseys up the Nile

flashing her light smile

every which way (infant oracle);

when you least expect, she’ll plant

her seedling joy – OK,

everything’s hunky-dory

now – with a fiddlehead stunt,

twirling up in a spiral over

empty space (green

island in the brain,

green almond, 4-leaf clover).

The red-gray desert stone

harbored an agate

lamp – uplifted late

into the night (sweet Psyche-zone);

under a wavy cupola of bark

a tepee-tripod braced

the buoyant mandorla...

O Hobo-Rube, not earthquake

nor volcano can displace

your cheery pine-lantern

whose handy facets perne

around one holm oak – chase

the quick naiad now, into the wood!

She cartwheels up ahead –

one skipping emerald,

one glancing Ariadne-tread.

11.3.16

Path P in six directions

ROSE CIRCLET

The immeasurable quiddity

of a point in spacetime.

An icon turns on a dime

flashing silver corona (so free)

– as green almond eyes shine

with smiles of recognition

a beloved face is one

whole star – 4-dimensional mine-

shaft to the planetary helm

or meteoric stone

no one can own

coming down from sea-grey realm

of milk & honey (Northern Lights

a mirror for a horn

of plenty).  So being born

thus, river-clay triangulates

Path P in six directions

diamond octahedron

finished in the sun

like plates my mother hexagons –

weathered oak-leaf hands (brown

in the round, rolled

out of clay, from old

dishevelments of tumble-down

autumn).  & where the tree-rings

circulate the marrow

spacetime’s arrow

coils into chestnut Sphinx

                  *

whose crumbled wine one drinks

out of the Nile-delta –

steps northeast  selah

toward the dome (when nobody thinks

one will) resembling a bronze acorn

of evergreen holm oak.

One ruddy spoke

upon a node of blinding sunshine –

ice-hewn clarity of Everyhon

beside the glowing hearth

of agape – the earth

in equilibrium – Son

& Father & the Holy Ghost

waltzing a crane-dance

to the drone of Magdalen’s

accordion (hale Mary’s host)...

& once the orgulous organ’s

dismantled, & the light

flows through violet

rose circlet (there in Jacqueline’s

seatown) – a naiad will emerge,

a sundance figure (on

the prow of Lincoln’s own

logos).  Sophie her demiurge,

love-waves her rite – La Paix

or Buffalo Woman,

Morning Star... pine-

green majestic Liberté.

10.19.16

Minneapolis in purple light

UNIVERSAL AUTUMN

Beatrice at the vanishing point

or Juliet on the bridge

mark infinite edge

to Alighieri goat-trails (figure 8).

The leaves of universal autumn

rain like parchment tears

from planetary spheres

& sea-grey eyes (too close to home)

to say goodbye, to wander streets

vacant & desolate

& drift   (disconsolate

refugee)   where only fleets

of shadows meet   (lonely nightmare)

& still the yearning heavens

wheel   manna leavens

their deep imperturbable desire

rooted in unfathomable joy

– Eternity, O Eternity!

he crowed (with penny-

whistle, raven-quill) – meek Roy

nestled in evergreen holm oak

like Ariadne’s emerald

corona... like straw-gold

Acorn Maid, among the little folk.

The drowsy King of Love bowed

his trompette marine –

umbilical fountain

of spiral clay (Galilean mode).

10.7.16

another blast from the Oak of Phenoque

CROWBAR TORCH

The poem might be a superconductor,

its topology so homespun,

threadbare, cold & thin –

a 1-dimensional egg-beater

jamming a needle’s eye in Denmark,

or Verona.  The capstan

spools the whole yawning

span – the wheel is made of holm oak,

evergreen & ancient, holy.

Argo is her name;

a million eyes flame

round her oaken rim, & Ariadne

anchors her from Ocean floor –

her catenary line

loops gracefully, from spine

of cedar mast to dark-green shore.

The old exotic matter of Bretagne

sleeps in her sybil’s leaves;

the lovelorn wind that grieves

through Dante’s cedars in Ravenna

carry G’ma’s freighter Gospel, too –

from Cape Ann out to Frisco

through the Gulf of Mexico.

Jessie, Ophelia... tarragon, rue...

her sleepy spells rise from the clay

& spin toward constellations

full of Okie calibrations –

a rain of acorns hits the hay

                   *

where long-abandoned train stations

sink back into the prairie

& a grey turtle (airy,

airiest) flew fluting through the nation’s

backwaters.  The love that moves

the Son & the moth-stars

goes raying through a potter’s

helm, the way an LP grooves

(Columbia).  Her ire will not last

forever – no, Iona

&/or Iowa have shown a

willingness to rise from lead ballast;

Do-Well, Do-Better & Do-Best

have joined hands in a wing –

a simple pleasant wedding,

thistle-burred (give red & blue a rest).

A century ago, the Meuse-Argonne

became a charnel house.

Grandpa Edward S.

was there, & shipped home (lucky one)...

– are Guillem’s muses all gone now?

An airplane lifts from Eiffel

to New York – the spell

takes hold – Liberty lifts her crow-

bar torch – ignites like acorn

from galactic hearth...

summons magnetic North...

O steadfast keel, O evergreen horn!

10.5.16