Mussolini shoals

MARBLE FACT

Long way from stones of Notre Dame.

We haven’t that feudal allegiance

to a field beyond France.

Bright poppies blister over Belgium

where conundrum of Isis in Iowa

came from.  She is, and was

mysterium of Osiris

on the Mississip – Ezra’s mirror-delta;

hard marble fact planted at West Branch

in Herbert Hoover’s memory

(who would not have taken kindly

to any meat-locker Muss avalanche).

Ezra yodeling the alpine Swiss serene

of his muse Circe Clementine

Vichy (& all the swine

she mesmerized, so spotless clean)

erasing all that history of filthy usury

& black boys handing Bibles

through the bars... Abel’s

your bro, Ez – cain’t you see?

Ah... the shudder of absurdity.

Knife-stab in Marlowe’s eye

– over the Jew of Malta,

of all things!  It cannot be.

It is.  Villon grins in your face,

King Flibberty-Gibbet.

Grimace may be safety net

for every reprobate.  O prodigal race...

5.4.19

 

find the unicorn

HUNGRY RAVEN

Fear of another is fear of death.

Instinctual reaction

to deadly situation – a

primitive contagion, or jaguar teeth.

So history’s abacus shuttles

red & black, or blue

& green... just for you,

little black-&-yellow Moth of Battles.

These stately river-cottonwoods

flare mossy banners

now; Hobo’s many spanners

choke the bridge-works.  Shaker bloods

from Puget Sound redeem themselves

with help from epileptic

shaman-chants... pep-talk

of buried elderberry souls (elves’

yodels, echoing their green on green).

The Word circles like

a hungry raven – pike

or spearmint (Mermaid Queen).

St. Louie, with his trumpet, now

brings up the nondescript

rear-guard.  The script

calls for Ezekiel, or sunflower –

Iris in the limestone cliff

curls into Unknown

Soldier.  Soddy Brown

they called him (working stiff)

                 *

whose star skims from the evening murk

anonymous Firebird

or twinkling agate-shard

in snarl of spiral Melville shark-

tooth, spouting salty balderdash

crossing the Portland bar

– whose thunder-straits are

worse than Frisco Bay mish-mash.

O the gray shade-vault of chilly Chartres!

The golden limestone cave

framed with architrave

of ancient enmity – Synagogue-martyr!

The fractal fault-line of an old polemic

circulating ossified

eddies of Johnny’s gospel

spleen... (tragic & epidemic

unintended consequences).

O the smiling Word

chants resurrection... heard

in Ramah & Ravenna, Rimini (Ez

kowtowing to voracious Rule).

Crossroad strictly abstract

for everyone – the trick’s

to find the unicorn (a holy fool

who paces like St. Francis through

the prairie steppes).  Someone

calls you... homespun

Natasha, limping toward the sun (ey yo).

4.25.17

crest of Summit Avenue

DIVERS STARS

Brune muscle-bound mansion of J.J. Hill

on the crest of Summit Avenue

surveying the valley where two

rivers join – where the railways spill

from St Paul to Seattle (Great

Northern empire, spread

with iron & steel).  O head

taskmaster, engineer, we celebrate

Twin Cities’ renaissance beneath

your wood-burnt work desk

(Richardsonian Romanesque) &

spiderweb of railroad ties (gold sheath

of Gilded Age gloaming, applied

so lovingly above

the banquet table).  Move

across the river, where they hid

Rez Cemetery on the bluffs.

There Berryman is buried

too (J.J. expired

on a May 29th).  Henry still huffs

& hovers overhead.  Clouds bank

their gray matter in shapes

like dolphins, angels... apes

ape each other, rank on rank

while divers stars shed Ocean light.

From Romanesque to Gothic

unison, one fractured brick

serves as keystone – wound tight

                 *

as Daphne or Coatlicue

rooted in broken clay

await another day

when Churnagogue stirs milky

honey   & Apollinaire

attends his Rite of Spring

uncoiling everything

like smoke from Calumet (a Bear?).

Old poison lingers in the verbal mold.

The Sack-a-Jew sad cruiser way

shone from St. Louis ‘til today –

Lewis & Clark & our New World (behold

the Old).  Shoshone shone her pilot

smile, O Sacajawea.

Solid light, our Bona Dea;

stars’ Primavera (bolting nut

arced out of nought).  She dances there

in place of sacrifice –

her graceful feet efface

the facade over the serpent’s lair;

she is the Jonah from the Ocean depths

who croons grey wavy shapes

for blind eyes   leaps

with a Nazir tambourine   & skips

a cartwheel through the broken glass

spoking a Morning Star

within that tender rose   O far

Pacific angel door   lamb-glowing Mass

3.28.17