at edge of Gulf, at Mardi Gras

MUSTARD TEAR

So ancient Carnival-time creaks around

Hobo, at winter’s nadir –

up & down the copper

serpent-river, ice to Gulf, from underground.

Seigneur Latrobe & son (masonic

architects) glide on

into their slanted lichen

tombs, below the levee.  Chronic

exploitations, born of lordly guile

condemn brother & sister

to the poorhouse – maybe

forever (never God’s will).  Meanwhile

Mardi Gras Indians from Cajun swamps

tiptoe, sauntering in beads &

feathers, vaunting weeds

beside Big Muddy… spin their vamps,

magnanimous & happy-go-lucky!

As Frazer phrased it once,

the Oak-King was dunce

for a day, scapegoat – to bind three

realms, to decorate the grim

reality of king-dom

(manacled to thrum

of male plumage, sly rhythm

of greed).  Meanwhile us tramps lie in our camps

the ciphered segregation

of a riven nation –

the politic paralysis of frozen clamps

                *

unbroken for a generation

yoking partisans

of limited taxation

with particles of airy explanation.

Yet lo, Hobo! the sleepy sleepwalker

still reigns under the rain…

King Virbius in blue vervain,

Osiris-man of verby us (dumb talker)!

One lone mustard tear of Isis

flowing down the dream;

knit-wit of Union, seam-

by-seam… Columbia, thy hum he is!

& out of one immense unspoken heart

on its wheel of suffering

flies this foam… a sparkling

shield of steely martyrdom – cart

of churl & Charlemagne, Big Bear,

Charles’ Wain – iron hinge

of Milky Way!  Melange

of pipesmoke sacrificial princes, there!

Martin, & Jack, & Abraham…

William & James… lights

winking from Astraea’s height –

sea-foam & flotsam of the cosmic Lamb!

At the edge of the Gulf, at Mardi Gras

Hobo floats to sea, to see…

out of wrath & misery

lamps of justice, liberty – her wings, Noah!

2.23.20

sketch by Benjamin Latrobe

snowflakes on Presidents' Day

SPLINTER-WORD

George III was buried yesterday

200 years ago.

The mad King Bluster-Tyro

pressed New England into granite liberty.

Ceremonies of the royal tomb

reverberate across a nation

scarred by assassination.

Abraham, Jack… William, Jim…

framed by wide wings of Martin

(& Bobby too).  They stand

elongate, with palm frond –

archangels in a nave-cavern

of fluted oaks.  Stone tears well

from republican cenotaphs

when that Ant-Leader laughs

who foments red-black wars (from home

to hell).  So long waves coalesce

magnificent Pharaoh & Osiris

in theopolitical impasse

with alien slave throngs – witness

the fissure of Red Sea by their God!

Tyrant & people, king

& kin… a knotty kenning;

Agnes Martin might trace a grid

to simplify ratios of power & myth.

A single snowflake amid crows

of winter, in the beginning was

the splinter-word.  Her spark was in the pith.

2.17.20

one copper penny

MAGENTA DUSK

Airless stasis of the Brown Decades.

Peto’s trompe l’oeuil.

Abe’s wound is mortal.

Funeral train; black silk parades.

One copper penny glimmers in a well,

grown moss-green.  Imago

for suffering servant... halo

of ineffable good will.  Don’t break the spell.

Was it for nought this Man of Sorrows

took upon his shoulders

our hellfire – that smolders

while his penny ransoms all tomorrows?

Even Old Abe was an infant once.

Loafing on a ship

of milk & honey, lip

curving over smiling waves... a trance

of Promised Land, a river’s dream.

So Henry’s, Hobo’s path

folds under wrath –

collapses bridges into earthquake seam.

Reminiscences of 1865.

An absinthe memory

of rancid statuary

cluttering the dead wasps’ hive.

Disconsolate, they ramble riverbanks –

until the last light breaks

the sky into rose lakes,

magenta dusk.  Let us give thanks.

2.12.19

the rubles flow from here to there

SAND UNDERFOOT

A mouse ran across a bridge

one winter, in Leningrad –

his name was little Vlad.

He had a key, which was his badge.

He wanted to be Czar one day.

It made things easier.

When life got crazier

he took control – things were okay.

The rubles flow from here to there

in pockets of his underwear –

he makes a face, to scare

the other wolves (the sheep won’t dare).

He liquidated people in the way.

It wasn’t always easy...

Scotland Yard (like Stasi)

fingerpoints (Polonium 1-A).

The light flutes in another realm –

coral reef of seraphim

& monks on mountain rim

(Kievan polyphonic Argo-helm).

A scattershot of goldfinch tunes

or chords of Marian

sis-diva Anderson

lift off cimetière dunes

Pushkin or Berryman would know.

Sparse salty grass.

Sand underfoot, hélas.

A Black Sea seething, as of long ago.

8.28.18

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination.

(Posted this before, I know. Here goes again. Riddle for bloggies - who, in part, does PG refer to? Clues in 2nd stanza. Anyone hazard a guess?)

 44

  
 Interesting.  A black cub in a saltcellar
 might have to do with a J2 rainbow
 coalescence.  Where you go, I will go,
 Daddy-o – through the mirror –

  
 but what's it all for?  A warm
 swarm of pinks huddle together
 by a pile of boots and nails there.
 A nation in a car.  Some form

  
 of cartoon coronation.  Sloppy
 jalopy of jello pie suspended up
 for an anchor.  PG his marked-
 own pine tree.  See what I see?

  
 Chilled or gelled half of an ironing
 jenny on the bottom of Big Muddy
 – because fate dealt a delta hand
 a dandy way-off Chinese rune for

  
 dying.  This number's upside down
 and skewed sideways (pretty darn
 rigorous, Mort) on a purple Lincoln
 out of Mars, with 44 plates of blown

  
 lizard-lady luck.  Drove by today
 while everybody died inside.  Time
 stop broke Sin chain stop cried.
 Finish your 2 x 4 calf pie?  Eh,

  
 son?  Walk it slow now, Abe.
 Isaac in the sack, the lamb
 lookin askance... Mick, Sam,
 Clem, and that other one – Gabe –

  
 in the wings... hold it right there.
 Close your eyes now.  Silver Bullet
 (marvelous red racehorse) set
 her seal on him, Dad.  Let him go free.

     
                         4.27.99