in cedar spring

SMALL STONE

Hobo sauntering by the mother-river

with a pebble in his shoe

small stone, toe-to-toe

just for you, forever & ever.

It’s the mystery of history, he says

the authority of the source

headwaters, of course

Veritas caput.  & so his voice

goes modulated with the flow from there

as the sound wave of a whale

goes through a wave, to hell

& back – using echolocation (your

submarine eye, Osiris-sailor).

As the cathedral-builder

put her name in the floor

at the center of the maze, Jair –

that’s where you’ll find her grey-

winged agate (like minnow

in Rio del Espiritu Santo)

making the sign of a spiral J;

like a whisper out of the heart of silence

or out of Ocean River

circling round you forever

with those winking lights, intelligence

of love... because what was human & personal

is as close as your shadow

& adores creation – El Shaddai

in cedar spring (simple, loving, powerful)

5.18.19

O more than moon, draw not up seas...

CALM VOICE

Hobo sleeps in his Isis-canoe.

On the ridge, Henry

drove toward glory –

the poet’s reward.  Onward he flew.

Hobo touches the clay.  Something

cold, slimy – snakeskin,

maybe?  Sly, hidden

from sun.  Sets him shivering.

In his dream, Henry burns &

sings, from the center

of the galaxy – where her

lightning strikes (almond-black, blinding).

From the center of the universe

comes her calm voice –

from immortal Paradise

showing a bloom (her smiling face).

There’s only one authority

in heaven & earth.

A high prow gives berth

to truth – judge of humanity.

Not these automatons from hell

who crush with violence,

deracinated malice

frozen in each nation-shell...

they’ve lost their souls, each one.

Hobo listened, entranced.

It’s Henry’s Providence –

it’s Liberty, risen from deep Ocean.

11.23.18

Greyhound to Galilee

SWEET CHARIOT

You rode the midnight Greyhound

through American backwaters.

Past hobo squatters

inside their high lonesome vault (profound

infinite firefly field).  No one

forgets their bent magnetic

North, your epileptic

adolescence (endlessness).  The sun,

the moon, the Pope, the Emperor...

some bright Hiawatha rider,

beaming father-figure –

Federigo in Jerusalem, hugging an Emir...

History slides by on billboards,

Burma-Shave proverbs.

The Greyhound hums, curves

down Vanishing Road – the Lord’s

a baby buffalo.  Around the track

the sprinters skim – a blear

of fog machines, the air

nine tenebrae.  One shady (humpback)

tesseract glides into Galilee –

Gödel infinity

or Miriam smile (she

saw her tall cousin suggest a V);

the mirror of authority

in heaven & on earth

wells supernatural mirth –

sweet chariot of Lady Liberty.

8.11.16

Delirium tremendum

LOVE’S KEY

The heavy water of Ezra Pound

subsuming the human tale

to his querulous high-pitch creel,

transmuted suddenly into profound

perilous melody.  The charismatic

author, shaken by acidic

lye.  Rattled to quick

bones – John Berryman at sick

bay (delirium tremendum, guy)

shriven to the marrow.

The prof who would harrow

Hell must round up his own high

insolence.  But personality,

like poetry, is excess

on the History Express –

a bit gratuitous (to a degree);

won’t fold logically into place

aboard the freight car

of any village explainer.

She’s obstinate.  You’re a disgrace.

Whence cometh all authority?

Thrones crumble, powers

tremble – the hour’s

getting late.  Some mild futurity

yodels an octave through a vise...

the bird’s a turtledove.

Love’s key to the sky-trove –

exalting the low, humbling the wise.

3.28.16

Ed Dorn's hyperbolic version of previous comment:

To a poet all authority
except his own
is an expression of Evil
and it is all external authority
that he expiates
this is the culmination of his traits.