your barbecue of fibs

WORDY COVENANT

& how could that heart-shaken man

(Jay Berryman-Osiris) dive

from a bridge, the eve

after Epiphany?  Say, Jack Ravlin –

Granddad – 3 blocks from your house?

& on your birthday?

How?  Evil holds sway

as dream molts into parody (inverse

remorse, or nightmare fallacy).

Estrangement reigns

when Minotaur maintains

the lie that makes untruth reality.

Demonic hatred be the coin of death.

The grass stuffed in the mouth

was greed gone south –

coffered Osiris longing for mere breath.

That auctioned ship, Old Ironsides –

the Constitution of a rifled

dream – must she be stifled

by unruly piracy?  The manger hides

her refugees in the hull of your ribs,

old mothership.  Your heart

where 13 adders start

is like Coatlicue – your barbecue of fibs

is just begun.  Your John Paul Jonah

swings his wordy covenant

over his head (adamant

evening, stony crossroad... hallelujah).

12.20.19

fireball parody

META-BRIDGE

October Indian summer weather;

delicate red hands

of sumac & maple pause

suspended, swing through clear air.

A white paddlewheeler like a ghost

glides upstream out of

Lethe – like a church dove

burbling an emerald paternost,

a moody coracle out of Iona.

Who is the master here,

O mini Man o’Tar?

Whose maze is this, Grandma?

Nile Voodoo Queen seeks her Osiris

at the snaky rainbow mouth; &

Henry Churnagogue steams south

to find his figurehead (Columbia’s

Joanna-genesis, out of impoverished

Franciscan waters).  These two

reflect each other – so

your spring-coiled safety net’s accomplished.

So when that fireball parody of Icarus

– no guidance system – lands

a direct hit on Ireland’s

intricate dear vessel (Ick-R-Us?

Ich bin ein Russki, then?) our meta-bridge

of bridges, our Iris beyond 

all arks, will respond –

braiding a human chain of love & courage.

10.8.19

let me orchestrate a pantomime

NUT-BRIDGE

Epileptic Dante struggling like a trapped ant

in his centaur-world

in medias res, Gould –

in RI, for example (not so pleasant).

& nothing gets better in Minneapolis

immediately, automatically

or even slowly, gradually

& verbiage without chasteness

is only noise, eh.  We all agree, eh?

IGNIS NATURA RENOVATUR INTEGRA

– fire renews nature as a

whole – spiritual telos of poetry...

So let me orchestrate a pantomime

rooted in that ancient flame

proceeding from a paradigm

of our immaculate Ariadne-dame;

the shoreline seething with desire

under a summer moon again,

& memory of lambent pain

(Ocean’s infinite suspire).

As when Hart’s Hobo settles down

at last... rolls on to sea

& stubborn ghost of MLK

becomes triform Medusa-Charon

only to deliver newborns (on

St. Christopher’s Day).

Naked Nut-bridge, say –

or eye-in-hand (almonds in Mendelssohn).

7.7.19

one Coke hand

LILAC-JOY

High fan of infant cottonwood leaves.

Their light-green spray,

pale sign of spring today.

Come late (come early May).  Cleaves

to the swollen river – spewing snowmelt,

winter flotsam, garbage.

Nature floats this mirage

of metaphors... for what the Sibyl spelt.

Your sister-dove (Jeannette-Columbia).

Shade of Beatrice –

plumb-bob Eurydice,

sounding the depths of Sheol (ephphatha).

On this day in 1775

Little Rhody broke the tie

with Mother England.  Die

is cast.  The wasps have left the hive.

Still an ineffable spider-bridge

dangles its catenary M

between two pillars.  Hymn

of Wisdom’s unbreakable pledge –

octave uniting heaven & human,

person to person – one

Coke hand, spun

to Ocean State... wide chordal span!

Your mirror of primordial Sea

(reflecting golden doors

of Baptistery) pours

lilac-joy – Love’s ripe To Be.

5.4.18

on the snow path

MOSAIC WELL

On the snow path between bridges

the sun squints beneath

clouds; twin hawks unsheath

talons, whirl over river’s edge

(aerial wrestle-dance).  Winter sky

slows the flow down,

frozen.  Last windblown

oak leaves sail the bone-dry

ground.  Yet in another age

innocent gold honey

fed the sons of Zebedee

from almond lips of Nazir-sage –

his eagle-crow, accompanied

by flutes & turtledoves.

The knot of shackled loves

in your Knossos-heart are freed

when crystalline snow-light, like salt

shines through the octagon

of your mandorla – son

& father, sister mother & daughter melt

into one mead-measure of fire

& the smile of Manitou

mirrors an arc for you –

primordial apse of Apollinaire.

Whorled vortex of the shepherd’s roam

reveals a human face

in that holy place –

mosaic well from kingdom come.

12.8.16

Rhode Island was purchased by love

RAVENNA PLAYTHING

The last of the autumn thunderstorms

crashes through town,

hail & sleet coming down.

Quick whitecaps fleck the enormous

imperturbable Mississippi flood.

Bridge-work almost done,

the sturdy crane-&-pylon

men climb the sweat-&-blood

iron stairs up to the ridge

just one more time.

Labor is no crime –

titanic force poured to the edge

so that a featherweight robin redbreast

might perch atop a flange

of international orange

and warble good, better, best

into her indigo infinity.

Good will is balance, justice,

equanimity.  Who is

the man untouched by vanity,

cupidity?  I will hold him close

in my heart’s treasury,

for he alone is free.

Not price nor money could have purchased

Rhode Island; Rhode Island was purchased

by love.  Understand, Sophie,

this ocean mystery

of your first scallop-skipping space –

                   *

the star of Rhodos-Liberty

crowned with a ring of palms

sealed with a steady calm

handshake – confirming equity.

Guide of young Roger, ancient

Canonicus – father

& son : the grace to weather

every gale of greed, any fraudulent

unknotting of their pact of peace.

They step like lambkin twins

from a kayak circumference,

an almond eye, figuring Providence;

the planetary hearth of promise

knife-beaked Raven spied

beneath his southwest glide –

Cautantowwit to cedar wilderness

like monarch checkmating to Mexico.

Primordial Ragnarok

& other nightmares lock

the curse into a seeming cul-de-sac – so

your peace which passeth understanding

like a limping child’s sun-

yellow gyroscope, must turn

upright again – Ravenna plaything,

gather us into the river dance

drowning Man’s arrogance –

evergreen presences

surfing Ocean Stream (taut spring romance).

11.28.16

something very like an H

SALIENT THREAD

In the limpid evening distance, the twin

piers of the bridge are shining

as if a smile took wing.

& something very like an H is drawn

in orange ‘gainst the azure gold –

a catenary grave

for slight Ophelia (wave

goodbye now, wrinkled Henry Gourd).

Hamlet & Laertes squabble

aching in the trench;

leaves fall... the wench

is dead.  The leaves make hibble-hobble

& the scene folds into quiet,

sea, mourning.  The ship

groans back to London.  Slip

the knot now, Everyman... knit

your soul into that oaken keel.

The ropes will fray, the mast

will break, redwood at last

keel over too... yet may this steel

needle still aim toward home, somehow.

A gibbous moon ripens

onto Jaybird’s pencil-

thin & salient thread (above, below

twine almond bears)   the crossroad sings

with joyeux Yeshua

the motes flame   Manitou

Black Elk   yahoo   the tree-bell rings

10.11.16

bronze mood of river

MAGNANIMOUS WING

The crickets’ eerie premonition.

The bronze mood of snaking

river, mirrored in

cottonwood’s heart-shaped fallen

shield.  Identity’s an equal sign

in autumn – twin banks

the Mississippi makes

to fringe the tender almonds of a span

darken toward evening, of a year.

That wavy, sooty smudge

afloat below the bridge

no raven now, but King-bird, here –

old Balder Will, majestic, serene

sailing with the wind

downstream.  You’ll find

his imago, dispersed, unseen –

scattered in brown eddies, copper jags...

the soft green lichen

of anonymous kin-

folk.  King Who-He-Who-She brags

like Pharaoh, but it’s all a masque –

autumnal Shakespeare,

smiling through the year-

dregs... tears toward Phoenix-Pasque.

Chaste vision is an equal sign.

Justice like rain – drifting

magnanimous wing

from Cosmosphere, where all things shine.

9.21.16

bald eagle in flight, reflected below bridge

What's in a sine wave ?

PALM WAVE

This milky February sun

foretells another spring.

Still far-off – winging

eyebrow-arch reflection

of a snow-blue almond bridge.

Yet near... a looming

whisper (out of Red Wing,

maybe) in your ear.  Sweet pledge

of union, set sail southward

by wattle-crane basket

to mossy reed thicket

below Delta (belle Campagnarde).

Knot-eye of Popeye raptor-

sailor, here trans-

mogrified to mildest

peahen-cockerel (Eeyore-

Sophia, high over Frisco Bay).

Equable & everpresent

omni-beneficent

orthogonal well of charity

infusing one & all (mandala-

dome, dominion’s

doom).  Everyone’s

chest de trésor – heart’s ah,

life’s oh... amended Manitou

of Man.  For me & you,

within the vernal blue

of ocean wave (palm-feather true).

2.1.16

The old poet is a tramp

FARM ROADS

                               The old poet is a tramp. 

Something there is in me that loves

this heavy railroad bridge.

Like an Osiris-ridge

of rust the gyrfalcon oar-hovers

in the antique poem by the worn-out

Beat (Muskeg Al, or Jerry

Don Teo).  So very

wistful, warbling his old trompette

marine beside the drowsy Miss...

You have to be a hobo

just a little, Jo

to know.  How mutterland is bliss.

She reaches timely tendrils now

deep through backwaters

of still memory.  Neighbors,

children... chicory, mosquitoes... O.

Evening stretching infinite

farm roads toward sunset.

& you, caught in a net

of yearning (fluttery disquiet).

She’s your Dream, old trampoline.

& I would have you meet

my own familiar fleet

amigo – invisible yet, still gone;

warm shadow, like a humming bird

who beams from evening sky.

Love is perfection (sigh).

A misty rainbow, Hobo said.

1.25.16