rivers keep on rolling

BRIGHT SALT

A clear day toward Thanksgiving.

Light on slight mantling

of snow, along the slanting

Mississippi (wave of returning

gravity into the mouth, the Gulf).

There is a magnet

in the heights, a great

Pole Star, that rotates over Beowulf,

Black Elk; there is a matrix point

for all our muttering,

for crazy flotsam drifting

to the sea... a limestone font.

A child climbed from a light-lapped cave

along a spiral trail –

a thread from beryl-burial

to emerald grail (one sea-swell wave).

Beneath grey-wingèd clouds she rose,

called forth by whisper-smoke

of Earth’s holm-oak.

Her name is Imago, her echo flows

into the planetary sarabande –

stately processional

(spring, summer, fall)

to Morning Star, at seasons’ end.

Her name is Liberty, she rides the prow

of every soul – bright salt

of gaiety – the glistening vault

of Ariadne’s crown gracing her brow.

11.21.16

crumbs beside the Po

SERPENT-ROOT

The life that spirals from the sea-cave

like a serpent-root, a curious

labyrinth etched across

the limestone of a vaulted nave –

the dappled sparkling of infant

river-wavelets.  Mud-brown

vortex of an unknown

casket – Easter-packet – font

of raven-crumbs, beside the Po.

Or Ishmael’s hieroglyph –

inverted fisher-skiff

of pregnant galaxy below

afloat now, circling – a living hand,

an arm, forehead, eyebrow...

emergent tar minnow –

Tad Pole, or Polly Wag, some sand-

borne seaweed driftwood Jane...

Christa on crossties, or

IONAH (in Paradise).  Your

Queequeg is a queer cuss, man,

but OK – floats all right – can even

swim.  His Ariadne-

boles are capillary –

vein his bones into a crown

of 50 stars (for Jubilee).

The echo-cave is empty...

only Eureka!  She

has found him! crows (from sea to sea).

10.6.16

he was no Big Fish

SWEET CORDELIA

Like a Showy Ladyslipper in the woods

unseen by all except

chipmunks (scrabbling adept

through silent clerestories of dead

cedars) Hobo strayed, from Ursus

Major to St. Apollinaire;

he was no Big Fish, barely

a minnow Star du Nord (Jesus

his seine-maître, toiling away

upstream).  America

steamed on, formica-

sleek, pregnant with Labor Day

& White-Tailed Rabbit & Polar Bear

looked on, from cell blocks

melting in the superflux.

The Man of Concrete was no longer there

(he’d cried himself to sleep).  Henry

by a berried Berryman

stood by, his Resurrection

Plot cartooned in St. Paul snow (flaky);

apathetic Oblomov, at the gazebo

spied Olga in the distance –

wading through native plants

like sweet Cordelia coming to rescue

jet-bagged Lear.  Earth dangled

from one silver hair,

suspended over the bear-

cave (striped with blood, star-bangled).

9.7.16

"Pinecone", by Marcia McEachron

convex grassland cave-complex

PINK TUGBOAT

I retrace my steps again

along the River Road

past Granddad’s solid old

brick fortress.  A trumpet vine

shines orange & green, climbing

a mud-brown corner into

August light.  I’ll go

down to that riverbank now, rhyming

with Nile & Jordan, Voronezh, Po –

a stream that crosses borders,

winding atlatl corridors

so sinuous & serpentine, into

the gray matière, the mutter-mouth...

sea-grotto of an Ocean

State (salt origin

of shanty-song).  From north to south

diagonal, my yellow gyroscope

leans, vaulting on thread

from Gate of the Dead

(whose soft, dense orange-&-azure rope-

ladder lifts up the gravity of stolid

steel & staggered stone)

to Magdalenian

interior... & cartwheels there – Bride

of convex grassland cave-complex –

Cahokia coyote-

gal, whose Galilee

glee-zone (primordial) sketches a hex-

                  *

agon – galactic rumble-stir

of light-warp milky skein

or reign of windy Wayne,

pouring a Who-He? mirror-

ray into the rainbow trine

of spray-tossed clement

Clementine.  Cement

shoes will not keep her in the brine

of Poseidon forever – see her shadow

stride the surface now!

With pink tugboat in tow

paintered to Ariadne’s golden bow

– refracted ball of lambswool, bent

through Roger Williams’ granite

lintel – Dante’s bright

brooder-line.  The Great Commandment

coming down from Manitou

like light... it is

not liable to conquest –

conscience is free, a gift to you

who seek for Me.  A wheeling sword

glinted above a garden;

a ring of apple trees, hidden

in shade of Sant’Apollinaire.  Word

melody   green hummingbird vine

Guillaume’s trompette marine

a secret acorn   Queen

of Royal Oak   (she is a 5   & 29)

8.17.16

Center of the earth

COCOON-SHADE

We were scrambling through an endless cave,

Mark Trail & I, in the

cartoon – wait – uh...

that was a dream!  Mind, now – behave!

There was an independent chap with spear

all gold, atop a globe-

sized turtleshell, adobe –

yodeling (with shimmering lyre)

Good Will I am Good Will...

There was a lowly, sketchy

mule, named Eeyore, following

his master, Donkey Haute, until

they reached the center of the earth

– a vernal O, encompassing

an M, a W (whelmelding

vertiblur upon a sunlit hearth

all rosorangled in Pacific dawn).

& then I felt wings purring

in my sleep... a chirring

flutter-by of monarch (milky-spun

cocoon-shade of the teeming soil);

a turtledove was crooning

too, for old George – leaning

on his scythe, worn with grave toil. 

The axle of the earth, the axle...

muttered he – of rusty

us the icon, see.

Light waves from Chartres pinnacle.

4.22.16

Inland sea

BREATHING SEA

Old Hobo glances back upstream

as the spring bluets form

an inland sea – a swarm

of peacock eyes (out of a dream-

song dome) across the autumn grass.

Retrospective.  Phoebus

in an ochre crevasse,

Magdalenian cave-compass.

Your yearning for Eurydice,

so youthful-hungry, Henry –

out of want, not plenty –

ignorant (in your blind way).

An oscillation of the sun

and moon.  The Q. of Heaven

looks out from her den,

mild lioness... dusky horizon.

Henry, by his veiled statue,

thinks on Beatrice

(pine-green eyes, sea-

grey).  His melancholy’s ocean-blue.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  How

I would have gathered you...

the soul’s an orphan zoo

without the smile of Manitou.

A little tree in Galilee

still rustles in the breeze

from a breathing sea.  She’s

calling you, sailor.  Be free.

4.14.16

Dreamsong heads downstream

FRAIL SKY

The sheep in the mosaic, in Ravenna.

Ravens in the scroll,

in the temple (Emanu-el,

off Morris Ave).  & in Siena,

Lady Pax, lolling like Jenna

on the couch, beside

Justitia.  Wide

open, now, your Burchfield scena –

wind, grassland, heartache.

What brung them blues, O shy

bird bro?  Frail sky

disintegrates in Birdy’s eye, beak

cradling bright penguin soot of Man.

Handing his crozier

gently to its heir

a sheepish Father Also-Ran

smiles, mild as any lambkin

Pontifox.  Herder-

gypsies circle ferder

into desert places.  Julius Putin

frescoes chimp dominion, over

stalag mites hiked to hell –

old human story (well,

there goes the antelope).  Clover

for meadows, cottonwood for bison...

Amaranth? – or pick

your poison, Hobo Dick.

I’m rippling a dreamsonge Union.

2.29.16

wedding ring-structure

FINGER-DAB

These sibylline papyrus leaves,

so many shades of raven-

ink, scribe-feathered Ocean

etched with moony mesmer-waves...

The earth’s a musty limestone book

Psyche a palimpsest

charting gilt-emerald quest

through eerie oreille (slant rook

to woody isle, Macbête) – a flickering

archaic pain-matière

or wedding ring-structure

spring Geraldine Fitzgerald flung

for blue-eyed boys & one grey heir.

The old man frets in dust

& stone; his ferryman

(Rouget Blackstone) fins through the air

from northern Iowa to Eire;

the turtledove they seek

has grown so pigeon-meek

her flutings barely skim the lyre-

string.  Once in Calabria

flint-hermit Joachim

pictured a raptor-flame

plummet through time (vera-

mente Kiev-pointing).  Gentle

Columbia, please ravel up

my rusty finger-dab...

lips’ labyrinth, rose-granite mantle.

2.25.16