slow crane-dance

SQUARE DANCE

The beech, a symphony of copper & grey

shimmers her palimpsest

of summer light.  Her host

of rust-green leaves filters the day

with fleecy shade.  In Providence

her hidden rings girdle

a slow crane-dance, a Gödel

harmony (irrational coherence)

stepped on the diagonal, a zigzag

pattern toward the center

while her limbs counter

equivocal winds.  Like a limping stag

the Minotaur (a forsworn king)

marks ink-scratches in concrete

with his third (wooden) foot.

They cannot be erased – the bee-sting

on the tongue of that stung beast

is like a humming bumble-

bird, bearing his humble

master on a mule (the least

shall be the greatest in your midst,

Great Scot).  When fair

is foul, weird sister,

and a hole is in the wholeness,

& the onion odor of this Union

hovers through the orange

facade of rough strange

battlements... the regal One

                   *

comes drifting like an eagle-sun.

Immaculate integrity

of breathing Truth will be

the seal on that bright Lincoln-coin –

of the people, by the people, for

the people... after the .44

that brings black milk before

the beech flowers (in Mendelssohn).  Our

infinitely gentle bunny Rabbi

– sire of reconciliation,

smiling Sun of Man –

shall stand again in one rose eye

of green & copper Liberty

whose burning torch will come

to this dunce inane – wisdom

will shine from Bozo Nana (dotty

Henry with his dancing bear,

jaded whit-knight from

Column B) despite him-

self : because a solidarity there

glows like green limestone from the depths

a city of straight pines

out of the matrix shines

where Jason is plowman   & Jonas

mans the prow   & merry Magdalen

raises her almond lens

yodeling earth-&-heaven’s

rhombic square dance (Topsy Ravenn).

4.3.17

he talked in sign lingo

COPPER BEECH

Late crickets from low crevices

scree high morse code

along the River Road,

mourning what vanishes.

The trestle bridge shoulders its iron

rust refrain.  Hobo,

Henry rehearse their slow

converse – where’s Bunny Rabbi gone?

He talked in sign lingo, for fun;

smoke signals over Pipestone

bearded the Old Gray One

whose windy glance was made of sun.

The bards were babbling nonsense

around the Ink Palace...

forgive their lack of grace

whose pride is their inheritance.

Meekness is the key to peace,

a mule named Franky said;

our mutual Day of the Dead

fringes each cot with golden fleece;

both enterprise & government

rest on bone shoulders

of the poor – our diverse

attitudes were never meant

to drive us to unpeel the Union.

Pensive eyes discern

gray beech limb’s copper urn

of reconcilement (smiling veteran).

11.8.16

like Don in Key West

milkweed palms

DOUBLE-DECKER

Hobo lounged by the great gray Ocean

River, his old hide detached

a little from his mind,

like Don in Key West, his one-

time winter host (at the Q Motel).

Distanced a little from the

whitecaps, red & blue,

that molder to a stucco frieze of Hell

sometimes.  He remembers wild violets

that peek beneath gray toes

of an elder copper beech, whose

crown shades Providence; those roots

drill deeper than the black & white

of shaky party platforms.

Down beneath worms

mining resentment & indifference, the bite

of greedy centipedes, the slugs

cold as a winter street

in Minneapolis, whose neat

chewing fattens themselves alone (bugs

do not think about their neighbors).

Whose murmurous gray arms

have framed the milkweed farms

of metaphysical Hope, that anchors

Roger Williams’ canoe –

Love’s almond chariot

that smiling Faith built

out of flocks of can-do

monarch wings, green palms

circumferencing the gray

scallops of yesterday –

twin limestone radials (emblems

of spousal harmony, e pluribus

unum).  Whose tap sinks toward

the center of the gourd,

the hearth Love stokes, wells tears...

& where a voice from her grey mirror

sang in Hobo’s ear –

Behold the Platonic Year

revolve at last, aboard my double-decker

Greyhound!  When the game of suits

& spades & royal clubs

gives way to hearts purple

& ruddy diamonds – twin 52s

orbit an orange origami octagon,

one Chinese lantern, standing

in the night garden – bring

Hobo to the table, then!  It’s done!

He pondered pumpkin murmurings,

& mooned there, by the muddy

banks.  The breeze of poetry...

only a feeling (sighed).  Our burdenings

borne by that humble muse, whose trust

in some deep loving cloud

grey Manitou’s abode

will wave back (Noah’s buoyant crust).

8.15.16

Hoboland

One perfect notion

SEEDY OWL

Take this canoe : figure in space

afloat upon time.

Like a Venn diagram

of lapping overlappings, Falcon-Ace –

with the footprint of a sacrifice

like seal of royal doom

(where heavy lilacs bloom).

Beneath lilacs, by Lake of the Isles

I turn back down Memory Aisle...

see shades by willow leaves

in Providence.  Gold sheaves

of lyres, in single evening file –

there’s good gray Edwin, like

a giant beech – there’s Voodoo

Queen of Arkansas (Who-

Who... her seedy owl’s with Mike

now – harps in D.C. laurel branches)...

& Hobo Henry, leaning

back to earth (sing

resurrection, buried man) – launches

out on rolling River of Dreams

(with mazy crane dance

in a prairie trance).

E pluribus unum, Roger Williams...

muttering like young apple leaves

from a root in the grave,

out of lips keen to save.

One perfect notion... (so Hart believes).

5.12.16

Leaf to leaf, door to door

OATMEAL BANTER

Light eddying through layers

of overcast gray sky

whispering, simplify.

Willow’s underleaf, lyre-players?

Silver.  Copper-gray the color

of this beech’s mammoth shade,

whose granite roots cascade

light (leaf to leaf, & door 

to door).  Motionless in time-

space, emitting signs

her gray hide underlines

in graphite (stubborn Balaam’s

Hoover-prophecy).  The beech,

the book, will not be moved.

Ink trail of raven-dove...

bare gouache, still ground (beseech

thee, spare thy headstrong mule) –

O break the prison mold,

snow-blind brain-cold!

Where father & son meet (fool

with fool) beneath the malachite

green veins, gray matter

of bran (or oatmeal banter).

Strange personal jade wight –

shade-mutter, everlasting

Sheba.  Clouds gather

overhead – weather

lit thunder (shackle-blasting).

2.4.16

October through a giant copper beech

The day approacheth, just a few weeks from now - I must be leaving ye old Providence, heading west to Minneapolis.  Walking around this windy overcast morning - gray skies, gray hair, gray world - thinking of the bark on a great gray beech tree, & the gray stone of churchyards, & the grey-eyed wisdom of Athena-Sophia (you might say)... all these sempiternal things (you might say)... & of Jasper Johns' gray series, & of the strange old gray painter crouched in a gray streetcorner, in Antonioni's Ravenna film, Deserto Rosso (was it Dante?)... & so all these grays blended on this gray day, as I remembered Edwin Honig, who had so much to do with my poetry life here in Providence... & Edwin's terrific short poem "November through a Giant Copper Beech" (you can find it in at least one of the editions of the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry).

Edwin's poem is about passing things, & things that are steadfast through time...

I got into a college (Brown) on the strength of some high school poems.  & stuck around here, writing on & off, for 45 years.  I just learned a few days ago that a poem of mine has been accepted for publication in that venerable American institution, Poetry magazine.  So maybe something at least has come of it all - so many wayward years in Roger's city-state, his "refuge for troubled conscience"!

PUMPKIN MAN

                                   in memory E.H.

This windy gray October day,

fat robin camouflaged

(hoodie?) in dogwood’s

rusty green... & then the great gray

beech I passed this morning (Slater

& Lincoln).  Elephantine,

primordial, in motion

still (old pre-Socratic critter)...

Edwin’s tree, his 100-branching

crown – the graying King

of Gray, still whistling

to Even Dove, down never-dying

Dolphin Way (led by leaping sparks

into Ravenna).  O patient

rude dream-sponge – intent

to wrestle safety shroud across stark

span! – your International Pumpkin Man

lit from within (warm

orange flame)... No harm

shall come to thee, my child – listen!

In a corner of a lumber yard

one sharp-eyed old saint

(framed by gray paint

cans, wagon) waves palm upward

toward the dark sheep-door, just

over his shoulder – where

one candle shivers fire.

An endless jet, he whispers.  Trust.

10.9.15

Beech tree on Slater Ave., Providence