Ides of July

MARBLE TOY

On this defunct St. Emperor Henry’s Day

the cavaliers of Christ broke down the walls

massacred the cityfolk, & found

the Holy Sepulchre.  & it was empty.

His midget kingdom was a bit of ground

6 ft. x 6.  Beneath Jo’s linen palls

that Body slept, 3 nights… then slipped away.

So Earth corrals the sun again (at mid-July).

Old Henry rotates his lugubrious clay

like cenotaph, or marble toy.  Through hells

of blinded crowds – mesmeric crown

for snobbish mobs, heartless autocracy –

deracinated tribes, bent for destruction.

So humankind spins round its Book of Kells

by fiddlehead bronze… on heaven’s way.

                                                          7.15.20

eyes of March

CHASTE EYE

I took a little walk today

slipping over the ice.

The earth veiled in sadness

by violence & bigotry –

Christchurch & the world in mourning.

A bird-of-paradise

merging with Maui skies

ricochets low planetary droning.

The Ides of March.  Caesar must die

to instaurate the Empire,

bleeding for the crowd on fire.

Republican conspirators have gone awry.

The throne requires a figurehead.

The bronze serpent is nailed

on Golgotha – is hailed

Messiah, INRI.  The king is dead.

This frozen hollow by the brown river

is full of streaming sound.

Little rivulets, underground

where Berryman left town forever.

An old man’s presentiment of spring

is like a lost heartbeat...

& somewhere nearby, a sweet

selfless affection tunes her string.

We must delve deeper into this

my friend, my limping muse.

Natasha’s temple (Voronezh)

sings with a chaste eye (goldfinch kiss).

3.15.19

concrete Cleopatra

RESURRECTION CEMETERY

The river is calm, like a brown mirror

on the vernal equinox.

Moving through bifocals

of that lovable double oval (dear

Franklin Ave. Bridge).  Gliding

from Ojibwa marsh,

a trickle out of harsh

winters... a fluent continuum (abiding

parchment years, the tides of March).

On this sparse Minneapolis

spring morning, under clumps

of woolly cloud-cover, her twin M-arch

might make a 2-seat kayak for a monarch

(Manitou, Big Wind) –

swelling from wing-finned

goldfish to a whale (or Jonah’s ark).

The flimsy grey wool threads a quipu

knot.  Stravinsky’s right

to be so wrong : the lights

are snuffing out all over Europe...

the little gypsy girl must dance

to death (so we might live).

The crowd roars, GIVE.

Ariadne’s thread enwraps the lance

of Theseus, the hunter.  MINOTAUR

IS RUST (feed him tar-cakes

until he bust).  Stakes

are high – each gets an equal share

                     *

or else.  It’s the American way.

So speak plain English.

Royal myth be not the dish

we wish for now – try testimony.

They killed the King of the Milky Way –

lofty Melchizedek

(& his Irish sidekick,

his brother).  Sacrificial hay

for infinite Corn Goddess, maybe?

Don’t think so.  It is

& means to a dead end (his,

theirs, ours)... rewind the anthropology.

Anonymous shadow tilts toward sundown.

Ghost dance under trees.

He coming back, in threes –

the buried man, with his Papillon.

The guy in Resurrection Cemetery

(never gone, still here).

Can’t kill someone who never

died – so let’s undo all this necessary

violence (stand your ground, Hamlet

– until Ophelia’s dead gone).

The Shadow Knows (someone

whispers – my Dad?).  The blood is let.

It’s an old warped story, on the loom

of Time.  Peruvian lamb

sandwich, taken for a ham... a

concrete Cleopatra (equal to her doom).

3.20.17