beneath Corona Borealis

BLUE CANOE

While boy-o Henry skipped down Arthur St.

in birdsong Mendelssohn

a few miles up the trolley line

J. Buried-Man lingered on Arthur Ave (complete

Dream Song lament, at 57).  In Paris now

they’ll have to reconstruct the nave,

restore each curving architrave.

This knave goes drifting to St. Lou – his blue

canoe, beached crosswise (by Cahokia)

a kind of compass needle

aimed straight up.  Will weedy

Hobo ever stand erect himself?  Selah,

Ezekiel, Isaiah.  At San Vitale in Ravenna

or at Notre Dame, pilgrims

still stamp across the lurking limbs

of Lucifer – ravel a penitential way

by grace of Mary’s Ariadne-avatar.

It was her love for Theseus

(like Maggie Miriam’s for Jesus)

reeled him out, dis-mazèd – free & clear.

Lone Henry looks straight up, to Pole Star.

Ariadne’s Crown.  The toxic night

a donnybrook for his distraught

Columbia – his ark battered by Minotaur,

his Constitution of chaste liberty

suborned (sat on by Putin’s man).

Look, pilgrim, to the heights again –

whence cometh Thunderbird.  Dove… see?

3.29.20

pokey asphodel

SMOKE-TREASURY

That the diamond exists, murmurs Black Elk

justifies your dream.

Octahedral theme

of orientation by humility (MLK

& JFK meet in your mandala-canoe).

As Roger the Seeker christened

Providence a refuge, at the end

of seeking (for beginning anew).

To model the heavenly kingdom of God

in clay, or dusty speech

like a doorway, or Gateway Arch;

like rose mandorla, made of flesh & blood.

Not city on a hill, but village

in a valley, by the river’s

mouth – one Narragansett

giver’s canonical Key into the Language

of America.  That the diamond exists

justifies your dream

in shades.  Mandelstam

(in Pushkin & Scriabin) writ of this –

because the Redemption has already happened

art is set free, to celebrate

(watch Oscar Cullmann adumbrate

this meaning in his diagram).  The End

is the beginning.  Not that the end has come.

Only interrogate

this blistered heart

to find that smoky rite of Eastern Rome

                   *

spring in the limping step of herald Hart

or the epileptic anguish

of poet Prof. English

Berryman (in his hexagonal ziggurat

of Resurrection Cemetery – over the river

from St. Paul).  Come home,

patters that silver stream

from crane-bone flute (archaic sliver

flinting mica, in Cahokia); a raven

laughter diagram

or Bluejay paradigm

or Jonah-dove conundrum (rune haven);

a sweeping cry out of Cautantowwit’s

smoke-treasury; an answer

for yon affectionate peacemaker

when he crawled into the Narragansetts’

welcome-tent.  A smile (ineffable

as that 6-sided snowflake

traced by Black Elk

over the grave of Buffalo Bill).

All this intricate nautical geometry!

– these asides by Hobo,

his obeisance to Venus (Virgo-

ascendant sunset cemetery) –

is just the flimsiest balsa-wood scale model

of an Old Ironsides ark

or Constitution… spark

for Gravesend dancing-floor (pokey asphodel).

3.11.20

dream song for Mardi Gras

WIDE SWINGS

In the remote silence of your dream

little Ojibwa cowboy,

every word, every sigh

your lips would bend to the birch beam.

Each syllable would lift up smoothly

like wing or wave, to join

the sarabande procession

flashing tiny stars in their night-cloud sky.

The piety of Aeneas or of Abraham

is tinctured with the same

topaz humility; the fame

of Black Elk flares no different requiem;

& Hobo’s yearning in the Bottomland

& Henry’s striving at the source

obey the same bone-flute discourse –

to verify one sweet-tempered command.

& like a low B-flat trombone bass line

out of some Delta funeral-song

the aura of her Don’t-be-long

with magnetism of her Love, B-mine

goes rippling counter-clockwise, from St.-J

to D.C. piles of masonry

& back to Lake Itasca –

& like mustard monarch or viceroy

lifts tender, glancing & reflective wings

to meet your own, brave

Jessie-Isis – clear sea-wave.

Peace pipes over the Golden Gate, wide swings.

2.25.20

whispers out of Colchis

painting by Michael Gould (acrylic and Elmer's Glue)

MILKY DOME

Henry hearkened to the dream song hum

along the stairwell of a crane

bone flute.  The black mane

of Mama Miriam Dodona waved to him.

As if a little tree anchored his coracle;

a branch of whispers out of Colchis,

woolen silky-shroud of Maximus –

his golden fleece a minor miracle

where twin wheels mesh to form one

almond (of almonds).  Mighty

mickle canoe, whose Isis-eye

looks from the prow (tease of the sun).

There is a vortex in the Black Sea

where the Great Year pivots –

Hamlet churns through his regrets

there, until Milky Way whorls like a G.

There is a grail of emerald stone

beckons from the bottom

of the sea.  Four rivers stream

out of a matrix there – exalted zone

of moody CHURNAGOGUE – the potter’s

center & circumference;

Ferrara ghetto-sense

mingled with Dante-radiance (all hers).

& the backward Nile flows down to Memphis

where the martyr at the bleak hotel

sipped from her cup, & cancelled Hell –

his milky dome hoisted to foamy wisdom-bliss.

8.8.19

hidden by Ocean in an oak

BLITHE MONARCH

Henry’s troubled mind sends him in search

of Hobo, down by the riverbank

as usual.  He’d never think

of working on the Sabbath, in a church

or anywhere else, or any other day,

either.  Tarries by the stream

Espiritu Santo – off-beam,

at ease.  & murmurs thus to Henry –

Born to trouble like the moth flies upward;

like my uncle Zack – bartender

in Pig’s Eye.  Took a gander

from a sycamore – & suddenly soared

up tippy-top, full of T-total joy!

Clambered down, & followed

that young’un, Jay – he’d

never be the same again.  & I say,

ol’ Hen, the comfort’s hidden in your mind –

an equanimity & rest

that plummets to your birdnest

straight from yonder Pole Star, friend.

Love’s quicker than muscle, nerve.

Is there already, waiting on you –

wing-form, wave-form, arrow-

true.  But – such a swerve she gave me,

Hobo!  Bed empty, whole place cleaned out

on Sycamore!  Off to D.C.!

Take it from me Henry,

was all deservedly, you woolly lout.

Grace gave you a reprieve – your whole

lamentable life.  Coiled

at the source, like a cockle-

shell of plenty – to restore your soul

& the whole damn world.  Some morn you’ll wake

like that blithe monarch

hidden by Ocean in an oak,

& see the Restoration – like an earthquake

coming with the Child of Woman.

You will no longer pine

lovesick as lamb (in cotton-

wood, or buttonwood) but rise & stand

like Abraham, by them great trees

in Mamre, or Ogygia –

& watch that little acacia

of Jessie reach on up to Paradise.

& then Henry saw his shadow on the path

blend with the branching shadows

of the cottonwoods.  He goes

as it is determined, through sluiceways

of wrath, up to the blazing Southern Cross;

faces jangled music

of a Minotaur’s acrostic

(all this New World torment) – at a loss;

& yet he feels the light breeze of that grace

Hobo made plain as trees,

American as any poetry’s –

dark gold fleshtone foundation, keeping pace.

7.26.19

all the unspoken waltzing things

SEA-GRAVE

Henry has his scribbly hobbies.

Hobo is obsessed.

Osiris in his nest

buried (maybe touches the Keys).

A Viking ship in Minnesota

sleeps near Lake Itasca

like a Moses-mandorla

or canoe (garaged in Ferrara);

a pregnant Virgo by Francesca

curves in an oval

like a miniature whale.

These fish are scaled to hallelujah

& back – one swallow swallowing

a smaller, swifter swallow –

& water seems shallow

until you measure it (by hollowing

a sea-grave in the Milky Way).

& so Jonah yodels,

while Akhmatova spells

lowly on an ocarina (hey ey

yo).  A warbling robin sings

out of Mississippi clay

her infinite wedding day –

all the unspoken waltzing things

logrolling like a planet made of grace

in a dream-songe dream, Henri.

Near that Melusina-sea

glistens in memory (her San Fran face).

7.10.19

the water-works in New Orleans

CROW-TRACKS

Old Hobo by the river again,

old mule, old Lear, old man.

Ponders the coiled span,

the tension in the plot called Heaven

Versus America.  Indifferent violence,

violent indifference...

What took you into silence,

Julie, at your blossoming – hence

into the shark’s eye of the Bay.

Like an arching jaguar-lunge

of International Orange

claw-marked with irreversible tragedy

your Bridge – hypnotic Taj Mahal

whose lambent shadow hums

of nut-brown kingdoms,

steep ravines for Solomon, Sheba...

The span tracks a continuum

he scans with tentative

crow-tracks.  To live

or die.  From the will’s ultimatum

of despair, your cul-de-sac of self-

slaughter – to the other pole

of faith, serene & whole;

with Stravinsky’s branded Sylph

leaping her epileptic scapegoat pyre

(in Paris, on May 29th)

– O Juliet, my May-month

sister-dove!... my black North Star

       *

– his limping meditation takes him far

upstream, & down.  The dream-

songe, rivery-rêve, beams

her constancy, an equilibrium (wave-mère).

Her source, an Okean of galaxies,

a murmuring Milky Way –

your sempiternal Day

that never dies, your tree of many Jessies...

open your eyes, Hobo, & see!

This kingdom of canoeing

almonds pours – outpacing

Death with fins of Galilee-Ferrari!

Her mickle water-sprite keeps murmuring

like your sibling ghost,

shady elfin host

who climbs from a mandorla, humming

beside you (ahead of you, within you);

& like Latrobe the architect

following his own son to inspect

the water-works in New Orleans, renew

yourself – restore yourself, American! –

in that strange French-Spanish-

Cherokee dreamland.  Swish

go the eucalypus paddles... the plan

of Heaven is a restoration, so –

not slavery, but liberty –

your soul’s birthday.

Love Kingdom’s galaxies begin to glow.

6.24.19

inhabit they a shady arch

TABLE RONDE

Henry often stumbles off his perch

in his high Henry Poem.

Just try to follow him!

The pinetop sways... the oaks, the birch...

watch his Memorial to the Future lurch

from Mr. Groggy to A Hobo

Lunch.  Need not be so.

The poem simply tracks a search

for common speech, O inarticulate

idiot of  mewl-wander!

Only this, to ponder :

the universe is personal.  Its Fiat

Lux is founded in immeasurable heart,

compassionate & lovingkind –

one courier-pigeon from blind

adoration bears more light than any art.

The glittering mounds in Minneapolis

are tiny frozen hexagons.

Rough flesh-tone limestones

harbor prehistoric ocean memories.

Henry, with help from sluggish Hobo,

knots a river-seine

for safety-net.  Someone

might need a heartfelt rescue (at zero

below).  Inhabit they a shady arch

at center of the earth –

Lips Monastery berth;

her mandorla was a canoe for March

to paddle into April confluence,

her lips muttered an almond

salience – jazz Table Rond

with sweet Melchizedek (her Memphis

echoes with his vernal blues).

Ineffable seine of mutuality...

sign for soul liberty

from one Pole Star (High Rocky News)

we share out like a Lammas loaf

raised in grain elevators

west of St. Lou

& buried secretly (beneath the roof

of the mouth of a cave in Galilee).

Hobo hands Henry so

his eye-in-hand.  Its glow

is pure lovelight – it whispers : See.

& he saw the glittering waterfall

of wheat-grains slanting down

across a wide Missouri-nation

into midstream of each & all;

he felt the dream-song melding chords

(Ojibwa river-springs)

within Dakota Red Wing’s

Thunderbird – he touched the threads

of word-music, a glossolalia.

As round a high room

agate-fire will zoom –

lighting the prow of old Ecclesia.

3.3.19

ancient West Branch watercolor

CURVE PRONGS

Everything gets more simple

in old age.  Trust me.

Thanksgiving pumpkin pi =

two stone pillars, plus an ample

roof.  Henry Mewl, hee-hawing

NNW (out of Apuleius)

checkmates template Isis 

planted in West Branch (settling

in river-bronze).  Like that watercolor

Mary Negus limned

in high school – skimmed

from unlocked memory (her

Grant Wood brain, a dusty library).

The curve prongs back to earth

west of St. Lou. – Ft. Worth.

Van Cliburn Plumbs to Victory.

I was walking up from the Mississippi

this afternoon, & met

(in Voronezh sunlight)

an ancient babushka, smiling at me.

Thinking of Nadezhda, & of hope...

of Mary Magdalen,

who witnessed Russian

irony in the garden (roped-

off Gesthem – Tsarskoe Selo).

The dream song blinks

until your lighthouse winks.

Wry rosy Providence (all systems go).

1.11.19

a place in your mind

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE

Providence is a place in your mind.

And also a town.  Like

the sun rising over the lake

be burnished benevolence – &

also a solar systemic fact,

dawn’s chilly weather.

& if we dream together

rather than apart... the intellect

somewhere outside the movement of

these moons, planets...

Now what you grinning at?

You wilna guarantee supernatural Love?

But I am what I am, & I am, I am

a wondrous thing (after

10 a.m.). O ye rafters,

rise!  O ye gates of Jerusalem!

Providence, funky old town.

With a history.  Roger,

under killing weather

in a warm wigwam.  The plan

for the planets, the calm creation...

like a vase whirled in milk,

a home for Black Elk –

at the door of six directions,

where the sheepfold meets the sea.

A little oaken Okean.

A microcosm, spinning,

Jen.  Dream, le songe, where you meet me.

10.26.18

hurrah for the green black & blue

DREAM SONGS

Early cold air makes light more clear

toward Veteran’s Day.

Only whisper a ray

through the Mexican mirror, my hero (here

& now).  Who gave a last full measure

to the metronome of fate –

her solemn bell drones late

over these midnight hexagons (white hair

of graves).  Whisper it back to me,

quietly, quietly.  Dark

wake of Noah’s Cutty Sark,

trailing to Southern Cross, Black Sea.

Your raven circles to the end of speech.

These crumbs will be enough.

Twin shoulders lift the rough

yoke – walk a path to Ocean Beach.

A stone like diamond lost in Voronezh –

gray pebble, agate

hidden in the gate...

forged fate of Man as Uncle George

the Unknown Soldier... gardener

outside her smithy-cave,

their humus-world to save.

Come in.  These stones weather

Siberian winter – like Finnish sauna

finished in Hyperborea;

out of Lake Victoria

or Sydney, Australia (hurrah

                  *

for the green black & blue)... faint echo

out of Mexico,

where all the monarchs go.

The earth will be redeemed... but very slow.

Up the street from your view of heaven

in another neighborhood

hearts hard for good

pitch darkness toward Pacific Union –

money grooves & spectral hates

congeal in orange ogre-

hats... scared morgue-

hacks... guile of guppy hypocrites...

All politics is local, sez.

In Minneapolis

black is really less

skin in the game (the realtor biz);

up at the lake, the fishermen

cash in their walleyes;

hunters in disguise

carry the venison for Uncle Ben

(Rice Lake).  The joker’s going wild.

He’s up by White Bear –

FBI got there?

Over near Mound – which bullets?  Piled?

Dream songs must leave behind the fear,

greed, hate.  Earth clay is one,

& Manitou is

done (for today).  Help with the bier?

11.9.17

flesh-tone bridge

MAZY CHARTER

The wistful twirling of a yellow leaf

falling from a book of leaves

by the big river.  Waves

of leaves, infinite beyond belief

slanting down through a universe

beyond fall’s azure,

through its perfect mirror

of ineffable air.  The woodpecker’s

not waxwing, but a twin-bird –

matching Thunderbird

like third wing, or word

thing – in Red Wing, we’ve heard.

& they’ve buffed the naked concrete

of the Franklin Bridge

to warm flesh-tone (Wedge

whistling to Jay : almost complete,

they say).  Like hands arching across

the tingling serpent below

someone signals so –

right, all right.  The frail cosmos

is built of moss & dogwood leaves;

made like a dream-song

on a thread so long

from inner lining of young Osip-sleeves.

Hid in a nightfall of Apollon-wrath.

The child-heart trembles

when the chief dissembles –

ice winking in the barrel underneath

                   *

encompassing a land in shambles,

wasted by Behemoth

& Metheboss (cloth-

of-gold twin skimlords, crashing cymbals).

El-Moloch asked for the heart of your son.

For your son the king,

the bloom of everything –

Aztec football in place of the sun.

Apotropaic sign or mirror-pharmakon,

the murmured word of love

becomes a catcher’s glove –

inside-out Osip net (for rescuing someone).

You search the scryptics, yet you

do not come to Me.

Gold almond cider, see?

Where Mendelssohn defeats Deep Blue.

She’s by your side, a kelson, smiling,

spinnaker through gray wall

of seamless cloud – whale

of light fog, swallowing Jonah – a ring

of stone, becoming breathing feathers

for a child of Ocean River,

borne downstream from Neva-

Neva-Heavenland (all-planetary weathers).

Her green eye walks through doors, through gates.

That crossroad in the mirror

overwhelms birth-terror –

seals mazy charter (Liberty checkmates).

9.28.17