wheezing in an iron lung

PATIENT BURRO

Utterly subjective universe

of the poet, Hamlet

dreaming action... what

was I thinking?  A serious nurse

stood by my cradle (Abbott Hospital).

I was four years old,

wheezing in a cold

iron lung.  Paralysis (total).

1956.  Guillain-Barré.

Dr. Pohl – I

don’t remember (sigh).

Osiris in his casket, hey

ey yo.  The photo in the Star-

Tribune – toothy Henry

hugs his scarlet monkey

in a wheelchair.  Recovery! (Bizarre.)

Like the slight son of Giuliana

in a clinic in Ravenna.

Watch her parabola –

purple violet (or cypripedium

reginae) fringes the pottery;

congregate, massive

unguent jar, evocative

lure (hand of Lippo Memmi)

harboring anointment oil.

Milk, sap, honey,

wine, blood...  See

the star-eye riding the sea-roil

                  *

on her prow, lancing the Black Sea!

Magnet of gold foil,

handle for plow-soil –

wave of personae-galaxy!

As if the searching character of Isis

were encapsulated in

this matryoshka-queen.

Vierge Ouvrante (Hagia Sophia’s

magnifying glass, or Henry Church)

sums up significance

of eucharist – each instance

in a suffering kenosis, the human lurch

(from safe beatitude to surf

beat attitude)

leading to passionate

étude (H. Gorecki... – it is enough).

Prow like a beak, eye like star,

the solidarity of Polar

Bear – it is our

birthright, people everywhere!

Metaphysical, incomprehensible

Love, that finds an echo

in the infinitely patient burro

suffering everything.  Your fable

inches toward the human heart

on light footsteps...

so Nora’s rose keeps

Eros innocent (sweet garden violet).

1.25.19

like variations on a theme

FIRST SNOW

It was a first snow falling on your birthday, Alex

38 years ago.

Cesca’s labor so slow

& painful, there in Miriam Obstetrics

under the klieg lights & the surgeons

she took the C-section

at last (proud, stubborn

mother) while the soft newborn

stars sloped across the parking lot

in silent counterpoint.

The time was out of joint –

your father, too.  Every hamlet

screens its circular pilot plot

through every heart;

Henry left his hearth

to wander Cain-like into Camelot

(his Ars, his land of Nod).

The story is familiar.

Eros sparks war

for Adams unwilling to plow the meek sod,

buster.  Adonis was a narcissist.

Henry plucked his Clover

(tuneful Faustian lover)

& spun the wheel no heel resists –

the veils of Isis & Osiris (masonry,

mummified fire).

Venus, Morning Star

shone pallidly, across the whole country

                  *

a kind of Cairo-Poe magnet (wherever

you are).  Middle C

on the piano, tenderly

(Ravlin Princess, Ravel).  Life-saver

played out to Juliet, by Hart.

Like Bach, young Alex –

one sea-tempest X

along path P (where all the tempers start).

Grief comes in waves.  These little ripples

echo from the pangs

of Providence (where swings

a cosmic jewelry show).  Dilated pupils

merge in swarms of busy drones

(watch-birds for smoke-

signals).  Go for broke,

the Iago of the capital intones.

Unleash the dogs of war.  They hated

me without a cause...

Faust is no Santa Claus;

the raging boar will not be sated

‘til the last woman on earth

flees with her child

into that desert wild

nursing one lonely human birth.

11.14.18

antipodean parks

SILVER CHEST

Uncle George the plowman zigzags calmly

weaving his furrows back 

& forth (west of Fond du Lac).

Laboring almost at rest, along his way.

The black soil teems with memories.

Childhood in Mendelssohn,

a helium balloon –

only now the fatal pine shades Miriam’s

plein air Jubilee (specific gravity

of coffin-keel).  Time,

History here touch the rim

of a labyrinth (Fro-Back, so corny)

whose perimeter outlines her face –

smiling, dreaming, lost

in the supple meadow-grass

of Eros flowering to Agape (O Grace).

Spruce Mountain rises straight ahead,

pilgrim – just south of Bonnie

Craigielee.  Matilda will be

waltzing there, in a tamarack shade

not far from the sea; she will take your hand

where kids’ bird-voices

boomerang – where earth rejoices

in equilibrium, & equity.  One command

radiates Franciscan swag of turtledove;

one cloud sheds orange arcs

over antipodean parks

of aboriginal penitence (blue Jonah-love).

8.22.16

painting by Phoebe Gould (about age 10)