shout it from the rooftops

CLEAR PINE

Hobo was playing solo crane bone flute

like an airy trompette marine

as he watched Henry puzzle on,

muttering his thumpy rhythms en route.

It’s the Union, the Union, Hobo intoned –

as your eye is clear & light

in the pasture breeze – right?

We wrestle with this violence, shark-boned

with vicious avarice – yet Sophie-gentleness

may rule at last, a restoration

of your soul’s volition –

the true child-wish, mild & harmonious

as that lamb-lily in the tiger’s eye;

as Sophie plays her middle Cs

at center of the keys

& swings all 88 into the sapphire sky.

Hope is our natural state – for a grace

bestowed, unbeknownst to us.

Lost & found – like that Tombs

Angel, swimming from the marble face

to lift a prisoner out of the dust –

Rebecca Salome Foster, spun

by Bitter-Lamb into the sun;

drawn out again (by Jeremy Ann) at last...

So Henry clutched the muddy wheel

& turned it, counter-clockwise;

from oceanic Providence

to clear pine river-source... you feel

                       *

it turning, turning... into San Francisco

& a rainbow pigeon-throat

blent with rainbow trout

all natural wonders for that footloose hobo

full of ecstatic spiritual deliverance

marked on his feet & palms

from walking, chanting psalms

all the way to the Delta – joyeux entrance

into azure Gulf, American trumpets

O when the saints

come marching in...

& the clay wheel turns bronze serpents

into flame-gold lambs, whose linking thread

folds limbs into a March on Washington :

where they will wash away corruption

& the violence greed breeds – the dead

shall climb up from their graves, & dance

the Beguine – the beginning again;

the restoration of all men & women

in the clay river-light of Cahokia’s immense

plateau – across Big Muddy from the sky-

blue angle of the Gateway Arch –

that silvery canoe, echoing the arc

of one invisible & omnipresent loving eye :

Aye-Aye of Providence.  Elliptical wafer

lifted from humble bowl...

Hagia Sophia (universal

soul) wearing her limestone life-saver.

8.9.19

it begins w'Thou

ROSE ISLAND

If I had a mind like Aristotle

Augustine or Aquinas

able with calm patience

to unfold the metaphysical

origami of the whole

rose-petalled ensemble

of creation, mon semblable...

– shimmering Ocean River, roll!

Everything hinges on a little tree

– willow or almond,

sycamore, elm –

transmuted into living body;

tall ash, strong oak of poetry

spilling Imago Dei

(with verbal carpentry)

into an Argo-trimmed Horus-eye

of Providence.  It begins w’Thou.

Psyche’s agate lamp

winking through the swamp

of live-oak garlands signals true

(one if by land, two if by sea)

– leads on to victory

over my own frailty –

out of buried man, a new Henry!

Where the rose Venn diagram

of departed lips whispers

through golden calipers

a reconciliation of I am

              *

& ever shall be (simple psalm

adrift over clay towers)

cloisters the eye’s powers

in immaculate seaworthy emblem –

mandorla (your birchbark canoe).

O light of knowledge

from beyond knowledge,

heart’s mystic bridge mirrored below

at River’s edge!  Whose Jonah lifts

dove-light from deeps,

& as a dolphin leaps

beyond Atlantic hieroglyphs

the figure of an infant Son of Man

bobs in her coracle

newborn – primordial

origin, eye of hurricane!

The free conscience, soul liberty

subsists within your peace

which passeth, Golden Fleece –

lamb of the Lammas loaf, mercy

& flame of lambent fellowship;

stone mosaics in Ravenna

& the tomb of Alighieri

radiate the scent... lambs skip

there, in the cradle of our limbs,

beneath the opening flower

of your glance!  O bower

& rose island – spring of river-hymns!

3.12.19

when morning stars sang all together

ROSE QUARTZ

                  

The delicate crystallographer

chipped at rose quartz

in a mica mirror.  What’s

wrong with the signal?  Fuzzier,

now, out of Nazireth.  We’re

missing the calendar,

oh hazy November –

have to find a new atmosphere.

Hobo (along jungle river)

envied that lofty poet

on the hilltop.  What

brings you here, Indian-giver?

The Song of Minnehaha (Henry

Wordfish Lungfellow);

light black-&-yellow

swallowtail (aye, amen, Re).

In Happy Hunting Ground,

HHG.  Your twin

brother – like the sun

breaking through Narragansett Sound –

when morning stars sang all together,

hearty & brave (children

from incandescent freedom-

sun).  Under the tender tether

of ineffable Intellect   O

lambent   star (Grace

Ravlin   Falcon-Ace)

with Notre Dame   at zero-

                 *

hour.  Your brother is a simple

carpenter, Hobo.  He

studied Victimography

with Cyber-Ciphering, & Ample

Anthropology (Social Jeering) –

yet loved that golden

bubble (in the cauldron

of the level) more than anything.

Because the sense of being right

flows like a burbling

stream – wondering

into verbal dirigible... bright

speaking thundercloud... imaginary

friend of Liberty

(Decembrist charity –

Crimean exile, Pushkin-boy).

The government of Liberty

is of consent, not force;

our kingdom of remorse

enfolds Redemption at its source.  See,

child?  We have outlived the Minotaur;

Ariadne’s simple thread

leads to your kindred

by the glowing gemstone samovar

of hearthblaze – everlasting joy

warm crystalline kingdom

rose-violet   freedom

smokehole to Wakan Tanka   in the sky

11.25.18

autumn in my heart

SWEAT EQUITY

Like falling from a winter bridge

in Minneapolis.

Absolute zero-ness.

11.32 ft/sec (straight-edge

it, carpenter).  A little life-saver –

gold bubble of air

in the wooden measure,

Chris (dolphin fin-waver).

The little tree, the little almond

eye of Providence.  A

sort of weathered prudence

from rough planks – sweat-bond

of every laborer in vineyard

or in field – Georgia

footprint, selah

in every cemetery, bard.

Like this confusion of nature

circulating good will.

Invasive humble

habitat, Roma imprimatur...

signature of spiral J

(Ojo de Dios,

owl o’Sophia)

out of the oak-knot, honeybee.

Lightning furnishes the room.

So fall into my heart,

Julie (where start

the roses on their river-loam).

11.24.18

personae taking shape

SOFT GLANCE

On the high ridge of River Road

Henry seeks his throne –

little Sophie-chair (long gone

from her gazebo octagon). O Lord

Apollinaire of Poetry, what now?

Is the Great War ended?

Are the lads mended?

Have we entered the Third Aeon?  No,

not yet, vows Joachim (1132).

When Eagle molts

to Coulombee, & bolts

from heaven like a swallow blue...

the eye of Providence triangulates

over an Isis-pyramid

of West Branch clay – hid

from Cahokia to now, he states.

Hobo slumps closer to the river, sound

asleep.  He dreams of her,

who dreams of him – somewhere

over the Franklin Bridge (an Indian mound).

Henry, fragment of Osiris –

iris from Rhode Island –

sees her too.  Sand

curves through silent Providence...

soft glance of Magdalen, absorbing

mourning (wrung like tears,

like rain).  Those anxious piers...

Hart’s, John’s... frame her redeeming orb.

11.18.18