guarding the garden

painting by Phoebe Gould (ca. 1992?)

GREEN CORN

Half-moon tonight, like a silver flask

of molten lava.  On this date

George Washington was translate

(1799).  Here’s his life-mask :

fine profile.  Merging in white clay,

like a peaceful moon.

Landlord, when all’s said & done.

Valley Forger, sensing Californ-i-ay

in the green corn of his plantation

garden.  Grace Ravlin

etched that evening scene –

sweet Virgo in Virginia (dawning nation).

The myth rides with the Indian.

Scars limbs of slaves.

Everyone behaves.

A raven-crumb plummets into ocean.

Something’s lugged back, out of clay...

the lunar wilderness.

Innocence, blessedness –

Sophia twirling in the calm of day.

Like young Hal emerging from a golden egg

(his father’s legacy).

Attainted crown, see –

buried bones in Resurrection (Pig’s

Eye) Cemetery.  Across the river,

on Lakota Bluff.

Two swords – it is enough.

Gesthemane is haunted, Indian-giver.

12.14.18

all manner of thing

LIGHT RAYS

Old Hobo drowses near the summit

of summer.  He sits

in the midst of his nitwit

desires, like Hobo King; he would not

harm a bug, much less a refugee

– plodding to the ports

with worn-out bags, hurt

babies on their backs... ay me!

Corruption is an empty shell

sans floor beneath.

Dons with shark teeth

bowl cannon balls in hell.

He muses on St. Thomas More

& Maximus, a little more;

Susanna’s chaste amour,

the hanging gardens of the Moor.

Lambs in their locality

taste the long grass

while summers pass,

yielding too much reality;

Hobo sleepwalks with the rest,

absorbed in his dream-

sponge.  Every seam

fans rain from peacock-fest –

an early-bird worm-hunters’ realm

inscaped with infinite

abundant life... articulate

splendor from the milky helm

               *

of Wisdom’s gratified delight.

No beast can overwhelm,

no tyrant flim-flam

microcosmic Man’s birth-right,

intones mild Maximus from his

ascetic prison-cell;

all shall be well,

all manner of thing – from fire-fizz

to salmon-grill, from trumpet-vine

to orange safety-net,

all shall be swell.  Get

you, my child, to the heart of Man –

it is no absence in Creation,

but flutter of a smile;

a wing-beat with no guile,

eyes’ icon of ineffable Person.

Draw near.  Hobo is dreaming now.

Rio del Espiritu...

a river-mystery.

Gazes at figurehead upon a prow.

One climbing from the grave.  Jonah?

Eurydice?  Mary

sleeps in the cemetery –

dreams within a dream.  Selah.

Calm-spinning, like a gyroscope,

the Hobo-King advances

toward the tomb of Lazarus.

Her mandorla... light rays the slope.

7.6.17

Gemstone of Paradise

NEVA-LAND

The poem is for lonely you

amidships (I-&-Thou

nailed coign to prow) –

& for that grubby neighbor too

next door (George or Georgina

with the garden hoe).

A solitary lamp-glow

lingers in the old cantina –

in William Blackstone’s study (man

who went to live with...)

– uphill, on the forest path

to Middy Wewe’s blithe fountain.

George Washington spins in his grave

to see how we behave

without a mind to save

us from ourselves.  Thee must be brave,

& true, & kind, & dedicated

to the perfect good –

that global neighborhood

that shines, wid’ green & delicate

kiwi-glow, beneath the rind

of blind & brutal night.

A callow grail-knight

stumbled on it once, near Samarkand –

spry Wolfram rings the tale – &

like an unknown soldier

leapt – O soulman Prospero! –

from here to Skye (in Neva-land).

5.20.16