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

a glossolalia from grapevine hive

ALMOND SHELL

The gray clouds in the distance, over

the Bruegel panorama.

Coltrane, Alabama.

Hollow octave.  Windblown clover.

In the foreground, a guy named Frank.

Jeff, Joe... somebody

you know, Big Daddy?

No.  Here to clean the sewage tank.

In the garage, a long-unused canoe.

Dry almond shell,

cicada husk.  Well,

things happen.  I loved her, too.

Everything wears out like a garment,

Preacher says.  Love’s

monarch’s in the grove –

dark cedars frame him monument.

Cupped hands perform their wrinkled rite,

a mandorla for Miriam

(her longest night).  I am

your cloud-shape spinning into sight,

I am your turtledove of rose

granite.  A woven smile

gets fuzzy, chile.  Goes

bumbly, succeeding prose;

a glossolalia from grapevine hive

that only Providence

(unleafing salience)

can sail through oven husk – alive.

9.12.18

how to say hallelujah

OLD HAUNTS

The poem reaches like a zigzag vine

through thick vernacular

toward the actual here

& now (woodpecker in a pine).

Turbulent nation, giving birth

to glossolalia.

How to say hallelujah

in Osage, in downtown Fort Worth?

Don’t ask Dallas.  Some holy fool,

some mendicant small-fry

tried to catch Caesar’s eye

before that scapegoat kicked the stool –

you know the rule.  I’d’ve marched

if I had to.  The heat

made everything complete

hell.  Our very words parched

on our lips, like crackling cicada husk.

Some said he was coming back,

some just nibbled hardtack,

but all agreed – he could really busk,

back in the day.  Seldom was heard

a discouraging word, when

he blew that harp.  Listen,

disconsolate hearts.  What appeared

before you on the road to Emma’s

echoes again like dew

before morning – will do,

will do.  Old haunts of summers...

7.12.18

down here on the ground

CHILLY BLOWS

A red-tailed hawk shows white beneath,

sloping high in the cobalt

blue – pivoting afloat

on air – freewheeling in the teeth

of chilly blows (from Canada).

Down here on the ground

clay thins to the grind,

shatters like ice – power’s arcana

plates a hard face on the mirror,

the barrel.  His scapegoat

brands our feet by rote,

his toothy mustache splinters the car.

In the cosmogram from Amen Corner

another bird hums

through dusty spokes – drums

emerald beryl-wings across your

grave circumference, Columbia.

Your adamant cheer, Mother –

whose fleet flute-font rings here,

rings there, rings over yonder... ah,

brave wings!  Braiding Ocean River

with an Esperanto-Roma

glossolalia

hums into the matrix – shiver

these bony timbers onto sparkling

shores!  Nested in Galilee,

a grafted refugee

on new-found land... thrush, darkling.

11.9.16