only an echo of Jerusalem

SPEECH IMPEDIMENT

Uncanny quiet over the face of the earth

when a plague wind blows

like a Sabbath no one chose.

All the crumpled greed, the burnt-up wrath.

The painter paints, the poet bodies forth

rehearsals of embottled ships.

Righteous Ironsides in death-grips,

waves of evil crashing each wake-froth.

We recall the speech impediment of Moses,

his lame stuttering.

The stubborn mule, his bawling;

how the moth anticipates his metamorphoses.

The beard of flame, the copper serpent…

apotropes for lamb

muzzled to kingdom come –

the mute goodness, whose light is spent

in painful denouements of selfless love.

We know these weary nurses

of the commonweal.  Sursum corda

you sweet Cordelias, sent from above.

Amid stark silence of a vacant Mass

my murmurs of a restoration

seem almost abomination.

You must judge what ought to come to pass.

These incoherent old man’s mutterings.

Only an echo of Jerusalem

to come.  Your Jubilee, I AM –

brilliant integrity of all good things.

We hold these truths to be self-evident –

Williams' Carta (so fair,

kind, true).  Coke’s tender care

breathing to Providence (love’s fundament).

4.21.20

music of ordinary things

AERIE-FEAST

Music of ordinary things...

happiness at work,

when things go OK –

when the work is good, & skill brings

flowers to fruition; then at dusk

heading home, to family

& friends, where kids play

beneath a sturdy roof (hard task

fulfilled with courteous precision)...

plain telos of humanity,

pleroma of reality,

continuum of beauty’s diapason.

Grandfather’s house of rusty brick

along the River Road –

an engineer’s abode,

who loved an opera (Elvira’s cheek)...

One high lone raven corkscrews toward

the Pole.  This pillager

is Eli’s forager –

his black-hole fleece ties ragged

knots, makes nest for bread & wine.

Look how the prophet-priest

exalts his aerie-feast

where Time peals to a finish line,

B-flat – è FIAT... è finit.

Apollinaire smiles

in the wings – miles

overhead his plane lifts (azure, infinite).

9.28.16

for the Samaritans of Skala Sikaminias

ROOSTERS CROW

                                       for the rescuers

A gray light shines through the normal world

a silver-scale dawnlight

like the sea-sound in the right

chord on an oud, like a sail unfurled

on a cedar mast, standing simply free

on a fishing boat, out of Skala

Sikaminias, on Lesbos.  Ah,

sighs the wind, for the drowned refugee –

Oh, keens the seaman, for the ghost

of his son (a scarecrow

helped to shore).  Hard row

now, for Samaritans – for the host

village, gasping by the sea, in the normal

world, in the feathered light

of the mourning dove, so quiet

here (in the soughing wind, in the tall

cedars, in the shy bird’s nest, in the forest

dusk, in the soft

dawnlight, in the gray gull’s loft,

in the normal world).  Plain salt is best.

On a concrete floor, someone traced a star

like an octagon, in a Sapphic

ode – under harsh traffic,

under raving codes, like a graven bar

on a looping ply.  In a rosy key

sailors skim toward home –

from a morning comb,

roosters crow for Lesbos (merrily).

8.18.16

*for more information on sources of this poem, see today's New York Times article

In the deep grain

BIG SHOES

In the deep grain, American

wood flows like river

darkness, Indian-giver

is your claim   start again

with a gamble, shepherd   desert

is your friend   when you

become a   sheep (who-

who, keens   Cyclops-owl).  My yurt

is yours, pilgrim   enunciates

Canonicus (to the dauntless

youth).  His confidence

in the common good   illustrates

the Second Table   of stone

outlines   everyone

understands   Turkmen

& Catholic   Quakers, even –

that the Good   is transparent

& rooted   a charity

branch   shading   the nitty-

gritty (hungry teeth)   your Parent-

Spirit, who is Heir Apparent

&   (apparently)

Ancient of Mondays

also   her name is Clement

or Clementine   she wears big shoes

she drowned   in the river

it was my mistake   her

name   is Jessie (almond   of the Jews)

5.17.16

MLK in memory

Time only grows on you.  48 years ago this April, a gray, rainy Saturday, my dear friend Tom Fleming & I joined a long memorial/protest walk for Martin Luther King, pacing slowly through Minneapolis.  I remember circling Lake Calhoun (Calhoun...) - everyone in a somber mood, but walking & talking together - a public ceremony, an opportunity to meet others, neighbors, fellow citizens.  

20 years later, Tom would be gone, a victim of the AIDS epidemic.  But we were there that day.

Have been reading Iris Murdoch's little book of philosophy, The Sovereignty of Good.  Of course, MLK was a sort of sovereign of goodness.  A great witness to Murdoch's fundamental idea - that the Good is a substantial, unified-if-various Something : a spiritual entity known deep within ordinary people of all backgrounds.  A shared thing, a public thing, a common good, a universal benchmark - the one goal of human striving (out of our own weakness, wrongness & disgrace).  The thing we hope for, a something hopeful.  This is one dimension - a philosophical aspect, you might say - of the spiritual testament & legacy of Martin Luther King.  A hopeful call for justice, & shared happiness : the equal dignity of all human being, under the wings of infinite blessing & grace.

PEASANT DANCE

                                    i.m.MLK

Only an unpretentious oil

beside the door, my mother

painted, 50 years

ago.  Backyard.  Spring soul

of morning, golden-green – the glow

dappled with jet-black

flock of starlings, yakking &

feeding there (framed by two

young oaks, & the backs of houses).

Bring your gift, starling,

to the altar of everything –

Ocean River, inexaustible goodness.

O parallactic mercy of

these diamond facets!  Water-

falls of liberty – your

moral law, Dove-

cote!  Who moves through Memphis stone

like mild summer breeze

or shady swing-trapeze,

to milky matrix of the human

sun.  Love’s stern ethos is

a camouflage – justice

for joy – ray, source...

O King of Arthur St., she sees

you!  One glance of moist radiance

out of the Black Sea book

of Always... there, look!

Her garden summons (Peasant Dance).

1.18.16 

Backyard, Arthur St., early 1960s (by Mary Gould)

The Sovereignty of Good

PRAIRIE SPACE

A beautiful moon swings low over

frigid freeway, tonight.

Distant rays (twice-refracted)

illuminate roadside snow.  Up there

floating, one sharp sigh, one smile –

dark rondure of tennis ball

cushions his gradual

descent (unique lunar profile).

Substance of illumination...

State of Union, tonight.

President sheds late

bright emanation (station

on the way).  Recognition

of a mission, Everyman –

Goodness is this, right?  One.

Gaze upon prairie space (the sun).

Pursuit of happiness.  By we

the people.  Recognition

of a transposition...

humble oxymoron-man (of thee

I sing).  He play the target-sign,

a threefold ground zero

premier.  Mysterioso.

Ford Theatre (Dallas denouement).

Roger Williams tracks into the woods

to huts of Miantonomi.

Is finished, sez he –

snowing again (beatitudes).

1.12.16