part of the main

HEARTH-FIRE

I stepped outside of the quarantine

early this morning (one quiet

crystalline April moment).

A mourning dove, sequestered in a pine

nearby, was practicing, solo (adagio

con molto sentimento d’affetto).

& therefore do not send to know

for whom the bell tolls – Adios, amigo.

We don’t hear them much now, here

as once in Rhode Island.

& it’s hard to comprehend

how time-space telescopes into the mirror

(O my clay-rimmed, worm-riddled heart

& soul)… yet her melancholy

plaint echoes, in me

the solitude that ripens all my art.

We do not belong just to ourselves.

We are part of the main.

I am a half-hitch in a seine

flung from an ark, whose kelson delves

across the Black Sea of the universe.

Borne by embattled star-murmurs,

this pressure on the king spurs

martyrs to out-run the royal curse –

so Socrates & Tommy More, Jesus

absolve the men who killed them;

so their normative love-law anthem

sighs out warm fire into cold sacrifice.

4.19.20

searching the pipeline

GREEN FLEURETTE

With a guttering cigarette-stub candelabra

planted on his tin pan rim

old Hobo H., yea verily him,

sets off, vagrant pilgrim, on his last hurrah.

& recalls that fond octagonal gazebo

where many a summer

found him (quizzical plumber)

searching the pipeline for Cy Manitou.

High & low, & up & down the river

led by that whistling flit

of Ray Caw-somuchwit (tight

Gansett smokehole, domed in Ravenna)

Hobo went on, a-glide like some water-bat

round that chartless labyrinth

amazed with gold, & crème

de menthe – a little green fleurette

upsprung ‘mid scattered fallen leaves

& spinning like a gyroscope

cross-threaded by Hope

so’s to balance what him heart conceives.

For that whisper-caw of Wakan Tanka

cries – all the temples of Solomon

& all the domes of Justinian

are but the models of a living Anchor,

planted ‘twixt the temples of your mind

beside the hearth-fire in your heart.

O speaking brook, where rivers start!

Handy RI aerie (in your eye to find).

3.26.20

like a transparent crane-bone flute

UPSTART FLARE

Under Siberian pale-blue ice

tiny frozen spirals form.

Where memories swarm

in whirlpools, counter-clockwise –

Hobo spring of vagrant musing.

Follow me down, she

murmurs, toward the sea –

limpid ocean floor of everything.

The coil of wet clay tightens, slowly.

Welterings of catkin passions

merge beneath an old man’s

glaze (welded to an osier orrery).

It is the Mississippi bottomland

of errant, febrile heart.

Hot kiln, or upstart

flinty flare; centripetal lampstand.

The bare simplicity of San Francesco

floats like a transparent

crane-bone flute –

an air set like a feather in the flow,

a bubble in the world of local trials.

Love the Lord your Wakan Tanka

& your neighbor, Raven Caw-

Caw – this call melts all frozen wiles.

So the clay wheel rotates slowly,

turns inexorably north

south east... & forth

to high Pacific gate – lofting her Liberty.

12.20.19

beehive hop melds drones

SCRAMBLED EGGS

October in my spindly cedar octagon.

Oblomov in a quaint gazebo

waiting for his Olga, O.

Henry had an MRI today.  Beat.  Ochin.

His mini-RI, his Ocean State,

full of scrambled eggs &

mussels, canonical sand...

some Narragansett raving (will abate).

He can’t lift Juliet (or JB, either)

out of the bitter surf

with a pompous word, a mere

sniff to the wise.  Just take a breather,

Hen.  The heart is a mystery

who can plummet?  Purple

majesty amid all people,

8-ball in the Rabbi Shabbat sea –

where be wisdom be to found, Henri?

In love again with Heidi

or whole neighborhood, ey?

In Mendelssohn, where the bee-

hive hop melds drones to symphony...

where children laugh naturally

& Sophie will skip-to-me-

Lou through the live-oak gateway

immemorial... as toward you, gentes,

Jeannie, Juliet, Jonah,

the heartbeat (Shekinah)

skims near – overshadowy Benny Voluntas.

10.9.19

at the end of summa

SURSUM CORDA

These heart-shaped leaves of the cottonwood –

yellow-black memories,

your excavated face

from the dark archive of branded blood.

Leavings from an old mosaic, my Psyche;

yearnings you magnetized

like a Tombs Angel surprised

me from despair – desire molting to fiery

grace.  Loose, unloose these cords,

sister Cordelia –

churnagogue Jonah,

heart’s winepress of happy candle-words.

I hear hands clap together

this little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine...

through the funhouse mirror

mend you ways, O Minotaur

sacre du printemps

bête pour FIN DU TEMPS

so you may stand with sisters

brothers   in the great congregation

at the end of summa

when the threads draw

taut (1132)   Rabbi, Rab Ravelin

sursum corda   my clay Columbia

as out of the flaming kiln

the milky waters spill

& your glad-sparrow brother sighs   selah

9.18.19

to restore a soul

SECRET WORLD

To restore a soul, to mend a broken heart

out of the wells of memory

for relief of misery

for your grace we pray.  A crane bone flute

keening her lonely call might still redeem

the wind that carries it

on the storm-clouds.  Fiat

lux – though the darkness loom.

This primitive wooden Vierge Ouvrante

unveils her secret world

with a copper hinge.  Old

masters of le Verbe significant

carved, flickered into form

a buoyant microcosm

within her oaken beam –

a human shelter from the storm.

Cicadas buzz amid burnt branches

of a poem framing history.

It is a mystery.

Isis on her throne, Ariadne’s hunches,

spider-Minotaur in his plangent web...

the sacrifice of innocence

behind a screen (some dense

thicket of Pig’s Eye Social Club).

The wind is clear & clean tonight.

Whole homesteads rise

toward ordinary Paradise,

warm lips forging a female Paraclete.

1.16.19

& know the place for the first time

STEEP HEART

The mystery of the Incas, how

they filed those giant stones

at the top of mountains

into close-fitting knots (above, below).

The slim knife-edge, the penetration.

On behalf of balance,

lamb-tethered violence...

one must die, for the sake of the nation.

Something about moss-covered stone,

arctic lichen.  Colors

on a rough-hewn wall (yours,

mine).  Collage of blood & bone.

Memory, mother of muses

lead me back to your

stone milk-splashed door.

Ancient well-bench (sea-roses).

The eunuchs of the kingdom come

& go... their simple habit

underneath the gibbet

simply to repeat the sacred OM.

Alpha, Omega.  History unwinds.

He’s humble, sheepish

as a goat – Ish-

mael, or Solomon.  Pay him no mind.

The one thing that happened, historically

was that an innocent nobody

became king for a day.

Steep heart, remind me... let us pray.

12.15.18

by the long slow delta-mouth

BRIGHT FLASH

That line of poplars in the Corot distance

like on the way to Ravenna

or along the Seine, Papa

– no, only the topmost branches

of a simple sycamore in Providence

– no, just a maple

in Minneapolis.  O ample,

inexpressible, tongue-tied inheritance!

In the heart of the heart of the country

maybe.  Where anguish lives

alongside hope – conceives

the origin of time-&-space, Henry –

this wilderness of unfound, foundered

land.  This knotted maze

where a wood casket will blaze

(portable grail, marine crossroad)

the suddenly articulate harmony

of an integral universe

like that scene on a vase

when Isaac, Ishmael & Melpomene

leave town together, shaking tambourines

a procession to seashore

on the blind side of Minotaur

throwing down scimitars, carbines

for their Thanksgiving celebration

by the long slow delta-

mouth   at the seething O

& ah   bright flash   of seraph exultation

6.24.18