that hexed hexagon

PRICKLY ROOFTOP

Only a light whisper of April snow

feathers the riverbank today.

The wind-serpent will flay

with rippling wings its own mud-brown

flow.  The cottonwoods lean overhead

like ribs on a canoe.  Gray veins

of some cast-off snakeskin.

Glass fane of Great Worm (empty, shed).

Where are the springs of yesteryear?

This April curls from cold

& back to cold.  From cold

to cold – inhuman, viral (some Shakespeare

Villon).  So the chill indifference

of animal aggression marks

its seal on each snowflake.

Each one unlike (unique monstrance).

So who invented this immaculate snow?

A mind of winter?  Or

a dreaming Melchior – his

clouds on high, his Bethlehem below?

We sleep, we wake… like soft snowflakes.

We drift, we float… we land

& melt upon a child’s hand.

The soul is like that dark green pine, makes

rough & prickly rooftop – root foundation

for each spindrift, wayfaring

Romany light-traveling

human earth-heart time-migration

*

– so hear the art then, O spiraling 

hearth!  Martian enfoldment

like arms of Odin, bent

around himself – whole tree corralling!

For Snowflake is that hexèd hexagon

of heaven & earth, joined

in your heart, coined

Abraham – red copper of the gun;

that regal object-dart of adoration

– tangled boomerang, returned

upon itself – urned

at the apex of our celebration;

the bread & wine of every sacrifice

offered by universal Everyman

each time she lifts the can

for mite or gold doubloon… our price.

The light snow sweeps across Ireland

& Minneapolis-St. Paul.

A sweet lamb looks from wall

of van Eyck emerald, almost human (sand

or salt will reveal her, underneath

Mississippi varnish).  Flowers

are eternal, soul-power

is substantial… MELEK shall bequeath

his welcome-gift of bread & wine

on his way to Memphis

for the garbage men.  This

my body… this my blood.  Lamp, shine.

4.3.20

meet & join

personal compass of Roger Williams

FAMILIAR ALMOND

My snarling yarn snowballs thistle-

clumps of confusion into

the midmost of the Slough.

Incomprehensible green missile,

towing kisses from that acrid swamp

in Mendelssohn (whence

we dragged a canoe by bare

feat, Heidi, home – only to dump

it in the permafrost garage).

There are many jinxed

men buried in there, minx.

Path P was a chi-rho camouflage –

X murks the spit (twin cousins

rustling for windy blessings).

Oaky, salty Invernessings

hone your eye into a baker’s dozen –

thirstings between gold floor-leavened

loafers & a 14

April funeral (foreseen

but not seen-for).  The scene’s unheavened.

Then for heaven’s sakes, let’s have it,

Lucky.  Twelve’s the number

of twin seraphim (Mary

& John) & Jenny’s lost mint (Juliet)

– the mother rising in the leery

graviton – the hamlet

feeling mighty chary yet

(Blackstone on hold, with Roger steering

                     *

spins his compass toward the iron clearing).

West, Virginia, west

to Vermilion... yon felix

nest.  Gone dragnet spearing.

& yet the guyline mumbling

of poetry retrieves

a sense of limpid leaves;

the universal shuttling

of loom with lambent seraphim

conceives an agate diamond-

crystalloid familiar almond –

6 paths of Dakota Slim

remind the mind of Eagle-Heart

(who reigns by thundercloud

of humble Jonah-bird

O sages in the Super Mart)

that everything says meet & join

in lattices of give

& take   Seek ye   & Live,

that honey-dome   of stubborn pain

intones   my cousin Juliet

great-grandmother Jessie

Ophelia   madre de Jenny

listen   a gentleness, O jet

of Mississippi water   sip & see

the ghosts come back to me

in Paradise   a little tree

of Jesse   blue   (a juniper, maybe)

4.12.17

let her skip

DAKOTA HEXAGON

This quiet August day toward

the cusp of autumn.  Green

vine-light in the cavern

where Henry hides his raven-word.

That empty chair in Dante’s sky-

deep rose, for all the hoped-

for prophets, emperors...

& here’s Sophia’s little throne (my

dancing-master’s rosy resting-

spot).  Let her skip

fearless across the ship

of state, her toy basilica, questing;

the Greyhound of the Lord, her

vengeance, comes to this –

gray clouds of Providence

replete with rain; a pregnant mother

radiant with clearing day; the shades

of persecution blown away

by ocarinas (clay-

shell turtledoves, dolphin parades).

Ineffable golden Hephaestus-net...

veil of corn fleece over

a West Branch face.  Her

sister in D.C. (Adams duet) –

icon of Miriam & Magdalen,

Dakota hexagon

implicit in the sun

of Washington... cartwheels, Columbian.

8.13.16