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

to imagine governance anew

CURVE-MIRROR

Everything resolves into the question

of good will.  The mystery

of this most simple anti-

gravity (11.32 ft/sec, a-falling down).

Firebranded sign of imago Dei.

So we desire the good –

wholeness (soul food).

The skeleton key of MLK,

the metaphysical hope informing

scapegrace Providence;

little Ocean State’s immense

rose light (perpetually intensifying).

Only a memory of Henry’s youth.

That community-building élan

of the VISTA legion –

to imagine governance anew, in truth

& conspicuous joy (Roger’s liberty

of conscience).  Dante

& his animale compagnevole

on Dante Street (on Federal Hill)… si, si!

Canopic geometry – vanishing point.

The apse at Sant’Apollinare.

One solitary shepherd, & the sky

a coracle of stars around one smile (anoint

her compassionate Pilot over Kings).

In the curve-mirror of the dome

you sense her light.  Calm

Shekinah… mild restoration of all things.

3.12.20

the season is Lent

LEAD PENCIL

At the most infinitesimal quantum

precinct level, trouble

is unpredictable.

Dust gathers like snow… some

galactic thread-warp effect.

The season is desolate.

Apollinaire is not

Melchizedek (the line is indirect).

The season is Lent.  Everyman

leans on shriven bones,

shaken by groans.

What will rise from such desolation?

In the river of speech, a quintessence

of dust (mixed with rain).

Shapes a diamond again –

hopeful whisper of Providence.

The metaphysics of God’s mother

(Theotokos, Mary)

is an infinite query

for blind Hobo, Henry.  Some other

realm of irenic Siren smiles

blue San Francisco Bay

over slivers of hay,

into dark monarch cedar files…

& you don’t know what I’m talking about

since the Ferrara canoe

glints gray (lead pencil #2).

Since ash flutters down (lights out).

3.3.20

Garden of Gesthemane

she is a mason too

FAMILIAR EYE

When the farmwoman goes out to sow

a scattering of cornseed

or fleurette africaine (dark weed

flung wide), she is a mason, too –

planting a cornerstone at dawn

to the northeast (between

the subtle nightshade of illusion

& nuanced elaborations of the sun).

Hope being the common denominator

of all our troubled labor

buried out there, somewhere.

Does language know?  Prickly pear,

prickly pear... where the shadow falls

across an exact location.

33 light-years... (someone

WW knew – at Kitty Hawk?).  Tiny candles

flicker in the hot wind from the crypt.

Presently details of the little

room emerge.  Her title

to the seasoned sailor, found amidships

after the ashes scattered like black raven-

doves into infinity –

where Mr. Sunborn’s akme

of knowledge curled its crown toward heaven.

This the mandala the builders left me.

Jenny with her Book of J – my

golden lamb of Ghent... familiar eye

peeled back, unvarnished (dyeing history).

1.30.20

now we are six

SOUL LIBERTY

Today be the birthday of granddaughter Sophie

the Bangladeshi-American.

Her Baba became a citizen

in 2017.  They’re just as American as you & me.

We made a covenant of equality

before God, long ago.

African-Americans know

how long it took to become just barely free,

not to say equal before the law

in this blood-soaked country.

It begins with soul liberty –

thumbprint of human dignity.  We saw

how Roger stood alone against the weight

of Boston magistrates,

to separate a faith’s dictates

from common civil rights – & shape a state

of openness, of global mutuality

– planted in equity,

grounded equality –

premonition of a new reality

emerging like a dream rose island

from an imagined Providence

(Roger’s capacious sense

of Edward Coke’s law-learned hand).

Sophie, dancing image of an unseen grace,

child of the universe

sprung up in Minneapolis,

take hold of your inheritance – one hopeful place.

8.21.19

shout it from the rooftops

CLEAR PINE

Hobo was playing solo crane bone flute

like an airy trompette marine

as he watched Henry puzzle on,

muttering his thumpy rhythms en route.

It’s the Union, the Union, Hobo intoned –

as your eye is clear & light

in the pasture breeze – right?

We wrestle with this violence, shark-boned

with vicious avarice – yet Sophie-gentleness

may rule at last, a restoration

of your soul’s volition –

the true child-wish, mild & harmonious

as that lamb-lily in the tiger’s eye;

as Sophie plays her middle Cs

at center of the keys

& swings all 88 into the sapphire sky.

Hope is our natural state – for a grace

bestowed, unbeknownst to us.

Lost & found – like that Tombs

Angel, swimming from the marble face

to lift a prisoner out of the dust –

Rebecca Salome Foster, spun

by Bitter-Lamb into the sun;

drawn out again (by Jeremy Ann) at last...

So Henry clutched the muddy wheel

& turned it, counter-clockwise;

from oceanic Providence

to clear pine river-source... you feel

                       *

it turning, turning... into San Francisco

& a rainbow pigeon-throat

blent with rainbow trout

all natural wonders for that footloose hobo

full of ecstatic spiritual deliverance

marked on his feet & palms

from walking, chanting psalms

all the way to the Delta – joyeux entrance

into azure Gulf, American trumpets

O when the saints

come marching in...

& the clay wheel turns bronze serpents

into flame-gold lambs, whose linking thread

folds limbs into a March on Washington :

where they will wash away corruption

& the violence greed breeds – the dead

shall climb up from their graves, & dance

the Beguine – the beginning again;

the restoration of all men & women

in the clay river-light of Cahokia’s immense

plateau – across Big Muddy from the sky-

blue angle of the Gateway Arch –

that silvery canoe, echoing the arc

of one invisible & omnipresent loving eye :

Aye-Aye of Providence.  Elliptical wafer

lifted from humble bowl...

Hagia Sophia (universal

soul) wearing her limestone life-saver.

8.9.19

serpent ocarina

RED RIVER

Dante calibrated to the nth degree

the classic perihelion

of medieval civilization

simply to retrieve the smile of Biche

out of nine coils of Cerberus

& that sulfurous pit

known to Cautantowwit

who cauterizes death with raven caws.

More things in heaven & earth, Horatio.

We’re all caught up in this

wrestling match with the abyss;

there’s no detachment of the mind from woe

nor from the body’s final strife

– breathing with agony

at the crossroads (in RI) –

where Red River meets Sargasso Gulf.

So the poem of America embodies

Juliet upon the parapet

Ophelia with hairnet

(download Vertigo for double-whammies) –

the tensile span of every suicide,

waiting for someone to reach

them (eye-in-hand) – teach

HOPE to hollowed-out children (pied

serpent, surging back to Mendelssohn).

Observe the valiant

canoe, she said.  Plant

almonds, quincunctial.  Amen, amen.

6.27.19

no one will judge it

Bang Hai Ja, Naissance de la Lumiere, 2015 (part of a stained-glass project for Notre Dame de Paris)

BIRTH-SIGH

Light-waves pulse from primordial Ocean State

from a weightless blazing stone

fallen to our temperate zone

from heaven – & no one will judge it

murmured Joseph, ye blessed stem;

the Word’s articulation

is well-water’s spoken

wheel (from Nowhereland to Bethlehem).

Our history, a contentious dream

scrolled on Möbius tape

pivots its bleak landscape

panorama on a polestar theme :

the plummet-stone, a river-pilot’s guide.

Her name is Providence.

She is each local habitation’s

hopeful capital – ghost by your side;

she is the sister-dove of Mandelstam,

rock-dove of gay Stevens;

she is the Jonah – Berryman’s

& Crane’s last lifesaver (she says I AM).

I see the shadow of gray wings of stone

stretch like a whisper now

from East to West, Glasgow

to Golden Gate; lifting each broken bone

from Frisco shore to some imperishable joy

like Hummingbird lancing the curse

& labyrinth of Homo Tyrannos

with one birth-sigh... her FIAT LUX... that Day.

6.15.19

articulated bagpipes

CICADA SHELL

Last night, in the final French class

Charles explained to us

that intricate forest

of thousands of skeletal pieces

under the armor of the vast organ

of Notre Dame, somehow

surviving the late inferno –

a delicate spider of sound, within

the cathedral’s gray cicada shell

of feathery stone light.

Now, in my monkish hideout

of twisted cedar, a mid-May swell

of emerald sheen beyond the doorway

stretches toward Iona

or maybe Compostela

or Jerusalem... & scrawny face of Henry

lined like wood by age & foolishness

lifts to spring brightness

one wee dram of hopefulness,

mayhap – someone’s vernal Inverness.

It is the ordinary light of day

flashing through our human

imago, her chaste design –

what we might be, beyond dismay

in the conjunction of clear consciences

set toward a restoration

of the common good.  One

amid many – octave’s consonance.

5.15.19

not kingly oak

SPRY LIMBS

Not kingly oak, nor prescient almond...

just some pale cottonwood.

Moon milky-green, for good

measure.  Shedding vagabond

fluffballs – like poetry, or

cotton boles – bales

for Memphis, N’Orleans...

spry limbs bent into hangin’ tree.

I go into jags & eddies, dried

pemmican.  Downstream

from vinegar dream-

sponge (where the Bre’r-man died).

If the Word were truly a fluffball of light

I would be acorn coracle

green mote on miracle

worker spinal curvature (bent wight).

It gleams through red Pipestone

peacepipe – an emerald

happiness, turned gold

as sunshine.  Welcome, Everyone!

Translucent presence of a place

for you, before all places

cling to timespaces...

a nest for omnipresent Falcon-Ace.

Benevolent breeze, that moves these leaves

to waver into swing-time

antimatter – chime

morning with Hope (sings in the sheaves).

6.6.18

all glory, laud & honor

PUDGY PALM

The homeless Mandelshtams – Nadezhda,

Osip – shelter in the Hermitage

beneath a Rembrandt image.

Theotokos with Child – da, da –

the yellow-black goldfinch, perched

upon his pudgy palm.

Invisible museum

in the mind.  Like Hagia Sophia (arched

Argo of a million eyes) whorled

in one prow... her kelson

Love’s bright apparition –

equilibrium of peaceful world.

All glory, laud & honor...

the sensus comunis

of common good is

at your service (humble, poor) –

Franciscan mule of stubborn heart

whose fast is doing

(in twilight fast fading) –

out to the glimmer-rim of art

back to the ember-glowing hearth.

The honor of the civitas

so shaped by selflessness

into a form of equity – in truth

& mirth, transparency... your wings

in flight, O Tyche-Liberty –

humble Columbia (Black Sea

to Golden Gate) Nadezhda brings.

4.30.18

hope is the anchor of the soul

DRY THICKET

The salty bread & wine of commonweal

is not a partisan domain;

it came before Abel & Cain,

magnanimous magma of the real.

Like these green palm-prints in a ring

my daughter planted on a square

of Grace’s linen, whirling there

like burning wings of seraphim (wheeling,

wheeling)... the Power of the universe

flames through a hearth-fire

(undermining empire

with compassionate adhesiveness).

I watched this morning as a lone

bald eagle, gliding quickly

in great catenary

arcs (like Guillem de Gellone

or Joachim, the hermit of Fiore)

mimed curvature of bridge

along that autumn ridge

like a daguerrotype from Civil War –

the process signifying Liberty

teeters twin wings

an unknown soldier brings

to bear (O turtledove of solidarity).

The downward angle of the bird

that signifies nekuia

& kenosis (ah,

bright wings!) so anchoring the word

                    *

she flies – & radiates upward (selah)

that Shekinah you heard

wailing in Ramah (sword

rotating every way)... hey ey

yo, Ma!  Your motherland the Earth

is calling you, Hobo.

Only primordial blue

clay, replicating Ocean birth

can shape the high ship of the whole.

Those human ribs, breathing

from Galilee to Sing-Sing

slip the galley through a needle –

bear Arcturus to the North Pole

via waltz of galaxies –

salve memories

of lost sailors, & reconcile them all.

Hope is the anchor of the soul.

Light seed, planted in soil

of churnagogue, still

twirling on your milky way... scroll

out your almond gospel alms,

Melchizedek... your ray

through aquiline papyrus

lens, through Gilead pine-balms.

The clay awaits your bread & wine.

The heart yearns for it,

through dry thicket

retina of Man – your sappy pine.

10.26.17

like Don in Key West

milkweed palms

DOUBLE-DECKER

Hobo lounged by the great gray Ocean

River, his old hide detached

a little from his mind,

like Don in Key West, his one-

time winter host (at the Q Motel).

Distanced a little from the

whitecaps, red & blue,

that molder to a stucco frieze of Hell

sometimes.  He remembers wild violets

that peek beneath gray toes

of an elder copper beech, whose

crown shades Providence; those roots

drill deeper than the black & white

of shaky party platforms.

Down beneath worms

mining resentment & indifference, the bite

of greedy centipedes, the slugs

cold as a winter street

in Minneapolis, whose neat

chewing fattens themselves alone (bugs

do not think about their neighbors).

Whose murmurous gray arms

have framed the milkweed farms

of metaphysical Hope, that anchors

Roger Williams’ canoe –

Love’s almond chariot

that smiling Faith built

out of flocks of can-do

monarch wings, green palms

circumferencing the gray

scallops of yesterday –

twin limestone radials (emblems

of spousal harmony, e pluribus

unum).  Whose tap sinks toward

the center of the gourd,

the hearth Love stokes, wells tears...

& where a voice from her grey mirror

sang in Hobo’s ear –

Behold the Platonic Year

revolve at last, aboard my double-decker

Greyhound!  When the game of suits

& spades & royal clubs

gives way to hearts purple

& ruddy diamonds – twin 52s

orbit an orange origami octagon,

one Chinese lantern, standing

in the night garden – bring

Hobo to the table, then!  It’s done!

He pondered pumpkin murmurings,

& mooned there, by the muddy

banks.  The breeze of poetry...

only a feeling (sighed).  Our burdenings

borne by that humble muse, whose trust

in some deep loving cloud

grey Manitou’s abode

will wave back (Noah’s buoyant crust).

8.15.16

Hoboland

Languid, voluptuous, orange

This poem forms a pair with the previous one (see yesterday's blog entry).

TRANSPARENT SPRING

This wheel’s unseen circumference

includes a coffee can

from Hart – a Savarin,

no? – looping a salience

of tulip spires (languid, voluptuous,

orange).  For Hart, Johns

sounded gray Ocean

& signaled with a palm Love’s

one transparent spring (from deep

to deep).  A little tree –

lemon? – mustard, maybe;

the orange flourish of a steep

green trumpet, embracing its iron

lattice like a bride

in May... no one can hide

from Love’s almond dominion.

This doctrine bides each alteration.

A sigh amid these wheels

rides wingèd heels

from scythe to seedy germination –

Time’s origin (space-flowering).

Leaf-whispers from a pair

of olive trees, who share

one catenary pattern... stirring

life-draft, dangled from twin pillars,

lifted toward Pacific

azure – scarred, terrific

sentinels of hope (hers, yours).

4.13.16

Tulips (Nancy Hart)