for Dina Tagliabue

SUNNY SISTER

                                 for Dina Tagliabue

I never made it to the Mimbres Ranch,

Dina – though Alex & Phoebe did,

& brother Jim did, too – up

in them hardscrabble cactus hills, with a bunch

of hippies.  You chugged out there back when

in your VW bus, dragging along

stray hitches from Michigan –

getting the farm going, the pottery kiln...

Bob was there early, I guess, plying

the seasonal pickers’ fields

& his carpentry (& sprout yields

from the bathtub hydroponic mung-bean

enterprises).  Early & late he was –

composting with you to Sicily,

your garlic plot of earthy

transplants (care of kind Erica, & Grace).

It wasn’t my life, it was yours –

tied close to soil

by musing love-wrung toil

until this planet glazes bronze, & grows...

your joy, your blazing smile, Dina!

You were the sunny sister

to my moon’s iris – her

Inca-mauve Sheep’s Clothing (Francesca);

& now I see you foot the potter’s wheel

& knead your human clay

into a memory of joy...

molding earth to sunlight, in a laughing reel.

1.26.20

Hong Kong dragonfly

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

A Friday afternoon of breeze & clouds.

In Hong Kong, crowds awake

the legacy of Edw. Coke

& Roger Williams’ Providence – shrouds

brace the pinnace, steady keel

to sweep of choppy surf.

Aft the canoe’s curve

a foaming V for victory... for real?

A tiny splinter in the eye, or

Chartres-blue dragonfly

camouflaged by sky.

A Thunderbird (outpacing Minotaur).

Apollinaire, in his bright air-machine

waits on the universal sign

for Joie – like blue-green

pine... like jubilant Mary Magdalen

finding the gardener in cemetery...

like nothing else in Oklahoma.

The principle of hallelujah

is always a little ahead of you, chérie –

the way Love leads always, pilgrim, toward

more life (the Way, the Truth).

Out of that cornfield, Ruth;

out of Beforetime plummeted the word –

& so we’re circling around this cave

like a bunch of prehistoric

Australians.  Your biopic

features an almond coracle, O dreaming knave.

6.20.19

spoke of a water-wheel

SALT WAVE

Along the riverbank, these rich

dark green moss-terraces;

a miniature forest

spreading wide along each niche

of Pliocene sea-limestone.

Archive of mollusc-whorl

& sea-worm spiral

layers of plastered ivory linen.

An infinitely tiny bronze

french horn accompanies

trompette marine – Willie’s

gauzy smoke-signal de Paris;

petrified remains of carven

calumet from Red Wing,

maybe.  This is nothing

like a Pipestone atlatl, Raven

croaks.  Spoke of a water-wheel,

more likely.  Jessie O’s

clay potter swells

with gentle pats & frills – feel

how her spine of Fish-Man surfaces

profound supremacy of whale!

A wheel that will not fail

springs to its trickle-task, washes

the wilderness from every face

until its light-green glory

meshes Ezekiel’s story –

wheel wends with wheel (a carapace

                *

of pearl enfolds that golden bough)

until a plangent joy

beams from unfurling J

in spokes of rose aye-aye lands now –

one Great Red Spot, so thundery

& jovial – one Yahweh-

Manitou, in one streamway –

the Rio del Espiritu, at play

across prairies & meadowlands

in centrifugal fugue –

day-lily orange bugle-

calls, mauvelets a monarch understands –

until at last the torch of Liberty

lifts from her copper shroud

to chant moss-green out loud

& set the Mississippi free...

As when the labyrinth of St. Louis

glimmers wheat-gold amid

deep shade (Monk’s Mound)

– & signs the tidal drone (commence!)

to shift the Earth from fraudulence –

fallacious Midas-usura

whose Minotaur is US-

R-US – whose glow of carbon flatulence

burns orange rage (from White House

into every gilded cage)

& all the world’s a stage

for strutting tyros in malevolence...

                *

Peace is another way.  Humility.

How Eeyore-mule (San Fran)

transmutes to Eero Saarinen.

With the power  of soul   any-

thing is possible   the tacit poverty

of yearning love  bent

by Br’er Francesco’s Lent

into a welcoming   equality

chaste eye of akme equity

out of an almond branch

in Petersburg   will launch

once more   peals of humanity

from the great Rose of Providence

wheeling & swinging wide

with Chartres sunlight   O glide

with me   downstream, Hobo   immense

Pacific beckons   from the galaxies

where kind Melchizedek

pours milk of live-oak

acorn mead   shares bread   from nursing

YHWH’s heart   sweet Manitou’s   delight.

Enfolded in the subtle veil

of golden fleece   & gray whale-

oil   that infinite fine safety-net

swings like a hammock in the breeze

beneath twin flaming pillars

where a starfish falls

& lifts her   from salt wave   to Paradise

7.19.17

Joy Dialect

This instructional video illustrates how not to set poetry to music.

& yet a bard has to start somewhere. The actual poem ("Joy-Dialect") can be found here.

We're getting our act together & taking it on the road.

Mosey up the Nile

WAVY CUPOLA

The child in her acorn coracle

moseys up the Nile

flashing her light smile

every which way (infant oracle);

when you least expect, she’ll plant

her seedling joy – OK,

everything’s hunky-dory

now – with a fiddlehead stunt,

twirling up in a spiral over

empty space (green

island in the brain,

green almond, 4-leaf clover).

The red-gray desert stone

harbored an agate

lamp – uplifted late

into the night (sweet Psyche-zone);

under a wavy cupola of bark

a tepee-tripod braced

the buoyant mandorla...

O Hobo-Rube, not earthquake

nor volcano can displace

your cheery pine-lantern

whose handy facets perne

around one holm oak – chase

the quick naiad now, into the wood!

She cartwheels up ahead –

one skipping emerald,

one glancing Ariadne-tread.

11.3.16