gash of a calm current

CALM CURRENT

The daggers of the sumac (plum-

red, maroon) accent

the gash of a calm current

between these knotted forks of autumn

cottonwood.  The knot itself

an ellipse, like bole

of oak (hollow hole...

screech owl?) – for an emerald elf.

The Green Man in the green glade.

Prehistoric American?

Or an Irish cousin.

Gardener in the garden (maid

Magdalen’s Gesthemane).

The river is a strong

brown Gould.  Unstrung

out of New Hampshire (Alleghany?

Ohio?).  Or maybe Negus, Ravlin...

leading the flock mesmerized

to Iowa (West Branch, 

shepherd).  Buzzing a Quaker violin.

We have dawdled long enough

in Babylon, children.

The labyrinth (Parisian)

folds Theseus into a trough

much like a Mississippi mirror

dreamscape, umbilical

(& smoothly paradoxical).

We mumble into the interior.

10.29.18

Tran-Van-Tay

NILE ROSE

                          for Tran-Van-Tay (i.m. Joseph Duemer)

The pomegranates on white linen

loom like autumn leaves.

A red that fades, grieves...

yet glows out of its midnight background

blue.  Like a chokecherry, or

some other berry, man.

Viet-American

(another long-gone war).

We were on honeymoon, in Paris.

Aphrodisiac,

that dried-up sack

of seeds (maroon, vermilion).  Osiris –

will he climb out of the grave again?

The grave of gravity

(1132 ft/sec) – for me?

One catenary arc (trompette marine)

– one thread cut from the labyrinth

of frightened Minotaur

(mother-nightmare).

One Ariadne-clue, one length

of yarn, your sheepish hermitage;

C-magnet of the knot-

king’s smoking calumet –

curled fringe of Jonah’s whale-image.

Out of the sea, the rudder swam.

Rhode Island... oaken

wisdom’s perihelion.

Rose Nile, set sail for gentle Vietnam.

10.10.18

like spinning Jenny Gyre

SAFETY LINES

The late-May lilacs are long gone

but light grey limbs

& the green leaves rim

the grass with shade yet, absent one.

The sound of an ocean softly seething

in the branches overhead.

Is she alive or dead –

my sainted, tainted Juliet?  Still breathing

somewhere?  Imago or Imogen...

merely some ghoulish Ravlin-

Gouldash revenant, then?

Some Beatrice-crystal-Poe routine,

arising ghastly from dank ditch-ravine?

But no... a memory

lifts all azury

from sparkle-spray beneath benign

leap of wide Golden Gate.  Almond-

eyed sprite, a-whirl

like spinning Jenny Gyre

balanced on catenary wire... light bond

that ravels tout le monde... infinite

undisplaceable safety net

& cloudy calumet

confirming universal concord... so be it!

Grave knot that tightens less & less

toward infinite regress

of infinitesimal kiss

(minute atomic balm of tenderness

                     *

merging without mixture or separateness).

Maximus once limned it thus,

the monk who bore witness

(with loss of limb) for concept Orthodox –

incarnate knot of human & divine,

united unlikeness – like

that tomb slab, a limestone block

marked by what seems a breaking line

but only seems; the two are one

in one Person, of three

in all; still guarantee

amid the waltz of turning sun & moon

of Love’s immoveable eternity.

Out of deep matrix

of Ocean – intergalactic

scheme of merry stars in that sea...

inconceivable conception of

all origins (harmonic

correlations, thick

with measureless & dancing life).

The Manitou all people know,

Aquinas wrote.  The God

who dreamed this serenade...

we meet you in the shady slough

beneath great knots of wild grapevines

beside the muddy Jordan –

down by where solitary John

once cast a seine for Jonah (safety lines).

7.11.18

anyone know your knots?

SHADE-CANOE

The lowly starfish, neither fish

nor star.  Rather

fish out of water, or

spark from Ocean River.  Wish

upon which?  Empty choice, perhaps –

like this rickety cedar

gazebo door, spannered

over the void for mosquito apse

(fine Roman iron).  Door always open.

Natural Bridge – sublime,

like Jefferson’s government;

only supporting vault, for all men,

women, are created equal.

Contracted limestone

hieroglyph, whose one

whole marbleized body-spiral

corkscrewed like Nut – bolted

to high arch-campanile.

Mostly invisible.

An Arctic burg (igloo-solid).

The hollowness of raven-beak –

scars like tattoos for Cain;

Jonah from Spanish Main

become Columbian Mayflower (seek

& ye shall find Canonicus, O

jolly Roger).  Darkest

camera oscura (west

of black hole, near Tasmania)

                *

filled with simple cave-sketches –

a wave-curve with a graphene

heart-keep (anyone

know your knots?) nyet – catches

hermaphrodite french wombat stray

(whom-batt to you) – punished,

burnished bronze, banished

by Moi (Great Man Two Hernee)

for coming naked from the sea

right into Nineveh

(some Who-She-Whooshee

mania).  Like Mirror Lakes, see –

glass bifocals, in Mendelssohn.

Reflective retina

bent through Ravenna

or shade-canoe of rusted iron

in Ferrara (almond mandala)

whose double curve

lets light swerve,

portable & potable.  Some farfalla

redbird’s bedrest (or robin’s nest)

you carry like pemmican

for Father Hennepin;

some amphora from Galilee (the best)

floats into harbor on a buoy

bobbing with airy Ariel

corked in oak barrel –

Jonah ex machina, sailor’s ahoy.

6.28.17