through Narragansett smokehole

AGATE LAMP

A peaceful evening in late April

the trees barely budding

in mild light   while brooding

darkness rings   the besieged people

& this dissonance of visible   invisible

an indivisible fire   smoldering

criminals & saints   revealing

callous inhumanity    with humble

solidarity   courageous   all-compassionate

& in my flimsy gazebo

octagonal coracle or   Argo

with Sophie’s wind-chime   over the gate

delicate oak-leaf butter-knife design

tingling in the calm air   O

here in my Ariadne-lair   where

a Chartres J coils  toward her Eschaton

& my whisper follows Cautantowwit

through Narragansett smokehole 

southwest, southwest   while a soul-

hart sails back   to her monarch nest –

that circling square dance of Ocean beams

where the spirit of Jessie Ophelia

& Juliet Ravlin   abide in Thee   &

Eternity, O Eternity! cries Roger Williams

& you lift your agate lamp, Psyche

like a fiddlehead   in Holy-Land

& the soeur-coulombe of the Son

of Man   swerves   with a shining eye

4.27.20

beneath Corona Borealis

BLUE CANOE

While boy-o Henry skipped down Arthur St.

in birdsong Mendelssohn

a few miles up the trolley line

J. Buried-Man lingered on Arthur Ave (complete

Dream Song lament, at 57).  In Paris now

they’ll have to reconstruct the nave,

restore each curving architrave.

This knave goes drifting to St. Lou – his blue

canoe, beached crosswise (by Cahokia)

a kind of compass needle

aimed straight up.  Will weedy

Hobo ever stand erect himself?  Selah,

Ezekiel, Isaiah.  At San Vitale in Ravenna

or at Notre Dame, pilgrims

still stamp across the lurking limbs

of Lucifer – ravel a penitential way

by grace of Mary’s Ariadne-avatar.

It was her love for Theseus

(like Maggie Miriam’s for Jesus)

reeled him out, dis-mazèd – free & clear.

Lone Henry looks straight up, to Pole Star.

Ariadne’s Crown.  The toxic night

a donnybrook for his distraught

Columbia – his ark battered by Minotaur,

his Constitution of chaste liberty

suborned (sat on by Putin’s man).

Look, pilgrim, to the heights again –

whence cometh Thunderbird.  Dove… see?

3.29.20

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

in the entrails of the nation

RIVER-SCOW

So Henry hearkens to the sea-wash

over his meandered house.

From District C to Minneapolis

his terramara whorls, to Washington

& south to Frisco, lap after lap

of wave on wave, sea-green,

serpentine.  A Berryman

for Julian’s Bower (Juliberry nightcap,

mayhap)?  Osiris, in the entrails

of the nation?  Sleep, now

microcosmic river-scow –

everything grows smaller in the whale’s

rib-cavern, everything a miniature,

dioramic Minnesota (at the

end of the last knot, minute-

man).  Cold as a Viking vulture-

sepulture.  These bricks might save

the planet, Henry mumbles

to the museum baubles

in his sleep.  & then her hand will wave

to him, from waves of his dream;

Columbia the sister-dove,

his Tyche-tyke from above...

over the Father-of-Waters with a beam

of smiling light.  & suddenly the vermilion

shades atop Sunset Mountain

& the orange orangutan

threatening our rusty tub of human

communion (Old Ironsides to you)

are dissipated shadows

in a rosy dawn... & Henry’s

crown rests in her ark (shalom, J-rue).

1.6.20

toward the 4th of Juliette

DOUBLE WHEELS

Lone robin yodeling his evening threnody

plaintive, solitary

on June’s last day

what would he intimate to me?

That summer was immense & infinite

beyond the figuring

of our (almost) unerring

memory of planetary things.  That what

our dreaming signified was plain

(glory beyond our ken).

Tomorrow’s now & then

only a ghost might fold again

into the origami of a labyrinth

of Chartres granite, Mary

blue – like this contrary

stubborn root, trapped in cement

blooming, bleu Ming, nevertheless

along an Ariadne thread

signed (calligraphy by Ted

the Mason) in a matrix of finesse

by its ineffable Makar (aye

laddie, on a tear

shed from everywhere –

like Ocean River, or the Milky Way)

& the stone drones below human hearing

it rhythmous b-flat bass

someplace in Memphis

where Osiris met his fate, shearing

                     *

Love from its neverending source

(like Jackie K’s wing

saddled to her hat thing

flying off convertible, in Dallas).

Was it a Lincoln?  Was it a star

mobile, from galaxy?

Something moving in the clay

rotates like Ezekiel wheels – where

Louis Armstrong melted to el P

& X marked the spot

(Montale’s really not

at home – it’s Giorgio who has the key

to the garage, muttered the lovely

Michal of Ferrara dunes).

We don’t recall these tunes!

Ecclesia et Synagoga cousins be –

double-wheels within wheels, sez

Zeke, in Minneapolis.

Where Juliet was, once

before she lost face... fell from grace...

– how tender floats the human form,

ephemeral!  Until

we knot yon safety spiel –

until that lightning robin find his worm

& like a Caliban, or Jordan weed

begin to mold the clay

into slow-moving roundelay

(American)... Cahokia high meed.

7.2.19

let us come into your clay-borne presence

LIGHT RIVER

I see the radiant city on a hill

& Liberty in her harbor

& the Gateway... & ardor

burns, like paint – to make a mural,

maybe?  For one of our post offices?

Floppy Hobo in’s gazebo

full of summer, O

& stubborn weeds, ripe frailties...

& who will deliver us from this cauldron

of planetary woes?

Veiled Isis knows,

out there in West Branch – she’s not sayin’.

Her ghost throws a shadow wherever she goes.

O let me come into your presence,

Lord – let me see your face!

Joanie Magdalen grins... Light River flows.

Her uberous figure under Hooverville

remembers slow clay, &

quickens every which way –

warming the shoulders of your chill

& peregrine companions.  & gadzooks!

She spooks even the Tyche

inside Île de la Cité –

tattooing her airy John Hancocks

to every labyrinthine burg on earth.

A little candle in your soul

flickers through mole-

corridors, Mayflower – brightens your berth.

6.18.19

in the gold realm

ASCENSION DAY

My friend Chris in New Zealand

emailed (on Ascension Day)

about that homely display

of bare feet, trampolining to cloud

in the Lorenzetti fresco (or

was it Philip Guston?)

under the superscription

of a proscenium arch.  Flower

of early Renaissance mind

echoing (if necessary)

your mirror-quality

of reality.  Who will so bend

the boarhound from the boar,

Raven from Nevermore?

Is this your last cigar?

Plein air puffs from a planet’s core.

Limestone shreds of the labyrinth

at Chartres were sort of a letdown.

Rough work.  All the gold gone.

The mower set out to mow... absinthe

green, moss green clasping the scent.

The emerald pentagram

shadowed in the sheep’s I AM

quickens the dead husks in a fundament

of everlasting life; & when the Eternal comes

it will be as we remembered

in the gold realm of childhood –

when time swells (the drone lingers, hums).

6.14.19

in cedar spring

SMALL STONE

Hobo sauntering by the mother-river

with a pebble in his shoe

small stone, toe-to-toe

just for you, forever & ever.

It’s the mystery of history, he says

the authority of the source

headwaters, of course

Veritas caput.  & so his voice

goes modulated with the flow from there

as the sound wave of a whale

goes through a wave, to hell

& back – using echolocation (your

submarine eye, Osiris-sailor).

As the cathedral-builder

put her name in the floor

at the center of the maze, Jair –

that’s where you’ll find her grey-

winged agate (like minnow

in Rio del Espiritu Santo)

making the sign of a spiral J;

like a whisper out of the heart of silence

or out of Ocean River

circling round you forever

with those winking lights, intelligence

of love... because what was human & personal

is as close as your shadow

& adores creation – El Shaddai

in cedar spring (simple, loving, powerful)

5.18.19

with pigeon feathers for stone walls

SPRING BREEZE

As in one of those primitive

Sienese masters,

a pained St. Francis

fits inside a pastel arch.  Give

me your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free...

Over there stands Liberty

vaunting her mural crown (tresses

awash beneath W.P.A. murals).

Sister to Columbia,

dove-principezza

with pigeon feathers for stone walls.

They’re tripping a Troy-town maze

around the cave entrance;

priming some freelance

to buzz the Republic’s toxic haze.

Where Everyman is king

no man is king.

To the sheep he’ll cling,

to the underside of everything.

Like the span of a soft retina

in Providence, RI.

Like the women nearby

when they crucified the guy, selah.

Man or woman, brother, sister...

hearken to the wind.

Spring breeze, unwind –

a breath of renaissance, tongue-twister.

12.13.18

the Winter King (a mummer's play)

BLUE LIGHTNING

Hobo, sprawled among November reeds,

cattails.  His scattered bones

ache on jagged edges.

A chill is in the sky.  Light feeds

the icing-over swamp, the acid-

green vomit (absinthe

effigy of spring).  A plinth

of plastic raft supports his dream-kid,

Henry Hawkeye – duffed.  In mummer’s rags

of scruffy black, to match

his sullen rage (a match

is all it takes).  Here comes Antigone’s

antagonist... here comes Creon, Jason...

Here comes Le Grand K

himself, all brassy

mass and armored mirror – one

half bull, the other carny barker

in a cream straw hat.

Just look at that!

He laughs, he sneers, he boasts, he barks

surrounded by his bulky thugs,

stiletto-dames –

No Shame in Crimes

his badge declares (pinned with slugs

to his forehead).  The plastic raft

quivers to his stomp.

This is gonna be a romp,

he crows, & circles Henry, fore

                   *

& aft.  Wispy, cloudy, quiet Henry’s

cornered.  By the water.

No weapon (though an otter

peeks up near the scrim).  He’s

holding only a tiny pocket mirror,

which he flecks upward

toward the pale sun.  Hard

to say what will come next.  Your

ghost dance, Hobo, flickers photons

like Planck’s constant

from an old field tent –

where photos of Kennedy, Abe Lincoln,

Martin Luther King hang, haunted (black

& white).  The King

is dead, long live the King,

Ave Maria, Henry whispers back.

& suddenly a mass of flame pours out

like pale blue lightning

from a Chartres ceiling

down upon a maze, blazing partout

across the center of the raft.  Truth

is our Law, O shallow

prince – our commonweal.

She rules, & will spring forth

again – like that torch-bearing Liberty

all clothed in copper green

welcoming everyone...

So Hobo saw.  The raft was empty.

11.27.18

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

plastic leaves & bottlecaps

SALTY DEW

This autumn wind-chime Sophie made

like El Anatsui (African

weaver spider-man)

from plastic leaves & bottlecaps, tied

with bright ribbons – a key, a table knife,

a silver keychain ring,

a crystal ball... everything

needful for the voyage into afterlife

(October & November, winter

ice).  I hear it now,

an echo from the prow

of gray stone mothership.  Your

Notre Dame of infinite mercy,

villain François.  Or Chartres,

Hen – where light chartreuse

rhymes with sky-blues, calm sea

of sunset rose.  On the scarred floor

a labyrinthine feedback

loop speeds Argo-carrack

by umbilical thesis to Ari’s door.

Arachne, Ariadne...in Rhode Island?

One subterranean Ocean

Stream, Atlantean

where every son of J sails home again

across Medea’s Méditerranée – &

where Medusa’s stone frown

melts, to gleaming crown

of salty dew... grail of compassion.

9.11.18

goldenrod honeybee

LAMBENT FLUTE

This bumblebee on goldenrod,

hunting the crossroad

at close of summer.  Old

Hobo character – camouflaged

in yellow-black (almost).  Henry’s

obsession with absence.

I’d go the distance

into infinite cornfields, he says.

The river subculture, the dream

of floating back home.

Churnagogue palindrome

or unknown womb... clay baptism.

The cottonwood leaves seem to flow

like golden honey, then –

in Taurida, on the autumn

wind.  Like little heart-ships, so

they swim.  Out of the tight-knit shawl,

out of the everlasting

fire.  None shall be coming

to the Father except by Son, y’all –

by way of Mother.  That absolute

Somebody – a labyrinth

of stars, wherein we are hid

like lightning bugs, or lambent flute

reflections (crane-bone twins).

Flickering far beyond

woodpecker Trebizond,

sleepwalker Knossos – wheeling fins.

8.5.18