signum of yearning

DOOM-BELL

The simple poem sets its seal on the day

(signum of yearning, lack

& bronze heartbreak).

It doesn’t create, but confirms, I say –

tacit equipoise of universe,

with roaring hearth

mirroring each heart

in Milky Way (our fiery nurse).

& of that translucent softest koinonia

the poem’s just a line.

Graven tattoo or riverine

El (whorled conscience of Columbia).

So when the Rabbi hums a restoration of all things

we understand what he means

& feel it in our bones –

sunlight in the kitchen supersedes all kings.

Liberty-tyranny-liberty; light-dark-light...

your Florentine chessboard

migrates its word-hoard

to Skye, & beyond (stern Ocean slate).

Your buoy rides the moiling salt

like a lucky pawn

become kingpin again;

Hamlet swings the doom-bell... halt,

who goes there? – solo Ophelia

hoovers up all Denmark

from her West Branch park,

& Evening Star glows like Astraea.

12.9.19

perhaps we are Hagia Sophia

JAPANESE NOTE

Down by Mirror Lakes, in Mendelssohn

Henry collects the silver

trading cards of a younger

self.  Still innocent (the future Hobo-man).

In that Providence springtime,

when we were setting out.

Pure Japanese note

of your own childhood (high chime

of Tokyo folksong).  Your Florentine

round pallor, papery

sheepglow (Butterfly).

Who knew I’d be the priggish Pinkerton

of Rensselaerville epithalamia?

Til that blindfolded boy

waving a Yankee flag (say,

can you see?) – sows stony drama...

Puccini’s on the turntable, at Amiata.

Her spectral Iris-wings

loft LIBERTY (to thee we sing)

unto this microcosm of liublyu stigmata.

Yet, perhaps... we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

The crucifixion of surprise

curves down, humbled with apatheia

– still time, still time, to turn

from the spent spirit

to that glad esprit

reflecting oui (edging Ravenna urn).

11.18.19

an ocean swell

ACORN-RIM

This is that ancient harvest night.

Rhode Island harvesting

the sea.  A Newport wedding

(Jacqueline & Jack) at rocky height

(of Sachuest). & as the whale

harvesting the sea as well

is no less an ocean swell,

& Jonah is his pearl – still hale

& whole, alive from deeps of hell –

so Henry might rise again

from his own carapace of sin

(that shimmery-mirror Minotaur-spell).

Hobo-Falstaff lurks beneath a branch

of raven-wood (Cautantowwit,

Caws-too-much-wit).  Stone-set

into the Seeker’s providential avalanche –

one violet for the junk-jewelry state.

The salt air clears his head.

One Spirit wakens all the dead,

he chants – one Dream outshining potentate

& pyramid.  He nurses Henry back to health

like Whitman with his milky muse;

Abe & martyr Martin fuse

into the circle of their commonwealth –

a coracle or ark of Liberty

circumferencing azure shores,

whose acorn-rim Henry restores

to dappled shade (bright almond eye).

11.1.19

Watch Night

LAMBENT GHOST

A satellite streaks past Ultima Thule

at the rim, beyond Pluto.

Starlight, emitted long ago

marks the limit of what we know, Julie.

You took it to the limit, too –

plummeting on his birthday

into San Francisco Bay.

The scar on my heart stays blue.

A lifeline in my palm... tracing

your twirling halcyon-

descent.  Eccentric swan-

dives of deflected passion swing

the human pendulum to no return –

so you became my silent

witness to an absent

safety net (grave spirit-urn).

In a backyard garden, in Montrose Park

(on Avon Place, off R Street)

a weathered zodiac (fleet

beam for sailing time) still makes its mark.

The evening sun at vernal equinox

touching its circumference

sends streaming photons

in array, toward Washington’s matrix –

that sleepy apple tree, the founder’s

fault (first gentleman

surveyor’s lie-of-land).

& will our prime star, speaking, founder

                     *

backward, under night-sea sand?

The morning star, the pole

star’s mate – your sister-soul –

whose flickers lead our sarabande?

Hobo lumbers after Henry’s shade,

lugging the telescopes.

Who drowns their hopes

might lift them up again.  Maid

Marion, or Liberty, Virgo-Columbia

(the various nicknames

for Jonah-dove)... dream’s

figurehead for Watch Night... hallelujah!

Ice gathers on the Mississippi.

River-flow & starlight

comprehend Time’s might,

rewind the spring, recall the sea –

Pacific now, beyond the redwood tree;

beyond eld oak grove

where an infant strove

with Roundheads... & a maypole (merrily)

spun feet toward Pentecost;

beyond Sons of Liberty

into a whorled Equality

wrapt, spindled on a lambent ghost –

that quipu-knot, that safety net,

that weaver-coracle

from Galilee.  Slight miracle-

Thunderwren... walking on water, Juliet.

12.31.18

OSIRIS-REx & the Bennu-bird

THUNDER-SPOKES

Quiet in the wintry Capitol.

Where father & son, in

the flag-draped coffin,

on the wooden catafalque, are still.

Where son (& father too)

sheds tears.  Innocence

belies its marble semblance.

Upright humility.  High over you,

at night, by day, Polaris glows;

not flags, but shrouded

origins – Bennu-bird

or Horus-ray (Icarus was

here); your ghostlier, spectral

interpretations – secret

resource identifications...

regal, lithic harbors, for a grail

of springy asteroids (boing

boing).  All that Libertà

of space, Lauretta

(almond muse, lithe dancing

branch of J) – inheritance

of every heaven-child

out of a kinder, gentler

Cosmopolis (to come).  Lance

of St. George or of Shakespeare

aiming magnetically toward

immovable light-word

beyond all temporary tyrants, here

                      *

on earth – ever-bright abode

reflected in the clear

Rio Espiritu Santo (where

we return, to be reborn, for good).

O muse of Jonah, in the maelstrom

of the Minotaur... your words

of the sea, rocking OSIRIS

toward... immaculate portals of home!

Your mild ray beaming from the prow

a living microcosm,

shining through the storm

of blinding dread – they do not know!

Mandorla of the sister-dove –

whose realm impends

beyond dead-ends

of Minotaur & twin-taboo... from above

your Dioscuri plant twin oaks,

whose lightning breaks

the chains Time makes –

prophets of the Thunder-spokes!

& from that gemstone casket

of the six directions,

whence four streams dance

breathing through each human heart

innocence & charity join hands

with strength & fortitude

& courage – score a prelude

for a planetful of promised lands.

12.4.18

when morning stars sang all together

ROSE QUARTZ

                  

The delicate crystallographer

chipped at rose quartz

in a mica mirror.  What’s

wrong with the signal?  Fuzzier,

now, out of Nazireth.  We’re

missing the calendar,

oh hazy November –

have to find a new atmosphere.

Hobo (along jungle river)

envied that lofty poet

on the hilltop.  What

brings you here, Indian-giver?

The Song of Minnehaha (Henry

Wordfish Lungfellow);

light black-&-yellow

swallowtail (aye, amen, Re).

In Happy Hunting Ground,

HHG.  Your twin

brother – like the sun

breaking through Narragansett Sound –

when morning stars sang all together,

hearty & brave (children

from incandescent freedom-

sun).  Under the tender tether

of ineffable Intellect   O

lambent   star (Grace

Ravlin   Falcon-Ace)

with Notre Dame   at zero-

                 *

hour.  Your brother is a simple

carpenter, Hobo.  He

studied Victimography

with Cyber-Ciphering, & Ample

Anthropology (Social Jeering) –

yet loved that golden

bubble (in the cauldron

of the level) more than anything.

Because the sense of being right

flows like a burbling

stream – wondering

into verbal dirigible... bright

speaking thundercloud... imaginary

friend of Liberty

(Decembrist charity –

Crimean exile, Pushkin-boy).

The government of Liberty

is of consent, not force;

our kingdom of remorse

enfolds Redemption at its source.  See,

child?  We have outlived the Minotaur;

Ariadne’s simple thread

leads to your kindred

by the glowing gemstone samovar

of hearthblaze – everlasting joy

warm crystalline kingdom

rose-violet   freedom

smokehole to Wakan Tanka   in the sky

11.25.18

O more than moon, draw not up seas...

CALM VOICE

Hobo sleeps in his Isis-canoe.

On the ridge, Henry

drove toward glory –

the poet’s reward.  Onward he flew.

Hobo touches the clay.  Something

cold, slimy – snakeskin,

maybe?  Sly, hidden

from sun.  Sets him shivering.

In his dream, Henry burns &

sings, from the center

of the galaxy – where her

lightning strikes (almond-black, blinding).

From the center of the universe

comes her calm voice –

from immortal Paradise

showing a bloom (her smiling face).

There’s only one authority

in heaven & earth.

A high prow gives berth

to truth – judge of humanity.

Not these automatons from hell

who crush with violence,

deracinated malice

frozen in each nation-shell...

they’ve lost their souls, each one.

Hobo listened, entranced.

It’s Henry’s Providence –

it’s Liberty, risen from deep Ocean.

11.23.18

serpent ocarina

FEATHERED WHEEL

The king is carrying his cross

wearing his crown of thorns.

Only his mother mourns.

The restless crowd is at a loss.

So history plays out

on broken banjo string –

scratchy LP spinning

over & over the tethered Scapegoat

Song.  A narrow beam of rust-

red copper, through shade

of rock.  Copperhead

of light.  Serpent mouthing dust.

Tan sand (some Navajo camouflage).

Everyman, eaten

by ants.  Has-been.

Hobo, dreaming in a stream-montage.

Nobody.  Only air, flashing

like feathered wheel –

Thunderbird heel?

Lo, him – Kingfisher, splashing.

In the clay matrix, Morning Star

pirouettes in Paris

for Apollinaire.  Pax

lounges with Liberty, while from afar

twin pillars of a temple rise

in unison – an azure

octave, lifting her

amid dew-glittering, sea-breathing sighs.

8.10.18

spring crucible

ASPHALT PATH

Yesterday your birthday, Papa.

92, mild ghost.  Sun-wheel

set at Swan Point... seal

of a woman’s self-extinction.  Ah,

woeful calendar (Coatlicue).

Strife of father & son.

Friday black sun,

aboriginal sin (hey ey

yo).  Here in Minneapolis

snow, interring April

in one wide hexagonal,

preserves a buried man in ice

(Resurrection Cemetery).

Henry ascends the asphalt

path from heart’s tumult

to frozen Father of his Country.

Washington Ave. Bridge.  Yet

(wobbling, wavering

within your shadowy

ring of flame) – dawn’s pale promise!

Man’s faithless diffidence his own

life sentence, we

depend upon your mercy

to raft us into Libertas again –

mysterious Jonah in the “33”

(Mars’ den) whose hum

breaches delirium,

wind-bred to share (Nazarene glee).

4.13.18

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

in memoriam Liu Xiaobo

SAND-CASTLE

                                                i.m. Liu Xiaobo

The workmen are building a great new wall

beside my octagonal turtle-

hermitage – where Sophie’s little

ruddy chair sits patiently, for one & all.

Another chair remained in Stockholm,

waiting for a noble prince

to win his prize of Peace.

His prize is won.  He’s going home.

He held his vigil by Heavenly Gate.

Hatred can rot a person’s

wisdom & conscience,

enemy mentality poison the spirit

of a nation, inflict brutal life & death

struggles, destroy a country’s

tolerance, humanity...

They want to bury him deep in the earth

yet verily I say to you, unless

a grain of wheat falls

into earth & dies,

it remains alone – but if it dies

it bears much fruit.  I remember

the orange Chinese lantern

peeking its bright octagon

out of green shade.  Welcome glimmer

with hidden crimson berry – lamp

of mountain sheepherder

marked by the torture

cell like turtleshell (or scarab stamp)

                *

only to grope toward pine-green Liberty.

My beetle’s modest haruspex,

the ideogram for pontifex,

key row-your-boat for Vera City –

check the N-trail labyrinth.

This liver between Earth

& Sky was micro-moth

or Maximus (locked up til 44th

of July, by Bureau of Injustice).

His wounded knee, his tender

foot, his gentle mind were

furrowed brow, for cultivating scholars...

Thrones are made for serial tumblers.

You can demote King Tubby Lou,

kill Voodoo Queen Marie – so

what?  Arrestocrats come back in numbers

juggling for electric chairs.  Polly

Pound says so, the mystical

Apologist of Tyranny; she’ll

sow you Uncle Ez’s grapes – see

how they make great yappy whine!

(& his chinoise Confusion

still bakes a mean Rune

Cake.)  He not the Way, sez Hen.

The blot thickens.  Blue Emperor Mon-Ki,

with his twin princelings, Rude May-Hem

& Gilt Moon-Eye... descended from

Lord Me-Man, Minotaur of Die-Nasty...

                *

[sludge on the honey-scroll, I guess]

We circulate by arrow-

glance, the human sorrow

of disharmony (each creepy-eepy instance);

only the gentleness of Manitou

the windy sheep-liver

& fleet   lamb-giver

who stands   magnanimous & true

blue cedar (melodious   rainbow

of royal   Reality)

is King.  So let her be.

Your soul, sealed so, dear Liu Xiaobo –

your spouse, waiting by prison-house,

will flex her wings, & spread

your word – rise from the dead;

her torch (inalienable human justice)

shines from copper harbors & green hills;

over harm & over hate,

ever-flowing   light on light

descends   like turtledove   on twisted wills

to straighten ways   streams merging

into concord   toward the sea

Ocean of Charter 8   mercy

& fellowship   in gratitude   Thanksgiving

Day   after the battlefields are still

& Liberty beams   far & wide

her smile   across the tide

& turmoil of the mind’s   sand-castle jail

7.14.17

by old Bronze River

PROVIDENCE ROSE

Every day’s a sabbath day

for Hobo in retirement.

He drowses, full content

by old Bronze River (jasper, say –

carnelian, or sard).  On an empty bench

left for Henry once

in Dante’s Providence;

muttering seek ye the good, mensch –

avoid evil.  That would be a start.

The natural conscience

inheres in us; hence

dignity of life abides at heart

like some inalienable hearth-fire,

wants but a spark

to swivel toward magnetic

North (up near Itasca, where

scampers el Baby Rio del Espiritu).

That’s his geography –

some Hart-biography

sketched by the circle of a grey-blue

palm (O Thou smoky Hand

of Fire) – lightening the clouds

with limestone pigeon-crowds

& Jonah-spray... playful Leviathan!

O chaste & ancient liberties

free men & women found

promising iris-ground

out of primordial charities

              *

when Pharaoh was scapegoat too

& idols of the king

morph into Arty-thing

or potsherd red-white-blue

jewel-eye... old Noah’s galley

wakening in Galilee,

when ordinary Mary

hums a grass-green prairie

ray.  The light of Providence

shines out of living things

her omnipresence – springs

on breezy air (moist & immense)

into the metamorphoses

of human times, places –

so many steeplechases

in one race!  Four horses

at Clop-Clop Ellipse rounded

the bend by Hobo’s bench –

each iron bit they clench

forged in a molten sun-crowned

whisper-salience.  Providence

Rose crossed over the line

in first.  Bright human-

divine dervish foot-dance –

key pivoter in clay, O starfish

sun-Leviathan –

O luminous Kid of Man

in cloud-basilica (original Ish).

6.5.17

slow crane-dance

SQUARE DANCE

The beech, a symphony of copper & grey

shimmers her palimpsest

of summer light.  Her host

of rust-green leaves filters the day

with fleecy shade.  In Providence

her hidden rings girdle

a slow crane-dance, a Gödel

harmony (irrational coherence)

stepped on the diagonal, a zigzag

pattern toward the center

while her limbs counter

equivocal winds.  Like a limping stag

the Minotaur (a forsworn king)

marks ink-scratches in concrete

with his third (wooden) foot.

They cannot be erased – the bee-sting

on the tongue of that stung beast

is like a humming bumble-

bird, bearing his humble

master on a mule (the least

shall be the greatest in your midst,

Great Scot).  When fair

is foul, weird sister,

and a hole is in the wholeness,

& the onion odor of this Union

hovers through the orange

facade of rough strange

battlements... the regal One

                   *

comes drifting like an eagle-sun.

Immaculate integrity

of breathing Truth will be

the seal on that bright Lincoln-coin –

of the people, by the people, for

the people... after the .44

that brings black milk before

the beech flowers (in Mendelssohn).  Our

infinitely gentle bunny Rabbi

– sire of reconciliation,

smiling Sun of Man –

shall stand again in one rose eye

of green & copper Liberty

whose burning torch will come

to this dunce inane – wisdom

will shine from Bozo Nana (dotty

Henry with his dancing bear,

jaded whit-knight from

Column B) despite him-

self : because a solidarity there

glows like green limestone from the depths

a city of straight pines

out of the matrix shines

where Jason is plowman   & Jonas

mans the prow   & merry Magdalen

raises her almond lens

yodeling earth-&-heaven’s

rhombic square dance (Topsy Ravenn).

4.3.17

Abba Tor & Eero Saarinen

GREEN EYE

                                i.m. Abba Tor (1923-2017)

If this roof were to fall on my head now

I would die a happy man,

said Eero Saarinen

to Abba Tor (Kennedy Airport, 1962).

The engineer won’t stand on cardboard –

number, weight & measure.

Concrete is dumb.  (For sure.)

It doesn’t know for whom it’s being poured.

Let’s use this requirement to let some light in.

Skylight ribbons through

the Jet Age double-U.

They builded better than they knew.  Someone

whispers like a humming bird beneath

French limestone gravity –

gray shadow cavity,

the leaden heart of black corroded wreath.

The terminal’s long-empty now

(hotel-to-be).  But the sound

of twine cats cradling profound

equilibrium is as a Finnish prow

of voices laboring in harmony –

it lifts a catenary prong

where the cartwheel song

creaks like rust in clay, or an eye

from the bottomland (circling palm)...

Green eye of Liberté

from Providential bay –

Columbia’s rose wheel, her feathered helm.

2.24.17

(NY Times obituary for Abba Tor here.)

Abe's in the Gulf

TROMPE L’OEIL

Peto, Reminiscences.

Such silent stillness

in a wooden door.  This

repressed memory (forsakenness).

The mottled copper green, absinthe.

Like curdled Liberty.

Coins, ticket stubs... three

paths into the shredded labyrinth

of old glued paper notes.  Almost

erased, some calculations –

sums, additions...

within the mandorla (Abe’s

photo-ghost).  Abe’s playing golf

today, down at the Gulf –

in Florida, with grimacing

elf.  By the marred lake, full of pelf

& flattened tires... distended Brown

Decades of gaslight shadows,

drilled by torpedoes

into stunned prey (pressed down

under demented mansions).  Still

there is another window

clears this reified view

(black coral reef of sacrificial

scars).  The solidarity of living

stones is leaping light –

scaled from a dragon-fight

like trompe l’oeil Thanksgiving

                *

or hologram of humming bird

circling the whisper dome

of spiritual freedom.

Ghost Dance, suspended word

hung from the apex of the tent –

a veil of murmuring linen

around the target sun

of a salty human sacrament

of joy, shipmate!  Ahoy, Jonah!

Cresting the deep wave,

smiling palm-wave

circumference hailing hurrah

for the red white & blue!  Old Glory

spangled by Love!

Columbia, dove

of Liberty... Emancipation story!

So the battle lines are drawn

at last.  Maid Marion –

trampled onto a plane

with Jack & Jackie, by the Lion-

Tooth (orange-tan phony-booth) –

you loose one gray thread

from the bleeding head

of Apollinaire... qui chante... the truth

shall make you free.  The limestone

wrinkles beneath clear streams.

Sovereign of human dreams,

arise like Francis to your servant throne.

2.12.17

message to President Donald Trump

Dear President Trump,

Just thought I'd share something we here in America call "harmony".  Harmony is a concord of different notes - "e pluribus unum" expresses the same idea. We don't try to hate & attack & control others, because we all come from the same place, we're all brothers & sisters. Life is good. We're all immigrants & pilgrims in this world.

Sincerely,
Henry Gould