rattlesnakes & wild hogs

woodcut by Mary R. Gould

BLANK MIRROR

Hobo & Henry (mirror lakes of ice)

hunker down by the Miss

in apocalyptic freeze.

Global worming – ain’t nice,

offers Hobo.  Henry stands on a log

of spongy cottonwood,

to speechify.  I would

gather everyone in D.C. – slug

it out with themeny!  Hobo : Who he?

King Henny Gowanabe?

Beware Coatlicue,

m’deer!  She got that panoply

um rattlesnakes & wild hogs,

rootin’ all around –

Iagoons, Macboars... ground

Z for Camazone swamp hellhound dogs!

In the blank mirror of unconsciousness

the stone-cold powers

& the lotus-flowers

collide in a collusion...  Heartlessness,

she mutters.  Hobo sunk down.

Cheer up, old boy,

sez Hank.  My Book of J

opines beneath Cordelia’s Crown;

she shone me that Madonna del Parto

flaring like Indian mound –

high Sophie’s dancing ground

(who shall restore our humane Beneficio).

1.30.19

yodeling in Mendelssohn

LITTLE MIRROR

The mind is like a little mirror

& the word is like

a mirror in that lake.

We skated there, one ancient year –

across the icy glass, Heidi.

In Mendelssohn, sweet

neighborhood (complete

Garden of Cyrus now, in memory).

A melody of day-lilies cheers Henry

Hobo (by the Mississippi).

He might be somebody

you know – booked into penitentiary?

Sol.  Solo.  Absent Sheba

browses in another aisle

(archived in old Rhode Isle).

Her ship’s in search of Colchia

lambswool – seamless gold web,

mute mutuality –

griot reality

lofted to laughter (on Mount Horeb).

Square triangles of pyramids

fit into portable log

cabin logarithms, Mag.

Your stone’s a tiny tablet, hid

beside that lake, in Galilee –

a solidarity

sodality, a party

writ on water.  Fountain, artistry.

6.27.18

when the Eternal comes

AUTUMN DRUMS

Shards of a spectrum scatter flashing

by the old twin-doored

twin-dovetail mirror

out of Mexico.  Light faceting

(from purple candlestick, late

afternoon, October).

All Souls’, beyond Tiber

or Po, where goat-sheep congregate

beneath the tiny pumpkin lamps

of Chinese lanterns.  We

lift them with you, Psyche –

4-dimensional temple!  Clamps

of copper from an iron ribcage

breathe out now with you

your Scattergood milieu,

egalitarian Link-o-pen; rage

cannot stem your dissemination,

nor malevolence

of Minotaur silence

muted trompette marine.  O nation

sowing disintegrated diamonds

of personhood – like rain

of milkweed seeds!  A grain

for monarch feathers (Solomon’s)

or living stones, or silver pennies

American .925

recursive light from hive

2 dozen bronze lamps from your base

                       *

Rick Stocks has gathered in 3 warehouses

brass railings from the stairs

for climbing to the Bears

who dance around your Ariadne’s

Crown, Leviathanic brow;

soul liberty, she said,

& rising from the dead –

these hieroglyphs tattoo my prow.

The lamp lifts in an evening light.

The crossroads (dying –

living – loving – giving)

focus, like a lens (Hittite

or Italian – Roma, Ethiopian...)

how my heart emigrated

toward your implicated

face (memory of Raphaelian

grace, nested in Providence).

So the quiddity of soul

shows Psyche (personal);

how you live, what happens

gradually fold to perfection

when the Eternal comes

& autumn drums

refracted through her leafy prison

echo under circling stars

the Three Bears dance

beyond Pacific romance   &

La Paix rises   from Venus, Mars

10.20.16

The mast is dogwood too

The long poem is a curious thing, just going along one can find oneself both inside and outside, like those M.C. Escher reversible mirror-steps.  Step by step I stumble down my wheaty way.  Moving back to Minnesota soon - thinking about the limestone there, & Adrian Stokes' ideas about carving in art, how it merges the figure with the limestone ground, brings them into a watery-stony symbiosis...

FERRARA MIRROR

If I fade into the low relief

of Minnesota limestone

hedgerow cliffs – a zone

of Ice Age gypsy moths (brief

lives of dashing hummingbirds

& wingèd Peacock Angels

fixed in river-angled

banks of sediment) – my words

would bend into the grain, grow

rude & wooden – like

that bridge or flood-dike

scored by slashing Viking prow...

you’ll read about it in the paper.

World events (Pope

Francis Whirring Hopeful

Wings – Blood Moon a Rusty Copper

Penny – Putin Barricades

Himself in Alabama)

refract in your Ferrara

mirror (juvenescent shades

of gaiety & heartbreak, green

& bronze between twin cypress

ribs).  My wilderness

a Mendelssohn continuum (scene

from the window of a Roman train).

The mast is dogwood too,

Mama – I made it for you

all by myself.  The rain in Spain...

9.29.15

Erica's "Ferrara" cabinet

Tin Mirror

All my poems are local, parochial, topical, occasional, & universal.  I can't resist the temptation to hawk & honk them from the rooftop, hot off the grill.  Por favor, please share if you like.  Xerox them.  Paste them on your mirror.  Gracias!

TIN MIRROR

The color of those clouds, above

that soaring pine (her arms

flung wide, green Miriam

bedecked with cones) – vague echo of

El Greco, Michelangelo –

a bit marmoreal.

Disconsolate King of Coal,

Concrete... former Numero Uno,

about to send tears stumbling down

again...  So we sketch the local

monarch.  Him we all

know (Only-Two-Well).  Then someone

in Michoacán – Rosario Ocampo,

maybe – fashions a fine

tin mirror, sealed with twin

doves on double doors (closed, now)

& mails it to a mountaintop

in Galilee (just north

of El Grotto). The earth

is in travail, he murmurs – ope

mi puerta – up periscope, Jésus!

Stormclouds part for a flint

moment (lightning) – slate,

smile!  El rey ha muerto, vivez

le rêve!  From grassland salience

(Tower Hill, or Mount

Zion) her milkweed font

purls into sylvan stream (pine-sense).

    6.25.15