Advent Found Poem (found just now)

     UNEXPECTED LIGHT

       courtesy of Dennis Overbye & NY Times (12.8.20)

Slight threads of Agnes Martin

touch their way across a night sea.

The universe is a shade too bright.

…more very faint galaxies or star clusters

     contributing to the background light.

The most likely explanation, he said…

    a less exciting possibility… “we messed up

    and missed a light source or camera

    artifact that we should have figured out.

    This is what I worry about the most.”

But how dark is dark? …the measurement

    had a 5 percent chance of being a fluke.

       “Your distant neighbor eating leftover turkey

    at three in the morning is not going to

    wake you up at night from the glare.”

A leafless oak with its arms thrown out

like a knot of knots in the arctic wind

– thin memory of warmth (hearth,

heartbeat).  Presumably, in an infinite

    static universe, every line of sight

        ends at a star, so shouldn’t the sky appear

    as bright as the sun?  But astronomers

    now know… But how dark is dark?

        2 sigma – far cry from gold standard

    for discovery of 5 sigma… zoomed past

Arrokoth, formerly Ultima Thule

(7.14.2015).  We imagine a manger

in drear December.  One ox-eyed

bare exile, burbling in a steaming barn

beneath caved-in roof… placid beasts, 

primitive smiles.  In the Darkness

    of Empty Space, Unexpected Light.

From the human heart steps the King

    of Fools… now her serene lowliness

nurses the Emperor of Poverty in peace.

         12.10.20

whispering the news

NESTED BRANCHES

When the Eternal comes, says the Rabbi,

& what does he mean?

May be the Ghost behind the scene;

the tear with grain of Ocean in your eye.

The truth is whole, the truth is one –

& what does this mean?

That Love’s criterion

is rectitude, in every human situation.

Gumilev, that Petersburg poet,

called it chaste vision –

welded like dew at dawn

to blades of grass, the spark of holy Paraclete.

The infant acorn was King of the Wood.

The leaves bent, whispering the news

through Ariadne’s arbor… (hers

the thread – her nested branches overhead).

The Rabbi is a child of God!

cried Mary Magdalen.

He dies on this occasion

since he bears the prophet’s spiral rod

twirling from heaven as from nothingness.

His smile defies your gravitation;

he will come again

after three days of stony sleepiness

like Jonah sprang from salty Milky Way;

the rule of theft & violence,

of Minotaur’s demonic fraudulence

is coming to an end.  Truth shines like day.

4.2.20

like a gouache by David Jones

LITTLE GROTTO

Day like a gouache by David Jones.

Diaphanous vision, muted

by sea-wind, raincloud.

Mountain, meadow, rust (earth tones).

The nightmare of the Great War

like sulphur tuning fork

or buried line in Eden Park

commingles its dilemma in a metaphor

like rose in steel dust (Roger’s compass,

pointing NNW).

& Image of the Beast is

emblem for the matrix of that enterprise

encrypted at the center of a corn maze

where Satan & his Minotaur

(ICE-bound, possessed) are

snared (handcuffed in their own cold glaze).

The Man of Lawlessness, like Terrible

Ivan – he makes his own desire

the absolute measure;

he’s lost to caritas (in his own bubble).

Imagine Ghiberti’s golden doors

at the Baptistery in Florence

with angels forced to dance

to the lash of demonic matadors…

imagine Eugenio, alongside Clizia

locked in the library

with Mussolini – her sturdy

sun-glance, over the chessboard… ah,

*

bright wings!  When Everyman & Woman

breathe in the heartland

of their living temple… &

Joachim’s eagle plummets through the Plan

of Ages!  Providential restoration, O

downglide of Holy Ghost!

Multitudinous host

of human happiness – blue emerald glow

of soft & silent cat’s-eye revolutions,

roll!  & be the planetary

hearthland, wide prairie…

deep swell of Thunderbird flute sessions!

Because all the world’s a stage, coach;

the play’s the salty verse

for catching Eddy the Perverse,

who suckles his Corona like a roach

out of the Minotaur’s bleak heart –

rotten as… who can say?

God knows.  Only way

’s to pinwheel back where we start,

Pocahontas – up to the swirling

origin of springs.

A little grotto brings

its whisper of clear water.  Everything

draws near.  Pleroma for Fisher King

(little lad in oak tree)

shines, golden, leafy.  His

mother smiles… rainbows from nothing.

3.28.20

on your dark retina

SEA-FROTH

The soft touch of watercolor

like a moist afterthought

on your dark retina.

The comeliness of ballet dancer

uprightness of innocent angel

her glance prematurely sad

– unfolding her fan of mustard

gold (butterfly wings on purple balsa)

beneath rough branches of jack pine

& beside the air conditioner,

a sunless window (in its lunar

TV efflorescence).  With her fine

naiad brow, brimming with thought

& the dignity of her wings

like a daughter of Memphis king

or mother… Isis or Hathor (Thoth

merging with dappled river pattern

yet again).  & in upper

right-hand corner a minor

violet cloud, a miniature icon –

Notre Dame (unburnt as yet?) – or

Statue of Liberty?  Unclear,

inchoate… like right now, here

in this charcoal-smoky, somewhere-

possible America – suffering glare

of phosphor-bomb campaigns

& camouflage engines –

blind canvas (some cimetière

                  *

marin) of noon.  & as the sun descends

west of the granite capital

& you sense (as the ineffable

arc of those feathers, wafting, bends

to rose Pacific horizon) the limpid

gloom of freedom’s evening

then she will be gathering

fragment-limbs of her beloved…

Isis, young dark dancer by the Nile.

Shades of live oaks,

holm oaks, holly oaks…

green Acorn Kings of Hollywood… will

stay awhile.  The restoration of the earth

will be a Morris dance –

as (in his happy trance)

the young king will relight the hearth

under the aegis of that Providence

kind Williams’ hand held forth

over the sea-froth

chasm of an Ocean State (whence

every liberty proceeds).  I mean

the heart’s imagination

of dove-divination,

when prancing St. Jeanne rose again

from dusty repetition of revenge

into a coracle of Union –

her canoe of sun-flotation,

Hobo’s freeway cloverleaf (Stonehenge).

2.21.20

hidden by Ocean in an oak

BLITHE MONARCH

Henry’s troubled mind sends him in search

of Hobo, down by the riverbank

as usual.  He’d never think

of working on the Sabbath, in a church

or anywhere else, or any other day,

either.  Tarries by the stream

Espiritu Santo – off-beam,

at ease.  & murmurs thus to Henry –

Born to trouble like the moth flies upward;

like my uncle Zack – bartender

in Pig’s Eye.  Took a gander

from a sycamore – & suddenly soared

up tippy-top, full of T-total joy!

Clambered down, & followed

that young’un, Jay – he’d

never be the same again.  & I say,

ol’ Hen, the comfort’s hidden in your mind –

an equanimity & rest

that plummets to your birdnest

straight from yonder Pole Star, friend.

Love’s quicker than muscle, nerve.

Is there already, waiting on you –

wing-form, wave-form, arrow-

true.  But – such a swerve she gave me,

Hobo!  Bed empty, whole place cleaned out

on Sycamore!  Off to D.C.!

Take it from me Henry,

was all deservedly, you woolly lout.

Grace gave you a reprieve – your whole

lamentable life.  Coiled

at the source, like a cockle-

shell of plenty – to restore your soul

& the whole damn world.  Some morn you’ll wake

like that blithe monarch

hidden by Ocean in an oak,

& see the Restoration – like an earthquake

coming with the Child of Woman.

You will no longer pine

lovesick as lamb (in cotton-

wood, or buttonwood) but rise & stand

like Abraham, by them great trees

in Mamre, or Ogygia –

& watch that little acacia

of Jessie reach on up to Paradise.

& then Henry saw his shadow on the path

blend with the branching shadows

of the cottonwoods.  He goes

as it is determined, through sluiceways

of wrath, up to the blazing Southern Cross;

faces jangled music

of a Minotaur’s acrostic

(all this New World torment) – at a loss;

& yet he feels the light breeze of that grace

Hobo made plain as trees,

American as any poetry’s –

dark gold fleshtone foundation, keeping pace.

7.26.19

Good Friday poem

AMBER GLASS

The oak we put into the ground

last fall is budding now.

& on the third day... how?

On this I muse like Uncas Pound

here in my octagonal hut

of scrawny cedar. 8’s

for Easter, numerates

relate – Creation’s è finit;

when the dark goggles of infinity

stood upright (a snowman

merging into green

spring cloverleaf).  Might be.

They say they saved the high windows

in Paris.  Where simple light

grows warm, exfoliate

around the Lady of the burning Rose.

Wheels, wheels... the suffering peoples.

Is Providence intangible?

Life but a negligible

haze, wisping stark silo-steeples?

These sprinklings of amber glass

are darkened with maroon

shadows.  Limbs of someone

hovering so close... a beaming face.

Then I shall know, even as I

am known.  Even as

this acorn opens, grows...

sturdy communion of a melting sigh.

4.19.19

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

the axis of the earth

ACORN-DHOU

The river moving through the cottonwoods

inspires Hobo-composer

to exceed his Oeuvre

Clumpy-Cloddy in the key of C.  Buds

trace their roots down limestone crevices

to seek that cave-lake

where dark streams make

ripples in a mirror-image (Beatrice’s

triune goddess?) in a palimpsest

of light reflections.  Mother,

lover, friend... your sister-

dove.  Affectionate witness –

Akhmatova’s golub-golubyanka

(an undertone beneath

the granite banks).  The wreath

Natasha flung into Fontanka –

today an angel, tomorrow only a worm

in the grave... only a promise.

Mary, in her distress,

beholds the gardener beside the tomb.

Hobo digs deeper, down his own

dream-channel.  Almond

eyes... the veil of Isis

in West Branch... curtains for Henry’s own

Clover, in Washington (where Adam delved

while Eve spun vortex-grief).

Vertigo in high relief

on Henry’s charcoal Chartres – shelved

Synagogue laid low, below Ecclesia –

belies a Nazarene concord

older than Byzantine crossword

shaded by almond-Hebrew Bona Dea.

Keep digging then, my clod.  You’ll find

the key, within a boxwood box

where lies a bunch of keys.

A black Egyptian Queequeg pine-

box, layered with tattoos

of hero-griffins – figures

of hexagonal stars

that shine like golden bees... Who’s

                    *

there?  Out of the mirror-wars

of courtly kangaroos,

through shady fig trees

shines her diamond Southern Cross –

the double trinity of Black Elk’s

six-way sign.  An acorn

emerald, lightly borne

as crown of Restoration Day : melek’s

JFK : Zion’s Nazir out of Galilee;

spume-signal from an Ocean

State – whale-oil ensign,

anointed Son... clé-figured Charity.

That old medieval Paris of Villon.

Pigments of blood, limestone

& sky.  Stained-glass zone

of intellectual Aquinas-light – reason

& faith cross-braided, interwoven

in the jewel-box of Suger,

in the emerald sepulcher

of Wolfram’s wayfaring communion-

wafer.  Omnipresent grail

of equal daughters, equal

sons... Love’s universal

sea-supremacy – each heart’s high sail.

So the rod of Aaron blossomed

over Nile sandbanks,

& a bronze serpent yanks

all eyes to Hobo’s Bottomland

Jonah.  Out of that Okie Okean,

out of that Osage eagle’s

den, your clay-born angels

rise to foot their river-span –

a bridge of International Orange

pillared like Jachin, Boaz

in wisdom’s corny maze

of adamantine joy.  So rich & strange!

Whispered by the Sybil through

these gold oak leaves,

for everyone who grieves.

A comfortable acorn-dhou

                   *

down Nile, or Mississippi, weaves

her zigzag victor-wake;

from Jordan to Lake

Galilee, her circle rings the sheaves.

7.20.18

the poem is a sort of Edicule

MODEL DOME

So then, the poem is a sort of Edicule?

My allegory’s all unglued.

Runny gouache, stewed

river clay.  Some no-count school.

The building, trembling in devolution

shored up like a veteran

with iron-rivet skeleton.

Metamorphosis by desperation.

My babble-model of the cosmos –

molded on a mini-dome

within a dome (Jerusalem-

fond matryoshka doll).  The keys

to a box, where lie a bunch of keys.

Over meleki limestone

slab, one forest olive-green

icon.  Your madre of collapsing gaze

rains down (with her clay ointment jar).

He is not here, he

is not here.  She’s

muted as trumpet, or Morning Star –

an eye-in-hand, an ocean tear.

Light blazes (calmly

coruscant undying day).

He is not here, he is not here.

Wind mews in muscular oak tree.

They’re up in Galilee,

maybe Cahokia... you’ll see.

Inventing deeds of agape – live poetry.

7.2.18

not kingly oak

SPRY LIMBS

Not kingly oak, nor prescient almond...

just some pale cottonwood.

Moon milky-green, for good

measure.  Shedding vagabond

fluffballs – like poetry, or

cotton boles – bales

for Memphis, N’Orleans...

spry limbs bent into hangin’ tree.

I go into jags & eddies, dried

pemmican.  Downstream

from vinegar dream-

sponge (where the Bre’r-man died).

If the Word were truly a fluffball of light

I would be acorn coracle

green mote on miracle

worker spinal curvature (bent wight).

It gleams through red Pipestone

peacepipe – an emerald

happiness, turned gold

as sunshine.  Welcome, Everyone!

Translucent presence of a place

for you, before all places

cling to timespaces...

a nest for omnipresent Falcon-Ace.

Benevolent breeze, that moves these leaves

to waver into swing-time

antimatter – chime

morning with Hope (sings in the sheaves).

6.6.18