mountain crossroad

HIGH JUBILEE

As the flashy plumage of the peacocks

contrasts with the somber wall

of a hunchbacked cathedral… so

the worldly chit-chat of the literati mocks

the stark lofty simplicity

of a mountain crossroad –

where a mule bites goad

with gritted teeth (stubborn humility).

& I think of those high stony passes

of Armenia tonight

as I foot my way, right

back to bright horseplay of Itasca

primavera springs.  Up there, young

Ojibwe (generation after

generation) took the fast

of separation from the world (a brave-sprung

discipline) – & he awoke & found it truth.

So (as I inch toward the close

of my rheumy, 8-years’

rêve-glose) I want to emulate that youth

& drink the clear spring water, sing my fast

manifest the rabbit frame

these longish footprints form…

untwist my Huckleberry ruse at last.

Tell me what is a human soul & spirit

& you will say what I mean.

What they have always been –

a knot of everlasting life, the whit-

                  *

sun wedding of the nodding twain.

Theseus, Ariadne… Adam,

Eve… – til Jesus came

& lifted every limb to Paradise (again).

All’s figures.  Here’s a 4-leaf clover;

twirl it between your fingers.

See where Hobo lingers,

lost in his maze… only a cavernous nave

overhead (synagogue of Always-There).

Can you conceptualize

the structure of the Bible?  Is

your mind glazed yet, by the seven spare

sparks of Pentecost?  Has the Spirit

settled upon you as a dove

& vaulted you to eaves of love?

This is the salt that fires each aspirant

& burns away the dross around the urn –

kindling Dante, Roger Williams –

forging those adamant amalgams

melding heaven-earth, sacred-profane…

prophetic copper work of Providence.

For the covenant of God

with Man is happy seed-

grain of the common good – equivalence

of Golden Rule & last commitment;

liberty from tyranny

is predicated on glory… high

Jubilee of restoration (in a dreamer’s tent).

4.24.20

west of St. Louis

MASON JAR

& the word came out west of St. Louis.

Kind of hokey, like

a dust-devil psych-

out on eccentric orbit.  She was US.

The weird windlass twirled due Nord

into a wilderness

of cedar & watercress –

deserted road, iced-over, hard.

Held up on a tiny pinhead pine-

needle of sunlight, she spun

like a gyroscopic moon,

beholden to none.  She was fine

to behold, like a mason jar, with her G-

fitz-G major Eyelash Curl –

a square-dance whirl

around an Irish jug (from C

to C minor & back again).

She spoked light so lightly

all the ire of unspritely

iron nations (dusty canyon

grandeur in a pride of lions)

molted into Phoenix

ash & rainbow peacock’s

eyes – & I can’t write these lines

without tears wide as Okeanos

coursing planetary curves,

as Stella Morris swerves

another starfish into star (yes, yes!)

                  *

2.8.17

in the conning tower

SALT PATTERN

Sophie sketching a choo-choo train

in blue crayon, & a trio

of engines in bright yellow-

black (Union Pacific) planing

across a dented overpass

share the light matrix-

argot of a peacock’s

fan-continuum (sea-surface).

Your eye that opens like a morning

glory forged into fusion

stronger than the sun

this amorous union, splendoring

a plume – your planet, raveled into

one.  Its gyroscopic

spin is geodesic

liftruweight – a feathery canoe

scaled up the hoary Nile to be

fair, kind & true

(peacock’s mosaic view

breathing accordion transparency).

Who then can be my enemy?

Why do the ogres rage

& tinpots ruse to stage

mock war upon me?  Jealousy?

from lambent arboreal North

snow slants softly down

a rose meridian

to blanket aboriginal South

                *

radiant in sibylline East

as tawny dogwood leaf

light welds a choral reef

to Liberty’s gull-dappled West

A shady chess piece in the tower

angles shark advantage

with a flanking edge –

the twisted blade, the bribe’s power;

on prison railroads to the pole

pecking iron grain

by long division

sowing lizard’s teeth (drum roll)

all for a subterfuge of thieves

who plant not (neither

shall they hive)... where

then their homing in the sheaves?

Like a black hole torn through

ice-gilded armor, light

gravity sets right

your kayak’s calm ellipse (true

almond eye, beaming beyond

all scheming pyramids).

Whose birchbark lids

one cosmic hexagon – fond

snowflake angel-star – salt

pattern at the end

of Everychild’s roadbend –

bright rainbow out of Ocean vault.

1.13.17

the angry clown is not your father

HEAVY THINGS

If we look once more at your Topsfield

Aquinas-map, Dante –

that earthy horn of plenty

floored by starry sarabande (sealed

fan of luminous phenomena)

the heavy things of Time

rehearse the Salem crime

with simple weight of rigid clay –

ice-cold, stone-cold, bereft of life.

The line sags from the bridge;

the daughter of a lost age

droops, off-balancing (soul-grief).

Quantum quirks of spooky action

powder another image

for displaced rage

into the time-funnel... dissatisfaction

with oneself provokes a personal despair.

We do not know who’s there.

Halloween is in the air;

brown leaves congeal to pumpkin hair,

the angry clown is not your father

anymore.  O Juliet,

the phony craven despot

crafted no safety net... look further.

A rippling of seashore memory

brings grey gulls to sleep.

The peacock’s eyes gaze deep

as Argo... hold her now, Hagia Sophie.

10.21.16

of the clay peoples

PEACOCK’S EYE

Path P stretch in six directions

out of Cairo, Huck,

sez Jim – any way you look.

One of them north-south junctions,

I reckon.  There was a labyrinth

of red clay trenches –

dead men in its clenches

like flies hung in a spider’s tent

– heavy that clay, so heavy!

Like the bottom of the sea.

How could a little child be

dancing in such dismal gravy?

She’s Pueblo, of the clay peoples;

they put away wrath before

the sun go down, f’sure.

Lookee there.  & through the peephole

of his fingertips I saw (obscurely

as that garden of Sheba)

a lightning pathway – Sun-Ra

threshing floor – arisen merrily

from ripened Flanders wheat (so

melancholy).  Like Van Gogh

seized with a fury-glow

of happiness... Persephone?  O

yes!  Threading her crane-dance

through a peacock’s eye –

purple Hagia Sophia’s

woolly poncho-swirl (at cave-entrance).

5.24.16

Inland sea

BREATHING SEA

Old Hobo glances back upstream

as the spring bluets form

an inland sea – a swarm

of peacock eyes (out of a dream-

song dome) across the autumn grass.

Retrospective.  Phoebus

in an ochre crevasse,

Magdalenian cave-compass.

Your yearning for Eurydice,

so youthful-hungry, Henry –

out of want, not plenty –

ignorant (in your blind way).

An oscillation of the sun

and moon.  The Q. of Heaven

looks out from her den,

mild lioness... dusky horizon.

Henry, by his veiled statue,

thinks on Beatrice

(pine-green eyes, sea-

grey).  His melancholy’s ocean-blue.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!  How

I would have gathered you...

the soul’s an orphan zoo

without the smile of Manitou.

A little tree in Galilee

still rustles in the breeze

from a breathing sea.  She’s

calling you, sailor.  Be free.

4.14.16

What's in a sine wave ?

PALM WAVE

This milky February sun

foretells another spring.

Still far-off – winging

eyebrow-arch reflection

of a snow-blue almond bridge.

Yet near... a looming

whisper (out of Red Wing,

maybe) in your ear.  Sweet pledge

of union, set sail southward

by wattle-crane basket

to mossy reed thicket

below Delta (belle Campagnarde).

Knot-eye of Popeye raptor-

sailor, here trans-

mogrified to mildest

peahen-cockerel (Eeyore-

Sophia, high over Frisco Bay).

Equable & everpresent

omni-beneficent

orthogonal well of charity

infusing one & all (mandala-

dome, dominion’s

doom).  Everyone’s

chest de trésor – heart’s ah,

life’s oh... amended Manitou

of Man.  For me & you,

within the vernal blue

of ocean wave (palm-feather true).

2.1.16