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

hobo takes upward path

ITASCA SPRINGS

This deep translucent honeycomb,

this palimpsest of green

beside the bronze serpent

of midmost river, mother-stream.

Hobo must climb from his log-bed

of lassitude & diffidence.

He sees the circumference

of his enormous creaking sad

forsaken solitary double

ferris wheel – his rusted

rose or Island Road,

a lonely spark of conscience-trouble

(ancient Roger Williams port

for Puritan & exiled

Quaker, reconciled

by Narragansett welcome-heart).

He must un-knot his mumbling

& speak to the res publica.

Tender Mnemosyne

leans like a wispy cedar, trembling

against the scorpion-twister

of learned viciousness

& bland unconsciousness –

conceited treason like a blister-

burn, compound of avarice

& vanity – unreason

squawking each lesson

through megaphones of fraudulence

                  *

– corpse-flowers of corruption

breeding in rotten logs

of oligarchy – hogs

& coyotes preying on the children

of the designated sacrifice

(the under-underclass

under the overpass,

who pay for our convenience – twice).

The Minotaur of twisted love

contorts against grace,

O Hamlet Falcon-Ace –

his den of hate-mark drove the dove

out of her rightful nesting-place.

Her forum of good will –

Columbian windowsill

of human fellowship (Dante’s

& Aristotle’s animale

compagnevole) – sheds

reflective limestone beds

of ever-new Itasca springs (ey

yo) out of unfathomable depths

of Manitou-benevolence

(Ghost who in silence

walks beside you, sweet Princeps).

Ophelia, Horatio, Francesco,

Juliet... heart-Jonahs

surfacing from Okeanos –

anchored fresco-arc astride Frisco.

5.4.17