least coin of Union provenance

WING-BEAT

The American poem makes do with what’s

right there.  Like a penny in a well

or Peto trompe l’oeuil.

Reminiscences of 1865… hook for hats

on an absinthe wall.  Unlike electricate

sweet Alighieri, burbling Italian

honey-rhyme into his Pythian

pylon – a vertical refulgent ziggurat,

as opposed to our stretched-horizontal

(catenary) system of safety

nets (dangling from Frisco Bay

to DC).  Quipu knots of Neanderthal

design – z-twist, s-twist in a 3-ply

twine, spun with dry grass

or pine bark from Abri du Maras

anchoring light matrices of solidarity.

Ah, nested Rose of Dante’s alta fantasia!

Here lies a homely Providence

cresting seven hills, dense

with ignoble Henry’s disjecta membra.

Plain facts of what happened, what was

made manifest in clay.  Bearing

pinned-up mementos (sprung

Ford’s Theatre tickets… Jimi Hendrix

poster?) – cornered in a coign

of copper maize, a corn

maze.  Dropped in a forlorn

well off North Main St. – least coin

                    *

of Union provenance – silver Penny’s

golden meaning (Love

welded to treasure-trove…

chaste equilibrium of all equalities).

The gift that unfolds at the heart of things –

Francesca’s golden poncho (Peruvian)

spun at Sheep’s Clothing (on Wickenden)

for Dave the California bard (who springs

from Rhody roots himself).  Gift

that is already there in the earth,

shining quietly… an Ocean mirth

salted with grief & everlasting life.

In the heart of remorse & gratitude

rose memories well…

the flaming throne planted in Hell

transmuted to Paris park-bench habitude.

I know whom to thank for this Rose Jubilee.

Stony Magdalen, in Galilee

rolled away, set free

the Rabbi of a rescued Julie-bee.  Recovery!

He was already gone, but she showed us

the way.  & the catenary

curve of Argo’s aerie

twinkles with lights, up there – a million eyes

suddenly flash joy from blue-black sky

pouring Milky Way & Ocean Stream.

La vida es sueño – life is a dream;

the wing-beat of Thunderbird only a sigh.

 4.14.20

sketch by Michael N. Gould

one mustard spark

RAINBOW MOUTH

The splendor of dangling catenary arcs

of orange steel & azure

sparkling with slim sure

stride, sprinting beyond the bayside parks.

I saw you, iridescent Golden Gate

on a sunny day in 1974.

Where Juliet had gone before,

plunged into her absence... my jeune Fate.

These tears in the inescapable network

of mutuality, these tears

of things.  What heart bears

at eye of hurricane (one mustard spark).

In the still, small world, along the keel

of a trim equilibrium skims

love’s unconditional hum

of humble surrender.  Like a simple meal.

Like a mother or father who is always there

ahead of time, before

you are aware.  Will soar

with eagles & doves, your Aviator-

Mediator – volant-violet Adonis, lifted up

(beyond the rivalry of red

& blue) into the thunderhead

of Thunderbird (Jonah grail-cup).

Hum now, Evening Star, Columbia...

your rainbow mouth, Osiris-

child.  Over the crisis-

cradle, full of infant cries – la realtà.

10.22.19

fireball parody

META-BRIDGE

October Indian summer weather;

delicate red hands

of sumac & maple pause

suspended, swing through clear air.

A white paddlewheeler like a ghost

glides upstream out of

Lethe – like a church dove

burbling an emerald paternost,

a moody coracle out of Iona.

Who is the master here,

O mini Man o’Tar?

Whose maze is this, Grandma?

Nile Voodoo Queen seeks her Osiris

at the snaky rainbow mouth; &

Henry Churnagogue steams south

to find his figurehead (Columbia’s

Joanna-genesis, out of impoverished

Franciscan waters).  These two

reflect each other – so

your spring-coiled safety net’s accomplished.

So when that fireball parody of Icarus

– no guidance system – lands

a direct hit on Ireland’s

intricate dear vessel (Ick-R-Us?

Ich bin ein Russki, then?) our meta-bridge

of bridges, our Iris beyond 

all arks, will respond –

braiding a human chain of love & courage.

10.8.19

just a particle of grit in the poetry gears

PAVEMENT SLIP

At the Arboretum today, the lightest

waves of pale green &

pink float over the barren

hills.  Pasque flowers make their violet

& furry nest.  Soft spring.  Far west

the Golden Gate flings waves

of steel over sea-caves.

A safety net shall be our rest –

all-purpose, drifting down from heaven.

From the Mother of Lights, from

Abba-Zero – coral hum

of Orizaba requiem (all the lost men

the sea shall render up again).

Ezra in the bughouse eyes

his Alexandrian apotheosis.

Spews hate & spite – riptorn

Osirian comedian, on glitter-stand;

& Henry has his Memphis

milkman : buried blackface

Pip-Pip (colonial ampersand).

The gravity-slide into darkness

is not so unavoidable.

Non spatio, sed sapientia

Anselm whispered; heaven’s kiss

is like a speech balloon, or Nile airship.

The kingdom’s for my child,

not for the Emperor, wild

Mary piped (basilica pavement slip).

4.27.19

Election Restoration Day

BLACK LAMB

Henry’s diary for a dying day

saunters into November.

After Wars to End All War

will Guillem find his smoky way?

Apollinaire in a Sikh turban

waits out the head wound.

Carried to the ground

from a Paris window (11/11).

Long way to Tipperary, Gil.

Grandpa in his macintosh

in Belgium rain... gosh,

long ago, Captain.  Farewell.

So long.  Today’s Election Day.

Are we of the electorate

yet?  Like a checkmate

in a game with yourself, aye –

Reds & Blues – rival brothers

in mired mirror war.

Each bears a torch

for her – the midnight soul mother,

those faces of benevolent fathers

children carry deep

into their forests of sleep.

Only the branding iron cauters

its contrary mosaics (through the Age

of Iron).  Black Elk

troubles the star-milk

with one royal touch (smoky sage-

                   *

brush sand mandala).  Soft, Selkie –

blue dolphin from Skye...

this mournful rage to die

sulks in the dark heart, MLK.

You must lift it from us, black lamb.

Forever & ever, light

candle through the night –

mass-vortex Gal of each I am, I am.

She smiles through waves, ineffable

Wisdom – heart’s foundation,

coracle of liberation.

She lifted Jonah (willing Abel)

into eye of hurricane –

the diamond matrix,

Everysoul’s six

ways – your dream song, Hen.

Her word burns like a fire in the Book

of Love, her Testament.

What Maggie meant

when she saw the young Nazir look

from the bright eyes of the gardener

& shouted, He is risen!

Out from your earth-borne

everlasting fire, world-fashioner!

So Morning Star whorls her self-sacrifice

& Guillaume flings another jest

& Henry’s safety net

swings sister-dove from rigor mortis.

11.6.18

ballet russe

SANS SEINE

Along a cinder pathway

through November woods

Hobo, in one of his moods

murmurs a Mississippi lay.

Under his arm, his matryoshka

maiden – his mater within

mater, painted, wooden;

on his head, folded like Chippewa

canoe, an old felt hat

crimson as pileated

woodpecker.  Belated

prophet from Yehoshephat,

brown Mississippi of decision!

He mutters a woman’s name

under his breath (same

as under his arm) : Marion,

Miriam, Magdalen... Jessie,

Juliet... Beatrice, Jeanne...

Natasha... each one

enclosing the other (ballet

russe).  Sacre du Printemps.

1913, at end of May.

Pirouette, grand jeté...

Juliet, sans seine.  Lamps

are going out all over Europe.

Hobo yet knots his woolly

safety net – the glory

of the Lord, letter & envelope.

11.2.18

like spinning Jenny Gyre

SAFETY LINES

The late-May lilacs are long gone

but light grey limbs

& the green leaves rim

the grass with shade yet, absent one.

The sound of an ocean softly seething

in the branches overhead.

Is she alive or dead –

my sainted, tainted Juliet?  Still breathing

somewhere?  Imago or Imogen...

merely some ghoulish Ravlin-

Gouldash revenant, then?

Some Beatrice-crystal-Poe routine,

arising ghastly from dank ditch-ravine?

But no... a memory

lifts all azury

from sparkle-spray beneath benign

leap of wide Golden Gate.  Almond-

eyed sprite, a-whirl

like spinning Jenny Gyre

balanced on catenary wire... light bond

that ravels tout le monde... infinite

undisplaceable safety net

& cloudy calumet

confirming universal concord... so be it!

Grave knot that tightens less & less

toward infinite regress

of infinitesimal kiss

(minute atomic balm of tenderness

                     *

merging without mixture or separateness).

Maximus once limned it thus,

the monk who bore witness

(with loss of limb) for concept Orthodox –

incarnate knot of human & divine,

united unlikeness – like

that tomb slab, a limestone block

marked by what seems a breaking line

but only seems; the two are one

in one Person, of three

in all; still guarantee

amid the waltz of turning sun & moon

of Love’s immoveable eternity.

Out of deep matrix

of Ocean – intergalactic

scheme of merry stars in that sea...

inconceivable conception of

all origins (harmonic

correlations, thick

with measureless & dancing life).

The Manitou all people know,

Aquinas wrote.  The God

who dreamed this serenade...

we meet you in the shady slough

beneath great knots of wild grapevines

beside the muddy Jordan –

down by where solitary John

once cast a seine for Jonah (safety lines).

7.11.18

rolling logos contest

SWAMP SEASON

Like the 1001 Nights, or a man

facing a firing squad

who just keeps talking (odd

bird – Cassandra in a coal mine,

prophet without honor) so

I go on.  Smoking

bloody forest of broken

ships – keening keel of Argo...

who can lift the great acorn

model Constitution?

Strong whiff of glue,

my son.  The safety net is gone.

Impalement of the nations

on Stalagmite 17.

Thin poets bleed between

the cracks in their creations.

Somehow the acorn is a lightweight

coracle.  Behold an order

older than disorder –

Aurora Borealis, lifting slate

steps up to bonfire (Milky Way).

Your molten magnanimity

from nothingness – to be...

becomes a Minotaur’s nightmare (hey

yo).  The absence of a Someone,

croaks Crow (Solomon

anti-authoritarian) –

presence of a maze (swamp season).

4.26.18

haunted scent

ANCIENT SPRING

My soul, like a woodchuck hidden

in Old Charley’s Oak,

must be lit by a stroke

of lightning even to begin –

like that gold spearman on the dome

in Providence, icon

of limpid Everywomban –

Williams’ independent spirit, come

to revolve like Gabriel Crozier-Torch

around his merry Morning

Rose (see Alighieri’s singing

sky).  An Ocean Island (search

Queequeg’s tattoos).  A green Tahiti

lapped by peaceful Ocean

River – Night Sea span,

gold-threaded geometric Ratio,

squared rail-split Israel rondure

(Galilee of Lincoln-

logos, all for one

& one for all).  O armature

of lovely Law!  Fleet safety net

bracing each breathing sheep

with her own fleece... keep

dangling in catenary grace!  Yet

lift the lilies of your haunted scent

until the spirit in us

brims past avarice,

hot pride – guide to your tent

                *

under Polaris & the prancing

Bears, where free children

ripple the utmost common

well.  Like Addams, balancing

book-learning with hand-work,

art with science, freedom

with obligation... some

justice for the beaten fork –

the disenfranchised, cheated poor,

collateral damage

beneath our idol-image

(smoking low sulfuric Boor

of plump kin-pride & greed).

So Hobo Henry muttered

by the mud-brown flood

of Mississippi river.  Honey-mead,

sweet sea-salt air of tamaracks...

the vaulting spire of Dante-

tracks filter the ray

that flies orthogonal – strikes

Roman iron with Hebrew vine.

Gold thread (Apollinaire’s

trompette marine) bears

light into the grain combine –

sun through the moss-green shade

above the ancient spring

(a Restoration thing).

So in a Maker’s aye all things are made.

4.28.17

Le Pont Mirabeau

BLUE PLANES

Autumn already in the air.  The lace

net lifts slightly in the window

breeze.  Down the road

a train thunders steadily across

the iron bridge.  Eads, in St. Louis

same river in St. Paul

ebullient waterfall

descends into incessant sluice-

ways.  At Fond du Lac, Guillaume

will wave his pipe   the smoke

floats in blue planes   OK.

Autumnal, your pellucid tomb.

Under a beautiful water-mirror

flows the safety net.

My waif on the parapet,

my Juliet... little evergreen spear

crowning a rangy monarch span –

my songe, my sign, my Seine.

Cloverleaf Corn Maiden

twirls her blue-green mist of pine

on heron-foot again   Sophia

skips through the basilica

like Liberté-Columbia

her grey eyes scan geomatria

here twin circles merge, twin shores

align omega points

&   Maggie Galilee anoints

her Galileo with the milk of stars

8.26.16

Today is the birthday of poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Noah's yawl

DANTE SCHOOL

Long ago in Florence, Alighieri

smashed the limestone font

at the Baptistery – Don’t

Panic! – to save a little boy

from drowning.  His prophetic sign,

a riposte for his own exile –

sluiced out with bile

& blood of lawlessness (Italian

style).  The sea rides high, the rain

seems endless.  Human

callousness a given,

leaden sinker-weights anchored in pain

call for a coracle, a basket-woven

safety net (to keep

the child alive, upon

the deep).  Cross-stitch the waves then,

Raven – paint Noah’s yawl afloat

until we memorize the name

that hawsers through this game

of crosshairs (golden, black & white).

Only a shadow over the sea;

an eyelash, lancing

a tiny tear.  So bring

your harp now, Queequeg – free

that pearl-feathered quasi-gull

whose omnipresence bobs

the wavy globe.  Corncobs

& acorns in Polenta (Dante school).

8.16.16

Languid, voluptuous, orange

This poem forms a pair with the previous one (see yesterday's blog entry).

TRANSPARENT SPRING

This wheel’s unseen circumference

includes a coffee can

from Hart – a Savarin,

no? – looping a salience

of tulip spires (languid, voluptuous,

orange).  For Hart, Johns

sounded gray Ocean

& signaled with a palm Love’s

one transparent spring (from deep

to deep).  A little tree –

lemon? – mustard, maybe;

the orange flourish of a steep

green trumpet, embracing its iron

lattice like a bride

in May... no one can hide

from Love’s almond dominion.

This doctrine bides each alteration.

A sigh amid these wheels

rides wingèd heels

from scythe to seedy germination –

Time’s origin (space-flowering).

Leaf-whispers from a pair

of olive trees, who share

one catenary pattern... stirring

life-draft, dangled from twin pillars,

lifted toward Pacific

azure – scarred, terrific

sentinels of hope (hers, yours).

4.13.16

Tulips (Nancy Hart)