mark how red dust leaps

GATEWAY RING

The trickster-shaman & the prickly prophet

frame a stumbling-block

you can’t dislodge... mock

as you may, puffy lectern-puppet.

It is a fundamental moral world

they dramatize, a place

of breathing flames – their science

is conscience, this life a dream unfurled

on stage (his banner over me was love).

On board a fellowship

from birth, we skip, we slip

& slide toward the deep (sky-alcove,

ocean-sepulchre... Osiris-canoe

full of Isis-candles... grave

of MLK, our architrave).

As if returning to our own soul (true).

In West Branch, Iowa (my grandmother’s

home town) there is a dark

moss-green catafalque

of Isis, adamant earth-mother (who remembers).

& the North Star of the martyrs shines

like a seminal spark

over the Iron Range.  Mark

how red dust leaps into lifelines –

how a merry-go-round of American clay

swings toward the gateway ring

upstream, down.  Shaping

newborn, translated children – maize, hay hey.

7.11.19

you seek your inner Notre Dame

LUMBERING FLIGHT

This April sunset behind the trees,

like a rose & phosphorescent

robin’s egg.  Fundament

of natural radiance; architectural breeze.

On Île-de-France, in the river Seine

a throng of men & women

flung boulders toward heaven –

to celebrate the feast of their communion

& the miraculous feat of that

lumbering flight.  The chill

granite yawn in the hill

where the dead man lay (requiescat)

like a counterweight to their primordial

joy – its hollow barrow

(familiar dank & narrow

room) will serve as reconciling grail

when we have gathered for the wedding

in the flowery vale of Cana,

& amid the hubbub-haha

Mary murmurs – Now, my son, bring

out the wine...  We will not build

another Notre Dame.

& yet our rivers are the same.

The Rio del Espiritu Santo is filled

with rosmarine passion of light –

invisible, unchanging,

radiant, enlightening

fiery indomitable apex bright.

4.22.19

bard owl hoot-yawp

DARK MANDALA

A dark mandala, with its threads of gilt

glinting in sepulchral gloom.

Brown recluse home

or poison farm – Potemkin-built

for subtle, shady beast (forma

tricorporis umbra).

Yessir – USSR – Usura

rapt the hack machine – some worm

robbed all the banks in Hungary

– sincerely, your servant

left with Nada (she went

under).  One black-wreath memory

laurels a World War grave,

limed with gold streaks

of tears.  Leaf breaks

hearts; stubborn moth digs nave.

Infinitely gentle, infinitely

suffering thing... Rabbi,

rabbi, your symmetry

of gravity pulls toward a parapet

or pole-star magnet – anti-matter

mutter at the gate

of timespace (intricate

constellate icosahedron footpad

rabbit-patter).  Yellow gyroscope

for the lad in Ravenna,

wheeling through Gehenna

into turtleshell domicile – Hope

                   *

Diamond southern bells – milky

over Memphis, chanting

out of slave-haunt... (sling

your wide human boomerang, Psyche).

Fraud loops fey pebbles into flagging

factories, for vanity –

haughty coyote-

greed howls babble onto bragging

piles of glare – why do the notions rage?

Out of a quiet well,

a widow’s mite will tell

another rustic peony tale.  Osage

cheekbones of Lincoln-Logos shine

in the fiery human sun –

Rhodos-Colossus Woman

radars an omnipresent beryl-pine

from silver harbor.  The retrograde

cannot delay reality –

their bubble-polity

will burst (too much steel air) – a Maid

of Orleans, or Land o’Lakes

shall lead the ring-dance

in a crayon trance

& sketch a reciprocity

of snakes & ladders, golden eagles

& grey turtledoves.

The peacock fan of Love’s

dominion flares... green acorn-angles.

11.11.16

Gemstone of Paradise

NEVA-LAND

The poem is for lonely you

amidships (I-&-Thou

nailed coign to prow) –

& for that grubby neighbor too

next door (George or Georgina

with the garden hoe).

A solitary lamp-glow

lingers in the old cantina –

in William Blackstone’s study (man

who went to live with...)

– uphill, on the forest path

to Middy Wewe’s blithe fountain.

George Washington spins in his grave

to see how we behave

without a mind to save

us from ourselves.  Thee must be brave,

& true, & kind, & dedicated

to the perfect good –

that global neighborhood

that shines, wid’ green & delicate

kiwi-glow, beneath the rind

of blind & brutal night.

A callow grail-knight

stumbled on it once, near Samarkand –

spry Wolfram rings the tale – &

like an unknown soldier

leapt – O soulman Prospero! –

from here to Skye (in Neva-land).

5.20.16

Vladimir's Mnemosyne

FLINTY SEAL

The little height of land, pasture

behind the slough, Heidi,

in Mendelssohn – where we

hunted fireflies together

as on a giant turtle’s back

in the dark – like sparks

or bees on a gloomride

puppy stars under the black

sky – sidling, sidereal

in sympathy, friendly

affinity, & simply

love (centripetal

North Star).  Vladimir’s Mnemosyne

within the hazel wood

only pure good –

Time the shady tall ash tree

that leaves its paw-print on your brow

today.  Miniature

meteor, or sepulchre

in microcosm, negative snow-

flake, flinty seal of Solomon;

emblematic passion-

flower, heart’s icon,

salt for a matrix-flame... O Queen

of the South, nightingale’s

bridegroom, at peak of

deep star-well – Love’s

rose-nest (crowning pregnant sails).

2.10.16