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

from the bottom of the sea

JOSEPH’S COAT

Those howling Oklahoma twisters

are more than metaphor

for the ravenous bonfire,

the rabid war in the man-monster –

the Minotaur in the guilty coil

on the Chartres floor

(beneath wooden choir

where Theseus & Ariadne smile,

are reconciled).  Who can lift

the great icosahedron?

Unbind our Gordian

distempered steel – the feral gift

of chimp dominion?  One copper penny

spinning heads-&-tails

goes gyroscope.  Tall sails

press on from stony Normandy

(led by that spine of Juliet-Perdita)

past Flanders wars

into La Paix.  Who soars,

now, from the bottom of the sea...

an Acorn Maid, in a rite of spring

flecked from a deeper wound.

Crevasse of raven-sound,

convenient cripple-victim-thing

turns inside-out; one Joseph’s coat

patchwork mosaic spells

Liberty – swings bells

of Jubilee (round vibrant note).

9.27.16

Lilacs in West Branch

WOOLLY FLOCK

Soon the lilacs will be blooming

in West Branch, Iowa.

Old John Brown’s hideaway

among earth Quakers (humming

his grave tune, without the guns).

There Harriet’s railroad

tugged through Negus-made

tornado shelters – Grandma’s cousins

too.  I trace an equilibrium

through reams of loveletters

in turquoise blue (scatters

from Scattergood to end of time).

The clay looms closer on those farms.

Isis herself unveils

just past our Hoovervilles –

beckons with Everlasting Arms.

A refuge from the storm, where corn

& flowers grow.  Mild Shaidlock

led a mighty woolly flock

from Ohio to Muscatine, in 1849

(they write); his great-granddaughter Mary

married Jack Ravlin, & thus

they came to Minneapolis...

they rest, remain.  Spring memory.

The silence of unvarnished truth

glances from shepherd eyes.

Proud histories of lies

axed by one pine (standing on earth).

4.20.16

Henry Negus farm (Springdale Township, Iowa, ca. 1900)