narrow waist of driftwood

SPINDLY FENCE

Summer fading into gray skullcap.

Henry with his brass trombone

& Hobo his hypnotic loon

shore up the railroad tracks with sap

of clammy shellfish scree (Rhode Island

sound).  My Providence,

your looming salience;

lines on a brow dwindled by sand

down a narrow waist of driftwood

sundial.  Stentorian

Henry, like a milk train

wreck, bundles through the neighborhood...

but it shall not be so with you.

Glance of dark green

(like black-eyed Susan)

measuring its circuit-wheel of blue

& blazing gold.  Iris of promise

under one lead sentence

(autumn rain).  A spindly

fence holds back the dunes for this,

my gift of dried-up horseshoe crab –

like a seahorse Pegasus

planted on Cain’s verses

(Falcon-Ace, clipped in rehab).

I’m only whispering to you.

From now on, friend,

faithful to the end –

where love is borne (rosemary, rue).

9.9.19

I am what I ham

NIGHT TRAIN

The night train rumbles like a ghost

of iron over the bridge

over the river.  Sage

Minnehaha, Hobo loves you most.

He’s lying by the muddy bank

trying to clear his head.

Everything he’s read

demands – who am I to thank?

The driftwood spines of shattered books

surge downstream, sink.

Think, Hobo, think –

a deadman’s glancing you posthumous looks.

Twin humps in winter refuse

under the lamp-green

of young leaves...  Scene :

pillars try an almond (Moses, Jesus).

Through teenage foliage coheres

the rust-brown iron magnet

of one (hold tight!)

modal mine of shifting gears –

the rocky profile of a personal friend,

who’s center’s nowhere

& who’s hairline is (look there,

Horatio!) nowhere near the end.

A sibyl croons from the ancient world

whose prince is dancing

naked by the prow.  Sing,

mickle dam... like slingshot hurled.

5.7.18

ship of wind

EGYPTIAN BARGE

A prairie fire like a freight train

fed by wind (your searing

Word).  Not for hearing

but for doing... here it comes again.

Will cauterize your poetry

to cinder of Egyptian

barge.  Lips burn

ice friezes (hay society).

A replica of ancient Greece,

delicate, peevish...

stern Rome’s thievish

siblings (disguised in fleece).

The Pilgrims’ covenant of winter

light – bewildered, free –

a broken redwood tree

(toppled by Oldman’s greedy splinter-

group).  The milk train of the nations

merges with its blistered

rails.  Longfellow heard

rain fall... Berryman damnations.

Who shivers like a flame against

the edge?  Is it Henry

hisself (decrepit Limentani)?

The canoe in the garage (All Saints’

Day shrine)?  Her candle, wavering

above extinction... hum

of rock-dove (columbarium).

Rose bridge of lips, life-savoring.

4.18.18

Steady as she goes

VERMILION FLEM

Late afternoon.  Light sound

of soprano bell, from bass

drone of freight train

over river-bridge.  Nothing profound

(just slightly wistful).  A poet keeps

time.  In the ear’s recess,

faint heartbeat-stress

marks passage of the sheep

over the dream-track.  Nothing more

nor less.  Down N’Orleans way

the Indians are gay

tonight, beaded with coronation Flor

del Rio del Espiritu Santo.  Amen

& hallelujah, hey-

ey-yo.  Let us pray

for the grain of wheat, the salty bran

of liberation (touch of soul,

Touchstone).  So dance

your way into the trance,

Hal Marie!  & remember, all –

tomorrow’s Lent (already).  The square

of ash upon your brow

a sailor’s salty vow

to steady as she goes (fair,

kind & true).  His hand waves from

the deep – he’s called Acorn.

He wears an English crown

of oakleaf (he’s Vermilion Flem).

2.9.16

The Hiawatha

SMOKE-SIGNUM

I carry Sophie through the snow

to the summit of Tower Hill.

She says, It’s magical

(prodigal 2-yr-old). & so

it is.  That conical moss-green

Witch’s Hat crowns

a Yeatsian limestone

keep (prehistoric submarine

barnacled with biomorphic

hieroglyphs).  Isis

the octopus gathers

her segmented sea-worm (limbic

bronze phosphorus monarch child)

in streams of time – before

the 9th planet was born,

or knowledge-tree known (wild

afterthought of smoke-signum).

Chicago Hiawatha

arrowed here, truer

than rue – trained consummation,

like soft carnation in Quaker lapel

(hexagonamatrix).  Rule,

Scattergood Friends School –

your West Branch harbor (charitable

agape) a hostel in a hostile time.

Justice for orphan, widow,

refugee.  Praise be, grey

catenary icon (9-twined lime).

1.20.16

Tower Hill (Prospect Park, Minneapolis)