let her skip

DAKOTA HEXAGON

This quiet August day toward

the cusp of autumn.  Green

vine-light in the cavern

where Henry hides his raven-word.

That empty chair in Dante’s sky-

deep rose, for all the hoped-

for prophets, emperors...

& here’s Sophia’s little throne (my

dancing-master’s rosy resting-

spot).  Let her skip

fearless across the ship

of state, her toy basilica, questing;

the Greyhound of the Lord, her

vengeance, comes to this –

gray clouds of Providence

replete with rain; a pregnant mother

radiant with clearing day; the shades

of persecution blown away

by ocarinas (clay-

shell turtledoves, dolphin parades).

Ineffable golden Hephaestus-net...

veil of corn fleece over

a West Branch face.  Her

sister in D.C. (Adams duet) –

icon of Miriam & Magdalen,

Dakota hexagon

implicit in the sun

of Washington... cartwheels, Columbian.

8.13.16

Greyhound to Galilee

SWEET CHARIOT

You rode the midnight Greyhound

through American backwaters.

Past hobo squatters

inside their high lonesome vault (profound

infinite firefly field).  No one

forgets their bent magnetic

North, your epileptic

adolescence (endlessness).  The sun,

the moon, the Pope, the Emperor...

some bright Hiawatha rider,

beaming father-figure –

Federigo in Jerusalem, hugging an Emir...

History slides by on billboards,

Burma-Shave proverbs.

The Greyhound hums, curves

down Vanishing Road – the Lord’s

a baby buffalo.  Around the track

the sprinters skim – a blear

of fog machines, the air

nine tenebrae.  One shady (humpback)

tesseract glides into Galilee –

Gödel infinity

or Miriam smile (she

saw her tall cousin suggest a V);

the mirror of authority

in heaven & on earth

wells supernatural mirth –

sweet chariot of Lady Liberty.

8.11.16