petit songe du solstice

MASS PLANTING

The soaring voices of the Rose Ensemble

filled the cavernous wooden vault

of St. Mary’s with green light

on solstice night.  Meek humble

faces in a crowd become limestone

architecture of high song –

a van der Weyden throng,

a Bruegel mass planting a cornerstone.

When the tender light falls first

& softly on the muddy fringe

of some new edifice... strange

dewy glinting, where the stone burst

from whale-mouth of the earth

(Jonah-Persephone’s deep

crypt, where ages keep)

with fluttery breath of infant birth.

Jonah... Osiris... buried Man...

little Nutcracker King

solving his Sphinx thing,

finally.  Sibylline Isis (Belgian)

murmuring – I am that which was

& is & ever shall be;

no mortal has ever

lifted the veil which covers me.  Cuz,

tell Henry : Rex Pacificus

has found his mate

beyond the Golden Gate –

Magdalen, her gardener (Jesus).

12.22.18

winter river

MOTTLED BEND

Driving through wintry Iowa

in the rain (at the end

of autumn).  Mottled bend

of browns & grays... the tall silo

lost in a sea of plowed soil;

Theophilus, with his lonesome

boat (Grandpa’s handsome

grain elevator).  Fruits of toil –

pyramid for wheat-rain

in a grain-ear (last

trump, sounding).  Blast

of train-horn... all over again?

The hearth-stone flares like a bald eagle

lost on the road (between

La Porte City &

Davenport).  Feathered angle

set upon shoulders.  Nobody.

Just a Memphis priest,

Melchizedek... last

shall be first (least greatest, boy).

They laid the foundation stone

like Chartres rock.

Under the most black

dirt they could find (the Masons, son) –

on 15th April, 1791

(two generation

before Abe Lincoln).

Hearth-blaze in corner (soldered one).

12.20.18

& know the place for the first time

STEEP HEART

The mystery of the Incas, how

they filed those giant stones

at the top of mountains

into close-fitting knots (above, below).

The slim knife-edge, the penetration.

On behalf of balance,

lamb-tethered violence...

one must die, for the sake of the nation.

Something about moss-covered stone,

arctic lichen.  Colors

on a rough-hewn wall (yours,

mine).  Collage of blood & bone.

Memory, mother of muses

lead me back to your

stone milk-splashed door.

Ancient well-bench (sea-roses).

The eunuchs of the kingdom come

& go... their simple habit

underneath the gibbet

simply to repeat the sacred OM.

Alpha, Omega.  History unwinds.

He’s humble, sheepish

as a goat – Ish-

mael, or Solomon.  Pay him no mind.

The one thing that happened, historically

was that an innocent nobody

became king for a day.

Steep heart, remind me... let us pray.

12.15.18

guarding the garden

painting by Phoebe Gould (ca. 1992?)

GREEN CORN

Half-moon tonight, like a silver flask

of molten lava.  On this date

George Washington was translate

(1799).  Here’s his life-mask :

fine profile.  Merging in white clay,

like a peaceful moon.

Landlord, when all’s said & done.

Valley Forger, sensing Californ-i-ay

in the green corn of his plantation

garden.  Grace Ravlin

etched that evening scene –

sweet Virgo in Virginia (dawning nation).

The myth rides with the Indian.

Scars limbs of slaves.

Everyone behaves.

A raven-crumb plummets into ocean.

Something’s lugged back, out of clay...

the lunar wilderness.

Innocence, blessedness –

Sophia twirling in the calm of day.

Like young Hal emerging from a golden egg

(his father’s legacy).

Attainted crown, see –

buried bones in Resurrection (Pig’s

Eye) Cemetery.  Across the river,

on Lakota Bluff.

Two swords – it is enough.

Gesthemane is haunted, Indian-giver.

12.14.18

with pigeon feathers for stone walls

SPRING BREEZE

As in one of those primitive

Sienese masters,

a pained St. Francis

fits inside a pastel arch.  Give

me your poor, your huddled masses

yearning to breathe free...

Over there stands Liberty

vaunting her mural crown (tresses

awash beneath W.P.A. murals).

Sister to Columbia,

dove-principezza

with pigeon feathers for stone walls.

They’re tripping a Troy-town maze

around the cave entrance;

priming some freelance

to buzz the Republic’s toxic haze.

Where Everyman is king

no man is king.

To the sheep he’ll cling,

to the underside of everything.

Like the span of a soft retina

in Providence, RI.

Like the women nearby

when they crucified the guy, selah.

Man or woman, brother, sister...

hearken to the wind.

Spring breeze, unwind –

a breath of renaissance, tongue-twister.

12.13.18

north of Pig's Eye

ERICA-TREE

Giuliana opens a pottery shop

in Red Desert (the film).

Destination of the earth –

Slim Pickens, Strange Love (stop!).

The mystery of desolation.

Calcified lava

Under the Volcano.

Monarchs, Mexico (extinction).

Henry’s buried north of Pig’s Eye

inside an Erica-tree.

Come back for you & me,

someday.  Maybe.  I don’t know why.

He’s Osiris, in a hoary

Hobo boot.  Isis

is us.  She’s

barely there (yesterday’s story).

Somebody’s Mom no doubt, planted

in Cahokia clay (naturally).

The river is a lonesome bee,

rolling honey-balls out of decay (putrid!).

Henry strays onto mountain, in the sun

shouting, we’re Everyone!

Lightning jets down

lighting whole plateau (goodbye, platoon).

In the heart of the burble-stream

Hobo-prospector

strikes a vein, in the ore.

Honey bleeds from lava dream.

12.12.18

Pearl Harbor Day

MOON-TIDE

Prospero, home in Milan,

dozes in winter sun.

Hobo, on the run,

hands Henry his drownèd plan.

Pearl Harbor Day.  His Juliet,

her father-love unmet,

unmatched, flings it

(on his birthday) off the Golden Gate.

Incest breeds in the wounded psyche

trapped in regression-mirrors.

Henry’s his own father’s

worst enemy (Knight to Queen 3).

Hal speeds to Falstaff’s hideaway.

Idleness debauchery

& trickery will be

his refuge from a father’s eye.

So Henry runs to poetry –

where Hobo rules the sleepy

riverbank, all lotus-weedy

with papyrus-infancy

(Atlantis-libraries of Alexandria).

He seeks his sweet cousin

for soul reunion – one

shady psyche for another ghost.  Selah!

Prospero!  You’ve gone all cranky

& explicit now.  Don’t drown

your book just yet, man –

Henry threads a maze of hanky-panky.

Full fathom five   thy father lies

these are pearls   his eyes

the moon-tide hurls  (sailors

sleep beneath waves, where firelight dies)

The flame in the heart surges, or is

deflected into shallows.

Juliet of the swallows

flittering at dusk... Henry’s paralysis...

shady pining for the sister-dove –

Orpheus, Eurydice

Alighieri, Beatrice

Ray by Nile, yearning for Eye of love...

Hobo’s intellect of mother-wit

tangential, tacit

               *

star, Cautantowwit

Raven-shade of Narragansett

Buried god Osiris, burdened Berryman

weeps on his barbed-wire fence

of psychic violence.

Angry sons are on the march again,

the envious ones – misled by signs

of fraught deflected love;

the Dragon’s treasure-trove,

the Minotaur’s deceit (threadlines,

snarled cul-de-sacs of self-defeat).

Manxmen of tyranny –

their island fantasy

a sunken travesty (Narcissus-fleet).

I remember your weaver’s baton

in Providence, Francesca.

The shuttle flying (rock-a-

bye, baby) to shape a golden woolen

poncho – gift for a San Francisco

poet (from Rhode Island).

Like a wand in your hand,

unspoken, felt – taking flight so

from one heart to another, at

speed of light – what

equilibrium you wrought

there!  Or an image of it –

warm, wearable, at human scale.

From the heart, the earth

shines – ruby hearth,

or emerald (blue-cloudy pearl).

The mystery of Providence

is as a rose in flower,

full of people-power –

origami of experience

unfolded in a safety-net

concordance –

each fold in silence

married to the others – what

complete rose blossoming!

Inexpressible

joy of a grateful Abel,

poncho-whorled into a golden ring!

12.7.18

Meditation on a funeral

HONOR GUARD

Soft muted early winter light

outside the National

Cathedral.  Great whorl

of reds & blues, at dazzling height

O rose window, still glowing bright.

The honor guard (Marines,

Army, Navy) forms lines

like intricate toy soldiers (boy’s delight) –

maneuvering, in wonderful coordination

powerful precision

beneath the boom of cannon,

brass band’s hopeful invocation.

The dignitaries have assembled.

Paired front aisles unveil

in allegorical detail

old icons of authority (kings trembled

once, when they beheld such signs 

of a succession crisis).

On the right, witness

the mourning son & heir – thin lines

of tears streak from his hawk’s eye,

flank his aquiline profile,

his anxious beak.  Meanwhile,

on his left, an accidental guy –

the crown-usurper (with a face

like a disgruntled frog).

Even Sully the dog

got more headlines than such disgrace,

the preacher said (speaking in tongues).

Haunted, defunct princes,

princesses acquiesce...

the fatal, dominant thug belongs

                 *

to us.  Chief executive,

or executioner?

Headsman (for our

gentler Republic)?  How can we live

in a democracy, ruled by despot?

We cannot.  Our choice

is clear, as once we faced

when Lincoln gave it voice – the violet

is trodden underfoot by hate.

What’s at the root

of all our discontent?

Man’s thirst for domination, set

in place since his umbilical was cut;

rage at the shrinking womb.

Like Jonah’s boat-turned-tomb

of alien Leviathan, the doors of Night

close, flooding, overhead... the child’s

unconscious & primordial

nightmare (abyssal

mystery).  Note each tyrant’s wild

psycho-disgust... the fluttering hands,

the flickering deceit

– detached from all sweet

reconciliations, lawful bonds.

The flag-draped casket of the patriarch

squares with the glowing rose

window.  Still hearth glows,

somehow – Wisdom’s scintillating ark.

12.6.18

OSIRIS-REx & the Bennu-bird

THUNDER-SPOKES

Quiet in the wintry Capitol.

Where father & son, in

the flag-draped coffin,

on the wooden catafalque, are still.

Where son (& father too)

sheds tears.  Innocence

belies its marble semblance.

Upright humility.  High over you,

at night, by day, Polaris glows;

not flags, but shrouded

origins – Bennu-bird

or Horus-ray (Icarus was

here); your ghostlier, spectral

interpretations – secret

resource identifications...

regal, lithic harbors, for a grail

of springy asteroids (boing

boing).  All that Libertà

of space, Lauretta

(almond muse, lithe dancing

branch of J) – inheritance

of every heaven-child

out of a kinder, gentler

Cosmopolis (to come).  Lance

of St. George or of Shakespeare

aiming magnetically toward

immovable light-word

beyond all temporary tyrants, here

                      *

on earth – ever-bright abode

reflected in the clear

Rio Espiritu Santo (where

we return, to be reborn, for good).

O muse of Jonah, in the maelstrom

of the Minotaur... your words

of the sea, rocking OSIRIS

toward... immaculate portals of home!

Your mild ray beaming from the prow

a living microcosm,

shining through the storm

of blinding dread – they do not know!

Mandorla of the sister-dove –

whose realm impends

beyond dead-ends

of Minotaur & twin-taboo... from above

your Dioscuri plant twin oaks,

whose lightning breaks

the chains Time makes –

prophets of the Thunder-spokes!

& from that gemstone casket

of the six directions,

whence four streams dance

breathing through each human heart

innocence & charity join hands

with strength & fortitude

& courage – score a prelude

for a planetful of promised lands.

12.4.18

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18

Morning to Evening Star

CIRCLE LAKE

Blindly, Hobo inches toward

the Keys.  In Florida.

Toward the delta,

in Louisiana.  His handy old

eye-in-hand in hand (light

portable fire-drill).

Ply all your skill,

Hobo.  Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.  A muddy ray

from cold Atlantic

like some frantic

foundering Santa Maria

threads yarns toward that western

Garden of Evening Star.

Across his eyelid, sure –

like Sire Henry, in his baby coffin

(six weeks encrypted with Guillain-Barré).

Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.

Autumn leaves of disenchanted

authors, sighing in their libraries...

(the Roger Williams version,

for piano).  Dispersion

through each mental prison (Henry’s,

yours).  Dread of ocean void

spirals up from deep

Le-Hev-Hev keep –

Coatlicue (the cut-up) is annoyed

                    *

& threatens Everyman – her sheep

is black & bloody red!

– Nana, you might be dead

before you know it.  Go to sleep.

The dream song reconfigures all

within its top-spin

in your heart-garden.

Your father was a gentleman narwhal;

your son was dancing on the shore

of Circle Lake, in Midway

Mirror-Land (in Galilee).

The crucifixion of the Evening Star

will not unveil her night-reality.

Observe this family

photograph, Henry.

Miss Padgett’s ancient book quarry –

the massive double-panes of glass,

a mandorla for owlish

Actaeons (Horus,

searching for Columbia?  Atlas,

looking for the moon?)  Nana,

dancing Sophie calls me.

Grandpa.  Hiawatha

had a friend, Hart Ibis Artemis – yah...

yawning from the deep, Jonah.

You must become the dove

still dancing, love –

spun from the heart of things.  Selah.

11.30.18

the Winter King (a mummer's play)

BLUE LIGHTNING

Hobo, sprawled among November reeds,

cattails.  His scattered bones

ache on jagged edges.

A chill is in the sky.  Light feeds

the icing-over swamp, the acid-

green vomit (absinthe

effigy of spring).  A plinth

of plastic raft supports his dream-kid,

Henry Hawkeye – duffed.  In mummer’s rags

of scruffy black, to match

his sullen rage (a match

is all it takes).  Here comes Antigone’s

antagonist... here comes Creon, Jason...

Here comes Le Grand K

himself, all brassy

mass and armored mirror – one

half bull, the other carny barker

in a cream straw hat.

Just look at that!

He laughs, he sneers, he boasts, he barks

surrounded by his bulky thugs,

stiletto-dames –

No Shame in Crimes

his badge declares (pinned with slugs

to his forehead).  The plastic raft

quivers to his stomp.

This is gonna be a romp,

he crows, & circles Henry, fore

                   *

& aft.  Wispy, cloudy, quiet Henry’s

cornered.  By the water.

No weapon (though an otter

peeks up near the scrim).  He’s

holding only a tiny pocket mirror,

which he flecks upward

toward the pale sun.  Hard

to say what will come next.  Your

ghost dance, Hobo, flickers photons

like Planck’s constant

from an old field tent –

where photos of Kennedy, Abe Lincoln,

Martin Luther King hang, haunted (black

& white).  The King

is dead, long live the King,

Ave Maria, Henry whispers back.

& suddenly a mass of flame pours out

like pale blue lightning

from a Chartres ceiling

down upon a maze, blazing partout

across the center of the raft.  Truth

is our Law, O shallow

prince – our commonweal.

She rules, & will spring forth

again – like that torch-bearing Liberty

all clothed in copper green

welcoming everyone...

So Hobo saw.  The raft was empty.

11.27.18

when morning stars sang all together

ROSE QUARTZ

                  

The delicate crystallographer

chipped at rose quartz

in a mica mirror.  What’s

wrong with the signal?  Fuzzier,

now, out of Nazireth.  We’re

missing the calendar,

oh hazy November –

have to find a new atmosphere.

Hobo (along jungle river)

envied that lofty poet

on the hilltop.  What

brings you here, Indian-giver?

The Song of Minnehaha (Henry

Wordfish Lungfellow);

light black-&-yellow

swallowtail (aye, amen, Re).

In Happy Hunting Ground,

HHG.  Your twin

brother – like the sun

breaking through Narragansett Sound –

when morning stars sang all together,

hearty & brave (children

from incandescent freedom-

sun).  Under the tender tether

of ineffable Intellect   O

lambent   star (Grace

Ravlin   Falcon-Ace)

with Notre Dame   at zero-

                 *

hour.  Your brother is a simple

carpenter, Hobo.  He

studied Victimography

with Cyber-Ciphering, & Ample

Anthropology (Social Jeering) –

yet loved that golden

bubble (in the cauldron

of the level) more than anything.

Because the sense of being right

flows like a burbling

stream – wondering

into verbal dirigible... bright

speaking thundercloud... imaginary

friend of Liberty

(Decembrist charity –

Crimean exile, Pushkin-boy).

The government of Liberty

is of consent, not force;

our kingdom of remorse

enfolds Redemption at its source.  See,

child?  We have outlived the Minotaur;

Ariadne’s simple thread

leads to your kindred

by the glowing gemstone samovar

of hearthblaze – everlasting joy

warm crystalline kingdom

rose-violet   freedom

smokehole to Wakan Tanka   in the sky

11.25.18

autumn in my heart

SWEAT EQUITY

Like falling from a winter bridge

in Minneapolis.

Absolute zero-ness.

11.32 ft/sec (straight-edge

it, carpenter).  A little life-saver –

gold bubble of air

in the wooden measure,

Chris (dolphin fin-waver).

The little tree, the little almond

eye of Providence.  A

sort of weathered prudence

from rough planks – sweat-bond

of every laborer in vineyard

or in field – Georgia

footprint, selah

in every cemetery, bard.

Like this confusion of nature

circulating good will.

Invasive humble

habitat, Roma imprimatur...

signature of spiral J

(Ojo de Dios,

owl o’Sophia)

out of the oak-knot, honeybee.

Lightning furnishes the room.

So fall into my heart,

Julie (where start

the roses on their river-loam).

11.24.18

O more than moon, draw not up seas...

CALM VOICE

Hobo sleeps in his Isis-canoe.

On the ridge, Henry

drove toward glory –

the poet’s reward.  Onward he flew.

Hobo touches the clay.  Something

cold, slimy – snakeskin,

maybe?  Sly, hidden

from sun.  Sets him shivering.

In his dream, Henry burns &

sings, from the center

of the galaxy – where her

lightning strikes (almond-black, blinding).

From the center of the universe

comes her calm voice –

from immortal Paradise

showing a bloom (her smiling face).

There’s only one authority

in heaven & earth.

A high prow gives berth

to truth – judge of humanity.

Not these automatons from hell

who crush with violence,

deracinated malice

frozen in each nation-shell...

they’ve lost their souls, each one.

Hobo listened, entranced.

It’s Henry’s Providence –

it’s Liberty, risen from deep Ocean.

11.23.18

a merry caw-caw for Thanksgiving

GIVE THANKS

We give thanks for life’s poetry

which arrives (unexpected)

through gates of neglected

farmyards.  For the spare mystery

of solitary lighthouses, beaming

steady wheel-spokes

(Rhode Island folks

know what we say, dreaming

sea-woven Narragansett night).

A merry caw-caw

semaphores her law

by roof-smoke... Raven’s last rite;

like Roy Van Doublegram – cross-eyed

matryoshka doll

(owl in a well) –

Hagia Sophia’s multiocular Argo-hide

(serpentine tesserae’s bronze

glint, like Quetzalcoatl

drifting up from Mexico).

For being lifted up to heaven’s

dome, by way of Providence

(O supernatural Grace).

Who is that Falcon-Ace

on Ibis-wing, speeding to silence?

Emily, Cordelia... be

with me now.  Will

must climb volcano-hill...

Love’s Istanbul (Turkey).

11.20.18