Lanthanum 8.12

12

Fresh scar of Omphalos, you plunged back
(through hurricane season) to the natal brine
or naval brain ‒ original River of Heaven
where your songs come from... (deep black-

&-honeyed Melville dream). & everything
grows implicate, symbolical, after the fact ‒
your heavy father’s red Lifesaver, racked
in his empty hold... the guilt-ridden ring

of twin clerical compatriots, collared
by strict safe-keeping (spinning through
Mississippi locks, each zigguratic Zulu
combine). You jump the wheelhouse, holler.

Yet planetary batta-babbling of tango-tongs
will never cease, except by grace, cries
Everyman, fleet Falcon-Ace ‒ this prize
so steeps the tethered mantra of all song :

except by grace, which yieldeth grain by local,
keepsake earth. Each foreign, sanguine Eden
of each stranger-tribe ‒ each crime-ridden
bloodsoaked mythograph, each folksy focal

pinprick ‒ each herb & flower cloistered there
in arch-hives of the speechless yokels (weed-
diggers, well-doers) ‒ grace, dwelling in the spell
of humble ship-launches, handshakes... Love’s share.

Hart, you reign thus, with Herman, in the sea :
I hear you, lambent singer, where eagles gather
& serpents loiter, checkmated ‒ ‘mid feather-
rainbows of mimosa, cedar-fanes of Galilee.

7.21.11