9.14.2016

something not rotten



BENT WOOD

Two lean ancient red pines
standing blue-green beside
Grandpa’s old house, abide
fanfares of trumpet-vines

(pure orange bugling).  Something
not rotten in the state
of Norway, loco Hamlet –
needles for constant farthering,

an evergreen encounter with the Pole.
A fado rudder for America...
mercurial Columbia
glows with her dusky song, high, whole –

hidden in clouds of starry Eire
that slake eddies of fear
into limey atmosphere
like elfin emeralds from the mire.

These curves along Rhode Island Way!
Hieratical Byzantium
leans down beside a tomb
hunched in Ravenna tamaracks – Dante

& Roger shaking hands (the ghost
of Beatrice will not bow
before the imperial scow,
nor heed the plutocratic boast

of idle punts).  Just a bivalve ark
(tender ellipse of fatherhood)
redeems the bent wood
Caesar to seahorse – shark to lark.

9.14.16


No comments: