Fontegaia chapt. 4, unraveling down to finish line.

26

 
Those fibrillating frescos in an old Italian town...
she handed them to me, like 3-D shades, like some
Calliope-kaleidoscope.  Good Government their theme,
a peaceful Providence their angular reunion -

 
in the L-shaped room, where the hero circles back
to square one.  Back through green rushes, O...
back up the Nile again, unto oh-so-mysterioso
Ethiopia.  Where a triple rainbow on a tripod neck

 
taught sleepy Sheba how to riddle Solomon
with double consonance (pithy adagia).
A kind of Minnehaha joke on Hiawatha.
Odd misuse (tree-planting in a railroad cabin).

 
Homeward bound, through the scarred terrain
of hi-ho yesteryear.  All those nations, kings...
- it makes you wonder about things,
said Miz Pa to her Uncle Sam (caboosed again).

 
Em thought so too.  A hermit election... old America
wound up on a chessboard toward the end of November
- was they what the people want?  Or just an ember
on the lips of a clod?  Humpty-Dumpty?  Caw-caw

 
crowed the triplets in a cypress tree - we seed
what ye sow.  A kind of raven-milk for boho
Elijah - seal of Melchizedek on his hillbilly brow.
A raft of Lincoln-logs on the stream of minstrelsy,

 
I gather - since you brought me here, jailbird -
to the echo chamber (33 Chamber St).  Shades
of transfusion on the telepathy-phone... reeds
drooping in a semaphore across the prison yard.