Lanthanum 10.6

6

A cool St. Pat’s day, cloudy-gray – from mourning
to gaiety, sackcloth to sun-shield... good day
to read Joyce & be glad thereof, I say, sez
old King Hen, mit peacepipe in mitt – harpening

away, hid in his live-oak mist (like the bunny-
hop charlie-horse once-&-future he wuz). Saints’
alive, he mumbles – saints’ days, saints’ days...
there was that Emperor Henry, promoted to doorkeep...

& that other, the martyr – on the Finnish line
with the Milky Way, one January (juneteenth) –
silver-gray hairline, secret thread, methinks...
& musing, ambling into amiable tabernacle, Hen

might touch a key, perhaps. Some bonny advent
come wheeling like St. Elmo’s fire over quaternio-
clover earth, sprung-wound... some old green Eire
through Rhody-glasses, sure, affirming ascent –

aye, lightsome glee, when the stars shout together
for joy, at emerald Danae’s immaculate &
milky entrance! & he will lie down then with his
delicate harp, & strum... I say he will stretch far

& wide, like Bunyan (or his Babe), with a heart
like a Hobo, a mine deep as Prince Hal, he will –
Providence to San Francisco, through the needle-
eye (Omega, MO) – from basement chord out

of delta swamps, upstream (ahh... l’Etoile du Nord) :
& that shield of dove-grey tuning-fork (pronged
in the tumulus) will... flip! (like Lazarus) – O, almond
of anchor-smile! Hoisting sail (blue-grim grinrood).

3.17.12