what you might believe

kids climbing oaks on Arthur Street, in Mendelssohn, ca. 1958 (by Mary Gould)

PACIFIC SOMERSAULT

Childhood in Mendelssohn... my mother

helped us build an igloo.

Spiral parabola

of ice-blocks, framing up a doma

seamed so fine, snow-translucent –

its arctic arc an image

(Inuit bird-cage)

of the revolving deep blue firmament.

Complex reality’s concave enigma.

Mirror-image of

a winecup-face... dove-

Jonah diving from the ship – Mama!

– spewed out on shore by Moby Dick.

The Q in Queequeg, or

Coatlicue – the semaphore

of Joseph’s coat, turned inside-out (thick

darkness shrouding every mountain-top).

Fine rational weave

of what you might believe,

while dreaming (temple veil, torn up

from bottomlands to Memphis crown).

A knot in the cucumber twine,

Apollinaire in umber vine...

a fishnet made of golden fleece.  One

lifesaver-lead sinkers the weight

of the whole wide prairie –

like Cathedral Mary

or that flute-bone poet-fishbait

                 *

goes by name of Buried-Man’s Henry

– bright grandson of the late

star Morning Star, whose crate

floated Twin Cities to the Gulf (see,

Tommy, how the dead rise from the grave).

All 12 disciples died

by violence.  The Ghost plied

her woodcock back & forth, & wove

Ariadne’s safety-net (one grey thread

bent like accordion file

from Ocean vortex, mile

on mile).  Behold how us dead

rise from fleecy loam – your dream.

We dwell in a matrix-

creation – Beatrice

skips from Florence to the throne (beam,

Natasha, from your vault-chariot)

& Juliet will navigate

the high bar of the Gate

d’Orange (Pacific somersault).

The vertical of Dante’s Pole

balances Henry’s hobo-

equilibrium... so

the message in the oak bole

from the King of starry Heaven

sets a gyroscope

in motion – Henry’s hope

& Giuliana’s love (sweet corny leaven).

6.25.17