9.07.2017

O splendiferous butternut



SALT-CUBE

September butternuts bombard the ground,
soft lime-green globes a-burst
with rich black compost-
muck.  By genealogy of sound

they must descend from Milky Way
on high; from some black hole
of fiery Moloch-El
shifting the gravitational display

plummeting like an otfe-stone
out of St. Peter’s burg
to vertiginous epilogue
(Akhmatova-agate, or Pushkin-

bone).  Sealed with a raven-knife
tattoo, absinthe still-life –
l’Affaire Dove-Sister-Wife,
mired in a faro-game of civil strife.

Her smile’s invisible as air.
Now Phoenix is on fire
& flooded Lone Star Empire
waits for Milly the Kid to appear;

up here in Minneapolis, Frank Gehry’s
fishtail art museum
harbors Hartley’s muse.  Glum
Crane surfacing as white shark – hairy

situation! & out the window, there’s
Berryman’s burnt span –
marooned sad son of Man
abridged to riveted soul-tears.

                   *

Some autumn in King Lear, mayhap
(John’s doggรจd copy?)
may Heav’n shed mild mercy-
milk through these blind spokes, old Pap.

It’s waiting for you, Cain, McCain –
open your magnanimity
to gratitude!  See
to the superflux...  She comes again

light-feathered through your heart –
Cordelia, Columbia;
unscrolls the epigraphia
footnote on warped LP (dappled 8-part

harmony) – spectrum of a weedy
Jonah-flag.  Within gray
scales, smoke-signals (hey
ey yo) her hand waves complimentary

colors – black earth, jungle green
& orange flaring yellow-
gold (passage to indigo);
red, white & cinder (ultramarine)

complete the ashen diamond
salt-cube of Manitou
(that Hiawatha 1-3-2) –
whose handspin sets a table ronde

for Pilgrim as for Wampanoag
& etches mene mene tekel
onto Minotaur’s tough Jekyll-
hide (only a promise, Nadia-Mag).

9.7.17

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