the sense of being right

GREEN EYE

The sense of being right, said Mandelstam

confronted by the Kremlin

goons.  Gumilev’s vision

of sweet radiance (chaste equilibrium

of morning dew).  The restoration

of all things might not be

some dystopic unreality

but a balancing of earth & heaven –

the way a canoe takes wing downstream

like feathery kayak

or golden bubble-track

across the sky (the Ocean River of your dream).

Kennedy, Jack.  A 4-leaf clover

assassinated every day

along with brother Bobby, &

King, Martin Luther (justice-lover).

A green eye floats, engraved over

the pyramid.  I calibrate

the shifting angles of a late

Atlantis – one heartbroken sky-rover

whose tears will magnify an Iris

in transit, like Venus

(from luxuria to lux

aeternam).  She was born for this –

to be the eye-in-hand of muddy clay

transmitting Jonah to Columbia;

to launch a hallelujah

from Monk’s Mound to D.C. (U.S.A.).

11.17.19

slow boat to Atlantis

archaic Mississippian ware (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

ADAMANT ACORN

The steady quiet of the river leads me,

& these monarchs afloat

toward Mexico.  Mote

of black-orange sail, tacking across a sea

of green... like a jasper flag of Jonah

(flickering calm coral

pinned over equatorial

squall).  Sextant from Alexandria,

sunken Heracleion – lamp from Atlantis

beaming through night sea;

matrix of Milky Way,

your Isis-canoe... assembling Osiris

from slow-roiling flatlands (Mississippian).

So Wolfram’s grail-witness

(ineffable justice

planted in lovingkindness) branches on

through Osip’s, Nikolai’s chaste vision –

adamant acorn of creation

(shining emerald of redemption

framed by buoyant casket-stone).

The red muscle pulses into veins.

A wheel turns versus gravity

rowing time to eternity;

the melancholy of Ravenna cranes,

the mortified forsaken innocence

of flighty Juliet

my filmy safety net

hugs tight – lifts up to cedar salience.

8.29.19

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18

plastic leaves & bottlecaps

SALTY DEW

This autumn wind-chime Sophie made

like El Anatsui (African

weaver spider-man)

from plastic leaves & bottlecaps, tied

with bright ribbons – a key, a table knife,

a silver keychain ring,

a crystal ball... everything

needful for the voyage into afterlife

(October & November, winter

ice).  I hear it now,

an echo from the prow

of gray stone mothership.  Your

Notre Dame of infinite mercy,

villain François.  Or Chartres,

Hen – where light chartreuse

rhymes with sky-blues, calm sea

of sunset rose.  On the scarred floor

a labyrinthine feedback

loop speeds Argo-carrack

by umbilical thesis to Ari’s door.

Arachne, Ariadne...in Rhode Island?

One subterranean Ocean

Stream, Atlantean

where every son of J sails home again

across Medea’s Méditerranée – &

where Medusa’s stone frown

melts, to gleaming crown

of salty dew... grail of compassion.

9.11.18

unfinished business

LIGHT CANOE

Cold Minneapolis.  White flakes

float solo, lazily

toward frozen sod.  He

sleepy too, Great Harry – shakes

his fusty bearskin (Mister Rabbi

tucked into his cave).

Wish they would behave.

A wayward dolor over fly-by

country ekes the bile from bunny-fur.

Infinitely gentle,

infinitely... mental

clamps inhibit memory, yessir.

Over the mantle in the dim apartment

Lafayette was dancing

just for Washington.  Sing

victory, Columbia – our true intent

was Liberty.  Hail to the Chief

in Indian Country –

arctic blue pine tree

sheds secret home (Sending Relief).

Grandpa’s got amnesia now.

The old brass shell from

Belgium mourns like a bell

in the pipe-smoky corner.  Plow

up the rose from the deep well of France,

Willa – that spiral dance

Crane zigzagged in a trance,

Atlantis echoing in weedy elegance.

                      *

Unfinished business crowds a heavy

surf onto the canvas.

Painter sticks to grass

with orange tar-baby.  Chevy

waves from Davy’s Locker – swings

his palm toward magnetic

north.  D.C. frantic –

Empire stuns fleet – Mort brings

us to us knees.  Only a wee

green island merman,

imperturbable, remain –

Pacific mule (Admiral of Ocean Sea).

A little grey jay (Whisky Jack)

whistles through her veil

of salt-shaking.  Sail

on, Peace Corps – Pearl’s Clamshack!

Under the turbid rotoring

of pyramid schemes –

when trumpery becomes

a weird mudfish – a rippling

stone floats to the surface, springs

to hover – catenary

honeycomb (or berry-

gem).  All minions, toughs & underlings

flee suddenly, like shady characters

out of a bad novel

(their plots unravel).

Blue J’s light canoe threads jasper piers.

12.7.16

Pines in Atlantis-land

STANDING ROCK

In the powerhouse of Providence

lame little Eddie Poe

must play the game hero –

like a minnow tar, fire-pitted mensch

against Mini-Mini-Tick Leviathan,

his haunt of fearful gravity.

His force is a depravity

of animal instinct – Heraclitean

axis of control – apes’ pecking order,

magnified by policy

(raison d’état, you see).

O too-familiar monster, O – our

puzzle-master, oiled in wrestle-hold,

whose flags flap overhead

above each engineered 

corpse-shed (floods memories untold).

The silver dime, Elsie – your Grecian

Artemis – will not

suffice; this Ariadne-knot

must be released, for peace to reign

the dam must burst; an equilibrium

of equity must level out

the bruised minefield.  Bright

misery in wells of eyes... come,

Maggie Shekinah, come Galilean

Buffalo Gal (Eureka-

Psyche)... Standing Rock

pines in Atlantis-land – rise up again.

9.9.16

I find fascinating the way John Michell (in Dimensions of Paradise) can describe, quite convincely (to me, anyway), how certain ancient texts conceal specific geometry problems. Plato had a sign over his Academy, didn't he, saying no one could enter who wasn't a geometer? I can imagine him assigning some of his texts (2500 yrs ago) as sort of riddles or puzzles to be worked out somewhat like Michell does. He compares, for example, Plato's two ideal cities - Atlantis and Magnesia, and shows how the former is a kind of imperfect shadow - geometrically speaking - of the latter; and that Plato meant this as a kind of emblem (or causal explanation, even) for Atlantis's corruption & eventual fall.

Michell portrays a kind of ideal Platonic-Pythagorean canon of symbolic (and actual geometric) numbers, rooted in nature and reflecting its dynamics and harmonies, and has the visionary panache to suggest that world culture needs to return, somehow, to the order symbolized this way. If he is, on some level, right - then it's possible to imagine that we are today, in a sense, living in a distorted, disharmonious Atlantis-world : and that the eccentric search for "sunken", "lost" Atlantis is a kind of search for our own lost Paradise of peace & harmony...

Some of his investigations are nothing short of astonishing. See, for example, the way he analyzes in great detail some passages in the Gospel of John, & shows how they are, again (by way of gematria), symbolic geometry problems & designs... if indeed there is something to this (which I'm sure mainstream scholarship keeps at arm's length - several cubits, anyway) the implications are mind-boggling...

Since the 1970s, periodically, I've become fascinated with number symbolism, gematria. The books of John Michell, something of a New Age (& old British) eccentric, on ancient/Egyptian/Pythagorean/Platonic canons of number & "sacred" geometry. (Related somewhat to viewpoint of another eccentric author, Giorgio de Santillana - see his book Hamlet's Mill.)

Much of it needs to be taken with massive grain of salt - in particular, the notions (unsupported by much evidence, if any) of 1) superior ancient civilizations (Atlantis & such), and 2) the extrapolation of Plato's arch-conservative and anti-democratic political tendencies. (Michell's sneers at democracy, & such.)

Yet I am, as I say, recurrently absorbed with such explorations of ancient number symbolism in both Plato & the Bible - the detailed measurements of the Ark, the Temple, the New Jerusalem (Bk of Revelation), the canons of architecture in Greece & other parts of ancient world, the correspondence of harmonic ratios, numbers, names, & themes in archaic literature...

& it shows up in my poetry, especially the long projects... maybe someday these works will be understood as playful percursors of a new/old sort of philosophical & literary culture...

This is something of a Hart Crane theme (cf. "Atlantis" in The Bridge), & a Whitman & Melville stratum... it comes through in sometimes (I think) funny ways in my poems (see for ex. the role of eccentric Minnesota Senator, Shakespeare crank, & Atlantis theorizer, Ignatius Donnelly, in Stubborn Grew... if you click on this link, you see the book cover - that's Ignatius, down in the lower lefthand corner).

(I guess I've blogged on this before...)