A missive from Petropolis

DEAD RECKONING

In the clear winter light, the bright life

swings through memory

like steady Mississippi

viewed from a bridge.  My wife,

whispers a tottery unknown Schweik,

hugging his beloved

flak-jacket (bullet-

holes & all) – Maya Jhenna, that Mike

mumbles to Neva (ghost of a muzhik-

moosh)... my shining

inkling, engravening wing-

back turtledove... (nuncle be sick).

Awhile soul clap in jail, this bird

will penetrate the day –

a wormhole P-Jay,

serpentine (heart’s own sail-shroud).

Like Raven, still criss-crowing

over Noah’s bobble-head –

whose flinty beak’s dead

reckoning will note the gorgeous

hillside, blooming afar, over the sea –

so that prophetic castaway

(Hobo-Jonah) will play

black Orpheus to Coulombe-Bee;

a missive from Petropolis

(long-axled hasp)

plumbs Negrepontis –

limns Clio’s last golden gasp.

2.9.16

I sent poet Gabriel Gudding a poem written a few years ago. I thought he might like it because he has a Providence connection, & because it involves a mysterious someone named "Clio" - which is his daughter's name too.

Lo & behold - it turns out these two Clios were most likely one and the same !

I'm amazed... it's as if three writers were playing a game of secret messages...

(re-affirms my faith in a "special providence" of poets - a belief (superstition?) instilled years ago as I read Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoir, Hope Against Hope...)

Sweetly Now


 
Walking home,
head full of gloom
(my own woes muddled
with those of the world) –

 
noticed (on the sidewalk)
cheerful letters in pink chalk
(rounded, girlish – cursive script,
broken off – author skipped?) –

 
PEACE
               LOVE
(signed, in a heart-shape) CLIO

 
the Muse of History : as if to say
I’m starting over – here, today.