Po-biz is hop-lez. Herez sumpin ta read while thugh Indushtry iz on yakkashunn.

from BRANCH, ALMOND



It begins like this, on a dark autumn day.
The wind is blowing, you don't know
where it leads. Pussy-willow, dogwood
wave their last leaves. The lead-gray sky


shrouds the universe in its camouflage
of sleep and melancholy. Ravens
mark your place in the book of dying
and being born. Goldfinch paces his cage.


*


In Bruegel's panorama, the herdsmen
follow a ridge in the foreground, drawing on
their oxen, charcoal outlines seemingly stolen
from the Lascaux caves. In the distance


storms lash a somber, mountainous coast
helmeted with desolate castle;
shipwrecks ornament the entrance
to the harbor. A wintry violence


looms in murk above muted ruddiness,
ramshackle roofs of valley and village;
Bruegel grins in the teeth of all this rage,
shepherding home his cataclysmic canvas.


*


Every leaf bears an image of the tree
(as when the underside of an autumn olive
stands upright, tall – a tiny silver cypress).
Every book bears an image of the Book To Be


and every child bears an image of the singer
(almond-eyed) who left a humming shadow
in the neighborhood – that summer cicada
shrunk to autumn cricket (fading, lingering).


*

TRANSIT OF VENUS


 
 
Morning twilight rings a globe
washed with suffering and joy,
each body under supine mind
replete with reigning images
(Allah, Buddha, Shiva, Christ)
by law and custom so entwined
into tradition’s seamless robe –
while Venus spins by like a toy,
a blind spot in the blinding sun.

 
Noonday trumpets of the West
descant for absent presidents:
gleaming coffins lie in state
resurrecting finer times,
harmonizing untold crimes,
molding echoes, out-of-date.
Shrouded figures, gone to rest
beneath a Star’s indifference,
a blind spot in the blinding sun.

 
Adam, Eve and Oedipus
circle through the fabled fate
spelt within each blistered heart
before a child can walk or talk.
Shadows layered on the rock
by inhuman fiery art
wheel around Prometheus,
lean toward One the veils create:
a blind spot in the blinding sun.

WHEN THE ARK TOUCHED DOWN


 
 
In every town, in every land and tongue
the priests and teachers purify the faith,
instruct the folk, distinguish right from wrong,
observe the ancient rites, deflect God’s wrath,
urge everyone along the well-loved path:
but there was no such pattern of tradition
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

 
The sons of Noah often disagree
and quibble over points of subtlety:
Shem, Ham, and Japheth share a history
of tangled speech, disputed property,
and death-by-Cain in field or dusty alley:
but there was no such habit of destruction
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

 
The Lord, the Pure, the Power, the Supreme,
the Imageless, the One, the Sacred Dream,
the Holiness Who cleanses to redeem,
Existent God, beyond our fleeting sham:
we shape your profile, still beseech you, Come!
For only a perfect maze managed perfection
when the Ark touched down under the stars of Babylon.

Trying to think again a little (& not getting very far this morning) about poetry & the political.

How it seems to come down to who is left out of the picture - whether it's women in Afghanistan, or low-wage workers in the U.S. This is also what it comes down to on a local level. Here in RI, as the national election season gets going, the state legislative session & budget process also gets underway. One of the contentious issues is zoning for low-income housing development. RI is one of the most crowded states, with the lowest rate of new housing development, & the highest rents, etc. Major problem.

A law went into effect which would have made it easier for developers to build low-income housing outside the metro ghetto, in the well-off suburbs. It was immediately stymied by court action & now the legislature is trying to work out a compromise.

What it seems to come down to, as usual (I'm simplifying for emphasis), is : are you going to make room for the poor in your world? Between the rich & well-off in RI, and the corrupt and grabby politicians & special interests (state employees, labor & business all together), the poor get short-changed, & suffer for it, & thus the general culture & quality of life are degraded too.

Of course whether you're talking personally, locally, nationally, or internationally, political issues are not simply objects of moral platitudes, but practical problems, subject to inventive solutions.

Neither the anti-government individualism of the Republicans nor the self-righteous patronizing attitude of pro-government Democrats is good enough. One leads to laissez-faire injustice; the other to onerous & often inhumane bureaucracies. But I lean toward reform & positive government efforts, collective public action for the common good. So I guess that makes me more of a Democrat (in the current definition of such, anyway). I don't see government as inevitably bad.

What does this have to do with poetry? Not much, I guess.

Poets will always be alert to the drama of history, small & large. The interlocking webs of mutuality. & will find ways of making verbal music out of this.

The frustration for me involves not even making a dent in the US subculture of poetry, much less reaching any kind of general audience. & what the heck, I'm hardly writing it at all these days. & I've learned to be irritated & disillusioned with the subculture in almost all its manifestations. For most it's enough simply to decry capitalism & demonize Bush & there you are. I think the US is a mess because we haven't come to terms on the social contract, but self-righteous honkings on left or right are pretty boring and unoriginal, not to mention unhelpful in any way. Very oddly & interestingly enough, we will have to re-learn this - the terms of the social contract - along with China.

(I should remember that my particular literary frustrations are not political at all, & that becoming involved in a helpful way does not necessarily have anything to do with writing. )

I imagine a poetry that doesn't purvey political stereotypes to its captive audience, but presents a complex image of "reality" through the medium of various traditions, modes, forms.

this is probably the last "political" poem I wrote (published a while ago in Fulcrum). A section from "All Clear". Note the figure of the abject, or the left-out; the dove; the "succession". I guess I tend to repeat myself (including blogging this poem before).

(p.s. note date of composition, with echoes of this.)

4

 
Christmas is coming      but here      in sleepy-febrile Florida
tied at the neck      under stage lights      one big brother
wrestles with another      and      when this battle is over
who will wear the crown?      as a gospel voice in the rotunda

 
croons in my ear      and as reporters cluster by the grave
of Robert Trout (“Iron Man of the Blitz”) and you perceive,
ephebe, the idiom of this      intervention      (requiem
for a midnight sun      or century)      and through the nave

 
today      they bore a body to the columbarium
(rotund profundity beneath nine bells)      only him
(Brown, William Wallace, Jr.)      a homeless man
and blind     who stopped the wheels of the imperium

 
one day      right on the street      asking the father of
George W.      please pray for me      and he paused there
(the President)      and said      come along with me
to St. John’s      we’ll pray together

 
the music of what happens      when      no man is
and the bell tolls for thee      like Janis Joplin’s
high note      who will wear the crown?      your doom
Kosmos      a little world      curls into bronze

  
and sounds      from the 132 rms of a pallid prize
to the 132 acres of N. Main Cemetery (Providence)
where you’ll find me (here now      there then) mourning
a vagabonded      end of century      where a dove strays

  
from San Francisco      down to Florida      an unknown
hobo Noman      left behind      his leaf gone brown
is your redemption      (sleepy time and railroad
nation)      W.W. is his name      crowned    here    and    gone

        
                                                           12.3.2000