if I could gather all 9 muses

IRON HORSESHOE

If I could gather all 9 muses

around the iron horseshoe

Hobo found along the shore…

a middle C stranded by silted rivers.

If I could loop a thread-corral

around the bullish history

of bardic poetry…

Whitman & Olson, the whole passel

of a thousand Pounds – a ton

of raw American aggression

packed in Julian tin can

of salmon absolute (O prodigal son).

You must bind up the strong man

if you would rob his house,

strums Shep Jesus –

the Son of Man opposes Czar Ivan

K. Trump (& all his lawless minions).

For Moses was an anti-

Pharaoh, & his text a fey

neutrino-trace – reversing their dominions

(anti-matter realms of fearful absence).

Their malice plays for keeps –

the quasi-Reagan creeps

who stigmatize Abe Lincoln’s conscience

of profound Union.  A government

of people, by & for people

whose penny is a steep

L-rectitude – the normative ligament

                   *

of every child of God (my soul to keep);

the stony fundament

that grounds each document

hedging the tyrant (as ye sow, shall reap). 

For this Hobo bent toward St. Louis,

where clays rotate

around an elder potentate;

the foolish king, whose power was on lease

to that familial mutuality

(the kinfolk circle

& the starry wheel)

Jesus displayed in his nativity.

Star of David, hidden in the clouds

like 4-leaf clover

in a rainbow cover –

ark or Argo of celestial crowds.

So history plays out as Tauromachia.

Watch Minotaur succumb

to Ariadne’s plumb,

Man lifted up beyond Monarchia;

that restoration of all things

the servant-son proclaimed,

chanting beside the famed

Magdala Stone (rose of sharing) –

when Clover twirls in Hobo’s fingertips

& Isis-eye looks from his palm;

when JFK comes home

& Venus blooms… & Sophie Coulombe skips.

4.28.20

winter gematria

DEAD RECKONING

Henry drooped with the blues, his head

on his hand, his wings folded.

Gloom gathers the Gould

with something other than ghost dancing –

rustic farm implements, tongs

in a crucible of heavy rain.

He knows Great Congregation

= love x God+neighbor, yet... wrongs!

The prophet speaks goldenly of such

in his report (Jack

Joachim).  He saw black

where the red-squash bore would touch

his tender rib with a poignard – that son

of a coagulated sow! –

but he rests easy, now

in his little room, in the Forest of Ravlin

I reckon.  Jacques & Jules, Jack

& Jill, tumbled off the wall

& down the hill... so we all

fall down, sang the old buried hack

full of Fathom Fifth.  His vanishing pint

fled like a bat, through a gap

in his rainbow tooth; sap

dribbled from his dank sepulchre, his mint

of 43 years (32 + 11).  She was only 17

when she danced the tyrant-

teller – poky little Calabrian haunt

who yet might spread her wings (sweet halcyon).

1.24.20

translated to an island

SIMPLE IMMANENCE

Constitution Day.  Coke’s legacy,

translated to an island rose –

mother & nurse of repose

on the throne of Imago Dei – si?

Your lambswool, Giuliana – moss-green

through the red-dust desert.

Alighieri’s tomb, in quiet

(such as lie, smothered in grass, by San

Vitale).  Twin peacocks, maybe –

between two almond trees?

In the Ferrara freeze

(Micòl shivering in her garage)... see?

Your solar emblems not for me,

Ezra.  Marble from Ravenna

swiped for Rimini, & gloria –

the simple immanence of meek Marie

shunned like a ghetto-child.  & so

the merry-go-round of sacrifice

creaks back to 1913, Paris...

Ugo, Parisina, burnt to ash once more

for the war to end all wars (before

the end).  A rust-bronze Penny

blackens backward, in Gehenna –

from dim crossroad will she soar

like diamond Southern Cross.  She is

lips’ ghost dance ring-

around-the-rosy... clear spring

Pax-water (your West Branch Isis).

9.17.19

Down the Mrs. Nile

BLACK MARBLE

The slow green river is historian as well, 

moving with time from here

to there, yet always here

same as ever, with detritus of fossil

shells – eroding palimpsest

subject to misquotation,

willful erasure, mistaken

readings...  Observe that anxious,

fretful archivist – thin railing Ez

with his fistful of heroes

impaled on total loss

(a maze of smoking Flanders trenches).

Like a Minotaur in the bughouse

with his Schifanoia grid –

hierarchical, to put a lid

on greed, by force (his Musci-Louse).

What then’s this chaos of bad dreams?

Life’s horror-show?  Not so,

not so.  PAX.  What thou

lovest well...  After the steamboat schemes

Latrobe still floats his capitol design.

Cornstalks, tobacco flowers...

Virgo, with Isis-powers,

on the adamant of time, will shine –

black marble out of Nile (West Branch).

Not abstract or Pythagorean,

but human, Galilean –

shepherd in Ravenna – beaming avalanche.

5.16.19

unusual poem

OLMEC TEETH

Providence, a meeting-house of rivers.

Moshassuck, Woonasquatucket...

Narragansett alphabet.

Key into the Language (Roger’s

hopeful idiom).  Green valley space

for some invisible Seeker-

church – plain Shaker

chair for Eli, or Henry (grace

supplementing human nature

like a mild blessing

before Thanksgiving).

Can we do this, Roger?  Sure.

Providence, a circling campfire

of Renaissance persons.

Like a Rembrandt summons

to be humble (as St. Matthew’s ear

to voice of dark-haired angel).

Listen, proud Ferrara –

not to glose of Schifanoia,

but shade-garden of Bassani-spell.

The meekness of a soft goldfinch

will be memorial

for what was already eternal,

always.  As our Redemption is a cinch

for flighty heartbeat (underneath

the chain-link).  Grail-canoe

or eye-in-hand – you

fled into thin air, through Olmec teeth.

5.6.19

Mussolini shoals

MARBLE FACT

Long way from stones of Notre Dame.

We haven’t that feudal allegiance

to a field beyond France.

Bright poppies blister over Belgium

where conundrum of Isis in Iowa

came from.  She is, and was

mysterium of Osiris

on the Mississip – Ezra’s mirror-delta;

hard marble fact planted at West Branch

in Herbert Hoover’s memory

(who would not have taken kindly

to any meat-locker Muss avalanche).

Ezra yodeling the alpine Swiss serene

of his muse Circe Clementine

Vichy (& all the swine

she mesmerized, so spotless clean)

erasing all that history of filthy usury

& black boys handing Bibles

through the bars... Abel’s

your bro, Ez – cain’t you see?

Ah... the shudder of absurdity.

Knife-stab in Marlowe’s eye

– over the Jew of Malta,

of all things!  It cannot be.

It is.  Villon grins in your face,

King Flibberty-Gibbet.

Grimace may be safety net

for every reprobate.  O prodigal race...

5.4.19

 

speaking the poetry of dense & difficult

GOLDFINCH APTITUDE

In the late afternoon, old Emperor

Henry the Ghoul lies abed

beneath the wallpaper’s red

roses (spread by his late father

for his mother).  The sun is not a god

nor is his Uncle Ez,

despite the pitchmen on the rez.

Frayed tribes will not succumb; Benito’s rod

is not benign, nor ever shall be.

The motorized dream, from

vortex of survivor-shame

after the panoramic slaughter-sea

of Ypres, Somme, & Meuse-Argonne –

like a neoplatonic fantasy

of utopian autocracy,

with phantom Isis Medusa-icon

wailing like siren out of Empyrean

over the shattered spectacle

of your culture-chronicle,

Ezra – so who shall have the succession?

The special providence of a sparrow...

the goldfinch aptitude

for simple gratitude.

& when the Eternal comes, you will know,

Osip (along the axis of the earth).

The covenant of love

donated from above

for good – so we might share it forth.

4.29.19

just a particle of grit in the poetry gears

PAVEMENT SLIP

At the Arboretum today, the lightest

waves of pale green &

pink float over the barren

hills.  Pasque flowers make their violet

& furry nest.  Soft spring.  Far west

the Golden Gate flings waves

of steel over sea-caves.

A safety net shall be our rest –

all-purpose, drifting down from heaven.

From the Mother of Lights, from

Abba-Zero – coral hum

of Orizaba requiem (all the lost men

the sea shall render up again).

Ezra in the bughouse eyes

his Alexandrian apotheosis.

Spews hate & spite – riptorn

Osirian comedian, on glitter-stand;

& Henry has his Memphis

milkman : buried blackface

Pip-Pip (colonial ampersand).

The gravity-slide into darkness

is not so unavoidable.

Non spatio, sed sapientia

Anselm whispered; heaven’s kiss

is like a speech balloon, or Nile airship.

The kingdom’s for my child,

not for the Emperor, wild

Mary piped (basilica pavement slip).

4.27.19

Reply to a question re : Ezra Pound, Hart Crane

Susan Brown, my gentle interlocutor in this ongoing explication of Ravenna Diagram conundra, emailed to ask for more detail on what I meant (in the "Preliminaries") by my statement that in this epic poem (that is, in Ravenna Diagram) I was mounting a challenge to Pound's presentation of history (in his Cantos, his "poem including history"), with help from Hart Crane.  This was my response :

Quick reply, Susan : my sense is that Pound, despite all his Dantesque and Provencal medievalism, his knowledge of medieval scholastic theology, tends to deride and downplay the "Hebraic" dimension of Western culture-history.  There is a strong occultist dimension - the Eleusinian mysteries, Neo-platonism, etc.  Also the very marked Fascist tendencies, the Nietzschean(?) disdain for Jewish and Christian compassion.  Pound is not consistent : my "argument" with him is not very fair.  But it's there.  Pound's "poem including history", in my view, pretty much eviscerates the basic Jewish-Christian foundations of (at least) the Western dimensions of world history.

Another aspect of all this concerns Crane.  Pound (like Eliot in some ways) was a nostalgic expatriate living in Europe.  He was a political authoritarian, a reactionary.  Hart Crane, despite his Platonic-visionary leanings, was devoted to Whitman and the tradition of a mythical, futuristic America (Crane's "Atlantis"), rooted in democratic values.  This is, I know, a great simplification and idealization of Crane.  Crane has a special symbolic place in Ravenna Diagram and in my writing in general, which I won't get into now.  But the STYLE of R.D. owes at least as much to Crane as to Pound.  For I long time I sensed a kind of sonic stylistic affinity between Crane's idiom (his imagery and sound) and Mandelstam's approach to imagery, metaphor & sound.  Which (sort of) became my own approach to imagery & sound.

part of a panorama

FLAT RIVER

You want to understand the metaphysical basis

of these innumerable poems-

après-poems.  Sherlock Holmes

might just as well (go home).  Faces

crowd the apparitions – bow

wet black petals

into wreath-portals;

Nile barge (or Venice funeral-scow).

Sometimes the dishwasher breaks down (just now).

Anton Gàg died young.

Paint fumes (bad lung) –

Bohemian lifestyle in New Ulm (& how

his seven kids survived, I dunno).

Painted Dakota braves

advance through dry sheaves

hungry for ground (1862)...

We’re part of a panorama, Melody;

some Mendelssohn concerto

swelling to tomorrow...

Nature renewed by grace (slow psalmody).

The flat river was calm today.

The bridge craned upward

in a mirror, downward.

Man & God in Maggie’s puffer, aye.

Aunt May (out of Glasgow) beset

my father (John Douglas)

with needless trials, alas;

the ship of faith already left the port.

12.2.17

rim of that heavenly Rome

COSMIC BATTLE

Inching back with my mother down

the nursing home hallway

from dining hall... hey ey

yo.  Keep her from falling (too soon).

Sprightly, amnesiac, brave.

We filtered burnt photographs’

international orange (‘70s

epitaphs).  Look – you still wave

from chilly distance, eldest one.

Your sister, brothers... your

father, meek & mild... War

obliterates peripheral vision, son.

Like game of hangman (simplified).

Figure out the letter

in the word.  Row, Edgar

Poe – enough rope be dangled

like that infamous platform

lifted out of season

like Francis from prison...

only to travel far from harm

along a single beam of light.

Real American creed

spooling through Voodoo

Queen Marie – gonna be all right.

Antithetical Poe held

his ivory casket

in a bird-basket –

row, row, coracle... spelled

               *

IONAH on the bow... over & out

for now.  The cosmic battle

between Caesar & that

measly songster (Stalin puttin’ Anna

into the hollow double-barrels

mimicking Utopia – everyone

happy in warehouse, hon)

becomes a set of Shaker castanets

or scallop-shells of Aphrodite;

– a skirmish in St. Louis

soars above Cahokia (she’s

us) into a supple Rimini-

design.  The poet, poison-pounded

pharmakon, cribbed out

his hazy Paraclete

in limestone layerings – founded

Apollinairy nothings on a pole-starred

pine.  Rose horizontal stripes

on snow led wayward ships

to Milky Way, somehow (the bard

might know).  Over the river E

(for equal sign) carry

me back to cosmic liberty,

Eurydice – united we are free;

like Sophie with P. della Francesca fan

loving galactic neighbors

stitch their laborious

light-canoe (twin Manitou of Man).

10.21.17

in memoriam Liu Xiaobo

SAND-CASTLE

                                                i.m. Liu Xiaobo

The workmen are building a great new wall

beside my octagonal turtle-

hermitage – where Sophie’s little

ruddy chair sits patiently, for one & all.

Another chair remained in Stockholm,

waiting for a noble prince

to win his prize of Peace.

His prize is won.  He’s going home.

He held his vigil by Heavenly Gate.

Hatred can rot a person’s

wisdom & conscience,

enemy mentality poison the spirit

of a nation, inflict brutal life & death

struggles, destroy a country’s

tolerance, humanity...

They want to bury him deep in the earth

yet verily I say to you, unless

a grain of wheat falls

into earth & dies,

it remains alone – but if it dies

it bears much fruit.  I remember

the orange Chinese lantern

peeking its bright octagon

out of green shade.  Welcome glimmer

with hidden crimson berry – lamp

of mountain sheepherder

marked by the torture

cell like turtleshell (or scarab stamp)

                *

only to grope toward pine-green Liberty.

My beetle’s modest haruspex,

the ideogram for pontifex,

key row-your-boat for Vera City –

check the N-trail labyrinth.

This liver between Earth

& Sky was micro-moth

or Maximus (locked up til 44th

of July, by Bureau of Injustice).

His wounded knee, his tender

foot, his gentle mind were

furrowed brow, for cultivating scholars...

Thrones are made for serial tumblers.

You can demote King Tubby Lou,

kill Voodoo Queen Marie – so

what?  Arrestocrats come back in numbers

juggling for electric chairs.  Polly

Pound says so, the mystical

Apologist of Tyranny; she’ll

sow you Uncle Ez’s grapes – see

how they make great yappy whine!

(& his chinoise Confusion

still bakes a mean Rune

Cake.)  He not the Way, sez Hen.

The blot thickens.  Blue Emperor Mon-Ki,

with his twin princelings, Rude May-Hem

& Gilt Moon-Eye... descended from

Lord Me-Man, Minotaur of Die-Nasty...

                *

[sludge on the honey-scroll, I guess]

We circulate by arrow-

glance, the human sorrow

of disharmony (each creepy-eepy instance);

only the gentleness of Manitou

the windy sheep-liver

& fleet   lamb-giver

who stands   magnanimous & true

blue cedar (melodious   rainbow

of royal   Reality)

is King.  So let her be.

Your soul, sealed so, dear Liu Xiaobo –

your spouse, waiting by prison-house,

will flex her wings, & spread

your word – rise from the dead;

her torch (inalienable human justice)

shines from copper harbors & green hills;

over harm & over hate,

ever-flowing   light on light

descends   like turtledove   on twisted wills

to straighten ways   streams merging

into concord   toward the sea

Ocean of Charter 8   mercy

& fellowship   in gratitude   Thanksgiving

Day   after the battlefields are still

& Liberty beams   far & wide

her smile   across the tide

& turmoil of the mind’s   sand-castle jail

7.14.17

find the unicorn

HUNGRY RAVEN

Fear of another is fear of death.

Instinctual reaction

to deadly situation – a

primitive contagion, or jaguar teeth.

So history’s abacus shuttles

red & black, or blue

& green... just for you,

little black-&-yellow Moth of Battles.

These stately river-cottonwoods

flare mossy banners

now; Hobo’s many spanners

choke the bridge-works.  Shaker bloods

from Puget Sound redeem themselves

with help from epileptic

shaman-chants... pep-talk

of buried elderberry souls (elves’

yodels, echoing their green on green).

The Word circles like

a hungry raven – pike

or spearmint (Mermaid Queen).

St. Louie, with his trumpet, now

brings up the nondescript

rear-guard.  The script

calls for Ezekiel, or sunflower –

Iris in the limestone cliff

curls into Unknown

Soldier.  Soddy Brown

they called him (working stiff)

                 *

whose star skims from the evening murk

anonymous Firebird

or twinkling agate-shard

in snarl of spiral Melville shark-

tooth, spouting salty balderdash

crossing the Portland bar

– whose thunder-straits are

worse than Frisco Bay mish-mash.

O the gray shade-vault of chilly Chartres!

The golden limestone cave

framed with architrave

of ancient enmity – Synagogue-martyr!

The fractal fault-line of an old polemic

circulating ossified

eddies of Johnny’s gospel

spleen... (tragic & epidemic

unintended consequences).

O the smiling Word

chants resurrection... heard

in Ramah & Ravenna, Rimini (Ez

kowtowing to voracious Rule).

Crossroad strictly abstract

for everyone – the trick’s

to find the unicorn (a holy fool

who paces like St. Francis through

the prairie steppes).  Someone

calls you... homespun

Natasha, limping toward the sun (ey yo).

4.25.17

like Lear in rags

FRESH WELL

Hobo hides out among his cottonwoods,

a shade in camouflage

of cotton shade.  Mirage

of dreaming limbs.  She’s Robin Hood’s

Maid Marion, mayhap, he wheezes

in his sleep.  Across the road

(under the Shriners’ bold

benevolent scimitar) three turkeys

elegant & dainty as Enlightenment

grande dames mime

their quadrille parallelogram

athwart a sump pump drainage vent.

America drowses in Sargasso Sea.

The frigate Rachel picks

up Ishmael, sticks

him in her hold for an Eternity –

Queequeg’s confessions will be written

on his skin, with milky raven-

ink.  Temple of heaven

& earth, your living image (spit-on)...

Every inch a king.  Take physic,

pomp.  O, I have taken

too little care!  Reason

is gone, Regan is Goneril – my wick

sputters waxy blood, not gentleness!

Old man Pound rages

like Lear in striped rags –

Who shall succeed this rookie wilderness?

                     *

My cottonwood sap is like a floating mote

in Ezra’s crochet eye.

Lend him humility

for Lent – he’ll shrive his peacock boat

like Provençal Guillem d’Orange –

warlord who gave it all

away – the pride, the gall –

for fasting, prayer... passing strange

peace.  She is our peace – Star

of the Sea, the Evening Star;

ange of Apollinaire,

pirhouetting fée to end all war –

green child in her basilica

outlasting Stravinsky’s

thundering infamies

against her limping bull’s-eye

crane-dance labyrinth –

Natasha’s temple

limpid, humble, simple

climbing a ridge in Voronezh.

The temple of her body (yours,

mine).  A little salt

savors that azure vault –

elfin leap across the years

into the pond where Hobo swims

& Ishmael paddles... Jonah

surfs... Rachel’s Magdala-

spring (where the fresh well brims).

3.8.17