Ravenna Diagram Reading Guide #8

R.D. READING GUIDE #8

HOLE IN THE DAY  (p.10)

“Hole-in-the-Day” : prominent Ojibwe chieftain who tried to rally tribal support for the 1862 Dakota uprising in Minnesota.  He was assassinated in 1868 near the Crow Wing Agency by a group of Ojibwe men.  Here, the raven is represented as a kind of “hole in the day”.

“left the ark” : Noah, on the ark, sent out ravens to look for signs of dry land

“Furnace... against azure” : raven in sky imaged as “anti-matter X-factor”, a metaphysical sign

“Oil-power” : pun on oeuil (French for “eye”).  Replays metaphorical changes on the “third eye” etc. of previous poems

“fodder for wretched // prophet” : the prophet Elijah was fed by ravens sent by YHWH

“Hovers / outside” : the spiritual otherness signaled by the raven

“Night’s black... one sphere’s damaged / grey” : the uncanny raven-otherness seems to return to earth through the back door

“One Rahab-hair” : the Biblical Rahab opened the “back door” allowing Joshua to capture Jericho

“In the theater” : poet sees muse-like figure or Dantean “old flame” in the Avon Cinema (Providence)

“Geraldine Fitzgerald” : lead actress in bio-pic (Woodrow) Wilson, and other films.  The “circularity” of her name, and its echoes of Ireland and JFK, are marked here

“The hour draws nigh...” : by means of some alchemical movie magic, the cosmopolitan spirit of the film, and the actual presence of “Geraldine” in the theater, evoke this hopeful (Elijah-like) prophecy

we were there at the opening

Minnesota Symphony (head in the dear lights)

SACRE DU PRINTEMPS
                                                  if a Greek could see our games...

Stravinsky, Sacre du Printemps.

We were there at the opening,

brimming Finn conducting

momentum – thunderclaps & stomps

revive   tired 20th century

Apollinaire   in wings

puffing peace pipe rings

heart-knots   knock-knock (really

Thunderburnt acceleration).

Sacajawea, limping

the cornfield, keening

high lonesome   milky halcyon

mother-of-pearl   a sacrifice

of Mendelssohn   &

pirouettes   rose islands of

melodious romance   (deep ice

instead).  The violence inbred

in Gothic bones   Poe’s

charnel House of Horrors

under clerestory lines   All dead,

alas   Jessie   Ophelia

sweet dark-eyed river-

daughter   (Prospero,

Moses)   a scent   selah

shelled corn   shellacked

by hangrin’ guilty guile

in lime   hid   laid   Ile

fit you   Why?   Hack’d

               *

be the hackers   ice cracking

at the end   some munster

python swallowing your

Sonny Man (ut one thug lacking)...

Little mote, little penny, tiny

splinter in your eye

Ford Theatre   The King

Must Die   in Memphis   on a balcony

lowly motel   or mangy inn

It had to be done, someone

must’ve said   musty felon

or gypsy   jew-boy   coon

& we all in on it   even FBI

even Adlai Stevenson

some historical person

Hubert Humphrey (or I’ll be J)

– the pressure-cooker of The War

to End All   Wilson   Geraldine

Fitzgerald   Cymbeline

or Everybud   the boar-hound or

the bore   deflect the arrows of

your .44 (or .45)   Merved

orange Grifter   Vertigo

(the movie)   someone’s flic’v love

home run   9th inning   must be

some kinda way outa here

I don’t want to be the deer

in the headlights, Maggie   help me

3.30.17

Pin dat, Pindar !

CIRCLET COMB

                                         to Flavia Saraiva

So light she could dance in the palm of your hand

diminutive Flavinha

16 yrs old (4’4”)

spins round a square in Rio-land

revolving figure out of Faery   circling

like Geraldine Fitzgerald

with redhead emerald

circlet comb   encompassing

a globe    within her seashell shallop

green mandala made

of hands  rosy mermaid

(see Phoebe’s sapient dewdrop

on linen frame   for navigation)

one palm in the hurricane

eye   Persephone

shows leaf again   becomes whole nation

wheeling   in the Great Bear dance

around an oak tree   acorns

reigning like   Golgotha crowns

skullcaps & elf beanies   the romance

of Mnemosyne   again, again

the early history

of Buffalo   or Rimini

Ravenn   or Petersburg   Pipestone

or Voronezh   or Minneapolis,

even   along a spiral

fiddlehead   springs tall

her heavy lightness   like   an Okie kiss

8.10.16 

Palm print by Grace Tagliabue & Phoebe Gould

This old man goes rolling home

SPRING-STEP

Sunlight glints in flash-of-gold

on blue-gray lashes, curling

sea around each green-

black pupil glancing from cold

Pontus-depths, like lacquered pearl.

Each soul hath such a wild

wee isle – immurèd child

of even-star, whose raven whorl

beams out of everwhirr – bright

innocent prinkster, fleet-

footing the complete

spring-step, so shamrock-intricate;

Tara, Soissons, Iona know

how low she twirls, she droops

before her leaping swoops

a coign... Elijah – let her go!

Light-nimble Columba... thundery-

coot’red Geraldine... – fits

Geraldine, the crown fits

Geraldine!  In a wheel of clay

through the eye of time – in a ray

of light, through a feather-

full of waterfalls... there,

there!  Look there!  A catenary

clover-span!  Four-folded spire,

planted on copper penny-

whistle... one milky-

black Eire-eye rose Paycock-fire!

3.17.16

wedding ring-structure

FINGER-DAB

These sibylline papyrus leaves,

so many shades of raven-

ink, scribe-feathered Ocean

etched with moony mesmer-waves...

The earth’s a musty limestone book

Psyche a palimpsest

charting gilt-emerald quest

through eerie oreille (slant rook

to woody isle, Macbête) – a flickering

archaic pain-matière

or wedding ring-structure

spring Geraldine Fitzgerald flung

for blue-eyed boys & one grey heir.

The old man frets in dust

& stone; his ferryman

(Rouget Blackstone) fins through the air

from northern Iowa to Eire;

the turtledove they seek

has grown so pigeon-meek

her flutings barely skim the lyre-

string.  Once in Calabria

flint-hermit Joachim

pictured a raptor-flame

plummet through time (vera-

mente Kiev-pointing).  Gentle

Columbia, please ravel up

my rusty finger-dab...

lips’ labyrinth, rose-granite mantle.

2.25.16