Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these

RAVENNA DIAGRAM  READING GUIDE #9

CLOUD-GIRDLE  (p. 11)

This poem was first published in the journal West Branch.

“El Anatsui” : prominent Ghanaian sculptor, born 1944

“Anansi” : West African folktale character with Trickster qualities; often takes form of spider

“weaves diaphanous / Byzantium veils” : some of El Anatsui’s works are large wall hangings that shimmer with luminous colors, produced by threads, thin wires, bits of scrap metal and other materials

“Something greater than fin-de-siecle Vienna...” : shimmering gold of wall-hangings calls to mind “Golden Phase” of Viennese artist Gustav Klimt.  Comparison framed in terms echoing Gospel text contrasting Jesus with other kings and prophets

“sinuous, sooth- // siring Solomon” : King Solomon, credited for wisdom.  Bible claims he authored thousands of poems.  The serpentine phrasing foreshadows allusions to Hart Crane in following stanzas

“Makossa, Ebeano, Dark Sailor...” : evocative names of African beers whose bottle caps adorn the wall-hangings

“forlorn cells of Africa” : see Crane’s poem “Black Tambourine”

“amiable fellowship... diamond cobra” : fellowship of people of good will is source of the culminating “diamond cobra” (“wise as serpents”) of both human solidarity and beautiful art works

“Solomon in all his glory...” : Jesus’ assertion that the beauty of wildflowers is greater than that of Solomon.  Glories of art returned to their source in nature and the earth

“field lilies, Flanders / epitaphs” : and the earth is also a grave.  Here motif of World War I first appears in R.D.

“Grandfather’s / brass shell, after St. Mihiel” : poet’s grandfather, Edward S. Gould, served as artillery captain in the AE.F.

“Copper wire, / steel helmets” : war contrasted to art, and El Anatsui’s use of these metals

“greater mettle” : pun on metal.  Creative art in a struggle with violence

a flower for Bloomsday

CIRQUE MATRIX

Gray Hobo-bird faces a problem :

how to save his own long

featherweight fern song?

How to rewind a strung-out poem?

Effigies & icons flashing by

like ripples in his eye –

Burchfield, El Anatsui...

Hartley, Martin, Klimt... Johnny

Jasper... fond winter raven-

oeuil of Master Bruegel...

Pompey, in the empty well

of Yahweh, was befuddled – No One

There.  The clear plein air of Quaker

meeting house, of Shaker

chair.  The carpenter’s

simplicity of Philadelphian law-

oracles.  We hold these truths...

But Hobo’s murmuring his

Nil Reed Candace house;

his prairie wind blows wild (Ruth’s

trail through mazy corn, tracking

Boaz from Goshen-land).

With poem-in-a-can

in hand (his pemmican) & Red Wing

Thunderbird-Woodpecker perched

atop his hat, he moseys,

slouching, sea to sea;

aboard his polar bear canoe (birch-

                 *

light) he circulates a mystery –

where be this Henry Church

round whom leaf-sundials march?

Planted in Resurrection Cemetery?

Or hidden in a holm oak tree?

The painted whisper gallery

enshades invisibility.

Will he sleepwalk forever, Poetry?

The milkweed monarch fans meekness.

This moth is camouflaged

brown dust.  The sagebrush

rolls through red deserts, the cedars

pine for Juniper (slate-blue).

Time’s broom sweeps clean

but tiny seeds remain.

A microcosmic mustard-yellow

gyroscope (spun in Ravenna

backwater) balances

Galilee on Providence;

the bicycle with one duo-antenna

twirls its silver spokes into

a rose-wheel window.

Where did Harry go,

Hobo?  He’s hidden in Otranto

glass.  He’s riding Pegasus

into a cirque matrix –

cartwheeling carny tricks

as Henry Flower Wilderness.

6.16.17

bobbing like a robin's nest

OKIE STUMP

Out of a thousand painted threads,

Agnes, you warp a frame

for some belle dame

of sanded mercy.  Mounds of pebble-

heads, broken by force... the list

of useless tears... unspoken

outrage in the caravan...

the camel’s otfe-hump (if you insist).

Henrigold the river-god

bobbers oiled Jordan

with Lorelei (raison

d’étoile – mosaic mermaid).

It was the frame, Agnes, it was

the bloom, encircling

a gold bee-sting –

it was the Viennese princess

who rose from copper strands of wire –

who lifted bottlecaps,

ineffable mayhaps

into a mossy petroglyphic spire.

O spider-thread of nothingness

O Hamlet’s hesitation

Guillaume Bier creation

bobbing like a robin’s nest

around an Okie stump (of Manitou)

twin-man   twine sister-span

love’s Everywoman

Miriam   a   song in C major   (for you)

11.30.16

Don't ask me

Not much to say about this, except that it's part of a series, and that Stephano and Nunzio are father & son from Sicily (my regular haircut here in Providence).  "Agnes" is Agnes Eizenberger, from Vienna, my Uncle Jim's onetime companion.  (Also thinking of another icon-maker & diagram artist, Agnes Martin.)

VIENNA VEINS

Klimt was a kind of crooked wicket

out on a creaky limb

in Cricket City (rim

of Rimini, Parisian rivulet).

Gold.  Vienna veins of Ravlin

violins (we were there,

Agnes).  Do not compare.

It’s only an American Robin

Redbreast, hooded, yodeling...

he’s calling out your name.

Not Stephano (fair game

for Fame) nor Nunzio (clipping

the locks that flood across your face)

– though they are near.  The Boot

strides on.  The man is moot.

Your Crown is Everwhirr – mesh-lace

of spy-veil, ambling the source...

a poverty of materials

in a land of burials

& sunshine (Italy, of course).

Klimt limns the anguish in your eyes.

Through vales of Solomon

or Sheba, all the broken

kingdoms, poppy-fields (Grandpappy’s

ripe Epiphany).  Pain circulates

through straitened means

somehow – corny Earth-scenes

beyond our ken (Thanksgiving plates).

8.17.15

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907)