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

peregrinations of a chair

EQUAL SIGN

That blazing Paradisal throne

at apex of the Rose –

for lucky Henry, Dante’s

messianic king (whose arbitration

disinterested, just & fair

may foster restoration

for acerbic nation)

is not much like this baby chair

Sophie brought from Providence

its bright red plastic beached

in Minneapolis (porched

beneath a cedar octagon of silence,

anonymity).  Vertiginous

encompassing domain

of spiritual Zion...

that firmament Moses, Aquinas,

Aristotle wrought in brazen

ineradicable raven-

ink (the prophet’s organ-

groan, the scribe’s deep acumen)

out of the ghetto of Venetian

copper foundry, lifting

moss-green Liberty (sing,

Lazarus, your stormy consummation)

into wave-bent infinite prairie –

a horizontal plate

caressed by grassland fate

beneath high snowmelt of Persephone

                *

& Evening Star (ineffable complete

coniferous oak tree

whose almond amie

très jolie spreads acorns at her feet

into an ancient corn-maze wheel)

– O Henry, where’s

the seat of these empires?

Your throne’s only an acorn peel –

your realm a plastic kiddy chair.

Raven zigzags the gazebo –

traces Incan shadow

aslant cornices inscrutable (& bare).

Eagle or condor even higher.

Pure air (transparent)

laves the fundament.

An equal sign grounds every choir

in Lincoln-logos (quipu-fire).

Chaste diamond of snow

& Black Elk’s slow

Wakan Tanka (Vallejo-spire)

turning every way.  You’ll see

the back of me, until

you recognize Good Will

I Am.  In Red Wing country,

where grey Thunderbird came down

to meet his Galilean

twin – the two-in-one

Tom-Tom, guest-dancing (holy clown).

7.5.17

let her skip

DAKOTA HEXAGON

This quiet August day toward

the cusp of autumn.  Green

vine-light in the cavern

where Henry hides his raven-word.

That empty chair in Dante’s sky-

deep rose, for all the hoped-

for prophets, emperors...

& here’s Sophia’s little throne (my

dancing-master’s rosy resting-

spot).  Let her skip

fearless across the ship

of state, her toy basilica, questing;

the Greyhound of the Lord, her

vengeance, comes to this –

gray clouds of Providence

replete with rain; a pregnant mother

radiant with clearing day; the shades

of persecution blown away

by ocarinas (clay-

shell turtledoves, dolphin parades).

Ineffable golden Hephaestus-net...

veil of corn fleece over

a West Branch face.  Her

sister in D.C. (Adams duet) –

icon of Miriam & Magdalen,

Dakota hexagon

implicit in the sun

of Washington... cartwheels, Columbian.

8.13.16

Solominka in the black gunshine

HENRY’S COULOMBE

Muggy August, month of Emperors

& seizures.  Hobo Henry

lies in Sharon’s Ferry

under the sluggish limestone (worms,

mollusckies, protozoa).  He’s

coming back to Tuscany,

the Bore (some prophesy).

Huffy, bossy Henry holds the keys,

he thunk.  Amid a bole of oaktrees,

under his acorn crown –

like that green Corny Maiden,

one of Igor’s fresh catastrophes

(in Paris, 1913).  High sign

of times – the pharmakon,

the scapegoat, Chosen One –

The barking Kingly Queen

of Carnival, her last crowd scene

(crowing).  Guillaume was there,

too – orphic Apollinaire,

sighing for Minka in the black gunshine

of Dallas.  Jenny, we hardly knew ye –

your sea-cloud camouflage

a fluttery montage

of yellow-black, afloat toward Iona...

America in Henry’s coulombe, now.

The bird croons at the gates

where Francis celebrates

Pacific pipestone... sea-grey Manitou.

8.9.16

her smile shall win

GAZEBO SKEIN

Sultry evening in the Twin Cities.

The earth.  My mother’s kiln

stoked like Jersey landfill

with Dante’s willful souls – at ease

like oil on fire.  My moss-green vines

climb the gazebo skein.

Oblomov lived in vain

& died, sweet gentleman.  My light declines.

Oblomov dreamt a febrile dream,

icon of idle summer

grace.  Her lips murmur

& tickle his ear – Awake, Sunbeam...

Dante, shaken, shudders with Love

& epileptic ecstasy;

parallactic Ocean Sea

& shadowy Argo up above,

Emperor Henry on chariot-throne

of Rhodian charity.

A band of silver-grey

light-thread knots chords – the drone

of universal B-flat (Kingdom Come

with trombones, clarinet

& flute) – At Last.  FIAT.

Oblomov lifts his balding dome,

his heavy lashes... orange twin

pillars hold one Ariadne-

loop.  Pacific naiad?

Juliet?  La Paix?  Her smile shall win.

7.21.16

Here is a cluster of Index labels under the subject : Henry (label : subject/Henry).

I haven't linked to every term in the numerical series for some of these labels (i.e. criticism2, criticism3...), but only to the initial term (i.e. criticism). (See Index for more on this.)

Related topics (there are others) : breakdown, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry's books, Shakespeare...

The poem seems to be shifting gears somewhat, so I've taken off a couple sections I just posted... (they may be back).

Reading (again) Erich Auerbach's Dante, Poet of the Secular World. He sets a very high standard (one of the great readers & critics of all time). Still, even after reading Auerbach, I feel OK (for the time being) about this Fonte Gaia poem.

Dante & Henry VII - literary strange attractor localized in Siena.

I too try to "embody the word", in a poetry way. Here's an inkling of the "number, weight & measure" involved. (I'm sorry to repeat myself again on this blog - but I'm trying to outline a particular personal framework for poetic "embodiment".)

I wrote Forth of July in Rhode Island. The guiding spirit of this place is Roger Williams, founder of Providence; RI is considered the first political entity founded explicitly on the separation of Church & State.

Williams' worldview rhymes (roughly, an off-rhyme) with Dante's perspective, in the Divina Commedia and the essay De Monarchia. Dante believed that the Holy Spirit provided a legitimate role for secular humanity, secular government, in the providential historical process leading toward the renewal of the earth, the "Earthly Paradise", corrupted since the Fall. Rome, and the Holy Roman Emperor, he considered the true authority under which this renovation would occur. At the end of the Commedia, in the Paradiso, in the center of the heavenly Rose, Dante placed an empty throne, destined for the messianic Emperor who would oppose Papal pretentions to secular authority, restoring Italy, the Empire, and thus the whole world - Emperor Henry VII.

As Stubborn Grew/The Rose moves into its central volume, a certain numerical structure crystallizes (and then expands in the following volumes), based on 7/4 (4th of July), 5/28, and 5/29. The central volume (Grassblade Light) consists of 7 chapters (actually 8 panels - the center chapter containing a double panel). Each chapter is made up of 28 poems, each poem containing 28 lines (7 quatrains). At the center of the 28 is a 29th poem with a kind of square structure (16 quatrains total). (This is the template - & though there are slight variations in some chapters, the total line count for each chapt. is almost exactly the same.)

I designed this octagonal structure after the shape of a castle in southern Italy built by that great opponent of the Pope, (Holy Roman) Emperor Frederick II, which has 8 sides, and squarish towers at each angle.

The following volume, July, is designed as a mirror-image to the 1st vol., Stubborn Grew. It comes in 2 halves: the first half consists of 5 chapters, each containing 5 poems of 28 quatrains each. The 2nd half of the book has a very complicated structure (again using poems of 7 quatrains) which I won't get into here.

William Blackstone, RW's friend, Anglican preacher-in-exile, planter of the first known apple orchard in the New World (in Cumberland, RI), & figure in these poems, was buried on his property on 5.28.1675. His property ("Study Hill") was burned to the ground the next day, 5.29 (this was during King Philip's War).

5.29 is my birthday, and RI Statehood Day.

The entire poem (Forth of July) was finished on 5.28.2000, with this line :

"the nef rows, rows... palms, heartbeats, light."