mini-Mississippi meditation

WINDY CURRENT

They found a body in the broken ice

upstream from Franklin Bridge.

Nearby, JB leapt the edge

50 Epiphanies ago.  Minnesota Nice

reminder of mortality, this cold

Ash Wednesday.  & who

shall rescue me from this

body of death?  You, Lord?

Let each one find you, mighty to save.

My own keeled-over Mardi Gras

diversions end Mid-Barataria.

O rheumy battery of barratry – behave!

Half-sunk, in debt to fraud… Old Ironsides,

our near-abandoned Constitution

drifts toward Mars Lagoon –

graveyard of hulking Liberties, Columbias…

I heard Brad Barth, & maybe Latrobe

have shaped a mini-Mississippi

en masse.  Delta recovery

with restoration of the entire globe

– at 1/65th scale, using simulated sand –

in view.  Musk-earthy angel

of Odetta, oversing y’all

sluiceways – my diversions too; your hand

stroking the banjo-strings, your voice…

one grain of sand.

Let not Pharaoh’s demand

deter you from your bitter cross

                    *

– a better choice, for man nor woman

noir nor blank, there be nought

but this flashing pivot –

fiery chariot, all-bearing, San Franciscan

stigma tattoo – all-loving happy ghost

& live-oak everlasting shade

reconciling all things made

& unmade (windy current, whirling host).

Water currents, pressure & flow

(scale-model of congregated

clover coracle, 200’ x 70’)

up to the Chapel of Eternal Now.

You just want to get in & start playing

with it.  We can (she sings)

no longer accomplish things

by damming things off.  What saying,

Great Spirit?  Hwæt?  There was silence

for about six hours

(prelude to thunderblast)

when ailing Alighieri, heart gone quiet as

a babe, asleep upon her mother’s breast

gazed up into the rainbow dome

at Sant’Apollinare.  You come

to me gliding, from Sabbath rest

in your almond canoe, Jessie-Jesu…

out of the gemstone casket

where 4 streams exit

like the Nile, from Ethiopia… O Hallelu.

2.26.20

from G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., Gemstone of Paradise, p. 187

beam against klepto-autocracy

HERMETIC EPISODE

A little portable communion box,

bedizened with a coral reef

of gems (wheatsheaf

engraved on its acacia locks).

Gray pebble – miniaturized

more than a thousandfold

from that rock stronghold

whence it rolled (Paradise

Mountain, milky Jerusalem).

Or tiny grain of wheat

sifted to ground (infant

metropolis), from off the hem

of starry Virgo, Lady Liberty.

Her gown of purple (streaked

with gold) rustled... & sparked

such rays of justice & mercy

that the fickle wind of red & blue

(pushing our pennants back

& forth) fell slack – &

the Janus-faced Minotaur (just you

& I) curled back into his golden urn

within his clammy cave,

& promised to behave;

the strong man was tied up again

with his own silver spiderweb,

& dropped into the Seine –

one convoluted sign

of violence, reduced to tiny nub

                    *

of seedy violet.  Her sea-green eyes

gaze from the bottomland

of human clay, the river-sand

of human time; she is Persephone’s

Corn Mother, she is Cathedral Mary –

with her Sophia-torch held high,

armed with stone tabulae

of wisdom & knowledge, she will be

the restoration of democracy

rooted in human sovereignty;

from calm civil society

bring judgement on kleptocracy

with care for that bright seamless web

of mutuality her Memphis prince

proclaimed, magnanimous –

with love beaming from Mount Horeb

& intergalactic Galilee (a waterfall

of Washingtons... a rainbow

prism of Jerusalems).  So

the cartouche at the foot of soulful

Garfield – on the brow of mournful

Abraham – in the eye

of emerald JFK –

gleams with this glancing parallel :

off the prow of the Ark of Covenant

& the beam of Old Ironsides

shines the light nothing hides –

Beatrice’s look (Thunderbird’s lieutenant).

    1.23.20

one foolish man & three Magi

TURTLE-SHELL

Henry wakes from an old man’s nap

with a child’s sense of space

& time.  Heart’s relentlessness.

Here be the river; here the wide gap

between whispering grassland, distant sky.

Epiphany.  Three Wise Men

camel out from high Tehran

to find one homeless king, in a spare pig sty.

Tonight the belligerent intelligence of war

sent guided Minotaurs

heat-seeking vengeance.  Stars

were collateral damage (kids no more).

The ragged tent-flap & the drafty stall

are Henry’s flimsy turtle-shell.

His mind & heart a broken spell –

a wasteland shack, no longer fit for Grail

or Calabrian hermit-monk, or Parsifal.

Only bring me the gift, Melchior

of your toy myrrh-nef – your

river-sense, emerald, mercurial;

like a 4-leaf clover made of almonds

interlaced... like 4 canoes

bent to the whirlpool’s

mandala (Itasca spiral of palm fronds).

This Providence of tight-coiled J

anchors the Pacific Ocean.

Knots its rose-clay revolution

to a bottled ship – ensign of Milky Way.

1.7.20

like a willow bird-basket

DOVE-FLUTE

As Hart’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea

inched toward his New World

or Derry’s Columba (Pearl

Harbor child) anchored his monastery

like a coracle of Ionian gold

in the rêvesonge of an orrery...

So that Prince Hal Harry

leant upon Hobo’s broken shoulder

in order to meld his Camelot tall tale

into a pilot’s river-rumors.

Driftwood-heavy humors,

welded like Jeanne d’Arc in jail

to the high dream of moral freedom –

each bright soul’s laboratory

of liberty (that’s the main story,

from Memphis to Melchizedek-welcome).

O the hollow heart of him Joan lifted!

Like a willow bird-basket

(1132 tons of Itasca

taconite) nailed to Galahad-helmet;

in the clay banks, at the matrix

of four rivers, where

a raven’s bone-flute sauntered

through the air.  Mourning genetrix

for son of Abraham (Jack-in-the-box);

sweet shibboleth of 5-2-9

transmuting sacrificial wine

to shocks of wheat (her arc’s bright locks).

9.21.19

slow boat to Atlantis

archaic Mississippian ware (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

ADAMANT ACORN

The steady quiet of the river leads me,

& these monarchs afloat

toward Mexico.  Mote

of black-orange sail, tacking across a sea

of green... like a jasper flag of Jonah

(flickering calm coral

pinned over equatorial

squall).  Sextant from Alexandria,

sunken Heracleion – lamp from Atlantis

beaming through night sea;

matrix of Milky Way,

your Isis-canoe... assembling Osiris

from slow-roiling flatlands (Mississippian).

So Wolfram’s grail-witness

(ineffable justice

planted in lovingkindness) branches on

through Osip’s, Nikolai’s chaste vision –

adamant acorn of creation

(shining emerald of redemption

framed by buoyant casket-stone).

The red muscle pulses into veins.

A wheel turns versus gravity

rowing time to eternity;

the melancholy of Ravenna cranes,

the mortified forsaken innocence

of flighty Juliet

my filmy safety net

hugs tight – lifts up to cedar salience.

8.29.19

whispers out of Colchis

painting by Michael Gould (acrylic and Elmer's Glue)

MILKY DOME

Henry hearkened to the dream song hum

along the stairwell of a crane

bone flute.  The black mane

of Mama Miriam Dodona waved to him.

As if a little tree anchored his coracle;

a branch of whispers out of Colchis,

woolen silky-shroud of Maximus –

his golden fleece a minor miracle

where twin wheels mesh to form one

almond (of almonds).  Mighty

mickle canoe, whose Isis-eye

looks from the prow (tease of the sun).

There is a vortex in the Black Sea

where the Great Year pivots –

Hamlet churns through his regrets

there, until Milky Way whorls like a G.

There is a grail of emerald stone

beckons from the bottom

of the sea.  Four rivers stream

out of a matrix there – exalted zone

of moody CHURNAGOGUE – the potter’s

center & circumference;

Ferrara ghetto-sense

mingled with Dante-radiance (all hers).

& the backward Nile flows down to Memphis

where the martyr at the bleak hotel

sipped from her cup, & cancelled Hell –

his milky dome hoisted to foamy wisdom-bliss.

8.8.19

on six directions

CLAY CUP

I will not rival Dante’s double

spiral (from depth of Hell

to heart of Love) but spell

a complementary bubble-

rêve, mapped on the horizontal.

Infernos of damnation,

sparks of elation

harbor here – my guide no Virgil,

only turtle-speed Hobo;

not Beatrice now

but one blithe ocean-dew

rainbow (her smiling Jonah-brow).

Like that mercurial Micòl in Ferrara

she lights my imagination

with X-S creation,

aslant from Providence to Frisco –

a river, crossing at the Gateway Arch

like some switchback, Pawnee

Missouri – molding a key-

stone at Cahokia (ten fingers’ kiln-torch).

Where slowly, slowly, the potter’s wheel

with shaping eye-in-hand

rotates the whole land

counter-clockwise – churns against the keel;

casting her clay cup on six directions

like Black Elk diamond –

firing her mandala-almond

amid each human hearth-rose (Hobo reckons).

8.5.19

cloud & catalpa, Minneapolis

Cloud & Catalpa, Minneapolis (Martin Johnson Heade, 2019)

GRASS CLOVERLEAF

Everything grew simpler in that high room

overlooking Jerusalem

when he added up the sum

& gave us his Thanksgiving poem.

The apostolic laying on of hands

was just an afterthought

Mary Magdalen taught

to keep the Presence each one understands.

The knot held.  The silverweb

floresced, in centaur arrow-

shots – from Antioch to

Thebes, up to remotest Gad-Gab

(Ethiopia).  Axled on coffin

of coffins.  Buried deep

as Noah’s ark.  Sleep,

King of Kings (like everything human).

This gemstone of the Southern Cross

shines like diamond

out of emerald

almond – mossy quaternion, grass

cloverleaf (in shape of heart).

That little tree will root

where all the branches start,

where all the rivers roll (sky-girt

perpendicular – little Everytwig

leaning against current)

– unto that iron agent

sluicing the Delta to a brazen fig

                    *

shriveled, dry (as is the way with figs).

Yet Wisdom is justified

in all her children.  Hide

now, O Man – Ouragan digs

into clay.  Rotating so solemnly,

she shakes the bone-limbs

from their joints, skims

lightly over coastal property

– only to uproot, destroy.  Bideth

nor roof nor door, Tornado!

Like the Iron Age you know

twisted to shattering shadow... Lilith-

Crocodile, climbing from Delta

to muddy matrix of 

St. Louis.  Scorned Love

twisted into dust-mandala –

substantial b-flat of the galaxies

stilled, played in reverse.

The little tree of Ursus

Minor – little star, catalpa’s

iris-blooms – starts wheeling

counter-clockwise.  Clover

culminates your

integral almond-canoe.  Sing,

Muse, Oblomov-grail of prairie earth!

The great wheel turns.

Jonah’s corn-maze yearns

Restoration... (Miriam’s rebirth).

6.28.19

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

you seek your inner Notre Dame

LUMBERING FLIGHT

This April sunset behind the trees,

like a rose & phosphorescent

robin’s egg.  Fundament

of natural radiance; architectural breeze.

On Île-de-France, in the river Seine

a throng of men & women

flung boulders toward heaven –

to celebrate the feast of their communion

& the miraculous feat of that

lumbering flight.  The chill

granite yawn in the hill

where the dead man lay (requiescat)

like a counterweight to their primordial

joy – its hollow barrow

(familiar dank & narrow

room) will serve as reconciling grail

when we have gathered for the wedding

in the flowery vale of Cana,

& amid the hubbub-haha

Mary murmurs – Now, my son, bring

out the wine...  We will not build

another Notre Dame.

& yet our rivers are the same.

The Rio del Espiritu Santo is filled

with rosmarine passion of light –

invisible, unchanging,

radiant, enlightening

fiery indomitable apex bright.

4.22.19

Ravenna Diagram Reading Guide #5

Again, check previous blog entry here for more info.

RAVENNA DIAGRAM READING GUIDE #5

GRAVE GARDEN (p.7)

Not much to say about this poem.  There is a sense that, from the opening poem of the book (“Potter’s Whorl”), the clay wheel is spinning in centrifugal fashion, sending feelers or tentacles outward toward themes and elements that will see further development.

“Camelot” : always in background is memory of JFK, especially his Irish and Newport connections.  And general issue of violence and sacrifice in human history (and American history).

“8-pt. symmetry” : has implications relative to Pound’s question about future epic poetry : “can you enter the great acorn of light?”

“cemetery, by the river” : Swan Point Cemetery, Providence

“Ephphatha” : “be opened” : phrase used by Jesus in the Gospels as he puts a bit of clay over blind man’s eyes and restores his sight

“saya-y-manta” : Spanish women’s robe which reveals only the face.  Mentioned in Melville’s tale Benito Cereno

“brave’s game (a furnace dance)” : again, a fusion of Native American and Biblical motifs (Dakota sundance ceremony; Shadrach, Mesach & Abednego in the fiery furnace)

“Tracks in the snow (redcap, lance)” : image drawn from Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach’s version of the Grail story

La Vida es Sueño

ROLLING DOOR

Henry, magnanimous prince

like Saggy Mundo on his

Tower Hill (the Witch’s

Hat) waits in his chains, listens.

Them animal pelts smell bad,

sez Hobo (Sancho

P. Zee).  Life, my friends – no

dream, declaims Sir Galahad.

The little paralyzed air-prince

like a baby Fisher King

(Guillain-Barré) would bring

last summa out of everything (wince).

Like Adam taking Eve’s advice

he’d melodize the whole

isle to an apple donut

hole – & give it to his son (nice!).

Pallas Athena wore an aegis-skin

with gold palladium-bangles

dangling at all angles

from her circuiting Argo-spin;

it was a sacrifice, like Morning Star

or Igor’s Rite of Spring –

the icon bearing everything

buried in grassy Galilee, in a jar

of myrrh (brimful, for Magdalen).

Lippo Memmi pinxit

(now in Providence).  What

X will mark the spot, Justinian?

        *

What hour marks the lux fiat

when Mary in her pontoon-

boat (sun-gold doubloon

nailed to the keel) will celebrate

the whorl of Theotokos-kenosis-

hypostasis – on a clay

wheel (out of Cahokia)?

Whose eye-in-hand is... Henry’s

sister-cuz?  Whom doth the Grail serve?

I mean the grey stone

hands in that quaternion

of mudstream... – who has the nerve

to lift the lid of Henry’s sepulcher?

In Resurrection Cemetery

(northeast of Pig’s Eye)

Osiris waits for Isis-murmur –

America sleeps in her old nightmare

until that Pussycat (on Easter)

knocks the rolling door

out of the way... & Henry’s there!

Limping from his throne of rosy clay,

his island ocean-ray –

borne on his own birthday

like a faerie Pharaoh (Narragansett Bay)

to the Rose Lighthouse (near Gould

Island), in chariot

of dawnlight (mauve

& violet) – like a Sun Ken (holy fool’d).

2.21.19

OSIRIS-REx & the Bennu-bird

THUNDER-SPOKES

Quiet in the wintry Capitol.

Where father & son, in

the flag-draped coffin,

on the wooden catafalque, are still.

Where son (& father too)

sheds tears.  Innocence

belies its marble semblance.

Upright humility.  High over you,

at night, by day, Polaris glows;

not flags, but shrouded

origins – Bennu-bird

or Horus-ray (Icarus was

here); your ghostlier, spectral

interpretations – secret

resource identifications...

regal, lithic harbors, for a grail

of springy asteroids (boing

boing).  All that Libertà

of space, Lauretta

(almond muse, lithe dancing

branch of J) – inheritance

of every heaven-child

out of a kinder, gentler

Cosmopolis (to come).  Lance

of St. George or of Shakespeare

aiming magnetically toward

immovable light-word

beyond all temporary tyrants, here

                      *

on earth – ever-bright abode

reflected in the clear

Rio Espiritu Santo (where

we return, to be reborn, for good).

O muse of Jonah, in the maelstrom

of the Minotaur... your words

of the sea, rocking OSIRIS

toward... immaculate portals of home!

Your mild ray beaming from the prow

a living microcosm,

shining through the storm

of blinding dread – they do not know!

Mandorla of the sister-dove –

whose realm impends

beyond dead-ends

of Minotaur & twin-taboo... from above

your Dioscuri plant twin oaks,

whose lightning breaks

the chains Time makes –

prophets of the Thunder-spokes!

& from that gemstone casket

of the six directions,

whence four streams dance

breathing through each human heart

innocence & charity join hands

with strength & fortitude

& courage – score a prelude

for a planetful of promised lands.

12.4.18

most August wind-chime

MIGRANT TABERNACLE

So another August 8th-month

inches toward its close.

Whatever Pilate says,

goes – IN RI, nailed to a terebinth.

Whatever happens, happens, now.

An old man is an oak leaf

skimming like a thief,

going to ground.  & when the winds blow

the silver pipes of Sophie’s chime

go tingle-tangle... melody

of sea-blue cherub, see?

Clasping Columbia, his sweet tame

turtledove.  While her fire-engine chair

waits in my octagon

beneath late-summer sun –

a migrant tabernacle... Amor-

Shalom... transportable to Paradise.

Her father is a recent

immigrant, & citizen.

The Shekinah is mercy for chaste eyes –

unquenchable fountain of pure love

for simple existence, for

its mysterious source.  Our

wisdom, Sophie – like your turtledove –

comes shimmering down... she permeates

all things, & everywhere.

As it was always, my dear –

the mind of Love revives, creates.

8.31.18

where everything is born

GREAT BRIDGES

When summer is a woven synthesis

of differences, a music

of what happens, homesick

Hobo thinks of Providence – yes,

Ocean State – that tiny place

where everything is born.

Microcosm, on a horn

of sea-salt... on a wave of seamless

grace.  There dreamt his dream

of mater Giuliana,

in her moss-green llama-

shawl (Francescan almond-gleam

within Ravenna).  Dante found Christ

in Beatrice’s almond joy;

hypostasis in our eye;

omnipresence of the Holy Ghost.

That fusion in Jerusalem –

gemstone of solid air;

communion of river

& sky great bridges ravel, hem

by curving hem (triplicate

unruffled grace).

Traveling eucharist,

friendship seal... rose safety net...

personification (into human

rainbow) of a humble

kiss.  Gold bumblebee,

sweet Henry-awk... sunken, risen.

7.21.18

wave-factor

ARBOR DAY

The wave-factor on a riverboat

differs downstream (or

up).  Rocking the shore

like thread of Agnes Martin’s Night

Sea.  & we are far from home.

Waves of corny grain,

of grass, of wheat... Main

Street.  Grant Wood’s metronome.

He lived four blocks from Henry Negus.

Farmer turned lawyer-

transportation czar

(bus co.) in Iowa City – is

my namesake (great grandfather).

Quaker-shlepherd genehaulogy.

American Gothic, see (flea!) –

straight from dry-humus bow-bent flower.

Arbor Day.  Planting families

of fanatics in the grass –

another word for pass

the ammunition, Grandma.  Crazies,

huh?  All-American.  Beyond

the scope of Scopes Trial,

Solomon... we’re all

afloat upon some stinkin’ frogpond

paddle-wheeler.  Gothic was light

pontoon (Jerusalem).

Grail-Sepulchre rim.

Gitchee-Pollen-Air, up & walkin’... right?

7.15.18

by the long slow delta-mouth

BRIGHT FLASH

That line of poplars in the Corot distance

like on the way to Ravenna

or along the Seine, Papa

– no, only the topmost branches

of a simple sycamore in Providence

– no, just a maple

in Minneapolis.  O ample,

inexpressible, tongue-tied inheritance!

In the heart of the heart of the country

maybe.  Where anguish lives

alongside hope – conceives

the origin of time-&-space, Henry –

this wilderness of unfound, foundered

land.  This knotted maze

where a wood casket will blaze

(portable grail, marine crossroad)

the suddenly articulate harmony

of an integral universe

like that scene on a vase

when Isaac, Ishmael & Melpomene

leave town together, shaking tambourines

a procession to seashore

on the blind side of Minotaur

throwing down scimitars, carbines

for their Thanksgiving celebration

by the long slow delta-

mouth   at the seething O

& ah   bright flash   of seraph exultation

6.24.18

bring it all to bear (she-bear)

OPEN SEA

This Hobo, then – who he?

Lounging by Mississippi

lumpy, caw-caw-hokey

groaning accidentally for She-

Bear – as for primordial Iris.

Great purple monarch,

Theodora in birchbark –

like unto Micòl, or MLK (who is

& was & will be, by the light

of Milky Way).  His Big

Rock Candy brig

like a Black Sea barred-owl frigate

slants downstream, toward Colchis

or N’Orleans golden fleece –

& that arc, that St. Louis

centerpiece, shaped an L for his

Osiris lance (his buoyant flatboat

horizontal).  Troubled in mind,

some perpetual blind

haunt (old King Unfort, behind his moat).

& the whole American Dream lies

like dustbowl wasteland

of frosted heart, hard hand.

Sleepwalkers, unredeemed Henries

                     *

                     *

yoked to their stock.  An iron band

for an age of iron years,

until they can weep tears

again... up to the waist in river-sand.

Providence is in our eye,

he mumbles to himself.

In Ocean State – elf-

green, Rose Island red... (sigh).

Immaculate, born from the sea...

baptism for Columbia,

the Jonah-Dove.  Selah.

An overlay, a palimpsest... a little tree

of life & liberty... an ark

bearing a covenant

of loving-loyal parent,

child – for you, America.  Embark.

Into the open sea of universality,

where the human fingerprint

whorls to its fundament –

that knot of radiant mutuality –

the heart’s own ruby (in a sapphire ring).

So melt the iron with a diamond

flame, graft flowering almond

to the great oak’s mistletoe, & bring

the limping Hobo-King into her limpid

shade, moss-green & grey...

Hagia Sophia, who shall be

statutes of Liberty – dancing, embodied.

6.8.18