glare attracts birds

MIGRANT ZONE

      “But,” she added, “a tribute that kills thousands of birds?  Is that really 

                what we want?” – NY Times, 9.11.19

Little Alex was in love with them.

Would run out to the “woody

area” (floored with heavy

twisted vines) & note their thrum

of peregrine wing-calls; run back, report.

He was 20 when the Towers

fell.  Now he’s in the painters’

guild – swings from scaffolds out

in Portland (surfaced a new public school

this summer).  Everyone

knows someone so, dangling on

the perimeter of gravity (lead’s rule).

Edgar Brightman says, each body

is an etching of God’s mind –

that Personage who’s fond

of persons that we are (might be).

It is some Berryman-Osiris dream

of emerald Ireland, or

Mannahatta... out of mire-

bleared violets, one twin-beam

(ineffable, 4 miles up into night).

The glare attracts birds

(like glamorous words

of bright adhesive poem).  Raven, kite...

– bad omens, harnessed by our own

self-heightening memorials.

Yet... all my trials,

Lord.  DOVE LIBERATES LOVE’S MIGRANT ZONE.

9.11.19

New York Times, 9.11.19

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

gash of a calm current

CALM CURRENT

The daggers of the sumac (plum-

red, maroon) accent

the gash of a calm current

between these knotted forks of autumn

cottonwood.  The knot itself

an ellipse, like bole

of oak (hollow hole...

screech owl?) – for an emerald elf.

The Green Man in the green glade.

Prehistoric American?

Or an Irish cousin.

Gardener in the garden (maid

Magdalen’s Gesthemane).

The river is a strong

brown Gould.  Unstrung

out of New Hampshire (Alleghany?

Ohio?).  Or maybe Negus, Ravlin...

leading the flock mesmerized

to Iowa (West Branch, 

shepherd).  Buzzing a Quaker violin.

We have dawdled long enough

in Babylon, children.

The labyrinth (Parisian)

folds Theseus into a trough

much like a Mississippi mirror

dreamscape, umbilical

(& smoothly paradoxical).

We mumble into the interior.

10.29.18

American Gothic

SPRING CLOVER

This light foam of wild spring clover

on a green hummock, like

a burial mound, back

to the river... O my Irish rover.

& only the plain brown smock

on a Quaker wife

(with the quincunx life-

crux) remains – to lead the flock

in a morris dance (slim track

to paradise).  American

Gothic.  Meridian

through cornland, by the clapboard shack

which was Birthplace of Herbert Hoover –

where a Belgian oasis

for inscrutable Isis

echoes the cenotaph to Henry’s Clover

(the other Henry, in another city).

Wind wafts through green

montage like a has-been

Hobo, wheezing dew (for pity).

Hard to make a go of it, under

them glum St. Louee flying

spirit-flings!  Crying’s

no help – you have to be Apollinaire.

The spray, the veil, the rosy foam.

The train, the backward boots.

Minotaur, with his galoots.

Ariadne with her pigeon, humming home.

6.11.18

green grows the rusty O

GREEN RATION

Mighty Theseus was stuck in Hell,

strapped to a chair by Pluto.

Persephone’s no go.

Pennies clink in the wishing well.

The Blarney Stone’s a backward stretch –

cold kiss from pale ghost,

silky diner hostess

off the Isle of Man (unfinished ketch).

Snarled in the Underworld, Ariadne

warps him her cocoon...

a wee mummy pontoon

bridge, of air (soon, soon).  Erinye

Medea’s in the murk of crime,

stark raving grief –

Death offers no relief;

meek mercy must unspool this time,

unbind expiring rhyme.  Raven

Cautantowwit – wrathful

Coatlicue – skull-

wound knitting Golgotha-maven –

I ken your reddening woodpecker pate

all round our Oklahoma

home (green aura

martyrdom for scapegoat fate).

Because we won’t agree to disagree

we have to pick on somebody

small, like a refugee –

some poor kid cornered up a tree

                      *

who doesn’t sound like you or me.

Somebody will have to pay

for our settlement today –

it’s worth more dough that Proserpine

Hollow, or Bohemian Grove –

& that’s a fact.  Leaven

with mite of muddy heaven

this Martian clay of ours, O Love!

For the wars plainly disturb our sleep

& the mushy copper mirror

shows nobody anymore

way outa here.  Grave is the deep

wherein my friend is laid.  The blue

moth scatters, the monarch

flitters from the ark,

& they will not return until you

say : Blessed be he & she

who come to live with us

escaping strife, as guests –

may we tender hospitality

like theirs.  The whole Indian nation

has done as much for us.

When Thunderbird appears

as thunderstorm over the dry station

the rain might ease this drought

of reason & compassion.

Share the green ration;

pipe-skip the chilly serpent out.

3.10.17

west of St. Louis

MASON JAR

& the word came out west of St. Louis.

Kind of hokey, like

a dust-devil psych-

out on eccentric orbit.  She was US.

The weird windlass twirled due Nord

into a wilderness

of cedar & watercress –

deserted road, iced-over, hard.

Held up on a tiny pinhead pine-

needle of sunlight, she spun

like a gyroscopic moon,

beholden to none.  She was fine

to behold, like a mason jar, with her G-

fitz-G major Eyelash Curl –

a square-dance whirl

around an Irish jug (from C

to C minor & back again).

She spoked light so lightly

all the ire of unspritely

iron nations (dusty canyon

grandeur in a pride of lions)

molted into Phoenix

ash & rainbow peacock’s

eyes – & I can’t write these lines

without tears wide as Okeanos

coursing planetary curves,

as Stella Morris swerves

another starfish into star (yes, yes!)

                  *

2.8.17

something not rotten

BENT WOOD

Two lean ancient red pines

standing blue-green beside

Grandpa’s old house, abide

fanfares of trumpet-vines

(pure orange bugling).  Something

not rotten in the state

of Norway, loco Hamlet –

needles for constant farthering,

an evergreen encounter with the Pole.

A fado rudder for America...

mercurial Columbia

glows with her dusky song, high, whole –

hidden in clouds of starry Eire

that slake eddies of fear

into limey atmosphere

like elfin emeralds from the mire.

These curves along Rhode Island Way!

Hieratical Byzantium

leans down beside a tomb

hunched in Ravenna tamaracks – Dante

& Roger shaking hands (the ghost

of Beatrice will not bow

before the imperial scow,

nor heed the plutocratic boast

of idle punts).  Just a bivalve ark

(tender ellipse of fatherhood)

redeems the bent wood

Caesar to seahorse – shark to lark.

9.14.16

Geoffrey Hill, Yves Bonnefoy, Elie Wiesel

SMALL EMERALD ELEGY

                      Geoffrey Hill, Yves Bonnefoy, Elie Wiesel

Light at dusk across the grass

salted with white crosses,

poppies... graph of losses

rounding up the Somme.  Mass

for the mass of young men gone.

On Cemetery Ridge

the plowmen made a bridge

of bone, unbreakable – and won

the day.  Coraggio, amigos.

Somnolent River

Time will shiver silver

when the last full measure flows

from infant veins, against the grain

of human servitude –

that dominant X (rude

chi-rho, nailed up in the brain).

In the barranca (by the monarchs’

den) the battered Consul

penetrated to the well

of Golgotha.  His mind sparks

like the last firefly of evening meadows...

a small emerald octagon,

or 4-leaf clover – moon

over Eire, over the raging shadows

of the nations.  Clue vero, Ariadne-

yarn.  A catenary

arc, or smile – an airy

rack of clouds, threading the Neva R.

7.2.16

George Bellows, Rain on the River (RI School of Design Museum of Art)

Minnehaha's moccasin

SPIRIT-WOOD

                             i.m. Edward Lewis Peckham

Step lightly in my mother’s house,

whispered a tiny elf

named ELP – himself

a watercolorist (a yellow lady’s

slipper’s footprint left the forest

on this day).  Cypripedia

reginae – Minnehaha’s

moccasin – graced this wilderness

as well, making a pair for Joy

& Beauty (graces

almost three).  Time paces

seasoned out of winter, so employ

your dancing shoes, fiery Hiawatha –

roll like Polar Bear

around that pinpoint star,

sing like a loon, like your happy

father (Thalia-glad).  Nature

& Manitou join hands;

a Turtledove blends

sea-sounds, all about green Eire;

urn burials, gardens of Sirius

swim synchronizing

rhombs on monarch wings

(a rugged Paradise for ladybugs)...

one dance-call through spirit-wood

or jadestone flute

sows dreams of Camelot

(like waves of wheat around a vineyard).

6.9.16

*Note : Edward Lewis Peckham, Rhode Island artist and naturalist, painted a watercolor of Cypripedium parviflorum - Yellow Lady's Slipper - on this day in 1866, 150 years ago.  See illustration here from the Rhode Island Historical Society.

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

Remembrances of 1865 (so beginneth Ravenna Diagram Bk 6)

SEA WASH

To turn your glance back, eastward, from

the height of a great orange

pier (Home on the Range

in your ear) – immense Pacific foaming

behind you... like a lookout in a crow’s-

nest – a single burning glass,

a golden eagle-eyepiece

taking in a continent.  Up to Rose

Island Lighthouse (Narragansett Bay) –

to the byzantine capitol dome

in Providence, whose gnomon

is a gold harpooner – looking away

back west, toward you.  Photoshot (still).

As when the sun stops briefly

over Jericho, before they

blow the trumpets, & the walls fall;

as if you stood before a Peto

still-life (intricate

& accurate memento

of complete stigmata-scrimshaw hero).

I hear another sea wash, sighing

round salt emerald shores.

Columba’s Iona (wars

far off, now) laved with dying kings’

repentance-prayers (touch of blessing

for the wounded flutes

of clay).  So lift your lute,

sad Frisco boy.  She’s leeward (glistening).

2.12.16