bateaux of old Louisiana

SPEECHLESS GIFT

It was 50 years ago now, Julie.

We were with the sleepers

in a dream, the jumpers

on a fogbound bridge – our odyssey

a sleepwalk of necessity

from day to day.  America

was manifest, a replica

of heaven for the taking – see?

This land was made for you & me.

But you & I sank down

into Pacific depths, my clown,

so young, so sad, so gone.  Ahey

ey yo.  It’s in the bottomland

or on the ocean floor

you’ll find the coral door,

the seashell, Pearl – your eye-in-hand.

Like Joan of A. moored to a smoking pyre

or O. still singing in Leviathan-jaw

bateaux of old Louisiana

meet like rose petals in a western choir.

& the Word-made-light, that sank into the clay

sprang up again, as speechless gift

in the dome where every tongue will lift

& feed upon her painful vine (his dying-day).

Our ghost-dance, Julie – tiptoe in a dream.

JB whispers, Eurydice!

& circuiting the dome with me

hums from Rez graveyard in a Joan A-frame.

12.11.19

Apollinaire lived in Paris, I live in Minneapolis (MN)

SNOW WHEEL

A little snow meanders down in Minneapolis

to cold November earth.

Guillaume, prince triste of mirth

was lowered from his balcony in Paris

two days before the Armistice.

Grandpa packed up his guns

one last time, near Verdun.

Spent rulers carpentered their peace.

Sacre du Printemps set the stage.

Russkaia Neva-sacrifice

summons her apotheosis –

leaps for the holocaust of banal rage

mounting to self-consuming poshlost peak.

Apollinaire was there

that night (under the sulfur-

flare, the guttering of Belle Epoque).

Grandpa field-marshaled the parades

on Armistice Day.  Lafayette,

we are here... the old print

over the dinner table (Revolutionary shades

trippin’ la gigue française, at Mt. Vernon).

My ghosts are here now,

in November snow.

The Rio fleuves inexorably on

down to St. Louee, New Orleans.

Jeanne spins with Jessie

to their Stagger Lee...

my snow wheel hums, Rose (oriens).

11.10.19

fireball parody

META-BRIDGE

October Indian summer weather;

delicate red hands

of sumac & maple pause

suspended, swing through clear air.

A white paddlewheeler like a ghost

glides upstream out of

Lethe – like a church dove

burbling an emerald paternost,

a moody coracle out of Iona.

Who is the master here,

O mini Man o’Tar?

Whose maze is this, Grandma?

Nile Voodoo Queen seeks her Osiris

at the snaky rainbow mouth; &

Henry Churnagogue steams south

to find his figurehead (Columbia’s

Joanna-genesis, out of impoverished

Franciscan waters).  These two

reflect each other – so

your spring-coiled safety net’s accomplished.

So when that fireball parody of Icarus

– no guidance system – lands

a direct hit on Ireland’s

intricate dear vessel (Ick-R-Us?

Ich bin ein Russki, then?) our meta-bridge

of bridges, our Iris beyond 

all arks, will respond –

braiding a human chain of love & courage.

10.8.19

keep on pushkin, straight ahead

RED FOX

Under the silver shoreline of late cottonwoods

the quiet gray clouds

the dry river weeds (wounded

with scattered sumac) Hobo broods

as always.  Trying mightily to bring it all

into focus, under the aegis

of an ineffable Isis-

eye (black West Branch granite, under veil).

Seated on her throne, standing for a Mind

of grace.  The poets’ doctrine

as against the matter-men –

lambent clay mutter-shape (FOR BLIND).

Johnny, we hardly knew ye... Iona

clover, twirling like a dervish

in the shadow of an Irish

Tyche.  Liberté, coulombe, Columbia...

Jeanne, Jonah.  Up from pacific waters

of an Ocean Rose, an Okeanos

Newport oakenship – ceremonious

wedding (chaste prow, beyond all wars).

Like scrape of diamond on a coal-black

door.  Marking your graffiti-

passage, Henry Contumely –

he hath entered the realm of signs (alas,

alack).  You search the scriptures, lil Red

Fox – but do not come to ME.

Swift as cottonwood leaf

her sun-heart passes... (Dion-Isis?  Fled.)

10.2.19

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

the American dreamwork

NAVE RESTORATION

The American dreamwork seems to grow

of itself, like a vagrant

acorn’s buried descendant

branches roots into veins of air, so –

leaving yourself behind, then

as in a park playground

at dusk, all around

echoing shouts of kids having fun

within the green lamps of those trees

& the circle of daydreaming

grownups, their evening

rest emerging at last – the iron wheeze

of the swing-set beginning to mesmerize

with its creaky metronome –

& you have a premonition of home,

like a matryoshka doll of paradise

or a houseboat nested in a boathouse.

American as they don’t get?

Anonymous as a planet

without name, yet – Isis, Osiris...

A figure stands at the dream door.

They put the body there?

Now it’s not anywhere.

He gone, she gone (to tell them more).

Hobo Ulysses glides toward New Orleans,

St.-Jeanne of the Delta,

Jonah.  Coracle fella,

acorn Cap.  Nave restoration’s what it means.

5.17.19

chaired in the adamant of time

GOLDEN EYE

Everything known beforehand, O

my prophetic soul –

fate of gray pebble,

unknown soldier.  Black Sea, Argo...

those towering fig trees outside

the Sydney Observatory.

& inside, the orrery

projecting Southern Cross as diamond

(4-dimensional octahedron, or

great acorn of light).

A blue-green planet,

turquoise, emerald – your

dream-song door (hinge balanced

on a level’s golden eye).

Heirship of carpenter’s high-

beam ballet... tightrope (entranced).

A figurehead, chaired in the adamant

of Time.  Isis in Ohio,

Iowa... your Clover, so

low.  Lift her out of the slough, St.

Joan – lift her out of the grave.

A salience in St. Louis –

upturned canoe... Jessie

Ophelia, mickle gateway (moon-wave).

Behold, a child is born, Virgin

appears from heaven again;

my iron age turns golden

monarch, winged flower (human).

3.7.19

like a dream

BLIND EYE

Like a dream in the womb, in the mind of a maid

before all things were made.

Came naturally, she said

when the foundations of reality were laid.

Providence, burnished by smoky November.

Like a canoe on the edge

of the cataract of knowledge...

at Prospect Terrace.  You remember.

Roger Williams, sturdy son of man.

Dark grayish blue

Hope Diamond, you

whisper (below junk jewelry scams) your plan

for Providence.  Triangulated eye

over the Mammon-pyramid.

Re’s Eye, long hid

in our blind eye – to crucify,

Henry (in RI).  That woman in the wilderness

of last things (Chinese vase

still circuiting her stillness).

French, blue, Jeanne.  Fiery duress...

Only a child’s distress.  Cordelia.

Le coeur de Lear, de l’ear...

Coeur de Lion, here.

Skinny crane-bag (of ocean spray)...

St. Paul’s most blazing eloquence

out of heart’s Pig’s Eye.

South of the city –

Mississippi limestone (fossil evidence).

11.16.18

sunset orange

LAST STAND

The grey pebble, the unknown soldier

flung like a meteor

or Pippin to the ocean floor

blazes with spiritual authority (chaired

in the adamant of Time).  Quick

fiery arc of Jeanne,

dove-mild, Columbian –

from sweet Itascan spring to thick

Louisiana live-oak grove (along

a serpent’s labyrinthine

swerve).  Dream-scene.

Microcosm in a hobo’s glass, song-

songe awakened on Rose Island.

In your eye, Henry –

in our eye (INRI).

Crossroad of a king’s last stand.

Royal beyond kings, in their halls

of mirrors (drawing near

like Minotaur, a minor

character in Humpty-Dumpty Falls).

Lightning of intellectual fire

with rattling Thunderbird

enclosing Red Wing – Word

for equal brother, sister – Sire

& Siren in candescent colloquy.

Sheba & Solomon

enfolded in one zone

Galla (octagon vault-canopy)

                *

Placidia (ample, enduring crown)

might set like Orpheus

to shepherd sheepish US

to her clay plateau (emerald, ultramarine)

within Ravenna’s salty limestone

tombs (carted away

to Rimini, Ezra)

Franciscans monitor (Dante’s is one).

Henry-Hobo, ascending from the grave

of buried Berryman

under a Minnesota sun

shrives everything (old beggar-knave)

to thread the needle, so narrow

from Providence hillside

through Julian suicide

& Gateway Arch, to San Francisco

Porta Povertà – the Golden Gate

rimmed sunset orange

to rhyme with that strange

Libertà, shining in every heart...

the Jonah-Dove, or Jeanne d’Arc,

or Jenny Littletree

Corn Maiden, in D.C. –

my Pocahontas statue in the park

veiled by the evening radiance

of West Branch, Iowa.

I am the Mystery-Yahweh

of Life, she say – the dew’s sundance.

 5.30.17

vive la France

CALM RONDURE

This rustic humble tablecloth

from Vienne street fair

(crowding her amphitheatre

hewn by Rome) poses a math

problem : how can I square this

table ronde within

the weathered octagon

of an American gazebo?  Ms.

Emily might know, or maybe Marianne...

some mounded clay pitcher

of accurate grace.  Her

toss across a potter’s wheel (nine

innings for a feline Muse)

spins stars like comets

through snarled sailor knots –

Mary & Rachel, bearing news

of natural law so blazing sharp

as to make arrowhead

speed from seabed

(trompette marine like Jonah’s harp

reshuffling my raven coil

into the Argo figure

of a prow’s green furl).

Honey from spun goldfinch foil

will pour like waxen flame – the living

sœur de Jeanne d’Arc,

sourire of each undying spark –

calm rondure of a square (Thanksgiving).

5.8.17

begin the Beguine

MINOR 7TH

There’s a baby high chair in the river

made of sycamore wood

(from Sycamore St., in old

Providence) – you could flip it over

& make a little car of it.

But the Miss is frozen solid –

can’t break the mold,

flow thru, maybe.  Love-seat

slung low.  The mood’s on Henry

sometimes, to be sittin’ there

– like Neptune, or Great Hare

the Leapin’ Dauphin (Huckleberry?) –

beyond the marina, where all the waters

congregate.  With Jeanne-

So-Dark of New Orleans,

the Cedar Queen (through the main door,

là.  La-la).  Her Rio never ends,

her rain is circulating

even now, hump King –

no matter which boar hounds, pretends.

Henry’s babble splinters echoes

down the ice.  Yet the flute

welds sheepskin & galoot

into a chord both Greeks & Hebrews

play (sustained diminished minor

7th, maybe, on

Ojibwan theremin).

Siddown – begin the Beguine, sailor.

2.3.17

L’amor che move il sole e le altre stelle

BLADE-POINT

You there – coiled on quiet side street

in Ravenna, your flickering

sabre-tooth tongue barely

echoing now – like that complete

grey gentleman, cornered by paint-cans

in Antonioni’s stony

Red Desert (who is he?)

mutely suffering blessed senseless

Giuliana’s windblown St. Vitus dance...

Maybe he beheld

her triple rainbow, welded

somehow over arctic heavens;

or this winter-silvered river, slowly

inexorably mirroring

its way to New Orleans.

An emblem of continuum (sea-

borne).  All things are moved by love;

thus you conclude your song,

rapt raptor, eagle-prong –

wisdom Minerva signaled Jove

among hard-bitten Romans.  Glancing

blow, ineffable blade-

point (that steely Maid

of Orleans would ratify) – slung

thread-thin from remotest eye

of polar bear (Mama

& Papa Bear... ah, now

I see!).  Heart-music.  Organ-sigh.

12.31.15 

*p.s. All things are moved by love is actually a more precise translation of a line from an untitled early poem by Osip Mandelstam, which begins "Insomnia. Homer...")

Your moon, Apollinaire

LOW RELIEF

Air is mirror-brilliant today, even

shadows cut clean

across Touro slate.

Mid-September, slanting sun,

a New Year for an old people.

Someone plays a flute

off Morris Ave... fleet

foot sails into New World marble.

As in a low relief in Rimini –

an august Agostino

Venus, or Diana

whorled in limestone dithyramb

out of the sea.  The jutting cliff

crusted with barnacles

whittles its pinnacle’s

bowsprit, figurehead – her glyph

(lifted in one hand-wave) twin

scallop-shells, like

castanets (break,

crashing surf...) where time began.

Your moon along the shore, Apollinaire.

Limestone foundations

crest across seasons,

granite castles – seagull’s mother,

feathering horsegrass in your hair.

1321... 1132...

Joachim voodoo;

Jeanne’s grey-eyed icon (Galla’s lair).

9.15.15

"Venus Beats All"