Rab Ravlin was a weaver bred

SILVER TRACK

Summer’s gliding toward those falls.

The sumac swords are rusted

iron.  Below the nested

locks (St. Anthony), swift sculls

are water-spiders on a dragon’s back.

Hobo Larva... Henry

Woodpecker, monarch (maybe)...

all worm, Noman?  Whose silver track,

mercurial, serpentine?  I was

the wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,

tearing Ariadne’s weaving,

trading lux for lechery (luxurious);

I was the shadow of the waxing moon

purling beneath Pearl Harbor

Day – casting her bitter

part across the bar (Frisco Lagoon).

Now crickets rattle in the looming dusk,

a chorus, waiting in its wings.

1132, the catgut sings –

our heavy grave (in one cicada husk).

Only the lightest antigravity

can spark the dark menorah

in the heart of King Henrah.

Lonely almond of sheer pity

welling forth Father of Waters...

what was Magdala stone

becoming human Union

(steely pontoon, welding 4 quarters).

9.16.19

autumn in my heart

SWEAT EQUITY

Like falling from a winter bridge

in Minneapolis.

Absolute zero-ness.

11.32 ft/sec (straight-edge

it, carpenter).  A little life-saver –

gold bubble of air

in the wooden measure,

Chris (dolphin fin-waver).

The little tree, the little almond

eye of Providence.  A

sort of weathered prudence

from rough planks – sweat-bond

of every laborer in vineyard

or in field – Georgia

footprint, selah

in every cemetery, bard.

Like this confusion of nature

circulating good will.

Invasive humble

habitat, Roma imprimatur...

signature of spiral J

(Ojo de Dios,

owl o’Sophia)

out of the oak-knot, honeybee.

Lightning furnishes the room.

So fall into my heart,

Julie (where start

the roses on their river-loam).

11.24.18

Tom the Woodpecker

LAST NIGHT

My muddled speech, this tangled veil...

like these mingled branches

of an oak triad – spring’s

catkins green-gold (skylight-pale).

Crane’s last night in the dark Gulf.

He teeters toward the sea

aboard the Orizaba –

absolute zero, Abba’s Tower... wolf-

shark mouth of heartless Minotaur.

Cracked glaze of Manitou

might double-cross you

into salt-grey void, pegged charioteer!

– while Hobo ambles blind toward

center of the maze.

Cassini, in a crystal haze

hugs close the knife-beak sword

of Saturn’s rings.  A Saarinen-

style ark, wind-surfing

into her 7th ring

of fire – fuse-molten onion-

dome (midéwé Mendelssohn).

Walk through mandorla,

hums submarine 484...

Specific massive planetary Galilean

gravity here clusters in a coal-

black hole of Memphis

diamond (direction 6).

At marrow of the tree : oak-bole

                 *

Thomas the Woodpecker ate

into a little apostolic

room.  Darkness so thick

only a Thunderbird might penetrate.

This quipu-knot of seared wood

is double-bound (veiled

mystery, inviolate).

Only the Nazir-dancer Ghost could

walk through walls, only the Twin

could feel his wounded palms.

As the film rewinds (alms

for a morning soul) a theremin

spooks everyone – the living flame

of Beatrice-Juliet

flares orange-emerald yet

through black flags   of the same

bridge   where Columbia flutters   red

white blue   & Jonah

(azure   jasper)   joins

wheel with salty wheel   the dead

rise   from their graves   the poison

scar of scary Scriptures

cured   with ironic sutures

when the Republic   of the all-human

makes mutual amends   in welded

fire   Saturnian arc

of painful truth   mark

twain   the river-depth   Elohim healed

4.26.17

meet & join

personal compass of Roger Williams

FAMILIAR ALMOND

My snarling yarn snowballs thistle-

clumps of confusion into

the midmost of the Slough.

Incomprehensible green missile,

towing kisses from that acrid swamp

in Mendelssohn (whence

we dragged a canoe by bare

feat, Heidi, home – only to dump

it in the permafrost garage).

There are many jinxed

men buried in there, minx.

Path P was a chi-rho camouflage –

X murks the spit (twin cousins

rustling for windy blessings).

Oaky, salty Invernessings

hone your eye into a baker’s dozen –

thirstings between gold floor-leavened

loafers & a 14

April funeral (foreseen

but not seen-for).  The scene’s unheavened.

Then for heaven’s sakes, let’s have it,

Lucky.  Twelve’s the number

of twin seraphim (Mary

& John) & Jenny’s lost mint (Juliet)

– the mother rising in the leery

graviton – the hamlet

feeling mighty chary yet

(Blackstone on hold, with Roger steering

                     *

spins his compass toward the iron clearing).

West, Virginia, west

to Vermilion... yon felix

nest.  Gone dragnet spearing.

& yet the guyline mumbling

of poetry retrieves

a sense of limpid leaves;

the universal shuttling

of loom with lambent seraphim

conceives an agate diamond-

crystalloid familiar almond –

6 paths of Dakota Slim

remind the mind of Eagle-Heart

(who reigns by thundercloud

of humble Jonah-bird

O sages in the Super Mart)

that everything says meet & join

in lattices of give

& take   Seek ye   & Live,

that honey-dome   of stubborn pain

intones   my cousin Juliet

great-grandmother Jessie

Ophelia   madre de Jenny

listen   a gentleness, O jet

of Mississippi water   sip & see

the ghosts come back to me

in Paradise   a little tree

of Jesse   blue   (a juniper, maybe)

4.12.17

love & reason

GREY PEBBLE

Chris the carpenter, who came

to work on the kitchen today

grew up in Kentucky

(Louisville).  Stabled in the same

horse-town as cousin Julie, Uncle

Jim.  Heard the JFK

Inaugural, just yesterday.

Born in ’63.  Like a carbuncle

burst on history, his red hair

oscillated in

the wind (a Bruegel vine

for allegorical enmity).  Who there?

The difference between love & reason.

Conversion of the Jews

(persecution blues).

Crusaders, conjuring their notion

of Coulombe.  It’s about love

of the idea of love.

Been there, dove

that (through bronze dry ice dove).

Stone stumble on itself.

Luminous millwheel

like a cloudy meal...

ornery small emerald elf

in limelight (grey pebble,

desolate Black Sea).

No one care, see.

Is only poetry (silly rebel).

1.20.17

the angry clown is not your father

HEAVY THINGS

If we look once more at your Topsfield

Aquinas-map, Dante –

that earthy horn of plenty

floored by starry sarabande (sealed

fan of luminous phenomena)

the heavy things of Time

rehearse the Salem crime

with simple weight of rigid clay –

ice-cold, stone-cold, bereft of life.

The line sags from the bridge;

the daughter of a lost age

droops, off-balancing (soul-grief).

Quantum quirks of spooky action

powder another image

for displaced rage

into the time-funnel... dissatisfaction

with oneself provokes a personal despair.

We do not know who’s there.

Halloween is in the air;

brown leaves congeal to pumpkin hair,

the angry clown is not your father

anymore.  O Juliet,

the phony craven despot

crafted no safety net... look further.

A rippling of seashore memory

brings grey gulls to sleep.

The peacock’s eyes gaze deep

as Argo... hold her now, Hagia Sophie.

10.21.16

Minneapolis in purple light

UNIVERSAL AUTUMN

Beatrice at the vanishing point

or Juliet on the bridge

mark infinite edge

to Alighieri goat-trails (figure 8).

The leaves of universal autumn

rain like parchment tears

from planetary spheres

& sea-grey eyes (too close to home)

to say goodbye, to wander streets

vacant & desolate

& drift   (disconsolate

refugee)   where only fleets

of shadows meet   (lonely nightmare)

& still the yearning heavens

wheel   manna leavens

their deep imperturbable desire

rooted in unfathomable joy

– Eternity, O Eternity!

he crowed (with penny-

whistle, raven-quill) – meek Roy

nestled in evergreen holm oak

like Ariadne’s emerald

corona... like straw-gold

Acorn Maid, among the little folk.

The drowsy King of Love bowed

his trompette marine –

umbilical fountain

of spiral clay (Galilean mode).

10.7.16

Le Pont Mirabeau

BLUE PLANES

Autumn already in the air.  The lace

net lifts slightly in the window

breeze.  Down the road

a train thunders steadily across

the iron bridge.  Eads, in St. Louis

same river in St. Paul

ebullient waterfall

descends into incessant sluice-

ways.  At Fond du Lac, Guillaume

will wave his pipe   the smoke

floats in blue planes   OK.

Autumnal, your pellucid tomb.

Under a beautiful water-mirror

flows the safety net.

My waif on the parapet,

my Juliet... little evergreen spear

crowning a rangy monarch span –

my songe, my sign, my Seine.

Cloverleaf Corn Maiden

twirls her blue-green mist of pine

on heron-foot again   Sophia

skips through the basilica

like Liberté-Columbia

her grey eyes scan geomatria

here twin circles merge, twin shores

align omega points

&   Maggie Galilee anoints

her Galileo with the milk of stars

8.26.16

Today is the birthday of poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

the flute zigzags

Thus we bring to a close Book 6 of the great mumble-pilgrimage, in form of Cricket-Chirp Epic, which we call Ravenna Diagram.  Six books = about 340 poems already.  I do believe the sheer steadiness of this eccentric errand is beginning to garner a little more public notice.  Some batches have appeared here and there in Blackbox Manifold, in the U.K., the Journal of Poetics Research, in Australia, the Battersea Review, in the U.S., and also in Sweden, in a memorial anthology for world poet Regina Derieva.  One poem is forthcoming someday in the venerable & magnificent Poetry magazine, and the estimable Puncher & Wattman publishers, in Australia, have made a preliminary commitment to bring it forth in book form eventually.  For all this support, I am so grateful to the editors involved.  And special affection-rays beam out to those steadfast readers scattered about Rhode Island & elsewhere in the cosmic blogosphere... thank you, dear pals!

*Postscript, 5.28.16 : surprised to learn that this poem was written on the 79th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge (May 26, 1937).  The poem celebrates the Golden Gate in the final stanza.  The bridge is a recurrent whatnot throughout Ravenna Diagram.

WHISPER-DOOR

Walk back   through a rainy-day memoir

through the watercolor (Grace

Ravlin   Gloucester, Mass.)

over a fireplace   wherever you are

down the River Road   by the cottonwoods

through the rose garden   with

a quipu-thread   into depths

of summer   Willy’s hobo moods

when the eyes relax   deep into green

& a river flows   to the heart-

matrix (almond, athwart

twin orange trees)   your ascent   unseen

Father Hennepin   or St. Louis

by the Stone Arch Bridge

on   New World ridge

where Evening Star   harps Liberty

These harmonic  concordances

Apollinaire   à New Orleans

Ariadne’s  contra-dance

in sleepy Paree   sybilline séance

The flute zigzags   l’après-midi

sad Adams (Henry) perks

his ear   the password works

once more (Encore, encore!)   you see

twin gates rise   virginal   ange d’or

with safety net   one golden

thread   trompette marine

from Jessie O. to J.   soft whisper-door

5.27.16

Primary colors

LIFE-SAVERS

A warm December, Pearl Harbor Day.

Pale & luminous radiance

suffuses the primary colors

of the workmen’s big machinery

in the river (below Franklin Bridge).

Dazzling maternal uncle

Jim’s birthday – a Ravlin

clé to the mystery.  Mrs. Elledge

added those little busts of Bach,

Mozart, & Beethoven

to my piano-lesson

collection (when I finished each book);

I loved her.  Jim waltzed Agnes,

the Viennese musician’s

daughter, around Lincoln

Center – while his own jeune fille was

in the shrouds of late-adolescent

angst, despair.  O

Juliet... swallowed at last

by Frisco Bay (agenbite

of inwit, James).  The pearl in the harbor

was a vivid soul, before

that fall; maybe somewhere

the wind still ruffles her black hair.

The soul, like a robin redbreast, wavers

high on its dogwood branch

over each day’s routine

avalanche.  Hunts for life-savers.

12.7.15

Franklin Ave. Bridge

& the ship sails on

CAUTANTOWWIT

The sweet old pussy willow’s gone

that once o’ershadowed Pushkin’s

backyard grave (great Russian

cat).  Leaves not a leaf behind –

only an empty space (alas, 

alack) anchors a magic

carpet o’ masticated

stump.  So we hung up our lyres

on the bow of that stubby caravel,

Acacia – stuffed to the gills

with incoherent motorings,

burbling Barranca Straits – with Mal

& Papa consulting the cabinet

non-stop... coat, liquor...

What have I left her,

now, here?  These were all spirits,

veering toward Prince Eddy’s Island.

Wracking my brains... hollow

ravine in the pupil, valley

so low... black hole of Depression

Inlet.  Perdita, somewhere in

the safety net, under

the ark at Porta Aurea –

dear lightsome daughter!  Ravlin,

unraveled so.  Now rainbows flash

Medusa-shells, O

Mountainous Sad Shadowship –

to wit, to woo... (by Narragansett ash).

9.25.15

where was the willow once

Pushkin