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

Spooky distances (for 3.14159............).......)...

APPLE PIE

Hobo drowses in his Einstein field

of asphodel, spooky distances.

Life’s tender differences...

only mauve peonies on copper shield.

Irrational yearning for the earth

might be the shortest path

to Providence.  Wrath

of History’s a concave labyrinth –

your soul must wash a dusty planet

down Big Muddy, Hobo.

Rise from your bed of woe;

our Hero beckons from his granite

lintel toward the circling sun.

Path P (transcendental

for each chaste equal

guest of compassing compassion).

The one who went to live with Indians.

Blackstone, Yellow Sweeting

apple-man – his greeting

(like sweet Williams’ own) a Both-Hands

Welcome, Minnehaha flute –
ray of soul liberty,

loop of Easter Rabbi...

Hart, Malcolm, Giulietta’s route

bent (parallactic) toward the light.

A catenary smile

or Life-Saver will

thread sad grooves into a chariot.

3.14.16

Mississippi River, from Indian Mounds Park (St. Paul)

Happy Crazy Eights Day...

The long poem Forth of July comes in 3 volumes. Vols. 1 and 3 each have 4 chapters. Vol. 2 (The Grassblade Light) has 7 chapters - but the center chapter is doubled, making (numerically) 8 chapters.

Each of Grassblade's sections contains 28 poems, each poem having 28 lines (with variations).

The "plot" of Grassblade is a kind of "ghost dance" search (by way of Russia) for the poet's cousin Juliet.

Last fall, the Soviet Russian submarine Julietta 484 sank in Providence harbor during a storm. Just last week it was finally brough back to the surface for repairs.

These are the numbers of our lives.

Back at India Pt. Park. In the distance, in front of the oil storage tanks, is the former Soviet submarine Julietta 484 (used in the film K-19). "submarine Julietta 484" : good shorthand description of structure of Forth of July 

It was a good day to walk to India Point today. The grass still green, the leaves just coming out. A lot of activity in the harbor : tugboats, dredgers, freighters. I bought some mini-binocs just to watch them (feel free to notify Homeland Security). There's a Russian sub there, used in film "K-19", now a museum, complete with Soviet flag etc. : the Julietta 484. The center book of the Big One, Grassblade Light, is an octagonal Russian-style poema, plotted on an Orphic search (by way of Petersburg) for my cousin Juliet. Sort of like Kafka said, sit on a park bench & the world will come & lie down at your feet.

Translato-logorrheia : Stubborn Grew et al. happened because one day I was able to pick up a Mandelstam mask & put it on.

Rhode Island has more hair salons per square inch than. We're a very small very Big Hair state. Passed one coming back on Hope St: Hairoglyphics. As I may have mentioned already a hundred times, RI Statehood Day is May 29th. The state motto is "Hope". Bob Hope & I share the same birthday (5/29). He's the stand-up, I'm the sit-down.

Grassblade Light has 7 chapters in 8 sections. Each section has 28 poems of 28 lines each, with a center poem of 64 lines, making 29 poems total, in a [14/1/14] array (there are variations - it's a matter of broken symmetry - but the total lineation is almost exact for each section). The poem moves generally from RI to Russia to the Mississippi delta up to MN (the "North Star state") and back to RI. The central chapter 4 is a double chapter, 2 sections centered on a single line : Love is our North Star high up above.