As for obscuritie poetickal, here's a somewhat oblique, Marvellian meditation on the social role of poetry (from
Way Stations):
WATER MIRROR
Hammersmith Farm, childhood home of the late Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis, site of the reception for her wedding to
John F. Kennedy and his summer White House, is for sale.
–Providence Journal-Bulletin (July 4, 1995)
1
They're selling off the old homestead,
the mansion's on the auction block;
the lawns where Jackie used to walk
burrowed by realtors instead.
Ten million bucks, it can be yours:
the gardens, chandeliers, heirlooms,
John-John and Caroline's bedrooms...
Camelot flickers in the mirrors.
2
From harbor frontage you can see
four seasons glimmer in the surf,
watch changeless flotsam crash, drift.
Washington seems far away.
There, a bigger sale is on:
the common good, at discount rate,
from state to corporate bureaucrat
(by way of Senator Middleman).
3
So why mold grief in pewtered rhyme
for simple change, a mansion's fall?
Irish rumrunners, after all –
death by water. A waste of time.
A Yeats might mourn old manners gone,
the shipwrecked dream of Camelot,
and scorn the Newport plutocrat
gnawing mahogany's snuffed grain...
4
She's in the grave, the early girl,
swan-woman (pillbox hat, pink coat) –
sun-glassed, mysterious, remote,
demure, still point of social whirl,
who tacked astern with hasty Greek
to homeward islands, east of West;
she's gone, the akme of the best,
a dolphin – gilded, guileless, sleek.
5
But like a man who finds his wife
locked in the arms of a stronger chest,
I'm stung with song's unease, unrest –
a uselessness, usurped by strife.
Trajectories of melting ice;
chaos of shards; an arctic herd
shrinks (absurd equation) toward
Time's backlit Death Row device
6
and no one knows who killed the King
or the two princes by his side –
the talent that is death to hide
cannot un-Gordian anything.
Times are evil. Redeem the day –
that day he sat at Hammersmith
and merged the Peace Corps with the myth:
a green American sunray.
7
Another Greek, Simonides
(or so writes Roman Cicero)
wove stories intricate and slow;
his tyrant patron was displeased.
"Lay off those Twins, you dunce"
he cried – "Castor, Pollux –
you're labored, prolix –
recite my noble deeds, for once!"
8
And tossing the poet only half –
"Let those Gemini pay the rest!" –
the prince expelled the fabulist.
Then, in a glancing lightning shaft,
two spooky boys were seen on high.
Destruction rained down on his head.
The bard survived, to name the dead –
baptizing each guest with a sigh.
9
Another house is up for sale.
Driftwood clutters down the shore.
No one listens anymore
to songs of Camelot or Grail.
But over the mortgaged property,
over White House, pillar, dome,
I see two ghostly brothers roam.
Let slow strands weave their filigree.
7.8.95
