a grain of truth

Vladislav Khodasevich; portrait by Valentina Mikhailovna Khodasevich

BLUE EYES

Vladislav Khodasevich,

past master of style

felt that truth, not style

unites the beautiful with Uglich

& art with life (so much ongoing

sordidness & light).

& if the heart is upright,

somehow… even pain might sing

as honest witness to the memory

of what was loved, back then.

My mother, once again

so firm in her infirmary

looks in my face with such solemnity

I have to shift my gaze

from stern blue eyes –

your aching isolation of senility

since I remember just how quick

you sprang for joy (sheer

giddiness of being here)! 

Now you’ve forgotten how to walk.

Maybe we’ll limp along in spirit, then –

as once Natasha with Osip,

Anna, Nadezhda… slip

the chains of boring gravity one

Leap Day!  Deep in snow & sunlight

not much different from Siberia

or Voronezh, syestra-Columbia –

imaginary friend… (wings’ wavy flight).

                                                      2.29.20

a minuscule Mt. Everest

DEEP BREATH

Woke up this mornin’ with m’mind

set on freedom…

– & why Cahokia, hm?

Why this iron spring, set to unwind

primeval intuition of first peoples?

Perhaps it’s simple logic –

some high One, past magic;

Wakan Tanka, speeding on wind (eagles

& lightning, shattering the oak).

Faint scent of acacia

anchored in Ogygia.

Sophie Lightfoot, before anyone spoke.

So, in Australian wilderness

& Abrahamic villages –

among Socratic sages

in desert Siberian fastnesses –

with recent atheists, even

– who contradict themselves

if they refuse to delve

into this question… (re the unbroken

unity of truth itself).  The wind

goes rushing thru the room

in a gust of life… boom!

While over on Monk’s Mound

one handful of cruddy clay whorls

into centripetal J

beneath the Milky Way.

A mundus sprinkled with corals

                   *

or small hill – minuscule Mt. Everest

tattooed with a J

for Jonah, Juliet, or Ariadne…

signum of Persephone-thesis – quest

to rectify kerygma-proclamation

past this wind of madness

overwhelming Loch Ness

with malicious Minotaur (declares U.N.).

So take a deep breath, cries Roger,

stepping forward, forehead

like a hatchet, hand

held outstretched (some blind codger).

The tyranny of the Man of Sin,

the Man of Lawlessness

seems universal – nonetheless...

like an acorn made of lead, woven

into the ruddy branches of the human-

strung quartet (Beethoven)...

132… 1132… – how Magdalen

comes running from the limestone

sepulcher!  & how Natasha limped

up to the poet’s temple…

felt knees crumple…

when the continuum of limpid

violins prepared a shroud for Love

& Guillaume wept, also

under the droning falsetto

of Villon’s smoky crossword (O vvv)…

2.5.20

eyes of March

CHASTE EYE

I took a little walk today

slipping over the ice.

The earth veiled in sadness

by violence & bigotry –

Christchurch & the world in mourning.

A bird-of-paradise

merging with Maui skies

ricochets low planetary droning.

The Ides of March.  Caesar must die

to instaurate the Empire,

bleeding for the crowd on fire.

Republican conspirators have gone awry.

The throne requires a figurehead.

The bronze serpent is nailed

on Golgotha – is hailed

Messiah, INRI.  The king is dead.

This frozen hollow by the brown river

is full of streaming sound.

Little rivulets, underground

where Berryman left town forever.

An old man’s presentiment of spring

is like a lost heartbeat...

& somewhere nearby, a sweet

selfless affection tunes her string.

We must delve deeper into this

my friend, my limping muse.

Natasha’s temple (Voronezh)

sings with a chaste eye (goldfinch kiss).

3.15.19

ballet russe

SANS SEINE

Along a cinder pathway

through November woods

Hobo, in one of his moods

murmurs a Mississippi lay.

Under his arm, his matryoshka

maiden – his mater within

mater, painted, wooden;

on his head, folded like Chippewa

canoe, an old felt hat

crimson as pileated

woodpecker.  Belated

prophet from Yehoshephat,

brown Mississippi of decision!

He mutters a woman’s name

under his breath (same

as under his arm) : Marion,

Miriam, Magdalen... Jessie,

Juliet... Beatrice, Jeanne...

Natasha... each one

enclosing the other (ballet

russe).  Sacre du Printemps.

1913, at end of May.

Pirouette, grand jeté...

Juliet, sans seine.  Lamps

are going out all over Europe.

Hobo yet knots his woolly

safety net – the glory

of the Lord, letter & envelope.

11.2.18

the axis of the earth

ACORN-DHOU

The river moving through the cottonwoods

inspires Hobo-composer

to exceed his Oeuvre

Clumpy-Cloddy in the key of C.  Buds

trace their roots down limestone crevices

to seek that cave-lake

where dark streams make

ripples in a mirror-image (Beatrice’s

triune goddess?) in a palimpsest

of light reflections.  Mother,

lover, friend... your sister-

dove.  Affectionate witness –

Akhmatova’s golub-golubyanka

(an undertone beneath

the granite banks).  The wreath

Natasha flung into Fontanka –

today an angel, tomorrow only a worm

in the grave... only a promise.

Mary, in her distress,

beholds the gardener beside the tomb.

Hobo digs deeper, down his own

dream-channel.  Almond

eyes... the veil of Isis

in West Branch... curtains for Henry’s own

Clover, in Washington (where Adam delved

while Eve spun vortex-grief).

Vertigo in high relief

on Henry’s charcoal Chartres – shelved

Synagogue laid low, below Ecclesia –

belies a Nazarene concord

older than Byzantine crossword

shaded by almond-Hebrew Bona Dea.

Keep digging then, my clod.  You’ll find

the key, within a boxwood box

where lies a bunch of keys.

A black Egyptian Queequeg pine-

box, layered with tattoos

of hero-griffins – figures

of hexagonal stars

that shine like golden bees... Who’s

                    *

there?  Out of the mirror-wars

of courtly kangaroos,

through shady fig trees

shines her diamond Southern Cross –

the double trinity of Black Elk’s

six-way sign.  An acorn

emerald, lightly borne

as crown of Restoration Day : melek’s

JFK : Zion’s Nazir out of Galilee;

spume-signal from an Ocean

State – whale-oil ensign,

anointed Son... clé-figured Charity.

That old medieval Paris of Villon.

Pigments of blood, limestone

& sky.  Stained-glass zone

of intellectual Aquinas-light – reason

& faith cross-braided, interwoven

in the jewel-box of Suger,

in the emerald sepulcher

of Wolfram’s wayfaring communion-

wafer.  Omnipresent grail

of equal daughters, equal

sons... Love’s universal

sea-supremacy – each heart’s high sail.

So the rod of Aaron blossomed

over Nile sandbanks,

& a bronze serpent yanks

all eyes to Hobo’s Bottomland

Jonah.  Out of that Okie Okean,

out of that Osage eagle’s

den, your clay-born angels

rise to foot their river-span –

a bridge of International Orange

pillared like Jachin, Boaz

in wisdom’s corny maze

of adamantine joy.  So rich & strange!

Whispered by the Sybil through

these gold oak leaves,

for everyone who grieves.

A comfortable acorn-dhou

                   *

down Nile, or Mississippi, weaves

her zigzag victor-wake;

from Jordan to Lake

Galilee, her circle rings the sheaves.

7.20.18

ledge of regal limestone

HUMAN PLEDGE

The cool dry tesserae congeal

in Sant’ Apollinaris –

dance, coalesce

into high figures of a royal seal.

Exalted features... recognizable.

Your neighbors (Limentani).

Riding bikes to the sea

to get away from scent of stable

(Mussolini’s racehorses).

That was then; this

is placid Minneapolis.

We’re not like them, of course (off-course).

The constitution of a human pledge

blazons these images

from pencil-boxes... pages

scratched out.  Natasha’s ledge

of regal limestone – living rock,

streaked honey-colored

marble.  Moss-layered

icon, limpid under chopping block.

Our covenants of disputation

rest on implicit ground;

Rhode Island in the round,

an Ocean State of transmutation.

The bond of love is clean as salt,

as plain as day.  We are

redeemed by holy fire.

The one you seek has left the vault.

6.30.18

O day-song of a day

MINUSCULE EDIFICE

Some ancient Oklahoma sage

knows life as integral

& whole.  A round corral

of circle dance (light wind on stage).

One heartbeat, straight from Manitou.

John in the river, calling

each to prayer, & fasting –

washing clean (life to renew).

The little red plastic lawn chair

Sophie uses catches

the sun.  Minuscule edifice

subject to ridicule, she will suffer

small kids to be comfortable here.

Her persecuted refugee

will be your judge someday –

the heart of old Bluejay casts out fear.

Some perfect day in June, she’ll come

for you...  Shine, raving dove

from Resurrection grave!

She’ll ask what you have done, she’ll sum

you up.  And it’s not too late

(amid these arcs of oak

& pine) to add your spoke

to the wheel of penetrating light –

to hear Natasha’s whispered promise

in the ear of Mandelstam

& join the rapture of a psalm

clasped in her kiss within a kiss.

6.13.18

mumbling toward spring

EARLY CAVE

To trace the plummeting ellipse

of these post-Easter flakes –

the hexagon each makes

a microcosm of the temple’s

lightweight, hollow honeycomb.

Awaiting his parousia...

ghost-dance Messiah,

Nazir out of Galilee-to-come.

Far-off tumult of primavera.

Genesis of purling springs.

Pale intermingling things

in punished neighborhoods (era

of Pharaoh, or Caesar).  Signals

from an early cave, or tomb.

Eternal vault (the womb

of patient Lazarus, of Jonah’s wails).

Natasha’s limp.... Clover’s marble

Isis-veil.  The keening

eye of Magdalen (far-seeing

heart).  A Galilean stable

where animals & refugees

breathe the same air.

Earth-time halts there –

her catenary thread a breeze

lifting twin pillars (Alpha &

Omega).  Planted so

in graveyard snow...

grain of renewal (to the end).

4.2.18

painting by Nancy Hart

looking out a window

HER STATUE

I’m getting older, while the day’s

becoming lighter.  As

in Mary Gould’s last

watercolor (Bardsey Island, Wales) –

looking out a window from brown shade

of cave-like room, toward

April greensward.

Frail hand... pale grass, overlaid

with stone outcrop... old walls, old cross

(Romano-Celtic maze).

Delicate spring promise

from an ancient vault (Natasha’s

limping that way now, with me).

Her temple’s labyrinth –

sea-goddess, Amaranth –

only a sheep-door, west of Galilee;

only this frozen winterworld

all thatched with foot-

prints (near that ice-hut

where Henry’s burr-man hurled

like a cedar waxwing to mistaken ice).

Crabapple food for golden

beaks... spiritual gates, folding

for abject mortals (Minnesota nice)

into a paper bird from Paris, maybe –

Apollinaire’s turban

or Marianne’s tricorn

mayhap – dancing a crane-dance (starry

                    *

sacrifice) with shuttle-pagination.

Ariadne on the golden floor

rhyming with Morning Star

east of Cahokia – her crown of corn

lifting like Liberty (or Spirit

of St. Louis) for a

constellation (Columbia) –

gray-winged Jonah of an old planet

molting to Thunderbird out of the new.

Each Troy-town so will show

her Julia, Iulus, Juno –

or Sophie, prancing here and now

across the parapet of innocence

like dew upon the brow

of childhood’s rainbow –

O bright helm of human sentience!

Behold a Union, fused in fire & light

of soul-transfiguration –

future-human-nation

people, ever-living, stony-bright!

You see that Gate as through an old

& shady window, in a bed-

sit somewhere (in the Hebrides?).

Old stones, light green, grass-emerald...

sprung out of the eternal vault

like Livingstone out of jungle,

where fiery spirits mingle

in a playful dance... – her statue, Walt!

12.27.17

11 million light-years from Rhode Island

MORNING DEW

They’ve found another habitable planet

just in time for Thanksgiving –

around Ross 128, winking

only 11 million light-

years from Rhode Island (quiet

little red dwarf, dreaming

on its milky way).  Wing

me back to Pilgrim days... what

legend for a habitable continent

will do, now that we seem

to have gone off the beam

as human beings?  Erect a tent

for native & for refugee?

Bring in the gratitude

we understand is owed?

Who will say grace for grace?  Who, me?

The source of wonder is a mystery.

Great Rio del Espiritu

begins as wellspring too –

the stream itself is but a simile

for that invisible soul-smile

we sense, walking along

(like an unearthly song

or ghost of melody).  That aisle

of poplars on a shoreline trail...

the morris dance we trod

beneath your dome of gold

sunlight, O angel of Emanu-El...

                  *

– as when Natasha’s limping stride

befriended one forlorn

poet.  Teacher, librarian...

Philology’s sweet sister-bride...

a soul-companion, by your side.

Flowers are immortal,

& tomorrow... is for all –

Love’s welling fountain will abide.

Autumn is in the air.  Ides

of November, by the iron

Eads Bridge.  Low sun,

harsh crows.  Temperature slides.

That legend of Thanksgiving Day

(tables for everyone,

Pilgrim & Indian)

echoes via dream-song roundelay –

Henry, Hobo – Hart, John Berryman –

Dante, at Ravenn –

Black Elk, Martin...

reeling in Psyche-Restoration;

bright Rhodos-Imogen of Liberty

harbored in moss-green

robes of copper sheen;

the rippling well of Lincoln penny

radiating hopeful trust (humility).

An arc out of river water

sparkles like dancing laughter –

morning dew splashing basilica (for free).

11.16.17

it hovers outside

FATAL SALIENCE

Hobo mumbles along the riverbank

as October air grows cool

& clear.  The leaves, old fool,

the leavings... swift canoes, that sank

like royal palms into an azure sky,

into a fiery wheel

of oven-clay.  A seal

baked into bright red wax... on our way

to London, Guildenstern.  Or to

Verona, Ferrara...

mirrors of Ravenna

(fatal salience, Ursiana’s woe).

Surrounded by wolf-raven, Juliet.

You dance the sacrifice

like unto death (Paris

1913) – knifed in the clammy sweat

of granite vault, the stony silence

of the lie – artillery

deployed (ply over ply).

& does she live or die?  Hence,

Hobo-Romeo – you’ll roam

like Orpheus in hell,

sleepwalk a frozen spell

(so buried man goes skipping home,

strange hierophant).  Ineffable

grey granary of wisdom,

Ursiana’s 8-pt. dome

gathered to a grain of sable

                  *

sand... one little grain of sand.

As in articulate horsehair-

dream of Leonardo, air

figures crystal acorn – understand,

it hovers outside everything, & so

transmits clear folds

of Salvator’s bold

Nazir-songe.  Swing low,

sweet chariot... ray forth your fire

out of an almond eye

blazing   you shall not die

with gallant measure to inspire

the rooster of the Earth to crow

like Voronezh raven, or

like Vitruvian Man

from center of the Earth grow

feathers   coppery feathers   Ferrarese

Veronese  hazy

morris-dancing   mazy

corn mandala   limping   A-Z

sweet librarian   Natasha

or Nadezhda   sister-doves

swelling   dawn alcoves

of spring   primordial   selah

in the mandorla   of the casket-

womb   you must be borne

aloft   grey   Valentine

your sepulchre   1132   (kismet)

10.23.17

find the unicorn

HUNGRY RAVEN

Fear of another is fear of death.

Instinctual reaction

to deadly situation – a

primitive contagion, or jaguar teeth.

So history’s abacus shuttles

red & black, or blue

& green... just for you,

little black-&-yellow Moth of Battles.

These stately river-cottonwoods

flare mossy banners

now; Hobo’s many spanners

choke the bridge-works.  Shaker bloods

from Puget Sound redeem themselves

with help from epileptic

shaman-chants... pep-talk

of buried elderberry souls (elves’

yodels, echoing their green on green).

The Word circles like

a hungry raven – pike

or spearmint (Mermaid Queen).

St. Louie, with his trumpet, now

brings up the nondescript

rear-guard.  The script

calls for Ezekiel, or sunflower –

Iris in the limestone cliff

curls into Unknown

Soldier.  Soddy Brown

they called him (working stiff)

                 *

whose star skims from the evening murk

anonymous Firebird

or twinkling agate-shard

in snarl of spiral Melville shark-

tooth, spouting salty balderdash

crossing the Portland bar

– whose thunder-straits are

worse than Frisco Bay mish-mash.

O the gray shade-vault of chilly Chartres!

The golden limestone cave

framed with architrave

of ancient enmity – Synagogue-martyr!

The fractal fault-line of an old polemic

circulating ossified

eddies of Johnny’s gospel

spleen... (tragic & epidemic

unintended consequences).

O the smiling Word

chants resurrection... heard

in Ramah & Ravenna, Rimini (Ez

kowtowing to voracious Rule).

Crossroad strictly abstract

for everyone – the trick’s

to find the unicorn (a holy fool

who paces like St. Francis through

the prairie steppes).  Someone

calls you... homespun

Natasha, limping toward the sun (ey yo).

4.25.17

in the still life

OKIE CHAIR

In the still life, when the sun goes dark

the absinthe green on the old

wooden door (color of mold

or holm-oak acorn).  In the park

by the lake, the sparse grass wakens

to an April sun;

& you remember someone

battling the ice (forsaken

minstrel-king, nazir).  A buried man.

Some twiggy unknown soldier –

stranded black-gold heir

thread-spun beneath Stalin hardpan.

The butterfly’s a Morpho blue.

Blue as Siberia

in winter, da (selah).

Listen : Quartet 15.  For you,

Nadezhda.  You, Natasha.  Through

& through.  A nature morte

très fort et dur.  Part

rags, part soft shoe, Corporal Goo;

part forever, like Francesco

dropping all his duds.

Back to his father (odds

even he’ll marry her, you know).

There was a war in heaven, in

your heart, your mind.  Jesus

the Rabbi snowballed thus –

blackballed in Memphis – sharkfin

                  *

razor between Hell & Paradise.

They call it history –

a dime store mystery

(Elsie in profile, in an oval vise).

It’s only poetry.  Someone will pay

for it, eventually

(Harry Hawk, maybe –

Our American Cousin).  A splayed play-

stub (Miss Understanding

Under Study) stuck

on a crossbar (Buck

Stops Here).  Eagle Has Landing.

Davy in the Detail.  Film roles

for everyone – all which is

inheres... Macbeth, Cortez....

Universe is empty (full of holes).

Must be that woodpecker, prying

for a worm – the dry mast

puckering (will never last)

to kiss the lightning (scrying

from a crow’s nest now, Cautantowwit).

Whittling toward Arthur Street

in Mendelssohn (complete

symphony to be determined).  Sit

down, Henry, in your Okie chair –

the nave is full of light.

Acorn shines bright.

The Rite (à Paris) is a sweet nightmare.

4.14.17 

green buds are just -

TROMPETTE MARINE

Giuliana opens a ceramic shop

on Ravenna back street.

The “Old Man of Concrete”

surrounded by gray pots of slop

paints himself into a nearby corner;

Giuliana’s little boy

paralyzed (Guillain-Barré?)

plays with his yellow gyroscope.  Her

lover mopes, lost... (ambivalent

professional).  Red Desert,

Deserto Rosso.  Hurt

blooms in the sea-salt spring (Lent...

Easter).  Lofty kind eyes in shadowed

stone (Pantocrator, &

Theotokos) still stare down

from hollow warehouses (A.D. 600).

Green buds are just emerging here,

Psyche, Persephone

in center of the country

(Center, N.D.).  Land mass, a sphere

from sea to sea (theoretically) –

a glop of potter’s clay

in solar roundelay;

Palm Sunday to Good Friday (bloody

travesty, Ford Theatre).  Then

the turtle at the finish line

emerges from the brine

reborn – Rabbit in acute cartoon

(Metamorphosis at Minnaheehee

Falls).  Dante, Beatrice

step through the sun (hey

ey yo) astride Dakota prairie

hoisted on stray lambswool thread

like Vallejo’s poncho

(wheat-gold Paris gaucho-

robe)   or galactic Temple shroud

woven from smoke of calumet

& Camels   (veteran

Guillaume   a crimson crown

swathed round his beaming pate)

so Theseus & Ariadne   circle-dance

the gold pavement   grey Chartres

                   *

matrix   womb of silence

&   clear light   joy of the makers

On an upward path, the labyrinth

becomes a spiral, &

the Minotaur’s command

the envy of a shadow (absinthe

green).  Your quipu-knot records

an anchor weight – the rings

of one stone, tempering

the river-sweeps... only soft words

like flute-sounds, scattered seeds.

Stricken Giuliana,

limping hopeful Natasha –

Nadezhda, too – resilient reeds

walk in solemn palm procession

round the sea-wall

& the sparse green hill;

the bald truth of clay   passion

& its aftermath   high keening

sea-bell   through   seraphic blue

the ultramarine   (Pacific

hue).  Jonah   always coming, going

always being born   out of the waves

of infinite agape

lifts old sails   away

for Columbia   & Liberty   she waves

the light torch   over homely harbors

mangers of refugees

fleeing plaited Caesars

(their cracked saucer seizures)

as the integral of   furnace fiddleheads

the deep-sprung source

of Everyland   smokes Morse

code goodness   penetrating sadness

like undying Hope   into the arms

of Osip   or Goldie the Finch

your friend   in the clinch

of Hart’s woe   John’s alarms

the desolation of a lonely child

a hearth-star   shines for her

the safety net   saves her

Love blazes from the center   wild

onlie-Begetter   mild   trompette marine

4.13.17