irrational Archimedean constant

APPLE PIE

On the cusp of another Ides of March

plague wracks the Republic.

Snubbing his soothsayers, slick

Julius the 4th tees off a crumbling arch.

Henry Hollow glimpses Fenris in the mirror

coyotes laughing in the doorway

the delicate gyroscopic orrery

of light & dark about to shatter –

shards of church & state, the glare

of Lucifer the puppet-master

dark Leviathan off-shore

a wilderness of the sea (whale Jonah’s lair).

But it shall not be so with thee,

you murmur to me…

                O

irrational Archimedean constant

transcendental root of unity.

Mild logos of a fisherman, a Fisher

King, fish-man… your hook

one Magdalenian smile – her look

from nocturne-cave of milky… where?

Before the granary-empire, before

domestication of the slave –

beyond star-winking nave

or curve of Galla crypt (Ravenna lore);

the ratio of infinite circumference

to one straight line.

Guillaume’s trompette marine.

Thanksgiving apple pie (in Providence).

3.14.20

transcendental & irrational path P

THIN BANDS

The outer circle of this diagram

is drawing to a close.

The path P we chose

here loops into its ruddy oriflamme.

An old man’s line of numbers,

transcendental &

irrational.  Thin bands,

ketched for riding heavy combers –

sea-path between good & evil.

One people’s destiny

doubled in duality;

twin circles on their parallel

                **

emerge (amid stars & stripes

& iron bars).  History

halts here : between Rimini

& Ravenna (Venice-Paris) overlaps.

The pilot at the wheel of Providence

eyes the prow of his canoe.

Her figurehead (1132)

blooms from the sepulcher – immense

Redemption, like a Stonehenge grail

from 44 B.C. to 4.14.

Melchizedek stands in between.

The plummet-eye of Joachim sets sail.

3.14.19

then you shall have some pie

PIE SQUARED

Down by the Rio del Espiritu

Santo, the sun ignites

the pileated woodpecker’s

red-feathered crown.  The sky is blue,

the river flows, a serpentine

spark-shimmer, bending

rainbows to the engulfing

sea.  Dido’s shade will lean

forever toward the perimetric

oxhide rim of Carthage,

choking on her rage

with tears.  Dante’s epileptic

yearning for supernal Grace

paces her transcendental

number round a circle

of circles – like Angela Mace

Christian, or a greyhound, hunting

down that palimpsest

of muffled tracks (geist-

hand behind the arras bunting)

to find F. Mendelssohn at last –

well-tuned, unlucky sister

polishing her Easter

song (spliced to her brother’s mast).

& as my poem’s radius inches

toward her hemisphere,

its eigenvalues (fear

& hope) rhyme where it pinches

                     *

here in Mendelssohn, where children

in the shade of worlds

their parents made, unfold

a bruised & tender leaf-pattern.

The family circle is a dented

sphere.  Your twin cousin

became a ghost – the other one

a cryptic cosine (marginal)... prevented

on path P to blossoming, somehow

(obliquity of bad faith,

lack-love).  Now each wraith

in Dante’s bowl of wrath & woe

will step into your Mirror Lake

as into Galilee,

so you might slowly see

circumference of eternity – & make

amends.  Dido weeps by cave-door.

Moses goes home free,

his daughters over Lethe

summoned, as in play (Cleo,

Ophelia, Jessie...) by paddle-wheeler

quick, now, here, gone

like a Mississippian –

irrational Thanksgiving number

Guillem d’Orange (not neon, now,

but international,

beneath his Provençal

shade-grove) beheld – her wavy prow.

3.14.17

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)