the distinct end of poetry

V-WAKE

The distinct end of poetry is beauty.

& beauty is wholeness, radiance

& harmony, per Stephen Dedalus

– out of Aquinas (Aristotle too, maybe).

Beauty, rounding on itself… dimensional

& resonant.  Unlike the trodden

thoroughfare of explanation,

abstraction (utilitarian, impersonal)

& then Truth stands there, facing you –

smiling, breathing! – the mimesis

resolves at its moral crisis – the

peripeteia of heroine & hero flow through

& it’s all too real, this thunderstorm

in your heart – when Lear

& Cordelia meet again (in fear

& trembling) at the obliteration of all form

all kindly grace, all courtesy & charity

beneath tromping beast-breath

& mincing m’carnal serpent-teeth

– until you hear the tingle of the mercy-

bell (so slight, so bright, so still).  So

I would defend the poets’ cause;

manifest those subtle laws

(human & divine) by which they fulfill

their milky icons, walking through stone

as in an Easter season

at the Great Sabbath Even

when Mary goes to the tomb (afraid, alone)

                         *

& meets the shy gardener (Ever-Living One).

So I would elicit my own

testimony (prodigal son) – &

body forth a pregnant Henry maze, spun

from that seedy Emperor in mid-July

who loved Our American Cousin –

swan-diving into Frisco basin,

branding his heart with fiery Never-Die.

& under the aegis of that orthodox St. Maximus

I would retrace the delicate brushwork

Marsden Hartley (in his Moby Dick

memorial) marked 33 – sea-terminus

or Ocean-birth, Jonah or sepulcher…

black hole or vanishing point,

centering thin, small (paint-

brush) horsehair… your Jerusalem Chamber.

Everything resolving now, in the master play

when Prince Hal meets his father

– O recreant & fickle feather!

Arrogant betrayer!  This your day, boy –

clasp your virulent & blood-soaked crown!

For the rêve-songe in the river-

valley of our May-King quivers

in a V-wake – groans with a birth – your own!

When the Eagle of mute Joachim molts into Dove

& Mammon-prone America restores

Columbia – & when the sun soars

in the oak-bole, & Cordelia mimes… LOVE.

4.17.20

that hexed hexagon

PRICKLY ROOFTOP

Only a light whisper of April snow

feathers the riverbank today.

The wind-serpent will flay

with rippling wings its own mud-brown

flow.  The cottonwoods lean overhead

like ribs on a canoe.  Gray veins

of some cast-off snakeskin.

Glass fane of Great Worm (empty, shed).

Where are the springs of yesteryear?

This April curls from cold

& back to cold.  From cold

to cold – inhuman, viral (some Shakespeare

Villon).  So the chill indifference

of animal aggression marks

its seal on each snowflake.

Each one unlike (unique monstrance).

So who invented this immaculate snow?

A mind of winter?  Or

a dreaming Melchior – his

clouds on high, his Bethlehem below?

We sleep, we wake… like soft snowflakes.

We drift, we float… we land

& melt upon a child’s hand.

The soul is like that dark green pine, makes

rough & prickly rooftop – root foundation

for each spindrift, wayfaring

Romany light-traveling

human earth-heart time-migration

*

– so hear the art then, O spiraling 

hearth!  Martian enfoldment

like arms of Odin, bent

around himself – whole tree corralling!

For Snowflake is that hexèd hexagon

of heaven & earth, joined

in your heart, coined

Abraham – red copper of the gun;

that regal object-dart of adoration

– tangled boomerang, returned

upon itself – urned

at the apex of our celebration;

the bread & wine of every sacrifice

offered by universal Everyman

each time she lifts the can

for mite or gold doubloon… our price.

The light snow sweeps across Ireland

& Minneapolis-St. Paul.

A sweet lamb looks from wall

of van Eyck emerald, almost human (sand

or salt will reveal her, underneath

Mississippi varnish).  Flowers

are eternal, soul-power

is substantial… MELEK shall bequeath

his welcome-gift of bread & wine

on his way to Memphis

for the garbage men.  This

my body… this my blood.  Lamp, shine.

4.3.20

winter gematria

DEAD RECKONING

Henry drooped with the blues, his head

on his hand, his wings folded.

Gloom gathers the Gould

with something other than ghost dancing –

rustic farm implements, tongs

in a crucible of heavy rain.

He knows Great Congregation

= love x God+neighbor, yet... wrongs!

The prophet speaks goldenly of such

in his report (Jack

Joachim).  He saw black

where the red-squash bore would touch

his tender rib with a poignard – that son

of a coagulated sow! –

but he rests easy, now

in his little room, in the Forest of Ravlin

I reckon.  Jacques & Jules, Jack

& Jill, tumbled off the wall

& down the hill... so we all

fall down, sang the old buried hack

full of Fathom Fifth.  His vanishing pint

fled like a bat, through a gap

in his rainbow tooth; sap

dribbled from his dank sepulchre, his mint

of 43 years (32 + 11).  She was only 17

when she danced the tyrant-

teller – poky little Calabrian haunt

who yet might spread her wings (sweet halcyon).

1.24.20

Dark Lady, mayhap

BRADY SEZ

Near the headwaters of Mississippi

this silver-gray sinkhole

fixed as North Pole

in frozen vortex.  Photography

captures the chill nether-life

of Lethe (Brady sez).

A trestle-bridge passes,

rusty in the distance.  A pocket-knife

of cottonwood unfolds where innocent

Ophelia submerged at last,

last fall.  Her ballast

was a blast of wrath – so violent...

collateral damage of masculine panic?

Mayhap.  Dark Lady

(all Berryman’s study)

of minstrelsy... America’s Titanic

or J. Johnson’s grace (we don’t ship

no coal) exudes black milk

for wild Melchizedek

nested in Erica-barge (molto largo trip).

Jonah-Osiris was a dove, Columbia.

Like a Burchfield winter

or Grant Wood choir

she might emerge, Jesse Ophelia –

she might molt into an Ariadne’s Crown

stars shining down

around your bulbous clown.

Jaybird of Eli, couched over Washington.

2.18.19

Idea of Order at Port-au-Prince

PIED-DU-ROI

The mysteries of the tree of life

wafted in pine-scent,

loon-call.  Where she went?

My tiny Haitian house (Hiram Abiff?)

flattened into iron, painted

sea-coral (for joy).

That illegible toy

Advent ball of light – Levite,

anointed by black sun (yellow-

black Torah).  Sister-

dove?  Little tree

of Jessie, O (hidden willow-

canoe of Providence).  Chip

off the sloop Francesca

(pale arte povera,

woven from raven-ink on quipu

stone).  These are the quadrants

of my quatrain train

with a hey, ho, the wind

& the rain (Earth birth-bangs, pants).

You will carry Ariadne’s Crown,

Cordelia – innocence

to crystalline prescience

at perihelion of night (black noon).

Palladium of cornbelt Maggy –

out of Byzantium

into some quonset dome

of little Rhody (heart’s domain).

12.30.18

under the sign of the Virgin

WRITING HAND

Herod the Great is out hunting tonight

to make himself great again.

History, all over.  Hen

clucks in pigpen.  Overhead, bright

Star of Stars yet hovers (esoteric,

weightless).  Invisible world

of worlds to come – squirreled

away in a barn (near Bethlehem, Pa).

Maximus, transfixed by history,

his writing hand severed,

still corresponded

with his nephew (far end of Black Sea).

Hen’s fishing for sense, like Hobo

the limp lamprey (curled

on the riverbank).  Churl?

Fisher King?  Overhead – Virgo.

Not the Twins, but something like.

Twin sitters.  Throned

drones, long retired

from hive (72 bricks of...).

Not trying to be obscure here,

that f’sure.  Innocence

dances through the universe

unfathomed on our faithless sphere.

On her Milky Way.  Here Grace Ravlin

sketches a summer evening

at Mt. Vernon – fingering

the treasure map (Pennsylvanian)

                  *

tracing a quiet constellation

echoed on the ground.

Her wisdom is profound

through purity.  Just perfection

mirrored in frame of Providence;

sunlit warmth of hearth

stirring Pig’s Eye from death

to life (St. Paul to Minneapolis).

The artist makes an eye with fingertips

at edge of scabbard.

Ariadne-thread.

Clue to labyrinth.  Slips

into Gloucester (blind man’s buff)

to paint twin boats

nestled in soft coats

of emerald.  Grace is enough.

Ceres, under Sirius... sparrows,

hysterica passio...

madness of Angelo

or any other tyrannos

threatening an alien child

(warped in labyrinth

of jealousy).  Absinthe,

minted at Fort Knox – wild

wrath of slighted boar (the king’s

own Fury).  Here’s the church,

here’s the steeple – open

the door... (where the sea-choir sings).

12.28.18

Grace Ravlin, Overlooking George Washington's Garden, 1922

curious Winter's Tale

FRAIL FOLIO

Tell us a curious Winter’s Tale

before October ends.

This cottonwood sheds

flagship – by remnant sail,

from crown of flimsy raven nest.

Berryman’s birthday.

Not a block from here... hey.

Fold him he water music (final test).

Pledge of confirming intellect

spurs poet to sole deed.

Life’s halcyon meed.

Plum plummet (kingfish dialect).

Not that yellow-gold & blacken’d

leaf, cornered in eddies

keyed to cotton levies,

blackface parodies... Huck reckon’d

not.  Rather this lightweight,

ineffable lovelight –

staging for drifting wight

her leaf-romance (it’s not too late,

Hermione).  Tale told by idiot

king, floating everything –

how twin brothers ring

the mirror lake of Camelot,

& Guinevere & Lancelot

surface (Gennesaret)

Stravinsky trance-daughter

by prairie vortex... oaken chariot.

10.25.18

and willows could not hold more

STEADY SOUND

Maple trees aflame by the river.

A lonely bench – Hobo’s?

Siege perilous

for homeless someone (shiver,

anonymous child of cold fortune).

Collateral damages

from various pillages

of community pillars... honorable men...

the violent bear it away.  Wind

blows through pinetops.

A salt wind, like to freeze.

& leaves turn bloody at the end

of October.  Washington surveys

Shawnee Ohio hills.

Marshals militia drills,

rankled by Crown authorities.

His real estate’s on shaky ground.

Who owns land?  Who owns

sea.  Of his bones

are coral made.  O steady sound

of middle C – circumference

& center of the keys.

The 88, a breeze

from Cairo paradise (our Providence).

Who be that aye-aye from before

the beginning of tomorrow?

C-Jonah beyond sorrow.

Sister-dove.  Your soft sheep-door.

10.7.18

How to be God's friend?

JUST BEYOND

The lifesaver : a fruity ring

invented by Hart Crane’s

father.  Across the plains

yawing wind-wagons roll.  Something

akin to Grant Wood corn, maybe –

an icon.  All’s figures,

counsels holy Zero

Summer.... Burchfield parody

(complete with feverish Light-

in-Gale).  Deep swampland

heartland, over sand-

fly latitudes.  God’s outa sight;

Dad’s a kind of Kingfish, generous

in all the wrong ways.

Those were the dog days.

Rain... unlikely hymn (so mysterious) –

another author, just beyond the pale.

Moses climbs from his dinghy

ready to shake that thingy –

waterspew from Rock (a Word, set sail).

How to be God’s friend? ask

the Friends.  Williams hectored,

but he left on record

how to walk humbly (high shellfish task)...

Friends gathered in a Rhody cave.

Silence is best response

to Charlie’s dalliance.

Our Author is a friendship trope – to save,

not to condemn.

5.8.18

We few, we happy few

PARIS JACK

                        i.m. John Berryman (on his birthday)

October burnishes the oaks

to ruddy bronze.  Ancient

St. Crispin’s Day, meant

for veterans, the player-folks

of Agincourt & Balaclava

(ours not to reason

why)... bright caparison

of mental mists, pink pillbox (ah,

Jackie).  Man, the intelligence

of his soil... what triggers wars?

Mobs of blood & tears...

flame, shadow-boxing with a fence...

In chessboard worlds of red & black

for every victor there’s

a loser too – King Henry’s

brother-band meets Paris Jack,

sad Roy du Jour.  So each Garfield

meets his Guiteau – the best

& worst, the first & last,

the wheat & tares blent in a field

of glory (shriven up in sheaves).

Was it for blood & soil?

Intelligence of soul

says no.  What man or woman loves

in battlefield or study is

glory itself, & fellowship

in pain (joined at the hip) –

not flags or nationalities

                  *

but one star over Ark & Argo-ship.

Light from a tiny acorn

grows resplendent Okean –

sunlight of restoration (skip,

Jackie, Jean, around that Minotaur

of stupid pride – a hollow

idol full of nothing, O).

This living Imogen is where you are.

Let’s stand with that Shakespearean

from this day to the ending

of the world.  His battling

with fright (mother loss & father gun)

an inward thing, not of the arrogance

of windy crowds (a victory

over himself the only

guarantee of happiness).  An instance

for the rest of us (the human race,

that is).  Restoration

of an idea – of a nation

of united nations, reconciled by grace

& with humility.  Familia of Man.

As Imogen stepped from the cave

so Henry might rise from his grave

– somehow Franciscan, now.  His plan

simply to walk across these states

barefoot, like Mark Baumer –

glad-handing poet-palmer,

Johnny Appleseed (with acorns, dates).

10.25.17

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