searching the pipeline

GREEN FLEURETTE

With a guttering cigarette-stub candelabra

planted on his tin pan rim

old Hobo H., yea verily him,

sets off, vagrant pilgrim, on his last hurrah.

& recalls that fond octagonal gazebo

where many a summer

found him (quizzical plumber)

searching the pipeline for Cy Manitou.

High & low, & up & down the river

led by that whistling flit

of Ray Caw-somuchwit (tight

Gansett smokehole, domed in Ravenna)

Hobo went on, a-glide like some water-bat

round that chartless labyrinth

amazed with gold, & crème

de menthe – a little green fleurette

upsprung ‘mid scattered fallen leaves

& spinning like a gyroscope

cross-threaded by Hope

so’s to balance what him heart conceives.

For that whisper-caw of Wakan Tanka

cries – all the temples of Solomon

& all the domes of Justinian

are but the models of a living Anchor,

planted ‘twixt the temples of your mind

beside the hearth-fire in your heart.

O speaking brook, where rivers start!

Handy RI aerie (in your eye to find).

3.26.20

otherness of the Someone

IRON WHEEL

Her fingers fondled Red Wing clay

on the circling wheel

into Northwoods bowl

or Mexican flowerpot.  Wheels, say,

within wheels... microcosmic canoes,

Arks of the Covenant...

even Charon’s punt,

Henry (we who have passed

over Lethe).  The woman with child

in her apocalyptic

mandorla, chased by Dick

the Drag to the edge of the wild

(up north, near the Boundary Waters,

in the Iron Range, near

Itasca).  Fresco a veneer

across Ravenna beams – Jordan River’s

sleepy patron god.  Sort of like Hobo

witnessing the fire-dove

skim down Cottonwood Cove

& settle on the shepherd kid... just so...

but I just don’t know.

Iconoclasm sets in,

considering we’re human –

liable to make it up as we go.

The otherness of the Someone.

Your friend, your judge

(merciful – but won’t budge,

won’t fudge the facts).  Solomon

petitioned humbly for wisdom,

sensing the dire burden

beyond each king’s ken :

the destiny of Jerusalem

                *

under a blood moon of violent men

& the everyday mayhem

the grinding paroxysm

of atrocious cruelties – shifting pain

to the weak (convenient scapegoat,

ordinary poor).

Even blindfold Synagoga

might remember something critical, something

our mosaic Pantocrator forgot.

A little gray-brown moth

settles on Hobo’s mouth,

like a fingertip.  Hush, seraph.  That

maybe we are Hagia Sophia

with a million eyes.

Solomon was wise

to be humble before the Shekinah.

& Hobo was a mumbling bumbler

more like a river than a man

more like clay than person.

& Thunderbird was a rumbler

in Red Wing, churning the rusted wheel

until it sparked like gold;

helping her to fold

the wet clay of America on steel

braces... evenly rotating... Source

to Delta... Sea-Rose

to Golden Gate... flows

through the arch... Mud-Morse...

7.12.19

Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these

RAVENNA DIAGRAM  READING GUIDE #9

CLOUD-GIRDLE  (p. 11)

This poem was first published in the journal West Branch.

“El Anatsui” : prominent Ghanaian sculptor, born 1944

“Anansi” : West African folktale character with Trickster qualities; often takes form of spider

“weaves diaphanous / Byzantium veils” : some of El Anatsui’s works are large wall hangings that shimmer with luminous colors, produced by threads, thin wires, bits of scrap metal and other materials

“Something greater than fin-de-siecle Vienna...” : shimmering gold of wall-hangings calls to mind “Golden Phase” of Viennese artist Gustav Klimt.  Comparison framed in terms echoing Gospel text contrasting Jesus with other kings and prophets

“sinuous, sooth- // siring Solomon” : King Solomon, credited for wisdom.  Bible claims he authored thousands of poems.  The serpentine phrasing foreshadows allusions to Hart Crane in following stanzas

“Makossa, Ebeano, Dark Sailor...” : evocative names of African beers whose bottle caps adorn the wall-hangings

“forlorn cells of Africa” : see Crane’s poem “Black Tambourine”

“amiable fellowship... diamond cobra” : fellowship of people of good will is source of the culminating “diamond cobra” (“wise as serpents”) of both human solidarity and beautiful art works

“Solomon in all his glory...” : Jesus’ assertion that the beauty of wildflowers is greater than that of Solomon.  Glories of art returned to their source in nature and the earth

“field lilies, Flanders / epitaphs” : and the earth is also a grave.  Here motif of World War I first appears in R.D.

“Grandfather’s / brass shell, after St. Mihiel” : poet’s grandfather, Edward S. Gould, served as artillery captain in the AE.F.

“Copper wire, / steel helmets” : war contrasted to art, and El Anatsui’s use of these metals

“greater mettle” : pun on metal.  Creative art in a struggle with violence

sumac muse

AUTUMN SUMAC

The new Solomon will show

a spirit of discernment.

No more time spent

on wastes of shame, Sheba – no.

He might see the Parousia

if he takes care.

His friend Hobo (where’d

he go?) will likely not carouse

far, yah.  He’s by the river,

as per.  Autumn sumac

beads along railroad track.

Dry cotton bones, monsieur.

François might join him there,

under gibbous moon,

Paris monsoon...

cornered at the bridge of the stair.

Amigo Frank – piano soul of Frisco,

tempering tomorrow.

Palming witness so

to stigma of twinship, boy-o.

Thunderbird collects herself

over Red Wing swamps.

Imperial affliction stamps

[available in lobby]. Guelf

to Ghibelline, Dante wit Beatrice...

Moses and Elijah frame

their thorny throne (slim

acmé of suave pillars).  Touché.

9.24.18

yodeling in Mendelssohn

LITTLE MIRROR

The mind is like a little mirror

& the word is like

a mirror in that lake.

We skated there, one ancient year –

across the icy glass, Heidi.

In Mendelssohn, sweet

neighborhood (complete

Garden of Cyrus now, in memory).

A melody of day-lilies cheers Henry

Hobo (by the Mississippi).

He might be somebody

you know – booked into penitentiary?

Sol.  Solo.  Absent Sheba

browses in another aisle

(archived in old Rhode Isle).

Her ship’s in search of Colchia

lambswool – seamless gold web,

mute mutuality –

griot reality

lofted to laughter (on Mount Horeb).

Square triangles of pyramids

fit into portable log

cabin logarithms, Mag.

Your stone’s a tiny tablet, hid

beside that lake, in Galilee –

a solidarity

sodality, a party

writ on water.  Fountain, artistry.

6.27.18

on the verso

HAWTHORN BLOOM

There were verses on the verso of 

the parchment, leaching through

like spidery veins (blue

robin’s-egg hen-scratches... mazel tov).

Imprimature of sovereignty.

Blood-red wax of Charles

sealing the 6-foot chart

of Little Rhody liberty;

beehive of ancient freedoms

rooted in that right

Coke labored to indite –

of persons to their own kingdoms

of thought, & conscience, & truth.

For Roger Williams,

riveting I AM –

rhaptor soul Nazirim, forsooth.

Because that bird circling the oak

is like a thread that knots

the agate to the plot’s

ripe dénouement.  The thunder spoke

& stone rose   like a double-ax

out of the mountain-wave

laddering Jacob’s cave

a grail-casket   for sweet St. Max

whose dream became   a vernal tomb

across the womb of Magdalen

& made of Joshua   a wren

& Henry Sol   a hawthorn bloom

1.21.17

as in a game of hide-&-seek

PINE ARK

Piero the geometer

graphed the perfect dome

(that marvelous human home

& winking sea of gray matter)

beneath the curvature of San Francesco

in Arezzo – a flock of swans

of radiant intelligence

about their Queen, before the portico

(Temple of Solomon).  He’s hidden

as in a game of hide-&-seek

the wooden matrix (meek

logbox from Tree of Life).  When

Helena comes to Jerusalem

she’ll draw it out again –

sliver from a lion’s

paw, grim rib from Adam’s

galley mast.  Constantine dreams

his tiny golden honey-cross.

Mary’s Pneuma-moss

wells in the quiet kitchen... gleams.

Sweet psyche-legends circulate

around a forgotten rock

in Magdala.  The flock

is scatter-gathered... salty fate

& jittery salts plank-walk the yellow-

black monarchs of love.

Their cedar treasure-trove

is one pine ark (Jonah chi-rho).

7.28.16

There's a whole in the bucket

PLAYGROUND SWING

When Joachim Fiore, hermit-monk

hidden in heel of Italy,

after many a fasting-day

frescoed his Fauve raptor-hawk

like a rainbow-feathered calumet

smoking the end of aeons...

When the dust returns

from whence it came (Osiris sunset-

raft, veering to purple bull’s-eye)

& bones of bearberry

revert to green hay

& Alma the Corn Maid heaves a sigh

for Land o’Lakes (their vanishing,

twinkling, hexagonal

bye-bye)... then shall we all

rise too, in a Sabbath playground swing

of the Pleiades – & wheel with Mama

Ursa Major, in a New

World Symphony (Ojibwa

Lullaby, scribbled on your way

from Minnehaha, Anthony).  Because

the whole in the silver bucket

is a river-song (Pawtuxet,

maybe) sweeter than ever was –

is your redemption-hymn, O Solomon.

Sheba the Buffalo Lady

knows it, as does Maggie

Galilee... The Eagle from the Oven-Sun.

3.10.16

See you in September

A poem in which I manage to condemn, in the space of one quatrain, both ISIS & Miley Cyrus.

(Some background : my maternal grandmother was born in West Branch, Iowa.  There is a statue of the goddess Isis in a park there.  Herbert Hoover was also from West Branch; the statue was a gift from the Belgian government for his services to their country after World War I.)

LACUSTRINE CIRCLE

This delicate native wanderer

like a dusty monarch (rusty-

orange) might just be

traveling incognito somewhere –

on white-winged moccasin, from

flower to flower – her agate

glance like Grandma’s (great) –

in West Branch, near the Iowa farm.

I dream of a different Isis there,

no punitive Hooverville;

another Cyrus too (there will

be no clicking Mileyhahas to prepare

with die-cut revelry your family’s

despair).  She will be veiled

only with cloudy knowledge

of the bright round pearl; salt seas

will anchor plumb her understanding;

Solomon will test

& be tested, & she

will best him (at the Ontario Fling

& other things).  A whippoorwill

accompanies their evening;

Caroline will be singing

like a wren from the oaks, a royal

Charlie... like a gal you met once –

Cal? – along the shore...

– that lacustrine circle where,

of yore, the monarch floats, hunts...

    9.1.15

"Isis.  Goddess of Life"