in Deserto Rosso

LITTLE ROOM

Like Giuliana’s little boy, in Deserto Rosso

for 6 weeks I was on a ventilator

(“iron lung” back then).  For

Guillain-Barré.  That was 1956 or so.

Paralysis for Henry Fish Quattoir -

great reckoning in little room.

Like coffin-casket, in full bloom;

like April, breathing frailty to power.

Who shall restore the sickly Lord?

There is no temple on the earth,

no glorious basilica that’s worth

the wonder of a single child (a word

once heard with flooding tears, in Ramah).

You who are sum of all

creation – telos, quintessence, lovely corona…

behold the Argos-eyed canoe of Noah.

How the universe giulianizes in you,

Giuliana (as Cusanus wrote)!

You are both verde crown & mote

of mustard seed… the whole tree, Julio!

Now Henry faints… his epileptic storm

of vertigo (at sight of blood)

flings him to Frisco neighborhood.

Where Juliet ascends… to join a swarm

of victims, falling like rain from Golden Gate

(our Twin Towers).  He stretches

out his arms… the King of Wretches,

Grail King.  Melek, MLK (Good Friday fate).

4.1.20

serpent ocarina

RED RIVER

Dante calibrated to the nth degree

the classic perihelion

of medieval civilization

simply to retrieve the smile of Biche

out of nine coils of Cerberus

& that sulfurous pit

known to Cautantowwit

who cauterizes death with raven caws.

More things in heaven & earth, Horatio.

We’re all caught up in this

wrestling match with the abyss;

there’s no detachment of the mind from woe

nor from the body’s final strife

– breathing with agony

at the crossroads (in RI) –

where Red River meets Sargasso Gulf.

So the poem of America embodies

Juliet upon the parapet

Ophelia with hairnet

(download Vertigo for double-whammies) –

the tensile span of every suicide,

waiting for someone to reach

them (eye-in-hand) – teach

HOPE to hollowed-out children (pied

serpent, surging back to Mendelssohn).

Observe the valiant

canoe, she said.  Plant

almonds, quincunctial.  Amen, amen.

6.27.19

we were there at the opening

Minnesota Symphony (head in the dear lights)

SACRE DU PRINTEMPS
                                                  if a Greek could see our games...

Stravinsky, Sacre du Printemps.

We were there at the opening,

brimming Finn conducting

momentum – thunderclaps & stomps

revive   tired 20th century

Apollinaire   in wings

puffing peace pipe rings

heart-knots   knock-knock (really

Thunderburnt acceleration).

Sacajawea, limping

the cornfield, keening

high lonesome   milky halcyon

mother-of-pearl   a sacrifice

of Mendelssohn   &

pirouettes   rose islands of

melodious romance   (deep ice

instead).  The violence inbred

in Gothic bones   Poe’s

charnel House of Horrors

under clerestory lines   All dead,

alas   Jessie   Ophelia

sweet dark-eyed river-

daughter   (Prospero,

Moses)   a scent   selah

shelled corn   shellacked

by hangrin’ guilty guile

in lime   hid   laid   Ile

fit you   Why?   Hack’d

               *

be the hackers   ice cracking

at the end   some munster

python swallowing your

Sonny Man (ut one thug lacking)...

Little mote, little penny, tiny

splinter in your eye

Ford Theatre   The King

Must Die   in Memphis   on a balcony

lowly motel   or mangy inn

It had to be done, someone

must’ve said   musty felon

or gypsy   jew-boy   coon

& we all in on it   even FBI

even Adlai Stevenson

some historical person

Hubert Humphrey (or I’ll be J)

– the pressure-cooker of The War

to End All   Wilson   Geraldine

Fitzgerald   Cymbeline

or Everybud   the boar-hound or

the bore   deflect the arrows of

your .44 (or .45)   Merved

orange Grifter   Vertigo

(the movie)   someone’s flic’v love

home run   9th inning   must be

some kinda way outa here

I don’t want to be the deer

in the headlights, Maggie   help me

3.30.17

California lovebeats

MELODIOUS EMBLEM

Dante paced the perimeter of Florence

with mumbling gravitas

& halting step.  He was

building a grainy microcosm, dense

as diamond, light as linden leaf;

light as this Minnesota

snowfall (speechless alpha

blanketing state fairgrounds beef

– bandstand omega).  Orientation

toward North Star becomes

entangled with kingdoms

of heaven, world – a mule’s way station

to a Gold Rush claim, staked down at last

in San Francisco (keystone

of stark orange span).

A vortex (raven-blonde, vertiginous)

immurèd round painful iconic pair;

a song of songe (statute

of liberty) no more astute

than any lovebeat California dreamer

in midsummer.  Melodious emblem

for those deeper waters

(azure heights) that course

around foundations... Jerusalem

temple under Roman beams, arch

that forms the tensile wing

of eaglet eyrie (singing

scroll)... knife-edge of Raven-church.

12.28.15

What am I reading these days?

books by & about Nicolaus Cusanus
books about history, architecture, etc. of Aleppo (Syria)
books about Hitchcock film, Vertigo

You tell me!