pokey asphodel

SMOKE-TREASURY

That the diamond exists, murmurs Black Elk

justifies your dream.

Octahedral theme

of orientation by humility (MLK

& JFK meet in your mandala-canoe).

As Roger the Seeker christened

Providence a refuge, at the end

of seeking (for beginning anew).

To model the heavenly kingdom of God

in clay, or dusty speech

like a doorway, or Gateway Arch;

like rose mandorla, made of flesh & blood.

Not city on a hill, but village

in a valley, by the river’s

mouth – one Narragansett

giver’s canonical Key into the Language

of America.  That the diamond exists

justifies your dream

in shades.  Mandelstam

(in Pushkin & Scriabin) writ of this –

because the Redemption has already happened

art is set free, to celebrate

(watch Oscar Cullmann adumbrate

this meaning in his diagram).  The End

is the beginning.  Not that the end has come.

Only interrogate

this blistered heart

to find that smoky rite of Eastern Rome

                   *

spring in the limping step of herald Hart

or the epileptic anguish

of poet Prof. English

Berryman (in his hexagonal ziggurat

of Resurrection Cemetery – over the river

from St. Paul).  Come home,

patters that silver stream

from crane-bone flute (archaic sliver

flinting mica, in Cahokia); a raven

laughter diagram

or Bluejay paradigm

or Jonah-dove conundrum (rune haven);

a sweeping cry out of Cautantowwit’s

smoke-treasury; an answer

for yon affectionate peacemaker

when he crawled into the Narragansetts’

welcome-tent.  A smile (ineffable

as that 6-sided snowflake

traced by Black Elk

over the grave of Buffalo Bill).

All this intricate nautical geometry!

– these asides by Hobo,

his obeisance to Venus (Virgo-

ascendant sunset cemetery) –

is just the flimsiest balsa-wood scale model

of an Old Ironsides ark

or Constitution… spark

for Gravesend dancing-floor (pokey asphodel).

3.11.20

the season is Lent

LEAD PENCIL

At the most infinitesimal quantum

precinct level, trouble

is unpredictable.

Dust gathers like snow… some

galactic thread-warp effect.

The season is desolate.

Apollinaire is not

Melchizedek (the line is indirect).

The season is Lent.  Everyman

leans on shriven bones,

shaken by groans.

What will rise from such desolation?

In the river of speech, a quintessence

of dust (mixed with rain).

Shapes a diamond again –

hopeful whisper of Providence.

The metaphysics of God’s mother

(Theotokos, Mary)

is an infinite query

for blind Hobo, Henry.  Some other

realm of irenic Siren smiles

blue San Francisco Bay

over slivers of hay,

into dark monarch cedar files…

& you don’t know what I’m talking about

since the Ferrara canoe

glints gray (lead pencil #2).

Since ash flutters down (lights out).

3.3.20

Garden of Gesthemane

keep on pushkin, straight ahead

RED FOX

Under the silver shoreline of late cottonwoods

the quiet gray clouds

the dry river weeds (wounded

with scattered sumac) Hobo broods

as always.  Trying mightily to bring it all

into focus, under the aegis

of an ineffable Isis-

eye (black West Branch granite, under veil).

Seated on her throne, standing for a Mind

of grace.  The poets’ doctrine

as against the matter-men –

lambent clay mutter-shape (FOR BLIND).

Johnny, we hardly knew ye... Iona

clover, twirling like a dervish

in the shadow of an Irish

Tyche.  Liberté, coulombe, Columbia...

Jeanne, Jonah.  Up from pacific waters

of an Ocean Rose, an Okeanos

Newport oakenship – ceremonious

wedding (chaste prow, beyond all wars).

Like scrape of diamond on a coal-black

door.  Marking your graffiti-

passage, Henry Contumely –

he hath entered the realm of signs (alas,

alack).  You search the scriptures, lil Red

Fox – but do not come to ME.

Swift as cottonwood leaf

her sun-heart passes... (Dion-Isis?  Fled.)

10.2.19

chaired in the adamant of time

GOLDEN EYE

Everything known beforehand, O

my prophetic soul –

fate of gray pebble,

unknown soldier.  Black Sea, Argo...

those towering fig trees outside

the Sydney Observatory.

& inside, the orrery

projecting Southern Cross as diamond

(4-dimensional octahedron, or

great acorn of light).

A blue-green planet,

turquoise, emerald – your

dream-song door (hinge balanced

on a level’s golden eye).

Heirship of carpenter’s high-

beam ballet... tightrope (entranced).

A figurehead, chaired in the adamant

of Time.  Isis in Ohio,

Iowa... your Clover, so

low.  Lift her out of the slough, St.

Joan – lift her out of the grave.

A salience in St. Louis –

upturned canoe... Jessie

Ophelia, mickle gateway (moon-wave).

Behold, a child is born, Virgin

appears from heaven again;

my iron age turns golden

monarch, winged flower (human).

3.7.19

conversation for kids

LITTLE PEARL

The Hebrews found a verbal replica

for Pharaoh’s pyramids.

Conversation for kids

(& sheep, & goats).  It was Jehovah

came to intervene, to interview.

Some saw an Oedipal

triangle – shadow wall

of mud-baked bricolage (dream stew);

some saw trois anges, craning down

from Paradise – to speak

with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac

(that lightning twin would play the clown).

The pyramids are office towers.

No one will explain

how so much pain

depends on callous fingers (ours).

The just one wears a diamond pin

stuck through the heart –

QUADRANS IN IMO ET

IN SUMMA SUBTILIS (wide-eyed dolphin).

The Middle of the World, he said

& made the sign of six

ways (willow sticks,

or cottonwood).  So truth’s inbred.

Her little pearl of rectitude

is portable – rides

water as a cheek glides

tears.  That’s all (beatitude).

6.28.18

O splendiferous butternut

SALT-CUBE

September butternuts bombard the ground,

soft lime-green globes a-burst

with rich black compost-

muck.  By genealogy of sound

they must descend from Milky Way

on high; from some black hole

of fiery Moloch-El

shifting the gravitational display

plummeting like an otfe-stone

out of St. Peter’s burg

to vertiginous epilogue

(Akhmatova-agate, or Pushkin-

bone).  Sealed with a raven-knife

tattoo, absinthe still-life –

l’Affaire Dove-Sister-Wife,

mired in a faro-game of civil strife.

Her smile’s invisible as air.

Now Phoenix is on fire

& flooded Lone Star Empire

waits for Milly the Kid to appear;

up here in Minneapolis, Frank Gehry’s

fishtail art museum

harbors Hartley’s muse.  Glum

Crane surfacing as white shark – hairy

situation! & out the window, there’s

Berryman’s burnt span –

marooned sad son of Man

abridged to riveted soul-tears.

                   *

Some autumn in King Lear, mayhap

(John’s doggèd copy?)

may Heav’n shed mild mercy-

milk through these blind spokes, old Pap.

It’s waiting for you, Cain, McCain –

open your magnanimity

to gratitude!  See

to the superflux...  She comes again

light-feathered through your heart –

Cordelia, Columbia;

unscrolls the epigraphia

footnote on warped LP (dappled 8-part

harmony) – spectrum of a weedy

Jonah-flag.  Within gray

scales, smoke-signals (hey

ey yo) her hand waves complimentary

colors – black earth, jungle green

& orange flaring yellow-

gold (passage to indigo);

red, white & cinder (ultramarine)

complete the ashen diamond

salt-cube of Manitou

(that Hiawatha 1-3-2) –

whose handspin sets a table ronde

for Pilgrim as for Wampanoag

& etches mene mene tekel

onto Minotaur’s tough Jekyll-

hide (only a promise, Nadia-Mag).

9.7.17

6-way pearlosphere

SHADY GROVE

Water & limestone, flowing water

& flint.  One flinty poet.

Raven (Cautantowwit)

bent southwest... shady potter

evening the light patter

into one plate

(a starfish template).

Love knit into the gray matter –

after Apollo’s leaf-shaken by Laura

& Guillaume flutes his

last letter to Texas

(chère Annie della Santa Povera).

Orpheus mining for Eurydice

or Hobo for a spare soul

bear witness to the whole

arcade of an elliptical theodicy –

the love that filters through the frame

of selfishness, into the wheel

of goodness nonpareil –

along a zigzag trail (from shame

to limpid sunshine, fear to hope).

This labyrinth of green

copper, spring’s has-been

graven into will-be – mighty trope

of Lincoln profile, lifting from

rust-brown decades

(gilded cage, parades...)

– an infinitesimal infant hum

              *

like flute-call of a one-stringed

gusle, or trompette

marine – sweet lure set

looping gracefully from stringent

steel twin pillars – fleet trimaster

launched on azure wave-

arc from the knave-

matrix of simian disaster –

Noah’s rhombus of acacia,

world-gathering lantern-

ship of ringèd Saturn

bowed with figurehead (Columbia)

of grey rain   hummin being

or bee hummin   human

              *

bird   shade   Galilean

Nazir   nightingale   circling

like adamant flint iamond

or polyalmond eye

within the 6-way

pearlosphere   Warlpiri-monde

or center of Center, N.D.

where Black Elk springs

his sundance rings

of omnipresent dove-activity

so dive in   dive to the divine

drive-in   twine-chariot

of agate Agape   knot-

spun to lift   into ascension-heaven

              *

Franklin Bridge repair is almost done.

The river flows midéwé way

toward Memorial Day.

We spiral back where we’ve begun.

That granite portal of an Ocean State

where Roger steps from his

canoe – old Prospect Terrace,

over Providence – rêve-songs originate

there, looking west (toward St. Louis

& Frisco).  Late May

brings Rhody Statehood Day,

centenary of JFK (his Newport, ours) –

& in Paris (1913) Apollinaire

beheld the Rite of Spring

before Great War (engulfing

Earth in violence... pity... despair).

A tiny hummingbird speeds blossomward.

Grey sound-waves buzz

like microscopic doves

or bees around oak honey-hoard.

They’re everywhere.  The hollow tock

of woodpecker foretells

a carillon (death-knells,

birth-pangs) – oak droning, Knock.

It shall be opened.  The shady grove

teems into restoration.

Cup-bearing dome-creation.

Wine-stained Milky Way (Manitou-trove).

5.25.17

Path P in six directions

ROSE CIRCLET

The immeasurable quiddity

of a point in spacetime.

An icon turns on a dime

flashing silver corona (so free)

– as green almond eyes shine

with smiles of recognition

a beloved face is one

whole star – 4-dimensional mine-

shaft to the planetary helm

or meteoric stone

no one can own

coming down from sea-grey realm

of milk & honey (Northern Lights

a mirror for a horn

of plenty).  So being born

thus, river-clay triangulates

Path P in six directions

diamond octahedron

finished in the sun

like plates my mother hexagons –

weathered oak-leaf hands (brown

in the round, rolled

out of clay, from old

dishevelments of tumble-down

autumn).  & where the tree-rings

circulate the marrow

spacetime’s arrow

coils into chestnut Sphinx

                  *

whose crumbled wine one drinks

out of the Nile-delta –

steps northeast  selah

toward the dome (when nobody thinks

one will) resembling a bronze acorn

of evergreen holm oak.

One ruddy spoke

upon a node of blinding sunshine –

ice-hewn clarity of Everyhon

beside the glowing hearth

of agape – the earth

in equilibrium – Son

& Father & the Holy Ghost

waltzing a crane-dance

to the drone of Magdalen’s

accordion (hale Mary’s host)...

& once the orgulous organ’s

dismantled, & the light

flows through violet

rose circlet (there in Jacqueline’s

seatown) – a naiad will emerge,

a sundance figure (on

the prow of Lincoln’s own

logos).  Sophie her demiurge,

love-waves her rite – La Paix

or Buffalo Woman,

Morning Star... pine-

green majestic Liberté.

10.19.16

remote highways

DANCING BEAR

The multifarious facets of this vine

are emerald-veined, to catch

the sun – each tendril-latch

anchors cucumber to mosquito screen.

Shade-ravines along remote highways

or melancholy tamaracks

up north... waltz parallax

on Ocean Road (revolving maze).

Hobo, drowsing at Camp Who-He-

Who-She-Wah, slipped

down a culvert, overstepped.

His gravity condensed to mercury –

a silver thread of frozen fire;

sum of all his non-

action, his diffident un-

charity (dead fisheye in the mire).

As if the shining labyrinth,

Ariadne’s fever-chart,

led inward (part

angel, part beast).  One leaden plinth,

one stony-crumb foundation (churled).

One personal scar

of sorrow, raveled far

down Rua Tonimminotaur.  Pearled

diamond from Tsyan-Shizi, or

Marienbad – her glance

a glint, a last-chance-

ghost, a smile (for dancing bear).

9.2.16

Icon Man

Note to reader : some of these poems are pretty darn obscure.  If you peruse this blog's web version (as opposed to mobile-phone version), you will find links, at the bottom of the page, to subject entries (labels) - which might be helpful in tracking down my footprints, or other footprints.  This holds true for all the Ravenna Diagram posts on this here blog.

MOSAIC SHEPHERD

The knot in the heart is a universal

wedding ring, wherever

you are.  Heavier

than iron, ce diamant mondial

de l’amande.  Bright orange lozenge-

mandorla, shedding leaves

of tears – vicarious

miniature trees (strange

fruit).  Like the shady crossroads

with the Dead End sign –

a little Chinese lantern

(glass by LaFarge).  Six nodes

in one honeycomb eye – melodious

riddle of light & shade.

Henry & John, a cannonade

off Sydney Harbor... looming ficus

guarding Southern Cross.  They sought

a figure for relief –

hoopoe... cloverleaf...

barely-veiled grief.  Stray mote

of dark December.  Henry looks up

through rose window.

A rim around the chi-rho,

hint of shining salt.  Red stop

sign on the dynamo, outlined

in cedar-glow (Mosaic

Shepherd Stands in Lake).

What the heart seek she shall find.

4.5.16