SMOKING PYRE
O the glittering golden champagne world
the sparkle of human Honigwein!
& Henry skulking on the margin
ever – shy & sluggish, owlish Thunderbird.
At the intersection of Congdon & Morris
in the Honig house, in Providence
whereat Berryman lay, once
with his books, bourbon & cigarettes
a smoking pyre of lingo & experience
where the poet stands – a matrix
Jessifying the cosmos (X
raptor). & Henry maunders after... silence
& gravity his only friends, he thinks
(1132 feet down, beneath
132 6th St). Bequeath
his Sloop John B. to them steeply drinks,
drafts of your Ocean State, O bookish
Cesca-Fay! Where Cautantowwit
calumeets Columbia, knit
together in your Seine – sweet swish-
mel Arno-Androscoggin – rosy net!
As the planet in the distance,
like an intricate replica, spins
its miniature J (illustrious Celt)
you cut your figure on the dancing floor
(smooth sliding all-akimbo
smile) like a capital C, or O
out of Jericho – my Tosca to thy Carib shore.
1.3.20
