a woman in a hammock

DROWSY SONG

The earth waits, like the source of the Nile

on the periphery of the capital.

Behind its porphyry wall

princes perform their tragedy of control.

The earth sleeps, like a woman in a hammock

dreaming of a happy home.

Crowds gathered in the New Rome

to print their great seal on a marble rock.

The Minotaur strode back and forth

sleepless as a pumpkin seed –

his labyrinth a putrid gourd

of fireworks orange (Julius the 4th).

He fought the dragons in his nightmare sea;

he clutched the basket of his swollen

head; his world was stolen

from a woman’s arms – bound to tyranny.

Hobo droned his drowsy song in unison.

The earth still turned for him.

Saturn & Venus, in their stream

of light, grew calm.  Night was for everyone.

The enormous clay wheel spun her sarabande.

The great ship shrank into the distance.

A tiny needle in its compass dance –

the apple of the capital (in Hobo’s hand).

Her shadow was a cloud cast on the evening sky,

a handful of benevolence.

A mystery of loving Providence

instilled in hearts by art, with eyes from Aye.

1.18.20

on the 3rd of July

DREAM-WORK

On the 3rd of July, looking out of this

rain-soaked gazebo into

the yard, I’d like you,

cameradi, to digest my curious

thesis.  Because every moment is a choice

on an axle of light and dark,

& who knows?  Some dream-work

might lead a soul to Paradise.

Out of the Iron Age of infantile aggression

where malign honchos rule

by gun; out of the school

of bully shocks & clinical repression

locked tight by rapacity & fraud;

out of the surly tank parade

Czar Minotaur has made

his own amazement... into the wide

milk-meadows of a Golden Age.

But you have to recognize –

these lightning-bug sparklers

kids wave over mosquito grass image

some more graceful & inexplicable

coherence.  Someone breathing

nearby, in your ear.  A thing

beyond abstraction... elementary table

of an I AM dream-cosmos.  Someone – 

Brother?  Sister?  Mary?

– calling you by name.  See?

Here.  Hearth-dance of Daniel.  Be reborn.

7.3.19

Meditation on a funeral

HONOR GUARD

Soft muted early winter light

outside the National

Cathedral.  Great whorl

of reds & blues, at dazzling height

O rose window, still glowing bright.

The honor guard (Marines,

Army, Navy) forms lines

like intricate toy soldiers (boy’s delight) –

maneuvering, in wonderful coordination

powerful precision

beneath the boom of cannon,

brass band’s hopeful invocation.

The dignitaries have assembled.

Paired front aisles unveil

in allegorical detail

old icons of authority (kings trembled

once, when they beheld such signs 

of a succession crisis).

On the right, witness

the mourning son & heir – thin lines

of tears streak from his hawk’s eye,

flank his aquiline profile,

his anxious beak.  Meanwhile,

on his left, an accidental guy –

the crown-usurper (with a face

like a disgruntled frog).

Even Sully the dog

got more headlines than such disgrace,

the preacher said (speaking in tongues).

Haunted, defunct princes,

princesses acquiesce...

the fatal, dominant thug belongs

                 *

to us.  Chief executive,

or executioner?

Headsman (for our

gentler Republic)?  How can we live

in a democracy, ruled by despot?

We cannot.  Our choice

is clear, as once we faced

when Lincoln gave it voice – the violet

is trodden underfoot by hate.

What’s at the root

of all our discontent?

Man’s thirst for domination, set

in place since his umbilical was cut;

rage at the shrinking womb.

Like Jonah’s boat-turned-tomb

of alien Leviathan, the doors of Night

close, flooding, overhead... the child’s

unconscious & primordial

nightmare (abyssal

mystery).  Note each tyrant’s wild

psycho-disgust... the fluttering hands,

the flickering deceit

– detached from all sweet

reconciliations, lawful bonds.

The flag-draped casket of the patriarch

squares with the glowing rose

window.  Still hearth glows,

somehow – Wisdom’s scintillating ark.

12.6.18

from light snow-years

COPPER RING

Snow tumbles into Minneapolis.

Twin Cities.  Meanwhile

the InSight capsule

settles onto Mars – whose promise

is to probe beneath the surface,

appraise the molten core

of our God of War

(riddle of the Minotaur).  Space

beckons insight down path P

toward planet X –

our dream of PAX

curled inside violence (a middle C

unrolling from the Lake of Galilee).

O Beast from Ocean,

dread Leviathan –

a void between two notes... blank lee

of the abyss!  The infant’s misery –

missing her heartbeat

once, with her complete

Oneness... whorled... into infinity?

Where Martian drones attack Queen Bea

(just being Bea, around

a crater in the Netherlands)

by orders of omnipotent Pharaoh

whose eye is like a palindrome

(kayak in garage)

from old (Ionic age)

Emordnilap – our catenary home

                   *

a long-suspended violet bloom

breathes hope, & yearning

for some answering

anemone (your cypripedium

reginae).  Orange-azure M-bridge

for an owlman... almond

OMO... woman-bond

of wisdom... dancing G-bride...

light between J-pillars, Okean-trees!

Out of the twomb

you spiraling come,

@tlantis – Jewel of July, high C of seas!

A copper ring from Palestine

incised with simple krater

& the name, PILATE

recalls the one whose sign

for “heart” breathes from the swing

of time (your twin, Julie).

Rose, rowing from the key

called PAX, which passeth understanding –

yet from each ordinary tent

of refugees, each family,

once forced to flee

from the mad king (sad infant

Minotaur), will come to bear

a normal world again –

out of the dream of man

& woman (breezes flowering the air).

12.1.18

Morning to Evening Star

CIRCLE LAKE

Blindly, Hobo inches toward

the Keys.  In Florida.

Toward the delta,

in Louisiana.  His handy old

eye-in-hand in hand (light

portable fire-drill).

Ply all your skill,

Hobo.  Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.  A muddy ray

from cold Atlantic

like some frantic

foundering Santa Maria

threads yarns toward that western

Garden of Evening Star.

Across his eyelid, sure –

like Sire Henry, in his baby coffin

(six weeks encrypted with Guillain-Barré).

Hi huraru ra’a,

Hi awari ra’a.

Autumn leaves of disenchanted

authors, sighing in their libraries...

(the Roger Williams version,

for piano).  Dispersion

through each mental prison (Henry’s,

yours).  Dread of ocean void

spirals up from deep

Le-Hev-Hev keep –

Coatlicue (the cut-up) is annoyed

                    *

& threatens Everyman – her sheep

is black & bloody red!

– Nana, you might be dead

before you know it.  Go to sleep.

The dream song reconfigures all

within its top-spin

in your heart-garden.

Your father was a gentleman narwhal;

your son was dancing on the shore

of Circle Lake, in Midway

Mirror-Land (in Galilee).

The crucifixion of the Evening Star

will not unveil her night-reality.

Observe this family

photograph, Henry.

Miss Padgett’s ancient book quarry –

the massive double-panes of glass,

a mandorla for owlish

Actaeons (Horus,

searching for Columbia?  Atlas,

looking for the moon?)  Nana,

dancing Sophie calls me.

Grandpa.  Hiawatha

had a friend, Hart Ibis Artemis – yah...

yawning from the deep, Jonah.

You must become the dove

still dancing, love –

spun from the heart of things.  Selah.

11.30.18

pavane pour une enfante

LIMESTONE FRIEZE

The river’s running high.  A tattered

linen cottonwood leaf

would lief be drifting

down the bronze serpent, toward

New Orleans.  January ice

will buckle on the iron

bridge – kids’ tongues on

frozen playground bars (cruel vise).

Hobo’s pal, Billy Apollinaire,

will mime an Orphic flute.

Satie, Ravel... sweet

astringent melody (pure air,

unseeable).  Pavane pour une

enfante défunte.  Meanwhile

male bondage is in style.

Our Master fabricates jejune

disgust for all things feminine;

his orange bonfires meld

fright into towering shelled

walnut eyries... flight from Someone

unaccountable (strange, uncontrollable).

Within a bomber’s O-range

now (I will arrange

accommodations for my sable

granite safety crypt) some Bluejay

whistles like a soloist

through sea-pine mist

sparse knotty blue-green (sotto voce)

                 *

memory.  The threads are fractal,

earth-quick.  Escapees.

Some limestone frieze

of Aphrodite, out of Rimini (or Hell)

feinting assaults above Sault Ste. Marie

(Lawrentian divides

shift icebreaks, tides...)

until the copper icon of green Liberty

lifts torchlight like Hagia Sophie –

her living harmony

of agape, for you

& me, enthroned (Okean-sea).

So like the sun lifting from azure salt

the fellowship of wisdom

born of mute charism

(Love’s lightning catenary vault

of steadfast blooming adoration)

lifts healing rescue-signs

for desolate young queens

& kings of darkened mind, O Solomon;

the little princess Shining Star

pirouettes all morning

in her stone-circling

agate labyrinth (somewhere

near Chartres, Oklahoma) – Ariadne

slips the woolen thread

around your wrist – dead

spring to life (Magdala, Galilee).

10.11.17

The flip side of literary narcissism is judgemental literary puritanism. Both are self-serving : they just take different paths through the infernal thicket.

Robert A's latest grid over at Samizdat is more interesting (to "the me") than previous schemata. Hinsley's essay sounds good too : I like the idea of revamping the application of the term "doggerel".

However, I think you have to take schemes of general trends, or bracketing of kinds of poetry or qualities of same, with a big grain of salt. Do we really need or want to evaluate poetry, in comparative terms, based solely on specs derived from an ethical-philosophical measure of the status of the self?

How do we determine the mixture of literary guile involved in a poetics of the non-self (say, in various versions of Language- and & other postmodern poetries), which is, nevertheless, an act of assertion rather than one of empathy with an Other? How do we evaluate - except on a case-by-case basis - the ambiguous admixtures of narcissism and detachment, sentiment and irony, which emerge from the practice of writing?

It's possible that a grid of such contraries could help a critic orient him/herself toward a more decisive ethical or critical judgement. But I'm afraid the more likely result is a practice of pigeonholing individual writers; snap judgements; labelling; the formation of spurious & unnecessary lumpings-together : unique poets into handy groups.

Why do we keep circling back, repeatedly over the decades, to these formulae about "the self"? This is a conundrum. Does it have something to do with the difficulty of apprehending and judging sincerity and emotional authenticity through the detached medium of a text? Isn't this the problem with reading in general? Isn't this why authentic poetry exhibits an awareness of emotional/ethical/epistemological complexity, through a comparable rhetorical complexity?

[p.s. even "complexity" has its complexities. A style which comes across as blunt, simple, direct, idiomatic - even vulgar - may be propelled by a very complex and ironic literary strategy. Yesterday's complexity may not be today's.]

Gabe Gudding, like many personalities of comic bent, has an alter ego - the scold, the judgemental moralist. His recent & much-noted post on the dynamics of Narcissism is insightful, but maybe it doesn't go far enough.

Proust is more radical. In the Recherche, self-regard (taken to comic extremes) is not so much a personality trait as a symptom of social dynamics generally - entire societies devoted to pecking orders & vanity. The narcissist is not merely acting out in an autonomous isolation chamber. S/he plays a community role, as representative clown, victim - as an exaggeration of what is the norm.

"All is vanity, & a striving after wind," spake the Preacher.

My personal concept of what a poet is & does, allows for a different definition of "reader, reading"... like the old medieval technical term, lectio, lector. A "reader (lecturer)" in theology, philosophy, etc. The poet as solitary, hermit - making poem, making book. The poetry reading as a late event in life or career.

No one wants to go back to that subdued era when poetry was limited to verses in print, & middle-aged profs mumbling at a lectern; nevertheless, I think the pendulum could afford to swing back a little now.

The term "poetry" covers an enormous range of activities & forms of writing/performing. I guess that theory of poetry appeals to me which sets the bar at the highest level of human doings, I mean just under prayer & acts of charity. Dante & Shakespeare & Dickinson & Whitman - their language art places them somewhere at the "brow of reality", so to speak - capable of engaging directly with, & on a par with, all the other forms of spiritual, intellectual & practical activity. Eliot was right when he said that this doesn't happen without the expenditure of great labor & devotion - no matter how much talent & facility the artist starts out with.

In this context I find something slightly jarring in the atmosphere which uses poetry as means to advance improv comedy acts, literary funfests, "scenes". Sorry, that's just how I see it. (I suppose I need to get out more. It's just that I find most poetry boring & narcissistic, & most artists vain & pretentious. & I include myself in that category.)

Jonathan, with some interesting comments on one of Shakespeare's sonnets. (He's always thinking up productive & well-defined poetry self-edification projects.)

I would interpret the poem slightly differently, I think (it's complicated!). Yes, narcissism is not self-love per se; it's merely one symptom of it, one form it takes. But the speaker is not "lying", because he's not accusing himself of narcissism : he's accusing himself of overweening self-love. This excess is none other than original sin, which fills "every part"and is "grounded" in his inward heart. When he sees his aging image in the glass, he's reminded of his mortality & human frailty, and recognizes that he's been projecting his inescapably excessive self-love - in narcissistic fashion - on his admired young friend. The glimpse of his aging image in the mirror is not a narcissistic moment, but a moment of truth.

Why is overweening self-love "original sin", inescapable? Well, it's grounded in our "god-like" subjectivity and self-consciousness. I love this sentence from Nicolaus Cusanus : "Omnia enim universalia, generalia atque specialia in te Iuliano iulianizant." [All universals, generalities, and specifics julianize in you, Giuliano.]

We are each a little creative world, a microcosm : a situation which has both its glories & its dangers, which is why we love to - and must - keep looking into (& through) various kinds of "glasses".

Part of the misconception that Jonathan & others seem to have of Henry & "Henry" as being way too self-absorbed & narcissicistic - which of course is true, as it is of many artists - is that it's as if this long poem is simply an ego project. I'm spending time & energy defending & explicating it here not so much because it's me or mine - but because it's something that happened to me. This is partly what I was describing to Kent, below.

I suppose this is not very believable. Anyway, I'm also defending it because of my crazy faith in its objective worth as poetry, which value jars with its objective (non)reception in the literary world.

What I like about it anyway is not so much "Henry" or the biographical material or the birthdays, etc., but the simple music of the lines, stanzas, cantos, books - the way it changes, the way it hangs together.