Ravenna Diagram Reading Guide : #2

Here are notes to the Ravenna Diagram poem "Lunar Corona" (p.4).  This poem also is not posted to the blog.  (See previous post for a link to the physical book.)

RD READING NOTES #2

“LUNAR CORONA” (p.4)

Poet seems to be confronting enigma of the poem itself, his own work-in-progress.  City of Ravenna, for long a remote, neglected backwater, is presented here as mirror-image of poet’s own solitary endeavor.

“Brown leaf... my neck of the sea.”  : poet worked for decades at Brown Univ. Library in Providence, RI – his “neck of the sea”.

“picture a forlorn cathedral...” : many such for many centuries in Ravenna

“Rothko Chapel” : first of many references to visual art in RD.

“gray memory... wheel of silence” : see Jasper Johns’ works in particular

“Osip’s selva os” : linking Dante with Mandelstam.  “selva os” : dark wood (see opening of Divina Commedia).  Os – short for Osip – mouth or gate to his own inward wilderness.

“Consul’s barranca : the ravine in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano

“My one and only... speechless trumpeter” : Chet Baker (another suicidal artist)

“Remote... (sans crown).” : Dante, buried in Ravenna, lacks the public bestowal of a laurel crown from his native city (Florence)

“flies / who?” : haunted Ravenna visited by owl of Minerva/Beatrice (wisdom)

“shady rainbow” : a transmutation of the purely subjective (“blind”) colors of the “personal Rothko Chapel”

Shadrack kicks a crust in Voronezh

WOUND SPRING

Weather here in Minnehahapolis

& St. Paul shudders

through ice.  The rudder’s

frozen to the keel – Athena’s

buzzing through chattering teeth.

Black Sea, Black Sea!  Black

ice.  My friend Shadrack

kicks a crust in Voronezh, beneath

malignant stares of a furnished dome;

he will never budge from that line

pitched on his builder’s fine

honey-gold level-eyed home.

Henry’s poem stays put, doesn’t move.

Like translucent ice cube.

Reflecting flickering rube

puzzles along thread-kelson of love.

The singing keel become great little owl

snug in her oak-bole hole

hoots a banderole

along limb lettered like Hebrew scroll

on papyrus barge – some hieroglyph

for hippogriff (abominable

snowman?) – soon to amble

from his polar desert (living stiff);

the high home of the North Pole poem

takes a bead through mica

on that grain of Spica-

wheat... wound spring from vernal tomb.

2.8.19

autumn in my heart

SWEAT EQUITY

Like falling from a winter bridge

in Minneapolis.

Absolute zero-ness.

11.32 ft/sec (straight-edge

it, carpenter).  A little life-saver –

gold bubble of air

in the wooden measure,

Chris (dolphin fin-waver).

The little tree, the little almond

eye of Providence.  A

sort of weathered prudence

from rough planks – sweat-bond

of every laborer in vineyard

or in field – Georgia

footprint, selah

in every cemetery, bard.

Like this confusion of nature

circulating good will.

Invasive humble

habitat, Roma imprimatur...

signature of spiral J

(Ojo de Dios,

owl o’Sophia)

out of the oak-knot, honeybee.

Lightning furnishes the room.

So fall into my heart,

Julie (where start

the roses on their river-loam).

11.24.18

be manifest, be imminent

TUSCAN HILLS

Nestled in his city of rivers & bridges,

hidden in his cabin

of Lincoln logs, alone

like that baby screech owl (wedged

in his cozy cottonwood hideout)

Hobo will contemplate

his May-time temperate

zone, his mild creation, riverine, remote.

Knotted by Amor – like an Incan quipu-

net, like a ruby bud

of that burbling Word

afloat so murkily nearby (his Brook of Q).

Ahav-be-manifest – be imminent

as hale touché-scapegoat

whose royal honey-kismet

soldered Okean to oak – bent

light to leaden doomroad (East

to West).  Jerusalem

gleams in the sun – shalom,

shalom to the returning one!  A feast

for the soul of yon American

blindfolded rambler.

Holy fool, shambler-

yurodivy, from Voronezh to San Fran

you’ll meander, like an old river

& mumble of a Union

equable & all-human –

soft Tuscan hills, moss-green forever.

5.3.18

J. Fisher King

WHAT CHEER

April rain soaks the riverlands.

The cottonwoods are green

with a mossy sheen

(a milky spray).  Giuliana understands

her little boy’s harmonic joy,

winding up his yellow

gyroscope (so

imperturbable, this balance-toy).

Ravenna sifts backwater Time.

The hollow tock of wood-

pecker, carving a shed

for screech owl (minima sublime,

incognito).  Little gray on gray

tree-rings of Okeanos –

oscillating Knossos,

Minerva-maze.  Flute-bird (in clay).

A copper Jonah, lifted from the well.

Dusk-rose, Venusian.

Seal of the Son of Man

like Hamlet’s ring, in wax (fell

Icarus, from labyrinth

– the ship sailed on).

Trials of the paragon,

the paradigm.  Blue hyacinth

of Shaker spirit, trembling

Will   I am

Alpha Omega   home

in my petroglyph   assembling

              *

light stars   on the horizon

Thunderbird ghost-

dance   round pivot-post

of early souls   lifted from prison

At dawn in Providence, the light

gathers gold   atop

the dome   What cheer,

Netop   the independent soul   bright

spear   at petrel summit of

this Camelot   simplicity  

a brave’s priority

to choose the good   be led by Love

J. Fisher King   Ancient of Days

as it was   upon a time

at the beginning (lame

limb   violence bears away   always)

& the smile of quiet eyes & lips

the canoe in the shadowy

garage   Ferrara iron

burgeoning almond   Natasha limps

toward her vault   in Magdala

Gesthemane   April

umbrella   of good will

the given Earth   the rose mandala

a fingerprint spiral   of gratitude

Thanksgiving feast   soul

liberty   constancy   whole

serene   uplifted   Rhody-rood

4.19.17