& know the place for the first time

SOME PALLADIUM

Say we come back to the place of 4

paradisal rivers, & find

it’s a limestone seed-rind

west of St. Lou.  What’s left to explore?

& that grand, sane, towering grainy-mother

is closer, more real

than royal – more U.S. steel

than Byzantine gold (your equal sister-

brother).  How did we get here?

Some palladium of Lamb-

Seeker, out on a limb,

lean-to from Providence canoe... Roger –

halfsome Grain Elevator Song, mayhap

(May 29) – his Pentecost

a Rhody smoke-hole, tossed

southwest, southwest (tornado giddy-up).

Magnanimous hand, reaching toward sunset...

Solomon, seeking Sheba;

a concord St. Columba

spied, twirling Ionian Golden Gate.

Kernel of equal daughters, equal sons –

chaste Isis of West Branch,

Virgo-Astraea in a conch...

a coracle of oracles, lifting crane bones

to life within her almond carousel;

Ophelia & Juliet

transposed to Olivet,

Henry-Persephone retrieved from Hell.

2.22.19

La Vida es Sueño

ROLLING DOOR

Henry, magnanimous prince

like Saggy Mundo on his

Tower Hill (the Witch’s

Hat) waits in his chains, listens.

Them animal pelts smell bad,

sez Hobo (Sancho

P. Zee).  Life, my friends – no

dream, declaims Sir Galahad.

The little paralyzed air-prince

like a baby Fisher King

(Guillain-Barré) would bring

last summa out of everything (wince).

Like Adam taking Eve’s advice

he’d melodize the whole

isle to an apple donut

hole – & give it to his son (nice!).

Pallas Athena wore an aegis-skin

with gold palladium-bangles

dangling at all angles

from her circuiting Argo-spin;

it was a sacrifice, like Morning Star

or Igor’s Rite of Spring –

the icon bearing everything

buried in grassy Galilee, in a jar

of myrrh (brimful, for Magdalen).

Lippo Memmi pinxit

(now in Providence).  What

X will mark the spot, Justinian?

        *

What hour marks the lux fiat

when Mary in her pontoon-

boat (sun-gold doubloon

nailed to the keel) will celebrate

the whorl of Theotokos-kenosis-

hypostasis – on a clay

wheel (out of Cahokia)?

Whose eye-in-hand is... Henry’s

sister-cuz?  Whom doth the Grail serve?

I mean the grey stone

hands in that quaternion

of mudstream... – who has the nerve

to lift the lid of Henry’s sepulcher?

In Resurrection Cemetery

(northeast of Pig’s Eye)

Osiris waits for Isis-murmur –

America sleeps in her old nightmare

until that Pussycat (on Easter)

knocks the rolling door

out of the way... & Henry’s there!

Limping from his throne of rosy clay,

his island ocean-ray –

borne on his own birthday

like a faerie Pharaoh (Narragansett Bay)

to the Rose Lighthouse (near Gould

Island), in chariot

of dawnlight (mauve

& violet) – like a Sun Ken (holy fool’d).

2.21.19

I stir the Pythian gumbo of Apollinaire

BRONZE ANNALS

The Palladium forsook Byzantium

on a Black Wednesday

near Pentecost (hey

yo).  In the old Orpheum

Theatre (off Hennepin) Stravinsky

leads Ballet Russe

to rude cathartic truce

around the bonfire of a galaxy –

a human maypole (at the end of May).

She’s only Morning Star.

The young Apollinaire

is debonaire... they waltz away.

Salt sea-wash on another shore

throws up a Kennedy...

Melchizedek?  O, he

will pass through temple walls before

bronze annals of the oak tree close.

A little emerald windlass

winds your thread, Theseus.

A Selkie off the Newport coast,

a water-sprite from far-off Ocean...

laving heart of Berryman,

& salty Hart (Ohioan);

lifting Juliet from self-destruction.

Ineffable ark of Vierge Ouvrante,

imperishable human smile –

Love’s gentle campanile,

lofting aforesaid acorn-infant.

1.21.19

12th Night fol-de-rol

ROYAL BEAN

This airy painted Christmas ball

with its river of snowflakes,

twin gondola remakes

wobbling between the RISD Market Hall

& Industrial National Bank –

old Providence downtown.

Little lonesome microcosm

some winter night.  World on the brink.

In New Orleans, in the French Quarter

they’re rifling a king cake

for the royal bean.  What make

& manner of lass or laddie shall be heir?

Assail the wassail; mayhap we’ll see.

Everything is topsy-turvy.

Plastic Jesus is a curvy

smiley-doll – wee replica of you & me.

Let’s party.  Okean River flows

down from Milky Way

to Ocean State... happy

birthday!  Queen Flower-Child knows

all about Path P; X mark ze spot

where little Charlie’s acorn

sprung into a tall greenhorn.

Watching over still – almond knot-

maze in flutestones of Chartres

(her name is Jessie)

wavering out of Galilee.

Canoes bear her palladium (& ours).

1.5.19

Idea of Order at Port-au-Prince

PIED-DU-ROI

The mysteries of the tree of life

wafted in pine-scent,

loon-call.  Where she went?

My tiny Haitian house (Hiram Abiff?)

flattened into iron, painted

sea-coral (for joy).

That illegible toy

Advent ball of light – Levite,

anointed by black sun (yellow-

black Torah).  Sister-

dove?  Little tree

of Jessie, O (hidden willow-

canoe of Providence).  Chip

off the sloop Francesca

(pale arte povera,

woven from raven-ink on quipu

stone).  These are the quadrants

of my quatrain train

with a hey, ho, the wind

& the rain (Earth birth-bangs, pants).

You will carry Ariadne’s Crown,

Cordelia – innocence

to crystalline prescience

at perihelion of night (black noon).

Palladium of cornbelt Maggy –

out of Byzantium

into some quonset dome

of little Rhody (heart’s domain).

12.30.18