bateaux of old Louisiana

SPEECHLESS GIFT

It was 50 years ago now, Julie.

We were with the sleepers

in a dream, the jumpers

on a fogbound bridge – our odyssey

a sleepwalk of necessity

from day to day.  America

was manifest, a replica

of heaven for the taking – see?

This land was made for you & me.

But you & I sank down

into Pacific depths, my clown,

so young, so sad, so gone.  Ahey

ey yo.  It’s in the bottomland

or on the ocean floor

you’ll find the coral door,

the seashell, Pearl – your eye-in-hand.

Like Joan of A. moored to a smoking pyre

or O. still singing in Leviathan-jaw

bateaux of old Louisiana

meet like rose petals in a western choir.

& the Word-made-light, that sank into the clay

sprang up again, as speechless gift

in the dome where every tongue will lift

& feed upon her painful vine (his dying-day).

Our ghost-dance, Julie – tiptoe in a dream.

JB whispers, Eurydice!

& circuiting the dome with me

hums from Rez graveyard in a Joan A-frame.

12.11.19

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

Hobo's dream-sponge

MILK-CRATE

The pearl shines at the bottom of the harbor

as a lamp glows in the darkness.

Color of St. Francis’

donkey (silver-grey, St. Thomas More).

Henry’s church is in the grey-scale too;

a weathered pebble, like

an unknown soldier (Psyche-

cloud, veiling the ocean’s blue).

Bright pennants of the jungle world

(green, orange, black) are

silky glass, refracting back

primary triplets of an orb unfurled –

gold sun, red clay, & midnight sea.

Her mouth is milky ivory

from Santa Giulia, in Brescia...

her parabolic harmony dovetails for me

into a grail from good grey Elephant

(whose queen is dark & comely

Africa).  So Henry’s comedy

plumbs bottomland; its hierophant

is Hobo in disguise, pearl-diving

from the Golden Gate;

his Beatrice-Juliet

is Orpheus-Eurydice – is every living

soul, sleeping to swim the wake

of Lake Victoria.

Birth-rite of Jonah –

rock-dove sparked for Zion’s sake

                *

& all Creation’s sign of Noah.

Suddenly, like lightning

we are made – brightening

kids from adamant stone – Aloha,

planet-people!  Welcome to Providence!

A grey Rabbi heeds

my mumbling... new needles

green the stems of an immense

Jerusalem spear-flower... Juno

to Juneteenth, July to Jubilee,

the fallow air grows milky

& the Glory of the Lord will show

petals of pink & indigo

before too long.  Behold

the twin mirror-doors of bold

St. Thomas – he who was slow

to believe.  Now the dream-sponge

out of Resurrection Cemetery

sucks Lazarus like Henry

into a mystery play.  Plunge,

Cautantowwit-Raven, into the deep

Black Sea.  A Thunderbird

breaches your salty word

in spumy clouds of Neva-Sleep,

& Woodpecker hammers out Twin

Oak’s mandorla-canoe –

a Restoration Day, for you.

Casket of Lazarus – a milk-crate tin.

6.19.17

stranger in the land

WELDED KEYS

The old words climb from the well of time

like a Norway spruce,

aquamarine – set loose

like fiery needles from the flame

of Psyche-Liberty (breaching

Columbia, rose-grey

dauphin).  Light spray

from Ocean’s breathing-hole – the sting

of Cuban salt.  Strange emissary,

stranger in the land,

your phantom clock-hand

gravitates toward Harper’s Ferry –

ticks back, between slate gray

clouds, the frozen sword

over its chessboard hoard

(gold poison-cup, primed to betray

the Union).  Carlsen’s hesitation

in hamlet-limping lines

of Sabbath silence... Martin’s

magnanimous memory... the unknown

veteran, shrouding a still-life

Lincoln penny (pinned

atop his heart).  Sound

heard in Ramah... Rachel’s life-

saver, bobbing Caribbean blues.

Queequeg on welded keys

surfacing velocities

Atlantis-radiant... bright jasper hues.

12.1.16

                          "Reminiscences of 1865", by John F. Peto (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

only Ophelia remained

AGATE LEVIATHAN

A little Hamlet, on remote planet

in Denmark, was troubled

with Mors – he stumbled

as against a stone, to understand it.

Pebbles flung from anxious Hell

pinged against his helmet;

a pearl-toothed kismet

glimmered from the poisoned well.

It was a union greatly to be wished.

Its whorl unfathomable

shone... like Luna in a fable,

agate Leviathan (unfished).

A curse enclosed it, like a shell;

a nightmare of the sea –

a beast called Jealousy

clutched, rang it like a bell

from bottomlands.  It was his grail.

The angry Minotaur

grunted through Knossos-tar

in the crusted mirror – you must fail.

Denmark was full of hardened criminals.

Only Ophelia remained

to pluck the sweet Beltane

of innocence (from sordid halls).

Hamlet stepped up, to meet his fate.

He smiled into the teeth

of Sheol – sensed beneath

basalt of gladness, past debate.

11.24.16 

The power vacuum is a shell game

LOVE-TEMPLE

There’s a power vacuum now

below the Black Sea.

Miriam, a refugee

gives birth at stern of carrack (dhou)

& when Rachel picks up Ishmael

off the concrete salt

an angry orphan (Baltic

pattern?) flings his own skull

at sociable Medea (Simmering

Mother-of-Pearl Revolver

Hid Woeful Moonstar).

& this is just the Evening

Mirror (ravening Wolf-

Mammon).  Somewhere near

(gray whisperdame’s here,

now) Jonah will surf from Gulf –

stubborn mule of humility,

his meek almond eye

only echoes her sigh

(Mary’s blues... welling salty

humanity).  This continuum

of mother-of-pearl, on

the inner lining (onion-

dome anchoring heavy ouragan-

glissando) shapes a simple

turtleshell rainbow –

twilight will bestow

pink robin’s-egg Love-temple.

2.3.16

from the Projo yesterday:

"A $14 brooch purchased three years ago at a Bristol antiques shop has turned out to contain a priceless purple pearl, according to Alan Golash, a Newport antiques dealer."

Purple pearls come from quahogs, a Rhode Island treat. But they are so rare. This one may have been found by Native Americans, who used quahog shells & pearls as wampum. A 10-mm. pearl is considered very, very large. This pearl is 14-mm. The new owner is calling it the Pearl of Venus (Ben Franklin visited Providence once, bringing his telescope, to observe the Transit of Venus. see Transit St. in Fox Point.)

Providence has always been a jewelry capital. The Projo photo shows an enormous purple globe set in an ivory brooch with gold trim and an interesting octagonal design, reminiscent of course of the prosodical structure of Grassblade Light.