lingo & experience

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

rim of that heavenly Rome

COSMIC BATTLE

Inching back with my mother down

the nursing home hallway

from dining hall... hey ey

yo.  Keep her from falling (too soon).

Sprightly, amnesiac, brave.

We filtered burnt photographs’

international orange (‘70s

epitaphs).  Look – you still wave

from chilly distance, eldest one.

Your sister, brothers... your

father, meek & mild... War

obliterates peripheral vision, son.

Like game of hangman (simplified).

Figure out the letter

in the word.  Row, Edgar

Poe – enough rope be dangled

like that infamous platform

lifted out of season

like Francis from prison...

only to travel far from harm

along a single beam of light.

Real American creed

spooling through Voodoo

Queen Marie – gonna be all right.

Antithetical Poe held

his ivory casket

in a bird-basket –

row, row, coracle... spelled

               *

IONAH on the bow... over & out

for now.  The cosmic battle

between Caesar & that

measly songster (Stalin puttin’ Anna

into the hollow double-barrels

mimicking Utopia – everyone

happy in warehouse, hon)

becomes a set of Shaker castanets

or scallop-shells of Aphrodite;

– a skirmish in St. Louis

soars above Cahokia (she’s

us) into a supple Rimini-

design.  The poet, poison-pounded

pharmakon, cribbed out

his hazy Paraclete

in limestone layerings – founded

Apollinairy nothings on a pole-starred

pine.  Rose horizontal stripes

on snow led wayward ships

to Milky Way, somehow (the bard

might know).  Over the river E

(for equal sign) carry

me back to cosmic liberty,

Eurydice – united we are free;

like Sophie with P. della Francesca fan

loving galactic neighbors

stitch their laborious

light-canoe (twin Manitou of Man).

10.21.17

cottonwood sky

BIG DIVE

In the steep ravine shading the river

Hobo’s eyes follow

smooth limbs upward, so –

into a cloud of silver-green shimmer,

Columbian sky-nest

of cottonwoods.  His squint

moseys like scattered flint –

mishmash out of Ocean states

into some kind of Land o’ Lakes

matryoshka doll, or Land 

o’ Goshen Big Rock Candy

Mountain.  The poet is a sacred

fool (or cataleptic converter)

& every shepherd’s an

effete abomination,

just a bump under a bumpkin tower.

Hobo keeps an eye on Henry,

ambling up there

on River Road.  Air-

head royale, full of acorn honey,

soldering his Goshen stone

into a manic-hollered

coat of caustic red

Rhode Island rooster-throne –

a sharpened archaic Goshen point

left at Minnehaha

Falls by some Ojibwa

dream-boat.  The time is out of joint

                *

he cries, with a Norwegian accent –

O Jessie, O Ophelia,

my little tree, Columbia!

Come tripping back unto the oak tent

once again, out of the Ocean foam!

Flip your big dive, big Dove,

into reverse – for love

of Yahweh, & of Manitou, & home

sweet home!  An infinite Intelligence

invisible as air,

kind as mon cher

Francesco, wise as Providence,

clear as the sky vaulting these gray

heart-leaves – our octave,

Henry, Hobo... wave

on wave, on wave (lithe sun-ray).

From the standpoint of ineffable Person –

an infinite free Spirit

(older than Cautantowwit,

with all his Raven-wit) – a Someone

omnipresent, serving restoration

to a hurt creation – mercy

exudes like oak-tree honey-

gall.  Some smiling heart-shaped cotton-

wooden crossroad Livingstone –

green-gowned Sophia

traipsing Milky Way-a

Sarabande (one, two, three... one).

6.12.17 

Steady as she goes

VERMILION FLEM

Late afternoon.  Light sound

of soprano bell, from bass

drone of freight train

over river-bridge.  Nothing profound

(just slightly wistful).  A poet keeps

time.  In the ear’s recess,

faint heartbeat-stress

marks passage of the sheep

over the dream-track.  Nothing more

nor less.  Down N’Orleans way

the Indians are gay

tonight, beaded with coronation Flor

del Rio del Espiritu Santo.  Amen

& hallelujah, hey-

ey-yo.  Let us pray

for the grain of wheat, the salty bran

of liberation (touch of soul,

Touchstone).  So dance

your way into the trance,

Hal Marie!  & remember, all –

tomorrow’s Lent (already).  The square

of ash upon your brow

a sailor’s salty vow

to steady as she goes (fair,

kind & true).  His hand waves from

the deep – he’s called Acorn.

He wears an English crown

of oakleaf (he’s Vermilion Flem).

2.9.16