least coin of Union provenance

WING-BEAT

The American poem makes do with what’s

right there.  Like a penny in a well

or Peto trompe l’oeuil.

Reminiscences of 1865… hook for hats

on an absinthe wall.  Unlike electricate

sweet Alighieri, burbling Italian

honey-rhyme into his Pythian

pylon – a vertical refulgent ziggurat,

as opposed to our stretched-horizontal

(catenary) system of safety

nets (dangling from Frisco Bay

to DC).  Quipu knots of Neanderthal

design – z-twist, s-twist in a 3-ply

twine, spun with dry grass

or pine bark from Abri du Maras

anchoring light matrices of solidarity.

Ah, nested Rose of Dante’s alta fantasia!

Here lies a homely Providence

cresting seven hills, dense

with ignoble Henry’s disjecta membra.

Plain facts of what happened, what was

made manifest in clay.  Bearing

pinned-up mementos (sprung

Ford’s Theatre tickets… Jimi Hendrix

poster?) – cornered in a coign

of copper maize, a corn

maze.  Dropped in a forlorn

well off North Main St. – least coin

                    *

of Union provenance – silver Penny’s

golden meaning (Love

welded to treasure-trove…

chaste equilibrium of all equalities).

The gift that unfolds at the heart of things –

Francesca’s golden poncho (Peruvian)

spun at Sheep’s Clothing (on Wickenden)

for Dave the California bard (who springs

from Rhody roots himself).  Gift

that is already there in the earth,

shining quietly… an Ocean mirth

salted with grief & everlasting life.

In the heart of remorse & gratitude

rose memories well…

the flaming throne planted in Hell

transmuted to Paris park-bench habitude.

I know whom to thank for this Rose Jubilee.

Stony Magdalen, in Galilee

rolled away, set free

the Rabbi of a rescued Julie-bee.  Recovery!

He was already gone, but she showed us

the way.  & the catenary

curve of Argo’s aerie

twinkles with lights, up there – a million eyes

suddenly flash joy from blue-black sky

pouring Milky Way & Ocean Stream.

La vida es sueño – life is a dream;

the wing-beat of Thunderbird only a sigh.

 4.14.20

sketch by Michael N. Gould

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

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

anyone know your knots?

SHADE-CANOE

The lowly starfish, neither fish

nor star.  Rather

fish out of water, or

spark from Ocean River.  Wish

upon which?  Empty choice, perhaps –

like this rickety cedar

gazebo door, spannered

over the void for mosquito apse

(fine Roman iron).  Door always open.

Natural Bridge – sublime,

like Jefferson’s government;

only supporting vault, for all men,

women, are created equal.

Contracted limestone

hieroglyph, whose one

whole marbleized body-spiral

corkscrewed like Nut – bolted

to high arch-campanile.

Mostly invisible.

An Arctic burg (igloo-solid).

The hollowness of raven-beak –

scars like tattoos for Cain;

Jonah from Spanish Main

become Columbian Mayflower (seek

& ye shall find Canonicus, O

jolly Roger).  Darkest

camera oscura (west

of black hole, near Tasmania)

                *

filled with simple cave-sketches –

a wave-curve with a graphene

heart-keep (anyone

know your knots?) nyet – catches

hermaphrodite french wombat stray

(whom-batt to you) – punished,

burnished bronze, banished

by Moi (Great Man Two Hernee)

for coming naked from the sea

right into Nineveh

(some Who-She-Whooshee

mania).  Like Mirror Lakes, see –

glass bifocals, in Mendelssohn.

Reflective retina

bent through Ravenna

or shade-canoe of rusted iron

in Ferrara (almond mandala)

whose double curve

lets light swerve,

portable & potable.  Some farfalla

redbird’s bedrest (or robin’s nest)

you carry like pemmican

for Father Hennepin;

some amphora from Galilee (the best)

floats into harbor on a buoy

bobbing with airy Ariel

corked in oak barrel –

Jonah ex machina, sailor’s ahoy.

6.28.17

what you might believe

kids climbing oaks on Arthur Street, in Mendelssohn, ca. 1958 (by Mary Gould)

PACIFIC SOMERSAULT

Childhood in Mendelssohn... my mother

helped us build an igloo.

Spiral parabola

of ice-blocks, framing up a doma

seamed so fine, snow-translucent –

its arctic arc an image

(Inuit bird-cage)

of the revolving deep blue firmament.

Complex reality’s concave enigma.

Mirror-image of

a winecup-face... dove-

Jonah diving from the ship – Mama!

– spewed out on shore by Moby Dick.

The Q in Queequeg, or

Coatlicue – the semaphore

of Joseph’s coat, turned inside-out (thick

darkness shrouding every mountain-top).

Fine rational weave

of what you might believe,

while dreaming (temple veil, torn up

from bottomlands to Memphis crown).

A knot in the cucumber twine,

Apollinaire in umber vine...

a fishnet made of golden fleece.  One

lifesaver-lead sinkers the weight

of the whole wide prairie –

like Cathedral Mary

or that flute-bone poet-fishbait

                 *

goes by name of Buried-Man’s Henry

– bright grandson of the late

star Morning Star, whose crate

floated Twin Cities to the Gulf (see,

Tommy, how the dead rise from the grave).

All 12 disciples died

by violence.  The Ghost plied

her woodcock back & forth, & wove

Ariadne’s safety-net (one grey thread

bent like accordion file

from Ocean vortex, mile

on mile).  Behold how us dead

rise from fleecy loam – your dream.

We dwell in a matrix-

creation – Beatrice

skips from Florence to the throne (beam,

Natasha, from your vault-chariot)

& Juliet will navigate

the high bar of the Gate

d’Orange (Pacific somersault).

The vertical of Dante’s Pole

balances Henry’s hobo-

equilibrium... so

the message in the oak bole

from the King of starry Heaven

sets a gyroscope

in motion – Henry’s hope

& Giuliana’s love (sweet corny leaven).

6.25.17

the tender green

INDIAN GRAVE

The tender green fans out in sprays

now, over the trees

by the river.  Hobo sees

a little rise, like an Indian grave (Scythian?)

through cottonwoods – a salience.

Here Mrs. Sippy Nile

meets the 4 Grail

streams – Po (Eridanos),

Avon, Neva, Voronezh.

The raven is a dove

by day.  The paths of love

merge in a lattice-nest (collage

of gray clouds in circumference

of radar palm) where Jonah,

from the salty eye

of hurricane, flutes wholeness

(restoration).  My simple stick man-

woman, caved-in

charcoal Job, has been

the universal algorithm – toon

of Empire or Democracy, depending

on the rope they knotted

(quipu linen, rotted

on the mountaintop).  Swaddling

kid, Vallejo baby.  Lincoln

logs cradle the guest

fresh from wilderness

of ruin (arc of Constantine)

               *

lit by milky Okeanos

whence a black stone

fell, judged by no one –

Petersburg akme (nostos).

Impenetrable wisdom of

Columbia... the dove

of liberty, hove-

to – an alien corn-trove

in that placid Atlantic harbor,

lifting her copper torch

of caritas (scorch-

welded like a bolted nut) over

the twinkling arbor of a bent planet.

The nations tremble, the old

Winnebago starts cold –

rumbles into mobile mercy-net;

Thunderbird circles to Red Wing

becoming human being

in the mirror of Sing-Sing

(bright angle of prism-thing).

She was woodpeckered to a tree

like some Raven-Bluejay

out Oregon way.

Crossroads of simplicity –

a monarch butterfly in Mexico

could not have sung better

with keel o’ green cedar

or almond in Quauhnahuac (ey yo).

4.17.17

green buds are just -

TROMPETTE MARINE

Giuliana opens a ceramic shop

on Ravenna back street.

The “Old Man of Concrete”

surrounded by gray pots of slop

paints himself into a nearby corner;

Giuliana’s little boy

paralyzed (Guillain-Barré?)

plays with his yellow gyroscope.  Her

lover mopes, lost... (ambivalent

professional).  Red Desert,

Deserto Rosso.  Hurt

blooms in the sea-salt spring (Lent...

Easter).  Lofty kind eyes in shadowed

stone (Pantocrator, &

Theotokos) still stare down

from hollow warehouses (A.D. 600).

Green buds are just emerging here,

Psyche, Persephone

in center of the country

(Center, N.D.).  Land mass, a sphere

from sea to sea (theoretically) –

a glop of potter’s clay

in solar roundelay;

Palm Sunday to Good Friday (bloody

travesty, Ford Theatre).  Then

the turtle at the finish line

emerges from the brine

reborn – Rabbit in acute cartoon

(Metamorphosis at Minnaheehee

Falls).  Dante, Beatrice

step through the sun (hey

ey yo) astride Dakota prairie

hoisted on stray lambswool thread

like Vallejo’s poncho

(wheat-gold Paris gaucho-

robe)   or galactic Temple shroud

woven from smoke of calumet

& Camels   (veteran

Guillaume   a crimson crown

swathed round his beaming pate)

so Theseus & Ariadne   circle-dance

the gold pavement   grey Chartres

                   *

matrix   womb of silence

&   clear light   joy of the makers

On an upward path, the labyrinth

becomes a spiral, &

the Minotaur’s command

the envy of a shadow (absinthe

green).  Your quipu-knot records

an anchor weight – the rings

of one stone, tempering

the river-sweeps... only soft words

like flute-sounds, scattered seeds.

Stricken Giuliana,

limping hopeful Natasha –

Nadezhda, too – resilient reeds

walk in solemn palm procession

round the sea-wall

& the sparse green hill;

the bald truth of clay   passion

& its aftermath   high keening

sea-bell   through   seraphic blue

the ultramarine   (Pacific

hue).  Jonah   always coming, going

always being born   out of the waves

of infinite agape

lifts old sails   away

for Columbia   & Liberty   she waves

the light torch   over homely harbors

mangers of refugees

fleeing plaited Caesars

(their cracked saucer seizures)

as the integral of   furnace fiddleheads

the deep-sprung source

of Everyland   smokes Morse

code goodness   penetrating sadness

like undying Hope   into the arms

of Osip   or Goldie the Finch

your friend   in the clinch

of Hart’s woe   John’s alarms

the desolation of a lonely child

a hearth-star   shines for her

the safety net   saves her

Love blazes from the center   wild

onlie-Begetter   mild   trompette marine

4.13.17

concrete Cleopatra

RESURRECTION CEMETERY

The river is calm, like a brown mirror

on the vernal equinox.

Moving through bifocals

of that lovable double oval (dear

Franklin Ave. Bridge).  Gliding

from Ojibwa marsh,

a trickle out of harsh

winters... a fluent continuum (abiding

parchment years, the tides of March).

On this sparse Minneapolis

spring morning, under clumps

of woolly cloud-cover, her twin M-arch

might make a 2-seat kayak for a monarch

(Manitou, Big Wind) –

swelling from wing-finned

goldfish to a whale (or Jonah’s ark).

The flimsy grey wool threads a quipu

knot.  Stravinsky’s right

to be so wrong : the lights

are snuffing out all over Europe...

the little gypsy girl must dance

to death (so we might live).

The crowd roars, GIVE.

Ariadne’s thread enwraps the lance

of Theseus, the hunter.  MINOTAUR

IS RUST (feed him tar-cakes

until he bust).  Stakes

are high – each gets an equal share

                     *

or else.  It’s the American way.

So speak plain English.

Royal myth be not the dish

we wish for now – try testimony.

They killed the King of the Milky Way –

lofty Melchizedek

(& his Irish sidekick,

his brother).  Sacrificial hay

for infinite Corn Goddess, maybe?

Don’t think so.  It is

& means to a dead end (his,

theirs, ours)... rewind the anthropology.

Anonymous shadow tilts toward sundown.

Ghost dance under trees.

He coming back, in threes –

the buried man, with his Papillon.

The guy in Resurrection Cemetery

(never gone, still here).

Can’t kill someone who never

died – so let’s undo all this necessary

violence (stand your ground, Hamlet

– until Ophelia’s dead gone).

The Shadow Knows (someone

whispers – my Dad?).  The blood is let.

It’s an old warped story, on the loom

of Time.  Peruvian lamb

sandwich, taken for a ham... a

concrete Cleopatra (equal to her doom).

3.20.17

all caw-caw raven now

SPELLING BEE

The fire in the hearth of heaven & earth

is a quipu-knot of flame.

& she plainly a gamin

hide-&-seek – May den o’ pent-up mirth?

Jonah Noddy Ark? – in the canoe

all caw-caw raven, now?

No way.  Anyhow,

Hobo followed her, down by the slough –

down by the Mississippi, see.

Henry’s late hideaway,

in salty snow.  Say,

Osseo, if yuh know – why done the sea

surge through them limestone banks

outem prehistory?

For water tower, maybe?

Could be.  Manitou-Give-Thanks

stood up to Minna-Tor – locks in

him cowrie-eye – him

fastens agate rim

(candled Ferrara hexagon).

You lose the thread... but it can

hear you.  It co-hear.

Her lip sweeps very near

your ear.  One sad revolution

                   *

           *              *

                  *

vaults the lead-yewn atmosphere

into a convolution

of suspended animation

(catenary star... a Feininger

prismato-chanticleer).  Agnes

would understudy.  Martian

cross rude centurion

snores through Easter-eggness

of yewnevaverse... dream-songe,

Apollinaris.  She

your crash (& Povertà).

We lifted nothing halfen so strange

as vinegar & gall a pain a spear

up to him lip... who, Mona?

Uncle Djinn?  A tuna

fork.  Ev’rychile skip scotch, here.

It OK if you messed up the lacture.

Alethea in the hoax tree

won the spelling bee

(“hollow” begin w’ H – sure).

& the earth was specifically grave as

death, salt... & Henry

Rustypin.  Ternity,

O Ternity! – that our bi’ness...

It a personal store.  Your steel soul

yearn for light, like a clam

pine for raven-shiv... Am

brother Sundial, sister Maryknoll.

1.8.17

Complex of the six directions

MANGER-HAVEN

Everywhere a vector-vortex,

a 3-dimensional crane-

liftoff.  A diagonal plane

of tracer-tracks – trains, trucks,

jet-like chariots surround this

Shriners’ hideaway, where

limping children play.

Mute manger-haven, beneath curious

folksy lunar scimitar 

insignia. Granddad’s

old Buick neighborhood.

Born on Epiphany, you are

a kindly prehistoric whisper-

star, remote but bright.

Hum beneath black-white

acrid mercury bath – Big Dipper

trench-canoe.  Grave air-casket

you portage over your head,

smiling beyond dread

fumes of one Martian marble planet...

So every local khipu-knot’s

a complex of the six

directions – Shakespeare’s

skullcap, Pushkin’s troika-stop –

your eschatology through tundra,

mangy Everyman.

Lambent beatitude, then –

shaggy speech, shepherd apocrypha.

1.6.16 

John Ravlin, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN  (1940s)

Woods behind Shriner's Hospital, Minneapolis

Dante at 56

Little magazines, poetry publishers, the literary community... I say yes to all of them.  Heck, I co-edited & published a little magazine for 10 years (Nedge); I spent at least 5 years trying to promote a local literary non-profit (the Poetry Mission).  The fact that I put a lot of my poetry on this blog is not evidence that I am some naturally cantankerous, nay-saying misanthrope.  No way.  I may be a little feisty - I think I get this from my mother, who is very feisty.  I may at times be cutting & sarcastic (this is all me, not my mother).

But I do not avoid magazines on principle - in fact, I received another rejection notice just now!  No, I put out a lot of poetry on this blog because the kind of drivel I'm writing is in fact very suited to the blog set-up.  Ravenna Diagram, for example, is an ongoing serial poem, sometimes quite diaristic & occasional (ie. responding to the "occasions" of the day).

Today's entry is an example, as have been several posts of late.  Dante died on this day 694 years ago, in 1321, at the age of 56.  Some scholars (the jury is out) have taken a position which entails that Alighieri & I share a birthday (May 29th).  So I am already 7 years older (& almost 700 years later) than Dante was, when he died - having completed his Paradiso not long before.

I haven't completed any Paradise yet.  I have not "lifted the great acorn of light".  But Ravenna Diagram is a cat's-cradle all tangled up with Dante, among other things.  Here is today's report :

LATTICE-WORK

If we can shrink down small as Frisbee

the little leprechaun

from Arthur Street (in

Mendelssohn), we might just barely

wiggle through the lattice-work

of Erica’s Ferrara

cabinet (dove sta

memoria).  Such delicate

moss-green & gold!  Almost as bright

as your sea-iris – sun-

flecked, pregnant lens

of summer season (cave-light,

river-carved limestone... lakes

of glacier-deft sketches).

Time’s a yarn, that catches

history in quipu-knots.  Oak aches

for each acorn – the great light

diamondiale, that lifts

each person (infinite

è finit, unbreakable).  Slight

limp, unfinished manuscript...

slow clay, Mendelssohn

relief operation –

Berryman in Resurrection crypt

or Pound à Venice (perilous seat

in dolorous gondola)...

Dante sets down Ravenna

raven-feather (geste complete).

9.14.15

Tomb of Dante in Ravenna (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

But, Tom of St Louis will recork : it's not the poet's emotions, it's the emotion expressed.

In other words, bladderdash, sorry, gotta go.

There is only one number; the rest are just repetition. & that number is. . .

knot to. Quipu.