by John Gould's oak

ANCIENT MELODY

The air so clear, & the evening moon

a bright silver penny

as in the children’s story

walking along my mother’s old lane

(River Road).  Looking back through time

toward rust-bronze Penny

glinting in the well… you & me,

sweet riverbend friend (Rose I. William).

On middle C, in common time, imperfect

we will tap the ivories –

some Memphis honey blues

for Milkman, gone today (perfect

in charity).  I remember how we clung together

in the greenhouse, long time gone.

Now distance is the quarantine… yet

only temporary, Pen.  We’ll meet somewhere

by snowflake relativity – that Providence

where every soul has dignity,

disintegrated from the sea

of Ocean River (Osip’s salience – a

wee raznochinets bubble of pure silvery glee).

The sky.  So clear tonight.

Transparent memory.  A light

chord lingers in the heart (soul liberty

the ancient melody).  Freedom, equality,

respect… humanity.

Like Newport’s Jeremy – buried by

John Gould’s oak, in Hemel Hempstead (age 90).

4.4.20

to imagine governance anew

CURVE-MIRROR

Everything resolves into the question

of good will.  The mystery

of this most simple anti-

gravity (11.32 ft/sec, a-falling down).

Firebranded sign of imago Dei.

So we desire the good –

wholeness (soul food).

The skeleton key of MLK,

the metaphysical hope informing

scapegrace Providence;

little Ocean State’s immense

rose light (perpetually intensifying).

Only a memory of Henry’s youth.

That community-building élan

of the VISTA legion –

to imagine governance anew, in truth

& conspicuous joy (Roger’s liberty

of conscience).  Dante

& his animale compagnevole

on Dante Street (on Federal Hill)… si, si!

Canopic geometry – vanishing point.

The apse at Sant’Apollinare.

One solitary shepherd, & the sky

a coracle of stars around one smile (anoint

her compassionate Pilot over Kings).

In the curve-mirror of the dome

you sense her light.  Calm

Shekinah… mild restoration of all things.

3.12.20

in the dawn mirror

SINGLE SPOKE

These quiet late winter days.  My mother

lies in her small bed.

The past is not restored

but rows to its island across the water.

I see it in the distance, there –

dark rocks, pines wrapped

in mist.  What happened

to those springing years?  Vibrant affair

of VISTA volunteers… Rhode Island

skipping in my early heart.

JFK’s Newport.

A tiny sea-casket of azure, sand

in the dawn mirror of a rose lighthouse

casting Roger’s heart’s eye-

beam – his Providential replica

of conscience-liberty (human Cosmopolis).

You elevate my Minnesota grain

toward your red-violet wine

welding human & divine

on the river’s leaping arch – then

paddle further… through green pillars

from Columbia to Gravesend,

Pocahontas Williams (raven-

haired pilot for milky stars).

Where the Wain of Charles is chartered

to an evergreen holm oak –

your Ocean State a single spoke

spinning my reel & sarabande, wholehearted.

3.10.20

in the days of Ivan the Terrible

AYE-AYE

In the days of Ivan the Terrible

Sultan fought Emperor

& culture fought culture.

Faith was fervor, & power, trouble.

Lately we don’t have that problem.

Everyone agrees the state

is not about the potentate

& not about God.  It is a system.

It is a system of checks & balances

blah blah yes yes… but where,

where is the heart?  It’s there,

Hieronymo Geronimo (maybe in Providence).

I remember that whiff of salt air

off the silhouette of Roger.

A flow from Berkeley’s wager…

how Jonah might be the universal tar.

Each one of us within that law

equal as feather of Maat

or smoke of Cautantowwit

(bright sunset glow of wonder & awe).

Henry Hurricane sleeps in his dream

somewhere in Minneapolis.

Maybe taking a piss

in a treepot, on Nicollet (off the beam).

His circus is circumference.

& maybe we are Hagia

Sophia with a million…

aye.  Aye-aye, captain.  Silentium.

3.9.20

dimensions of Pacific promise

IRON ROOT

It’s possible we understand the common good,

since we are human beings

blessed with intellect, & feelings.

Might we live in the old neighborhood

again?  The narrow streets of Providence

for example – haunted by ghosts

of Roger Williams & his hosts

Canonicus & Miantonomi (his friends,

working out in late-night conferences

the immemorial foundations

of good government).  Nations

& peoples, grounded in the ancient senses

of those words (Pax, Libertas, Justitia)

sustained, beyond the bite

of Mammon (greed & spite)

into a vivid substance of reality –

dream-songe of every poet ever born.

Yea, Henry Acorn King

will of foundations sing,

laid deep before the civil wars began –

of Edw. Coke, bent over Magna Carta

(constitution of our civil rights

before the king, his knights,

were born); of Williams, apple of his eye

& visionary of our liberty

who felt the fiery seed

of conscience, freed

from all coercion, was the key

                  *

that opens up a box of keys –

the iron root of human

dignity (since we are one

with goodness only as we choose

to be).  & how distinct this innocence

from those manipulations

of the Mammonites, evasions

of sadistic Minotaurs!  The silence

of compassionate stars rebukes Caesar

& all his empires, murmurs

Hobo.  His abode blurs

river-mud with gravity (cold graveyard

avatar).  All density of stone

compacted into black hole

rings your somber footstool,

Everyman – refining stokehold of the sun!

& indistinguishable from hopeless hell

until the graceful whisper

of Columbia, your dove-sister,

thunders like lilting from a light-filled well –

like those Latrobes, who journeyed down to Delta

après shaping simple mansions

for America; or Hart’s dimensions

of Pacific promise… Ocean harmonies (selah).

So Hobo’s heart lingers (below the sweep

of salty galaxies, just off

the bridge).  His brooding strophe

coos from orange shadows… azure keep.

2.15.20

O for a muse of fire

YOUR VALENTINE

From your Valentine, scratched the prisoner

in Rome, young martyr-to-be.

To daughter of Asterius – maybe

a Morning Star? – love to configure

with philosophy, so (269 a.d.).

Skull crowned with flowers

along with more & divers

relics (Santa Maria in Cosmedin)

– & some of them in Dublin, too

(Whitefriar St.).  Ante-

dating troubadours & Dante

with his severed head & body (rue

the day with smoke of juniper, acacia)

he died young, for liberty

of conscience – thought is free;

fled upon wind, Asterius (Astraea).

The epileptic heart dances offbeat.

Dante & Beatrice

found simplest way

to unity – their cosmos whole, complete

in charity.  So ran my Yeatsian effusion

from the green island;

these pipes, my steely friend

summon her countertop restoration

in the green night of Dante’s neighborhood

where phosphorus gleams

amid Franciscan tombs

like camouflaged green acorn (woo’d

                        *

from wood) to be kingdom come

in your creaky dreambed

Ophelia (Juliet, Cordelia…)

– O rondure of love’s gentle realm!

& poetry burbles of it night & day

to multitudes in their sleep

compartments, while the creep

of despotism creeps from sordid victory

to victory (absolutism corrupts

& empowered absolutism

corrupts with most extreme

prejudice).  So the public servant sups

alone in his cold cell, & the journalist

languishes for speaking truth

in cellars of Pharaoh Badnooth

& enemies of human happiness request

your presence in the Furious Throne Room

where kids die miserably

every day, for lack of liberty

& prison sing-song will pronounce your doom.

O for a muse of fire, cried Hen’s herald –

who solders every soul

with mettle from the molten

whole.  Who clears the air, to yield

a solidarity of understanding

in the sheepfolds of Jerusalem

& Greece… Gregorian hymn

with ocarina harmony (Cahokian thing).

2.14.20

like that chaste vision

SERPENT-SPINE

Those Tuscan hills he hymned of, once

in rainy Voronezh.

Winter sunshine flashes

over the Mississippi’s muted bronze.

The exile hums of exiles, like a goldfinch

memorizes Europe;

watch her spectrum envelope

a furious alchemy of wingstrokes (inch

by inch).  So the flappable epileptic

witnesses drab depredations

from his almond branch –

Pope, Emperor… a sick

republic, riven by self-seeking men;

yet the silver line of the river

reminds him of forever

after (law of Righteous One).

Roger, with left hand floating

over the empty void

of a Providence hillside,

preaches the liberty of everything

like that chaste vision Nikolai proclaimed

(equalized humble

multitudes of tumble-

down small shining blooms) – & Osip framed;

& the river, like a serpent-spine

glints across graphite winter –

pencil from the hinter-

lands, crust of salty bread & wine.

2.8.20

now we are six

SOUL LIBERTY

Today be the birthday of granddaughter Sophie

the Bangladeshi-American.

Her Baba became a citizen

in 2017.  They’re just as American as you & me.

We made a covenant of equality

before God, long ago.

African-Americans know

how long it took to become just barely free,

not to say equal before the law

in this blood-soaked country.

It begins with soul liberty –

thumbprint of human dignity.  We saw

how Roger stood alone against the weight

of Boston magistrates,

to separate a faith’s dictates

from common civil rights – & shape a state

of openness, of global mutuality

– planted in equity,

grounded equality –

premonition of a new reality

emerging like a dream rose island

from an imagined Providence

(Roger’s capacious sense

of Edward Coke’s law-learned hand).

Sophie, dancing image of an unseen grace,

child of the universe

sprung up in Minneapolis,

take hold of your inheritance – one hopeful place.

8.21.19

Hong Kong dragonfly

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

A Friday afternoon of breeze & clouds.

In Hong Kong, crowds awake

the legacy of Edw. Coke

& Roger Williams’ Providence – shrouds

brace the pinnace, steady keel

to sweep of choppy surf.

Aft the canoe’s curve

a foaming V for victory... for real?

A tiny splinter in the eye, or

Chartres-blue dragonfly

camouflaged by sky.

A Thunderbird (outpacing Minotaur).

Apollinaire, in his bright air-machine

waits on the universal sign

for Joie – like blue-green

pine... like jubilant Mary Magdalen

finding the gardener in cemetery...

like nothing else in Oklahoma.

The principle of hallelujah

is always a little ahead of you, chérie –

the way Love leads always, pilgrim, toward

more life (the Way, the Truth).

Out of that cornfield, Ruth;

out of Beforetime plummeted the word –

& so we’re circling around this cave

like a bunch of prehistoric

Australians.  Your biopic

features an almond coracle, O dreaming knave.

6.20.19

no one will judge it

Bang Hai Ja, Naissance de la Lumiere, 2015 (part of a stained-glass project for Notre Dame de Paris)

BIRTH-SIGH

Light-waves pulse from primordial Ocean State

from a weightless blazing stone

fallen to our temperate zone

from heaven – & no one will judge it

murmured Joseph, ye blessed stem;

the Word’s articulation

is well-water’s spoken

wheel (from Nowhereland to Bethlehem).

Our history, a contentious dream

scrolled on Möbius tape

pivots its bleak landscape

panorama on a polestar theme :

the plummet-stone, a river-pilot’s guide.

Her name is Providence.

She is each local habitation’s

hopeful capital – ghost by your side;

she is the sister-dove of Mandelstam,

rock-dove of gay Stevens;

she is the Jonah – Berryman’s

& Crane’s last lifesaver (she says I AM).

I see the shadow of gray wings of stone

stretch like a whisper now

from East to West, Glasgow

to Golden Gate; lifting each broken bone

from Frisco shore to some imperishable joy

like Hummingbird lancing the curse

& labyrinth of Homo Tyrannos

with one birth-sigh... her FIAT LUX... that Day.

6.15.19

Oh say can you see / by the Topsfield town line

& so the grand explication rolls on...

R.D. READING GUIDE #7

TOPSFIELD  (p.9)

This poem clearly a rejoinder to the conflicted cul-de-sac of previous poem (“Black Peak”).  The aim seems to be clarification, but the murk only grows darker.

“Topsfield” : suburb of Boston, next door to Salem, Massachusetts

“Shaker plate / of light” : simplicity, clarity.  Memory of lakeside Shaker settlement near Lewiston, Maine

“one steady statute / of a dauntless ghost” : refers to “our W”, one of the poem’s heroes, Roger Williams (R.W.)

“O say // can you see / By the Topsfield / town line / Where Endicott / ripped / the King’s cross out / barehanded...” : national anthem transposed onto colonial Bay Colony.  The future Governor Endicott of Massachusetts was (at that time, anyway) an enthusiastic disciple of Roger Williams.  One day (in the 1630s) the excitable Endicott, inspired by Williams’ objections to King Charles I’s reinforcement of the Tudor “establishment” of a state-sponsored church, tore the cross out of his own militia’s Union Jack.  This was an early (and emotional)  expression of Roger Williams’ influential theory of the separation of church and state.  Very remotely echoed by Dante in his De Monarchia – the medieval version of a doctrine stipulating the separation of Pope and Emperor.  (Endicott, a resident of Topsfield, was next-door neighbor to Zaccheus Gould, the poet’s great++grandfather).

“Friend” : Quaker, Shaker

Twain’ll meet / Nought, around the bend” : some kind of prophetic cancelling of violent rivalries and conflicts (with a prefiguration of Mark Twain and the river)

“Wauontam.  Let’s eat.” : a Narragansett welcome, to feasting (experienced by exiled Roger Williams)

“Tempestuous word... stirs up... chartered Concorde” : a lot packed into this stanza.  Let’s say the tempestuous and threatening prophetic word of someone like Roger Williams, in the 17th century, eventually grew and flourished into the “self-evident endowments” of the 18th century – the U.S. Bill of Rights – in some kind of constitutional alliance with France (“chartered Concorde”).

“Hip-hop’s // Charlie horse” : ambiguous image of a limping monarch (Charlie horse”)

“rocking, racking... icing on a cake of Peking / take-out orders” : the political concept of human liberty, originating in America with Williams, results in a challenge to the autocratic, lawless brutality of “Putin’s generic icing” and “Peking’s take-out orders”

“Aerial checkmate thing” : poetry’s inherent opposition to soul-tyranny.  Echoes of  Biblical Ariel (the Psalmist’s hope); and Nabokov, Montale (“checkmate thing”)

it begins w'Thou

ROSE ISLAND

If I had a mind like Aristotle

Augustine or Aquinas

able with calm patience

to unfold the metaphysical

origami of the whole

rose-petalled ensemble

of creation, mon semblable...

– shimmering Ocean River, roll!

Everything hinges on a little tree

– willow or almond,

sycamore, elm –

transmuted into living body;

tall ash, strong oak of poetry

spilling Imago Dei

(with verbal carpentry)

into an Argo-trimmed Horus-eye

of Providence.  It begins w’Thou.

Psyche’s agate lamp

winking through the swamp

of live-oak garlands signals true

(one if by land, two if by sea)

– leads on to victory

over my own frailty –

out of buried man, a new Henry!

Where the rose Venn diagram

of departed lips whispers

through golden calipers

a reconciliation of I am

              *

& ever shall be (simple psalm

adrift over clay towers)

cloisters the eye’s powers

in immaculate seaworthy emblem –

mandorla (your birchbark canoe).

O light of knowledge

from beyond knowledge,

heart’s mystic bridge mirrored below

at River’s edge!  Whose Jonah lifts

dove-light from deeps,

& as a dolphin leaps

beyond Atlantic hieroglyphs

the figure of an infant Son of Man

bobs in her coracle

newborn – primordial

origin, eye of hurricane!

The free conscience, soul liberty

subsists within your peace

which passeth, Golden Fleece –

lamb of the Lammas loaf, mercy

& flame of lambent fellowship;

stone mosaics in Ravenna

& the tomb of Alighieri

radiate the scent... lambs skip

there, in the cradle of our limbs,

beneath the opening flower

of your glance!  O bower

& rose island – spring of river-hymns!

3.12.19