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
