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

Pearl Harbor Day

MOON-TIDE

Prospero, home in Milan,

dozes in winter sun.

Hobo, on the run,

hands Henry his drownèd plan.

Pearl Harbor Day.  His Juliet,

her father-love unmet,

unmatched, flings it

(on his birthday) off the Golden Gate.

Incest breeds in the wounded psyche

trapped in regression-mirrors.

Henry’s his own father’s

worst enemy (Knight to Queen 3).

Hal speeds to Falstaff’s hideaway.

Idleness debauchery

& trickery will be

his refuge from a father’s eye.

So Henry runs to poetry –

where Hobo rules the sleepy

riverbank, all lotus-weedy

with papyrus-infancy

(Atlantis-libraries of Alexandria).

He seeks his sweet cousin

for soul reunion – one

shady psyche for another ghost.  Selah!

Prospero!  You’ve gone all cranky

& explicit now.  Don’t drown

your book just yet, man –

Henry threads a maze of hanky-panky.

Full fathom five   thy father lies

these are pearls   his eyes

the moon-tide hurls  (sailors

sleep beneath waves, where firelight dies)

The flame in the heart surges, or is

deflected into shallows.

Juliet of the swallows

flittering at dusk... Henry’s paralysis...

shady pining for the sister-dove –

Orpheus, Eurydice

Alighieri, Beatrice

Ray by Nile, yearning for Eye of love...

Hobo’s intellect of mother-wit

tangential, tacit

               *

star, Cautantowwit

Raven-shade of Narragansett

Buried god Osiris, burdened Berryman

weeps on his barbed-wire fence

of psychic violence.

Angry sons are on the march again,

the envious ones – misled by signs

of fraught deflected love;

the Dragon’s treasure-trove,

the Minotaur’s deceit (threadlines,

snarled cul-de-sacs of self-defeat).

Manxmen of tyranny –

their island fantasy

a sunken travesty (Narcissus-fleet).

I remember your weaver’s baton

in Providence, Francesca.

The shuttle flying (rock-a-

bye, baby) to shape a golden woolen

poncho – gift for a San Francisco

poet (from Rhode Island).

Like a wand in your hand,

unspoken, felt – taking flight so

from one heart to another, at

speed of light – what

equilibrium you wrought

there!  Or an image of it –

warm, wearable, at human scale.

From the heart, the earth

shines – ruby hearth,

or emerald (blue-cloudy pearl).

The mystery of Providence

is as a rose in flower,

full of people-power –

origami of experience

unfolded in a safety-net

concordance –

each fold in silence

married to the others – what

complete rose blossoming!

Inexpressible

joy of a grateful Abel,

poncho-whorled into a golden ring!

12.7.18

facet of the grey sea

WOOF DAWN

Now vales of Maia give away

to peaks of June, plains

emerald after rains;

gold Ghana-threads of yesterday

(encircling Hermione,

her Perdita) are knotted

in one polyglot,

shade-silvered whisper-crown.

The dream-song of that melancholy

painter in the corner

(Henry Coroner,

or Richard Parking-Lot) might be

a facet of the grey sea’s matière –

portion of the human

globe (octagonalmond,

arched like Nut over the pearl-

sphere of the earth).  Hearth-sign

of futurity, through sleep

to an oasis – leaping

Minnehaha (Hobo river-mind).

Someone smiling in an acorn cap

shadows his Georgia garden.

Some apple-orchard man,

repairing limbs... his milky map

renews the face of day.  All things

woof dawn, old Prospero –

it happened long ago.

Her cartwheel (spun of gold bee-stings).

6.15.16

Indomitable busker

It's a mystery to me (a mystery for which I'm grateful) how these long pilgrimage-de-Henri sagas adjust themselves to my own contingencies.  They round themselves up in their own good time.  We are told art is practice practice practice, & maybe that's what it is.  "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will" (Hamlet).

For example : I'm moving to Minnesota in a matter of days.  It's been a roller-coaster year, yet this Ravenna Diagram thingum has persisted, kept on keepin' on.  Now - a few days before we leave, & in the midst of much pack-up anxious biz - the fourth chapter of the poem, and a big structural cornice, draws to a close, seemingly in a fairly-fitting fashion (how can I know).

I'm thankful for the poem time.  I'm thankful for the moonshine of this little Ocean State.

EARTHY TAVERN

This polished late October light.

Burnishes each diamond

of the backyard iron

fence.  One survivor-cricket

churrs behind spruce (indomitable

busker).  Over the rail

a wave of clematis still

surfs; the massive parasol

of luminous russet dogwood leaves

still braces (on its sturdy

mast) against a gusty

autumn breeze.  Halloween in the eaves.

I’m leaving very soon.  The golden

spider packs his poison-

bag, curls (frozen)

in a thread-vortex.  I be beholden

to my Ariadne.  In her hazel eye

the gold lambswool, yellow

Corn Maid poncho flow

into one clay design – pendentive sigh

of wild oats panicle (brown

dangling bird-feet

elegant & neat

as many-rimmed Ravenna urn).

My host is flown.  Like Stella Maris

over the ridge, at Swan

Point – pivoting on équinoxe

de printemps (April 12 it was

                    *

this year)... like Beatrice’s Florence,

born le 4 Juillet – or taut

Francesca, by her net

of Inca wool... ou sont les neiges,

maintenant?  They’ll ride my splintered

coracle back home.

Or (gone threadbare) roam

my prairie west – O mulish cowherd

wind-wag, tickled to Frisco Bay!

Morning Star, look homeward

kind upon yon way-weird

son.  Apollinaire, with calumet...

the wars is over, anyway

– wars in my old heart.

Ravenna’s where we start

again (light brdftprnt of Dante).

Motif of a sacrifice.

Eternity turned

ice-cold (solid,

absolute).  Not nice –

unless you reckon yet again.

The dogwood mast is creaking

in the slanting afternoon;

winter will be coming soon

for Hen, who gathers everyone

into his earthy tavern

(like a Grecian urn)

across far distances... (American).

10.23.15

dogwood (& spruce) on Fisher St.