Lanthanum 11.2

2

We sped along still, ensconced there in Natasha’s

cumuloship – eastward again, just where Siberia

shakes hands with Alaska.  Circuiting our gala

rondure – RUS back to US.  Her eyelashes

curved upward as she said, All this loveliness

is but a bauble in the hand of heavenly Majesty.

See the high firmament – behold aurora borealis

rustle her garments of sevenfold light. & yes,

yes – so it was.  But I glanced below again,

glimpsed Vladivostok glimmer under clouds.

Called up my almond-eyed song-guide... his

mournful end.  Dark is the grave wherein

my friend is laid, I murmured to her (sweet

baobabushka).  Grieve not for Mandelstam,

she said.  The slave is free who’s overcome

fear, he crowed.  Recall that epigram : feat

so light, so resolute.  The soil beneath his lines’

diamond is steep – a cedar mount.  Sheepfold,

greenship... harboring seedlings of deep, full

faith.  I looked again... & saw Vancouver shine

below.  Sad memories of Malcolm Lowry rose.

A shattered river-shack... rock-candy almost-

paradise.  Torment.  O troubled, tortured host...

Her soft eye rested on me.  Remember Maximus,

his message, friend.  The edge of truth cuts

sharp & clean, even to distinguish between bone

& marrow.  Intellect, sense; body & soul... one

Love binds two.  Reunion, prodigal.  Victory at last.

                           5.16.12

Lanthanum 11.1

1

Natasha gripped my shoulder now, cleaved to me

like a loving sister-bird, as we drifted there

above the Black Sea’s shadow-sheen of somber,

opalescent azure (brooding, thought-like sea).

Here’s where we U-turn, Hobo – here’s

where we swerve north over lazy-hazy Rus.

To draft a sky-arc of clean air, bright birches’

bark – construct a parallelogram that veers

across the sphere’s Pacific rim.  We’re

heading home, aslant – drawn back (in single

file of feather-spun steel) to US.  Sharp angle

of mercy-return – cloud-seeded atmosphere

of prodigal redemption.  & as we swanned along

that quietness of steppes’ broad, slow streams

I began to hear, faintly, far-off, fresh fern-thyme

themes – frail tunes, thin stalks of columbine

or bluets in the northland moss.  Then, joining

in basso profundo, subterranean bells, voices –

drone-pitched so deep, deeper than all the halls

o’Hell.  Then – mingled with all these – pining

cries of endless flocks of cranes (fanning away

on either side of us) threaded those heights &

depths of tones into a stringent harmony – land-

bound, airborne – flashing Sibelius-sibillance (hey-

ey-yo).  Then, finally... as we edged closer now

to that granite beehive, limestone Petersburg...

I heard a human voice swoop (bird-like) – swell

& climb, like some rose-windowed water-prow.

Who’s this? I cried.  You know, Natasha smiled.

Your brother-yodeler, harping in harmony – your

Jonathan, David.  May’s Mendelsohnny goldie-joy

in lap of baobab – sprung free at last now.  Wild.

                        5.15.12

Lanthanum 10.24

24

So Hobo looked out from his high prospect

across the vast wide land spread out below

& felt his heart beat by an ancient woe, a

double blow : he heard inexorable time inflect

that planetary grandeur with its transience;

& sensed his solitude.  Mocked by his own,

held in contempt; shunned as well by a divine

distaste, indignant toward his lingering offense...

Natasha, where to now? he muttered gloomily.

Shall we follow that raven to the far southwest?

I’m like a desert pelican, an owl – or loneliest

sparrow on a rooftop, here.  I’m ready

to go.  His kindred pilot’s hazel eyes kindled

& glowed then from beneath her vapor-veil;

lingered on him awhile.  Our sail swells full,

old snowbrow – we’re headed further afield

in vision now – so far southwest, it’s east of

here.  Come, rusty one – we’re off to Lazicum.

She flicks her almond wand – they see some

wraith-like, venerable patriarch, his limbs

all scarred & crippled, in a threadbare robe

of pink & azure, like a child’s blanket.  This

ancient of days is Maximus, a simple priest –

exiled from splendor of Byzantium, the orb

& scepter of his regal wisdom (Solomonic

authority of Hagia Sophia) yet remains :

immaculate light-sprinkled manna-veins

seep from his glowing lips – symphonic

flute-flights, harmonies of cosmic gratitude.

Who, like a microcosmic firmament, upheld eld

octahedral honey-dome : one sinuous joy-welded

hum divine’s duet-triad’s glissando-plenitude.

                   5.15.12

Lanthanum 10.23

23

As Hobo pondered his shady Natasha’s pregnant

speech (a-bob there alongside him in a cloud-

vaporetto, at the Gate’s peak) – behold, he

could see all the way to San Fran! – scintillant

opal beside the Pacific – banded with bridges,

shrouded in lamb’swool mist, arrayed by sun.

Heaven almost for bums like him – christened

to praise ye paradigm of each flighty snowbird

a little touched in the head by God’s raven-

claw.  Fran, Francesco, Francisco, Francis...

padre of total self-divestment on the breast

of Everybird’s maker... wed to Povertà, even...

for unless you renounce all that you possess

you cannot be my disciple, he heard Someone

pronounce... & longed so to be!  Enough to shun

insipid hectoring of life-pride, flesh-pot, eye-lust...

(whirled, profane).  So poverello Hobo tried –

contemplating that contemplative template,

the liberating potentate of Give-It-All-Away.

& failed.  His 57 greedy pilots (of a fogged-

in, insular, self-centered bay) rebelled – slunk

blindly off.  & then Natasha spun around &

spoke.  Grace’s the catalytic converter – or bend

it another way, the photosynthetic plonk – thanks-

giving builds on, just as cellulose branches out

from simple water & light to be shady oasis.

This is the power source, Hobo.  Focus your

jerry-rig’d V – Don J’s hum-divin’ rain-be-troot.

                      5.14.12

Lanthanum 10.22

22

Still Hobo teetered there, at the summit of the Gate.

& his ship-shafty companion (call me Antho-USA –

today; no, never Morelia) bobbed in her cloud-bay

saddle, nearby.  See you’ve rambled, reprobate,

back to babblin’-on, she said.  Me sorry, trumbled

Tramp.  It’s his leadweight heart, near to tip him

off the mound.  That peak between the cherubim

tops off his mule-pack (time, distance) – a tomb-

light, Ton-El – up an infinite suffertrail, dank

with wasted ghosts.  Across a milkweed Sheol

to El Rosario (Michoacan, where monarchs go).

It’s my sister-bird, Juliet – left me & Hank

too soon – off that other Gate, flame-orange,

far west.  Left her father that way, too –

on his birthday.  Dark wings waved (hoodoo)

over her chair.  Mercy... wind so light & strange,

passing... like that flighty-shady nymph (dear cuz

undone).  I know.  Yet you shall shed your fear

& sorrow, Hobo – here : take this to wear

over your heart.  An anthem-band of bees &

columbine she offered, then – light-heavy

with tenderness.  When the milkweed monarch

lifted off for Mexico, he left behind his bark-

pontoon, linen cocoon – scented with rosemary

& rue, with myrrh & frankincense.  Hunt now,

Hobo, for the scent beyond sense, the dream

enfolding reason; you’ll find love’s cosmic scheme

compassed by prodigal return... compassion’s vow.

                         5.12.12

Lanthanum 10.21

21

From the height of Natasha-Sacajawea’s Gate

Hobo beheld early sunlight lance over lawns

of America – til dew vaporized, like leprechauns’

tears (his plumblue heart, cancroid after all that

glory).  & then some woman in vapor-chariot

flapped a black wing across his face – her beak

vicing a brazen gleer, one pirate eye.  Quick

now here gone... cawed; fled (Hobo disconsolate).

Was she leaving him alone again?  After all that?

Then he noticed the cloudish pillar, levitating

off to his left.  My morphosis is demonstrating

photosynthèse, spake hrm thundery tornado – what

about your new leaf?  Hen-boy ponda whut say.

Don’t bother, rub-dub – I know you, through

& through – as you know me.  Pas-de-deux.

Touché.  Les jeux sont faits (ro-rondelay).

Myrrh, aloes, cassia... I will indite good matter

touching the king, like a ready writer – if only

to exalt the king’s daughter (with gold of gopher).

Hith coracle skimmet acrest yeh tremulouth water

of her breathtth... as y’midnight bird

stroketh summer lightning (SW, SW).

Hym cryptic peach werve a chestnut

casque, or monarch cocoon... weord

heiving voueils.  Why?  The hale platoon

weights on your answer, Pythia (Magdalen).

Yon icon of bereft grave-clothes... Mary found

them in a milkweed field (Natasha’s temple-tune).

                        5.11.12

Lanthanum 10.20

20

the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice

Hobo didn’t need much : just to watch a little

willow spar swing lowly in the breeze, enough

to send him into trance-lit ecstasies.  Puff-

ball of nature, he bends his face to the Delta –

all that vagrant extravagance of everything

South.  This his faery pilot knew; her antidote

a strip of willow bark, sprinkled with sea-salt

from the Gulf; she hands it to him, saying –

this willow’s salt & sour taste will help you

keep your distance, Hobo – you, prod son

of dusty Adam Bum, first good-for-nothin’ –

who forsook God’s lofty lifetree for the yew

of cemeteries. & he beheld that great wide

field & swampland, flush with green & streaming

traffic – gargantuan White House replicas, mean

shacks... ear-shattering roaring scaly rhodo-

dendron dragon-place – unspeakably multifarious

complex, uncontainable... & heard her whisper :

you cannot rightly love earth’s florid splendor

nor ever share undying joy, until you sense

in the Gulf this dream’s supernatural source.

Look there.  With willow stick she waved off

the clouds – & Hobo saw a simple cenotaph

of stone, immovable, in cobalt-blue susurrus

(Jordan-stream).  It was the gravestone of

a kingly king, beside his spouse – asleep there

in Atlantis.  Who’s alive, who dead? his teacher

crows – the one who knows what love is, son.

                           5.10.12

Lanthanum 10.19

19

So Hobo wobbled there at the peak of the Arch.

Woozy-dizzy in that crystalloid high air – yet

felt no vertigo.  Afloat nearby, his aerial scout-

master spun flips & twirls in her cloud-Cadillac.

Awake yet, lazy Russkie? she tooted his way.

Yes, but... what’s yr name? said he.  Call me

Sacajawea today, why don’t you... since we’ll be

tasting the 6 directions – ancien sacre Jambalaya

journée.  But take a look around.  Hobo turned

against the slow pavane he felt already – as if

on a rainbow turtle’s back – edging the cliff-

face of the universe – myhrn-eye purled

like a sturdy gyroscope, sapphire-engulfed.

He stood between a sea of wet monsoon-

shields (two? three?) merged at the horizon.

Above, the sky-realm – rove-wings of ruffled

galaxies.  Below, four corners of a 50-scarred-

&-striped nation, whose engines blazed eight

candle-cylinders.  & in 3rd gear, waltz-light

a mute & melancholy planet opened wide

one tear-filled moat, let flow one milk-moon tide

of River Ocean... avalanche from utmost height 

of heaven-land.  Maybe now, lapsed eremite,

you might turn over a new leaf! she cried.

Iridium – rhodium – cobalt... she cast her spell

& instantly that waterwhorl was one Black Sea.

Come Lazicum, most artificial burg... the Delta

groaned – Big Muddy, Carib Eye (deep iron bells).

                         5.9.12

Lanthanum 10.18

18

The old tramp, at the edge of the Terrace, slowly,

stiffly, rose to his feet – stood like a craggy pine.

Slight limp in the rhythm, the limpid modulation

of her voice (like far-off bird, calling tenderly

through timber) gripped his heart.  Her hand

suddenly grasped his (spearing out from a mass

of unreadable cloud).  This car – call it Natasha’s

Throne, she said to him.  Skips overland.

Then – in no time at all – he discovers himself

transported to the apex of the Gateway Arch!  &

she who’d haunted poky Hobo hovers – perched

in the air beside him.  What lovely sylph, or elf

be thou? he heard himself mumble, barely

audible.  The cloud-flock dispersed... & he saw

two calm eyes (almond-amber) couch in a brow

(it seemed) of moss, willow, & cypress (shady

grove).  Gowned in a sage green waterfall

with belt of violet, she stood before him

blithely smiling & serene.  I’m Lanthanum-

Queen, you might say – secret, hid from all –

especially from you.  For though you’ve known me

from the start – & all your lost-dog yodeling

was spurred by me, & every cherish-interlacing

image in your heart – you missed my quiddity;

folded in profound recess, a sabbath-day

of agape.  The lofty cedar’s but a pine-

needle, fleet limb of water & sunlight;

I’m here to lead you back that way.

          5.8.12

from the old days... still out there

Stone - Henry Gould : Small Press Distribution

Lanthanum 10.17

17

A May morning in Providence, early.  As ‘twas

in the beguine (years ago, now) the Terrace

rests (in nestle-mossy blanket).  Cloudy mist

& foggy dew.  & Hobo (lazy Rus) languishes

on his eld bod (park-bench paralysis).  His

yearnful, knotty, portable urn of memory-ash.

In the fog-hover, that craggy chestnut lashed

to the cliff can ply his willies in sorrows –

catenary limbs a-swoon, its leaf-buds’

sweeping shad-runs stripe his slumpish back.

He ogles one torpid peek, along a track of

Rog’s buoyant, granite hand.  Anchored clouds

obscure the so-familiar sightline, learnt

by burnout heart, graven like wagon-rut

– from R.I. through the needle’s-eye (St.

Loser Arch) past monarch-sky – straight

west, to oro-tangy Golden Gate (Hobo’s

Juliet).  Then (blear-eyed) that stretch

of stolen railroad... iron rod, stitched

to the broken range – a-sudden – blooms :

O, from Williams’ outstretched palm, a slight

gray pigeon limps from cliff... a strange

smile slips through the twister-fog... angel?

Limberlost ghost-Joan?  With light-beam flight

she looms (instantly immense) from heartland –

& planted (footspread surfer) on the sunstone

of the gate – like Michal on lion’s back – intones :

Rub-dub, deadbeat, awake!  Stand!  Take my hand...

  5.2.12  

Lanthanum 10.16

16

April woods, ablaze now with the glory

of forgotten wildflowers – hypatica & spikenard

& infant russet bells of honeysuckle, spangled

in cupolas over mass moss-forest on quartzite

cliff (blackened by time).  & all this overflow

of delicate evanescence invites me to botanize

one evasive bloom no hunter will recognize.

Imperturbable, the monarch proceeds (Hobo

mysterioso) toward her cedary home, in Mexico.

She floats past St. Louis, adrift between Cahokia

& Gateway Arch – grand tableland panorama

elongate from river-matrix (Missouri, Ohio...

Ol’ Muddy).  A quality of equality, the plainness

of the plains – Jefferson’s agrarian dream

in river-vortex (Fluvius Jordo Cyclorama).

Here convened, like Pawnee on Inca terrace

(in a game of kings).  Choice game, hid

in Louisiana cypress chest – encrypted there

like a passenger pigeon in cobra-lair.

Eld Indic jade garland, no doubt (mounded

Ameri-pemmican, in meet-me backyard).  Frail-

woven hands tilt above high contrails... you sense

something greater than Jefferson here (immense

thunderheart out of pipestone smoke-trail,

limestone relief).  The micro-minimum

is equal to most humblest monk, in this 

confessional – is Maximus (the meekest,

wisest).  Sunhop-perihelion is also herm :

humming belfry-birds, wringing each crumb

of winding sound from unending waterfalls.

You the microcousin-cosine, Maximus.  All’s

figures, Hobo-fool proclaims (to kingdom

come).                                               

4.29.12

Lanthanum 10.15

15

Old Hobo, see – h-hand shakes, strokes pigeons

splayed across h-hum-array of keyed-up shades.

As if that bent-rottenèd rote-durn fence had

speared one palm, a glancing blow (sidewinder’s

bronze, or copperhead-positioned hand-breath).

That thick-veined, sandpaper palm even bleeds

a little, aye.  Hey, it peeps through the weeds

of crosshatch lifelines, fateline... all that spent

J-man’s skittery-jaggery 88’s.  As if an orb

lay nestled in a pidgin, sway-dangling ‘pon

wheeze-stablished cedar stool.  Nested dome

or vexèd cave... magnetoreceptive earlobe-

jewel... some loco jeepers-mercator for wingèd

longing (Palm Trio, opus 1132 – or was it 3168?

– forget!).  A lady, loitering in inner lake (wait-

staff in shuddery Lebanon) tripulates childhood

again (Bukovina, & Mendelssohn).  Her J-coat’s

reversible, too – cue for tiny-teeny MOM to

harbor (O m’gal St. Lou-Pea!) yon angled OMO

(muses maiden Maggie, by the fire).  Compost

compôte, geological Hobo-mélange (deep clay

formation – mellifluent limey, in crypt)... only

an aye-aye, in the hand of a hand – bifocal

bond, unbreakable foundation.  Love’s foray

into crane-bone tune – Ocean Rose (smoke-sign

from clouds).  Heart’s closest-secret closet

Sung y’Songe, that only Maggie understood – yet

swaddled in those hills (tight, tight).  Shared.  All.

4.27.12

Apologia parva pro Lanthanum suum

Lanthanum... I understand how you might grow impatient.  Seems to drone on & on without going anywhere.  But you might read it less like a journey, and more like a curtain, or sail-shroud - flimsy, translucent, wavering back & forth in a sea-breeze.  (Nice to think so, anyway.)

& what's with all this obscurity?  I might be accused of whimsical, even (un)ethical complacency.  My response to that : a poem is a kind of dense singing.  You have to enter it slowly, as into a zone or key different from ordinary communication.  It has its own timbre, texture.  If a poem is not sufficient-unto-itself, it's not really a poem : hence I'm constructing a kind of screen or wall (curtain) of slanting sounds & meanings.

Yet this self-sufficiency is not the same as what was once called "art for art's sake" (during the Symbolist-Decadent era).  Because when we say that poetry is an end in itself, we mean this in the same sense that we speak of the aims of any intellectual or artistic labors.  That is, poetry, along with every other productive labor, is self-sufficient in the context of the infinite, the universal.  We say that the beautiful is simply beautiful; it fulfills its purpose thus in being beautiful.  Science fulfills itself in being true - yet the infinite is part of this truth.  So truth, ineluctably, grows deeper, goes farther - on an endless path, which includes infinity.  The poem - as art, as part of the beautiful - must be an end in itself : but all endings reside within this context of endlessness.  Unending growth, change, renewal, discovery... every poem is a way station, a marker, along this infinitely-shady trail.  So, in the end, there is no such thing as "art for art's sake", though the art work may indeed subsist as a self-sufficient end-in-itself.  Art's self-reliance is always simultaneously contextual, within this infinitely-subtle mystery, the ethic of the whole.

Lanthanum 10.14

14

There is a symmetry in this labyrinth :

a labyrinth of symmetry.  In the quietness

of a fleet rest note, your eye gets lost;

flowery immortals of a garden coming-forth

are coming forth; suddenly, the river-

lines in your palm become 4 rivers, lined

with palms.  Holy, holy, holy... the old

summer camp hymn rose from my quaver-

quivered seahorse-chest (4 crystal knobs,

each with a password to the past).  Rapt

knucklehead I bean (deaf, dumb... unkempt,

sore broken... 57-reproofless) – yet plumb-

bobbed somewise to your 10-string psaltery

of praise!  Good thing to give thanks with.

For the union of reunions... clay eyes (ephphatha)

washed clear, ‘til all is limestone rivenclay (light

salt, a sword of diamond-edge)... & streams of

tears ray through this wide-open manna-earth,

this rotor-branded Brandywine (God’s myhrrth

a fifth-ace, graelic victory)... immersed in love-

kindled kindliness.  O sip & see, Ms. Mystery!

Ever the same shall be, shall be, the curve-drilled

angle-architects carve into time.  Their blarnacle-

sketch (charnel-cartoon) – stick-&-stoned Evie-

man beneath rain-piloted mote-arc – smiles now

in a universal reversal : arch ark in your main-

sail embrace (doubloony to some, no doubt).  I’m

singing around the house – in 7ths (clé of rainbow).

4.26.12  

Lanthanum 10.13

13

O April’s love-travails!  You led me blind

by whisper-trellis, through the vine-nigh,

vine-high night.  To trace a flicker-shadow

of blue phosphorus (a zig-zag jay).  Inward.

The lens-curve lining of this mini-retina

is as rose coracle, or limpid vesica.  A rude

mandorla (me) filled with scraps of yankanoodle

sails – my papery mis-steps, cul-de-sac accidia-

reports.  Yet from such booty of dearth

you lift me into azure, shade... sheltered

by sentinels of cedar, cypress (cloistered,

grave).  This limestone river-cave – earth-

lapping light-waves leapt from its jaws.  Frieze

bent like a rushing spirit-arc – a waterfall

of overflowing laughter.  Ponte Vecchio guild-

hall, binding the flume of mangled histories...

I cannot build it myself.  Yet heaven is integral.

Yearning, limping one, by the Livingstone-tree,

eternal menorah, you harbor me within feathery

ellipse – so I may not stumble, though I crawl.

& the inward lining of my patchwork, jumble-

sale soul rethreads itself – this heirloom J-

square Coatlicue-shroud (serpentine Jonah).

A Pontifex Maximus smaller than Tom Thumb

or Pushkin’s button spins upon its pinpoint eye

– where Hagia Sophia rides on a bumblebee

toward the North Pole; where Sacajawea

folds up yon aurora-tepee of stars (hey-yo)...

    4.24.12

Lanthanum 10.12

12

That lone pigeon or mourning dove I saw today
soar like a chip of shale overhead, near India
Point – tail shaped like a paintbrush (Charlie
Burchfield, or maybe Corot) stroked highway

& tenements, bridge, with color. Pigeon-
pigment, rare indigo blue (from rainbow-
throat). Out of whale-scum, offal (phew!)
– urn-pot residue (Hell-rot to Empyrean)...

& so, dark Phoebus, wisdom is justified
in all her children. The full scale croons
in that arc of clear air. Freedom’s pontoon-
bridge, perihelion-balloon – A-frame filigreed

in gold. Up from low hum of redemption-
brow, a kingly Sheba-curve, full of milk
& hard questions. Memphis garbage-strike
groan-crown, toward equilibrium... O Zion-

Jubilee! – all through earth, & blue-gray
sea. & for me? Only a pokey mosey
down Dove St., where we used to be. &
are, J-bird... a pair of cleated arms (spooky).

This, O seraphic weld of bread & wine...
apex-draft up lofty sweep (of stealthy
steel). Rescue for tramping misery
to recognition of a molten trine :

bees’ hula-hoop of union-domes, melodious
facet o’ sun-filed Rocky Face. Peters-
burg’s nocturne-glow (radiant perimeter’s
tremulous Point.). Rust-trestle. Us.

4.19.12

Lanthanum 10.11

11

What, then, be this weird whispered word?
A one-note Churley, unhorsed – housed hidden
in lone-Okie corral? What secret gradient in
Hen’s 57-sauce – him ‘sippy recipe? Not absurd

so to inquire (for the sake of the choir, even).
Like a smoldering branch (willow, cottonwood)
dowsed in Jordan-water... from childhood
y’broodish Uther-Usher dragged his penned-

in pen... if only to seed & behold his own
flowering booktree. Dawn, Jonah whale-road
swoop-fled – fell asleep in olive grove (snored,
ivy knave). Ever the prod-gal seediness was,

is, sown. Not to be saved, either – burnt
lumber, embers, vacant lottery – except
within immeasurable charity – infinite
& feisty magnanimity (emerald welder’s

mint). Where we look to. Across the standing-
wavy grain, in an evening bronze (bellissima)
of aquamarine – alchemical grail-gleam o’
laughy-whaweh. Tough trough cresting,

stiffening to clear spring agate-whorl (your aqua
firma – diamond). From yon vortex-pinnace
of steep crow’s nest – walnut in his chest,
blazing doubloon – waved octahedral sunlight,

everywhere the same (Quito equality)!
Rose warmth of fluttery there-not-there...
close by. Draw near. Through ye man-door...
do re mi fa so – là (unison). O taste & see.

4.17.12