14

. . . and around the bend, into the Delta.
In the evening, under the sign of Venus -
the old hobo, inverting his deep felt hat
(like character for lamb), full of manna

and sunlight. Fading into the crowd,
an unknown soldier (like hermit thrush,
like nightingale, like goldfinch) -
like Bluejay, solo, behind Shakespeare's Head

warbling, hidden in the Hermitage, his lonesome
tune. For a hidden honeymoon. Shshsh. . .
Persephone purrs a phi design, a river-wish
out of fiddleheads (in Neva-Neva land). Hmm. . .

. . . hmm. Overhead, a silvery W
(into the white night) shines for you

*

a figure for Beloved, or Jerusalem
(justice and Jubilee) - your goldfinch M.

And there, the search through delta-land
(for the wry show and tell of broken
vows, and vows unbroken - for the one
Eurydice, for Mary of the wedding-band)

comes to an end: where an almond spiral
in the snowy hexagon becomes a honeycomb,
and Pushkin the exiled star comes home,
comes home, and the nigredo of the fall

becomes the spring-stir of David's
Nazarean white-blue smile, or Nile -
with sound of whirring wings awhile,
awhirl, awhile. Cat's eyes (redivivus).

5.31.03

from Time Flowers

13

Every J-stroke spins a tiny whirlpool
into the slow current. So Hobo's needy
pilgrimage into a weedy labyrinth seeds
water with its offspring, unscrolled

schools that merge into a mazy matrix.
Lackland or Lackawanna, longing for pap
or papa, he paddles, curling, down path P -
half-man, half-something, worm or asterisk -

toward a double-breasted Venus, scratched
in primitive shorthand (like a W) across
his blinded sky. Primordial, coarse
hunger. Springs Epiphany - cross-hatched

and sketched by those two brothers (allies
now) drawn (by Leo) to Madonna's knees.

*

The star-node hums, the almond crossword
over hexagonal snow, dodecagyn Rhodes.

Pent in a primal nest, a wedding bower,
garden of Cyrus or Solomon, in May-time,
at the end of May, as the breeze trims
petals sailing overhead - sweet hour

of flickering light and shade above the river
O my beloved. Before rivers tumbled,
or brothers battled - before God humbled
Babel, turned speech to dust. Forever

and forever, in the pregnant bud, the seed
renews itself, returning to its maker -
was (before Abram traveled out from Ur)
wild crossroad. Hobo follows your lead.

5.31.03

(note: a "J-stroke" is the steering-stroke in a canoe)

audblog audio post

audblog audio post Numbers 13 & 14 from the second chapter of Time Flowers, called "At the Sign of Shakespeare's Head". Written today, Walt Whitman's birthday. Happy Birthday, Walt -

(You can read along, in post to follow.)

I was captain of the soccer team. Specialized in penalty shots. We tied for 1st that year. I am presently important couch potato with tendency to nap.

Improved hgpoetics color scheme courtesy Stephanie Young. Hope she doesn't mind.

Responding to A. Alcalay's quote under Kasey's limetree :

Allan Bloom writes in Closing of the American Mind: a person can become an American in one day.

Wasn't vague, Bon Jourdan - I just didn't get it. Your inconsistencies were inconsistent with my contradictions.

My long poems an endless ball of insufficiency-twine. A recent section from Time Flowers, the sequel to the sequels that is supposed to tie together all the threads (ha ha):


12

La notte di Santa Andre trovai al fine della quadratura del cerchio e in fine del luce e della notte e della carta dove scrivero fui concluso, al fine dell'ora. - Leonardo da Vinci

At the end of the light, and of the night,
and of the paper on which I was writing...
his hand scribbling like a ball tumbling
left, and downhill, reiterating its broken

symmetry, surveying what unfinished
circumference on the diameter
of a vanishing point (spidery
spiral, infinite clue). Shshsh...

sound of raven-feather footwork (Genius
At Play). Outside, dogwood flowerets
disintegrate into rainy night. Tacit
geometry (J to BD) undeciphered

into dust-motes. His last gathering scattered
everywhere. Only the whorling chalice hesitates.

* *
*

Unbeknownst, Love fortifies and shields
against the complicated tyrannies,
their mazed evasions, mockeries.
And from a spiral fiddlehead builds

springs becoming mammoth summer, streams
vast Mississippis out of baby rivulets
toward delta-home of serpentine returns:
O lightning worm-word, regal David's dream

and cry! There be angelic balances
at work in this, acumen beyond our ken -
plainness grows beautiful (La Gioconda's
unsymmetric smile's intelligence).

Poetry as language of desire & insufficiency (Orpheus needing Eurydice etc.). Broken symmetry.

Poetry as embodied language, pregnant. Inherently catholic and scandalous. Title poem from Way Stations:


The child honoring you in dreams,
embrasure of innocence, tender shoots
of early radiance - your figure
landscape, unfamiliar town, scent
of May lilacs along a worn road.

Not to be known yet,
only a heavy cloud pregnant
with summer rain
(iron mortality, rust
of decline not yet to be);

gathering up your skirts
you make your way, slow path
beyond the jealous decorations,
fever of scorn, offended pride,
dry branches crackling - a bonfire.

Article in Times science section, about how Neanderthals were not that different from Cro-Magnons (our ancestors), who eliminated them. Cultural memory behind Cain & Abel story? Greek guilt over Trojans?

Which means, no less, that the poem-person might want to avoid all blogchat forever on principle, keep a hemispheric distance from the whirl, keep quiet.

Fluttering about Flaublog. Reminds me of little lame Pantaloon-man's query/comment about whether there is something substantial in the connection between the work & the life in considering poetry - whether poets "teach" by exemplary life, not only in their works (at least I think that was what JK was pondering at the time).

Steve "owes me $15" Evans is right that the sociability of blogging tends against the solitude needed for some kinds of thinking & writing. Didn't "Shirley Bean" leave off blogging for just that reason? ON T'OTHER HAND, blogging cain't be rudduced to critical expository pose.

Seems to me more like a curious wallow in the realities of office downtime communication, an interstice which allows for expanded creative acting-up or self-presentation. Thus the pleasant VARIETY of blahgpo acts. Which to my thinkin' circles around again to JK's question. Jordan, by the way, sounds almost Sillimanesque in his defense of blogging as political (see "tense/unheeded" comments of yesterday). But is poetry political? Damn straight - so's the Pope.

I tend to agree that the poetry & the poet are inseparable. This doesn't mean we have to delve with vulgar curiosity into the biographical mulch. I think all I'm saying is that the "public informality" of blogging reinforces the presence of poet In Persona qua poet. Words are darn pow'rful, as my Uncle Ned used to say on the porch. Many authors have a curiously impersonal approach to writing - even poets. For them literature is a form of channeling - the results vary depending on talent & scruples. Blogging in an interesting way combines power (of language) & informality (diaries, letters, conversation). In that combination lies the odd feeling of personal presence & immediacy which blogging provides.

I realize I'm rambling. I think whut I'ma tryin to say is that deep down I have a hunch that poetry is NOT channeling - either of accepted power-hegemonic social discourses (cultural or subcultural), or of exemplary classic models. & why not ?? because deep down the person & the word are indistinguishable. The vocation of the writer transmutes or fuses person & word. The poet stands with her or his word to the end of time & none other's - the rest is echo chamber, channeling, feedback, follow the signs please. & the informal immediacy of blogging perhaps reinforces that impression. It gets back to what I was theorizing way back in Jan or Feb about poetry versus prose as illustrated by poetic NOWNESS vs prose MIMESIS.

Either that, or blogging is just another kind of ego tripping. That too. Shorter Wanted Posters Wanted, Shorty.

I can't stop reading JF Powers. I would say in my critical acumestitation he is 115.7 times better than Flaubert. He's not French but I won't hold it against him.

1952 for me, Joe. I thought 5/29/52 had a nice symmetry for the Big Day. - H.Grand Poohbah

Today is saint's day of Guillem de Gellone. One of Charlemagne's lieutenants, fought in Spain; memorialized in French chansons de geste. Entered religious order, founded monastery & school at Gellone, in southern France. According to some historians, descended from Jewish nobility from Baghdad who migrated to Narbonne. A distant relative, I think, I like to think.

William Blackstone was buried on Study Hill, Cumberland, RI on this date in 1675. The next day his property was burnt to the ground by a band of King Philip's men.

- "Talking of corpses," - the Consul poured himself another whiskey and was signing a chit book with a somewhat steadier hand while Yvonne sauntered toward the door -"personally I'd like to be buried next to William Blackstone -" He pushed the book back for Fernando, to whom mercifully he had not attempted to introduce her. "The man who went to live among the Indians. You know who he was, of course?" The Consul stood half toward her, doubtfully regarding this new drink he had not picked up.
- Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

Malcolm Lowry lived in Vancouver. Yesterday digging through the files I found the first letter (I think) I ever received - a postcard from Vancouver, from my grandmother Ravlin. Colorized photo of twins in papooses. I was 14 months old. Tomorrow I'll be. . . sheesh.

Check here for detailed mapping of blog flows & swamp vegetation patterns.

Funny scene in JF Powers novel, Wheat That Springeth Green. Father Joe has new young assistant-curate, but Diocese didn't bother to tell him his name. Joe doesn't want to embarrass him by asking, or embarrass himself by calling the Diocese, so he calls the police & asks for the name of the owner of the curate's VW parked in rectory driveway. Police won't give out the info. Curate listens in from other room, leaves poorly-typed note (curate is learning how to type) later in Father Joe's desk: "THe info you re quested : William Aloysius Schmidt".

Then follows dialogue likes of which I've never read before: Father Joe, trying to figure out how to deal with this without giving anything away, pretends that the curate must have called for the info about a third party. Curate plays along (he only confronts Joe later). So the two of them have this straight-faced discussion about this make-believe third person. . .

Had to be there. It's a wonderful novel.

Eric Pankey has several poems stemming from blues songs.

Phrase in a John Donne poem : "slimy rime".