the Ariadne pattern

INGLE EYE

A wild white rose at the side of the house

bloomed just today

like the city of Dioce

on green clover stairway   Spouse

Sister   in clusters of stars

Who are you?   Magdala

Stone   mosaic   of gala

winefest   little swirl of squares

corn-maze   around an ingle eye

your single sigh

the keystone   by-&-by

(little fiddlehead fern   turning pern-

kernel   the axle of the ax)

as Icarus   burning wax

falls   cataracts

into Grotto J   (relax)

on Chartres nave-pavement   discern

the Ariadne pattern

that angry monks   learn

magnanimity   & turn

again   as falcons gyre   into

the sun   (mild   smile

on earth   mile upon mile)

the Son of Man   is fashioned true

whisper those lips   of windblown rue

Jessie Ophelia   your

leaves of grace   empowered

to plow   deep rose   to emerald blue

5.31.16

My open road (happy b-day, Walt)

WHEEL-ROSE

Memorial Day.  A good man’s ashes

hid in stone by-way,

two steps from coppery

Minnehaha.  Her long eyelashes

(Florence) his.  Only a mile or so

from viridian jungles

of springtime (Mendelssohn).

His father (Edward) fended the blow

at Saint-Mihiel.  & Katherine,

from Reading – with a red

peony, under a shed

in Belgium.  Only 29.

Red Cross volunteer (unselfish 

clear-eyed gaze).  Poppies

in a man-made sea

of miseries.  The human wish

for Providence is octahedral

diamond.  My open road

is riven motherlode,

adhesive gossamer.  Vein-trail

of cottonwoods, bent by the wind –

a flexible thread of silver-

green, a gusty poplar

grove.  Slight syllables will bind

this dream-sail to a Temeraire

leaving Galilee harbor

(bound for Superior

beneath the wheel-rose of the Bear).

5.31.16

River trail (with cottonwood fluff)

the flute zigzags

Thus we bring to a close Book 6 of the great mumble-pilgrimage, in form of Cricket-Chirp Epic, which we call Ravenna Diagram.  Six books = about 340 poems already.  I do believe the sheer steadiness of this eccentric errand is beginning to garner a little more public notice.  Some batches have appeared here and there in Blackbox Manifold, in the U.K., the Journal of Poetics Research, in Australia, the Battersea Review, in the U.S., and also in Sweden, in a memorial anthology for world poet Regina Derieva.  One poem is forthcoming someday in the venerable & magnificent Poetry magazine, and the estimable Puncher & Wattman publishers, in Australia, have made a preliminary commitment to bring it forth in book form eventually.  For all this support, I am so grateful to the editors involved.  And special affection-rays beam out to those steadfast readers scattered about Rhode Island & elsewhere in the cosmic blogosphere... thank you, dear pals!

*Postscript, 5.28.16 : surprised to learn that this poem was written on the 79th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge (May 26, 1937).  The poem celebrates the Golden Gate in the final stanza.  The bridge is a recurrent whatnot throughout Ravenna Diagram.

WHISPER-DOOR

Walk back   through a rainy-day memoir

through the watercolor (Grace

Ravlin   Gloucester, Mass.)

over a fireplace   wherever you are

down the River Road   by the cottonwoods

through the rose garden   with

a quipu-thread   into depths

of summer   Willy’s hobo moods

when the eyes relax   deep into green

& a river flows   to the heart-

matrix (almond, athwart

twin orange trees)   your ascent   unseen

Father Hennepin   or St. Louis

by the Stone Arch Bridge

on   New World ridge

where Evening Star   harps Liberty

These harmonic  concordances

Apollinaire   à New Orleans

Ariadne’s  contra-dance

in sleepy Paree   sybilline séance

The flute zigzags   l’après-midi

sad Adams (Henry) perks

his ear   the password works

once more (Encore, encore!)   you see

twin gates rise   virginal   ange d’or

with safety net   one golden

thread   trompette marine

from Jessie O. to J.   soft whisper-door

5.27.16

Concord, Columbia

KIEVAN ARK

This gazebo’s tilted octagon

of weathered, worm-eaten

cedar holds off the rain

in Minneapolis, again.

Again, Henry will dream his songe

like a train-hopping sponge

& let summer arrange

cloud-peaks of glory (strange

magnet, fourchette d’orange).  Concord,

Columbia – créatif

brain-fever of native

mer-wit – good Will’s three-cornered

cap of happiness (wasp Osip’s

honey-basket on the Hill

of Skull).  A game of skill

is Vladimir’s, & music too – the ship’s

a Kievan ark (turned right-side-up

beneath its choral dome).

Salt-azure breath of wisdom

streams from Maximus (one cup

of simple crumblevine); his prong

is set like Lebanon

cedar beside the chronic

faultline – earthquake birthpang,

epileptic flow.  & now one smile

reverses Golgotha

with OK light – it’s manna-

Madeleine (kneads pain into a grail).

5.25.16

of the clay peoples

PEACOCK’S EYE

Path P stretch in six directions

out of Cairo, Huck,

sez Jim – any way you look.

One of them north-south junctions,

I reckon.  There was a labyrinth

of red clay trenches –

dead men in its clenches

like flies hung in a spider’s tent

– heavy that clay, so heavy!

Like the bottom of the sea.

How could a little child be

dancing in such dismal gravy?

She’s Pueblo, of the clay peoples;

they put away wrath before

the sun go down, f’sure.

Lookee there.  & through the peephole

of his fingertips I saw (obscurely

as that garden of Sheba)

a lightning pathway – Sun-Ra

threshing floor – arisen merrily

from ripened Flanders wheat (so

melancholy).  Like Van Gogh

seized with a fury-glow

of happiness... Persephone?  O

yes!  Threading her crane-dance

through a peacock’s eye –

purple Hagia Sophia’s

woolly poncho-swirl (at cave-entrance).

5.24.16

hove-to before Frisco

LOAD-BEARING

Strong wind in Minneapolis

today, & slate-gray

clouds (stone solidarity

on high).  Big Wind, my father’s

nickname (Indian Guides).  I picked

West Wind.  Some air

in the ceremony there –

pre-Scouts, & pre-Socratic

too.  How a breeze shoulders a mountain

into laurel blossoms;

how one lilac sums

a people in a spell (for funeral train).

The Word-as-Such... the Word is such

for we who have passed over

Lethe.  It is more

than scent of orange – it is a torch

lit by shaping lips, a summons.

One hectoring nation

circles on its chain

thirsting for liberation... the romance

of Spring on earth.  It is only a turtledove

salience, a gray-feathered

stone from Petersburg;

just a load-bearing mule, hove-

to before Frisco.  & you are called to join

the company of saints –

where Livingstone faints

in swamps of cedar (violet, African).

5.23.16

Gemstone of Paradise

NEVA-LAND

The poem is for lonely you

amidships (I-&-Thou

nailed coign to prow) –

& for that grubby neighbor too

next door (George or Georgina

with the garden hoe).

A solitary lamp-glow

lingers in the old cantina –

in William Blackstone’s study (man

who went to live with...)

– uphill, on the forest path

to Middy Wewe’s blithe fountain.

George Washington spins in his grave

to see how we behave

without a mind to save

us from ourselves.  Thee must be brave,

& true, & kind, & dedicated

to the perfect good –

that global neighborhood

that shines, wid’ green & delicate

kiwi-glow, beneath the rind

of blind & brutal night.

A callow grail-knight

stumbled on it once, near Samarkand –

spry Wolfram rings the tale – &

like an unknown soldier

leapt – O soulman Prospero! –

from here to Skye (in Neva-land).

5.20.16

There are orioles in the woods

EARTH-GATE

They’re casting another bridge across

the River; saws whine,

a tug toots, the cranes

lift high & gawky, like red-rose

giraffes.  There are orioles in the woods...

My long-drawn notes

shore up a span that floats

on vague bleu Gulf streams – moods

& swings; you have to walk between

the strands of frayed thread

looped onto gravity (dead

reckoning)... O plum-colored has-been,

warped by Magdalenian

& riverine diffraction!

Yet one stone section

lifts the key.  Giuliana

limns it, with her simple pottery –

the old grey painter

in his deserted corner

emanates intransigent asperity

like mud-splashed cast-off prophecy.

Only the rough rind

of some green kiwi-mind...

her catenary rainbow bend (sea-

sown, high-flown).  Yon Earth-Gate

shines at earliest dawn –

solemn mandorla-keystone,

freedom-sign (gioia incarnate).

5.19.16

Of Marcel Proust, of Oblomov

TEEMING ORBIT

In the old octagonal gazebo

shaded from sunrays

screened from mosquitoes

I think of Marcel Proust, of Oblomov;

of the haze of tranquil summers

in an equilibrium

of nature.  Let it come.

The books fade into memoirs,

epics filigree life’s borders

with remote heroics

while the housecat licks

his fur, & children play recorders.

To live life on the edge

of the petunia patch.

To bandage every scratch,

wipe every tear...  sea-azure pledge!

Noah’s flute-compass – a pilot’s

Providence – the homing

pigeon’s purple ring

of ocarina nostos-pivots...

Deep down in the teeming orbit

of the clay, a blessed

favor lifts each nested

creature into intricate

brush-feathered limestone – emerald

fresco, where white-

haired eagles congregate –

floresce into the parchment (gold).

5.18.16

In the deep grain

BIG SHOES

In the deep grain, American

wood flows like river

darkness, Indian-giver

is your claim   start again

with a gamble, shepherd   desert

is your friend   when you

become a   sheep (who-

who, keens   Cyclops-owl).  My yurt

is yours, pilgrim   enunciates

Canonicus (to the dauntless

youth).  His confidence

in the common good   illustrates

the Second Table   of stone

outlines   everyone

understands   Turkmen

& Catholic   Quakers, even –

that the Good   is transparent

& rooted   a charity

branch   shading   the nitty-

gritty (hungry teeth)   your Parent-

Spirit, who is Heir Apparent

&   (apparently)

Ancient of Mondays

also   her name is Clement

or Clementine   she wears big shoes

she drowned   in the river

it was my mistake   her

name   is Jessie (almond   of the Jews)

5.17.16

Sur le pont d'Avignon

SUNSET ROOM

The cutthroat sun over Minneapolis

leaks light into many

dark corners.  Rimini

in mind (a limpstone palimpsest

beneath shellfire).  Go & strike

the tents, men – long way

to Tipperary.  Say,

Francesca, if you can – how to make

things new.  Peer into womb

of earth-cavern, Ezra –

all the way to Ravenna...

At far end of Pontus rest him tomb

where Theseus stole them golden fleece

Maximus   whose sea-blue

eyes of   geomatrix   (thrum

true)   abstract chamber piece

like waves reiterating   into nautilus

the human sum   reframed

from steel teeth (Somme

bad dream)   the whole shark armistice

To turn   from bull’s-eye bulletins

down a narrow corridor

or trench file   war

in the hand, in the mind   sin’s

armature   in the marrow   Guillaume

& Jesus   the   steamboat pilot

metymorfs   the whole plot

in a forest   of masts   high sunset room

5.16.16

Palimpsest of legends

GRAY THREAD

Out of gray matter of clouds & sea,

matter of Bran or of Bretagne,

slow combers of the brain

surface a fresh conception... see

your own shadow cast by sun

on flesh-tone limestone –

hear the whispering drone

in wave-beats from an unseen iron

spring.  Echoing, the king must die...

as the palimpsest of legends

from which everything depends

layers the storm with its pearl panoply

in coats of gray... & the first murmur

of the galaxies is almost

silence... & the gray ghost

of Jonah wheels one palm-feather

through the circumference of Time...

& a slight gray thread

drawn from Ocean riverbed

dangles in a cat’s-cradle (a smiling

rhyme) – emblem of unbreakable

immortal grasp of Love...

as one sea-breached dove

wings its immaculate cable

from far-flung farfalla world

to world (your only monarch).

O cedar-scented arc!

Almond diamonde – O salty pearl!

5.14.16 

One perfect notion

SEEDY OWL

Take this canoe : figure in space

afloat upon time.

Like a Venn diagram

of lapping overlappings, Falcon-Ace –

with the footprint of a sacrifice

like seal of royal doom

(where heavy lilacs bloom).

Beneath lilacs, by Lake of the Isles

I turn back down Memory Aisle...

see shades by willow leaves

in Providence.  Gold sheaves

of lyres, in single evening file –

there’s good gray Edwin, like

a giant beech – there’s Voodoo

Queen of Arkansas (Who-

Who... her seedy owl’s with Mike

now – harps in D.C. laurel branches)...

& Hobo Henry, leaning

back to earth (sing

resurrection, buried man) – launches

out on rolling River of Dreams

(with mazy crane dance

in a prairie trance).

E pluribus unum, Roger Williams...

muttering like young apple leaves

from a root in the grave,

out of lips keen to save.

One perfect notion... (so Hart believes).

5.12.16

Womb in the cave-shade

ALMOND ARK

They were farmers & shepherds in West Branch,

cartwrights & blacksmiths, laboring

through pain... the rusty ring

of iron clamps, the thick stench

of horse manure, the pigs & cows...

yet took their time for quiet

in the Meeting House – let

runaways abide, lambs browse.

Their silence lodged in protest against

violence itself –

the insolence of Guelf

& Ghibelline, the gangs, the hunts...

the iron dream of domination

locking the brain-cave

in its frozen grave

(creak-echo of damnation).

There was a spring in Tuscan hills,

coiled like a rusty serpent –

green with moss, bent

into turtleshell... old Williams’

spiral (out of Coke, Blackstone).

Mules’ rustic rights

& supernatural delights

limp into leaves of a live-oak woman –

her heavy womb in the cave-shade

like a Negus by the Nile

hidden for a while...

almond ark of spring (oak-apple maid).

5.11.16

Quaker Meeting House, Scattergood School, West Branch, Iowa

In the vein of Atlantis

SUNSET GATE

Spring, a project of the Earth.

While she waits for Homo Sapiens

to get over his aggressions –

revert to innocence (a Maypole mirth).

In the beginning... all the begins

of the Beguines... the big

innings.  Whirligig

of river-prairie syncopations...

I went down into the Bottomland,

down to Monk’s Mound.

A Mississippi sound,

a tuning fork of lightning (&

thunder).  I looked into my hand

& felt a gentle eye

look back (speaks Ioway).

Fishnet... veil of mystery... grand

Isis-Life.  Her cryptic tripod

out of Flanders fields

(a Jenna-quivering) yields

Triple-Flem – from Seeker linchpad

over Providence, through keystone

arc, westward... stray

crois (her sunset Gate) –

one orange firetread in the ozone,

warped on muddy waters (surging

to Lousanna).  So

the shield of Buffalo-

Mandan feathers her circlet (corralling).

5.10.16

from Monk's Mound (Cahokia, Illinois)

Statue of Isis (West Branch, Iowa)

Center of the earth

COCOON-SHADE

We were scrambling through an endless cave,

Mark Trail & I, in the

cartoon – wait – uh...

that was a dream!  Mind, now – behave!

There was an independent chap with spear

all gold, atop a globe-

sized turtleshell, adobe –

yodeling (with shimmering lyre)

Good Will I am Good Will...

There was a lowly, sketchy

mule, named Eeyore, following

his master, Donkey Haute, until

they reached the center of the earth

– a vernal O, encompassing

an M, a W (whelmelding

vertiblur upon a sunlit hearth

all rosorangled in Pacific dawn).

& then I felt wings purring

in my sleep... a chirring

flutter-by of monarch (milky-spun

cocoon-shade of the teeming soil);

a turtledove was crooning

too, for old George – leaning

on his scythe, worn with grave toil. 

The axle of the earth, the axle...

muttered he – of rusty

us the icon, see.

Light waves from Chartres pinnacle.

4.22.16

A fleece of milky rain

KIND FARE

Like a brown wren building a nest

with twine camouflage,

or a Joan in the Stone Age

on her inexplicable quest

to sketch the lineaments of splendor

(milky star-field in a barn

or Jason with a ball of yarn)

– how the sea calls Jonas under!

The booming surf his Book of J,

the figure on the prow

with heavy eyes... mild Io?

coaxing him to low brown clay

in gloom, beneath an ancient bridge...

where a rose may lie.

An olive shade skims by

overhead (a palm sweeps its edge).

Between bullhorns, he marks the twain.

Gaunt Maximus, in Colchis,

ancient of days (his

beard like a fleece of milky rain)

burbles an almond-scent breeze

he feels, not sees... melting

aria of everything,

snow-knot of spring (Persephone’s).

Like high sea-gates in sunlight, in salt air...

feathers of jasper & bronze

filigree one true coin’s

moss-green (Lincoln mite... kind fare).

4.21.16

Lilacs in West Branch

WOOLLY FLOCK

Soon the lilacs will be blooming

in West Branch, Iowa.

Old John Brown’s hideaway

among earth Quakers (humming

his grave tune, without the guns).

There Harriet’s railroad

tugged through Negus-made

tornado shelters – Grandma’s cousins

too.  I trace an equilibrium

through reams of loveletters

in turquoise blue (scatters

from Scattergood to end of time).

The clay looms closer on those farms.

Isis herself unveils

just past our Hoovervilles –

beckons with Everlasting Arms.

A refuge from the storm, where corn

& flowers grow.  Mild Shaidlock

led a mighty woolly flock

from Ohio to Muscatine, in 1849

(they write); his great-granddaughter Mary

married Jack Ravlin, & thus

they came to Minneapolis...

they rest, remain.  Spring memory.

The silence of unvarnished truth

glances from shepherd eyes.

Proud histories of lies

axed by one pine (standing on earth).

4.20.16

Henry Negus farm (Springdale Township, Iowa, ca. 1900)

Dark backward & abysm of time

RUSTIC HAY

Like a Prince Hal of the Iron Age,

surrounded by a full staff

of devices (every gaffe

in the book) Henry took a page

from Stealing Drums in Trinidad

as they slubbered through the murk

of a flood plain, like turkeys

in a hurricane.  It was that bad.

Had to go, blind fool, from Addis Ababa

to Babylon – from Lake Tana

to Concrete Cavern (ah,

Bull-Dance of Hummy Blah-Blah!)

& recapitulate his fancy

infancy – in a shed

built of old dry blood

& scarecrow straw, with Nancy

the Cow & Her Yodeling Shepherds

making rustic hay.

He lived a year & a day

on all fours – eating grass, curds

& whey, locusts, honey, in a swamp

by the Jordan, in Judea...

It’s all there, Maria –

in Miriam’s mandorla (under the lamp).

Henry wandered thus through drowsy realm

plucking mandolin...

one silver star over dark green pine,

one cirque of gold at the Argo helm.

4.19.16 

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there lived a Mississippi riverboat captain, named Mr. Lawrence, who had two daughters, Jessie Ophelia and Cleopatra Desdemona (not kidding)... Jessie Lawrence married my great-grandfather, George P. Gould.

DELTA QUEEN

The hobo-poem stumbles out of Itasca,

a somno-ambulant mutter

just west of Superior

like a Nile-canoe in Minnehaha

or Thesée-en-Argo, lost at sea

in a maze older than time.

A stone-barrow, or lime-

burnt spacetime spruce-vortex (little tree

Apollinaire chased down in Paris

listening to Stravinsky

on the 29th of May).

Distant thunder... blessed senseless

mote.  What acorn happiness

coils beneath necrolithic

Moscow?  What lithe

Pocahontas limns Potomac offices?

Lightning rives gnarled raven limbs.

One glint from gold iris

shakes the paralysis

from icebound Neva aisles – low hymns

drone from limestone fish-caverns;

there is no place on earth

where Psyche’s sighing hearth

cannot ray lamplight (ask Jules Verne,

or Edgar Allan – ask St. Joan).

My Delta Queen glides on

toward perihelion

engulfing sorrow in her zephyr-zone.

4.18.16