24
Indian summer. Passage to midwinter,
secret (iron spring). Under a patchwork
blanket of maple leaves, their petrified arc
of windblown barcaroles. O flimsy splinter,
needling life's flighty, threadbare fabric!
Seen in the distance, through your mobile
veil – the labyrinthine line of some elliptical
mandala. Through the vortex (imbricated)
of analogies, one petalled idler wheel –
one mote of water-spider yachts... one
water-lily. Floats up from phoshor bone
of an old man's memories... their buoyant
seal. Their gravity adrift, toward yon
zero Someone (diamond-cleft, earth-
turned, earth-toned agate – absolute
birth-red Rahab-canal) whose well will
be done. & in a cluster of chrysanthemum
& sea-roses, the old man in the canoe
steps toward the precipice (Narragansett moon-
stone – Cautantowwit – above funerary wigwam) –
shoulders a catenary arc there (in the center
of the earth). It is some Finnish sampan,
or Sea Lord's junk – some Winnie's
lurching seahorse (4 hands clock its perimeter);
with Indian Jade tree mast, & figurehead
of red-fringed forest fiddlehead (or dark-eyed
jay), the flagship Toot-Monde launches (pied
palomino) forth – unknown, remembered...
with fractured idiom of cockney cry
the infant Word reverts to its willow-
rimmed frame; from osier-bow, lips
mime the monastery of a prairie sky.
11.9.09
Lanthanum Road 4.23
23
& out of the distant starlight-vortex comes
triangulating wingspread-arch, emitting
3rds & octaves in a major see-saw sing-
along – descending & ascending train-hoots
& humming rails framing a honeycomb-braced
biped dome, or home for seemingly-aimless
monarch flights. & this embracing salience
drips with sap from its own mellifluous
milky kingdom – golden-bright refiner's fire
searing the lips; the awkward raznochinets
stumbles across his own articulations –
the burgeoning burble emerges, a spinnaker
carried off by the air (trailing the whole ship
behind by the prow). & as hairshirt St. Louis
(a royal Hen in his last chicken-coop) sighs
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, so the heart skips,
leaps! from its biped grounding, to that hover-
craft aloft beneath the starry arch – one
parched honey-star, upon the breast – & perches
there, burning – a goldfinch in its hermitage.
& so the whole moth-kingdom of creation
grow a microcosmic, ultralight, black-&-yellow
curtain – double-wingèd, double-knit fellow-
traveler for Everyman (where tent was
rent). & whispers, into my kingdom
of the woolly moth, come – into the cedar-
forest of the butterflies – into the radius of
my milk-train way (its horn, its trumpet-hum).
11.9.09
& out of the distant starlight-vortex comes
triangulating wingspread-arch, emitting
3rds & octaves in a major see-saw sing-
along – descending & ascending train-hoots
& humming rails framing a honeycomb-braced
biped dome, or home for seemingly-aimless
monarch flights. & this embracing salience
drips with sap from its own mellifluous
milky kingdom – golden-bright refiner's fire
searing the lips; the awkward raznochinets
stumbles across his own articulations –
the burgeoning burble emerges, a spinnaker
carried off by the air (trailing the whole ship
behind by the prow). & as hairshirt St. Louis
(a royal Hen in his last chicken-coop) sighs
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, so the heart skips,
leaps! from its biped grounding, to that hover-
craft aloft beneath the starry arch – one
parched honey-star, upon the breast – & perches
there, burning – a goldfinch in its hermitage.
& so the whole moth-kingdom of creation
grow a microcosmic, ultralight, black-&-yellow
curtain – double-wingèd, double-knit fellow-
traveler for Everyman (where tent was
rent). & whispers, into my kingdom
of the woolly moth, come – into the cedar-
forest of the butterflies – into the radius of
my milk-train way (its horn, its trumpet-hum).
11.9.09
Lanthanum Road 4.22
22
The purposes of Providence run
along a straight iron rail through the center
of the earth – aligned with the North Star
floating motionless in night sky. Sun
& planet crossweave an aquamarine design
through pregnant space; primordial rivers
of bottomland clay are shaped & surge
into dome-bubble salience. A wing-span
curve, an upturned keel – fleet smile
in sunlit delta-mouth, harboring infant-
speech (rush-woven basket-boat, light
osier-womb) from blue-green heaven-Nile.
Out of such potter's clay came the gardener,
cumulative, georgic, sedimentary, slow;
rose Ancient of Days & his Maggie Lou,
their rusty plowshare channeling that river
toward an early orchard. & their child
inherits their earth, & the speech thereof;
all the curious rivulets of dialect, survival-
mannerism (borne into quaint parishes, wild
provinces); & when the walls come down
& the shofar blows & the Union emerges
like a bulbous crown on the rugged skin
of rippling slopes a prime oneness at heart
out of every region & clime born of love
& fire when the walls tumble down in
the central welding of mortal good will &
eternal seal (bright forge in dove-embrasure)
11.9.09
The purposes of Providence run
along a straight iron rail through the center
of the earth – aligned with the North Star
floating motionless in night sky. Sun
& planet crossweave an aquamarine design
through pregnant space; primordial rivers
of bottomland clay are shaped & surge
into dome-bubble salience. A wing-span
curve, an upturned keel – fleet smile
in sunlit delta-mouth, harboring infant-
speech (rush-woven basket-boat, light
osier-womb) from blue-green heaven-Nile.
Out of such potter's clay came the gardener,
cumulative, georgic, sedimentary, slow;
rose Ancient of Days & his Maggie Lou,
their rusty plowshare channeling that river
toward an early orchard. & their child
inherits their earth, & the speech thereof;
all the curious rivulets of dialect, survival-
mannerism (borne into quaint parishes, wild
provinces); & when the walls come down
& the shofar blows & the Union emerges
like a bulbous crown on the rugged skin
of rippling slopes a prime oneness at heart
out of every region & clime born of love
& fire when the walls tumble down in
the central welding of mortal good will &
eternal seal (bright forge in dove-embrasure)
11.9.09
Lanthanum Road 4.21
21
The wide river, and the wide prairie,
the wistful train-hoot carried on the wind.
Hobo, on the old Soo Line; his fiery friend
Pumpkin Man, all black & orange... whee! -
skimming down Heartbreak Trail, toward
Way-Off. Monarchs of mudflats, kings
of milk – their infant, roustabout, mulish
speech rebounds to lowland Indian mound
(breast-work of Pocahontas) half-buried now
in shuttling river-clay. It is the almond Word
a-lit - bedded in the wink of a pumpkin gourd
whose tuneful memoir even a funeral scow
from Minneapolis whistles downstream
(past Resurrection Cemetery, in the snow).
At the end of the line. & now the prow
of barge Bee-of-Good-Cheer slips (I am
Bumble Bee) unsounded into the flow –
toward St. Louis rendezvous, implicate
(with canoe-spiral) in compassionate
spider-lotos frame. Alms-given, flower-
ribbed – speech folded into delicate
ember-membrane (warm, centripetal)
where it began. & Pumpkin Man (pray tell)
is you Everyman? – so the Word was plotted
for blossoming – unspoke, unspeakable
cascade of sweetness from the root of
streams. Lie down, Hobo – heed the hoot
of your dawn milk-train again (unbreakable).
11.3.09
The wide river, and the wide prairie,
the wistful train-hoot carried on the wind.
Hobo, on the old Soo Line; his fiery friend
Pumpkin Man, all black & orange... whee! -
skimming down Heartbreak Trail, toward
Way-Off. Monarchs of mudflats, kings
of milk – their infant, roustabout, mulish
speech rebounds to lowland Indian mound
(breast-work of Pocahontas) half-buried now
in shuttling river-clay. It is the almond Word
a-lit - bedded in the wink of a pumpkin gourd
whose tuneful memoir even a funeral scow
from Minneapolis whistles downstream
(past Resurrection Cemetery, in the snow).
At the end of the line. & now the prow
of barge Bee-of-Good-Cheer slips (I am
Bumble Bee) unsounded into the flow –
toward St. Louis rendezvous, implicate
(with canoe-spiral) in compassionate
spider-lotos frame. Alms-given, flower-
ribbed – speech folded into delicate
ember-membrane (warm, centripetal)
where it began. & Pumpkin Man (pray tell)
is you Everyman? – so the Word was plotted
for blossoming – unspoke, unspeakable
cascade of sweetness from the root of
streams. Lie down, Hobo – heed the hoot
of your dawn milk-train again (unbreakable).
11.3.09
Lanthanum Road 4.20
20
The monarch's flown southwest to Mexico
& left behind his colors in the trees;
milkweed Melchizedek, anonymous, he's
only a memory now (from long ago).
The golden-barren limbs lift a craggy vault
like some forlorn cathedral, shivering
with leaf-news – the monarch is leaving,
now... the monarch departs... Ochre, cobalt,
a taste of iron; threads of scarlet & purple
interlaced within a labyrinth of rose. So
eerie the soaring gossamer – already zero
gravity (& gone), winging 'twixt twin steeple
prongs (antennae, signalling)... Threads
of a moth-trail, designedly draped across
the Milky Way (the way he went), emboss
a furtive coign of vantage – Magellanic Cloud
of witnesses – O starry Wisdom's dancing
majesty! & joy rides in stupendous coverings –
Thou ridest, Monarch-Hurricane! – thy tidings
tolled through tongs of railroad tunes, attunings –
crossed beyond vast milkweed prairies, where
the chosen children of one stutter-clear & loco
vocable – scarred logos-Lincolns (Martins, too)
enunciate, halting, thy rose-enfurlèd, plowshare
silo-smile (deep granary of everlasting victory);
& where thy sevenfold unfoldment once began
sails back again, 77-fold – prodigal origami span
of one entwining grain-bin grin (tall – 57 stories!).
11.2.09
The monarch's flown southwest to Mexico
& left behind his colors in the trees;
milkweed Melchizedek, anonymous, he's
only a memory now (from long ago).
The golden-barren limbs lift a craggy vault
like some forlorn cathedral, shivering
with leaf-news – the monarch is leaving,
now... the monarch departs... Ochre, cobalt,
a taste of iron; threads of scarlet & purple
interlaced within a labyrinth of rose. So
eerie the soaring gossamer – already zero
gravity (& gone), winging 'twixt twin steeple
prongs (antennae, signalling)... Threads
of a moth-trail, designedly draped across
the Milky Way (the way he went), emboss
a furtive coign of vantage – Magellanic Cloud
of witnesses – O starry Wisdom's dancing
majesty! & joy rides in stupendous coverings –
Thou ridest, Monarch-Hurricane! – thy tidings
tolled through tongs of railroad tunes, attunings –
crossed beyond vast milkweed prairies, where
the chosen children of one stutter-clear & loco
vocable – scarred logos-Lincolns (Martins, too)
enunciate, halting, thy rose-enfurlèd, plowshare
silo-smile (deep granary of everlasting victory);
& where thy sevenfold unfoldment once began
sails back again, 77-fold – prodigal origami span
of one entwining grain-bin grin (tall – 57 stories!).
11.2.09
Lanthanum Road 4.19
19
A desolate mind sailing through desolate space
above a desolate heart, Henry ekes his way
into November. All Souls' Day. Deep clay,
meanwhile, logs its transmissions (lateral
passes, shifting scales... a skittering grace).
& the end is always near, scrapes the fiddling
dogwood leaf – one bare North Star's his riddling
light-equation's standing proof (streaming millrace).
Everywhere the same. Light the middling
mean, all-penetrant... & what is this light?
Henry wears his testimony (ermine eremite)
weaseled into bookish office – his piddling,
flimsy prophet's reed – out of the substance
of his kin & kind, worn out, long-suffering.
Yet wear it he must, it is his witnessing –
out of stark void, quaint remonstrance
of battering faith. It rhymes with what he knows
(a widow's mite) of memory : long heart-lease,
tendered to the bankruptcy of time (a dream-
disease). Where (after Elijah) Elisha goes –
into the cloud of lightning-glory (track
of all the forerunners on up ahead, lighting
his way). Lanthanum road, of faltering
enunciation... Gloucester-sight-gone-black.
Exactly there, in the Star Chamber's cranium
of emptiness... the North Pole still shines.
Not Henry's to trace, these converging lines –
Noman's – very woman very man's. Light-home.
11.1.09
A desolate mind sailing through desolate space
above a desolate heart, Henry ekes his way
into November. All Souls' Day. Deep clay,
meanwhile, logs its transmissions (lateral
passes, shifting scales... a skittering grace).
& the end is always near, scrapes the fiddling
dogwood leaf – one bare North Star's his riddling
light-equation's standing proof (streaming millrace).
Everywhere the same. Light the middling
mean, all-penetrant... & what is this light?
Henry wears his testimony (ermine eremite)
weaseled into bookish office – his piddling,
flimsy prophet's reed – out of the substance
of his kin & kind, worn out, long-suffering.
Yet wear it he must, it is his witnessing –
out of stark void, quaint remonstrance
of battering faith. It rhymes with what he knows
(a widow's mite) of memory : long heart-lease,
tendered to the bankruptcy of time (a dream-
disease). Where (after Elijah) Elisha goes –
into the cloud of lightning-glory (track
of all the forerunners on up ahead, lighting
his way). Lanthanum road, of faltering
enunciation... Gloucester-sight-gone-black.
Exactly there, in the Star Chamber's cranium
of emptiness... the North Pole still shines.
Not Henry's to trace, these converging lines –
Noman's – very woman very man's. Light-home.
11.1.09
Lanthanum Road 4.18
18
Walk through the twilight street toward Halloween.
Through twilight light. The starlight, everywhere
the same – its Einstein-constancy the measure
of a cosmic farmhouse (flame-bright, keen).
A pumpkin-light, a lantern glance, hearth-warm.
Tall Pumpkin Man ambles our twilight streets,
a node of light, a hill of flickering; fond Chartres
rose, Blanche Ochre-Russe, on lightweight arm
the two together make a heartfelt form (dim
shades like folded flying buttresses, tucked
wings) – flame-orange origami-construct, or
Romany barge ('mid scalloped shallop-swarm)
bound for candled Jordan-pond (familiar
constellation... nuptial night, or Jubilee).
& these are magic lantern slides of you
& me, merely (children, draw nigh...) –
from the crown of the brow to the feet
of each soul, Everywoman and Man a temple
of God, whispers Holy Church, murmurs simple
Maggie – each one an End of History, complete
node of correlating beams of light (& the
centuries surround me with fire, the soldier
sighed – hum-drum pebble on the shore).
As masqueraders cluster by the wooden
garden gate, creaking in soft reply (upon
its well-worn hinge) to the muttering wind
I am the door of the sheep, at river's end
the lifeboat gently bumps its moorèd crown.
10.29.09
Walk through the twilight street toward Halloween.
Through twilight light. The starlight, everywhere
the same – its Einstein-constancy the measure
of a cosmic farmhouse (flame-bright, keen).
A pumpkin-light, a lantern glance, hearth-warm.
Tall Pumpkin Man ambles our twilight streets,
a node of light, a hill of flickering; fond Chartres
rose, Blanche Ochre-Russe, on lightweight arm
the two together make a heartfelt form (dim
shades like folded flying buttresses, tucked
wings) – flame-orange origami-construct, or
Romany barge ('mid scalloped shallop-swarm)
bound for candled Jordan-pond (familiar
constellation... nuptial night, or Jubilee).
& these are magic lantern slides of you
& me, merely (children, draw nigh...) –
from the crown of the brow to the feet
of each soul, Everywoman and Man a temple
of God, whispers Holy Church, murmurs simple
Maggie – each one an End of History, complete
node of correlating beams of light (& the
centuries surround me with fire, the soldier
sighed – hum-drum pebble on the shore).
As masqueraders cluster by the wooden
garden gate, creaking in soft reply (upon
its well-worn hinge) to the muttering wind
I am the door of the sheep, at river's end
the lifeboat gently bumps its moorèd crown.
10.29.09
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