Green palms unfurl as flags
to the accordian of my eyes,
blinking back the strong belt of sunlight
that precisely floods the room.
Sailors jostle this crowd of memories,
some surly lipped with broad tattoes.
A naked mermaid presses her thighs 'gainst
memory door, then winks as the
stellar crust of oblivion takes me.
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Page 47
In sleep, waterfront toughs are transformed
to storeowners that smile, exchange pleasantries in
Saba.
(French gendarmes embrace on the other side
clustering like starfish on the twin breasts of a beach.)
I devour cups not of riverwater in this cell
but the best pink champagne at the captain's
reception.
With hatfuls of intermittent rest,
blurred outlines recede into mists
thin as General Winter's treasured April snows.
The bony M of a hatpin,
the passkey to better redress of fortune --
the turnstills, concealed within lavabeds of
bladegrass.
beckon upon the return voyage home.
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Page 48
REGALIA
If the rich are different
they show it with the
clarity of their table
as Scolt FitzGerald decreed,
the breathless hush
of their regalias,
the manner in which wedgewood &
crystal are cleaned to a
polished exactness --
the shimmer of expensive china
no less repetitive than
the hulking boys
waiting in window stops;
monsoon rain pelting
the upper Punjab plains.
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Page 49
SAN CRISTOBAL
A gypsy sits in a taverna
joking with a sailor
who has left
bridges and maidens
along islets connecting
many a storied sea.
Ducats tumble from a
cloth bag the way
the gypsy remembers
caravans and the
remembrance of gold
steeled against
warm flesh in
moonlight of his native
Umbria.
Lavender is the coat of dreams
along navy blue hemmings
the colour of the gypsy's
eyes, the blood's
colour progeny whose
men of wealth
both are related to.
Page 50
The gypsy stares at the taverna
wall and the ducats gleaming
to outside rain.
Men joke at rail depots
where in a like fashion water
splashes mud into little
arches up a riverbank.
Neither has the shallows of
minnows at his command.
Bunched up stubble in the wind
cannot fathom lies
or gender hope --
it is lhe province
of the mind,
the coinage of perhaps
a Spaniard on discovering
San Cristobal, one's own
sieglo oro in fortune
squandered in sunlight
with only the sweating
Appolosa still straining
on this, the last
taverna ride.
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Page 51
GUADALQUIVIR
In a pleasureless world, pure pleasure exists.
Particles of sunlight, exquisite with nightdrops &
leaves stringent with dew,
persuade tributaries with inset eyes
to depart down foible breast, sticky fingers
up delightful steps.
And taking pleasure with an earthen spoon --
sipped long and hard down tubes and winding
entrails;
soft relief canyons swollen blood vessels.
For your brow shines like olive branches,
Guadalquivir's river or nectar drawn from golden
wells
and, as such, unfolds loveliest eyes
out from fond embrace not hedging lies.
My darling, amongst flowering cherub trees
a moment shared with you is pretty mirth
accounts all Arcadia's treasures, the
angelic breath off passing wings.
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Page 52
LEAVES OF THE CECROPIA TREE
And what of privileged things
mur & frankinscense
or sandlewood --
yes, teak, ambergris
or skies of indigo blue
-- I cite these gifts,
caravans offered as treasure
Christopher Wren putting
the domes of St. Paul
in place like worn spectacles
over a cherubic face.
The last gargoyle pops in sight
near Notre Dame
such cathedrals are whitened sepulchre
stones in "stately
pleasure domes
decreed".
I see the Taj Mahal
where Mahatma Gandhi might have trod.
The utterance of a tulip
in every parable Christ talked;
rosebuds gleaming milk
on the breath of lilacs
their shields of lilies
shone where Solomon walked.
Page 53
Song of Songs is none other
than the poet's heart,
water across stones.
a warm sun working double shifts
as a pitchfork stacking memories
on a summer's day
shooing aside leaves of the Cecropia tree;
old Walt resting on a bench
mumbling his prayers.
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Page 54
SOUTHWARK
I noticed a bust of Shakespeare, an effigy in stone with
latticing to mirror the ages. In the same cathedral a
notation commented John Harvard was baptized here.
Outside, rain fell on tombstones scarcely readable,
their letters frail imitations of what each man
considered important in life.
The church itself breathed renewal. We learn John
Gower, epic poet to the court of Richard II,
worshipped here. I thought of translucence, then muir
and gems the wise men brought the Infant Christ.
Prayer candles glowed and fell into a lap of pyre. The
crypt held Edmund, brother to the Bard.
A handsome altar betrayed sentiments Gray used in
his elegy to another courtyard. My thoughts
continued onto nearby Tower Bridge, steel and energy
dynamos before steps of the multitude released at five.
A sign read no alcohol was to be consumed on church
grounds.
The very name of the place visited was poetic, half
twist of muscle, more pull of silent breath.
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Page 55
KUBLAI KHAN
The Japanese are coming! Now there's a fresh twist
and just when Pearl Harbor seemed poised to become
another Asiamerindian household word amid
electronics, megavision and technological hoopla.
Surprise. They're outslugging us. We're cannon
fodder amidst cunning economic wiles. The "sneaky"
Yellow Peril (updated and given a newer "slant" from
that 19th century prejudicial posturing) has gone
awry. No death march at Bataan. No G.I. blues. Old
Cornpipes General MacArthur at ease; Inchon still
years away. Where is Emperor Tojo when we need
him? Who remembers the Aryans of the East? A
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?
Is SEATO still intact? If Korea, Formosa, Singapore
and Hong Kong are "little Japans" does that mean
we're to become, by default, the new coolies?
Tha land of the Rising Sun is broader than a battleship
listing in heavy seas -- it's the New world Order. Is
North America being prepared as hewers of grain and
drawers of petroleum? Alas, co-existence brings
dilemmas: the Toyota outwits even a "K" car. And
them outpacing our GNP at 6% per annum. It's enough
to rethink the whole scheme of things. They're
obviously in the forefront of the New Economic
Policy. More than just "Nippon" -- that's simply a bad
press release from the dark days of a misunderstood,
but euphemistically labelled "second global conflict".
Page 56
Rubber and fibre sanctions will do it every lime. The
Arizona and Oklahoma will testify to that. Feudal
Japan would never have tolerated it, either. Who's to
say the Samurai are caught up in splilting hairs?
Admiral Perry should have stayed out of Tokyo Bay.
The Earthquake of 1923 just made things worse.
Land's End means more than Manchuria and resources.
Industry and wily opportunism have broader vistas.
The Kuril Islands are a No Man's Land hut so are the
Ainus, a primordial white race of Asia.
What's red and white and comes in with the tide?
America. Compared to the Japanese miracle, it's all
washed up. It's hard to contemplate N.Y.C. as a
suburb of Osaka, but try. The Japanese believe in
communal bathing, so will North Americans when the
recession hits full stride. Remember, shower with a
friend.
Japan is a land of aura. Of mystery. Genghis Khan
never got there in one piece but sent his legions
anyway. Flotsam and jetsam. A bully vanquished.
1066 in reverse.
Britain was the workshop of the Victorian world.
Japan is the Britain of the universe. The whole cosmos
is borrowing her tricks. No one does things so
efficiently. No one has developed cooperation to such
a fine "T". Nowhere is individualism shepherded to
the goal of the "greater good".
Page 57
Pierre Trudeau would be pleased. "To each his own
according to his worth." Sounds impressive. Does that
mean Jaffa oranges are safe to eat -- mercury and
cyanide poisoning notwithstanding. Will the Levant
acknowledge the supremacy of the Orient?
What's new about mulberry leaves? Are silk worms
interlopers, too?
Shogun is too realistic for the narrow orchestration of
facts. The difference? They play to win.
Hands down, Kirin makes a wonderful beer. Sushi
bars are all the rage. Leyte Gulf was more than a
tempura explosion, Corning Ware or "Made in Japan"
labels produced in bulk.
Coral Gardens is a real and legitimate extension of the
Rice Factory idea.
Cipangu. As you like, what you will. No race has
undergone a swifter transformation in the world's
eye.
They deserve more than groping admiration. They
deserve our admirals, too. Who else outfoxed military
victory reversing it from the insides cadaver out? The
peter principle enshrined. The victors don't enjoy the
spoils.
The Lion's Share is as it should.
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Page 58
HOMUNCULAR FORMS
Cape aux Morts.
Cape Diable,
Points of Massacre
Rocks and Island
a plethora of Wreck Bays.
But on Funk Island, nothing matters.
Brahmsian rhetoric could describe the island
Prokofievian,
the sound of Mars
homuncular forms;
an imperative monotone.
Murrelings fell from cliffs into the sea,
rose and floated in foam, screaming.
Olivaceous puddles.
Murres and gannets, kittiwakes,
sun splashed white & pitiless
light on rock --
argon, radon, krypton
seasons of millennia suffocating
in the original gases of earth:
xenon, neon.
Granite intestines
with its outer edge lost
in the darkness between the stars.
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Page 59
ANTARCTICA
Perhaps it is needed to balance the planet: to provide
employment for penguins, or that ice in the form of
crystals calls forth tiny sleighs.
That the orange hibiscus be associated only with
deepest tropics
...plankton learn to feed Baleen whales
And iron hulks, off ships. submit to greater Masters.
the elements.