COURANT

with closed eyes, a bare-shouldered
young Victorian woman
and black gloves
holds the exploding champagne bottle
upside down

the next leg of your journey has been canceled

smells the foaming

am I waking?

I keep forgetting where I’ve been
(where I put this or that)

who said what
even me

on the horn: “the One who shall not be named”

keep trying to admit
where I am

the raised garden beds as love letters

how others perceive that negative side, especially,
certainly, toward me,

an ambulance with its lights flashing
at an intersection beside the Laundromat
is forced by congested traffic
to wait for the light to change

it’s Friday and I’m running late

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of
Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 34/

the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars
reclines on a stone bench
in front of a domed courthouse

*   *   *

Vermont green in decline where money
was once transformed into Corinthian columns
and porticos overlooking lawns high over reflected
water as much as the Grand Hotel first-floor porch
the length of a building that would blast your yuppie façade

hidden opposite a kitchen under an atrium lined
with classical Greek busts inscribing some tryst
in Greek drama nightlife countered by the classical proportions
of a domed courthouse goddess in laurel and a red gown
far from the masted ships in a storm, her arms bared

her bare feet Vermont green, reclining where
once money was made carving Corinthian columns
uphold a portico on a Grand Hotel high over the water
with a first-floor porch the length of the lawn and
your blasted yuppie façade hides a kitchen under an atrium

its shelf of classical Greek busts inscribed with dramatic
trysts countered by classically proportioned nightlife
behind a domed courthouse goddess in lilac and laurel
and a red gown mast stripped in a storm of Vermont green
to such bare arms, bare feet now in decline

there was once money to be made behind Corinthian column
porticos on lawns high over the waters of the Grand Hotel
porch the length of your yuppie façade kitchen
atrium with classical busts and dramatic trysts
countered by dome nightlife courting a Greek goddess

in laurel and red gown stained glass, a Greek revival mansion
with four pillars and broken colonnade dividing a green lawn
from a tall hedge statuary in a gray-headed cemetery
the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars
now intertwined with tree
(Ursula, Arctos of bear legs and bear paws)

reclines on a stone bench in stained glass statuary
in a gray-headed cemetery (Ursula, Arctos of bear legs
and bear paws) revives four pillars as the angel
Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars reclines
on stone bench broken colonnade dividing a green lawn

from a tall hedge now intertwined with trees
in stained glass statuary in a gray-headed cemetery
(Ursula, Arctos of bear legs and bear paws)
reclines on a stone bench with no uprising of life within it
this Greek revival mansion with four pillars
broken colonnade dividing a green lawn from a tall hedge

in stained glass the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot
pointed to stars now intertwined with trees
statuary in a gray-headed Greek revival mansion
with four pillars, the angel Aquarius now intertwined
with no uprising of life within it dividing a green lawn

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

NORWEGIAN POLKA

a violent angel atop an apple

in the solitary tree set in a meadow between blue ridges
or the stream bounding over boulders

it’s important to dream

a dandelion amid violets

marigolds blooming against gray tree trunks
or swim trunks

the stone arch at the bottom of the Cocheco Falls millworks

to be sharing a home

old women in a grove – long skirts, white blouses
buttoned at the neck
a large ribbon in a child’s hair
a man in a white dress shirt sits against the base of a tree
(natural outing)

I made bacon and eggs after chitchat and coffee

Ralph Page, swinging a partner wearing saddle shoes

agreeing summer’s passing altogether too quickly
reflecting last year

boulder at the mouth of the cave or tomb
or my emotions, I am
for now, I want to go nowhere
fearing the angel or the earthquake

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of
Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 33/

four pale sets of lips
rimmed in frost
prayer flags and the Potala

*   *   *

prayer flags and Potala of burning Buddhas
in rocky arena “251,” plus that Tibetan Red Tara’s
recipe for Himalayan incense prayer flags and

the Potala of burning Buddhas in rocky “251”
four burning bushes in the recipe for Himalayan incense
prayer flags plus Tibetan Red Tara recipe for incense

four burning bushes, four pale sets of lips
the Himalayan prayer flags and the Potala recipe
names “251,” plus the rimmed frost of burning

Buddhas in a rocky arena of four burning bushes
prayer flags and the four pale sets of lips
as recipe for Himalayan incense prayer flags

rimmed in frost of burning Buddhas, Hari Om Tat Sat:
the hairy WHAT? pale sets of lips burning
Red Tara in a prayer flag recipe from the Potala

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

PROCESSIONAL

an agenda
old business, new business, negotiations, nominations
and new business

to lay out our varied projects,
without all these miles between us half of the time

the grace of the functional line
a keel, a shaft
the arrow or passage itself

Joy & Anger

parked on a downtown street

strewn with flowers or
the time when everything of ours can be in one place

a lobster in a wineglass

a speedometer

an early SAAB fitted for racing

an antique light bulb, a glowing vacuum tube

the interior design
to accommodate mechanisms and man

a hand reaching upward

a bowl of imperfect apples

An avid Sox fan.

a slew of calls
a slew of dolls
a slew of idols

a double-blade broad ax

after that day on Plum Island

I’ve never again looked
at a kite or a diaper
quite the same

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of
Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 31/

a turtle sniffs
a box turtle shell
of blue spotted turtles

*   *   *

life out of a silly overnight bag
is getting me disoriented as much as sleeping
peasants with Mrs. Kerry form a turtle shell squall line

behind golden marsh hay, life out of a silly
overnight bag is disorienting
the sleeping peasants with Mrs. Kerry on a turtle shell

a squall line behind golden marsh hay life
out of a silly overnight bag has me disoriented
with sleeping peasants or Mrs. Kerry

on a turtle shell squall line behind golden marsh hay

waiting to dive to the river woven into a pouch
a turtle sniffs a petroglyph figure squall line
of blue spots painted on sunglasses

with slumber waiting to dive to the river
a petroglyph figures sunglasses woven into a pouch
are a squall line sleeping with the turtle

sniffing blue spots painted into waiting
that dives to the river petroglyph figure
sleeping behind sunglasses in a box

woven into a pouch a turtle sniffs
the awaited dive to the river
squall line of blue spots

paints a petroglyph figure on sunglasses
woven into a pouch with a squall line
of sleeping blue turtles sniffing a spotted box

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

POLONAISE

ballet dancer en point in imitation of Winged Victory
upholding her billowing banner

long-winged owl in flight

the double-yellow banded highway
entering green Romance

safe and dry before the deluge

will she dive into the pool
or just jump
after posing with her arms outstretched

“overwhelmed” or “swamped” fits the bill better these days

or remains locked up within synapses of thy cranium and heart
the little mysteries complicate our existence
give it minor excitement or turmoil

behind the apricot, white grape, and plum tomato
sake labels

a long flat stone
spans the meandering pond
of a Japanese garden

passing the gift-energy

oh, how you, too, bound eastward

this scream
from cascading streams
together, on fragile new wings
surely left out some news

to find rumors about us subsiding

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of
Partitas, click here.

DOWNHILL FROM THE HEART

Beethoven’s chamber pot beside the piano
revealed a man truly engrossed in his work
when there was nothing else to touch.

Not even another Zelda Fitzgerald, seeking
a Daddy-Daddy-Daddy who
never was what she’s expected
nor was I.

It was all downhill
from the heart.

She rather melted away, like the music,
at the end of the page,

while I expected another.

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

PRELUDE & FUGUE 38/

 

in a salt marsh
in a lush gorge
against a glacier

*   *   *

at sunrise twelve horses
set out far below
a totem pole at sunrise in a salt marsh

horses set out below a totem pole
of twelve waterfowl trumpeting

at sunrise, yes, twelve horses
set out far below waterfowl
in a salt marsh

graze for yourself in a lush gorge
the agenda opens rhododendron
or a bald eagle on ash-covered slope

growling, yes, rhododendron openly graze
in a lush gorge under the bald eagle
the agenda of fish covering a slope

there, the rhododendron blooms
growl in the lush night, in its  gorge
the agenda you graze, hovering

no bald eagle on ash-covered slope
growls its agenda on ash-covered
rhododendron grazing into night

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

REGARDING THE GATE HOUSE AT BLODGETT’S CANAL AND LOCKS

Thoreau turned upstream on the Merrimack
rather than to the ocean

before heading back

~*~

needles and rotting leaves
the floor of the stream steep
water the color of tea

it’s a dangerous
river that was home

shores denuded
when tall pines older than the railroad
were felled to make way
for fiber optic cable

they say you log on
in its branching current

owls and herons take him away
above the hydroelectric turbines

~*~

landing adventurously
perhaps to shout

I remember where you are

the cuisine isn’t that much different
than our second city together

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015