This is another poem from my forthcoming Rubber Orchestras collection. This time, a poem written in tribute to the late Franklin Rosemont, leader of the Chicago Surrealist Group.
Poem for Franklin Rosemont
beyond words
or destinations
visual and multiplying
intricate and persistent
they found a faraway place
in paris
its potential splendour
hid sequels and contrary sex
in the early hours of 1960
proclivities
of struggle and synthesis
within the most complete utopia
of fire and speed
dream letters
were drowned
in invisible stars
silent suburbs of jazz and primitive hell
were spontaneously glimpsed
in rigid cities
in which these souvenirs
were read
at the chicago public library
shuddering
loosley
in method and name
on the avenue between Greene and Zion
intergalactic radio
sent a message
unifying voice
like a violin
during the anxious months of miracles
and triple time
proto-hip like every second syllable, free floating
like a giggle to the subversive current
of eden’s swift sea
by prime energy of libido
by degrees of fear
darker skin and the fragment of shadow
lucid and unique
as paradox to paradox
as serious as blue silk
These are the definitions of the palace of signs
these are the masks with which
I hitchhiked across the wonderland
and travelled by radio
to resemble that mask
eccentric and boundless
in the image of you.
Belladonna in the South seas
further
past stairs and doorways past
afro-american ruins
bamboo by the dozen among those denizens of marvellous film
dead
yet actually distant
and exhilarating
like dissident blues swung from the zydeco
in the brutal suburbs of Pharaoh Sanders
emerging
from light
into some literary response
