Poem for Franklin Rosemont

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