Hess Poetry Series

POETRY SERIES

TH’AUTUMNAL SEQUENCE

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess (published version)

I. Inscription for an Earthen Wine Vessel

II. "I Owe an October," He Remembers

III. Bemused Perplexity Perspicious

IV. Toward Dusk, Beside Himself, with Rattlesnake Plantains' Rosettes and Coral Roots, the Fall Inspires an Artificial Paradise

V. Dusk's Musical Notations to his Love

VI. The Darling Buds of May are Shaken Down to Burnished Smoke, O Wispy Ladies' Tresses

VII. Temenos--Lest the Heart's Mind Stay Astray Counter to Perichoresis' Inward Point

VIII. Dawn, in the year's Sunset, Midas-Fingered

IX. Autumnal Gold is All the Flesh of Love

X. Th'Incarnate Cornucopia--Horation, (Mean and Aureate) Mediocrity

XI. The Spider Web:  All Rounds are Canons Yet Not All Canons Are Rounds

XII.  Maples Try and Temper Autumn's Mettle

XIII. The Picnic As an Idle Idol's Idyll; The Pair Beneath the Tree, Not Apples on it

XIV.  Goat-Song and the Price of Singing It--To Pay the Purple Trickster, Not the Potter

XV.  Of the Value of Mood; Pierrot Makes UP for the Comedia Dell'Arte

XVI. The Synesthaesia in Color-light

XVII. Willows:  Super Flumina and Syncope--Echo Systems' Etiquette Synesthetic

XVIII. Panegyrick to the Creation, Made to Resound the One Word Beyond All Ruin

XIX. Bittersweet--Beyond the Dark Path of Dreams (The Will of Etiquette; Yes, That's the Ticket)

XX. Disguise Becoming Comus--Costume Change; Not Yet Metanoia, Much Less Theosis

XXI. Another Picnic--Seminal with Lotus Seeds--Art and Life Exceed Morbid Secretion

XXII.  This Leaf--a Maple Maypole Metanoia

XXIII. Sauternes May Turn Beyond the Noble Rot

XXIV. By a Still Cove, with Ladies' Tresses Strewn, Love's Shining Prints of Dew and Tears Absconding

XXV. In Adam's Fall and Other Awful Offal

XXVI. Neither More Nor Less, O Coral Roots

XXVII. Sumacs Smack of Plectum High Male Gone Lapsarian and Relapsarian

XXVIII. Narcosis' Anhedonic Scintillation--Old Cushions Filled with Sparks of Milkweed Floss

XXIX. The Insect's Miniscule; Fuga Does Not Mean Fugue in Ev'ry Tongue and Each Aesthetic

XXX. The Moon--Endymion's Brocade by Night

XXXI. Advice Lest One Should So Add Vice to Vice

XXXII. Fruit Markets--Their Own Private Iowa

XXXIII. Bees and Honey Wax Sacred and Profane That All is Art:  Bible, Gregory Nyssan

XXXIV. The Wreath--Performance Art Scenario That All is Art:  Naught Save Language and Culture

XXXV.  The Light, and Not to Make Light of the Same

XXXVI. Jack Frost, Come Upon After the Last Post, Whose Logos Heartens Mind and Minds the Heart

XXXVII. More Advice, E'er the String of  Beads Be Broken, E'er Snaps Th'Uncordial Thread of Pearly Dew

XXXVIII. In the Descretate, Abandoned Chapel

XXXIX. Indian Summer I; One for His Love Beneath Leaves' Green, Gold Leaf Gleams Summer Long

XL. Indian Summer II; Two for Himself--Beneath the Waking Mind, Our Dreams Keep Dreaming

XLI. Rusting in a Trysting Place and Trusting

XLII. Wild Geese--Of Hamartia, Their Mimesis

XLIII. Roast Duck--Receipt for When Our Goose is Cooked

XLIV. When You Are Drunk--by Showy Orchids' Stalks and Adam-and-Eve Orchids' Staid Green Leaves

XLV. Blackbirds, Robins--A Lute-song's Wing-filled Sky; An Ayre Minds the Heart of the Dark Path's Turning

XLVI. Apology:  Pro-Vito Suo--That heart and Mind Must Trun, Just Like the Trees

XLVII. November, Close to Withered Cotal Roots:  He and the Leaves Start to Leave the Dark Path's Turning

XLVIII. Even in November, A Little Sound Carries a Long Way to Mute Self-extinction

XLIX. The Smell of Love and Darkness of the Heart:  As Heart Enraged, Aflame, May Die Out its Incensed Corps, Burned Out, May Waft Up Prayer

L. November Dawn:  Their Muse's Incarnation

LI. Pheasant Season--To One Not for All Seasons

LII. Amor Vincit:  Their Muse Once More Invoked Through Blue Monday's Cares Would Hew Th'Axis Mundi

LIII.  Epilogue:  Phoenix

 

 

---

TH’AUTUMNAL SEQUENCE

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess (bound alternate version, also contains artwork by John Thomas)

I. Inscription for a Wine Vessel

II. Untitled

III. Untitled

IV. Toward Dusk

V. Dusk

VI. Smoke

VII. Untitled

VIII. Dawn

IX. Gold

X. The Cornucopia

XI. The Spider Web

XII. Maples

XIII. The Picnic

XIV. Wine

XV. Of the Value of the Mood

XVI. Colors

XVII. Willows

XVIII. Panegyrick to the Creation

XIX. Bittersweet

XX. This Leaf

XXI. Sauternes

XXII. By a Still Cove

XXIII. The Fall

XXIV. Neither More Nor Less

XXV. Sumacs

XXVI. Narcosis

XXVII. The Insect's Music The Moon--For Endymion

XXVIII. Advice

XXIX. Fruit Markets

XXX. Bees and Honey

XXXI. The Wreath

XXXII. The Light

XXXIII. Jack Frost

XXXIV. More Advice

XXXV. In the Desecrated, Abandoned Chapel

XXXVI Indian Summer I

XXXVII. Indian Summer II

XXXVIII. The Tryst

XXXIX. Wild Geese

XL. Roast Duck

XLI. When You Are Drunk

XLII. November

XLIII. Even in November

XLIV. The Smell of Love

XLV. November Dawn

XLVI. Pheasant Season

XLVII. Amor Vincit

XLVIII. Epilog:  Phoenix

 

---

HAWAII LYRICS

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess.  (An additional published version may be found in Box 13.)

Prelude

On the Superfluity of the Hawaiian Themat

Requital

The Whole Idea

1st untitled haiku

Puka

The Naupaka Floret

The New Life

2nd untitled haiku

For All-in-All

Short untitled poem (not haiku)

A Sonnet on the Opening of a Kahua Hula Near Kilauea

‘Ili’ili

3rd untitled haiku

 

---

IN SETTLERS’ CEMETERY 

Individual poems listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess. 

In Settlers’ Cemetery

The Cedar Tress

A Late Easter

May Day

Gulf Clouds

Memorial Day: for the Union Dead

Iowa Pentecost

Hummingbird Present

Upon an Epitaph

Heat Lightning: High Summer

Goldfinch in Haste\

The Last Fall

Harvest Home

Elegy

In View Apart

In View of Parting [variant of “In View Apart”]

In View of Parting [composite of the fist two versions]

The Void Foundation: Winter

Box Elders’ Winter

L’Envoi

 

---

ORCHID ART AND THE ORCHID ISLE

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess (NOTE: This series may be found in book form in Box 13.)

1.    Thoughts on Having Seen a Blossoming Orchid Perched Upon a Ruined Temple

2.    The Lei’s Return

3.    On the Orchid Isle [2 copies]

4.    Stone, Orchid and Bamboo : The Artist’s Character

5.    Parting at Daybreak

6.    The Ground Orchid

7.    Kiss of the Orchid Muse

8.    The Orchid Love, Adored

9.    Inscription for a Perfume Phial

10.  And Not as Royal Progress, Either

11.  Untitled [first line: The shadow perfume]

12.  Untitled haiku

13.  Untitled senryu

14.  Three Leis Woven in Love’s Land

15.  Untitled [first line: Resonant rains cease]

16.  Concerning a Portrait of a Muse

17.  ‘Awapuhi-A-Kanaloa

 

---

RUINS CONSEQUENTIAL

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess

Ruins--An Epitaph

Prelude to The Journey--Possibly a Dream

Starry Night in Chichén Itze

The Muddy Road--Kabah

Evacuated Ruins Visited

On the Jaguar--The First Great Symbol of Meso-America

Dawn at Tikal

Tikal--A Mayan Reconstruction

On Archaeology

On a Series of Temples and Palaces Superimposed One on the Other Successively

Visit to a Ruin--Kabah

On the Mayan Concept of Time’s Divinities

At Dzibilchaltun (Where the Oat-keepers Kept Roses) in the Temple of Seven Dolls

Old and New populations--Uxmal and Chichén

On Some Cactus Blossoms at Uxmal

That Purity is Not for Man, Now

To His Estranged Love, from Uxmal

Considering the Lost Works of Pre-Columbian Poets

Of His Love--In the National Museum

Cuauhtemic’s Tomb--Ixcateopan Lyric for a World’s End

On the So-Called “Iglesia” in the Classic Ruins at Chichén

Maya--Piedras Nigras

Thinking of the Happy Artifacts of Colima

Apostrophe on a feathered Serpent at Teotihucan

On the Epithets Used in Nahuatl Poetry--“Flower and Song”

A Theme Perceived in Teotihucan

On the Frescoes of Teotihucan Seen at Sunset

On Sonority Distributed

Thoughts By an Ancient Interior on the Declining Popularity of Mythic Life

On an Obsidian Mirror

On a Hummingbird Lost in a High-Ceilinged Room in the “Governor’s Palace” in Uxmal

On Seeing a Mot-Mot--A Bird Which Disfigures (and Thus Decorates) Its Already Splendid Tail with Its Beak

On Seeing a Butterfly Alighted on a Sculptures Stone Flower

On the Stairway of Hieroglyphs at Capan

On Tlarchtil, the Ball Game the Ancients Played

Aztec Artists

Thoughts on Having Seen a Blossoming Orchid Perched Upon a Ruined Temple

Eschatalogical Sonnet to the Blue Planet

On the Earth--The Statue of Xochipilli In the Museum of Archaeology, Mexico and the Cross at Acolman

Polemic on Human Sacrifice and Christ

On the Hieroglyphs on Mayan Jades

By the Great Cenote (or Sacrificial Well) at Chichén

On the Origin of Beauty--The Sculpture of the Young Corn-god From Capan

On Seeing a Flageolet in the Shape of a Man (That Strings Were Lacking in Pre-Cortesian Mexico)

Considerations on a Jaina Funerary Figurine of a Man Who is Dancing – In a Museum

On Love and the Dance - Thinking of the Ballet Folklorico

On the Continued Appearance of Music -The Bonampak Murals, For John Paul Thomas

We Asked

When Vanquished Anahuac’s Men of Faith Prayed that No Misfortune Reach Their People

Flower and Song--The Beauty of Holiness

At the Museum

Speculations of the Mayan Concept of Time’s Divinities By a Stela in Tikal

Theory on Pre-Columbian Asymmetry

On A Ceramic Sculpture of a Man (Who is also a Flageolet) in a Museum

On Zero, The Mayan Hieroglyph For Which There is a Shell

On What the Vanished Maya Left

On the Spirit of Architecture--A Maya Temple--for Don Hollenbeck

On a Ceramic, Remojadas “Smiling Head”

On the Purchase of a Remojadas Smiling Face

On the Small Clay Figure of a Seated Man Who Opens to Reveal in His Interior an Entire Pantheon--from Teotihucan

On a Little Clay Sculpture of a Man Whose Hollow Interior Contains a Pantheon, a Work, Which Might Have Come Down to Us but Uniquely if at All--In the Arahuacalli

On Personality--A Jade Mask from Teotihucan

On Seeing an Unseen Art (for Example)

Another Sonnet on the Spirit of Architecture--the Façade of the “Governor’s Palace--at Uxmal

In a ruin with Many Hieroglyphs

The Hummingbird and the Orchid

The Rose and the Orchid--On Seeing Them Both in Bloom in Mexico

On a Gift of Totanic Heads

On Restoration--Tikal, Temple 1

Paraphrase from the Poetics of the Aztec, Tenilotzen

A Vision of Flower-and-Song Inspired By Anahuac - for Jerré Tanner

On Departing from Ruins

On a cross at Alcolman (That Bears the Iconography of Anahuac)

 

---

SIX SONGS FROM A WINTER’S PILLOW BOOK

Individual poem titles listed in the order assigned to them by Mr. Hess 

My unrequited [untitled – 1st line]

Late That Night, in a Blizzard

I am your winter [untitled – 1st line]

On a Gift of Flowers, Incense and Candles

On the Second Look [untitled – 1st line]

Though not dawn I see [untitled – 1st line]