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Leviathan

Gloucester's Maud / Olson Library

By: - Sep 05, 2016

Leviathan

Swooped up
Swallowed
Like plankton
Sloshing around
Half digested
Fetid rank
Belly of the beast
Rattling on its ribs
Bop rhythms
Lionel Hampton
Swing xylophone
Maud / Olson Library
Facsimile of
His books
Original marginalia
Meticulously copied
Opened in June
Talked with
Judith and Wendy
Enormous task
Sources for
Maximus
Intern from Endicott
Ellen Pulitzer
Showing Tantric book
Reference to
Cold Hell
Buddhist concept
Inspired him
Four thousand books
Maybe more
Six hundred missing
That he was know
To have read
Olson as Jonah
Coughed up
Exhausted on
Beach of poetry
Ellen showed me
Maximus in Japanese
Tributes to Gloucester
From around the globe
Pilgrims come
To this polis
Sitting at his desk
Gazing out at the harbor
That inspired his soul
Now touching others
With sense of place
Unique challenge
To find our own

 Olson reading "In Cold Hell, In Thicket."