I
Among the throng of twelve hundred and five
The only fixed point in the blur
Was the compass of her periplum.

II
I invited your discernment,
Like the atlas of New Hampshire
In which we found three periplums.

III
A periplum is smoldering in the ash.
Their torches have scorched on to other subjects.

IV
The sky and the sea
Are one.
The sky and the sea and the periplum
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of conjecture
Or the beauty of affirmation,
The draft-sketch of the periplum
Or the seashore.

VI
Rogue waves beset the randan
With heaves of force.
The momentum of our oars
Slowed to an ellipse.
His steady gaze upon the periplum
Wove into this rough pattern
A pitch of inner calm.

VII
O sailor of Phoenicia,
Why have you obstructed foreign oars
In the currents about you?
Did you not see in your periplums
The velocity of seven dancing eddies?

VIII
I know sloping forests
and majestic, towering cliff lines;
But I know, too,
That a periplum is involved
In what I know.

IX
A surface with no body,
This fleshes out the edge
Of one of many shorelines.

X
To the sight of newfound Continent
Encoded into periplum,
Even the sage geometers
Would give a moment’s pause.

XI
He rode to the land of turtles
On a lapping dog.
Dreaming, a portent woke him:
Had he mistook
A mocking-bird of home
For the “wren” perched on the periplum?

XII
Her eyes are closed.
The periplum must be folded.

XIII
It was autumn all summer.
It was storming
And it was going to storm.
The periplum was posted at the dock.

that bad Jim’s poem is, indeed, awesome.

‘Beaglehole’ is such a name, balancing right on that razor’s edge between intrepidity and absurdity, between the wide world of adventure and drawing room comedy of manners, between the seven seas and sheer silliness.

Ah, to be a person on whose tomb it could be written: ‘Beaglehole’ would have been a perfect name for him.

Arrr.

Among aspirations, few find better.

What’s wrong with good ol’ catacombs?