Weekly Poem: 'Luminous Great Mass'

**By Peter O'Leary** Holy Trinity Airship billows a chrys- elephantine cave Louis Sullivan, Arch- itect, lord master, conceived of in the hollow of power. He swells. I am his balloonist balancing an azimuth as earth-apse I orbit, robed in hot gas & leather fastened by a yolk-stalk of gravity to gold- end onions nozzling heavens whose suns are stomachs with churches in their navels. Each we are priests as aeronauts at the vestibules, & enter the cavity: space, self, organ; celest- ial nave bellies stars sailors name saints and adore-- their egress is bitter weeping, their praise pure Russian form: a cathedral, my inner orrery. _"Luminous Great Mass" is from_ "Peter O'Leary's":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=82235 _collection, "Watchfulness" (Spuyten Duyvil, 2001). His most recent book of poetry is "Depth Theology" (Georgia, 2006). His critical study, "Gnostic Contagion: Robert Duncan & the Poetry of Illness" was published by Wesleyan in 2002. O'Leary lives in Berwyn, Ill., and teaches at the School of the Art Institute._ "Luminous Great Mass" is also included in "the Poetry Foundation's Chicago Poetry Tour":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/gallery/walking-tours/chicago/index.html, a multimedia tour of poetry written in and about Chicago. (Disclosure: The Poetry Foundation also funds "the NewsHour's poetry coverage":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/.) Featuring the work of a range of Chicago poets past and present and addressing a variety of neighborhoods and landmarks--for O'Leary, that neighborhood is Bucktown--the tour includes archival and contemporary recordings of poets and scholars, local music and historic photographs. The tour can be taken online or downloaded at "www.poetryfoundation.org":http://www.poetryfoundation.org/gallery/walking-tours/chicago/index.html, and is available for download via iTunes. The tour will also be featured on the City of Chicago's official tourism Web site, "www.explorechicago.org":http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en.html.