Prologue
Spatial fate
awaking at dawn
insofar as the crow intones
another world within
the atoms imagined
in the floated motes of dust
in the refracted absence
of shadow
through the glass portico
of prismatic flaws
observed in a quantum eye
of the garden’s rotting orchid flesh
thawing in winter’s narrow window
of the bell tower’s muted resonance
isolating the clocks within
the causality of time
embraced
. . .
3
Atoms enter
an ambient stasis
as in a portrait framed in corridors
blurred on memory’s pyre
as in a throbbing engine block
ceasing to initiate actualization
as in a vacuous ream of mountain air
cleaving the orchid’s outstretched flesh
as in a dissonant spectrum’s galactic plane
engraved on the widow’s blinded eye
as in the iron filings’ winnowed grist
blown into the nameless martyr’s furrowed grave
so too is the nature of fog
obscuring
a theory of appearance
singular as the snowflake’s fall
singular as the eye
alighting the fluted bridge’s aquatic span
in this is clarity
a clarity of empty rooms
rooms of anthracite ceilings
and broken vase shards
rooms of crystalline quantum dust
veiling the walls of linen tapestry
rooms of jalousie windows
reflecting the meadow’s winter shroud
rooms of breadthless neutrino oceans
echoing the resonance of matter’s decay
4
Winter rusts the machine of thought
rusts the iron gate’s simpering hinge
rusts the gauzy sill’s ion flesh
rusts the spindly garden’s tendril root
rusts the spiraling fall of attenuated sun
here the grainy patches of blackened snow
cover the molded cobalt whiteness of bones
cover the frozen dogwood asphalt limbs
cover the hovering shofar’s ancient dissonance
a dissonance
echoing within the larynx doorways
a dissonance
echoing within objects appearing
objects appearing
in isolation
objects appearing
in silken cloisters
objects appearing
in stratospheric dreams
dreams which trace
the atom’s eyelid edge
dreams which trace
the welted hand’s calloused touch
dreams which trace
the scabby brickwork’s factory walls
dreams which trace
the fallow meadow’s ashen weed
dreams which trace
the jagged scouring blizzard’s lance
20
This glutted reliquary of dust
within an empty room’s seaward parlance
here some spoke of life ending
of a possession to hold
of the arthritic limbs
struggling to move through
the coiled molecular helix
and here to see the pyre die
in the stone-lined grotto
in the fresco dissolving
the spatially fated tongue of atoms
in the unconscious muted wolf
howling in the plastic veined forest glen
in the dissonant triad resolving
the fading choir’s ageless zero
30
Slow to reality
in the ashes of thought
in the winter
of ecclesiastical viscosity
in a room
where hollow winds blow
the linen fibers
across a path
a path seen obliquely
from the oval window
from the gable rooftop
from a past appearing
a past reviled by thorns
thorns consuming
the emerald threshold
thorns which pierce
the bloodless helix sheath
thorns which burn
with gray molecular breath
scattering
the frozen orchid’s blooms
44
Scour this immanent fray
this land of ghost
and wood thrush song
this ciphered vagrant trail
stained with ravaging parasitical blight
this anterior equation’s
dead-stone-valence-glow
this transcendent clock chiming
within mortality’s bloodless vein
and to see now the votive candle
its crude radiance at twilight
its dissolving empty hours
hidden beneath eons of ossuary dust
and to speak now
of the anonymous vale’s colic womb
and to hear now
the throatless skylark’s silenced trill
and to see now
the hounding shadow’s black dog flesh
yet still the cedar limbs grow heavy
still the mass of winter ice
infusing this husk of small human song
still the barbarous constellating night wind
entangling the bell tower’s ailing crust of resonance
still the luminous points of onyx fire
haunting the windowless stairwell’s cloudless eye
50
Ragged edge of light
blurred down corridors
of sleep
as outside
the neural doorways
the tendril shoots
rooting in frozen earth
here the depth sings
from the muted larynx
the depth sings
from the stained glass doorway
the depth sings
from the empty choir faces
faces falling through
the prescient eye of night
faces falling through
the cresting ocean’s emerald drift
faces falling through
the shrouded atom’s isolated embrace
faces falling through
the fallow womb’s
disincarnate sentience
This is a reprint of work originally published by Chalk Editions.
Ric Carfagna was born and educated in Boston Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently Symphony Nos.1, 4 & 6 published by Chalk Editions and Symphony No.2 published by Argotist Press. His poetry has evolved from the early radical experiments of his first two books, Confluential Trajectories and Porchcat Nadir, to the unsettling existential mosaics of his multi-book project Notes On NonExistence. Ric lives in rural central Massachusetts with his wife, cellist Mary Carfagna and daughter Emilia.
