Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Ric Carfagna

from Symphony No. 4 (the spatial fate of muted zeros)

1

It is a field of crows 
it is dawn 
as emptiness 
is receding
as the facile touch 
is entering 
the restless marrow’s 
ebbing sea
to contemplate 
the asphalt precipice 
bending through 
the doorway of mortal hours 
as sun behind clouds 
avoids observation 
as the grey ecliptic’s 
taper speaks of cyclicality 
as the light enters 
the eyes of lesser incarnations

5

And it is now 
a room of five walls 
a view from a window 
having been determined 
a radius of sun 
having fallen though 
the emerald lace alcove 
it is here 
an arachnid crawls 
like viscous ash on silken eyelids 
it is here 
a weathered face dissolves 
as hollow wind through granite pines
it is here 
synchronicities are liquid shadows 
weighting the day’s rigid spire of light 
it is here 
the keepers of the garden 
inter the inarticulate orchid breath
it is here 
the incense of firefly wings 
bleed into the silent stone glandular forest 
it is here 
a wolf of amber cinders 
howls in the cavernous night’s amniotic sleep

16

The complexity of the ocean 
of shadows seen 
in winter doorways 
of the diminishing halo
of slate rooftop glare 
and to pass into this 
unframed foreground 
converging spires 
hollow as cloister heat 
down tiled corridors 
yet here the thought is
of consciousness 
consciousness inhabiting 
the atom’s shrouded void 
consciousness of fluid breath 
flowing through engorged seas 
consciousness of streaming light 
entangled in the massless neutrino’s girth

23

The clenched fist 
opening to the moon’s ascent 
opening the runic claw of celestial isolation 
here the city lies 
sleeping under the sulfuric cumulus rains 
here there is no thought to starlight 
lost in the talus pyres’ endemic permeation 
here there is no thought to see 
the tethered cremains of bodily deracination 
here there is no door called night
blown closed by a flailing wind’s transcendent ire 
here there is no rusted hinge ethereal portal 
to bring forth a black lattice primordial dawn 
here there no thought to enter
the castellated gardens of lace and smoke 
here there no penitential silk tongues 
chanting the crystalline psalms of light 
here there is no hawthorn blooming 
covering the muddy graves of humanity’s lament

46

Place names in fog 
or what is elsewhere 
the shore of a muted sea 
as the image collapses 
the mind’s eye 
the waning moon’s phase 
or the subterfuge of winter vertigo 
here a window’s frozen pane
outside the perimeter of light 
the myopic eye of heresy 
a north wall’s shadow cast 
inside a room
the ghosted minotaur breath 
the illegible voices’ unspoken veracity 
and a clotted labyrinth’s fortnight dream 
now the dull thud 
of reality’s cudgel 
the cold iron hands 
fusing the rusted flailing limbs 
the spatial void between 
a corridor of recessed doors 
or light unseen    entering 
the winding stairway’s chamber well

47

Above a tree line 
a plume of smoke
leading to night 
an intimate wound 
opening on broken flesh 
the continuity of death is near 
in a garden 
the isolation of a marble portico 
crimson rain 
dripping from a starling’s wing 
a gutted house of stained glass 
a raven on a monastery spire 
a dense sun filtering through 
an ailing palsied overcast 
the continuity of death is near 
the bones have been interred 
the mountains drowned in the sea 
the candle’s holistic pyre 
the bleating night wind’s scour 
the atomized crow of winter’s scar

49

Thought divines 
the electron’s path 
as if 
upon an azure sphere 
a wind diminishes 
through trees 
as if 
a flight of crows 
penetrates 
the eyes 
eclipsed by sleep 
as if 
the clinging viral cell 
leaves 
a progeny within 
the nascent flesh 
as if 
the fluidity of breath 
is dust 
passing through
the static fabric of myth

53

As a new world is 
resurrecting 
the ashes of one 
as dust is flesh 
returning to the womb 
as the nebula is
the distillate form 
of perspectives abandoned 
as the blind sparrow 
sings in the stone wall’s hollow 
as the blood of night is 
the sleep of eternity 
flowing in the veins

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