72
Shadow
of the crow
at
mid-day
or
depth
of a
sea
that
is unfathomed
by
touch
like
tides receding
from
a dying body
or a
view
from
a room
whose
windows
glaze
with frost
by
night’s descent
and here
there
are ghosts
that
wander
endless
corridors
devoid
of the breath
of
penitence
and
the heart
of
retribution
whose
bones
are
the hollow instruments
of
shamanic dances
whose
flesh is ash
blown
by cyclonic winds
whose
limbs
cannot
feel
cellular
constellations
gestating
in weightless
cosmic
sentience
and
whose eyes
cannot
see
a
fog encroaching
at
the sea’s edge
or
the shadow
of
the crow
entering
into
humanity’s dream
85
(suite no.9)
…aspects
of illusion…
I
Your shadow
crosses the wall
and in a room beyond
voices of lives
unraveling
inanimate objects
breathed into life
flourishes of sun
grazing the sill
and out a window
a garden
an iris
bent by the wind
II
And your words
have returned
with the centrifugal force
of electrons in motion
with the passion of flames
arisen from embers
to the silence of ashes
blowing across
a furrowed ground
III
And this light
in your eye
has not differentiated
day from night
the dead from the living
of the unceasing flow
of blood in the veins
or the primordial timbre
of the embryo’s heart
IV
This mirror before you
is without substance
is without form
a diffuse array
of atoms
hovering as in an illusion
cast through an open doorway
a bleak eidolon
portending a fate
seared on the pages
of an arcane manuscript
lost in a rising riptide surge
V
And does a formal synthesis exist
returned to here
to the density of assimilation
to the current moment
passing as a fatuous impression
in a cubist collage
rendered as a three dimensional frame
or as one word
without resonance
a depth lost
behind clouded eyelids
and the iron-reality sky
that lies above
all substance and spirit form
all matter gestating in pain
all sense of the unreachable
beatitude
echoing as fate
ending existence
in
shadow and disillusion
Ric Carfagna was born and educated in
Boston Massachusetts.
He is the
author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently:
Symphonies Nos. 5,& 9 published
by White Sky Books-
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 daughters, Emilia and
Aria.
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