Integral Series follows in the wake of Ric Carfagna’s Symphony project (currently at Symphony XII).This new work shares some of the characteristics of the Symphonies,but also departs in directionswhich offer the reader alternative paths and novel insights onto a multi-faceted poetic terrain
-I-
Through a doorway
without a continuance
a narrative
to unearth
myths
retuned to dust
null voices
perturbations
as an ocean wave
unseen
to return to
the flesh voids
chambers
these recesses
these columns of blood
these presences
which solidify
“the forms of an indeterminate architecture”
scribing on a page
vector fields
on wet paving stones
the evolving embryo
at home
in this
illusion
.
.
.
-II-
Colors merge through a window
clouds quieted and constant
thin areas of light that are passing
now a particular shade of gray
a cold rain
in the path the dragonfly takes
a fate mapped in stages
of dispensational drift…
no mystery to this
obligation of sorrow
no fragmented revenants
or unconscious cathedrals
to absorb
a world dissolving
within
a common perspective
“…and he said nothing retains its presence”
in this an overture of rags in emptiness
illusions slow to take on solidity
maya inside a mass of sinew and bone
a prism’s splintering the spectra
quanta returning to its embryonic embrace
for this duration of a day passing
(time’s irrelevant measure)
embers blown from a mountain
indifferent
emissaries
drifted
lives
misshapen by fate
.
.
.
-III-
Exactitude has left
its mark
on imperfection
on a feral gust of wind
inside this skin
it is here
“I return”
to enter another
world imperceptibly
“some call this death”
yet it is a perspective
that paints a canvas
as a two dimensional plane
as a landscape
showing only
what can be
known
a still life
insistent on change
a visceral enclosure
formations of galaxies
and molecules
malleable atoms
released from the shattered glass
free to transubstantiate
and enter into
the dispassionate womb
to return again
“some call this life”
where inexactitude has left
its mark
upon perfection
as if there could be
a known quantity
in the cycles that skew
a belief
that stability exists
in the crowded spaces
that efface
the intimacies of identity
in the cluttering din
that masks itself
as silence
and shrouds a fate in haze
.
.
.
-IV-
These words exist
to speak
of loss again
the subject of surfaces
glossed over
a stain
on the pavement
that remains
an identity
for endings
that are
undetermined
for narrow doorways
of annunciation
for voices
of beginnings
for points
of origin
conceiving
atmospheres heaving
entropic clutter
a bloodless stake
driven into common ground
…
these words exist
as silhouettes
empty entities
that refuse
definition
a definitive form
to gloss over
an encroaching overcast
which will soon
occlude
any semblance of illumination
“it is said
we live
in a dark world”
where any matter
of accepted verity
will draw its attention
to a blank
on a page
to words
overheard
that will not cohere
to debris
that is intransigent
to the terminal stare
of eyes veiled
in ashes
of eons passed
of eyes observing
enigmatic revenants
glimmers in a window
without a molecular substance
scattered shards
of scarred ontological nomads
returning to flesh
to hold breath no longer
than a fortnight lost
to words
as identities
as individualities
to speak
of loss again
existing
in a solitary din
.
.
.
-V-
In too much geography
of the mind
eons unaccounted for…
clouds bordering
an empyrean
visible reflection
accidents of existence
“any sufficient collection
of atoms”
ultimately
obtaining
sentience
sources
of invisible intelligences
proliferate
possessing senses
the eye’s inability
to perceive
a limited reality
“so much of what
we see”
window-dressing
shifting quantum surfaces
mercurial pretense
malleable presence
mercurial presence
malleable pretense
consider stones’
retentive potential
a primordial wisdom
beyond humanity’s ken
eons unaccounted for
inarticulate
inaccessible
not annihilated
lost to sensate presence
.
.
.
-VI-
She follows light
into its shadow
transforming visions
that leak from
her sleeping eyes
following the many fractals
that form
the edge of an ocean
always distant
from her touch
as in a labyrinth
of shifting walls
or a mirror
distorting
the image of herself
buried beneath years
of accumulated debris
…
and when
she dreams
there are weeds
rooted through
her heart
crows gorging
on carrion
rooms without light
where painted walls
have worn thin
and windows
greyed by clouds
filling a peripheral vision
and when
she dreams
night leaves its mooring
to wander
and drown
beneath her
isolated ocean’s
turbulent surface
Alien Buddha Press 