Behind the still or swarming miasmatic surfaces,
the surfaces which do not say they are surfaces,
that say they are obstructive miasmatic accumulations of guashed
colors that do not say they are colors, they say they are microbes,
or hydrogens or filiations in an ontic zone forbids our ontic inquiries--

But behind all that
or lost within them
friends perhaps, or lovers, hidden lovers
lost behind inconvertible miasmas--

I suspect that they were there—heads and faces, though I did not see them,
or part-faces--eyes or breasts or snouts or spheroids only—
the heart so longs for faces—as if the heart itself
were submerged in miasmas of blood and affect,

that almost as soon as I saw this
planetary slice of decaying metal, this ruined mirror,
this acrid material for darkening Day,
I applied the magnifying function
and went for what face the moldering fabric might betray.

And I saw clowns and noses, smudged shades, blue pupils,
an ectomorphic countenance with bony nose retreating toward Black Door
and edgy blocks of Business Withheld from YOU,
along the cinched belt and its rent buckle--

Further and further inward
new part-faces emerging and deteriorating
long before the boxed pixels start to tear at all images
and replace with themselves and their perfect tesserae of color
the thought of the beings that had already
long been eaten away…

----------------------------------------

Charles Stein, Barrytown, NY, 29.08.08