Forgotten Ground Regained
Monostich Sequence I
It starts in the foot in its fat fingers stubbornly curving
And the bleached bare bones in the burning field cracked into omens
Soon they dissolve as the image softens and nothing more lingers
Form but no image these fashioned bones make a foot fitting together
Condensing the densemist derelict order suddenly sensing
I you rascal who run through the night rascal running on what feet
Midflight the motion falters haste makes on stillness returns home
So standing the left foot lifted the right let to bear up the grave weight
Seated a heavy sensation settles and a delicate tingling
Cracking eggs in the kitchen the cat is singing the right foot can feel it
Sudden rain sock tip soaked through nurturing damp life
Dense thicket of muscle a daemon dwells there murmurs negations
Utterly destitute lips dried out and divinatory I grasp at the goblet
Dark rags and my reach interrupted rhythm in tatters
In Wovenland she waits hands working molten stone making hollows
Around her the bones rage fire’s fury unreckoned split into language
From the temple a solemn tone stirs through the stone the hour the hour
Softly among the weeds desire’s susurrus ripples through Silence
Thus the beginning grinning against no background no foreground
And the bleached bare bones in the burning field cracked into omens
Soon they dissolve as the image softens and nothing more lingers
Form but no image these fashioned bones make a foot fitting together
Condensing the densemist derelict order suddenly sensing
I you rascal who run through the night rascal running on what feet
Midflight the motion falters haste makes on stillness returns home
So standing the left foot lifted the right let to bear up the grave weight
Seated a heavy sensation settles and a delicate tingling
Cracking eggs in the kitchen the cat is singing the right foot can feel it
Sudden rain sock tip soaked through nurturing damp life
Dense thicket of muscle a daemon dwells there murmurs negations
Utterly destitute lips dried out and divinatory I grasp at the goblet
Dark rags and my reach interrupted rhythm in tatters
In Wovenland she waits hands working molten stone making hollows
Around her the bones rage fire’s fury unreckoned split into language
From the temple a solemn tone stirs through the stone the hour the hour
Softly among the weeds desire’s susurrus ripples through Silence
Thus the beginning grinning against no background no foreground
2024.10.18 – 2024.11.04
Copyright © Rose Novick, 2024
First Published in Forgotten Ground Regained, New Series, Issue 5, Winter, 2025
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