The archived rite returns in gothic gray: <br />a bruise-dark sky, a blunt and tugging rain, <br />a sheen of black umbrellas, spaded clay. <br />The camera obscura, mind, ingrains <br />his father’s plot; and next, to seal her pain, <br />within three months, his mother’s sudden grave; <br />a delved dominion sears the turf again. <br />Nothing breaks the burlaped afternoon, save <br />when lightning cleaves the murk. Magnesium <br />klieg lights stun the monochrome, a dumb <br />tableau: the mind is cued, replays the stark <br />and smarting slides on memory’s screen. Surreal <br />and jerky frames project from a silent reel, <br />expose a membraned refuge caved in dark. <br /> <br />WFD <br />[Variorum redux.]<br /><br />William F Dougherty<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/grayscale/
