Andrew Zawacki

1972 / United States

[from] Arrow's Shadow

or the song of four red chambers
with a bellows to billow the embers
the sun' s hier-
atic hier-
oglyph
the noun locked to a lo-jack
the verb glancing wireless
an an
-acrusis and colophon
of cantata barometrica, of Celsius madrigalia
anthem for cow bell and tuning fork
in a sonic tabernacle, a dial-up shuttlecock
a tourniquet to the motet
cacophony' s mote
le mot

waking to interfaced, 5-channel snow
from a vascular cloud with its tracking askew
patched in and simulcast
on an iceberg cemetery
its apparencies of outside-
real sub-
junctive hoar
frost and haar
as if thought had thought of its own
riffing on paraf-
fin darknesses, kimono-colored fields
(the abstract blizzard with a sarabande pulse
a glacier lit by glam and frazil
by interior filament)
polar gust in contrap-
punto at -40˚
a spun glass sonatina
for ic-
ic-
le and sci-
ntilla, viola da bracci-
o and voice
honed electrum or lamina blue
its first movement
movement deux

a dyslexic, low-caliber dusk
jumper cabled by June and July
lit by a scherzo, a Janus-faced strobe
programmed on shuffle play
and repeat
off-
keying the exigent
the accidental snow
as buckshot, instant asbestos
in phenol red
in xerograph

calving the terraced draft of its crystal
atoll

while a trigger-happy copilot
side-
saddle and spin-
drift in his neon ejection seat
tumbles through the atmosphere at t-
minus 10
maydaying remixed b-
sides
from a silent film soundtrack
to the tower
431 Total read