The Image of All Matter
Alchemical Methodology in the Photograms of Danielle Goshay
The following text originally appears in Peripheral Review
Listen to the author’s reading on Substack.
It’s the body who has moved
the direction of light to wave
a chemistry of fog lingers
lost among clouds
the way a pulse echoes
a pulse echoes
a pulse echoes onto the page
⟡
I find:
a place to react
a primary desire
a name that melts away
⟡
I — what’s left?
⟡
Vague terrain on which waves of mist and eyes collect
as if object did not but was
⟡
Images
long for form, an approach
away, all notions slip
⟡
Left for I, blood pools
betrayed by light
carved into night’s eaves
⟡
Negatives
wake between the distance
image and dream
⟡
Promised — the only participle
scattered on the floor
⟡
In the dark, red light
kept but not keeping — I know you
⟡
Can you discern thought’s shadow sinking into the night?
⟡
The moon — how it waves
or was said to have waved
measuring the magnitude of the seas
coursing through our veins
⟡
Everywhere inside turns out
when foam unbreaks
drifting away from:
the eternal thing that makes
that does not unless it were
light
⟡
To go aways
off shore, yet always within your reach
⟡
To go to bed with the stars
each beat, each rain
of photons
you choose one and enter
to catch a feeling
submerged
⟡
Say it now together:
I, You, Here
Me, You, And
Mine, Yours, Now
⟡
A legacy of two seconds
yet so full
and marked for life
⟡
⟡
It’s the rain that finds and cracks
fissures the exhaust of hand for doing
more than hand should ever do
⟡
Collecting every drop on the page
amending each molecule
making holes
scratching the surface
⟡
So far into an abyss, yet real force lasts
as atom memory
⟡
You’ve given me a window into sky, yet still I return to verse
⟡
⟡
In the beginning: clouds of dust
and gravity transformed
flashes of light
illuminated dark clouds
at the edge of the storm
we couldn’t see a thing
⟡
In its eye
what lies there, save for rods and cones and forgotten things?
⟡
Of course, image is an urge
preceding dust
evading as leaks, a capture
an echo, you recall the face pressed in pulp
⟡
Gelatin skeletons and silver remains
gaseous pools and bloody mud
ooze and drift
⟡
With effort exposed as waves
buried into the page beneath an early urge to remain
if not only to leave a trace
⟡
What do you see when waking?
⟡
River currents fading
memory floating into twilight
the one thing we made together
and called ours
⟡
Light splashes and leaves its mark
⟡
Memory lingers — remembering disrupts
⟡
Beauty for sight, but not to see
⟡
⟡
Present cracks into exalted strokes
as for the heavy dawn light, I accept anything
shatters under pressure:
as all matter does and did and will do
⟡
Heat etches stars into the sky as dust
strikes stone for wind
⟡
We believe in
generative entropy and ribbons of shadow
strung high
⟡
For us to believe everything
falls apart
is to say
⟡
Look how lovely the days are as they lay smoldered
dead and dying!
⟡
Day is hot to touch
feverish day, the sinking stars
smell of chemistry wafts
like invisible electric current
⟡
Who could carve such a hole
to sink into and float away
without a necessary edge?
⟡
When did I leave the place at which you had already arrived?
⟡
Rays of light beam through smoke
dust billows
come to harvest our air
⟡
Breath heavy, respiration hot
carving out a life high
between the cracks
⟡
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Unity of opposites:
the subtle flesh of encounter
fertile in the foggy water
describes the sun as you accept its shadow
⟡
We enter a vortex of ashes
light leaks into
no colour spills out
only evading — a momentary memory
⟡
To accept the shadow, you defy reason
excepting divine
dis - associations
re - figuring expectations
⟡
I look down to describe the Moon
⟡
You use a mirror to pull me in
to fissure my own image
⟡
The sun’s shadow I see alone
⟡
No image ever really was
⟡
Were those even stars in our sky?
⟡
There, a message
cast above the clouds
until a trace emerged
the mark was left
⟡
There, a seed of coalition —
egg and child of the egg
spirit and matter of the spirit
— born to reflect, never withholding
⟡
⟡
Together we name the shadow
— solaris lunaris infantis unum —
and we become nothing without it
⟡
An egg drops from the sky
you find it cracked
the child is only a consequence
matter doubles
this remains
⟡
You go out and propose to the melting, molten terrain,
Here
is the one way to desire!
⟡
To the knot inside, I attend
and offer my unfettered farewell
⟡
To desire, we go quickly and without word
what a kindness to meet the shadow and melt away
⟡
Fractures indicate a single body
— corpus rebis —
pierced but never penetrated
⟡
Let’s feign to speak each other
syllables on copper tongues
reference the constraint —
child and its consequence
— and fall into another orbit
a womb with sky view and word
tied to a single body
emerging from the ground
⟡
⟡
The fluid
broken
seeming of
worlds at scale
at each level bonds join and fall
each movement with which I can speak a name
save my breath for distance
⟡
Does it matter if I say this or refuse?
⟡
Under the weight of the sky
we’re pulled by the same force — so we loosen
so we try
⟡
There is no
re - lenting
re - telling fails under pressure
dis - solves each part
re - mains
⟡
⟡
Smoke
shrouds
islands float
off course
⟡
We learn how to see
⟡
Our interest is depth
⟡
Factors of illusion and creation deceive
⟡
Our deception is wide
⟡
Any distance goes
as scenes smolder
as a form of waiting:
pain
ecstasy
texture of melting noise
burst of light
on black cloud
⟡
Our interest is depth
so we dive
in the distance between surface
and core
we’re pulled back
pulled into
pulled over
pulled down
pulled under
dreaming the ways
slipping into and out
the only pronoun for us
we are overcome
unfounded
unsettled
undone
in the way things undo
⟡
Science of the spirit
everything before
the rough depth
submerges
surfaces
remains
⟡
⟡
Take my dark
assemble it
let it crash
under the weight of light if it must
⟡
I will succumb
⟡
I will gladly shatter
myself into the image of all matter
⟡
The images featured in this text are the creations of photographer Danielle Goshay. Experimenting with material and process, Goshay applies fire, smoke, granules, resists, and liquids of various viscosities to photo paper in a darkroom environment. Goshay’s photograms, as a practice of cameraless photography, achieve infinite levels of abstraction that at once mesmerize and confound. The artist’s fascination with alchemy lives through this image-making process, which is as intensely methodical as it is aleatory and spiritual. By writing poetry alongside Goshay’s evolving body of work, I respond to these photograms in their native language — abstraction, imagism, and symbology.
Text: Darian Razdar — darianrazdar.info
Images: Danielle Goshay — daniellegoshayphotography.com