Alphabet City

My hand is spectral,
blue in the dashboard

lights, yellow lines recede
to the black.

Behind
red.

Midnight, I’m driving.
Passenger window
partly cracked,

ricochet breezes.

Decades to travel
still.

I keep right,
happy to be
slow.

AM radio,
dead disk jockeys
haunt the airwaves,

station jingles lilt and fade,
echo.

I pray I don’t tire;
straightaways.

I steer at the curve’s apex,
ahead of the headlights,
hyper-vigilant,

I don’t
foresee

you, a child,
in misty high beams,

before
impact.

I open all the windows,
blast the heat; cruise
control.

© Carlos Chagall, 2013

I just realized it was you all along,
leaving me messages, all those thumbs up,
comments on posts, follows, like ghosts, dead heats
on roundabouts (. . . in and around the lake . . . )

You had to know it was me all that time,
in charge of who there was in charge of me.
I befriend myself almost everyday.
I even go so far as to block me,

if I get out of hand, out of my mind,
under my thumb, under my skin, inside
out, the more I turn me, solo mio,
strepto-cockeyed, hackneyed, misoyakied,

pedigreed, filigreed, I feel the need
to fill the void, it’s best to avoid me
when I get this way, once, twice, every day,
day in, day out, this hoodoo, who’d you do

if it was the last day? bye bye bay-bay,
papa’s gotta brand new bag, her price tag
too steep, run silent, run deep, run amok,
amounts to nothing, nada in the end.

dubya dubya dubya dot dot dubya
dubya dot, come on and do the loco
motion with me, you got to swing your hips
now, forever, hold your piece, know your place

back in line, back in the day, packin’ heat,
canned heat, I’m going up the country babe,
don’t you wanna go? you wanna holler
throw up both your hands, panic is spreading,

blame it on the have nots, blame it on Mame,
wah-wah-wah-tusi, baby it’s the dance,
bailar hermanita, senorita,
escucha me ahora, sil vous plait.

I can’t believe it’s Friday already!
It should be Friday everyday!
Somebody pinch me ’cause I must be dreaming!
If I’m lying, I’m dying!

I hope I don’t die before Saturday
’cause that would really bum me out.

(. . .twenty four before my love and I’ll be there. . .)

© Chicheme, 2013